20.5

 

Their disagreement ceased as Roisin cried out again, the emptiness threatening to swallow her whole soul and cast it into the void. I felt like an eternity of torment, but she had only a scant few moments to decide. She must accept the mantle of the horse or let Paul be cast into the void with her.

Steve grabbed her shoulders. “Roisin!”

The assistant whispered, “She’s suffering. They’re both going to die if she doesn’t take it.”

Steve stared at her. “What do we do?”

The Artist stepped forward and bent to engage Roisin face to face. “You have to choose,” he said, his milky eyes staring into hers. “You have to choose now.”

Roisin looked up at him. She struggled to moisten her mouth enough to speak. “I do,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I choose to save the world.”

He touched her forehead just as he had with Paul, but this time the world exploded with light.

The light from his touch faded slowly, like the after image of a spotlight distorting the colour from her sight, or the glow of the last dying ember after a house had burned to the ground. When Roisin’s vision cleared, the room had changed.

Not physically. Not visibly. But perceptually — as though the air had rearranged itself around a new truth. Paul was on the floor, on his knees and breathing so hard it was like being with a racehorse in the winner’s enclosure. Except who had won, really? Roisin, who had taken on the full enormity of the being called Famine and was about to be a beacon for God and the angels to focus in on her. Paul, who. Although she could save him from being subsumed by the black angel would now be a bystander caught up in a war between angelic beings? Steve? He seemed to be one of those rare people who simply wanted the best for everyone. The assistant? She seemed genuinely afraid of every future. Or the Artist, who had achieved exactly what he set out to do?

Roisin felt it before she saw it — a hollow, aching pull in her chest, like a hunger she hadn’t felt since the void. A hunger that wasn’t hers anymore. Her eyes snapped to Paul, where she could see the dark shimmer distorting the air around him and a pulse that matched the one inside her chest but out of sync, like her own heartbeat in someone else’s body.

Paul looked up at her, eyes wide, terrified as a line of melanomas traced a route across one cheek and vanished under his mop of orange hair. “Roisin… something’s wrong.”

The Artist smiled and shook his head as he stood. He seemed to be bigger than before, taking all the space in their flat, expanding to encompass the house, the street, the city. “Something’s right.”

Steve moved instantly, grabbing Paul’s shoulders. “What did you do to him?”

The Artist tilted his head. “I didn’t do anything. He did.”

Paul shook his head violently. “I didn’t— I didn’t do anything!” He shook his head, swallowed and stared at the floor. “I blacked out, I think. There was a darkness. Everything went black and I was alone in this vast empty room with no walls or ceiling. I tried to call out but I had no voice. Then… then pain. I felt like I was burning up from the inside out. And so empty.” He looked at Roisin, then up at Steve. “I’m starving.”

Roisin stepped toward him, trembling. “Paul… look at me.” She could see it clearly now — the hollow, the hunger, the echo of her horse inside him. Not fully merged. Not fully awakened. But present. Waiting.

The assistant whispered, “He absorbed it.”

Roisin nodded slowly. “Yes. When I reached for it you jumped in the way. It’s my burden, Paul. Not yours. A mortal frame can never hold the mantle of a horseman.”

Paul’s breath caught. “I was trying to help.”

“And you did,” the Artist said gently. “You gave her time to adjust, to accept what was happening to her.”

Roisin felt her stomach twist, and she knelt in front of him, her hands trembling. “Paul… listen to me. You’re holding something that belongs to me.”

Paul swallowed. “Then take it.”

The Artist’s smile widened. “Yes,” he said softly. “Take it.”

The assistant stepped forward, her voice shaking. “If she takes it, she becomes Famine.”

Paul stared at Roisin. “What does that mean?”

Roisin opened her eyes.  “It means Heaven will know where I am. They’ll come for me to open the remaining seals.”

Paul looked between them, panic rising. “So the world ends?”

Roisin shook her head. “Not ends. Begins to end.”

Paul stared at her. “That’s not better!”

The assistant whispered, “And if she doesn’t take it… she stays hidden.”

Roisin nodded. “Yes. But you will spend eternity in that void. Alone. Forever.”

Paul swallowed. “Then don’t take it. If I’m the sacrifice to save the world, I volunteer.”

The Artist’s expression hardened. “She must. The angels are already moving and the Nephilim are waking. The seals are already trembling.” He stepped closer. “And the world needs Famine.”

Steve shook his head. “No. The world needs balance.”

“That’s what Famine is,” the Artist replied. “Balance. Correction. Hunger that restores equilibrium.”

Paul stared at them. “You’re all insane.”

The Artist smiled. “We are the Horsemen. Insanity happens to everyone else.”

Roisin felt the heartbeat inside Paul pulse — a deep, resonant thrum that answered the hollow inside her. The connection between them tightened, like a thread pulling taut.

Paul gasped. “Roisin— it’s pulling me away.”

Roisin reached for him instinctively.

Steve grabbed her wrist. “Don’t.”

She froze.

The Artist’s voice was soft. “If you touch him, it will return to you.”

Roisin’s breath trembled. “And then Heaven will see me.”

“Yes,” the Artist said. “And then the war begins.”