I focused on Nash to protect him but two demons pivoted away from the Prophet to me. They blasted me with their unseen power and I faltered.

The Prophet’s strength crushed my throat and the muscles in my body, immobilizing me.

Beside me, the tip of a sword sliced through the edge of Nash's bicep and slung his blood across my face. He was frozen in place, chest not even moving with breath. The guard raised her sword to strike him again.

No! I caught hold of the attack against us that had immobilized us. Broke free. Shoved my palm at the fool who'd dared to hurt Nash and threw her back with a force so hard her skull cracked the stone floor.

Her vacant eyes stared up while a pool of blood spread out from her head.

A strangled cough spasmed Nash's body. I’d overextended myself, giving the Prophet a chance to choke us once more.

Despite not being able to breathe, Nash blocked a hit on each side of his body. A third man stabbed for his back. A shot of heat burned from my chest, up my shoulders, and down my arm as I focused on the sword. It snapped in half before reaching Nash’s spine.

With a cry, I regained control of the Prophet’s power again and loosened the pressure on Nash's throat.

The effort left me helpless to stop two demons who rushed for me with swords extended. I screamed through gritted teeth. Blood dripped from my nose. I stopped one blade right against my throat. The other in front of my right eye.

I was doing too many things at once.

So was Nash. Blood pumped from his wound as he thrust his sword with his injured arm and pierced a guard’s chest. This couldn’t go on.

I planted my feet on the ground and tried to dig even deeper than the power I'd felt during the eclipses. There was more I hadn’t tapped into. There had to be.

Pressure swelled in my chest.

“Go!” The Prophet roared.

The three disciples sprang from his side. The Prophet’s pressure weakened considerably, but it only gave me a few moments of reprieve before I faced an all new danger. Nash was still fending off the remaining guards while the disciples were all headed for me.

One of the women raised her spear, eyes on me, nostrils flaring. Beside her, a man reached his hands out, armored forearms catching the light of the lanterns. Gloves stretched over his hands, ending in sharpened daggers on each finger that looked like claws. His eyes shifted between me and Nash.

The third disciple knelt down and then the strength on the blades at my throat and eye intensified with her power. She was pushing them with her mind.

It all happened so fast, in just the time it took for the woman with the spear to steady herself.

Nash spun toward the disciples and jabbed his blade for the throat of the woman with the spear just as she released.

"Nash!"

As I snapped the spear in half, I thrust a wave of energy at the clawed demon behind Nash but his daggers shot right through. The thing blades stabbed into Nash's shoulders, right above his collarbone.

Blood popped into the air.

Nash stabbed his right blade behind his back. I drove it with my mind so it swiftly carved through the clawed disciple’s gut.

They both screamed as the claws tightened against Nash and the demon's bowels pulsed against his open wound. Nash grabbed the wrists on each of his shoulders and yanked the daggers out.

The sword nicked my throat, vying for attention that needed to be on Nash alone. I caught the blade before it could slice through me.

“Nash,” I whispered. Scarlet splotches spread across the ten holes torn into Nash’s shirt. Rivulets of blood fell from his fingertips and splashed against the ground as he stumbled toward the last two soldiers. He grunted and growled with every step toward them. It was my fault for letting this happen to him.

I screamed, pleading with myself to find more strength, but the blade at my throat only dug deeper against my skin. I couldn't help Nash. Couldn't even speak his name again. The effort to hold off the Prophet and disciples hollowed out my core.

One guard broke into a run for Nash, but Nash only stopped in his tracks, watching. Watching until I thought for sure the enemy's blade would pierce his heart.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Nash fell back to dodge a strike at the last moment and impaled the man in his exposed side.

"Fuck this." The last man twisted and sprinted for the stone doors.

His neck snapped and his body slammed against the ground.

My heart jolted. I hadn't done that.

The Prophet looked at the disciples remaining. "You’ll be next if you defy me!"

The Prophet wasted his energy on making an example of the guard. I shouldn't waste mine. This strategy wasn't working. I was wearing down too fast, and I'd already gotten Nash hurt. I needed something else, something better.

Instead of using so much energy on defending against the power that tried to crush our bodies and our windpipes, I let up on the effort to protect myself, and instead strengthened my own body. With the power pumping through my muscles, I ripped away the weapons aimed at my eye and throat and turned them on the two closest to me.

I couldn’t draw in any breath. Had to do this quickly.

The woman closest to me drew a shorter sword just in time to block my first attack. Nash and I had trained together when I wasn’t working with Piercey. My sword skills were better than they’d ever been. Twisting, I powered a two-handed slash for the disciple’s shoulder and broke the sword she raised to guard, carving deep through muscle and tendon down to bone.

Two more disciples were running for me, but I had to finish this. With a roar, I pulled the blade free of the resistance of her body and skewered her through the chest. Black blood burst from the wound and soaked her shirt as fell to her knees.

My lungs burned from the lack of air. I raised a shield of Nash and me as I focused on my airway to draw in a deep breath. A blade sparked against my shield while a fiery blast from another disciple ricocheted off.

Nash, under the cover of the shield, rushed toward me, his arms and chest covered in blood from the claws. I didn’t have time to tell him to stay back. He should have known that he was too weak to fight any longer and would be in the way.

Only he reached his hand forward, slipping it through my barrier. I hadn’t even thought about letting him in it. It happened naturally.

He slid behind me. “Your bow and quiver.”

Two more hard attacks slammed into my shield and forced me back a step. Quickly, I pulled them off and passed them to Nash. I drew his twin blades from his sides. It felt surreal to swap weapons, but it was too dangerous for Nash to get close enough to these disciples to fight with his swords.

From within my shield, he notched an arrow, roaring through the obvious pain of using the bow, and fired at one of the disciples. The arrow broke before reaching her, but I knew how hard it would be to fend off attacks once I started to overwhelm them.

Time for another offensive.

I charged forward and abandoned my shield with Nash still inside, as I lunged for a disciple. The blades danced as she blocked, evaded, struggled to keep her guard from breaking.

The Prophet, perhaps no longer content to hide behind his disciples like a coward and only attack my airway, sauntered closer to the battle. He raised up the spear he had used to kill me.

Vengeance flowed through my veins.

A glowing orb mushroomed from the tip of his spear, sparking like electricity. Had he been learning new tricks as well?

I feigned a strike and then teleported directly behind the Prophet. The twin blades pierced his sides but then stopped like they’d run into a concrete wall.

He spun and shot the orb at me, but I’d traveled again. This time, right next to a disciple. The orb of power burst against an empty stone wall, splintering it.

Meanwhile, I looked into the wide eyes of a disciple as I forced a sword between her teeth and out the back of her head.

The Prophet’s attack that threatened to strangle my airway had weakened. I could see the fear in his eyes from here as he raised his spear again.

“You truly are a vile demon!” he shouted.

I gasped in a deep breath, exhausted from the battle, but hungry for the victory.

Arrows suddenly flew from the shield I still used to protect Nash. The remaining disciple warded them off, but it had stolen her attention, and given me time to summon my strength for a hard wave of energy to knock against her. It flattened her on her back.

I tried to teleport again, but my energy was dwindling and I remained in place. If I dropped Nash’s shield, I could, but I didn’t want to risk it.

The Prophet walked closer to me, the fear now looking wild and dangerous. His guards and disciples all lay scattered upon the floor of his temple in pools of their own blood.

The death did not faze me in that moment though I knew that part would come later.

For now, I stared into the black eyes of the man who had stolen my life from me. I’d lived through it over and over.

I tightened my hold on the grip.

“There is nothing more pathetic than a man who kills only for the sake of power. You’re weak.” I raised my chin. “That’s why you’ll die today.”

“You’re losing energy.” His stare cut to Nash and darkened with rage. “And you, traitor, serve only to hold her back. Leave your shield and face me like a man.”

Nash only smirked, obviously not so easily ruffled. But the paleness of his face worried me. His arms shook as he struggled to draw back the bowstring and fire an arrow right at the Prophet. It shattered mid-air, but Nash did not show any sign of discouragement.

“Kill him, Max.” Nash gasped as he notched another arrow, voice as tense as the bowstring. “His blood is yours.”

The arrow flew and I rushed forward just as fast, propelled by the power within me.

I skidded to a stop, hit by the Prophet’s own power as he raised his hands to me. This time, I focused my power into two points like the tip of a sharp blade and drove them toward the Prophet’s eyes. He screamed as he struggled to fend off my attack.

Nash fired two more arrows rapidly. The prophet broke one in half before it reached him, but the other caught the edge of his shoulder.

The overexertion ripped apart every fiber of muscle in my body, but I powered my way forward one step at a time toward the Prophet, until finally he was within reach of the twin blades. I slashed and he blocked with his spear.

We fought with ruthless hits powered by our energy. But as I blocked a strike from the spear, I noticed that the Prophet managed to tear a hole in the shield protecting Nash.

The memory of the spear breaking through my defense to thud into Nash’s chest gripped my heart with fear. I focused entirely on fortifying the shield to protect him.

Bright pain screamed from my side. The Prophet’s spear stabbed deeply into my abdomen.