Time thief, p.12
Time Thief, page 12
He shrieked. Maybe they all shrieked. The noise faded into the background for me. I only heard my own blood rushing through me. I felt alive again.
I drilled the knife into the man’s neck as I lunged for another guard.
The rest happened fast. Incredibly fast. It’d been so long that I had forgotten how quickly I could move, think, act when I accessed my power.
I snapped the wrist of a woman and drove my sword through her gut.
A flash of power and I closed the throats of two others, strangling their screams into the guttural, gasping sounds of dying animals.
My own fear drummed beneath the thrum of my power. Fear of myself. Of what I could do and had done before. I couldn’t hold myself back because of it. I strained for every ounce of power I managed to draw out from myself.
The last one left untouched backed up against a tree and choked on her sobs. The other two had collapsed onto their sides, their movements weaker now. Power rippled across every inch of my body, the burn more like sparks of electricity.
I snapped the necks of the ones I was strangling.
“D-demon.” The living guard trembled. “Demon!”
I slashed her throat with my sword. It split in a neat, thin line that opened to the fountain of blood within.
In the old days, I would have killed them all before they could take a breath. This little rush of power had my skin burning and covered with sweat. We were never meant to wield our gift for destruction, and the pain of it was something that took training to overcome and banish. How could I take on the Prophet when I was in such a state from killing five powerless humans?
My eyes snapped shut. We were all humans. I was a human. I repeated it to myself until I was sure I would never forget. Thoughts like that were dangerous. Words like that. They were every bit as powerful as the energy I could use to tear apart a body.
Cold air nipped at my burning skin. No, no, no. It was warm today. My friends needed me. No slipping.
But in the cold air, I heard the whisper of Piercey’s voice the last day I’d seen him, so calm and so in defiance of his usually soft spirit.
“None of this is real. Don’t hate yourself.”
I tried to shake his voice away. The woods blinked blue. The pale blue of my hall as a child. Pale blue streaked in blood as black as the sun during the eclipse.
My instructors’ faces blurred against a veil of tears. The twist of their mouths frozen in terror, frozen as snowflakes fell from the hole in the ceiling onto their lips. I’d told them not to hurt Piercey anymore. Told them. “I didn’t mean to … I thought I had control now …”
“No one can control a power like this,” Piercey said. “The Prophets are wicked with it. The gods have gone cruel with it. It’s the power, Max. Not us.”
“I can’t stay here.” I lifted my bloody hands, eyes wide. “I killed two instructors. We have to go, Piercey. It’s time.”
I nearly slipped entirely to that day, when I saw the eyes of the last guard I’d killed today on the mountain. Wide hazel eyes stared into mine, frozen forever in terror.
My breath came in broken gasps. I couldn’t slow down, no matter how hard I tried. I doubled over, breathing so rapidly that none of it reached my lungs. If only I had my medicine.
In the hot haze of my guilt, Piercey’s voice whispered in the woods. Whispered on the breeze.
“You mean more than the world to me, too, Max.”
Even though Piercey had said it, he still hadn’t come with me. With all the time that passed, the pain of it still burned deeply within me. If it was true, then how could he stay behind? I had stayed at the Sacred School for him even when it killed me. So why hadn’t he fled with me? It had felt like betrayal. Abandonment.
If I let myself feel the lost friendship, the slip would steal me away to the past. Or even worse, the future. My legs wobbled beneath me, more from what I’d done than from the fight itself. That power, as limited as it was, would be like a beacon. More would come our way. We needed to make it to a passageway.
I walked forward as I nocked an arrow and used my power to drive its aim through the throat of a guard approaching from the east. Again with another. Another.
Fire flooded my veins. I didn’t want to kill these people. It didn’t feel right, like I was attacking someone who was unarmed. But if I didn’t kill them, they would kill my friends, and I would never make it up the mountain. The guards would never give up on killing intruders. I needed all my power, not these crumbs. Either the journey to the top would help me break free, or I’d force the instructors to break their seal.
I focused on Nash, the strong beat of his heart stilling my own. I sprinted for the pass to meet him and found him there, walking straight through the narrow hall of stone. Nash rolled his shoulders, both blades in his strong grip.
Four guards ran forward. Or at least, four guards had when I entered.
Nash plucked a knife from his side and threw it into the eye of one guard. A long step. Drove his blade straight up through the soft underside of another’s chin.
The others pushed forward with their faces red and strained.
Nash sidestepped one swipe and then another from the third guard. I rushed forward to help when he carved his blade through the man’s back. Only one remained and Nash rushed him, charging forward like a bull.
The last one raised his sword, but Nash knocked it from his grip with one hit and plastered him against the rock wall with his shoulder so hard that spit flew from the guard’s mouth. Blood rushed down the man’s legs in a stream. He collapsed into the red puddle on the ground, his stomach open and pulsing.
Nash ended his suffering with a stab into his carotid artery.
“Wow.” I looked at each body. He’d used no power. I’d never felt any from him. That was definitely natural. “Nash.”
He nodded toward the light at the end of ten feet of solid rock. “Let’s go, Sharpshooter.”
“Oh, you’re going to pretend that was no big deal?” I stepped over a body on my way to his side. “That’s how good you are, huh?” His skirmish managed to plant me back in my body, away from those I’d abandoned behind me.
Nash rubbed his side. “Glad we can agree on something.”
I rolled my eyes and looked at his side as we continued forward. “And you hurt yourself, didn’t you, Nash the Badass. You could have left two for me. You didn’t have to slay everyone in sight by yourself.”
“It’s just a bruise from the fall.”
“Let me show off next,” I said. “Be a gentleman and give me a turn.”
“I figured you’d had your fun, flying down a landslide to save me.”
“I need much more fun than that.”
Nash smirked. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
I gasped. “Are you really flirting right now?”
“You’re the one who was flirting. I merely played along.”
“Please.” I scoffed. “There’s people trying to kill us, you know.”
“Not right this second. They’re obviously going to ambush us once we make it through. This might be the last flirt of my life. How can I pass it up?”
I shook my head. “What’s wrong with you?” I didn’t know whether he teased me because it was just how he was, or whether he was trying to manipulate me after all, or if maybe he actually was interested. It made my stomach flop. This was a dangerous game to play. Too dangerous.
But he was right about what he’d said. Out in the open, they would have plenty of room to fight us, and they had numbers on us. They wouldn’t send in more guards to get slaughtered. If we continued forward, I’d have to use my power and he’d know what I really was.
Only we didn’t have to face that just yet. This path wasn’t more difficult because of the battle we’d just survived. It was because of the battles to come now that the guard knew about me. For now, I could avoid the fight.
“You might have time for more flirting. There’s a passageway.” I moved forward and felt along the rock for the familiar, deep crack. I closed my eyes and focused. Gravel fell from the crack onto my head as the rock widened and moaned until it had opened enough to squeeze through.
“How did you do that?” Nash’s eyes were wide.
I eased part of the way through. “It’s a door. I was taught how to open it.” I nodded. “Come on. It’s safe.” I slid into the cool air of the passage. Eternal flames burned in the lanterns along the rocky wall. A slight breeze wafted down the tunnel, like we’d stepped into the mountain’s own little world.
Nash’s hand fumbled through the crevice and then came his head. He grunted as he squeezed his shoulders through.
A narrow hall carved into the rock stretched before us in an upward slope that led to the start of the spiral staircase. “If we hurry, we can make it to Wren and Leif by morning.” I closed the passageway and breathed a sigh of relief.
His eyes widened. “We’ll be in this tunnel that long?”
“It connects with theirs higher up the mountain.” I nodded toward the stairs.
“I’d rather go back and fight.” Nash started for the stairs. I couldn’t help but smile.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Endless stairs.
Absolutely endless stairs with narrow stretches of tunnel that echoed our every breath stretched on and on and on. For hours upon hours, we walked and didn’t stop for a break even once we’d been reduced to crawling up the stairs, unable to speak.
We’d both sweated so much that the mud had run down from our faces and necks in dark streaks. Every muscle in my body burned.
Three more stairs and I rounded a bend that wrenched a cry from my chest.
“You hear it?”
Nash perked up. “Water.”
We clambered up the last few steps and stumbled down the hall to a natural cave in the mountain. Stalactites reached their spindly fingers from the ceiling toward the floor below. A still pool of water reflected the blue hue of the cave’s ceiling. I stumbled for it, collapsed, and sucked in mouthfuls of water so fast I nearly retched.
My stomach hurt from drinking too much. “I didn’t think we would make it.”
“Me either. I’m going in.” Nash pulled his tunic over his head and pried off his shoes before reaching for his pants.
“A warning would be nice!” I turned my face away.
“I told you I was going in.”
“Not without clothes,” I muttered. Washing away the mud and sweat did sound nice. I bit my cheek. “If you look, you die. Okay?” I glanced over at Nash to find that he’d ventured chest-deep into the water.
He covered a bare shoulder with his hand. “You’re the one who’s looking. Keep your eyes to yourself, Sharpshooter.”
I rolled my eyes at his smirk. Even after he turned his back to me, I felt nervous. “You really can’t look.”
“I would never do that.” He splashed water over his face. “Not even if you were drowning. I’d look the other way and preserve your dignity so you could perish untainted by my gaze.”
“Oh, shut up.” I left my clothes in a pile, so exhausted that even that simple task of undressing felt incredibly tiring.
The relief of the water immediately soothed me. I relished the feeling of weightlessness on my heavy body. Once I felt like I could move my arms again, I unknotted my hair to scrub away the mud.
“They’ll try to ambush us higher up the mountain now that they know we’re here.” I pulled chunks of mud from my tangles. If Rune saw this, he would tease me and say this mess would break the brush. I missed the little guy.
“I figured,” Nash said. “I’m getting out now. You can look if you really want to.”
“How do you have the energy to be an ass right now?”
“An ass? I’m trying to do a nice thing for you.”
I scoffed. “Oh, how generous of you.”
“I like to give to those in need. You seem pretty stressed out.”
My jaw dropped. I was somewhere between laughing and wheeling around to punch him in the kidney. “You better walk away right now.”
“I’ll accept a simple thank you, but I wouldn’t turn away coin if you’re feeling especially grateful.”
I dragged my arm across the water to splash him. “You’re insufferable.”
Refusing to look at him for even a second, I turned away immediately. His laugh both grated at me and made it hard not to smile.
Forcing my clothes over my damp skin took so much effort I could have cried.
I stumbled toward Nash on numb legs and slid down the large rock he reclined against.
“I feel like death,” Nash said.
My heavy eyelids slid shut. “Me too … We’ll sleep here tonight and finish the journey to Leif and Wren in the morning.”
The cool air of the cave chilled my wet skin. I shivered and drew my knees up.
Nash opened his arm in my direction. I looked at him suspiciously, waiting for him to make some quip.
“I won’t tease,” he said.
“If you do—”
“I’ll die,” he finished for me.
I was too exhausted to feel embarrassed or to appreciate his closeness as I slid against him and drew my legs over his. His embrace wrapped me up.
Never mind. I felt something. Warmth tickled my stomach even though our bodies hadn’t yet eased the chill.
“Don’t react.” His mouth brushed the crown of my head as he whispered. “I lied to you about Flare.”
His confession came so suddenly that I almost sat up to look at him, but he held me tight.
“She knows things only spoken in private. Act like we’re just resting in case she can see or hear.”
It was so hard not to speak. I closed my eyes to pretend I was drifting off, but I had so many questions.
“When I first met her, I thought she was another human spy like me. She was really the first demon to work with the Prophet of the Valley. She recruited the rest.”
What kind of power did Flare have?
“Flare used the Prophets to divide and conquer the tribes in our region. Not just in the Valley, but the Kyst, the Flatlands, the Fjellfolk. That’s why demons helped attack with the Flatlanders in the night. She’s orchestrating this. Now she wants to unite our lands under one head. One Skia Hellig.”
Already our young world had more than it should. Roads, steel, villages with indoor plumbing. Our power had paved the way for us to have what took other worlds hundreds of thousands of years to gain, except it was still so undeveloped. Flare didn’t care about the suffering that the Prophets caused, only the stability they would bring once formal governments rose to take their place. They were a stepping stone to speeding up evolution so that fewer people would suffer for a shorter period of time.
Just like what the gods wanted for our world. They weren’t content to watch countless worlds in the universe evolve naturally on their own. They wanted to master evolution. But just like the gods, Flare wasn’t mastering evolution here. Only creating a sickly mutant in place of what otherwise would grow on its own. Had the gods given her special gifts because she believed in their vision?
I couldn’t speak, so I dug my fingers into Nash’s side where my hand rested.
His voice lowered even more. “One day, Flare will turn on me. I’ve tried to keep her trust to figure out what she’s doing. But she could hurt Elsie. I need to kill her. I’ve seen people try, but every time, she vanishes the instant they almost have her. She reappears moments later, unharmed. I don’t know how to take her out.”
Chills darted down my spine. I’d bent time with my power, but I had always been a passenger in time, not a god of it. The control had always eluded me. Flare seemed to have mastered manipulating space-time. The gods must have given her a power I couldn’t imagine. Piercey and I had tried for years to help me control it without any success.
Nash whispered against my hair. “If we don’t stop her, more lands will be conquered, and countless will die. Those of us who survive will lose the world as we know it. This is bigger than the Prophet of the Valley.”
This couldn’t be the world we’d leave behind for children like Elsie and Rune. There had to be more I could do. I certainly couldn’t sit there saying nothing after he had told me all this. So I eased onto my side, tugging Nash to encourage him to stay close.
I nestled against the rock while he stretched out alongside me, his body turned to cover mine, staving off the chill. My breath caught in my chest when I looked into his eyes. His face hovered so close to mine. Even as I told myself not to think about it, my body wouldn’t listen. Every inch of myself was attuned to him, to every part of us that touched and every part that did not. I managed to whisper, not looking away from him even though my cheeks felt hot. “You decided to trust me.”
He held my gaze another moment before speaking. “You threw yourself down a cliff to save me. Sometimes it’s too dangerous not to trust a person who deserves it. I’ve been fighting for a long time, Max. I need you.”
Did I need him? With my power returning, did I need anyone? My heart told me yes, because throughout my life it had always been the people I cared about who gave me the strength I needed. “I trust you, too and that scares me.”
Nash’s stare briefly slipped down my face. “The gods, fate, our own will—whatever it may be—something has drawn us together. That’s what I keep feeling.”
I nodded, helpless to fight the same pull, or maybe just unwilling. Leif would rip both our windpipes out if he saw this. But he wasn’t here right now. It was only Nash and me with no one between us. I could no longer pretend that my heart had any reservations. I believed that he was on my side and that I could put my trust in him. Resisting Nash felt as futile as fighting a slip. I couldn’t change it any more than I could the past when I traveled there.
That or I’d simply surrendered to the kind of power Nash had. Was I being fooled by a spy who knew how to sway a woman with his pretty face and his disarming confidence? Or did we have a real bond that would be a shame to discard? The questions faded to a whisper in my mind until I could no longer hear the lingering worry. It was too late.
