Trish saw us off while Elsie slept. Sadness wound its way around the short conversation. We left quickly. Quietly. The way I ached to see Rune again made me feel Nash's separation from his daughter too acutely to ignore.

I wanted to squeeze his hand like I would Leif’s in such a situation, but I didn’t. We were warriors, not friends, or comrades, or anything more. We had roles to play. And we played them well as we traveled through the night and stopped only to sleep a few hours once we couldn’t continue.

"Are you bound to the Prophet?" I'd finally worked up the courage to ask. He could lie, but I wanted to see the look in his eyes.

"I'm bound to no one and nothing." He kept his eyes trained ahead. "Only to my child."

"The Prophet allows you to be unbound?"

"I suffered for my stubbornness. Eventually, he gave up."

"What did he do to you?"

Nash stiffened but his voice remained level. "He used his power to carve his name into my body. Then he healed me." He hesitated and glanced at me. "Again and again."

"Bastard." I gripped my fists. Then my breath caught. "The script along your spine. It's scarring." Images of Eskel's bloodied name carved into his back flooded my mind.

Nash nodded. "If he would have threatened Elsie, I would have relented. But Trish had just been bound and he didn't need conflict with either family. The Prophet will only ever hurt Elsie if it's a last resort."

"I can't believe he would do it at all considering that she is Trish's child."

"He won't let me go. He can't. It's not just because I'm an important asset. He would look weak."

I wanted to say something, but what words, especially from a near stranger who'd pulled a sword on him, could ease such a burden?

His voice dropped low. "One day, I'll watch him die, whether by my hand or another."

Nash had many reasons to hate the Prophet. Surely, I could trust he was an ally. “We'll kill the Prophet. I swear it. Just keep yourself alive for your daughter. You have to come home to her.”

He said nothing, eyes fixed again, the pain back on his face.

Silence settled. As we journeyed, my heart ached more with every step, ached for Rune left in the Prophet's clutches, for abandoning Leif while he was injured, for whatever danger awaited them at the outpost, for the little girl crying for her daddy back home.

I could only think of how I wanted to set them free entirely, not just from the Prophet, but from the unfairness built into our world, from the gods.

For the first time in almost a decade, I let myself wonder if Piercey had made good on a very old promise, and if there could be hope after all.

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My head ached as I walked through the woods with Nash. During the short rest we'd taken, I'd slipped again. This time to my future death that had always haunted me. I didn't think Nash noticed this time. I'd had my eyes closed as I rested against a tree. But it was enough for time to tear at my body and mind and cause both to ache.

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It'd been three days since I'd taken my medicine, long enough for the mild dizziness to start, and for my thoughts to become harder to control. I needed to see Leif and Wren to know they were okay. The fears bombarded my mind constantly, humming inside me, humming so deeply my gut buzzed with it. I could face swarms of enemies without an inkling of fear for myself, but one night away from my people and I wanted to curl up into a ball. Every possible way they could die entered my mind, and all felt as likely as the sun setting this evening, no matter how I tried to reason with myself.

Even if they weren't in danger, which they were, I would have still felt uncomfortable with worry. Our circumstances, not having my medicine, knowing it would be days before seeing them, all of it filled my body with the heavy weight of dread.

To make matters worse, every time Nash looked at me, tingles bubbled beneath the unsteadiness of constant worry churning in my gut. Feeling both at once wasn't so different from the tension of being real in an unreal world. The two did not sit well together. The suspicion about him and fear I couldn't trust him warred with the draw to believe his story and not fight the pull I felt.

I whacked a patch of thickets with a branch I'd been carrying hard enough to make my hand buzz.

Nash shifted to look at me. I glanced away, knowing that even if I hid my face, I couldn't hide how tense my body was or how my free hand clenched in a fist. I couldn't unwind my body.

"You okay?"

My eyes burned. Throat ached. "I'm fine."

"Of course, you are."

"I am." My ankle caught in a tangle of thorns and I ripped free.

The kindness in Nash's eyes melted me. I didn't like another person I hardly knew having that kind of power over me, especially when I didn't feel like I deserved it from him.

I knocked another branch out of my path when the sensation of power pricked my skin in gooseflesh.

I wheeled around to an unsuspecting Nash. Of course, he couldn't feel her like I did. The look on my face must have set him on edge, because he drew his blades without even looking behind him.

"Flare." I narrowed my eyes at her over Nash's shoulder. She'd appeared out of nowhere. Just like she'd vanished the other night.

"I thought you were going to the Mountain of the Gods." Flare sauntered toward me. "You took a wrong turn a few hours ago."

"You know I can't abandon my people. I have to save them first."

"You're so easy to get riled up. Of course, I know. That's why I'm here. I thought you should have a heads up. Wouldn't want you to get startled and accidentally hurt anyone."

"What are you talking about?"

She smiled and vanished again. Then the feeling of her exploded beside me right before her breath hit my cheek and her body warmed my side. "You owe me." The whisper seemed to linger longer than she did.

Flare had disappeared again.

It was dizzying trying to keep up with her. I looked to Nash to ask if he understood any of that but his eyes were on the path we'd already walked. I heard it then. Faint footsteps.

He eased forward with his swords ready for a fight. On instinct, I listened, as I had so many times before, attuning my senses with my power, and heard the pitter-patter of two heartbeats I knew better than my own. My feet were running before the thoughts could fully form in my mind, and much before the names could escape my lips.

"Leif!" I sprinted as fast I could. "Wren!"