The Prophet's horses kicked up a cloud of dust as scouts took off to survey the battlefield. They'd chosen a massive field half a day's ride from the nearest village. From here, the distant mountains loomed over the valley from all sides. The tallest peak looked like clouds swelling on the horizon, frosted white against the blue sky.

Leif and Wren stood on either side of me, ready to catch me if I had another slip. The spell hadn't lasted long the night before and I'd told them I was fine. But they didn't listen. Truth was, I wasn't. The longer I went without my medicine, the worse this would get.

When my anxiety was treated, I felt unbreakable. That assurance was just who I was. Without my medicine, my thoughts slipped from my control. Made me shaky inside, like I wasn't even myself. Piercey had created the treatment back in the Sacred School after he'd studied anxiety. The day I'd escaped, he whispered to me to check the massive hollow of our tree, the one just outside the barrier of the Mountain of the Gods. He whispered it as I begged him to come with me and he promised to always love me.

Every year I found the bags of pills waiting for me. It was how I knew he was still alive. Still on the mountain. Had kept his promise to love me still. I'd never asked for any promises from him, but then I hadn't asked Leif or Wren either. If Piercey had escaped with me, he would be a part of our circle too. He was still, in my heart.

The hurt tingled in my chest.

Leif drew his sword and inspected it. “This is not the blood my sword thirsts for.” He snarled as his eyes tracked the Prophet’s people mingling with us as if we were one and the same.

"Don't think about it," Wren said.

I took a tin of black war paint from the pouch on my side and brushed it beneath Leif's eyes like I did before every battle. When I clasped his shoulder and pressed my forearm to his chest, he grabbed my wrist. Settled his forehead against mine.

“My flesh,” I said.

“My blood.”

I smacked his chest. "This is for Rune and Arn. Remember that."

His eyes misted and tears thickened his voice, but he still roared his words as he always did before battle. “Give them hell, Sharpshooter."

We both shouted as we pushed away, knocking against our group of twenty warriors. They all joined in, our cries ringing out, swallowing the galloping hooves and the warriors preparing for battle. We belonged to one another, the same flesh and blood, because that was what we’d vowed to one another.

I clasped the head of one of our commanders, Beast. “My blood!”

He held my forearm against himself. “My flesh!”

Wheeling around I raised my fist and thrust my arm against a hard chest. “My—”

Nash stared into my eyes, war paint absent from beneath his eyes. My people were the only ones left in the Valley who still donned it from the days before the Prophet had conquered the valley.

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I drew back.

“My blade is yours today.” He cast a look over our small group. “All of yours.” His eyes paused on Chief Kaid's and then turned to mine.

My comrades watched Nash silently. We couldn’t be fooled by his well-wishes. Still, I raised my shield in response. If there was any chance I could get him on my side, I’d take that victory, no matter how sick I felt from the worry that he might have helped capture my people. It was only all the more reason to pull him close.

He grinned, drawing both his blades. The sun glinted from his armored forearms.

We moved into formation and I was thankful to have distance from Nash. Hot sun baked the sweat into my neck as I waited. I glanced behind me to the Mountain of the Gods. Piercey would have been training for nearly a decade without me. And he was so smart. If I could survive the journey and find him, he would help figure out how to unlock this power. I had to make it there.

I'd shared my idea for escape with Leif and Wren. They'd tried to talk me out of it, but we'd worked out a plan to make sure some of the Prophet's warriors saw me fall in battle. Leif would take my bow as evidence, because everyone knew I'd never give it up. And I'd escape while the battle still raged.

It still felt risky. What if the Prophet suspected me and killed someone in retaliation?

I didn't have long to dwell on the worry. The battle began like an eruption from a volcano. The Flatlanders moved first, sprinting at us with weapons raised, bodies bounding forward like the waves of the sea. The first shot of energy jolted through my limbs as I tensed my muscles. My body moved on instinct, no longer stiff with worry, but lithe with the hunger of battle.

I sprang toward the enemy alongside our warriors and the Prophet's alike.

I ducked beneath a swinging sword. Stabbed my spear into the groin of the man attacking. Ripped it free.

I rushed past before he’d even collapsed. Continued to attack with ferocity, forgetting about everything except each slash, each clash, each thrust of my weapon. Blood soaked through my boots. Streaked my arms. Pooled at the nape of my neck.

I needed to act soon. The battle had sufficiently distracted everyone, so I worked my way toward Wren, veering away from my group steadily enough that it didn't look purposeful. It would be easy to claim I'd gotten caught up in the fighting as I took on one enemy after the next.

I was nearly to Wren as she kicked a Flatlander down and stabbed his side. That was when I saw him. Nash slicing his twin blades in opposite directions, severing a head from its neck. He used the momentum to follow through with his swings, slicing through an arm on the left and across a back on the right. Beautiful. He fought with grace, not wasting a single motion.

Nash was deep in the enemy’s swarm with no one to watch his back. His comrades must have fallen as they pushed through. Was he so arrogant as to be this careless with his life? Or too ambitious for his own good?

I side-stepped a Flatlander and ducked beneath a wayward swing from a young enemy warrior, whose round eyes made him look driven more by panic than strategy. I skidded to a stop beside Nash and jabbed at one of his attackers, forcing her attention onto me.

Only then did my mind catch up with my body. Should I have come to Nash's aid when he could end up being a terrible enemy? What if he had worked with the demons to attack us? No second guessing myself. In battle I had to listen to my instincts and they'd driven me to Nash's side. Enemy or not, he seemed useful.

Another Flatlander swooped low with his sword, but Nash stomped the blade into the ground and simultaneously sliced open his neck. I bashed my shield into my opponent's face in a spray of blood and rammed my sword deep into her exposed gut.

“Thank you.” Nash pivoted on his heel and pressed his back against mine. "What's your plan?"

We turned in a slow circle as one, eyeing Flatlanders whose stare locked on us. "Kill the Flatlanders, obviously."

"No." Nash parried an attack, issued a clean strike across a man's throat, and knocked back against me. "To escape."