We landed outside of the village, where the sensation of Lote's energy drew me. The capped peaks of the Mountain of the Gods glowed against the twilight of the midnight sun, once a promise of the gods and their aloof watch of the valley, and now a reminder of all that we had conquered.

Lote's form moved like a soft shadow ahead of me. I teleported directly behind him, stunned when he blinked out of sight and appeared behind me as well.

I spun around to face him. So he'd figured out teleportation in addition to traveling between worlds. The bastard.

"We should talk before we fight," Lote said.

I threw my fist for his chin. He blinked out of range, appearing a few feet back.

"There is no talking," I said.

My group ran to circle around Lote: Nash, Leif, Wren, Piercey, Elias, Jax, Ashton, and the three comrades from the other world.

"I didn't come alone," Lote said.

Of course not. I wanted to scream.

He cast a look around the warriors surrounding him. "They're masking their power, but they're with villagers, and they'll kill them if they sense us fight for longer than a minute."

I raised my hand to signal for everyone to hold their positions. "Have you even stopped to think about what you're doing? You tried to kill your own king. You have no world to return to."

"The king is a joke. The valley is better off without him. Do you really believe that I would leave my world without plans for it? I don't need to be there for the rest to continue in my place. You forced me to act early by going to the king, but what will happen now is inevitable."

"Lote," Ashton said. "You need to stop. This is taking it too far."

"Will you stay here to fight me or return to the kingdom?" Lote smiled at Ashton now with his teeth shining. "By the time you make it home, it may be too late. I told you our guild is the best suited to run the valley. It'll be a difficult transition. Well worth it in the end. If you come to your senses, I might be able to make a place for you."

"I will never help you overthrow our kingdom." Ashton clenched her fists. "This is not the right way to lead the Valley."

"It's useless," Jax said. "Don't bother talking to him. We should stay here and kill him. There are plenty of people in our kingdom to fight back home. He's the one we need to take down."

"Will you let the innocent die then?" Lote laughed so hard his shoulders shook. "Go ahead and attack me. We'll fight with their wailing in the background."

"You couldn't have had time to give everyone a machine," I said. "You helped them transport here. They're close by."

I quickly sent a message to Gael through my mind with directions on where he and his warriors should portal.

"You wouldn't risk a single life." Lote raked his eyes across each of us. "Your only choice is to negotiate. It's inevitable that you'll lose a significant number of hostages if you fight."

"If you want to negotiate," I said, "Then bring the hostages where I can see them."

"Why would I do that? Do you want me to order one to die now as proof? You'll hear the screams of the mothers all the way from here."

"Bastard." Nash stalked forward with his blades extended. "You want your damn resources? This is not how you'll get them."

"I will get them no matter what you do," Lote said. "I can feel the weakness of this world. It's pathetic. Soon, I can tell my entire guild about the resources here without worry about our competition and we'll have far more warriors here than you could hope to deal with." Lote turned his attention to me. "You've pissed me off enough. I suggest you start trying to get on my good side."

"As someone who has already overthrown Valley leadership, I have to tell you that I think it's pretty important for you to actually be present for it." I eased closer. "What is it? Are you afraid? You're hiding out in my world while your lackeys do the work for you? If they can overthrow a kingdom without you, they'll realize they can lead without you. You better get home before it's too late."

"I won't be so easily goaded. I'll return with what I need to make fuel for our machines and then we may not even need to stop at the valley. We'll take all of our Skia Hellig and raise it to the greatness I know we're capable of."

I couldn't leave these hostages in Lote's hands much longer, if he even had them in the first place. I didn't trust him not to kill them anyway and I refused to negotiate with him. He'd just started a coup against his kingdom. It would be a bad faith negotiation from the start.

The only option was to kill him and anyone else who insisted on invading our world and our kingdom.

"I'm going to kill you," I said. "I fucking promise."

I sensed the explosion of portals from the village right when they began to open and reached out for any of my people close by to grab a hold of me. I teleported to the center of town, not able to wait on everyone. Nash, Jax, and Ashton landed with me. The others would be able to make it in a few minutes if they ran.

All around the village, warriors jumped out from the portals and landed on the ground with quaking thuds. They all bore the same color of armor as Gael. The sheer number almost made me freeze. There were far more pouring through the portals than whoever had come to the Sacred School. He must have gone home to bring more warriors.

My eyes burned at the realization that Gael and his king had gone so far to fight with us.

It was short lived though, because Lote appeared directly in front of us, the line shining from the vine tattoos.

Nash broke for the closest house and Jax and Ashton followed his example, each running for a different residence.

"Kill them!" Lote roared with a voice that carried through the entire town, louder than the worst of any valley storms I'd ever heard. "Kill the villagers!"

Gael's warriors flooded the town, rushing through the open portals. They immediately entered the houses, searching out hostages. For a few seconds, I had the vain hope that maybe it was a bluff, because I felt no power. Lote grinned at me with that gleaming smile of his.

Then all the power came like a massive tidal wave. Power swelled over this village in a tidal wave, the feeling of some comforting and familiar, but much of it foreign to me.

"Max," Gael shouted. "I'm going for more."

Lote turned to target him with a raised palm, but Gael erected a shield to block him as he opened a portal. A beam bit into the ground as Gael dashed into the opening he'd created. It closed rapidly behind him.

I sprang forward for Lote with my energy blade swelling with power. We clashed, his physical sword steady against the force of mine.

Screams rang through the town, clawing at my mind with the fear that I'd made the wrong call. In my first day as the new Prophet of the Valley, I'd gotten my own innocent people killed.

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I couldn't question myself now. I had to fight.

"You're a fool if you think you'll get away with any of this," I said. I ripped back and lunged with a two-handed swing for his shoulder. He teleported to the side so my sword cut through empty air. At first, I almost followed him on impulse, before I realized that he might have wanted me to waste my energy chasing him around the village or the world.

I had been teleporting longer than him. If I could follow the trail of his energy to teleport with him, I could follow it and pursue him on foot.

When he teleported next, I clung to the thread of his energy like I would if I wanted to pursue, and instead sprinted forward, striking right when he appeared. Surprise filled his eyes when he sidestepped to avoid the hit.

A man burst out a window on the second floor of a home and skidded across the ground between Lote and me. Jax flew out after him and rammed his shoulder into the man on the ground so hard that the enemy's body dented in the earth.

Lote aimed his fingers at Jax, but I replaced my sword with my bow and fired it at the same time the beam shot out from our enemy. While Lote must have assumed I'd fired to protect Jax, I actually trusted him to evade on his own, and instead aimed for Lote's free hand that he hadn't used to attack. The vines had lit brightly with power and I wanted to see if damaging his hand would hinder his ability to use his machine.

Jax darted high into the air, narrowly avoiding the beam. The fallen man cried out at the massive shot of energy that cut deeply into the dirt inches from his face.

Lote twisted to the side to dodge at the last moment, when he seemed to realize what I had aimed for. My arrow skidded across the top of his hand, ripping through his skin.

I notched another energy arrow when I noticed the dim glow of the midnight sun reflecting off Lote's hand. The arrow had torn a hunk of his skin off and it hung now, flapping lightly as he stepped closer. A coating of metal covered what should have been his raw, damaged hand. Wires that matched the pattern of the thorny vine tattoos snaked across it and disappeared beneath his skin.

A proud grin stretched his face eerily in the dim light. "It runs off my own energy."

Lote had surgically implanted the machine beneath his skin, something that either he'd already done in the past and hidden, or had used power to heal from since we'd tried to kill him.

Jax hovered overhead, also staring down at his hand. "Have you tested that before?"

"This is the future of our power," Lote said. "Machines can enhance our neural chip for instant, reliable responses." He ripped the loose flap of skin away with a growl and threw it at my feet. "This could be yours if you would cooperate."

I grimaced as I looked at the hunk of tissue on the ground. "You're so fucking proud of yourself."

"You would be too. I admit this might have been overkill. I expected your world to pose a greater challenge and rushed the surgery."

Shrieks from a nearby home rang out into the village. I fired arrows as quickly as I could, sinking four into the injured man on the ground. They exploded in his back, ripping apart his skin in chunks of flesh and blood that popped in all directions. The next flew straight for Lote.

He teleported–something that was turning out to be a cheap trick since I could track it and travel if he moved too far away. I'd have to remember that for when I used it in battle in case anyone else ever learned how to do it.

Jax seemed to have also figured out how to follow the trail of his energy, because both of us attacked the exact place that Lote landed. The shield automatically shimmered across his skin as my arrow and Jax's ball of energy hit his body.

I couldn't be sure of how deep the machine ran or how much of his body it covered but I knew I needed to destroy as much of the machine as possible. I had no idea what he was capable of with it, but it looked like this was capable of automatically erecting a shield around him just like the machine in his office.

Was it more limited without all the extra fuel? And did any of his men also have the machines beneath their skin?

Elias ran from a building, carrying a small child in his arms. Without even looking at him, I erected a shield to surround him and the child. Lote, meanwhile, had no concerns for anyone but himself. He left his people to fend for themselves while he focused his attention on Jax and me.

Jax and I both attacked Lote fervently. Every time we managed to assault him with an attack I thought capable of shattering his defenses, he teleported again, traveling only a few feet away.

"His machine is teleporting for him." I glanced at Jax. "You see that? The shield and the teleportation."

I didn't say the rest, that I knew intimately well how much power it took to teleport and that he would wear himself down faster than he thought. Only going a few feet did extend his ability to travel, but it would run out. Maybe if I couldn't get past his defenses, I could at least wear him down.

The cries of the villagers tore my mind in two. Where was Nash? Leif and Wren? Piercey? Everyone here had power, but the people I loved either weren't really warriors or had just gotten their power. They needed to ally with people who could guard them and enhance their abilities, like Piercey usually did with Nash.

I needed to trust them and believe in them to handle themselves. They knew their abilities. Each scream flooded my mind with images of the horrors that could be happening, Lote's warriors splattering living rooms in blood. Over the last year, I had gained so much control over my anxiety. The numbness threatened to spread throughout me, even into my heart, surely ready to stop it from beating in my chest.

I parried a slash of Lote's sword while Jax rained down balls of energy from the sky where he flew strategically around. I remembered fighting with him in Ashton's memories and didn't attempt to protect myself from his hits. He was good. I could throw everything I had into battling Lote and trust that while Jax's attacks looked chaotic, he had carefully strategized to take advantage of Lote's weaknesses, to limit his range of abilities, and to protect me as we engaged in close combat.

I spun and threw my momentum into a hard slash for Lote's chest when Nash stumbled through the an open doorway. A sword followed him, its tip catching his shirt. I couldn't tell from here if it had hit him, but I knew it would be superficial. Even so, I faltered, terrified that whoever attacked would use his power to immediately strike Nash dead. Mid-hit, I split my attention to shield Nash.

Lote broke through my guard and drove his blade for me with a surge of power. His sword shattered my energy blade, sending the power scattering into the sky in a beautiful array of flashes of power. I teleported just as the sword nicked my shoulder.

When I landed close enough to Nash to help him, I realized that he hadn't needed me to shield him. His blades swung over head, deflecting the strikes of his opponent. My heart raced as red energy flowed over his twin blades, pulsing with power, more than I'd expected him to already be able to wield. He fought with the same grace that had mesmerized me in our first battle together, his footwork impeccable, and every single move purposeful. Now, his fighting was strengthened by his own power, driving his speed and fueling his attacks.

How was Nash wielding his power so expertly?

"Focus, Max," Nash cried out as his foot rammed into the enemy's chest.

Then, I saw Piercey inside the house behind the enemy and realized that he was helping Nash to hone his strength, fighting with him as they had for the last year. Only this time, Piercey hadn't needed to give Nash his own power, but to help Nash draw out and control his own.

I saw the beam of energy a split second before it would have hit Nash. I barely grazed him with my fingers in time for us to teleport inside the house with Piercey. Lote had punished me for my distraction by targeting to man I love.

Enough.

I could not allow myself to fail at this battle because I couldn't trust everyone else to fight. Nash deserved all the confidence in the world, and so did my friends. I teleported back to Lote and wasted no time in pummeling him with attacks from my energy sword.

Jax attacked with his sword now as well.

We needed to move the fight away from the village. I started to see more of Gael's warriors in the streets, battling intensely with our enemies. Elias, still holding the small child, now had a group of villagers beneath his own shield, no longer relying upon mine. He ushered them toward one of Gael's warriors.

Good. They must have been preparing to create a portal for them to escape.

Ashton leapt across a rooftop and landed in a burst of energy beside me, having propelled herself farther than I ever remembered her managing to jump.

Jax and Ashton attacked at the same time. I exchanged my sword for my energy bow and shot ten arrows, sending them flying around Lote. They followed his every movement as he fought against the other two. Ashton's sword forced him backward and he slid right to avoid Jax, hitting one of the arrows.

It burst against him, flashing against the instant shield. Another hit, doing the same. None of them broke through, but since he used his energy to power his machines, I knew that every single attack on his shield contributed to overloading his capacity for drawing enough energy to use his machines.

I just wished I knew how deep his reserve of energy ran. His machine might have used power more efficiently than we did on our own, but wasn't it possible that it actually required more? This technology was newer and not yet refined.

One by one, the explosive arrows that tracked his movements exploded against him, until the last two actually managed to break through his shield. It didn't seem to hurt him very badly, but I could smell his singed clothes.

I rushed beside Ashton and we both attacked at the same time, in unison with each other. Jax's sword raked across Lote's back, catching on the shield. The force of the attack nudged Lote in our direction while Ash and I both slammed our swords against Lote's.

His sword cracked with a sharp cry.

He teleported far away to the other side of the village. Ash grabbed my hand and I carried her with me as we pursued. Jax flew after us.

"As much as I enjoy a good battle," Lote said, "I'm getting tired of this."

The exposed metal on his hand flashed bright while the vines on his other hand glowed and his shoulders lit with a dim golden light.

Fuck.