Return Once More (24 page)

“But now you do not. Because of this boy.”

“Yes. He's breaking rules, but Oz isn't dumb or reckless.” Neither was my brother, but one complication at a time.

We fell silent again, nothing but the sound of the waves sucking at the shore and our quiet, mingled breaths interrupting the night. I felt hesitation from my True, as though for the first time since we'd met he seemed unwilling to be frank.

The look in his eyes reproached me. “I think you have been irresponsible, Kaia. Coming to me. Telling me of the things that will be without knowing what could be affected.”

It stunned me, his admonishment. The tiniest spark of fear ignited in my gut and I wondered if my trust had been misplaced. If he wasn't as okay with the hand he'd been dealt now that I'd presented him with options. “What do you mean?”

“You, like this boy, have taken unnecessary chances. You've been given a gift and in return, accepted a responsibility. We are not so different, you and I. I was born a Ptolemy, my tiny shoulders burdened by the lives of others. My mother died for them, and I will do the same.”

My worry over his betrayal dissolved into anger. If I dug beneath it, I'd find embarrassment and guilt, but I wasn't ready to go there. “So, you're sorry I came to find you,” I snapped.

“I can't be sorry for that. I'm simply saying that people like you and me cannot forgo the best interests of many in order to please only ourselves. No matter our connection, your duty is to your people. It's to the future. It's not to me.” His eyes held onto mine, insisting I understand.

“You want to die for duty rather than live for yourself? You want me to go home and pretend we never met, pretend there isn't a chance we could save you?”

“What is written will come to pass, Kaia. If nothing else results from our time together, I hope you will remember that no matter where your heart lies, the promises you have made your people take precedence. It's not your job to save me if it is not my destiny to live.”

My brain struggled with my heart, trying hard to ease my anger. He was right. I
knew
coming here was wrong, that telling him about the future could have consequences I couldn't see, but I'd done it anyway. It had been selfish. Here with Caesarion, though, I still struggled to see things his way. I wanted to beat my fists into his chest and tell him his noble actions, the way he stood by his people, wouldn't mean anything at all. Not to anyone. Not in the long run.

Caesarion and Oz had much in common. Oz would be equally appalled at the chances I had taken, the potential risks involved in sitting here, chatting with Caesarion. I knew in my gut he would never do the same, not unless he had solid proof that no harm would be done in the process.

There were too many questions, and none of them would be solved in ancient Egypt. Caesarion and I didn't have much time left, and I didn't want to spend it arguing. Or think too hard about anything he'd said.

“I wish you would fight,” I whispered.

“With you or Octavian? Or perhaps the gods themselves?” He winked, easing the tension between us further. “Honestly, I'm not sure who would be harder to move.”

“I'm being serious. You don't have to die.”

“I do, Kaia. We all do, and I will not run, nor abandon my people to live under Rome's rule while I watch from a distance. I have accepted the brief nature of my time on this plane, and please … I need you to do the same.”

He thought we were alike, but we weren't. I wasn't brave. I didn't accept that some things were meant to be awful, not now, not after I'd touched him and kissed him and known him.

A quick, silent count to ten dissolved the rest of my irritation, leaving me nothing but raw truth that I was nowhere near ready to accept. I burrowed into Caesarion's side, resting my head on his chest and marveling in the steady, strong beat of his heart. “We probably have a few minutes before your guards return and decide that murdering me is best, no matter your orders.”

He chuckled and tangled a hand in my hair. We stared up at the sky, the Milky Way a picturesque streak across the navy blue that I'd never seen quite this way. The bio-tat tried to force an astronomy lesson on me without giving up on encouraging me to drop Caesarion's hand, and I wished I had chewed another couple of painkillers. My whole head throbbed, but the pain held no sway over the agony ravaging my heart.

“Tell me a story about the sky.” My voice sounded wet.

His fingers loosened in my hair, trailing down my neck. “Surely a girl from the world to come knows more than I about such things as stars.”

“Maybe. But you have better stories.”

It was something we'd lost along the way—the ability to be awed by the unknown, to create myths that made sense of the inexplicable, instead of boiling mysteries down to their basest components. It was true I knew the
science
of the Milky Way, but the science wasn't beautiful. Right now, when all the universe seemed spun by magical hands of ethereal beings, I craved the sound of Caesarion's voice telling me of Hathor, of the smeared river of stars that led to the world beyond this one.

And he did. He told me how Hathor was the Egyptian goddess of fertility, of life, and Osiris the god of death and rebirth, a symbol that a corporeal death only marked the beginning of one's journey.

“Why is Hathor connected with the Milky … um, the river in the sky?”

“Hathor is the milk of the mother, the river where Ra and the Kings of Egypt travel between their celestial realm and their creations on this planet. She floods the Nile to give life to my people and bursts water from the womb to signal an imminent birth.” He rolled toward me, pressing his hard chest against my side as he absently ran a hand over my belly. “Do you know the tale of Osiris?”

“No,” I whispered. It was the truth. Though I could know it in a matter of moments with a single request to the bio-tat, I preferred hearing it from him.

The sound of a cleared throat and clomping boots interrupted the cocoon we'd built, signaling the end of our hour and time for me to return to Sanchi before Analeigh hit the panic button. Our wrist comms didn't work while we were in the past, but I suspected mine would be full of frantic, angry texts upon my return.

Caesarion and I both struggled to a sitting position and looked up to find the mean, bald guard glaring down at us, his hand on the hilt of his cruel-looking dagger.

“It is time we retired for the night, my Pharaoh. The
sihr
will go.” He spat into the sand, the wad of saliva landing a little too close to me.

“Give me a moment to say my farewell, Thoth, and then I will return to camp. I presume you and Ammon have procured lodgings?”

“Yes. The innkeeper will hold your secret as long as the gold flows.” Thoth sounded disgusted, and even though he clearly wanted to kill me, I was glad Caesarion had someone who looked after him well, whether the loyalty was born of duty or something more intimate.

The two men stared at each other until Thoth finally backed down and left.

Caesarion pulled me to my feet and wrapped me in another hug, his fingers digging into my back. “Is this good-bye, my Kaia?”

“Didn't you just lecture me that it should be?”

His arms tightened. “I wanted you to understand that what this boy is doing and what you have done are no different. If it is wrong for him to interfere, it is wrong for you. But no. I do not wish this to be good-bye.”

My throat burned and I clung him, using his solidity to hold myself together a little longer. I didn't know if or when I could come back, or how many days remained before he returned to Alexandria and certain death. All I knew was that if he had more time, I would find more time.

It wasn't too late.

“I'll come back, Caesarion. At least once more while you're still here.”

“Am I going somewhere?” He pulled back to peer into my face, searching for answers or for the comfort he perceived rested in knowing the future.

“Yes. You'll return to Alexandria at Octavian's request.”

His lips pursed as he seemed to consider why he would acquiesce to such an obviously unwise request, but then straightened his shoulders. “It is my time to die, and Octavian's time to rule. The gods have willed it, and why should a mortal run from the beautiful life that awaits me on the other side of death?”

The words started my waterworks all over again. Tears fell onto my cheeks and slid past my lips. His understanding was ancient, yet oh-so-accurate even given my extensive knowledge of the world that had passed Before. Some people impacted the world by living; others changed the fate of history by dying. No one escaped those simple truths, and whether by the hand of the gods or by simple chance, my True fell into the latter category.

It was wrong to believe he didn't matter because he had to die.

I had known. In my heart, I had known when he'd risked his life to save that boy from the crocodile, that I could not rip Caesarion from his country, from his people. From his path. If I could have convinced him to run away, he would not be the man I had fallen in love with.

Caesarion put gentle hands on my cheeks, drawing me onto my toes until his warm mouth pressed against mine, his tongue flicking over my bottom lip to catch my stray tears. “You will not be with me in that world, though, and I find that truth rends my heart.”

My own heart wrenched in two, as though in sympathy for its twin. “I'm sorry. You're right. It was selfish of me to come here. You were happier before you met me.”

“It hurts me further to think you could believe such horrible thoughts. Whether or not I agree with your decision to come does not matter. I would not exchange these days with you.” Caesarion rubbed a smooth thumb across my mouth. “And one day, you will join me in the afterlife, and we will be together. I know it.”

I had never put much stock in what people had believed for so many years about the destination of our consciousness after death. There were still some in Genesis that clung to the idea of unknown realms that could never be discovered or understood by our minds alone, and in that moment, I wanted more than anything to believe.

“How do you know?”

“Return once more, Kaia. I'll tell you of Osiris and Isis, and you will know, too.”

Sanchi, Amalgam of Genesis–50 NE (New Era)

“Where have you been?”

The sight of Oz waiting for me outside the decontamination chamber nearly knocked me flat on my ass. It definitely shoved me out of my Caesarion-scented dreamland.

I glared at him in an attempt to cover up my guilty face. “None of your business.”

He stepped in front of me when I tried to shove past, then pushed me back into the air lock, slamming the heel of his hand against the button to close the doors. It meant we were stuck in here another five minutes, minimum.

“Kaia. I know you were in Egypt, the days before Caesarion died. And I know you were alone.” Before I could move he reached out and yanked me toward him, running rough fingers up my arm until he felt Jonah's cuff. “Where did you get that?”

“Illicit Cuffs for Apprentices. Same place you got yours, I guess. Did they give you the deep shit discount, too?” He let me go, and I stepped back, glaring for real now at being manhandled. “How do you know where I've been? Were you following me?”

“You mean like you've been following me?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I saw you in England. You need to work on blending in.”

Son of a biscuit eater.

“Thanks for the advice,” I snapped.

“L'avenir est dans le passé.”
He murmured the phrase, foreign to me, his smoky-gray eyes a mixture of fear and desperate hope.

I'd never heard the phrase before, and after all these years of Academy indoctrination there couldn't be a Historian mantra that escaped even my sometimes sporadic attention. My brain stem tat quickly filtered the French into English, and a frown snuck onto my lips. “
The future lies in the past?
What the hell is that, some kind of riddle? Why are you acting so crazy?”

Disappointment crowded the other emotions from his face, and in that moment, he appeared to be the lost, scared little boy I'd met when we all arrived at the Academy seven years ago. Then it fled, making room for his anger, and I shrank back against the far wall as he took a step toward me. He seemed bigger, all of a sudden, filling up the space and making me acutely aware of the fact that I had nowhere to run.

A tray slid out, waiting to collect clothing and blood samples, but neither of us had anything to discard. I reached out and let it prick my finger, and Oz did the same.

“What's ‘the future lies in the past?' Why did you say that?”

“Never mind. Forget it. Why were you in Egypt? Did you go to see
him?
”

“I'm not talking about this with you,” I deadpanned, crossing my arms over my chest to thwart the chill from the room. At least, I told myself it was the chill from the room and not from Oz, whose cold demeanor sent panic signals zapping from my brain to my limbs.

“Caesarion.” He clenched his fingers into fists and shook them loose, over and over again, but his tone softened. “Do you seriously think you're the first Historian tempted to observe their True Companion?”

“So what if I did want to see him? What are you going to do about it?”

“Kaia. If you knew what … If I could tell you the things I knew about your brother …” Oz dragged a hand through his too-long black hair, making pieces of it stand up in odd places. Frustration oozed from his pores, and every word that fell from his mouth confused me more.

“Oz.” I stepped toward him, swallowing the lingering fear and reaching for his hand. Remembering I knew him, that he wouldn't hurt me.

He jerked away when I touched him, his stormy eyes wide in surprise. “Don't.”