Endless stairs.

Absolutely endless stairs with narrow stretches of tunnel that echoed our every breath stretched on and on and on. For hours upon hours, we walked and didn't stop for a break even once we'd been reduced to crawling up the stairs, unable to speak.

We'd both sweated so much that the mud had run down from our faces and necks in dark streaks. Every muscle in my body burned.

Three more stairs and I rounded a bend that wrenched a cry from my chest.

"You hear it?"

Nash perked up. "Water."

We clambered up the last few steps and stumbled down the hall to a natural cave in the mountain. Stalagmites reached their spindly fingers for one another from above and below. A still pool of water reflected the blue hue of the cave's ceiling. I stumbled for it, collapsed, and sucked in mouthfuls of water so fast I nearly wretched.

My stomach hurt from drinking too much. "I didn't think we would make it."

"Me either. I'm going in." Nash pulled his tunic over his head and pried off his shoes before reaching for his pants.

"A warning would be nice!" I turned my face away.

"I told you I was going in."

"Not without clothes," I muttered. Washing away the mud and sweat did sound nice. I bit my cheek. "If you look you die. Okay?" I glanced over at Nash to find that he'd ventured chest-deep into the water.

He covered a bare shoulder with his hand. "You're the one who's looking. Keep your eyes to yourself, Sharpshooter."

I rolled my eyes at his smirk. Even after he turned his back to me, I felt nervous. "You really can't look."

"I would never do that." He splashed water over his face. "Not even if you were drowning. I'd look the other way and preserve your dignity so you could perish untainted by my gaze."

"Oh, shut up." I left my clothes in a pile, so exhausted that even that simple task of undressing felt incredible tiring.

The relief of the water immediately soothed me. I relished the feeling of weightlessness on my heavy body. Once I felt like I could move my arms again, I unknotted my hair to scrub away the mud.

"They'll try to ambush us higher up the mountain now that they know we're here." I pulled chunks of mud from my tangles. If Rune saw this, he would tease me and say this mess would break the brush. I missed the little guy.

"I figured," Nash said. "I'm getting out now. You can look if you really want to."

"How do you have the energy to be an ass right now?

"An ass? I'm trying to do a nice thing for you."

I scoffed. "Oh, how generous of you."

"I like to give to those in need. You seem pretty stressed out."

My jaw dropped. I was somewhere between laughing and wheeling around to punch him in the kidney. "You better walk away right now."

"I'll accept a simple thank you, but I wouldn't turn away coin if you're feeling especially grateful."

I dragged my arm across the water to splash him. "You're insufferable."

Refusing to look at him for even a second, I turned away immediately. His laugh both grated at me and made it hard not to smile.

The effort to drench him in water had drained the last of my strength. My body was so weak that I could have cried at the effort of having to dress. Nash reclined against a large rock, facing the passageway. I stumbled to him on numb legs and slid down the rock.

"I feel like death," Nash said.

My heavy eyelids slid shut. "Me too… We'll sleep here tonight and finish the journey to Leif and Wren in the morning."

The cool air of the cave chilled my wet skin. I shivered and drew my knees up.

Nash opened his arm in my direction. I looked at him suspiciously, waiting for him to make some quip.

"I won't tease," he said.

"If you do–"

"I'll die," he finished for me.

I was too exhausted to feel embarrassed or to appreciate his closeness as I slid against him and drew my legs over his. His embrace wrapped me up.

Never mind. I felt something. Warmth tickled my stomach even though our bodies hadn’t yet eased the chill.

“Don’t react.” His mouth brushed the crown of my head as he whispered. “I lied to you about Flare.”

His confession came so suddenly that I almost sat up to look at him, but he held tight.

“She knows things only spoken in private. Act like we’re just resting in case she can see or hear.”

It was so hard not to speak. I closed my eyes to pretend I was drifting off but I had so many questions.

“When I first met her, I thought she was another human spy like me. She was really the first demon to work with the Prophet of the Valley. She recruited the rest.”

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What kind of power did Flare have?

“Flare used the Prophets to divide and conquer the tribes in our region. Not just in the Valley, but the Kyst, the Flatlands, the Fjellfolk. That's why demons helped attack with the Flatlanders in the night. She's orchestrating this. Now she wants to unite our lands under one head. One Skia Hellig."

Already our young world had more than it should. Roads, steel, villages with indoor plumbing. Our power had paved the way for us to have what took other worlds hundreds of thousands of years to gain, except it was still so undeveloped. Flare didn't care about the suffering that the Prophets caused, only the stability they would bring once formal governments rose to take their place. They were a stepping stone to speeding up evolution so that fewer people would suffer for a shorter period of time.

Just like what the gods wanted for our world. They weren't content to watch countless worlds in the universe evolve naturally on their own. They wanted to master evolution. But just like the gods, Flare wasn't mastering evolution here. Only creating a sickly mutant in place of what otherwise would grow on its own. Had the gods given her special gifts because she believed in their vision?

I couldn’t speak, so I dug my fingers into Nash’s side where my hand rested.

His voice lowered even more. “One day, Flare will turn on me. I've tried to keep her trust to figure out what she's doing. But she could hurt Elsie. I need to kill her. I've seen people try, but every time, she vanishes the instant they almost have her. She reappears moments later, unharmed. I don't know how to take her out."

Chills darted down my spine. I'd bent time with my power, but I had always been a passenger in time, not a god of it. The control had always eluded me. Flare seemed to have mastered manipulating space-time. The gods must have given her a power I couldn't imagine. Piercey and I had tried for years to help me control it without any success.

Nash whispered against my hair. "If we don't stop her, more lands will be conquered, and countless will die. Those of us who survive will lose the world as we know it. This is bigger than the Prophet of the Valley."

This couldn't be the world we'd leave behind for children like Elsie and Rune. There had to be more I could do. I certainly couldn’t sit there saying nothing after he had told me all this. So I eased onto my side, tugging Nash to encourage him to stay close.

I nestled against the rock while he stretched out alongside me, his body turned to cover mine, staving off the chill. My breathe caught in my chest when I looked into his eyes. His face hovered so close to mine. Even as I told myself not to think about it, my body wouldn't listen. Every inch of myself was attuned to him, to every part of us that touched and every part that did not. I managed to whisper, not looking away from him even though my cheeks felt hot. "You decided to trust me."

He held my gaze another moment before speaking. "You threw yourself down a cliff to save me. Sometimes it's too dangerous not to trust a person who deserves it. I've been fighting for a long time, Max. I need you."

Did I need him? With my power returning, did I need anyone? My heart told me yes, because throughout my life it had always been the people I cared about who gave me the strength I needed. "I trust you too and that scares me."

Nash's stare briefly slipped down my face. "The gods, fate, our own will–whatever it may be–something has drawn us together. That's what I keep feeling."

I nodded, helpless to fight the same pull, or maybe just unwilling. Leif would rip both our windpipes out if he saw this. But he wasn't here right now. It was only Nash and me with no one between us. I could no longer pretend that my heart had any reservations. I believed that he was on my side and that I could put my trust in him. Resisting Nash felt as futile as fighting a slip. I couldn't change it any more than I could the past when I traveled there.

That or I'd simply surrendered to the kind of power Nash had. Was I being fooled by a spy who knew how to sway a woman with his pretty face and his disarming confidence? Or did we have a real bond that would be a shame to discard? The questions faded to a whisper in my mind until I could no longer hear the lingering worry. It was too late.

“We’ll kill them,” I said. If Flare had put the Prophets in power, then she was my enemy. “We’ll find a way. I will stop at nothing to kill her and the Prophet."

"We will. I'm in this with you."

With me.

"The gods aren't what they seem, Nash. Nothing is as it seems. Climb this mountain with me, fight with me, stand up to them with me. But the rest is off limits. Soon, I'll have to ask you to stay behind. I'm not letting you get pulled into this."

"I'm already in it." The hot breath falling against my lips clouded my mind. I simply watched him as he whispered. "Whatever you're holding back, you won't be able to protect me or your friends from it for long. If you're going to trust us, then trust that we can handle it."

An unexpected wave of pain from all that this power–this curse–had cost me thrashed my heart. Nash could not possibly fathom all that I held back from him. "You don't know what you're saying. There's only suffering in my future. You shouldn't get too close."

His eyes reflect my own pain as concern softened his face. If he knew what I really was, he wouldn't look at me like that. "What is it, Max?" he asked.

I looked away. "Something I'll make sure you never have to worry about."

He pushed my wet hair back from my face. "You can let someone protect you for once."

"You can't protect me, Nash." My voice sounded distracted, though, because his hand hadn't left my head, and being close to him quickly wore down any semblance of a remaining defense against him. I lifted my fingers to graze the definition of his jaw, the day's growth of stubble, and up along the sharp angle of his cheekbones.

A strong hand smoothed over my hip and dug into the dip of my lower back. He drew closer and I closed my eyes as he worked his mouth over mine, his lips soft and full.

His closeness amplified every feeling, so even a faint touch felt more like a shout than whisper, and anything more entirely overwhelming. My palms smoothed down his shoulders and around–

He grunted and caught my hand as I dug into his side. I’d forgotten. I sat up and ripped his shirt up to see where he was hurt. Black and purple bruising mottled his side, stretching in a long swath up along his ribs.

Pain tingled down the back of my arms at the sight of it. “You said just a bruise.”

“It is just a bruise.” He drew me back down.

I pushed against him. "Are you hiding other injuries from me? We need to look out for each other."

"Well, I didn't want to say…" Nash drew his collar down, voice serious. “I have a scratch here.” He twisted his neck and pointed at a thin scrape. "And here." The teasing smile crawled back on his face.

"Like I said, insufferable."

Still holding my hand, he pulled me close, until I could feel his breath against my face. Then he drew my palm beneath his shirt, along his back. "More bruising."

His bare skin warmed my hand. The heat shot straight to my cheeks.

"What about you?" His deep whisper wafted against my ear. His fingers caressed my wrist. "Scratches from the fall." His touch traveled up my arm slowly. "Cold from the water."

I sighed. "My pride because you never stop teasing me."

He turned with me and settled me back down against the rock floor.

I could sink into this. Probably not make it for air. Even though we didn't know each other well and might not know each other for long, it felt like if I let him in even once, it would hurt terribly to tear him back out. Soon, I’d die beneath the eclipse. It would be easier to die alone than to leave behind another person to grieve me. Already, I'd let too many people love me.

Lying here with nothing between us, not even my suspicion, our bodies betrayed our secrets, and all that we might want to hide. His eyes looked wide open to me. I feared what he would see in mine. I didn't let go, but I couldn't let myself draw him any closer either.

I buried my face against his chest and closed my eyes, breathing in my first good breath as he held me. We lay together for a while, not saying anything. Weight pressed me into the earth, not his own or mine, but the weight of total exhaustion. When I tried to say something, maybe to apologize, he hushed me, kissed my cheek, and simply held me as we drifted off.