Time Thief, page 35
Piercey was always the same, though. I wasn’t surprised that he chose this version of himself, this older and wiser man.
“Hello, friend.” I sat down beside him.
He smiled at me, the wrinkles of so many past smiles deepening. “Max.”
Like me, Piercey never lost his memories. We were potential candidates, but we hadn’t chosen to continue toward enlightenment as a team. After all we’d been through, we deserved to choose our own path. And he loved it here in the afterlife. All he’d ever wanted was peace. Now he had it.
“You’re going off to battle.” Piercey’s eyes glimmered.
“Not quite.”
“Not like the old days, but still, a battle.”
I watched him for a moment. “Do you wish I wouldn’t?”
“No, Max. This is who you are. You could never stay here and be content, not until everywhere is as perfect as it is here. Neither could Nash.” He smiled. “You’re destined to do this together.”
My chest softened. Buried beneath the years, my childhood friend still remained. “I guess so.”
“Visit me when you’re done.”
“I will, Piercey.”
We squeezed one another’s hands and smiled. I walked to the top of the hill where Nash sat with all of our people. I couldn’t blame anyone for staying here forever. It’d been all I wanted before, to be with the people I loved and never have to say goodbye.
But it was that yearning, that heartbreak we’d suffered in our world, that drove me to continue working my way to the council. Those who remembered were responsible to carry all that we had learned and suffered so younger souls could find comfort. One day, Nash and I would be ready to return to our family, for good. Or they would come out into society and live with us there. One day, we would all be together, and there would be no end. Maybe I would even let myself forget about the world we’d left behind. Maybe I’d let myself have the peace that Piercey so loved.
For now, I wanted to remember what happened, no matter how badly some memories hurt.
Surrounded by everyone we had ever loved, the land around us shifted into the blue of the ocean. Our lives flowed into one, like these gentle waters. Like our memories became one, looking like one, despite each droplet still being its own. Somehow, despite all I’d already experienced, I knew there was so much left for me to discover.
“We’ll be back soon,” I said to our family. To our little village. To our world. Leif and Wren nodded at me with gentle smiles.
My heart pounded as I settled back on the white table.
“You’ve waited a long time for this, Max,” Dr. Drake said. “You two are ready.”
I reached my hand out. Nash took it in a firm grasp.
My voice came out in a hushed breath. “I love you, Nash.” The words mean multiple lifetimes of love.
“I love you, Max.”
Then we closed our eyes and fell into a deep sleep, deep in another world.
Being born was so much like dying. A whole world in your heart and then suddenly a new one.
I’d held on to Nash’s hand in the white room so tightly that I felt it every time something squeezed my hand after. First it was his, and then I was squeezing my own in the warmth of the womb. Squeezing my mother’s pinky from the crib. Squeezing the sticky fingers of the kid down the road.
Squeezing the handlebars of my bike as I sped down the road with the wind whipping through my hair. And there I was. The autumn night crackled with the croaking of frogs. Coolness tickled my bare knees. Riding alone on the street, I wondered, for the first time, what the world was like before I’d been born into it. How it would be when I died.
My head fell back so the streetlights burned my eyes. Beyond them, the gaping black night stared back. The bike flew out from under me like someone had jerked it. In the moment before everything flashed impossibly fast, I felt myself slip, like I’d left the neighborhood.
Then the ground ripped across my body and I slammed onto my side.
I groaned, afraid to move and see how bad it was. My skin burned all down my left arm and leg.
“You trashed that mailbox.”
I turned at the voice.
A boy held the splintered hunk of a mailbox post. A laugh tinged his voice, bubbling beneath the concern. “You okay?”
I glanced down. My skin was raw on my arm and my knee was bloody. “Fine.”
“Here.” He threw down the post and offered his hand.
I pushed it away and scowled. “I don’t need some boy coming to my rescue.” Wincing, I stood up, gasping at the burn in my knee. “I can take care of myself.”
Standing now, I met amber eyes. My stomach tightened and the burning in my knee seemed to have moved to my belly.
“That’s a stupid thing to say.” He arched one eyebrow. “Helping you up doesn’t mean you’re helpless. My dad says people who can’t take help are insecure.”
The burning erupted in flames of fury. “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.”
“Oh yeah?” He looked down. Grass and dirt stained my clothes. “Good luck catching me.”
He pivoted and took off in a full sprint. I ran hard after him.
I caught him, of course. And the next time he caught me. If time had moved so fast before that, so instantly that I didn’t know it existed, it crawled through falls and winters and springs and glorious summers. It crawled until I’d come to expect that. Came to expect I’d never lose out on time to chase the boy who’d dared to help me when I fell.
When the slipping started and time raced faster than I could catch it, I understood, actually understood, that one day I would die. Those questions from the autumn night slipped back into my mind as I watched an older woman move down the aisle of the courtroom on her walker. I was twenty-five, and for the first time, for no reason in particular, I grasped that I wouldn’t be here forever.
Harsh lights glared overhead as the woman made it onto the stand.
He stood up now, catching my eyes with the stare that could snap back time in an instant. He wore his curls differently in court. I wanted to pluck them so they’d fall over his eyes the way I liked, but he looked good like this, too. Especially as he smirked at me now and then shifted his stare to his witness.
The arrogance.
We’d fought our whole lives and we loved it. It was no wonder we wound up fighting each other in court. Even though I’d complained he copied me when he started law school a year after I did, it felt like fate. Even so, I didn’t have time for him and his dimpled smile. If I lost my focus this early in my career, I’d be done for.
I’d been a fool then, though. I wished I could say I’d never been a fool again, but it wasn’t long after that when I realized I didn’t have the time to not be with him. Life was too fleeting. Time passed so quickly again. Even so it was a long time, a very long time, filled to the brim with wonder and heartbreak, before I felt myself slip far, far away from that life.
I awoke with a hand squeezing mine so tightly. I awoke in a haze, aware only that this had happened before, that we had never let go, that this wouldn’t be the last time either.
As the memories slipped back in and I let my head fall to the side to look into Nash’s amber eyes, I squeezed him tighter. “Good morning,” I whispered.
He gazed at me like he had in the very long dream we’d just dreamt, how he gazed at me every night as we went to bed, and as we opened our eyes in the morning; like he had back in our first world when we fought our way through line after line of warriors; like he had when we sat with our family before entering this simulated life.
I figured no matter how many lives we lived, we’d always have each other.
Dr. Drake helped me up and I let her.
“It’s not too late to go back to the afterlife,” she said.
I didn’t need to think about it, not after everything that had happened and that we’d learned. My world—my people—had shifted places, but it was still mine to protect. “Bliss is fine, but I’d rather clean this place up. We have a lot more lives to live before we’re ready to do that.”
It’d be the hardest battle I ever fought. That we’d ever fought.
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Chapter One
A year ago, after I fought and won the hardest battle of my life, I longed in vain for the respite of peace.
So much changed after I killed the Prophet of the Valley, and not in the ways I hoped.
Screams ripped apart the usual quiet of the small village, echoing through the dirt streets and against stone houses peeking from the face of the hills. The wails of villagers converged with my disorientation from teleporting into a splitting headache. I traveled here the moment I received the alert of a demon attack, and yet I still arrived to guttural sobbing that told me all I needed to know.
The demon had already taken lives.
The cries of those left behind testified to yet another loss I could not prevent and shredded my heart with fury.
Enough.
My body bolted forward on instinct, seeking out the feel of the attacker’s power, rushing toward the screams. My mind trailed behind, though, distant from the violence that flooded the Valley after the death of its tyrannical leader.
For a surreal moment as I ran past the blur of homes, the horizon that spread beyond the hills stole my attention. With the sky thin and blue, the Mountain of the Gods looked like clouds faintly frosting the distance. Nothing in this world was ever as it seemed. Freeing our people from a cruel reign didn’t bring about peace. That called for a war of its own. One I had no idea how to fight, apart from tirelessly battling anyone who threatened my people.
So I traveled across the Valley, day after day, hour after hour, destroying the countless opportunistic threats that flooded our small piece of the world in the vacuum of power left behind.
“Eclipse!” A woman I didn’t recognize shrieked my name. “She came! We’re saved.”
“This way!” A man pointed to the east. “Hurry.”
I sensed a flicker of power, no more noticeable than the warmth of burning embers. Twisting, I skidded to a stop at the door of a home just as it slammed open against the outer wall.
The stocky man who jumped out swelled with power now, exuding so much that I was shocked I didn’t recognize him. With the demon-hunting Prophet dead, all those who previously avoided the Valley mistakenly considered the area free game. After fighting so many enemies, I thought I’d come to know everyone worth remembering. My allies helped in the efforts as much as possible, but since only I mastered the manipulation of space-time, no one else traveled like I did, and so I’d been the one to face almost every demon.
Had he come from faraway lands? The Skia Hellig Peninsula carved low into the ocean, with the mountains serving as a natural barrier against the north. We were small compared to our neighbors who amassed territories and kingdoms much larger than any people in our isolated land. I feared even worse threats from beyond the mountains may sweep through not only the Valley, but all of Skia Hellig.
Wind drove a blade of dirt through the air and blasted me. I raised a shield, but the gust still shoved me back toward the house behind me. This man most certainly traveled into the peninsula. I would have heard about attacks like these before.
The demon sprang forward while I slid across the dirt. He whipped his sword above his head and wind swirled about the blade in a dark twist of dirt, like a tornado.
His tricks might have impressed me if I allowed them to. He didn’t deserve an ounce of admiration after he hurt these people, though, and I didn’t have time to waste fighting him. This needed to end fast.
Glowing tendrils of emerald-green power swirled about my hands and materialized into an energy bow. With a careful aim, I drew back like I held a real bowstring and shot an arrow of energy through the air. It pierced the cyclone surrounding the demon’s blade right as the tip of his sword struck my shield. Shaping my power into weapons familiar to me and relying on muscle memory greatly enhanced my combat abilities.
My arrow skidded across his weapon and ripped open the meaty flesh of his palm. His power scattered in a hazy mist and a cloud of dust. The demon screamed as he jerked his hurt hand from the hilt of his sword, now holding the blade with only his left one.
I jerked the fool closer with my power and bashed his face against my shield. His body trembled with exertion as he shoved his forearms against the barrier to escape me.
“Who are you?” I shoved him back and rammed him against the shield again. Energy sparked from the impact. “What do you want with this village?”
When he didn’t answer, I raised my energy bow once again and aimed an arrow directly at his throat. Blood trickled from his nose and made his round eyes look wild.
Rage filled me at his silence. Not only had this fool crossed into territory under my protection, but he’d interrupted an important battle. At this very moment, Flatlanders and the demons they’d contracted attacked our border, intent on taking back land they claimed the Prophet of the Valley once stole. Even though Piercey promised me he’d watch over Nash, and I knew our allies could manage without me, I absolutely hated leaving them.
Most days had been like this since I killed the Prophet. Eskel the Ruthless had lorded over his piece of Skia Hellig and brought terror to those who dared to defy him. There had been order in his cruelty, however. His death had ushered in the swift dissolution of that unjust but absolute authority.
For every person enjoying their newfound freedom, another in the Valley suffered the sudden loss of security, a burden that heaped upon my shoulders like I alone carried the weight of the Valley’s fight for survival.
The desperation and anger erupted from me in a roar. “Tell me.”
“I don’t answer to you.” Blood marred his scowling, broken lips.
“You do when I hold your life in my hands.”
“You alone decide my fate? How are you any better than the Prophet, then?”
The energy coursing through my bow and arrow pulsed in time with the anger that quickened my heartbeat.
His nostrils twitched. “This village was safe before you came along and killed the Prophet, you know.”
“No,” I said. “It was safe until you showed up and killed an innocent person. Don’t blame me for your sins.”
“You know it wouldn’t have happened if Eskel still reigned. You know that to keep the demons out, you’ll have to become him. Silencing me with your bow will not change the truth.”
I shifted my aim and shot the energy through the base of his ribs on his left side, then swiftly fired another through his thigh. He collapsed on the ground and reached for the arrows sizzling with fiery green energy. Blood oozed around the melted skin. His howls rang out as loud as the villagers’ wailing.
Looming over him, I spoke in a low growl. “You think it’s your silence I want?” I placed the heel of my boot against his sternum. “Let the people hear your screams. Let the Valley hear what happens to those who take innocent lives.”
“You’re . . . no . . . better . . .”
“I don’t care what I am. You’re banished from this Valley. Return and I’ll kill you.”
I covered his eyes with my hand, focusing on the code Piercey had created to tag and track our enemies. Part of me believed I should just kill him, but I already wielded so much power. I did not want the authority to unilaterally sentence anyone to death. If an enemy fell to my blade, I had no qualms, but I’d stopped this man while his heart still beat.
Perhaps Piercey had tangled too deeply in my mind when we connected last year.
“What are you doing?” The demon’s voice trembled.
Without answering, I transported both of us to the coast, far away from the closest village, to a small shack that housed enough supplies for him to journey elsewhere.
“This is the only mercy I will ever show you.” I held his stare. “Stay away from my people or you will die. If you even take one step into the Valley, I will immediately travel to you and crush you.”
He trembled, pale from blood loss and fear. “It’s really true. No one can have this much power. You stole it from the sun during the eclipse.”
“I’m going to check on you. There is nowhere in this world far enough away from me for you to run. If you continue to hurt the innocent, I’ll kill you.”
By his wide eyes, I knew he believed me.
“Bandage your wounds before you die.” I glared at him one final time before returning to the village.
I found where the villagers had gathered, and stopped beside their chief. A man lay unmoving with the scarlet stripe across his throat brightly contrasting the dust dulling the rest of his body. The family of the slain man knelt around his corpse and wept. Their cries would echo in my heart forever, like the others.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was too late.”
“It was me.” The chief lowered his head. “I didn’t raise the alarm in time.”
“This should never have happened in the first place.”
He turned to me, the low-hanging sun reflecting as red in his eyes. “You’re not a god.” Despite the grief etched into his tight expression, conviction burned in that stare. “You cannot expect to save us all.”
I couldn’t talk about this. With a stiff dip of my head, I said, “Please give my condolences to the family. I’m needed in battle.”
“Be safe, Eclipse.”
That name had once been uttered only as a curse or whispered in terror. It had once been rumors of the demon who slayed an entire village. For the first time, some spoke it for a different reason, with reverence instead of hate.
I wanted to ask him to call me by my name. I was Max the Sharpshooter, not the demon Eclipse. Only a sharpshooter could not make the people of this village feel safe again. They needed something more.
I fought against gods and Prophets alike for this Valley and for these people. If they needed me to be Eclipse, so be it.
