I ripped free from the currents of Ashton's life and woke back in my own body. My eyes were wide as I was lying back on the couch.

Her heart beat with my own now, a lifetime of experiences I hadn't lived but had slipped into.

"Are you okay?" Elias asked.

He offered a hand to help me up and I viscerally his fingers sliding over Ashton's. Her heart had been so broken. His was too. On instinct, I almost pushed his away, wanting to avoid the sadness I'd seen twining them together. Only I saw in Ashton's memories how silly it was to push someone away like she had. I took his hand and pushed up to a sitting position.

"I'm fine. It's jarring, is all."

"What did you get?" Elias watched me eagerly. "Anything we can use?"

"Nothing for you, I don't think. It's useful for me, though. I think I need to go further. Ashton is really closed off to Jaxon still in the memories I lived through." It felt like a betrayal to share anything of Ashton's with Elias. If she wanted him to have it, then she would have given it to him.

"Okay." He scratched his chin. "Do you think you can control where you land anymore than you have?"

"I know there must come a point when she starts to soften to him. I remember how I felt when I was in that place with Nash. Maybe if I think about that feeling, I can get close."

"Good thinking."

"How long was I out?"

"Around an hour. I didn't want to stress you before because you needed to figure out traveling, but I have to meet with the leaders of my guild in a few hours. They want answers about your world. I knew they wouldn't give me as much time as they said."

I could only blink in response. "What?"

"I need you to come with me and pretend to be Ashton."

My eyes closed, my headache really pounding now. "You have a serious problem with selectively withholding information from people." I felt the fire flashing in me when I opened my eyes back up. "Do it again and we're going to have a serious problem. I'm considering it a lie if you pull that shit again."

"Okay. I'm sorry."

"I don't care. Don't say sorry to me. You don't decide what I can and cannot handle. Understand?"

We'd gotten to where we were more friendly with each other, so seeing my anger must have taken aback. "I do."

"I need to keep traveling to prepare for this. You tell me what I need to know as well."

"I've told Ashton very little, only that I will share the truth with her soon. You need to back me up but not let me off the hook. You're angry with me, but supportive."

I knew how to manage that and could imagine exactly how Ashton would react to Elias. We were the same person, after all. It was hard to say how different we were having lived different lives in different worlds, but we felt so similar in the memories I'd lived through.

A wave of sickness filled me, thinking about how I'd hijacked her life and was about to do it again.

"Don't say much." Elias sat down in the chair in front of me. "She'll be mad and feel torn and not want to talk. That benefits you. Lote will understand your silence."

"Even though I didn't live through many of her memories and I don't remember thinking about Lote, I do know more about your guild and how she feels about it. Maybe this will work."

"I know it can."

Elias brought water to me and a snack of bread and cheese I hadn't asked for. My stomach felt unsettled, but I figured it was best to eat. Once I'd finished the refreshments, I lowered to my back again.

"You don't need more time?" he asked.

"No. I need to get home to my world. I have to get this done."

He started to say something else, but I was already slipping, ready to find my way back home.

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

Our group had trained and fought together for three months now. That was a hundred days spent stitched together like we'd never been enemies in the first place. Every shared laugh and beer drew us closer to each other. I'd started to care about these warriors from the other guild even though I tried so hard not to.

A fire flickered at the center of our group as it did night after night. Jax sat across from me and I realized then he usually did. Like he knew I wouldn't let him get closer than that even though we were partners. He drew near only in battle, or when our blades crossed in training. The steel edges sparking against each other was the closest I would let him come.

It made me feel exposed to realize this when I'd looked up to meet his eyes across the flames.

I fled the campfire for momentary reprieve to refill my mug of beer, only to knock into Jax when I turned around. His broad form cast a shadow over me, the fire burning ten feet behind him, making us feel far more alone than we were.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's fine." I sidestepped to leave, but stopped when he said my name.

"Ash."

Why did it make my chest burn to hear him say it? "What?" I forced myself to look at him but failed to keep away the same thoughts that had plagued me since we'd bandaged each other's wounds. His face looked beautiful in the red glow of firelight.

"I…" He hesitated and then offered that charming smile of his, the one that both irritated and melted me. "I enjoyed fighting with you today."

I nodded, unable to find my voice.

The deeper look he had now made me afraid that he might say something else, so I started to walk backward. "You too," I managed.

I spun around. It was so obvious I was avoiding him that I felt completely embarrassed.

The beer helped me forget. We drank late into the night, later than we should have. Others returned to camp, but our group stayed up, caught up in stories that none of us had ever shared.

We laughed hard enough that a warrior from another tent threw a rock at our fire.

I breathed in deeply and leaned back, feeling better than I had earlier. It was nice to forget about the war and the feud between our guilds. To just be people. Warriors from the same kingdom. I was swimming in that feeling of peace when a loud thud interrupted our laughter.

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My heart seized in my chest. One of the Silver Moon warriors who had been grabbing another mug of beer lay face down, the beer spreading in a pool beneath him.

I jumped to my feet before my mind caught up with what I was seeing, dizzy from drinking.

"Ambush!" My friend Ralph shouted it. "Wake up! Ambush!"

I reached for my sword before remembering I'd left it in my tent. No matter. I erected an energy blade and searched the quiet darkness. Whoever had approached had concealed their energy so I had no idea where they were.

Jax rushed to my side, ready to fight as my partner in this strange team we'd been forced into, and together, we crept close to a tent for cover.

Everything fell silent as we searched for any sign of our enemy.

I still felt no power emanating from anyone except for our own people. It was a moonless night, perfect for an ambush. If not for our fire that we'd left burning longer than we normally would have, there would have been no source of light apart from any we created with power.

My heart filled in the silence, thudding steadily. Pain clawed at my chest for the man who had died even though he wasn't one of my own. This was the power of fighting alongside one another for so many days. It wasn't possible to avoid the connection of blood and the high of battle. The camaraderie of drinking by the fire.

Jax's body warmed mine in the cold of the night, the two of us close and listening. The enemy knew where we were, so they already had an advantage. We weren't hidden here, only had more protection than if we stood in the open. So there was no benefit to running around trying to find them. It was better to listen and feel. To watch. An opportunity would arise.

With my senses sharpened, I heard a blade piercing the air and flying directly for Jax. He must have heard it too, because at the same time, we both slashed our energy blades to knock it away. Together, as one, we knocked it into the darkness.

Jax flew through the air faster than I'd ever seen him move in the direction the blade had come from. It was dangerous, because they may have been trying to draw one of us out. Instead of following in a direct path, I sprinted to the side and tracked Jax's barely visible form in the darkness.

There.

I couldn't see anything but a wall of black beyond the camp, but I did hear footsteps. I had to really focus to attune my senses sensitively enough to catch it. Since we'd fought together for long enough, I trusted Jax to recognize my power and to evade it. I gathered a massive ball of energy and cast it toward the sound. Despite knowing that Jax would make sure he wasn't in the path, worry still churned in me. I couldn't pass up the shot, though.

The stillness and quiet of camp crashed around us in only moments. We were not the only ones who had been attacked or found a target of our own. Where moments ago the enemy hid with their power carefully concealed, they now swarmed us, attacking from all directions.

I shot as many blasts as I could muster in Jax's area, focusing on the enemies I now sensed, while I ran forward. He could move so much faster than me when he flew, but he relied on the cover I could provide from a distance while I caught up. I might have tried to avoid him, but we made a great team. It was something I wouldn't even try to deny.

As I ran, groups of our aerial fighters emitted a bright wave of power that swept over the camp. Light yellows and oranges poured between every tent like water and then began to swell until a fog of power consumed our entire camp. They would help to protect us from the attacks, but Jax had moved beyond the reach of the defensive mechanism.

I burst out of the swirling fog of power and made out his dark form whipping through the air. A dozen enemy soldiers swarmed the wooded hillside where Jax flew around, deftly dodging every attack, while raining down strikes of his own.

The sky brightened now with powerful attacks slamming into the fog over the camp. They didn't penetrate the defense of our guilds, but I knew that over time, they would weaken it and the warrior's who had erected it. We needed to hurry.

What a cheap move to attack in the night. We must have become too great of a threat for the coastal warriors to leave us alone.

With power sparking all over the sky and ground like fireworks, I could see flashes of my surroundings like the sun was blinking on and off. Nash dove through the air and smashed into a warrior who had been lobbing attacks against the defensive fog.

A few more minutes, and I expected our aerial warriors to surprise our enemy with the second phase of their defense. While neither of our guilds had created the fog, it wasn't used widely in our area, and I doubted that these warriors understood what they were fighting against. Each attack did weaken the integrity of the defensive fog, but the warriors did not allow the power to simply escape. The energy escaping from the fog and attacking it were being collected in a very difficult process called recapture.

The reason we didn't use it often was because it could go terribly wrong terribly fast. And even when it went right, it was still dangerous. This was urgent, though. We'd been caught unprepared by an enemy who had clearly strategically planned this ambush. We needed a surprise to win.

I didn't hesitate as I ran for a line of enemy warriors. They defended their own aerial fighters, a group of roughly ten gathered together beneath a powerful dome shield. The warriors targeted an area of the fog to break into. I watched one run straight into it with his sword extended, only to get thrown back onto the ground.

The fog relied upon self-identification for our energy signals. It wasn't a perfect science, but we had practiced maintaining a signal with our power that would be subtle enough that we hoped the enemy wouldn't notice but enough for our warriors to detect, so that they could target the enemy and not us.

This was one reason it was so difficult to wield.

The warriors converged on me as I approached. Four continued to try to create a hole in the fog to break into while three targeted me. Another three focused on Jax in the air. And the final four shifted between the two of us.

We really needed people to back us up. Why hadn't anyone else left the fog? Obviously they wanted to remain there for protection and it was smart to keep a sizable force within its defensive barrier. We couldn't leave the fighting to the aerial team, though. I hoped that others had left to battle like we had and were simply fighting other groups.

I released a signal with my power that would let my group know we needed help.

Taking on three warriors and defending against another four who alternated between Jax and me wouldn't work if I blindly attacked. We were so exposed out here. The other warriors who weren't focused on us could notice an opportunity and strike unexpectedly.

Jax had a great approach in the air because he could retreat when he needed to and reapproach. I was stuck on the ground, really wishing that I had learned such an incredible skill.

The best strategy would be for me to distract and manage attacks whenever I could. If more joined us, then we could face them in an all-out battle.

I chose to continue sprinting, fueling myself with my power, so my feet barely touched the ground, and each step carried me much farther than I could on my own. With each step, I leapt forward and forward again.

Beams of energy shot into the ground after me, missing as I dodged.

I left a trail of my own power like a toxic gas that spread through the air. It forced the warriors back. Seeing what I was doing, they tried to cut off my path, but I excelled at this. My mentor, Lote, had called me a speedy little devil. As soon as I saw them trying to block my path, I twisted and shot toward the fog.

Above me, Jax only narrowly avoided a hit. As I dove back into the camp, I shot energy toward his attacker to give him time to recover.

I wasn't sure that my first attack had done very much damage, but it had reduced the number of warriors attacking the fog on this side.

From within the safety of the fog, I pelted the group with bullets of energy, blind to whether any of them actually hit, apart from hearing a few cries. I couldn't tell if it was from Jax or from me. I had to stay rapid and unpredictable so I could take them by surprise and keep their focus on me.

They might have expected that I would remain in the safety of the fog. I could do some damage here. But they were capable and they would figure out how to defend against my long-range attacks.

My sense of pride as a warrior pushed me to pursue the three who had targeted me. It was honorable to fight face-to-face. Honor was stupid in an ambush, though.

I leapt forward, running faster than before, and dragged two energy blades at my side as I shot through the group attacking the fog.

One blade made contact, ripping open the bowels of the warrior who had been thrown back onto the ground.

The other was deflected.

Now, all attention was on me, though. I rolled off my shoulder, feigned right, and then twisted to run left. They were figuring out my speed and that they couldn't predict which direction I was moving. And seeing as how they had the numbers to cover so many directions, they very effectively boxed me in by doing so.

It didn't matter. I anticipated an attack where I landed and erected a shield around me. A sword slammed against it at the same time that a beam of energy hit and the shield erupted, hitting the swordsman square in the face.

He stumbled back, grasping his bloodied mouth.

I needed to return to the fog, but they wouldn't let that happen so simply. Jax flew over my head and fired in a circle around me, pushing the enemy back.

It gave me the cover I needed to return the fog. The only problem was that he'd drawn close enough for me to notice the blood running down his arm. I'd missed whatever injured him and that wasn't acceptable. I couldn't leave my partner helpless.