My face scrunched as I concentrated. I stayed like that for several seconds while he ran through the series of symbols again, then shook my head. “It is too many . . . you do not play fair, Heru.”
His lips twitched, but he held back a smile. “Hat-hur-Alexandra,” he said, repeating the first symbol—a disc resting in the cradle of two curving cow horns, which had become his go-to symbol for me, since “Alexandra” was almost impossible to spell out phonetically using hieroglyphs. He moved on to the next symbols as he slowly uttered the rest of his tactile message, “is the goddess I will worship, the queen I will serve, the wife I will be faithful to, the woman I will love”—his gaze seared my soul—“for all eternity.”
I blinked rapidly, fighting back the tears suddenly welling in my eyes. Leaning in, I pressed my lips against his, taking his mouth as tenderly as he’d taken my body only hours ago. “Heru is the god I will worship, the king I will serve, the husband I will be faithful to, and the man I will love for all eternity,” I said a hairsbreadth from his lips.
“I am no king.”
Not yet, I didn’t say; I only smiled and stared into those molten, golden pools. One day he would be the leader of our people, elected by the Council of Seven after both Nuin and Heru’s father, Osiris, the Nejeret who would take over after Nuin’s death, were gone. But he didn’t need to know that. Informing him of future deaths would only upset him, and causing him undue pain was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
My eyes darted to one of the arched windows. The barest hint of golden sunlight was shining through the opening. As my lips curved into a smile, I held in a laugh. Based on the amusement sparkling in Heru’s eyes, he was doing the same. How Tarset could time her demanding little knock so perfectly every morning was beyond me, but she could, and it was the most welcome joke. I was starting to fall in love with that little girl, just a little.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
After one final, short kiss, I sat up and glanced around the fairly large and relatively unadorned space in search of my dress from yesterday. The room didn’t need decoration, not with the graceful swooping and swirling embellishments Nuin had worked into the solidified At when he’d created this palace, but I had added a few creature comforts in the form of a standing wardrobe, a couple chairs, a small, square table, a washstand, and a screened-off “toilet” area, all fabricated from solidified At as well. I found my dress hanging from the corner of the nearest chair by one strap.
I made my way across the room, knowing full well that Heru was watching my every movement from the bed, and slipped the dress over my head. By the time I turned around, Heru was already in the process of wrapping his kilt around his hips. He tied the intricate knot far more easily than I ever could, settled back on the bed, and nodded.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Smiling, I moved to the At door and pressed my palm against its smooth surface. It dissolved into a quicksilver mass, and when I removed my hand, dissipated in a cloud of colorful, smoky tendrils, revealing a small girl with enormous, honey-brown eyes, chubby cheeks, and a mess of shoulder-length black hair haloing her head.
Tarset’s eyes were huge circles as she watched the final tendrils of fuchsia and lime-green fade away. A broad grin spread across her round face, making her cheeks even chubbier. She giggled, then lunged forward, capturing my hand in both of hers and dragging me toward the bed.
“Alright, little fig, what do you command of me this morning?” I asked as I scooted onto the thin mattress after her. I turned onto my side and propped my head up with my hand, watching Tarset maneuver Heru’s arms into a position she deemed acceptable.
Finally, she curled into a ball between us and sighed. “I want to know what Xena does next.”
I suppressed a laugh and raised my eyebrows. “You like that story more than the one I told yesterday?”
Tarset’s round face scrunched and she shook her head. “Why does the princess need a boy to save her? She should save herself.”
I couldn’t help it; I threw my head back and laughed. Pulling Tarset closer to me, I hugged her tightly. “You would fit in well where I come from, Tarsi.”
She abandoned her father and snuggled closer against my torso, and I realized that I’d fallen in love with this little girl more than just a little bit. One day, in the distant future, it was practically ordained that Heru and I would have a couple children of our own—assuming my body ever reached the bonding pheromone saturation point—and the time I spent with Tarset made me yearn for that day’s arrival. But it also set a deep-seated sadness further and further into my heart, because that day would only come after Tarset was a four-thousand-year memory.
Part of me longed to share my bittersweet torment with Heru . . . but doubt paralyzed my tongue every time I considered telling him. What if Nuin was wrong? What if it never happened? What if we failed, and the sheut tore me apart from the ba out, causing both my and Heru’s deaths? What if . . . there were too many what-ifs.
Gazing at me with those big, amber eyes, Tarset said, “Will you take me there someday? I want to see where you come from!”
My throat constricted, and my heart lurched. When my chin started to tremble, I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths. I shook my head. “I wish I could, little fig, I really do, but . . . it is a place that only I can go.”
“Because you are a goddess?”
“Something like that.”
She touched the corner of my eye, where a tear was doing its damndest to break free. “Why are you sad?”
“Because, someday soon, I will have to return to that place.”
She stuck out her lower lip in a pout, then smiled. “But you will come back.”
My next deep breath was noticeably shaky. “I do not know if I will be able to, little fig.”
“Then I will visit you.”
“Tarsi . . .”
“You said that sometimes Xena goes to the places where only the gods can go. That is what I will do.” Her eyes shone with fierce determination.
I forced a tremulous smile and nodded. “Okay,” I lied. “I would like that very much, I think.”
“Good.” She rolled onto her back and stared up at the high, opalescent ceiling. “Now tell me what happens to Xena next.”
Laughing a soft, miserable laugh, I met Heru’s gaze. And my tears broke free.
I squeezed my eyes shut and cleared my throat. “When Xena found out what happened to her son . . .”
***
It was midmorning, and Nekure, Tarset, and I were sitting in the flower garden in the center of the Heru household’s private orchard, surrounded by date and doum palms, as well as fig, olive, and peach trees, and with the palace’s At spires reaching high overhead, blocking the sun. Heru and two of his grown sons were clearing sand from the aqueduct’s gutter—technology Nuin had stolen from a later time—while Nekure was helping me practice my ability to control small pieces of At more fluidly. Physically manipulating the At may have been the only “special” power he had access to through his sheut, but he’d had hundreds of years to perfect every minute nuance.
The flower garden was the only place outdoors where we felt comfortable using our unique abilities, since the orchards were completely surrounded by the stone buildings belonging to Heru’s decedents, and none in his line would ever betray him by sharing our secrets.
Rus was frolicking among the poppies and rose bushes, chasing a delicate crystalline butterfly as it flew gracefully around the garden. Nekure had created the stunning little creature and was controlling its flight with the thinnest tether of At stretching from its tail end to his index finger.
Giggling, Tarset clapped as she watched.
Nekure’s butterfly returned to him, landing on his open palm and falling still once again. “Now you try it again,” he said, turning his pale blue eyes on me.
I blew out a breath and glanced down at my own, tetherless butterfly, then at Rus, who’d settled in the sandy dirt like a sphinx but hadn’t
taken his eyes off Nekure’s butterfly. “It does not seem to matter how many times I try, Nekure . . .”
Nekure patted my knee with his free hand. “It took me nearly a month to learn to maintain the tether. You learned to do as much in two days.” He smiled. “You doubt yourself too much, my friend.”
I couldn’t help but return his smile, though mine wasn’t nearly as confident. I took a deep breath. “Very well . . . here goes.”
I touched my index finger to the butterfly’s tail and pulled my hand away, creating a thin thread of unset At between me and the figurine. Now came the hard part—willing each tiny movement into a seamless, flowing motion.
The left wing twitched.
The right wing stuttered open.
The left wing mirrored the movement a half second later.
Both wings glided upwards, closing together in a single, smooth motion.
I squealed, as did Tarset, and released the tether. “I did it!” My cheeks ached with the strength of my ecstatic grin, but as soon as my eyes met Nekure’s, my excitement faded and my smile slipped.
His eyes were wide, his face even paler than usual.
“What?”
He pointed to my hand. “Look at your skin, Lex.”
I did. It was glowing with a faint sheen of iridescence, shimmering with every color imaginable. “Shit!” I hissed just as I felt the telltale clenching sensation in my chest. For the second time, my borrowed sheut was overflowing with too much power.
I jumped to my feet. “Tarset, take Rus and run inside to your mother.”
She stared at me with round eyes, her butt apparently glued to the ground.
“Now, Tarset!”
Her eyes widened even further, but she didn’t hesitate. She scooped up the kitten and sprinted through the orchard.
I stumbled in the opposite direction, trying to think of the most remote place I could flee to in the shortest amount of time. If the power exploded out of me when others were too close to me, it just might obliterate them.
I’d almost reached the outer edge of the orchard when electricity thrummed in my chest, and my knee gave out. Catching myself with one hand on the sandy ground, I pushed myself back up to my feet and searched for a path that led away from the cluster of buildings that belonged to Heru’s family. I had to get away before the power broke free, and I destroyed them.
Another pulse crackled out from my chest, a little bit more intense, and I doubled over. Someone grabbed my wrist—Nekure, I realized—hoisting my arm over his shoulders and wrapping his own around my waist.
“I have to get . . . out of . . . the Oasis,” I told him between rapid breaths.
“This way.” He started guiding me at a quick walk, though I couldn’t say where he was guiding me to, since all of my strength and concentration was going into holding the destructive energy inside me. “Heru comes,” he said.
Heru’s scent surrounded me as his arm joined Nekure’s, lending additional support. Together, they dragged me toward somewhere I could only hope would be secluded. Darkness surrounded us, and I realized we were in the tunnel that led through the limestone cliffs walling off the Oasis from the rest of the desert.
“How long can you hold it in, Alexandra?” Heru asked.
I gritted my teeth, the power expanding inside me in more frequent and more intense pulses. “Not . . . much . . . longer.”
Suddenly, strong arms scooped me up, and I was being carried much faster than I’d been able to move on my own two feet. We burst back into the light, Heru carrying me out into the desert at a full sprint.
“Put me down, Heru.” I was losing control. I could feel the electric power crackling over my skin. “Now!”
Gently, he set me down on the sand, and I curled my legs up to my chest and hugged my knees.
“Heru,” I rasped, “Nekure . . . run!”
I clenched my jaw and took shuddering breaths. Wetness coated my cheeks as I held the expanding power in, hoping to give Heru and Nekure time to get far enough away from me.
I dug my nails into my palms.
I wedged my face between my knees.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Throwing my head back, I screamed, and the power exploded from me in wave after wave of bone-shattering electricity. My flesh shredded. My muscles ashed away. I was unmade. For an eternity, I knew nothing but pain.
Between one breath and the next, the outpouring of power ceased, snapping back into me and quieting, and suddenly, I was whole again. I took harsh breaths, enjoying the feel of air whooshing in and out of my brand-new lungs, of my brand-new heart pumping oxygen-rich blood to my brand-new organs and muscles.
I could hear the faint swish-swish of footsteps in the sand, but my mind wasn’t clear enough to make out where they were coming from. I just breathed. In and out. In and out. In and out.
Arms were around me, pulling me close to a hard body. That scent, spicy and intoxicating and comforting. Warmth. Happiness. Home.
“Is it done?” someone asked. Nekure, I thought somewhere in the back of my mind.
“It is,” someone else said. The one who was holding me. Heru. “Though with how much she has been using the sheut, I cannot imagine why it happened in the first place. She could not possibly use these powers any more than she already does . . . how could it build up to overflowing like that?”
“It did not last so long last time.”
“No,” Heru said. “It did not.”
The fractured pieces of my mind rearranged, fitting back together. I sucked in a deep breath and clutched Heru. My fingers dug into the firm flesh on his back. “How long did it last?” I asked, my voice hoarse from that initial scream.
Heru’s arms tightened around me, and he pressed his lips to the top of my head. “The sun is already beginning its descent.” Which meant it was late afternoon; I’d been out in the Sahara, unrelenting power exploding out of me, for hours. I feared that we were running out of time . . . that I was running out of time.
I took a deep, fortifying breath and loosened my hold on Heru. Pulling my head away from his shoulder, I looked into his eyes. “We need to talk to Nuin.”
39
Destruction & Sacrifice
“Take the sheut out of her,” was Heru’s greeting to Nuin as the three of us barged past his guards—who never would have stopped me, in the first place—and into his private chambers, which were about midway up in his palace’s tallest tower.
Nuin was in his compact, circular courtyard, sitting cross-legged at the head of a tiny pool filled with silvery fish, trailing his fingers through the water. It was where I usually found him. He’d once told me that the water helped him think, that its movement was so similar to the movement of time that it focused his thoughts, making the complex web of past, present, and future more understandable.
As we entered the courtyard, Nuin turned a steady gaze on Heru. There was something off about him, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “I cannot, and I will not,” he said calmly.
Heru strode forward, leaving Nekure and me to watch from just inside the wide, multi-arched doorway. He stopped on the opposite side of the pool from Nuin and pointed back at me. “She had another of those attacks. It is killing her.”
“I am quite aware. But if I tried to remove it, she would die instantaneously.”
Heru’s arm slowly sank.
“The only thing that surprises me,” Nuin said, “is that this second attack did not happen sooner.” He turned his attention to me, and it took me a moment to recognize what was different about him; his eyes were still brilliant, but they shone with a silvery opalescence, much like the default appearance of solidified At, instead of their usual rainbow hues.
I rushed forward to stand beside Heru. “Nuin . . . your eyes . . .”
Nuin gestured absentmindedly to his face with one hand. “While the presence of my sheut creates suffering for you, dear Alexandra, its absence does the same for me, it would seem.”
I ro
unded the pool in three lurching steps, falling to my knees at his side. “I know pulling all of it out of me would kill me, but can you take some to save yourself?”
His moonlight gaze washed over my face, and he shook his head. “You must learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can, dear Alexandra, for I think this body is not long for this world.”
My blood chilled as I wrapped my hands around his, demanding his full attention. “No, Nuin. Not yet.”
“But I must . . . it is what has always been and will always be.” His full, familiar lips curved into a smile. “That is what you had Aset tell me after you saved her so many years ago.”
“I—” I reared back. “What? Nuin, what are you talking about?”
“Ah, long ago . . . it was how I knew you were the right choice.” His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head to the side, studying me. “Long ago for me, at least. Still to come for you.”
“You should not have chosen her,” Heru said from directly behind me. “You should have chosen another.”
Nuin blinked, his silvery eyes slowly angling upward. “But I did not choose Alexandra. She chose herself.”
Heru’s sharp stare shifted to me.
Eyebrows drawn together, I shook my head. I didn’t think Nuin was all there at the moment, especially because I most certainly hadn’t chosen this path for myself. I helped Nuin to his feet and guided him through the doorway that led to his crescent-shaped bedroom. Heru and Nekure remained in the courtyard.
I sat on the edge of Nuin’s bed and, once he’d settled himself on the thin mattress, stared into those unfamiliar eyes. “Rest, Nuin, and I shall return for lessons in a few hours.”
He peered up at me, his eyes regaining some of their usual sparkle, if not their usual rainbow brilliance, and he chuckled softly. “I see that you and Heru have been quite busy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t . . . what are you talking about?”
“The saturation point, dear Alexandra—you have reached it.” He shrugged. “It is yet another sign that my time—and your time here—is coming to an end. Tonight, I believe I will explain to you how to use the sheut to travel through time.”
Time Anomaly: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #2) Page 30
