We hiked through the foothills of the mountain after we reached the end of the train's line. Along the way, I told everyone of the dangers that awaited us: hidden pits with sharpened stakes, a lethal army, perilous trails. The mountain guard would kill anyone who came or left without permission. No exceptions. The only reason I'd ever escaped was because in the earliest days of the school the instructors had used their power to carve secret passageways into the mountain. None of them connected from the beginning to the top, but it offered reprieve for anyone who lived at the Sacred School if they needed to take an unsanctioned trip down the mountain.

Gentle slopes stretched into towering hills, the dark of fertile land now pocked with gravel and bright with rusty soil, bald here where the carpet of trees had thinned into dead grass and thorny weeds. The Valley was lush with vegetation, but the southeast side of the Mountain of the Gods looked as if someone had painted it in a brushstroke of red. A unique pocket of iron-rich hills and cliffs starved this swath of land. Soon, the inclines would steepen into small mountains that rolled like waves into the giant peaks, and there the cover of evergreen pines would shield us from the sun once more.

We were close. Close enough for the land to cool in the mountain's shadow. As we hiked, the hours crawled by, and the mountain slowly grew above us, until its white peaks took up most of the sky.

"I want to know more about the mountain and the Sacred School." Nash spoke quietly to me.

"I've told you what I can."

"You hold the knowledge and power in your hands and feed me crumbs as you see fit.” He pounded his fist in his hand. “I won’t go from being the Prophet’s lackey to yours.”

Pain pinched my chest. "I never asked you to do that. If you don't trust me, then go home."

"I'm not going anywhere. I just want to know what the hell I'm jumping into."

I wiped the sweat from my brow. "Chaos and torment. That's what, Nash. Mysteries you'll never unravel. Get used to it if you want to finish this journey."

He huffed in frustration and walked on ahead of me. Fine. I steeled myself against his dissatisfaction and trekked forward.

I continued the rest of the way in silence, slowing when I reached the unseen barrier surrounding the mountain. Would the gods intervene? The instructors should not have been able to detect me unless I used my power, which of course, I currently couldn't. But I had no idea what the gods were capable of.

I tensed my muscles as I took my first step over and waited for something devastating, like a fireball to shoot from the sky and incinerate me. Nothing happened, though. Another step and I started to hope that I might survive after all.

Nothing looked different over this barrier, not the cone tops of the trees or the dense shadows, but the air here was charged. Already, the warmth of my dormant power felt even hotter than normal.

From this moment on, we would be hunted if anyone caught even a hint of our presence. "We're here," I said. "Stay quiet."

Nash, Leif, and Wren filed into a line behind me, copying my every movement perfectly, just as we'd discussed as we traveled. Harsh rock cliffs and broken patches of grassy land mottled the terrain. I stepped carefully across what looked like a worn path up a slope, but I knew hidden pits lined both sides, with only a thin patch of earth to travel across. I steadied my breath as I put one foot in front of the other.

“Everyone okay?” I asked.

They all nodded.

Once I crossed the path, I held my breath until Nash, Leif, and finally Wren made it to me. There wasn’t time to celebrate. Every moment out in the open risked us being seen, and the guards had radios. If I did manage to use my power, they even had detectors that picked up quantum energy so they could track us.

Why the gods had been willing to give such advanced technology to the guards when they claimed not to act in our world made my blood boil. The guards had a mandate from the gods and I knew their communication and detection devices came from them. Dr. Henderson wouldn't help children trapped at the school, but she would equip people to hunt us down.

I struggled to understand why the guard so fanatically fought to protect the mountain. Piercey had wondered if they were artificial intelligence. But the gods would want to replicate whatever they did here in physical worlds. What had they done to earn such fealty?

There were so many answers left to uncover. I had always wondered if that was the real reason Piercey refused to come with me. So he could unearth all the secrets on this mountain.

We navigated around pit after pit. Finally, we picked up our pace across steepening terrain until we stopped at the base of a towering hillside. Sparse trees grew out from the side, the roots bare where earth had slid away beneath rain and wind.

"We have to get to the top," I said. "Watch the path I take."

Stolen story; please report.

"There must be an easier way." Leif gaped at the towering hill.

"Trust me. This is the easy path. Any other way, and we'll have to fight the guards, which means we'd have to keep fighting our way up the rest of the mountain." I gripped a tree root sticking out from the mud and hefted myself up. "Go slow."

We picked our way up the dirt incline on our hands and knees. I tested the ground ahead of us, careful to veer away from any patches of ground that didn't look stable. Leif climbed up right beside me with Wren and Nash not far behind.

Rocks broke loose from Leif's grip and tumbled down the hill. He pressed his head against the dirt, breathing out slowly. "We're all going to die."

"We're not going to die." I dug my toes into the earth and climbed up another foot.

The ground vibrated against my hands, the mountain angry with my arrogance.

Beneath Nash's hands and knees, a massive shelf of earth broke free of the hillside. In an instant, he was airborne.

Fear choked out my breath.

I launched myself down the hill with all my strength and drew my blade as I fell. I reached for the heat inside of me desperately, focusing on the power I felt from this mountain, and struggled to grasp what had been locked away. Traces of it burned inside of me and helped to drive myself faster than Nash tumbled, until he was within reach. But I needed more and I needed it now.

I slammed my sword through the falling debris for the cliffside. Nash caught the hilt of the sword with me, so I released my hold on it to grab him around his neck. Fought against the earth to lock my legs around him.

Nash grunted as he held onto the sword with both hands now, our bodies slowing just slightly more than the landslide. Still reaching for my power, I clawed at scraps of it to help us stop. I managed only to pull out a trickle of it, but it was enough to clear out the mud around us so the sword broke free to stable earth. It nearly ripped the weapon from his hands and me from his back. I wasn't sure whether we held on ourselves or whether that was more power that had saved us.

We hung from the sword as the ground fell away beneath us.

"You're…" Nash panted. "...insane…"

Looking up, I found Wren with her arm latched around a small tree while Leif pulled her over the edge of the newly formed cliff.

Dread filled me. The guards would have heard that landslide and I may have managed to use enough power for them to detect.

I released Nash and rolled as I slid along loose dirt. Nash dropped next and tossed the sword to the side. The mud nearly swallowed it whole.

"You could have died." Nash stumbled toward me, covered in mud. Chunks of it hung from his hair, the weight flattening his curls. "What were you thinking?"

"We're alive. It doesn't matter." I looked up at the exposed cliff. There was no way we were getting back up. "We'll have to take the difficult route." I sighed and backed up to see Leif and Wren. "The passageway is behind you. Travel up the stairs. We'll meet you at the top by the morning. Do you see it?"

I focused on the rock wall, imagined it, and tried to carefully pry open the narrow slit that would allow them through. Damn it, though. It wasn't working. Opening the passageway took so little energy. I had to find a way to access these passageways or we were dead, considering that we'd accidentally announced ourselves to the guards.

Breathing in deeply, I allowed my father's voice from childhood to fill me. Though I tried not to think about him, he always made me angry, and anger more than any other emotion helped me to unleash myself.

"Feel the flame inside you. Let it grow."

Energy flowed out from me, not as something I could see, but feel. Enough, I hoped.

Leif looked back down with wide eyes.

Yeah, he saw.

"Be careful!" he shouted.

"We have to go." I nodded toward the woods. "Guards could be here any minute."

Nash followed me as I sprinted for the wooded hill to our right. This led to an impassable rock wall with only a thin tunnel that was always crawling with guards.

"We'll have to fight." I drew my bow. "There's no way around it."

A tree splintered ahead of us. We both shot to the ground. I rolled off my shoulder and landed on my knee behind a tree trunk. Nash pressed against one ahead of me.

I spun out from my shelter. Immediately released my arrow into the chest of our attacker.

"Flank them," I said. "Dead ahead there's a tunnel through the cliff. Meet me there."

Nash nodded, swords drawn now. "Be safe, Sharpshooter."

I clenched my jaw, thinking of Elsie in his arms. "You too."

We broke away and sprinted in opposite directions.