Time thief, p.37
Time Thief, page 37
“Yes, ma’am,” the four students said together. So strange to hear them call me that, because one of them was definitely much older than me.
“You can call me Sharpshooter, Max, anything but Eclipse or ma’am.”
“What about Commander?” The overly confident thirty-something year old man asked.
Commander. I didn’t mind that. “That will do.”
Piercey smiled. “Alright, back to training. Max, I’ll meet you outside.”
I left for the courtyard to wait for Piercey. Warmth from the climate control and the aromatic scent of flowers fooled me into forgetting the Sacred School sat perched upon the tallest mountain peak in Skia Hellig. The soft, manicured grass and towering oak tree always filled my chest with comfort. As a child, this had been a haven for me and my old friend. When I returned from the afterlife, I reunited with my loved ones here. Between battles and training, we often played with Elsie on the soft lawn. A deep breath filled my chest and spread deep into my stomach as peace.
“If we hurry, we can catch the end of the council meeting.” Piercey started talking to me before I even turned around to see him.
I ignored him and raised both brows. “Tell me about that one kid. He can do it, can’t he? I can just feel it.”
“I hope so. It worries me that no one has been remotely successful.”
“This one reminds me of you with the lack of confidence but obvious talent.”
“Thanks, I guess,” he uttered with a chuckle.
“It will take time, but one day he’s going to do it. What’s his name?”
“Asmund.”
“Asmund . . . I’ll keep my eye on him.” I sighed, thinking about the council meeting. “I guess we should go, huh?”
Piercey nodded. “One of the graduates reached out to me through our neural connection. The council is discussing Valley leadership today.”
“Do they want that one guy? The badass commander who loves to give speeches?”
“Yeah, but there’s also the politician.”
I rubbed my arm, disappointed at the lack of contenders. “Neither one of them can lead this Valley. The commander, Markus, he’s a great leader, but he’s not gathering enough support. If he hasn’t by now, he won’t. The other cannot even wield a sword. No one will ever accept him.”
“I know. We need someone who will not be mad with power, but also can stand up against the threats we face.”
“We just have to keep searching,” I said. “I’m nervous to look beyond the Valley because they won’t be committed to our people the same way, but we’re running out of candidates.”
Piercey tilted his head and raised his brows in an annoyingly knowing look.
“Don’t.” I jabbed my finger at him.
“I didn’t.”
“You did. You gave me a look.”
“You’re giving me a look now.”
I groaned and smacked my fist against my palm. “I cannot lead these people, Piercey.”
“You already are. You’re single-handedly protecting the villages. Just your name is enough to keep most threats out of the Valley. Who better than you? Max, you died for these people.”
That heavy feeling hung in my chest again. “That’s why I can’t. How am I supposed to protect people if I’m busy playing politics?”
Piercey lifted his hand. “You don’t have to play politics. You’d have a council. You just have to step up as the head.”
“No.” I shouted the word with my fists tightened at my sides like a child, but it didn’t matter if I sounded juvenile. The talk of this tangled me with so much panic I wanted to run from the room. “I already have to worry about Elsie and Nash. You and the others. I saw what dying did to everyone. How could I ever go into battle knowing a whole Valley of people needs me to live?”
“Oh, Max.” My friend’s expression softened. “You don’t realize that it’s already happened, do you?”
The heaviness and the panic collided like an explosion of dread. I closed my eyes and refused to let the thoughts play through my mind. Refused to sacrifice any precious time to fear. “It just can’t be me.”
“Okay.” Piercey softly clasped my arms. “Okay, I’m sorry. You are leading this Valley, though, so you need to find someone who can do this better than you. Until then, the people will reject whoever tries to take your place.”
I crossed my arms and looked to the tree where Piercey and I used to sit. Back then, I begged him to escape with me, convinced we’d find everything we wanted somewhere away from this mountain. “I miss when our world was as small as this courtyard.”
“You do not,” Piercey said. “You hated it.”
“I didn’t know any better then.”
“Whatever. Let’s get out of here. We need to go size up those potential leaders.” Piercey backed up a step. “Let me get my bag and then I’ll be ready. Don’t leave without me.”
He jogged to the door and disappeared. Who knew when I mastered teleporting that I was really volunteering to taxi everyone around Skia Hellig. So wonderful.
Something flickered from the corner of my eye again. Before I could even question it, a man materialized beside me.
My heart stilled in my chest. Piercey’s deep brown eyes looked into mine even though he just ran back inside.
“Max,” he said.
Breath fled my lungs and the courtyard seemed to start slowly spinning. I stared at him, unable to breathe or think or feel.
Even as I grappled with the undeniable sight, I couldn’t accept it as reality. His hair lay against his shoulders in long dreads while a full beard darkened his face. How the hell could that be when Piercey kept his hair buzzed and face shaved? He hadn’t worn dreads since we were kids.
“I need your help.” His serious eyes met mine. “I’m sorry for startling you.”
The Piercey look-alike raised his hand, just like my friend always did, and though they shared the same voice, this man held an edge to his I didn’t recognize. A look in his eye that didn’t quite match up.
“You’re in shock,” he said. “It’s like when you came back from the dead and didn’t know how to soften it for your friends. There’s really nothing I can do except show up.”
If he didn’t look and sound—feel—identical to my friend, I might have blasted him with enough power to incapacitate him. My instinct screamed threat because this was anything but normal.
A gasp ripped me from my stupor. I drew my energy bow and readied an arrow, aiming at the ground, because I couldn’t bring myself to point it at Piercey.
“Explain.” I clenched my teeth to cover how my voice wavered. Swallowed down the knot in my throat. “Right now.”
“I don’t have much time before your friend comes back. Come with me and we can talk.”
“Come with you?” I shifted the bow slightly higher. “Hell no.”
“Please. You’re more powerful than I am. You can kick my ass.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go with you.”
“Max.” This stranger who looked so much like Piercey reached his hand out to me. “I’m begging you.”
It might have been my own arrogance in my abilities, or my stupidity, or my naivety, or the fact that I couldn’t help trusting Piercey, but I shocked myself by grabbing his hand. Maybe I was just this desperate to break the cycle of fighting in the Valley that I foolishly hoped help arrived in the form of a friend. “You better not—”
A terrible ripping force spread throughout my body and cut off my words, threatening to pry my skin from my body. To shred each strand of muscle and separate each bead of blood. To rip me apart one cell at a time.
Right when I fully expected death to seize me, it all stopped.
I opened my eyes to bright sun and an endless field spreading out all around me. Stumbling back from this long-haired Piercey, I gasped for breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t have time to warn you. I felt him coming. It would have been too shocking for him to see me.”
I hardly heard what he said. “Where are we?”
“Before you panic, I want you to know that time is relative between each simulation. You won’t lose any time back in the courtyard with Piercey. When I send you back, it’ll be like you never left. There’s no risk of missing any demon—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” No matter how hard I breathed, air refused to reach my lungs. My mind couldn’t process a single thing he said, especially not some Piercey diatribe about time relativity. “Tell me where we are.”
He quieted for a moment. “We’re in my world.”
I leaned forward, feeling like a strong weight dragged me to the ground. “You mean—”
“Not your world.”
My stomach lurched. I leaned against my knees, but just as quickly as the sickness came, it morphed into rage. I jolted back up and Piercey sprang backward, hands covering his face.
“Stay calm,” he said. “I’ll explain. I’m on your side.”
“Then explain!”
“Okay. Okay. You know that the gods run experiments on other simulated realities.”
My mind finally started to fill in the gaps. No, no, no. How many times would this happen to me? How many times could reality unravel before I lost my mind forever?
“You knew there were other worlds.” His voice sounded as gentle as when my friend Piercey wanted to comfort me. “You just didn’t know they were filled with your people.” He smiled sympathetically. “It’s us in every world, Max. They uploaded the same consciousness every time.”
The truth of what he said resonated deeply within me, as undeniable as seeing Piercey’s image in the courtyard, or even the flicker of him on the battlefield. I’d seen other versions of myself and Nash from our previous lives when Dr. Henderson reset our simulation. This wasn’t new to me. Not the difference in hair and look, nor any of the subtle changes to our person.
I was looking at Piercey. A Piercey born in another world to another experiment. It made sense. If the gods wanted our worlds for the data, then they’d use controls. Why not use the same people in every experiment? I should have thought of this before.
My mind still could not grasp it.
I turned around, dizzy and overwhelmed. Knowing that we’d lived multiple lives in our world hurt badly enough. Now I knew that there were copies of me in other worlds. What did that even mean? Was the Max in this world still me? Or were we completely different people because we’d lived different lives in different worlds?
How had this Piercey learned to travel to my world when my Piercey couldn’t even travel across the Sacred School? And how did he know so much about me?
I turned back to him, dizzy from questions. “I need to hear everything.”
Just when I thought I was finally putting my world back together after Dr. Henderson, everything fell apart again.
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About the Author
Lindsay French is the author of the Eclipse series, originally released on Royal Road. When she isn’t trying to convince her middle school students to fall in love with reading, she’s writing twisty science fiction and fantasy. There are few things she loves more than creating complex characters, dynamic action, and unforgettable adventures. French lives in the Midwest with her husband and one of the world’s cutest dogs.
Lindsay French, Time Thief
