Where my power had once been a drip I could scarcely control, it had evolved into a waterfall that I could shut off at will. The only problem with a waterfall was how difficult it was to control once it plunged into a river. When even a ripple could hurt the people around me, I feared the power of riptides and raging eddies could destroy my world.

After gaining control of my teleportation powers, I focused on my manipulation of time. I still needed to figure out how to break into the after-life and keep my memories, but to do any of that, I needed to learn to travel to the moment of I would die beneath the eclipse. That moment held valuable data. While Piercey focused on academic pursuits and supporting me, I plunged into the experience of trying to travel not through the space around me but through time. There had been progress, but not enough.

I steadied my breathing as I focused on times throughout my life that I felt connected to. I'd learned I couldn't travel to any point I wanted, at least not yet. But there were so many moments in my life that felt timeless, like they had dug so deeply into the fabric of existence that even time couldn't force me to let go, that I had never left. I had stayed in the eclipse for my entire life. Had never left my father on those long days of training. Not for a moment had let go of Nash's hand as he fell down the cliff in the landslide.

All this time that I'd nearly killed myself trying to hold back the waterfall of my power, I'd forced it to explode out of hairline fissures. I'd been wrong. Wrong for a very long time. I had to embrace my power and tame it and make it truly mine.

So as I sat in the grass beneath the towering tree where Piercey and I had long ago sat and talked, I thought of the points in my life I would like to travel to. Because why practice with the bad when I could drift off to the good?

That was the greatest power I had learned. To live in my joy rather than to be trapped in my suffering. My mind was mine, as was my power.

Not that I never struggled with anxiety. But I would enjoy every moment of freedom, because it would be a shame to reject happiness out of fear that one day I might lose it.

"When will you travel to today?" Piercey asked.

“Probably the day when we were kids and I finally beat you at that puzzle game we liked.”

A smile tugged my lips as I thought of memories I wanted to relive. I didn't slip as much as I drifted into the warmth of days I wanted to never end.

It would be harder to travel to the day I’d spent my life avoiding.

----------------------------------------

"You're sure about this?" Piercey knew the answer. I thought what he really wanted to know was whether he could stop me.

I breathed in deeply and smoothed my hands over the plush pillow beneath me. Piercey had surrounded me with pillows and blankets in the dim training room to make me more comfortable.

"It's time," I said.

"No one should have to do this."

I smiled sadly. "People have always done things they shouldn't have to do. I need you to be strong for me. If I try to quit, push me to keep going." He shook his head but I made my voice stern. "That is the least you can do for me. I'm the one who will be dying."

Shame flooded his eyes. He lowered his head.

I didn't soften my voice even though I wanted to. "You will not let me quit, Piercey."

He nodded, though he said nothing.

It had taken me weeks to reach this point, but once I began traveling at will, it all came to me quickly. There was nothing left to wait for. It wouldn't get easier. I just had to do it. Besides, Flare could take back control any time. I had to be ready.

So I clenched my eyes shut and thrust myself toward the death that I had always run from.

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Slipping to my good moments felt like floating atop a peaceful pool of water. This was different. I tore my way through my own resistance in burning fire that felt as if it melted the flesh from my bones and bored its heat into my marrow. Pain dug its claws into me and tried all it could to stop me.

I pushed through until I found myself trapped by thick ropes.

The pain consumed me. My head fell and I opened my eyes to my bound ankles. To strands of blood rushing down my legs. I would die here.

A crowd spilled out over every inch of the courtyard before me. Their screams tore into my mind. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” The voices swirled about me. Growing.

Stepping back, the Prophet raised up his bloodied spear of a staff against the dark sky. Black dripped from its tip.

“Oh gods, bleed this demon dry of the innocent.”

His spear plunged into my gut.

I jerked off the pillow, my eyes bulging, the pain still clinging to my body.

Piercey knelt beside me and grabbed my arms. "You're safe. You're here."

"I…" I lowered my head, hating how I trembled. "Damn it! I didn't mean to come back."

"Give yourself some time."

"No." I growled and shoved Piercey away. Stumbling to my feet, I kicked the pillows and blankets away and cleared an empty space of tile. "Soft won't help me. I have to do this."

"That doesn't make sense. Sit for a minute. Cool off and try again."

I narrowed my eyes and blocked off Piercey's voice as I plunged headlong through the agony of traveling to that day. I didn't care about how my soul reached for my body beside Piercey. I didn't care about what it would do to me. I didn't care that I'd slipped away while standing and would probably smack my head on the tile.

Rage was the only thing that would fuel me through these slips.

Rage against the Prophet who'd killed me so many times.

Against Henderson for engineering my death.

Against me for failing to face the inevitable.

Every time I tore my way to my death, my spirit threw me back to Piercey, until I was shaking on the ground, my nose and mouth bloodied. I didn't even know what from. My head pounded. My body was on fire. Piercey tried to stop me, tried to hold back my power with his own, but this was war. And war was one thing I knew.

It would hurt. That didn't matter.

In broken and shattered bits of memory of what would one day come, I witnessed my death, and plunged myself into it once more. And then again. Again. Again. Again, until I awoke to my nails bloodied from clawing into the grooves of the tile. Again, until Piercey was screaming my name.

Again.

The Prophet's spear tore away bits of my life.

The crowd's chanting beat like a drum that throbbed in my temples.

Blood rushed from me in a river of sheer agony.

Like a star collapsing in on itself and exploding without control, death opened me up to the world, unleashing everything they’d put inside me.

Again.

Blood snaked down my legs.

Again.

"Kill the demon! Kill her!"

The Prophet's inky eyes drilled into my own.

Again.

Death opened me up to the world. Death, death, death. A single moment I couldn't quite grasp. A fleeting moment. A moment I needed to catch.

Again.

Flare tilted her head, the smoldering of her eyes bright against the all-white room. "You knew this would happen. Why did you never stop? The Prophet is waiting. The eclipse is waiting." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The after-life is not. I can't release you. You may not believe me, but I am sorry. I've never been more sorry for anything."

Again.

So many times I lost count. Might have lost my mind. No, definitely did, at least for a little while. My consciousness waned on the tiled floor as Piercey's healing power flowed through me. It couldn't stop the pain of the future that still clung to me.

Then I felt the strong hand kneading the tight muscles in my arm. My eyes fluttered open to Nash holding me in his arms. Had I slipped away to another time?

"You see me, don't you?" Nash’s jaw muscles bunched. "You have to stop. You're killing yourself."

"That's… the point… I have to die until I learn how to escape."

"You're going to die right now if you keep going."

"I won't. I can't." I smiled and slid my hand along his face, leaving specks of blood from the tips of my fingers. "I'll survive."

I dove back into death.

Eventually, I caught the moment I took my last breath, thought my last thought, felt the last shiver of life creep from my body. I lived in that moment for what felt like eternity.

Death bled into life. I'd learned to travel each but could never tame either. At some point, I lost my hold, and I slipped away to what my soul longed for.

“I love you," Nash whispered in a husky voice, mouth on mine before I could respond.

He loved me again and again.

When I finally awoke in a warm bed with the pain a distant memory, and realized I’d given up in the fight to continue traveling, I opened my eyes to Nash sitting beside me and Leif staring out the window.

“You’re awake.” Nash sat forward and brushed my hair back.

“Get Piercey… I need to share these memories. We’ve got to study the moment I died and figure out the code. I can feel it…” My eyes closed. I was so exhausted. “The way out.”

I didn’t want Piercey to suffer like I had and taking these memories from me would hurt him.

We had to do this though. Our powers complemented each other too well.