Eclipse: Time Thief (Romantasy)

1. The March

I shivered on the march to the Prophet of the Valley, my tunic loose with no armor and my body light without weapons. The boots of my fellow captives trampled earth as dark as a winter's night sky into a slurry of mud.

My hands curled around a sliver of empty space that should have been filled by my bow if those demons who handed us off to the Prophet's warriors hadn't taken them away. I couldn't believe that after so many years of fighting, our enemy had captured us.

The villagers lining our path murmured in baritone hums that vibrated beneath my skin. Their pounding drums hijacked my heartbeat, thudding within my chest, my temples, my soul.

I had long since cursed the day my cowardly instructors on the Mountain of the Gods sealed my power, but never before had I cursed myself as badly as I did now for failing to break free of the limitations they placed on me. The so-called gods gave the ability to cut off our power for a reason and no one had ever regained theirs once that happened. They said it was impossible. Still, I could accept no excuses. Not one day had passed since losing my power that I had not fought to free myself. If I had succeeded instead of failed, then we would not have been captured by our worst enemy, and the innocent of our village would not have been taken hostage.

So few knew the truth about our world, but I did. I understood that it was advanced technology and not some mystical power from the gods that gave demons and prophets alike their abilities. There had to be a way to override whatever mechanism had sealed my power.

"Heretics!" The women gathered along our path snarled at us from beneath pale hoods gleaming with the glow of fire. The whites of their eyes burned red. Each held a torch between laced fingers, nestled against their hearts. One stared into my eyes. "Burn! Burn! BURN!"

One snap and I could have shot an arrow through her gaping mouth if I had my precious bow. But with my power, I could have struck her dead in an instant. The Prophet and his followers were hypocrites for using powerful demons to capture us when he was the most notorious demon hunter in the peninsula. I longed to crush his throat.

The thirst for vengeance gave me the strength to drag my heavy body forward. We'd walked throughout the day and night before nearing the Prophet's village. Along the road leading to his gates, men stood over the women's shoulders. Their faces were shadowed by black hoods that drank up the shadows of twilight, their mouths closed so their hums sounded as if they came from beyond. From the gods themselves. Their stares never shifted from us. Blood dripped from their eyes like tears, cracking at the edges as it dried.

I could think only of my adopted nephew, Rune, and his little fingers disappearing from view as the demons stole him away into the night.

The coarse rope that tore at my skin was nearly as grating as the glare of the Prophet's faithful lining our path. What crushed my lungs with anguish, though, was how my best friend's form ahead of me punctuated the twilight, how far Leif felt. The same bonds that kept me from reaching for my people also tethered me to them, so I couldn't help but love what I hated.

I hadn't prayed since Dad died and the instructors at the Sacred School so poorly filled the void he left. I hadn't prayed since I learned the truth about our world, about the gods, about how nothing at all was as it seemed. Now, such desperation clawed into my heart that I lifted my face to the expanse above and I prayed a prayer I didn't believe to gods I believed even less.

Let this not be real.

Tears wet my cheeks. A touch of warmth where none could be found.

I searched for a response in the space where navy sky and dark earth melted into one, where the barely visible spread of stars above us crashed into the glow of snow-capped mountains. It was easy to see why our people turned this direction to pray, with how the towering terrain appeared to guard our valley from the rest of the Skia Hellig Peninsula, as if we were divinely protected. But I knew what was on the Mountain of the Gods.