The sun shone overhead as the moon edged closer to covering it. The eclipse was nearly here and I could hardly breathe. Any moment, I expected to disappear from the field that I rode through with Nash and Elsie and to wind up on the stage where I'd witness my death so many times.

Flare's threats looped in my mind as I rode through the field beside Nash and Elsie. I didn't believe her when she said she wouldn't trap me in the slumber of death in this world forever.

There was more on the line than I'd ever realized.

It distracted me as we continued on our journey. We all planned to return to the Mountain of the Gods and seek refuge in the Sacred School, but for now our group had split apart. Wren and Leif had returned to our people to help deliver them home. Trish and her husband had traveled to the council in the Prophet's village to confront them all for allowing harm to come to Elsie. I hadn't thought it was a very good idea and Trish hadn't wanted to part with her child, but her husband was adamant that they needed to make a strong show together to ensure nothing ever happened to their family again. They were bound to the Prophet, after all.

That left Piercey with us and he'd volunteered to ride ahead of us to scout out the area and make sure it was safe.

Nash, Elsie, and I would have the day alone together. He'd been quiet today, though I could tell he was trying to smile when Elsie could see him. For years, he had served the Prophet to protect his daughter, and then he almost lost her. The rapture of being free of Eskel the Ruthless likely would not settle in until he had recovered from Flare taking Elsie.

It didn't feel right to leave the Prophet and Flare alive while we traveled out of the valley. But everyone had agreed that we needed time to plan and that we couldn't help anyone if we died.

Besides, I had to make sure Elsie stayed safe. I never wanted to see such fear in Nash's eyes again.

Even so, I longed to return to my village with my people now that they were free. It might as well have been in a different world, unless I wanted to take on the Prophet, which I wouldn't do until I'd made sure everyone was safe.

So, I rode alongside Nash and his daughter on our way to the Mountain of the Gods, where I would stay until the others joined us, and Piercey's graduates arrived to guard my village. In the meantime, Val had stayed behind to keep an eye on the Prophet and alert us if he tried to strike.

"I'm bored, Daddy." Elsie gripped the horse's mane as they rode.

Despite the dread twisting my stomach, Elsie drew a smile from me. It felt good to hear that she could be bored after what happened the day before. If not for her, for how Nash's eyes lit when he looked at her today, the tether keeping me in my body might have snapped.

Fortunately, Elsie didn’t remember very much of Flare. She’d come inside from playing to a woman she didn’t recognize sitting with her mother. They’d all had tea and then she'd grown sleepy.

What had frightened Elsie the most was how the adults had acted when she'd woken up. Once we all realized it, we did our best to act normal, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do.

Elsie looked up as we rode and her eyes widened with wonder. “Wow!”

The full moon darkened the sky now, cutting into the edge of the sun. Even though it looked like I really would survive it, I couldn’t shake the dread. I waited for the gods to take back control of the world and for Flare to appear. I waited to blink and open my eyes to the inky black eyes of the Prophet. Waited to slip away from everyone and everything I loved.

Would I even dream in an eternal slumber?

I shivered.

“Let’s take a break up ahead at that clearing,” Nash said.

We pulled to a stop in a meadow marbled with the yellows and lavenders, the purest whites and deepest reds of the wildflowers. I hopped down from the horse and helped Elsie onto the ground.

“Look at all this room for running,” I said.

Elsie squealed and sprinted into grass and flowers that swelled up to her shoulders. Nash grabbed my hand, standing close, so he could hide it behind us.

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“You’re safe,” he said quietly to me.

I gazed up at him as the breeze twisted his curls. “You were right. I’ll always fear the eclipse.”

“Just like you fear yourself.”

Not only did death haunt me, but the threat that Dr. Henderson may never release me from it. Even if I survived the eclipse today, I had no reason to think anything good waited for me in my future. I'd made an enemy of a god. Nash would suffer for that if I let myself love him. So would Elsie. So would all of the people I called my own.

Still, I couldn't let go of him. I'd written it into the stone of fate just as when I observed my death. We'd always been together. If I did not fall during this eclipse, then it was still coming, because had refused to release me before my proper time.

There was no point in hoping to escape fate. If I couldn't die because I was going to die in the future, then I was destined to die beneath the Eclipse, even if I lived through today.

Nash's hold on my hand tightened. He must have felt the sorrow gripping me. Selfishly, I couldn't bring myself to truly want to change a thing. I could still feel his arms around me as we drifted to sleep on the forest floor. The tension threatened to make my spine snap.

Elsie spun through a batch of dandelions, releasing a cloud of fuzzy petals that floated and spun and drifted down all around her.

“I don't know what to do with Flare." I worked my jaw.

“What if we could imprison her?"

"She could probably find a way back to her world, even if it meant dying.”

“We have more power over her when she’s here than we do when she’s with the gods. Whatever we do, she needs to live as Flare in this world for as long as possible.”

“True.” The light had dimmed considerably while we spoke. The moon was halfway over the sun now. My stomach twisted. “We need to let her keep playing her game. Only we have to stay a step ahead of her until we can figure out how to beat her once and for all.”

Nash nodded. "What do you think she plans to do?"

"She'll try to take control back from us while she's living in the world as Flare. But she'll play her politics too. I'm sure she's already planning on how to kill me and how to create the nations she so desperately wants."

Nash watched Elsie as she played. “I want to give her a better life than this.”

“We will." I met his eyes. "I promise. We still will kill Flare and the Prophet when the right time comes."

His gaze drifted down my face. "I won't let Flare kill you today, during another eclipse, or any other time."

He couldn't save me, though I wouldn't say it to him. Instead, I turned my eyes back to Elsie. "I have some ideas that I can't quite form. Things stirring in my mind. I need to talk to Piercey."

"Should we ride ahead after him?"

"No. We have a little bit of time. This world won't be easy for Flare to live in without her god powers." I made myself smile. "Let's forget about everything except for today." I wasn't sure I knew how to do that, and even though it wasn't fair to draw Nash close when I knew I'd die, I wanted it more than I'd ever wanted anything.

He kissed my temple while Elsie's back was turned. My arms craved him. One day with him was never going to be enough. We needed more of what we'd glimpsed.

The birds quieted as the meadow steadily darkened. Elsie sprinted back to us, hugged her dad around his legs, and looked up.

“Don’t look at the eclipse,” I said.

“Is it bad luck?” she asked.

“It will hurt your eyes, even though it doesn’t look bright.”

“Max is smart, Daddy.”

He smiled. “Yes, she is.”

Our conversation quieted as the day gave way to twilight. As the moon swallowed the sun whole and a thin ring of light shined from its edges.

“Look, Daddy!” Elsie reached her little hands up toward the black sun.

I shook off my father’s own voice. Nash squeezed my hand between us, grounding me here.

Sweat beaded on the back of my neck.

“Wow!” Elsie hopped up and down in front of us. “It’s dark out, Daddy! Like the winter!”

“Don't slip,” Nash whispered. "Let yourself feel it, so you can stay in your body."

Villagers dotted the field. I blinked and they vanished. What if I slipped and took Elsie and Nash with me? I stepped back but Nash drew me back to his side, holding tight.

“Stay with us, here and now,” he said.

I looked down at the ground, expecting to see my bound ankles, the strands of blood rushing down my legs. Or the little red books. But I only saw verdant green grass and dandelions and Nash’s hand in mine.

All that I'd tried to bury too deep to unearth rose up to my surface–the people I'd killed, the power I feared, the pieces I'd broken my father into. No longer did I hold back the sorrow or turn from the memories, instead allowing the screams that had begun the day my father died to flow through me, and settle into a moaning deep inside my bones. It hurt less to feel it than to hold it back. I was ready now to stop trying to escape, because ironically, avoiding it only trapped me in the inescapable loop.

I breathed out slowly and settled against Nash's arm. Years of tension unwound from my muscles.

Brightness pierced the edge of the moon and slowly the sun began to emerge.

“Do you feel it?” My father’s voice whispered in my ear.

I did. I felt the power stirring inside of me–power that I’d squashed down and hidden from. Power that I held firmly in my hands now. The power to hold myself in place.

Elsie ran forward and clapped her hands. Nash drew my face to his while she wasn’t looking and kissed me, his lips soft and warm and mine, at least for this moment.

The eclipse had swallowed my heart up with the sun. “I’ll stay,” I said. “With you.”

"I know."

I wanted so badly to kiss him again, but Elsie was skipping back to us. So I settled for grazing his forearm and ran forward to chase his daughter through the meadow until she laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe.

The sun shone down over us, free of the eclipse. The sun shone down over a world that was free and ours, at least for this moment.