That night Nash used the excuse of foraging to leave camp, and twenty minutes later, I left for the river, hoping it wasn't too obvious to Piercey.

I didn't know exactly what Nash meant when he asked for a night with me, but I was certain I needed to bathe. That much was no mystery.

The river washed away days of dirt and sweat. Cold water prickled my arms and flowed over me in a soft current. I changed into fresh clothes we'd brought from the Sacred School. It wasn't what I would choose for a night with Nash, but it beat the nasty clothes I'd left in a pile on the rocks by the river.

A few minutes after I'd finished, I heard footsteps and I straightened my wet hair over my shoulders. I'd told him to find me at the river. Good thing I'd gotten ready in time.

Nash had washed up too. He looked handsome in the dim light of the setting sun with his curls full.

"Hi," I said.

He stepped closer. "Hi."

We'd been through so much together but suddenly it felt like my first time meeting him. I'd taken down all the barriers I'd always held between us. There was nothing left to protect my heart from him, nor his from mine. What would I do now? Kiss him? Talk to him? Throw off the clothes I’d just changed into? I had no idea what I'd actually agreed to.

Nash erased the worry from my mind when he reached a hand out for me and nodded at the river bank. "Walk with me?"

I swallowed down everything I felt and took his hand. His arm came around my shoulders as we sauntered along the water's edge. The sun nestled into a bed of pink, cut short by the Mountain of the Gods in the distance.

"After the eclipse, I want a proper day with you." Nash looked down at me.

"What does a proper day look like?"

He chuckled. "Whatever we want. We can even fight if you'd like. I've never taken a woman training before but I wouldn't mind an afternoon sparring with you."

I looked down as I smiled.

"Maybe we could go on the river. Or find a village that's having a festival."

Warmth filled my stomach. "I would love that. Any of it."

"Tell me things, not about the gods or power. Things about you."

"It feels like that's all there is to tell about me."

"There's much more."

His nearness and attention had me so flustered I couldn't think of anything clever or endearing to say. I told him about the normal days in my village that I wanted back, how Leif had seen the potential in me and trained me, that I'd spent years never sleeping alone and I couldn't wait to make it back home. And he told me about long summer days with Elsie, how she never stopped running when she was a toddler unless she slammed into something and fell over, and that he'd hated every moment he served the Prophet.

"I want to live away from the villages and fighting and politics." Nash laced his fingers with mine as we walked. "It needs to be at least half a day's ride away from any town."

"Half a day? That's pretty far out there."

"I would only have to see the people who I really want to see and who want to see me badly enough to make the trip. That would be just fine with me."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I haven't thought about where I'd like to end up, but I do like being with my people." I wouldn't mention the eclipse. Not when we were having such a nice walk. "What you said doesn't sound too bad though. I can see wanting that once you get used to it."

He nudged me as we walked, smirking. "Would you visit me, Sharpshooter?"

"Don't know." I tried not to smile, to give myself away, but it was impossible with my hand in his. "Depends on how tonight goes."

Nash tisked. "Such a bad liar."

I bit my lip, turning my face away. "What about me? Would you visit me?"

"Maybe I wouldn't have to. Maybe you wouldn't be that far away."

My heart fluttered.

"I'm not supposed to say that, am I?" But he didn't look embarrassed or guilty, and certainly not as if he regretted it. His voice was comfortable, words unrushed. "I'm supposed to pretend I need more time before knowing what I want."

His confidence and openness took my breath away. Doubt tried to choke out what he'd said, what he'd meant, but at the first flutters of insecurity, Nash was already dipping my way, his lips already against mine.

All this time, I'd been so afraid that he knew the power he had over me, because that power made me feel like I was at a disadvantage. Most of all, because Nash was too good for me. Too good for Eclipse, the girl called demon, who'd slaughtered an entire village.

Tonight, though, my heart finally felt it. Nash didn't see what I feared he would when he looked at me. He saw something I couldn't. He saw who I'd be if I hadn't spent my life hiding from Eclipse. Maybe that was who I really was.

"Why… Why are you so good to me?" I asked.

"It's obvious, Max." Another tender kiss. "Why can't you see it?"

I wanted to say something but there was nothing I could say. We both knew why. It wasn't a question that demanded an answer but a change in the way I'd lived my life.

So instead, I squeezed his hand tightly as I stepped forward with him. "I think I want somewhere quiet too. Somewhere I don't have to hide, because there's no one to find me."

Nash smiled, eyes lingering on mine.

We talked well into the night after we circled back to the river bank and skipped rocks against its dark, glistening water. Nash was talking about his swords and I was trying to listen. Really was interested. Only his shirt hugged his shoulders with every rock he threw and every word he spoke drew my gaze to his lips.

His voice slowed as he looked at me. He laughed softly. "Are you listening?"

"I'm a little distracted." I couldn't lie to him. Didn't need to anymore.

I took a step closer and his look changed, the seriousness in his eyes again even though he wore that sly grin. "Something on your mind?"

"There is."

"But I have much more to tell you about my sword sharpening technique."

The soft light of the midnight sun hugged his jawline. I slowly smoothed my hands up to his neck and then his face. "Tell me. I can do two things at once." I kissed right beneath his jaw.

His hands found my sides. "Actually, I've never cared so little about my swords as I do now."

I pulled his face down to mine and I kissed him the way I’d been dying to. Not the struggling kiss after his treatment, or the weary one after hiking up the mountain. I rose up as tall as I could on my toes, plastered myself against him, and kissed him deeply with absolutely nothing holding me back, not even my own fear.

Nash pressed against me so I started to fall back, but he had me. Held me with my toes scraping the ground.

We stumbled back away from the bank to the soft of the grass and the weeds and the wilted leaves that carpeted the earth. We sank down to our knees, our sides, down into a world of our own.

I remembered the night Nash had given that grin of his and told me he felt like he'd met me in a dream I couldn't remember. All of this felt like that. I lived not only in this moment but in those long past and forgotten. We'd done this before, many times, and I could only hope we would do it again.

Still, I struggled to accept it. It didn't feel possible that I could have him, that something so good, someone so good, would see this much of me, the demon in me, and still want me. Maybe want me even more.

I could no longer hold myself back from him. He'd rendered me helpless. For the first time, I didn't mind that feeling.

Shadows hid our clothes strewn about the forest floor, but our skin soaked up the midnight sun, breaking up the dark, gleaming with the dim of twilight. It became a path for fingers and lips, for wandering and exploring. For knowing each other in a way time wouldn't allow and words couldn't share.

I'd learned the sound of his heart beat in battle, but that night it was with my ear against his chest, hearing it without my power, that I hoped I would remember it. If I fell to the eclipse and woke in a world I didn't know and lost my hold on Nash, maybe the steadiness of his heart would beat in my dreams. Would drum with my own. Would tell me there was a man I'd always found before and had to find again.

We held one another. When the bright rays of morning light broke through the trees and woke us, we hadn't yet let go.

I hoped, beyond hope that beneath the eclipse we wouldn't let go either. The worst battles were ahead. Dr. Henderson would not go down so easily and neither would the Prophet.