Return Once More (29 page)

“I didn't enjoy kissing you either, you know,” I added, even though it sounded defensive. I just couldn't let him think I'd been all weak in the knees over his dorky lips.

Oz shot me a wry smile. “Noted.”

“What did they say to you after I left?”

That one question changed the air between us, folded it up and sucked it into a black hole until we might as well be standing on opposite sides of the System. Oz's face shuttered, all of the openness of a few minutes ago wiped away, replaced by a blank slate. He rubbed his jaw, winced.

“Oz. Please. I know something's going on. We might only be apprentices but we're still Historians. We protect the past. Ensure the future.”

“Since when do you take duty and oaths seriously, Kaia?”

The stinging insult flung hard into my gut. The hours spent with Caesarion tried to hammer me with guilt, but those impulsive visits didn't negate my belief in this institution. “I may not always follow the rules, Oz, but I wouldn't put the future of humanity at stake.”

“But I would?” he challenged.

“I don't know. Would you?”

Oz shook his head, refusing to look at me. “You don't know anything.”

“If you're not putting us in danger, then you must be able to predict trajectories. To know for sure the effects you are creating. How?” I tried hard to keep the desperation from my voice, but the flicker in his gaze said he'd heard it.

“That's impossible. Your imagination is getting the best of you. Again.”

He was lying.
Like calls to like, in science and in life. To my untruthful brain, untruths sang loud and clear.

“Jonah said something dangerous is going on at the Academy. I think you know what it is.”

“I thought you hadn't spoken to him since he left?”

“You're determined that I'm not special enough to be privy to your secrets, so why should you be privy to mine?”

“Your brother is a delinquent and a criminal. If anyone is a danger to the continued validity of the System, it's him.”

This was going nowhere. He wouldn't admit he knew anything about a project that was a secret from the apprentices. Jonah had insinuated that the Elders—well, at least Zeke—were behind it. So, how did Oz, not even a full Historian yet, fit in?

In a last-ditch effort, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around his strong, pale forearm, dragging him to a stop. His skin pricked under my palm before he pulled away as though my touch pained him.

“Oz. If you need help, you can trust me.”

His rain-cloud eyes grew heavy, as though holding tight to a storm of confessions that begged to break free. I hoped my own dark brown gaze urged him to give in, said I could be his friend, because it was true. If for no other reason than to help Sarah, I would be Oz's friend in this—whatever that meant.

I found that, after everything, I did care about him and not just because of how his fate intertwined with my friend's. Our history did indeed count for something.

After what seemed like an eternity, but probably lasted only a minute or less, he shook his head. Black chunks of hair flopped in front of his glasses, and he raked it back with his long fingers. “I can't trust anyone,” he said softly, before turning and walking the last few steps to the judgment chamber alone.

*

The sanction meeting had gone about as well as expected, except they'd declared mopper duty for a month, not two weeks. And not together, of course, given their assumption that the two of us couldn't keep our hands off each other.

Ugh.

Elder Truman refused to even look at Oz, his eyes hard, lips set in a grim line. Oz's mother had died giving birth to him, but aside from his gray eyes, all of his physical traits must have come from her. Truman definitely seemed like the type who would
never
get wrapped up in a relationship, True or not. That his supposedly perfect son had made such a cosmic error in judgment probably embarrassed him half to death, but it wouldn't surprise me if that emotion came out of him as anger. A brief stab of worry sliced through me and I glanced again at the bruise on Oz's cheek.

Oz probably had quite the time explaining his tryst with me, given that he'd been gifted with the rarest of loves. Boys were weird, though. Maybe he blamed it on cold feet or sewing wild oats or some other such nonsense.

Caesarion had sown his own wild oats—probably wilder ones than Oz could dream up—and it wasn't like I'd never had a crush, or butterflies, or been kissed before now, but even so. If I'd gotten to keep what Caesarion and I had—if we had been as lucky as Oz and Sarah—I would never even
look
at another guy again.

I'd gone to the infirmary after our sanction meeting and complained of a headache. The medic pulled my recent bio data and recorded the spikes of pain that had recurred in the previous days, ran a few tests to make sure they weren't something to be concerned about, then typed in an excuse that let me out of my assignments for the remainder of the day.

The medics only had access to the medical readouts, not what had been happening when the headaches spiked, so there was no way for her to know that I'd brought the headaches on myself by disobeying the culture prods from my brain stem tattoo by rolling around in the ancient Egyptian sand with a boy.

I used my wrist comm to send Analeigh a message, letting her know I was fine, but not to worry if she couldn't find me for a few hours. It was as vague as possible, and if anyone read it, it could very well be a poorly worded message about my planning to nap off my headache.

She was going to be pissed.

The Elders were too smart to not double-check on me in the coming days, and to be honest, I was scared the tech Jonah had given me wouldn't hold up if they dug too deep.

This would be my last trip to see Caesarion. To say good-bye. As hard as I'd been hanging onto the idea that I could save him, I hadn't been able to find a shred of information that led me to believe it would be okay. I had run out of time.

My anxiety eased the moment I'd accepted my True's fate. Caesarion could never have turned his people over to Octavian without a fight, would never have been content living the quiet life of a commoner. It would have felt like abandonment, like cowardice. I should have known the day I watched him risk his life to save a little boy he'd never met, a boy who shouldn't have mattered to someone as important and high-born as Pharoh, but I hadn't wanted to see.

The Kaia who had snuck off to Egypt to meet him believed her desire trumped the rules, but the girl he'd helped me understand I
needed
to be was different. I had gone to Egypt for selfish reasons—to have my moments. I'd had them, but now I understood that I'd been lucky they had not come at a cost. My role as a Historian, the mantle entrusted to me by the Elders and my family and the people of Genesis, had to take precedence. Caesarion would die as he was meant to. And I would let him, as I was meant to.

It was our destiny. If he could be brave enough to face it, so would I.

Running around the ancient world seemed childish now, among other things, while everything I'd ever believed crumbled in my present. But one more visit couldn't make anything worse. It was kind of like dying twice or saying something was overly wet. You were either dead, or wet. And if they discovered I had technology that shorted out my location tracking, I was royally screwed as it was. If I was going down, it might as well be in a big, splashy way.

The creamy tunic and skirt fit comfortably now, and the emerald green sash contrasted prettily with my bronzed skin. My hair wasn't in the style of the time, but I was getting better at setting the cuff, and since Caesarion would still be in the south of Egypt, I wouldn't startle anyone but the guards again.

I set the cuff for a specific latitude and longitude that I'd researched—it should land me on an undeveloped section of the Red Sea coast—and set the year for what would most likely be the last time. A moment later, I was there.

Berenice
,
Egypt
, Earth Before–30 BCE (Before Common Era)

The Egyptian night stunned me with its beauty as though it could persuade me to change my mind. Thirty BCE had never looked more gorgeous to me, and the sea breeze had even managed to bank the suffocating heat. Too many stars to count, far more than we
ever
saw from Sanchi, sprinkled the black sky. The glow from the moon smudged a ring of midnight blue around the orb that had seemed such a beautiful mystery to my ancestors.

In front of me, craggy foothills rose into rolling mountains. At my back, waves lapped gently at the shore, rolling against the sand with a sighing whisper that unwound the knots in my neck and shoulders. I recognized a funny-shaped piece of driftwood from my walk with Caesarion on my previous visit and smiled, feeling proud. Maybe they wouldn't want me to be a Historian once all of this came to light, but it didn't change the fact that I was one.

The feeling of accomplishment straightened my tired spine as I trekked up the beach and then away from the shore, searching for the inn where Thoth had secured lodgings.

My bio-tat pulled up the best available mapping of the surrounding area and located two inns within walking distance. One sat a five-minute walk from the beach, much closer than the second, and I slipped in the front door ten minutes later.

No one stirred, not even Ammon, who slept in the corner by the fire, a tankard of wine tipped over by his sandal. The sight of him simmered resentment in my gut. Even though the most vigilant of guards could not save my True, they were supposed to be trying. Staying awake while on duty would be a good start.

There was one set of stairs and only three rooms lining the hall at the top. The first door revealed a sleeping Thoth, along with the still nameless third guard. The second room sat empty, and in the third, Caesarion slept on a thin mattress while his older manservant paced the floor.

His eyes flew to mine, hand grasping the hilt of his weapon. I held up my hands, and when he recognized me, bright fear lit his gaze.

“You've come to kill him,” he whispered, almost choking on the words.

“What? No! Why would I kill him?” I whispered back.

“His time is almost here. You are a
dark one
, appearing from nowhere and filling Pharaoh's head with clouds. He doesn't eat or study, and he hasn't taken a woman to bed in weeks.”

Pleasure tingled under my skin. I ignored it, intent on remembering my larger purpose. “Tell me about the dark ones.”

“It is best not to speak of such things.”

“Please.”

Whether because he feared me or because he had grown used to taking orders I didn't know, but he relented after a moment of consideration. “Like you, they appear from the air. Melt into being, covered from head to toe in black, even their faces. They carry a small box that turns people into water from the inside. Then they're gone.”

It
had
to be sonic wavers. I'd bet my teeth on it. But how? The technology wouldn't even be considered until the Nazi scientists started dreaming up creative ways to kill people in the mid-twentieth century, and they wouldn't be perfected until the twenty-fifth century. Nothing else could cause the physical destruction he described though. Not here and now.

Oz's gray eyes, turbulent but determined, hung in my mind. He'd pushed that woman to change the course of James Puckle. Had he killed others to change their courses, too?

“I'm not here to kill Pharaoh. But I would like to be alone with him.”

I had no idea whether he would comply with my request, which the sharp, stabbing pain in the base of my skull said was completely inappropriate, but after a moment, he nodded.

“Only because it is Pharaoh's wish.” He swept from the room, giving me a wide berth on his way past.

Caesarion slept, undisturbed by the hushed conversation of my latest intrusion in his life. His bare chest rose and fell in a soothing rhythm, the sound of life moving in and out of him almost bringing me to tears. How much longer would his lungs fill with air, his heart pump blood through his thrumming veins?

Not long.

I moved to the edge of the sagging bed and sat, reaching out a hand to touch the bristle of his dark hair. He startled at the soft brush of my hand, his midnight-blue eyes flying open in surprise that changed quickly to pleasure.

“Kaia, my love,” he breathed in a sleepy voice that had me curled up beside him in a matter of moments.

His body radiated warmth from the woolen blanket, and his long arms held me tight against his chest. With my cheek against his heart, my own found a matching rhythm, heavy with the knowledge that this night would be our last.

We stayed that way a long time, together in silence, his breath moving strands of hair on top of my head. I toyed with the dark hair curled across his chest, running my fingertips over the play between coarse and smooth, trying to memorize everything.

When he finally spoke, it startled me. “I am glad you came. I've delayed my departure for Alexandria in the hopes that you would.”

My blood turned to ice. I raised my head slightly so I could look into his handsome face, my stomach sinking. “You shouldn't have done that. I could have found you.”

He gave me a halfhearted smile. Weariness that hadn't been there the last time we'd spent time together appeared in the rings around his eyes, the slump of his shoulders, and poked holes in my heart. “We haven't discussed the intricacies of your comings and goings. The summons from Octavian has come, but leaving immediately didn't seem important in the grand design of life at the moment, and I didn't want to take any chances. Don't worry. I'm still going back.”

I pressed a kiss to his soft, salty lips. His hands came up, cupping my cheeks and then sliding into my hair. We were both breathless a moment later when I pulled away, stars in my eyes and body close to reneging on the decision I'd made not to complicate things further.