The strengths and truths I needed were scattered in worlds unknown to me, where pieces of myself grew without me, waiting for me to find them and to put our worlds together.

When I returned home, I'd come as the person I needed to be, just like when I'd returned from the after-life to kill the Flare and the Prophet of the Valley. I had no choice except to grow beyond the limitations that had worn me down for the past year.

In the morning when we woke up, ready to travel, I realized that there was one last thing I needed to do. And I wasn't looking forward to it.

"Nash."

He sheathed a hidden dagger and pulled his pant leg down before turning to face me. "What?"

It hurt me to even say it because I knew how he'd react. "I need to go to Elias's world on my own this time."

Nash's jaw slowly fell slack. "You can't be serious."

"I–"

We didn't fight often and even when we did, I had a hard time calling it fighting. It wasn't at all like my bickering with Leif or the arguments with Piercey back when we'd fundamentally disagreed about how to handle the Valley. It felt more like a tug of war between his heart and mine. "I can't believe you're even trying this. How has anything we've talked about lately made you think that's what you need to do?"

"Our plans have changed. Time will pass in our world while we're away, the demon attacks are increasing, we're investigating the connections, and do I really need to go on? We need everyone focused on the Valley. We have to put our feelings aside and do what's best. You can train here with Piercey and continue our work here in the Valley while I'm gone."

I adored Nash's fighting spirit, his ferocity in battle, his insatiable hunger for improving. No one trained more diligently than he did. I might have first fallen for him as a warrior before I did as a man, dazzled by the flash of his twin swords, and the seemingly choreographed dance of his fighting. Right now, though, I wished he was less of a warrior so he could see that I was right this time. He needed to stay home.

Nash looked ready for the fight, unfortunately. His voice sharpened. "You can't be over there by yourself without anyone to back you up other than Elias, who, sorry to say, obviously has his own motives. Not saying we can't trust him, but it's not our world he puts first. And you're not the you he'll put first either."

I paused at that. Of course, Nash was right. Elias would be more committed to Ashton than I would, just like I'd be more committed to Piercey than Elias. "I know it feels like shit to stay behind, but I need you to do this for me. I can't really trust this valley to anyone but you and Piercey. You are needed here. Elsie needs you here."

"A man does not stay home from a battle."

"He does when his daughter and the woman he loves need him to."

Nash's nostrils flared as he turned away and groaned low under his breath. "Max," he said with more than a hint of frustration as he gruffly pulled his tunic over his head and down his shoulders.

Before his shirt fell completely, I touched my fingers to his back, feeling along the script of Eskel's name. Winning against Nash was no simple matter, not in an argument or a battle. Stubbornness and strength alone didn't give him the endurance to stand up to the Prophet, however. A little girl he loved deeply did.

"I need you at my side," I said quietly, my fingers drifting down the smoothness of his skin, palms working against him now, my touch sliding from the tightness of his back around to his stomach. I reached to wrap my arms around him and rested my face between his shoulder blades. "I always need you there. I just need you here even more. I'm not strong enough yet to leave behind the people we love without you here to take care of them."

I felt the tension unwinding from his body, replaced by a heavy sigh. "The day you died and Flare delivered your lifeless body to us, it broke me knowing that I hadn't been with you. I hadn't fought for you." He gripped my hands against himself. "After you returned to me, I vowed that I would never leave you alone in battle again."

"You aren't, Nash. We're fighting in two worlds at the same time. We're still side by side, standing across worlds. It's not fair to ask you to do what I'm not ready to do. I'm asking you to let me go when I'm struggling to let go of everyone else. You're better at this than me. You don't live with the guilt and fear."

"I'm tired of you trying to save everyone from their pain by taking it on for them. I don't want you fighting alone."

"It's different this time. I swear. We don't have time to fight these battles one at a time."

Nash faced me once more, muscles tight again and jaw bunched. "I'll consider it on one condition. Gael has to bring you back in three days no matter what is happening."

I didn't need to consider long before nodding. "I think that's smart."

"I'm not saying I'll do this. Just if I do, no starting a war over there. You can set up for one, but you are not fighting it by yourself. I absolutely will not forgive you if you do. I can't watch you leave without that commitment."

"I promise." How had I never truly understood Nash's difficulty in having to see me live under constant threat? He carried the stress of it so well, kept it to himself so much, that I hadn't really seen it before. I slid my hands up his chest beneath his shirt, not wanting anything between us. I couldn't get close enough. "You stay safe too."

He bent to press his forehead against mine, looping his arms around me. "I'll find out who is attacking our valley. You figure out how to defeat this guild."

The confidence of what he'd said soothed my heart as much as his closeness did. Damn it, I really didn't want to leave him. It felt like our life hadn't had the chance to start. We had to fight for time alone like this. We were always busy, all the time, and there was always someone's life at stake. Everyone's life at stake. The urgency filling me never abated and I knew that I needed to walk out the door to get to Elias's world. I needed him though. Needed just him without the valley creeping in all around us.

Our eyes met and I knew there was no walking out that door just yet. Nash hoisted me from the ground into his arms and walked to the bed, taking his time looking down my face. I should have said we didn't have time, only when did we? We had to take our life or we'd never have the chance to live it.

He dropped me on the bed so I bounced and giggled as he stripped off the tunic he'd just put on. When he crawled over me, the sound lodged in my throat. The cut of his shoulders, the indentation of that soft skin carved between his thick neck and his collarbone, stilled my breathing. I wasn't sure I'd ever stopped being stunned by him.

His fingers wound through mine and he drew my hands above my head on the bed, holding them tightly. "You don't get to die again."

Hot tears gathered in my eyes. My voice sounded small. "Okay."

His kiss parted my lips, tongue like electricity, and breath hot in my open mouth. "We have a long life to live."

I could only nod, unable to speak. Every speck of my soul yearned for this, for him, for us together. Strong hands roamed down my arms and over my body, our kiss deep enough for us to get lost in one another's souls. I loved that I could give Nash that look when I'd always felt outmatched by him like this, that drunken look of deep satisfaction and want. I'd thought by now we would have discovered one another and lost the surprise, only I'd realized that being together meant uncovering bottomless depths we wanted desperately, but could never, fully explore.

"I accidentally learned something," he whispered against my lips.

A tingle licked my side and then branched into dozens of trails, like the lightest touch of Nash's fingers or lips. I gasped and arched, grabbing his shoulders. "That is not what you're supposed to be training for!"

He laughed low and met my eyes, his grin as sly as when we'd first met, and he'd toyed with me. "Told you it was an accident."

"Liar."

"Fine." The buzz of his mouth on me made me question if he'd used his power again or if it just always felt that incredible. "I'll never do it again."

I would find a way to do what Nash said. I'd come home, alive, ready to fight for the life we deserved to live.

#

We were completely prepared for me to leave. I'd convinced everyone to let me go alone with Elias to his world so that they could continue the work we needed to do here. It was far from ideal, but the complications required flexibility. Elias's guild wanted to break into our world and the gods had destroyed our unique advantage of time relativity.

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Before leaving, I wanted to talk with everyone together to make sure we were on the same page, and check in with Gael and his warriors. We'd gathered a group that included my chief and half a dozen other important leaders in the Valley.

I let Piercey do the talking this time as he explained that I would need to leave for a short time.

"Whoever is staging the demon attacks wants to wear us down," I said after Piercey had finished. "Specifically me. That's why they're spreading them so far out all over the Valley, so only I can respond."

"My people will be able to put a stop to them," Gael said. "Together, we could respond to three dozen demon attacks a day."

"You'll exhaust yourselves. Trust me. If your people patrol one week on and one week off, how many can you stop."

"Half that then."

I breathed in deeply. "You're also training your people and mine."

He shifted and sighed. "I suppose realistically on a long-term basis we could only handle a few a day. That should be plenty though."

"Unless they wage all out war."

"Then we pause training and focus on this. We're allies now. If you fall, our efforts here fail."

I'd made up my mind to trust him and I'd have to do just that. "I thank you for that."

"We have spies who are working to get to the bottom of these attacks." One of the military leaders of a major village spoke up now. "You should not worry about your absence, Eclipse. We will all continue our work while you handle your important matters and our new allies will protect us."

His words brought a smile to my face even though I felt so anxious about leaving because this was exactly what needed to happen. It was short-lived, though, because I had another matter to discuss.

"We do have several captives at the Sacred School currently. They have not given us any information. A few are from a small battle we had at the border and another from the most recent demon attack. I have an associate who can force information from those with power."

The table fell very quiet.

"He can connect, like Piercey and I do, so that we use our powers to share our memories and experiences. Only, he knows how to do this without their willingness. It's not a pleasant experience."

Piercey lowered his gaze to the table and I didn't need a connection to feel his emotions. It was plain to see that he didn't agree at all. I knew he would. He'd once begged me not to kill the Prophet moments after the bastard had strangled them all. I needed his unyielding morality to guide me when my own unyielding commitment to the Valley blinded me.

The surprise came from Leif. "There's no honor in stealing another's soul."

I couldn't disagree. This wasn't something I ever wanted to do and couldn't believe I was even considering. We were at war, though. We were killing one another. "They killed a child." Pain etched in my voice. I hadn't let myself think about it since I'd heard the news because I couldn't fight if I dwelled on it. It would break me. "He was three years old."

Beside me, Nash closed his hands into fists on top of the table, looking ready to charge into battle even though there was none to be found in this room. Everyone reacted to news, at least, everyone from the Valley. No one felt like a stranger anymore when we'd all fought so hard to protect each other.

"I don't think it's right to do," I said. "I'm not willing to let them kill more children, though. They took advantage of the fact that I've released demons on the coast with the tracking system. We didn't catch any suspicious activity, but we're too busy to monitor them. We have graduates looking into the demons we're tracking now to see who they're talking to. But we have little information so far and even less time."

"Some would not hesitate to steal the information," Gael said in measured words. "It encourages me that it's a dilemma for you. This is not something I would need to consider long, personally. You lived under the iron rule of the Prophet for so long that you have a keen sense of injustice and you haven't had to make the kind of decisions you are now. Having power is very different from not having it. I've been in a position of power long enough to tell you that in a war, you must have rules, but those rules will not be fair, or good."

"We need to decide together," I said. "And we need to think carefully, because whatever we do sets a precedent for the future."

"We vote," Piercey said, always ready to take every opportunity to start a culture of voting in a land where such ideas were very foreign.

"I recommend that you do establish formal rules, whatever you decide," Gael said. "Our king is an admirable ruler in this regard. We are happy to advise on the subject."

"Thank you, Gael. Can you all discuss this while I'm gone? If we haven't made progress with our investigation, then we will need to move forward without whatever we decide."

Everyone agreed on the discussions, even Piercey, who was visibly distressed by the possibility of forcing our way into another person's mind. I wasn't even sure that Elias would agree, though I figured I had plenty of leverage to use to convince him to do this.

"We'll need to continue our talks of leadership," my chief said. "It's as important as the demon attacks. We'll be seen as weak until we can unite under one head."

I felt the eyes on me like I did at all these meetings. "For the past year, I've struggled to find the time to sleep because I've been fighting and fighting and fighting. I'm starting to see how our Valley could become strong enough to protect itself. Still, I feel like I already have too many battles to fight to also take on leadership." They all waited patiently, watching me. "I hadn't realized before that proper leadership actually would mean no longer fighting all the battles myself."

The chief looked proud as she nodded. "There's a reason leaders are not fighting in the mud every day, young one."

"That's where I love to be. At least, it's where I did love to be. I have other places now. Other battles." I looked up at Nash. "I don't want to be the leader of the Valley but I don't want to spend the rest of my life so busy fighting that I can never sleep. I don't know what will happen, but we all need to make changes. Myself included."

We talked logistics, with Wren discussing our strategy for the border, and Gael providing an overview of their plans for handling security threats in my absence. When we finished, I grabbed Gael on our way out the door.

"You remember what we talked about?" I asked.

When Gael had first approached me with the offer for a partnership, he'd told me that he'd chosen now to act because he'd sensed the energy from a man who looked like Piercey. I hadn't told him more since that day and I wasn't ready to share very much, but I felt that offering trust mattered in a partnership.

He stepped closer, nodding.

"You might have been right about what you said about the world changing. I really do want to tell you more. I just want to show you that I meant what I said."

"Then it has to do with the one who looks like Piercey."

I didn't respond, but wasn't that response enough?

Gael folded his arms over his chest. "I understand that there's more at stake than what any of us know. I'm choosing to trust you this time. Just prove to me when you return that you are serious about this being a partnership."

"I look forward to having the chance to do that. Please, just take good care of everyone while I'm gone."

"I will. I honor my commitments."

"I do too."

"Then this will work out well for us."

Smiling, I lifted my arm to him and he clasped my forearm. I didn't need to explain that this was the custom of my people when he'd been watching us for a year. "Okay," I said. "Be careful."

"You too."

When we parted ways, I met up with Leif and Wren.

"I know you don't like that I'm going alone. I promise I'll be home in three days and that I'll be smart. You do the same. Don't try to use your power in battle yet. You aren't ready."

"We know." Leif nodded. "We'll continue to train. Deal with that guild and come home to fight our war here."

"It feels wrong leaving the valley."

"I know, but you have to."

I hugged both of them goodbye before leaving to find Piercey.

"Have you worked out the alarm system for Gael and the warriors?"

"Yes. We want to do one more test, but it's working well." Piercey lowered the notebook he'd been reading through and looked at me. "Changing plans like this is risky. Elias and I connected so that I could pretend to be him and we could accomplish more."

"We're still going to do that. Just let me make the preparations there. You have to close up this deal with Gael and his king and train our friends."

"I'll do what needs to be done so that I can come with you when you come back to us. You won't keep us away next time."

I smiled and then I slid my arm around Piercey's side in a brief hug. "Thanks for always being here."

He gave my shoulder a squeeze. "You're always there for me too."

Meeting Elias and learning about his relationship with Ashton had renewed the guilt I felt for ever hurting Piercey. I wouldn't change it because I loved Nash and I didn't believe that I would make Piercey happy when I didn't want to be with him. It was just hard to shake feeling bad when I was the source of so much pain for him.

"Piercey," I said quietly before leaving. "I've been thinking about how I haven't given myself time to make a life for myself. It's been one battle after the next, even before I killed the Prophet. It feels like you've done that too."

He thought for several seconds before speaking. "I'm in a good place right now. I've been finding myself. We'll talk soon. Maybe help each other figure out how to find room for ourselves in all this chaos."

The guilt I'd been feeling dimmed and I smiled, my heart warm. "I'd love that."

"Bye, Max. Three days. Don't be late."

"I won't be."

My last stop was always the hardest stop every time I had to leave. Nash had decided to spend the afternoon with Elsie because both of them would miss while I was gone and she really hadn't had enough time with him.

When I hugged her goodbye, she clung to me without letting go.

"How many sleeps, Ma?"

"Two or three, sweet girl."

She drew back to look into my eyes. "Then you'll come home?"

"Then I'll come home."

I reached for Nash, still holding Elsie, and reached my arm back to pull him close enough to kiss his cheek.

"When I get home, we're going to spend time together." I met his eyes and then hers, still heartbroken over missing her performance. "I promise that I'll fight for that time as hard as I fight for the Valley."

"That's real hard," Elsie said.

Nash kissed my lips even though Elsie covered her eyes and chastised us. He whispered quietly against my ear so only I could hear.

"You can do this."

It was what I needed to hear most and somehow he always knew that.