“It’s alright,” Anubis assured me. “With my expert tracking skills and Isis’ directions, I’ll get us there in no time.” He paused and smoothed a hand over his silky black ears. “We just have to get there before Horus does.”
We split up to tackle our assigned tasks and I hauled Silas along as we cut right through the heart of the colony. The Great Hall. But I never considered the time of day and a meal was in session. The place was jam packed with Star People and the heavy aroma of delicious foods.
We kept our heads down and quickened our pace, but it wasn’t enough. Eirik shot up from their seat and zoomed over to us.
“Andie!” they said and stepped in my path. “Where on earth have you been? You were supposed to stay with your father while I grabbed my medical supplies.”
My mind spun as the events of the last couple of days circled around. God, it felt like eons had passed since Eirik and I escaped Horus’ palace. So much had happened in the hours since. Like binding my soul to the man I loved for all eternity. My cheeks flushed as I met Silas’ knowing sideways glance and a warmth bubbled up from my gut. We never got the chance to relish in it and I ached to drag him off to my room where we could celebrate together.
But we had more pressing matters to worry about first.
“I’m sorry,” I told my friend. Shadow scurried across the floor then and circled around my ankles like an excited cat. “Something came up. I didn’t have time to come find you.”
Eirik scrutinized our body language with curiosity. “And now?”
Silas and I exchanged a sigh. “We’re about to head out across the desert to–” He cautiously glanced around at all the prying ears and lowered his tone as he leaned in toward Eirik. “My brother is about to do something colossally stupid, and we have to prevent him from succeeding. The fate of the city, of the world, depends on it.”
Eirik’s arms stiffened at their sides. “If Andie’s going on a dangerous journey, then I should be with her.” Their silver eyes pleaded and then looked to me with concern. “You may need my help.”
“While having you close by definitely makes me feel safer,” I replied. “I need you to stay here and protect my Dad. If…if Horus beats us to his goal, then chaos will be unleashed on the city.” Literally. “If things go bad, I need you to swear to get him to safety. Can I trust you to do that?”
Eirik raised their silky white chin high. “Of course. I’ll protect Alistair with my life.”
I don’t know what came over me, but I flung myself into Eirik’s chest and wrapped my arms around them. Never in my life had another being sworn themselves to me like that. Aside from Dad and Silas, of course. I never really felt what it was like to have friends. The ride or die kind. And now, here in the past with people like Eirik and Anubis, I finally understood it. The dynamic of that true human connection. I needed it.
Shadow’s clawed hand wrapped around my leg and a warmth spread upward. He let out a stream of pitchy chirps and I bent down to lovingly smooth the top of his head.
“You should stay back, too,” I told him. Knowing he wanted to come with me. “Help Eirik and my dad. They’ll need you if things get too dangerous.” I held his little lizardy face in my palm, and he nestled into it for a moment before scuttling off into the crowd.
I stood up and turned to Silas, my chest expanding with a heavy breath of anticipation.
“Alright.” I managed a smile. “Let’s go save the world.”
***
The three of us trekked across the hot desert sands on the backs of sturdy donkeys for better part of the day. The sun was finally beginning its descent and baked my skin from the side rather than from above. Even with the aid of donkeys and the cover of Eirik’s special cooling fabric, I was still exhausted. The dry heat baked me from the inside out and I cursed Silas and Anubis for seeming to be unaffected by it.
I grabbed my water canister and emptied the last of it into my parched mouth.
“Need a break?” Silas asked as his steed sidled up next to mine. We’d begun the journey with speed, but eventually slowed to a comfortable trot to give the animals a break. “We can stop if you need to.”
I shook my head. Too stubborn to admit it. “No, we have to keep going.”
“Andie,” he said worriedly. “It’s a two-day journey. We have to stop at some point anyway.”
I ignored him and motioned to Anubis up ahead. He’d been quiet and distant the whole time. “How’s he doing?” I asked. “I mean, it’s his father we’re trying to keep in the ground, after all.”
“He’ll be alright,” Silas replied and stared at his cousin’s back. “He’s always had us. His family. Those that love him. Anubis has always fit better with me and my parents.”
I chewed at my lip as my donkey dutifully trotted along. “Why did Set kill Osiris, anyway?”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “Because my father banished Set’s wife and buried her at the bottom of the ocean.”
“What? Why would he do that?” I thought for a moment, recalling everything I’d studied about these gods. Set’s wife and counterpart was Nephthys. The Goddess of Death, Isis’ opposite.
“Nephthys was mad,” he replied. “Absolutely insane. She tried to kill my mother out of petty jealousy. So, naturally, my father retaliated.”
“Christ, your family desperately needs therapy.”
Silas chuckled sadly. “Yeah.” He fell silent in thought. “The whole thing created this huge rift in our family. Set was enraged. Nephthys was the only being he truly cared about. So, he killed my father. Isis was the force to end it all, but now she’s the only one left of the five elder gods.”
My head lowered with a frown. “That must be painfully lonely. To have your family all dead and banished like that.”
Silas shrugged indifferently and gripped the reins of his donkey. “She did what she had to do in order to protect her children.”
Anubis stopped and turned his donkey around. His pointed ears twitched as he looked up at the sky. “We should make camp for the night. The sun is going down. If we get some rest, we can finish the journey in the early hours of the morning when it’s cooler.”
Silas gave me a smug grin and I rolled my eyes before nudging my donkey to follow Anubis over to a small patch of trees in the distance. We tied the three mules under the shade of long frons near the edge of a small rushing creek and began unpacking supplies to set up a place to rest for the night.
Silas got a little fire going while I secured a tent made of a large thick linen. Anubis stood near the edge of the oasis and stared thoughtfully out toward the horizon. I wondered what he was thinking about, so worriedly like that. Did he long for his banished parents? Or did he want them in the ground just as much as everyone else did? Anubis was always a little stoic, to himself. He rarely expressed much other than discontent for my behavior sometimes. But I considered him a friend, and I felt like that consideration was reciprocated now.
I sat down on the warm grass and breathed in a fresh dose of air, cooling with the setting sun. An orangey glow filtered down over the earth and cast us all in a golden hue. It made the gods I travelled with that much more otherworldly and I sat there admiring their untouchable perfection. Silas’ smooth, sand colored skin and his lithe muscles that moved underneath. Anubis’ stunning gilded veins that crawled over the pitch-black skin of his body, reflected subtly as flecks in the silky fur that covered his head.
Being around them gave me hope. Hope for the future, my future. I was building something here, slowly. And even though Horus was intent on destroying it all before I had the chance to achieve it, part of me remained settled in the fact that I would fight to my last breath to protect it. Them. Those I’ve come to love here in this time.
Suddenly, something rustled in the bushes at my side and I jumped back with a startle. My heart raced and a new sweat broke out over my skin as I stared into the darkness. The thick foliage ruffled as something moved through it, low to the ground. But my heart
calmed when my reptilian pet emerged and collapsed on the grass.
“Shadow!” I cried and crawled over to him. His skin was dry and cracked, his chest heaved with desperate breaths. I pulled him into my lap. “Did you follow us all this way?” I stuck my finger in his little grip and it warmed. “Oh, buddy, I know. I love you, too. But I wanted you to stay back where it was safe.”
I carried him over to the creek and washed his dirty skin, letting the water trickle into his mouth. Soon, he began to drink on his own and I knew he’d be just fine.
Silas came over and crouched down next to me. “What’s baby Yoda doing here?”
I playfully slapped at his arm. “He followed us.” My fingers gently scratched the area between the creature’s ears. “I told him to stay behind but I should have known. He has no one. Eirik told me that they haven’t seen any more of his kind around.” My shoulders slumped. “I’m all he’s got.”
Silas stretched out his long legs toward the edge of the creek. “Determined little bugger, isn’t he?” He wrapped an arm around my neck and hauled me in for a kiss. I melted at the soft touch on my mouth, let mine linger there until he grinned. “But I know the feeling.”
“What do you mean? Of being alone?” I asked and began untying my boots. “Your whole family is here.”
“They’re your family now, too. You know?” The words came out almost worriedly. “And it’s not just you and your dad. It’s us. It’s my mother.” He glanced over at Anubis. “My cousin. My flesh and blood.” His hand slid across his chest and rested over his heart. “And now my soul. It’s all yours.”
My unreliable heart gave away my emotions and I felt my whole face fill with warmth. Who was I to deserve this? A man, a god, who regarded me so highly. Words evaded me. I kicked off my grungy boots and dipped my feet in the trickling water. The rush of calm that blanketed my whole body was almost too much to bear.
“Are you sure you’re ready to put up with me for the rest of eternity?” I said quietly and fixed my stare on Shadow sniffing around the creek’s edge for bugs while my toes lapped in the water.
Silas’ hand crawled through the patch of grass between us and our fingers looped together. I met his gaze, green and gold twirled together like ancient gemstones, and my pulse quickened.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Andie Godfrey, I’d love you for eternity no matter what. In both life and death.” He sucked in a deep breath and released it just as quickly. “Part of me recognized that the moment we met. Something in my soul just clicked. But the age difference…”
I chortled. “You’re barely three years older than me.”
“Silas is, yes,” he replied and smiled cheekily. “But Amun has been alive a few more millennia than you.”
I cocked my head to the side mockingly. “Funny. One would think you’d be, oh, what’s the word I’m looking for?” I stifled the laugh that bubbled up. “Smarter? Wiser?”
Silas shoved me back and I lay on the grass behind me as he loomed over. Our laughter mixed together in a beautiful way, a sound that settled my soul into a frequency of content and something else. Confidence? Eagerness? No. I knew what it was. Hope. Silas gave me the hope I needed to live up to my potential. To kick my demons to the curb and move on with my life in the way it should have always been.
But guilt touched the pit of my stomach and I pushed at his chest as I sat up.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out my soul stone. The gorgeous ruby sat heavily in my palm. “Part of me feels bad, though. For Dad. He doesn’t have this back up plan that I do.” My bottom lip stung as I chewed a little too far. The metallic tinge of open flesh touched my tongue. “I should have made him go back home.”
Silas flung an arm around my back and hugged me close. His lips nestled in my hair, kissing the top of my head. “Alistair is stubborn, loyal, and would never have left his only child here in the past.”
A weak smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” he replied coyly. “Must be those few million years I have on you.”
I chuckled and leaned into him, letting my back mould to the shape of his chest. He wasn’t wrong. I knew, deep down, Dad never would have left no matter how much I insisted. Not only was I here, but this was everything he’d ever wanted. To experience his passion, his purpose in life through firsthand experiences.
Still…it didn’t lessen my worry.
Did I do the right thing? Should I have forced it? Dare say…even sent him back against his will? At least he’d be safe. Alive. But now it was too late. Dad was stuck here in this wild and dangerous past with me. My selfishness told me not to push, but will that same greed be what leads my father to his death?
Chapter Sixteen
The dying fire allowed a stark coolness to touch my skin and coax me from sleep. I didn’t open my eyes, though. I was too exhausted. It turned out, the Gatekeeper to the Underworld snores like a hog on its back so I slipped out of our shared tent and curled up by the flames during the wee hours of the night.
I shifted on the half of the blanket that was beneath me and flung my arm over my half-opened eyes to prevent the coming sun from seeping in through the cracks. The heavy sheet of night still touched everything, holding the world in a navy dream. But the pinch of orange on the horizon began to ooze over the sands. Thankfully, the cover of trees overhead left our little oasis in the shadows and I longed for a few more minutes of sleep.
But something pinched my lower back and I grumbled as I rolled over again. It was probably a root or a rock. My eyelids were weighty again and the gentle fog of sleep pulled me in just as another pinch jolted me awake, this time on my lower leg. I sat up, groggy and immediately grumpy, searching the blanket around my leg for the culprit.
But there was nothing.
I couldn’t go back to sleep now. My grimy hands wiped over the tight skin of my face, tender from the sun exposure of the previous day. I grabbed one of my boots I’d left off to the side and–out of habit from my lifetime growing up with an archaeologist father–dumped it upside down to expel any critters who’d slept there during the night. I didn’t expect anything to fall out, but something did. A tiny flash of gold, so quick I hardly caught it. The thing hit the ground and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Then something pinched my shoulder. My hip. My thigh. I swatted at my body as panic chased away any remnants of sleep. But I couldn’t see what was biting me. Another painful nip on my back and I hopped to my feet with a yelp.
Shadow scurried across the ground, emerging from the tent, and chased something into a bush. He waddled back out with something clamped in his jaw. It wriggled, catching the glow of hot embers from the firepit and gleamed like a piece of gold jewelry.
I stepped closer, eliciting a low growl from Shadow over the possession of his kill. I narrowed my eyes, examining the two ends dangling from his toothy snarl. A curled tail and two lobster claws. A cold fright struck my veins and I stumbled back with a gasp.
“Scorpions,” I whispered in disbelief. The ground suddenly came to life with a golden wave of the lethal pests as they pushed out from the bushes around us. My eyes widened. “Oh my God!”
I grabbed my other boot and hauled them on with haste before I began stamping madly at the swarm. The thick linen of the tent ruffled, and my two travel companions burst from it in a spiral of their own cries. Silas swatted at his legs and he hopped about, while Anubis laid down a hefty stomp and caught one of the pests underfoot. He plucked it between his finger and thumb, brought it to his face to examine.
“Your bother,” he said to Silas and tossed the golden scorpion to the side. “He must be sending plagues to stop us from getting to the temple before him.”
“Grab our things and get out!” Silas ordered and stuffed my bag in my arms. “Go, get a good distance away.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Why? What ar
e you–”
“Just move it, Andie!” he bellowed.
I scrambled to grab as much as I could and called for Shadow to follow as Anubis and I untied our donkeys and led them out onto the sand outside the oasis. I stood, anxious breath burning in my lungs as I watched Silas blow on the dying embers. A flame caught and he moved his hands in the air, as if…pulling the fire toward him. It grew and he manipulated the flame into a roaring fire that hovered in the air with no anchor. Silas swung his arms and tossed the flames around, setting ablaze to the entire oasis. Shadow scrambled from my grip and ran over to join him, blowing streams of glorious reds and oranges at the ground, reducing everything to a willowing inferno.
Silas stumbled backward, catching himself, and joined us where we stood watching in utter awe. Or, well, I was anyway. Anubis’ staid expression didn’t falter an inch toward wonder. As if seeing his cousin create a flame thrower out of thin air was nothing out of the ordinary.
And perhaps it wasn’t. Clearly, I still had a lot to learn about Silas’ powers.
“So, Horus knows our plan, I assume?” I said.
Silas’ lungs heaved and he turned to us, anger splashed across his face. “Horus has eyes everywhere. But at least we know he’s still behind us.”
Anubis gazed out to the horizon and the coming sun. “We have time if we start now. We can make it by mid-afternoon.”
I took a step and immediately winced from the searing pain that stung like a bolt of electricity. I bent over and grappled with the hem of my pants leg and hauled it up. A festering purple lump protruded just above my ankle.
“How many times were you stung?” Anubis asked.
I shrugged through the raking sensation that suddenly coursed through my blood. “A few.”
With a disgruntled mutter, he turned to his mule and opened one of the saddle bags. Silas bent to examine the wound closer while his cousin brought over a jar of what looked like moldy slime.
“This is a topical salve for poisons,” Anubis told me and twisted the lid on the jar. “Eirik gave me some supplies before we left. This should extract most of the venom. At least enough to get us back to the colony.” He exchanged a knowing look with Silas. “If left untreated, these stings would have surely killed her.”
Tempest Minds: A Time Travel Fantasy Romance (Kingdom of Sand & Stars Book 2) Page 10
