I awoke from our third simulated life with Nash's hand in mine, the two of us bound together through time and through lives and through more battles than we'd ever known we could fight. We'd found one another again, as we vowed to always do, and we'd changed yet again. Changed together. Grown together.

Once I couldn't fathom experiencing multiple lifetimes in multiple simulations. It defied the boundaries of my human mind. Now, I held more memories from these new lives than I did from our first, and yet I would never love another life more than the one I first lived.

"Good morning," Nash said again.

I smiled, tightening my grip on him. "Good morning."

We needed time between living through these lives. After the second simulation, we'd returned to our family and friends in the afterlife until we felt rested enough to continue. This time, I wanted to keep working. With every life we learned more about ourselves, humanity, and our mission to find justice for the young lives we'd left behind in our world, when we'd lived to defend our kingdom, and cherish our time together.

At one time when I accepted rule of the valley and became the Prophet Eclipse, I felt certain I would never face a more monumental task or have to learn to grow more rapidly. I was so young then. So young and so naive to what I would soon face. But it was that version of myself I felt the most gratitude for, because I'd found the strength to fight and the courage to take on a position I feared more than anything.

If only I could return to those days as a young ruler with what I know now. I wanted to both laugh and cry thinking about it. Back then, I would have absolutely lost my mind if I understood what it would take for me to formally join this society and climb the ranks to join the council. To have the power I needed to protect the young worlds of our universe. While once I wanted nothing to do with power, resented it even, I saw clearly that I could fight much more effectively with it.

I no longer apologized for having the strength to lead. I wanted to finish the fight I'd begun back in the days when I battled the supervisor of my world and the original Prophet of the Valley.

We left Dr. Drake behind and traveled to a different sphere of the after-life than where the people of my world lived.

"Think they're tired of the after-life yet?" Nash asked as we transitioned into the similar, but unique world that mirrored our own.

"Undoubtedly." I bit down my smile as we approached the cabin that looked identical to one that I once traveled to in Elias's world. Ashton reclined in the grass outside while Jax hovered in the air beside her, the two of them deep in conversation, their fingers intertwined just like Nash and mine had been when we woke from this past life.

"You've gotten lazy." I walked across the crisp grass and leaned over her.

"Max." Ashton shoved herself up and grinned. "It's been a long time."

"We were busy," Nash said. Such an understatement. Since we'd seen them last, we had lived through two fully simulated lives, one in a medieval world struggling with a plague, and another at the precipice of Earth's flight into the stars at the dawn of interstellar travel.

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"If you don't remember everything yet, I'm going to punch you in the head," I said.

Jax smirked and hung his arm around Asthon's shoulders. "We remember now."

"It's your fault we're still here." Ashton frowned at me. "They said they weren't sure anyone could handle two of us out in the wild."

I snorted. "So you let them lock you up here? You've had plenty of time to figure out your escape. It's politics. Play the game."

"I might be a little behind you in every world, but with time, I rise above your highest reaches." Ashton stepped closer, the competitive edge lighting her eyes. "I'll make it to the council before you."

"Good luck," Nash said. "You have a lot of lives to lead."

I saw myself in Ashton still, only it had been such a long time since I thought the way she did, that we no longer felt like the same person. Three lives ago, looking at her felt like looking in a mirror. Every decision I had made, every victory and mistake, shaped who I had become today.

I smiled. "I'm only teasing you. We'll talk with Dr. Drake again. Everyone has the right to work their way out of the after-life. It isn't your fault there's multiple copies of us."

"Unprecedented," Ashton said. "That's what they call more than one of us leaving the after-life."

Sounded right. We often were unprecedented. "What about Elias?"

Ashton chuckled. "He's been visiting with Piercey in your after-life. They're working together on writing a historical collection that bridges the gap between each of the four worlds from our experiment. They travel to each realm of after-lives connected to our worlds to interview everyone about what they remember."

That sounded almost as exhausting as living through simulated lives like Nash and I did. "I would love to read that."

"You read now?" Jax asked with his eyebrow quirked. "I remember you visiting our library once and insisting that someone just connect with you to infuse you with knowledge."

"It's scary what habits you pick up given the time." I glanced at Nash, chuckling at the thought of the obsession he'd developed in our last life with cooking in space. He'd never cared for cooking in life, but when faced with a decade of eating food he hated, he had apparently evolved.

Enlightenment felt possible–inevitable–before we started living through these lives. Surely, given enough time and experiences, we would ascend to a new realm of humanity. Our wisdom and grace and empathy would know no bounds. We would become gods.

I no longer could fathom considering myself enlightened no matter how many lives I'd lived. That was the first sign that something had gone wrong. That anyone in the council or collective would believe they were truly enlightened. Yes, I grew more than I imagined possible, but because of that growth, I understood the beautiful fragility of life and the true depth of perfection.

We were still human. We always would be. There were no gods among us. Only people.

In fact, one of the reasons we had to rest between living lives was because it could be so overwhelmingly traumatic to remember the pain of multiple lives. I could see how it could twist and deform a soul rather than enlighten it.

Nash and I joined Ash and Jax for dinner, the kind we would have eaten back in our worlds. We reminisced and dreamed. We planned for wars we never knew we'd have to fight. We lived lives that could flourish in any world.

With Nash sitting beside me, I gazed up at him, remembering the day we had promised our life and what was to come to one another. We couldn't have known what that would mean at the time.

When we left Jax and Ash, we had planned to travel to the council to speak with them about the interventions they currently took in physical worlds with data collected from the experiment run on ours. But I couldn't stop thinking of the family we'd built and how I couldn't live one more second without returning.

"Let's go home first." I tugged Nash down to me and kissed him softly. "Work can always wait, no matter how important."

I held the man who had loved me in every life I'd ever lived and imagined the worlds and lives still unknown to us that would one day be ours.