Blood poured from the neck of the graduate who Piercey had put out of his misery. How could the Prophet have tortured him so barbarically? What he'd done to Nash had made my stomach churn, especially thinking about how many times the Prophet must have carved his name into his skin for the power to scar despite the healing. But this torment went beyond what I knew was possible.

"You bastard," I said, lunging for the Prophet.

"Max!" Nash clutched me around my waist.

Heat spread over my body in a flash. Nash recoiled, grabbing his hand.

"You didn't have to take it so far." The air around me grew hazy with heat. "You have the Valley. You won! Everyone fears your name. What's the point of toying with people like this?"

Piercey rose on shaky legs. "Don't, Max."

The Prophet wore a cocky grin I was desperate to wipe off his face. "You've seen it too, haven't you?" He eyed me like a hungry lion would a piece of meat. "You've seen your blood pooling in the cracks of my stage."

It hit me like a punch to the gut.

"Time is given to the Prophets alone. And yet a foolish girl managed to sneak her fingers into the cracks of time and pry it apart." The Prophet moved forward. "I can still taste your sweet blood." A thin tongue snaked out of his mouth and licked his lips. "Tomorrow your soul will return to the gods."

Fear choked out my voice. I'd looked into his eyes so many times–the eyes of death. I couldn't ask what he meant about time. How he knew I would die. I could only see the life I'd never lead flash before me. A life I'd always knew I'd lose and yet couldn't stop myself from hoping for, especially now that I'd found Nash.

Piercey lifted his hand to the Prophet. "You will not go near her."

"You have always been such a bright and optimistic boy." The Prophet clasped his hands behind his back. "Perfect qualities for a director. It keeps you blind and easy to control."

"Step back," Piercey said.

"You think your Sacred School makes Prophets?" He snorted. "You churn out loyal subjects. Demons who can control their powers. Who no longer cause chaos. The gods make Prophets."

My nostrils flared. "The gods train you once you leave the school. We should have known."

"Letting someone learn enough to think they have it all figured out is the best way to keep them in the dark." The Prophet glared at each of us. "The gods have no mercy left for you. I know what you did, thief. I won't allow you to steal this world for yourself."

Heat pounded in my temples. "Then you should rejoice in freedom, you coward, not pine for your precious gods to keep you in power."

"You all die here today. All of you except for her." His long finger pointed at me. "Tomorrow, Eclipse, you will finally surrender your power and the people will drink of your blood and consume your power."

Piercey belted a roar and pumped his hands out to the Prophet. Blasts of air ripped his cloak back, but the Prophet didn't budge.

He snorted. "If you're so eager to die…"

Beside me, Nash gasped in a strangled breath. Piercey grabbed his throat, eyes round. Tears flooded Val's eyes.

He was choking them and even Piercey couldn't stop it. I tried to pry back his control, but it was like trying to move a mountain. The Prophet didn't even break a sweat. He looked into my eyes, smiling.

Beside me Nash fell to his knees, muscles straining as he gripped his neck. Terror shredded my focus.

I ripped my blade from my side and ran for the Prophet, roaring. With my arm wrenched back, I thrust it for his gut.

His power wound around my body and froze me in place. I struggled to break free, reaching within me for more power. It was as if it had been sealed again, only I realized that the Prophet was just that much stronger than me.

No.

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I threw everything I had into breaking free of him but only managed to twitch my muscles.

Nash and Piercey had gone too long without air. They couldn't do this much longer.

All the power within me pushed against his in an eruption. My blade slid forward and then it turned slowly until it slid against my own throat.

How could I lose now?

Piercey curled up on his side. Nash's head fell back. Val's body spasmed.

I screamed as beads of blood popped against the blade on my throat and I strained to break free of his power.

Two forms ran through the field for us. Pain flooded my heart. Leif and Wren had broken away from the war party and were closing in on where we stood. "Stay back!" I didn't need them to die too.

Wren wrapped her arms around Leif and pulled him back. He skidded to a stop, desperate eyes on me. I shook my head. That was already too close. They stayed there, though I could see Leif struggled to hold himself in place. Anguish flooded Wren's face.

Behind them, the Prophet's warriors remained bowed down, and my people stood sideways with their swords ready, so they could keep their eyes on the warriors and the Prophet.

What a nightmare.

The Prophet didn't even glance at Leif and Wren. He probably planned to save them for later.

"The gods have given me visions of your destruction, Eclipse." Darkness crept over his face in a shadow as his head lowered. "You must be broken before your evil consumes us all."

Nash collapsed onto his stomach, fingers twitching against the grass. Tears poured down my face. Elsie needed him. I needed him.

"I don't care about what you're saying!" I cried out as I tried to strip away his control of my friends. "Let them go!"

The Prophet walked past Piercey's writhing body. Past Nash as his eyes fluttered. He stopped right where he could loom over me. "You truly are Eclipse. You won't stop until you consume our sun. Our gods."

"I will kill you," I said, voice straining.

His silence tore into me. Beneath the wrath in the Prophet's eye, I noticed a flicker of something. Could it be fear? Despite how he'd turned my own blade on me, he was the one who was afraid?

It occurred to me then that though the Prophet had seen my death, though he'd spoken with such confidence when he said he'd always had me, that he was afraid of me. Why? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't waste energy on any questions, not when I was searching for more power within myself.

"Do it." The Prophet roared. "Kill her. I can wait no longer."

Nash's fingers twitched as he reached for me. "N-no…" His tight voice was hardly audible.

The lead disciple ripped a dagger from her side. I stared into Nash's eyes, wishing we were connected with a neural link, so I could tell him how sorry I was. I tried with all I could to break free of the Prophet, but it was like he had wrapped chains around my body.

As the disciple reared back, I could not even stop the knife from flying for me.

In a flash, she threw it straight for my neck. My senses sharpened, tuning in on it slicing through the air in the moment it took to reach me. The last sound I'd hear before I died.

The tip nicked my skin and then the blade snapped in half. It shot to the ground in two pieces.

I gasped so hard it felt as if it ripped my chest in two. Had I done that? Had I broken the blade? I hadn't felt my power increase or break free to the blade, though.

Suspicion filled the Prophet's eyes. Could it have been Piercey? No. He was barely conscious. What was this?

Something or someone had intervened to save me from death but I had not felt power from anyone.

Another disciple pulled the bow from his back and shot an arrow at my chest. It snapped in half just like the dagger and dropped to my feet.

I looked down at the broken dagger and arrow.

Shock filled the Prophet's eyes. He grabbed a blade himself and shoved upward toward my gut.

The steel shattered and rained down over my feet as he clutched an empty hilt.

My heart stormed. Why couldn't I die?

I couldn't…

I couldn't die because I'd seen my death etched into the stone of fate. The universe itself bent to right the course of time. My entire life I'd feared and hated my visions of the future but this was the greatest power I'd ever had. All this time and I never knew it.

I couldn't die.

Not until it was my time. The knowledge I'd gained from Piercey flooded my mind and I knew the experiments we'd studied had been right. Once an event had been observed by a conscious being, it couldn't be altered, even if it meant disrupting the laws of physics to change it. The universe would correct its own paradoxes.

Another arrow shot and burst into countless pieces before my face. The disciple notched another and his bow string snapped.

Fear darkened the Prophet's face as he lowered his head. "If you won't die, then your friends will!"

All this time I'd held myself back in fear. I didn't even know I had this power. Now my friends were dying on the ground. Piercey and Val had gone limp. Nash's fingers dug into the grass, clinging to life.

What was the use in living without them?

I couldn't fail them.

The field darkened and in the distance, shadows dappled the Valley like the villagers had the day of the eclipse.

"Stop," I whispered, unable to draw breath as the Prophet strangled it from Nash and Piercey's lungs. Little Elsie had cried in her father's arms when we'd left her house. She couldn't grow up without him.

My father spoke in my ear. Loud and audible. "Do you feel it, Max?"

Nash's fingers went still.

I saw his eyes on mine in the twilight the night before when the heat of his body alone kept me warm.

I gave myself over to the slip, to the Eclipse, to all that I'd hidden from. I stood in two places at once, in two bodies at once.

Her hands came along mine, the little hands of the girl I'd once been, on fire with power I had never felt before and hadn't felt since.

Daggers of heat cut through my skin, my bones, my soul. Cut me open so everything I'd buried inside poured out.

Black snapped over the sun and a ring of light pierced the moon's edges.

"Do you feel it, Max!" Dad's voice boomed in my ear.

Heat rippled down my spine. I felt it.

My voice came out guttural and low. "The gods aren't here to protect you any longer, Prophet."