Eclipse: Time Thief (Romantasy)

23. Cracks

We hiked through the foothills of the mountain after we reached the end of the train's line. Along the way, I told everyone of the dangers that awaited us: hidden pits with sharpened stakes, a lethal army, perilous trails. The mountain guard would kill anyone who came or left without permission. No exceptions. The only reason I'd ever escaped was because in the earliest days of the school the instructors had used their power to carve secret passageways into the mountain. None of them connected from the beginning to the top, but it offered reprieve for anyone who lived at the Sacred School if they needed to take an unsanctioned trip down the mountain.

Gentle slopes stretched into towering hills, the dark of fertile land now pocked with gravel and bright with rusty soil, bald here where the carpet of trees had thinned into dead grass and thorny weeds. The Valley was lush with vegetation, but the southeast side of the Mountain of the Gods looked as if someone had painted it in a brushstroke of red. A unique pocket of iron-rich hills and cliffs starved this swath of land. Soon, the inclines would steepen into small mountains that rolled like waves into the giant peaks, and there the cover of evergreen pines would shield us from the sun once more.

We were close. Close enough for the land to cool in the mountain's shadow. As we hiked, the hours crawled by, and the mountain slowly grew above us, until its white peaks took up most of the sky.

"I want to know more about the mountain and the Sacred School." Nash spoke quietly to me.

"I've told you what I can."

"You hold the knowledge and power in your hands and feed me crumbs as you see fit." He pounded his fist in his hand. "I won't go from being the Prophet's lackey to yours."

Pain pinched my chest. "I never asked you to do that. If you don't trust me, then go home."

"I'm not going anywhere. I just want to know what the hell I'm jumping into."

I wiped the sweat from my brow. "Chaos and torment. That's what, Nash. Mysteries you'll never unravel. Get used to it if you want to finish this journey."

He huffed in frustration and walked on ahead of me. Fine. I steeled myself against his dissatisfaction and trekked forward.

I continued the rest of the way in silence, slowing when I reached the unseen barrier surrounding the mountain. Would the gods intervene? The instructors should not have been able to detect me unless I used my power, which of course, I currently couldn't. But I had no idea what the gods were capable of.

I tensed my muscles as I took my first step over and waited for something devastating, like a fireball to shoot from the sky and incinerate me. Nothing happened, though. Another step and I started to hope that I might survive after all.

Nothing looked different over this barrier, not the cone tops of the trees or the dense shadows, but the air here was charged. Already, the warmth of my dormant power felt even hotter than normal.

From this moment on, we would be hunted if anyone caught even a hint of our presence. "We're here," I said. "Stay quiet."

Nash, Leif, and Wren filed into a line behind me, copying my every movement perfectly, just as we'd discussed as we traveled. Harsh rock cliffs and broken patches of grassy land mottled the terrain. I stepped carefully across what looked like a worn path up a slope, but I knew hidden pits lined both sides, with only a thin patch of earth to travel across. I steadied my breath as I put one foot in front of the other.

"Everyone okay?" I asked.

They all nodded.

Once I crossed the path, I held my breath until Nash, Leif, and finally Wren made it to me. There wasn't time to celebrate. Every moment out in the open risked us being seen, and the guards had radios. If I did manage to use my power, they even had detectors that picked up quantum energy so they could track us.