Eclipse: Time Thief (Romantasy)

29. The Soul Eater

Nash's expression tightened after I uttered the name Eclipse. Wren stopped walking, face looking stricken. Even Leif stared like I'd taken off a mask and showed him who I was for the first time. I'd thought nothing could ever come between us, but I'd known this could. Right? I'd always known. Who could accept me after what I'd done?

I lifted my hand toward Nash and then looked to Wren and Leif. "Let me explain."

"Eclipse? You're Eclipse?" Nash's shocked stare shifted to the dead littering the field.

I covered my mouth, my eyes burning with unshed tears. My voice cracked when I spoke. "I should have told you all."

"It changes nothing." Leif's voice shook. His eyes were red, but he said the words with enough conviction to make me believe he meant them.

Sorrow flooded Nash's face and this time when he looked at me, it felt as if he actually saw me again. "I trusted you, really trusted you. I want to believe you. So tell me everything I've heard about you since I was a boy isn't true."

He'd told me things that put his family in danger. In the morning, he'd held me so I could sleep. If I had trusted him too and told him the truth myself, I could have explained without the suspicion. The feeling of his kiss filled me with shame. He'd meant it, hadn't he? He'd really opened himself up to me and I'd stayed hidden.

"Max," Nash said. "Tell me the stories of the Slaughter of Dark Noon are a lie and that you didn't kill those people."

Leif and Wren were watching too. They would stand with me, but they wanted to know. The problem was I couldn't say it wasn't true, only that I hadn't meant to do it. When I opened my mouth, echoes of necks snapping all over this field filled my mind. Did I even deserve to defend myself?

The world called me Eclipse, the Soul Eater, the demon who would stop at nothing to finally consume even the sun. That wasn't true but I'd earned the name with something unimaginable I really had done.

The horror I'd felt since that day slashed through my chest like a battle axe. My eye lids fluttered. Leif started for me but he wouldn't make it in time. Couldn't help me anyway.

I slipped into two places at once, before Nash and my friends and into the red boots I'd worn the day my father died. Only a few seconds passed, but time drew me in and tried to swallow me whole.

Tears filled my eyes. I counted the seconds and focused on my feet on the ground. On my black boots. My black boots fracturing into little red ones. No, no, no! Not now.

The field dimmed, and our time with it, hovering beneath the skin of this world, harder and harder to see.

Nash stepped back toward the jagged wall of the cliff that had materialized behind him and looked up into the darkening sky. Wren and Leif were nowhere to be seen.

"No!" I wheeled around to see the last of the sun disappear behind the dark moon. I wouldn't go back to this time. I refused.

"Max?"

"Stay still!" I barely choked out the words.

I stumbled backward toward Nash until I could cover him with my body, closing my eyes, channeling myself into scratchy grass at my ankles in the field. The heat baking the sweat into my neck.

The sun pierced the ring of the dark moon.

Villagers whispered below.

"The light..." My young voice said. "Look, Dad! The light..."

His voice blared, deep and knowing. "Your strength is greater than even an eclipse. Release it. Release it from within. It'll be beautiful, child. I promise. It's okay." A warm whisper fell against my ear my ear now. "Show them the light. Free them."

The heat of the flame swelled out of control, even though I tried to hold it in, tried to push Dad's voice away. Power erupted from my body. The Prophet wasn't here to stop me this time. Dad's body jerked and froze in the air, his fingers popping first, and then his arms, his legs. I clenched my eyes shut.

Shrieks ripped through the air. Shrieks from Dad, from me, from the villagers below.

Shrieks echoed and grew until they all snapped to silence, and I was the only one left screaming.

I gasped when I blinked to the field and the field alone. I stood in a single spot in a single point in time, back in the present. The wild scent of weeds and woods mixing with the blood of the guards I'd slain grounded me.

"What was that?" Nash asked, turning in a circle to look at our surroundings.

I stumbled forward.

The world started to spin. I lurched and vomited hard. Leif caught me and held me up by my middle.

Nash dropped down beside me and placed his hand on my back. "Can you hear me?"

I nodded, my stomach rolling so much I couldn't speak.

"Hold onto us," Nash said. "Don't go back to that place."

Leif shoved him back with his forearm. "You're the one who upset her and made this happen. Get away from her."

I stumbled to my feet, putting distance between us. "I didn't know you could slip with me. Stay away. All of you of you stay far away from me." I lifted a shaky hand. "It isn't safe. I can't control it."

What was I doing trying to regain this power that had slaughtered sixty-seven innocent people? Children died. My stomach heaved again as I remembered clearly what I'd tried so hard to forget. It felt more real than it had since it first happened. No longer did I feel like I was in my body but like I was trapped in the past on that day.

There was no time for me to break now. More guards would come. And if I lost control of myself, I'd lose my hold on time, on space, on the only thing grounding me in the present.

Even so, Nash's voice haunted my mind. I couldn't shake it.

Demon.