What the hell happened out there?
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked Silas. “After everything he’s done to you in the past?”
He seemed taken aback. “Mother, he’s your son.”
Her indifferent expression hummed and hawed and she shrugged sadly. “Yes. And I’ll grieve for his death. But I know in my heart that he made the choices that led to his own death.” Her trembling fingers smoothed over Horus’ stiff chest. “He brought this on himself.”
He glanced at Anubis for back-up and when he got nothing in return, Silas looked to me, searching my face for reassurance. “No matter how angry with one another we may have ever been, we’d never destroy each other’s amulets.”
I guffawed. “Yeah, just trap you inside it and bury it deep in the desert for thousands of years.”
“He could have destroyed it,” Silas argued weakly. “But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.” His mossy eyes gleamed with tears. “I can’t expect any of you to understand it, but I love him. I do. He’s my brother.”
“And what about Andie?” Anubis piped up and even I looked at him with surprise. “What does she mean to you? Your brother tried to kill her, more than once, might I remind.”
Silas grit his teeth together, his fingers mulling together in his tight hands. “And for that he’ll pay dearly. I swear.” His pitiful gaze fell on me and my heart clenched. I didn’t want to come between him and something, someone he cared for. Not like this. His voice softened. “We don’t need to resurrect him in his body. If Isis can fix the amulet, then that’s where he’ll stay.”
Hope bloomed in my chest. “Promise?”
He stepped toward me and cupped the side of my neck in his hand before placing a kiss to my forehead. “Promise.”
Isis cleared her throat and glanced toward the exit that led out to the other side of the mountain we stood in. “We don’t have much time. Set is wreaking havoc already, in search of Star People.” She swallowed nervously. “In search of…me. He’ll destroy all of Egypt in a matter of days. Even if I fix the stone, Horus’ soul is gone. It’ll need to be retrieved and that’ll take time.”
Anubis crossed his muscled arms over his chest. “I have a plan for that. We just need to know if you can fix the stone or not.”
She pursed her lips and moved her other hand from inside the long teal robes that hung from her body and opened her palm to reveal the two broken pieces. She stared at them longingly. “I can. But the stone is no good without a soul to put in it. Are you sure you can do it?”
Anubis and Silas exchanged a hesitant but thoughtful glance. “Yes. We have time. His soul has yet to pass beyond. It can be retrieved from the Underworld, from the River of Souls.”
A stark memory pinged in my brain and I suddenly recalled my brief moment in the River of Souls. How I’d been dead. Gone to this world, and the one I knew. Floating along in the glowing current.
“Very well, then,” Isis replied with a single nod. “Let’s not waste any more time.”
The three of us stood by and watched–me in wonder, the rest with expecting but knowing expressions–as Isis cupped the two halves of the cloudy stone in her hands. She closed her eyes while a soft hum radiated out from where she stood, filled the air with a calm vibration. Crisp white light grew in her cinched hands, spilling out from the cracks until it was too hard to look at.
I pinched my eyes shut as I turned away, shielding my face from the warming light until I felt it flee the room and the slight chill of room temperature take its place. I blinked away the film and looked to find her standing there with the stone perfectly intact. She held it out for Silas.
He accepted it cautiously and slipped it in his pocket. “Thank you.”
“So, how do we plan to find Horus’ soul in a sea of thousands?” I asked Anubis.
He stared at me for a moment, seemingly willing me to recall my brief time down in the Underworld and how he’d pulled me from the river. I remembered then, how the arm that touched the water to yank me out had been singed with death. Yeah, it took no time to heal, but it also took even less time for it to eat away at his flesh.
A second of worry flashed in his beady eyes. “Leave that part to me. But it’s best we go tonight. There’s something I have to do first.”
***
Silas and I dragged our tired feet across the colony and back to my quarters as we waited for Anubis to do…whatever it is he insisted he had to do. I tried to think of what it could possibly be, with our window of time so limited. It must have been important.
I shut the door behind us and clicked the lock with a sigh. My body vibrated with a mix of adrenaline and exhaustion. My emotions had been on a never-ending roller coaster since my arrival here and there was only so much more I could take.
My hands nervously braided together in front of me. “So, you’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”
Silas stood in the middle of the generous space I lived in. “Andie, I assure you, even though you may question it, you come first. If it’s ever a choice between you and my brother, I’ll always choose you no matter how I may feel about it. That’s a commitment I made not just to you, but to myself.”
I chewed at my lip. “No, I never want to be that person. The ultimatum girl.”
I thought back then, to the moment my hand slipped over Horus’ arm in the temple. He was going to stop. I could feel it. The look on his face when the cube finished opening on its own...It was instant regret.
There might just be hope for the guy yet.
I managed a smile. “Let’s not talk about that right now. I don’t want to spend these few moments we have drenched in worry and what ifs.”
He plunked down on the edge of the bed and leaned forward on his lap. “What do you propose we talk about, then?”
“Oh, I dunno. How about this fancy new stone I have in my pocket?” I swayed over to him, let my leg brush against his and he fixed his hand around my thigh. “We haven’t really had the chance to discuss it. What it really means. Like, how you’re stuck with me for eternity now. Has it sunk in yet?”
Silas tipped his head back and peered up at me with a longing in his eyes. “It sunk in for me long before the stone was ever made. Andie, I can’t live without you. After this is all over, when we put my brother back in his stone and stop Set from destroying the world, we can leave this place knowing it’s finally safe for the Star People. Knowing that humanity will evolve the way they were always meant to.”
His fingers trailed up my inner thigh and I combed my hands through his soft hair. “And where would we go?” I asked him softly.
Silas’ shoulders rolled. “Anywhere you want. We could claim a small island in the middle of nowhere and live in peace. We could stay here and help the Star People find proper homes. Liberate the cities, help them all join peacefully. Or we could…go back.”
My pulse tightened. “Back? You mean…”
“Yes, if you wanted. If we are successful, then my purpose of returning to the past is done. It’s when I had planned on coming back to you, anyway. To the future.”
“B-but we destroyed the keystone.”
He tapped his forehead with a grin. “I can make another one.”
A new sense of hope flourished in my chest as I considered the possibility. Go home. Where it’s safe and comfortable. But would it be? Would the actions we’ve taken here in the past change the future I came from for the better or worse?
I shook the thoughts from my mind and smiled down at him as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Let’s not worry about any of that right now. One thing at a time. And, since we’re stuck waiting for your cousin, we finally have a moment to stop and breathe.” I leaned down and kissed his soft, wide lips but couldn’t stop the giddy grin that appeared there. “To celebrate the fact that you practically married me this week.”
Silas reeled back mockingly. “Oh, is that so? Married? That’s a bit of a leap.”
I pinched his chin playfully and pul
led his face back to mine. “You gave me part of your soul to create a stone that would make me immortal. If that’s not some kinda commitment, then I don’t know what is.”
He chuckled lightly and both his hands gripped the back of my thighs, hauling me closer into his embrace. His lips were on my neck, his words a whisper against my skin between kisses. “So how would you like to celebrate, Mrs. Kalem?”
I leaned into him and we fell backward onto the bed where I wrapped a leg over his waist. Our bodies moulded together, moving in waves of warmth and desire. My lips moved against his. “I can think of one way.
Chapter Twenty
For someone who’s apparently alive, I’ve sure spent my fair share of time in the Underworld. The deep, hollow echo of the dark cave system enwrapped me in an uncomfortable blanket of unease. I hated it down here. It reeked of death and sadness.
I stood with Silas near the edge of the river, its eerie green glow illuminating the slick black stone around us. To the trained ear, the faintest cries and moans of the dead could be heard in the rushing waters. That was me. I’d been down there, letting the current take me away. And how willing I was. A chill ran through me and I shivered it off.
I looked at a nervous Anubis. “Thank you.”
His brow cinched together at the base of his long snout. “For what?”
I hugged myself tightly. “For saving me that night. For pulling me from the river and putting me back in my body.”
A pause held the chilly space between us.
“As far as I saw it, you were my only chance at getting Amun back.”
I felt my cheeks fill with an embarrassing heat. “Oh, yeah, that’s right.” I looked away and Silas’ hand rubbed my back. I felt foolish for assuming Anubis did it because he cared about me. I was a stranger to him that night.
Anubis let out a puff of air. “But I also knew that if Amun trusted you with his amulet, then you were important to him and, eventually, would become important to me, too.”
I beamed and relaxed a little, but then remembered. “Your hand that night. It was burned or something.”
“Yes,” he replied and one of his arms tensed as he shielded it behind him. “I can’t survive the River of Souls, no living thing can. Once I’m in, I’ll have limited time to find Horus’ soul before the river sucks the life from my body.”
“How much time?” Silas asked.
With a look of shame, Anubis moved his arm from behind him to reveal a withered limb. Greyed skin and exposed bone. I could see it healing before my eyes, but it didn’t stop the wave of shock that came over me.
He shrugged. “Five minutes, perhaps.”
“Jesus!” I shrieked and instinctively reached for his arm but stopped myself. “What did you do?”
“I had to test and see how long I could endure the river.”
“My God…” Silas blew out in a whisper. He traded a concerned glance with me.
I stared at Anubis pointedly. “If you’re not out in four, then I’m coming in after you.”
Silas ripped at my hand. “Like hell you are!” He nodded dutifully to his cousin. “I’ll do it.”
Anubis slapped his cousin’s arm and gripped it firmly. “Well, I’ll leave you two to debate my mortality. We’ve got another clock to worry about.” He moved toward the edge of the water and glanced over his shoulder with a worried smile before diving into the river.
We both paced the jagged stone of the bank in silence as we waited. I hauled up my sleeve and turned the face of my hidden watch around. “It’s been two minutes. Any sign of him?”
Silas peered down, his eyes scanning the gently moving waters. “No. Not yet.”
“He’s got less than two more minutes,” I told him.
“Anubis said he could endure five.”
My eyes widened. “No, five minutes is how long he could last. If he doesn’t appear soon, then we’ll be hauling out his dead body.”
We continued to pace, and another minute passed. I began to count down the seconds in my mind. “Ten, nine, eight, seven.” Silas tensed and braced himself, ready to dive in. “Six, five, four–”
A shrivelled hand shot up out of the emerald waves and clung to the rocky riverside, causing us to jump back. Eerie steam billowed up from it and Anubis, or what was left of him, dragged himself out. Nothing but exposed bone and ripped flesh hanging from his struggling form.
Silas reached for him, but Anubis’ gurgled voice echoed through the cavern. “No! I’m covered in it. Don’t touch me.”
We had no choice but to stand there and watch painfully as he fought tirelessly to extract himself from the River of Souls. His one arm still in the water, the last to come out, and I realized why. It pulled along a soul. Ghostly boned fingers reached out to claw it back in with them, but Anubis wretched it with one last haul and he collapsed on the ground with the glowing figure next to him.
My mouth gaped at the gruesome scene before me. Unable to fathom my next move. Or even my next word. I could already see the immortal power that lived within Anubis working to heal his emaciated body. Filling in the holes of raw flesh, repairing the deteriorating bones. But, still, it didn’t lessen the urge to gag at the sight of it. Of his pain, his sacrifice he’d made for the love of his cousin. Or perhaps he had his own reasons for wanting to save Horus.
“Where the hell am I?” a musical voice sounded off the walls. Horus’ soul wavered in place, unanchored to the world, as he peered around with infant eyes. “What’s happening?”
“You don’t remember what Set did?” Silas asked him.
He struggled through the confusion that plagued his see-through face. “Set. Yes.” He nodded slowly, remembering. Then anger filled his expression, and he outstretched his floating arms to examine them. “How could he do this to me?”
“How could he do this to you?” I gawked. “How could you do this to us? To the world?”
“I had a plan,” he snapped. “I was going to defeat Set and save your precious world, and everyone would have loved me for it.”
Silas hissed a sigh. “You’re nothing but a jealous brat.”
Anubis still lay on the ground, recovering, and we let him do it in peace as we chastised Horus.
I narrowed my eyes at his glowing form, trying not to imagine myself in such a state. “That was a stupid idea. No one is strong enough to defeat Set.”
His chin quivered slightly as he raised it defiantly. “I also had a back up plan.”
Silas flew into an enraged lecture with his brother as I took a step back, immersing myself in thought. I pooled together all of the events of the last few days, mixed them with all my hunches, and searched for the holes. This is what I knew. Only an Elder God can defeat another Elder God, but Isis is the only one we had, and she’s weakened without her counterpart to draw power from. Osiris. Then I recalled what Set muttered in the temple before he crushed the life from Horus.
Our secret dies with you.
Suddenly, a stark chill ran through me, carrying with it the sting of realization. It felt like betrayal, but it was so much more than that. I tightened my stare at Horus and shoved at Silas’ shoulder as I pushed myself to the center of their argument.
“Why would Set kill you so swiftly and ensure you’d never return?” My words cut through the air and Horus let his nervousness rise to the surface. “He said that the secret dies with you.”
Silas reached out to grab his brother but stopped himself. It would do no good. He had no physical form to grab. “What. Secret?”
Horus stood silently, almost ashamed, but masked it with defiance.
Silas turned to me. “What is it? What are you getting at?”
I never let my stare waver from the undeserving soul before me and mulled my lips together as I crossed my arms tightly. The longer I let the idea sit in my mind, the more it made sense. Horus dared meet my gaze and I flashed him a look that could kill.
“You know where Osiris is, don’t you?”
“What?” Sila
s’ shocked tone matched Anubis’ from the floor. Hastily, he yanked the milky amulet from his pocket and dangled it in front of his brother. “Tell us the truth or you’ll never see this again. I’ll toss you back in the damn river myself.”
Anubis struggled to his feet and, much like a dog, shook the remnant of enchanted water from his skin and fur. He stalked clumsily over to us.
Horus rolled his eyes. “Fine. Yes, I know where parts of our father are hidden.”
Silas spun around and stomped over to a loose patch of gravel and kicked at it with a roar of frustration. Horus and I exchanged an odd look, one that almost felt laced with regret, and I weighed back, confused. Why was he so defensive with his brother, but let me see these slight glimpses of his apparent diffidence? His expression hardened when Silas stalked back to us.
He jabbed a finger at his brother. “How do you know where our father is? And I want the truth. How do you know where Set hid parts of our father’s body?”
Horus sighed in defeat. “Because I helped him do it.”
My hand flinched to my face and covered a gasp that squeezed from my mouth. “Jesus…”
Anubis couldn’t hold on, he plopped down on a large rock and braced himself with hands on his knees. What must be going through his mind, I wondered? His cousin and his own father worked together to kill and hide the body of the only man who loved him like a son. And he just helped save one of them. How conflicted he must feel.
“Listen here,” Silas pushed through his teeth. “This is what’s going to happen. We’ll put you back in your amulet on one condition. You tell us exactly where to find Osiris.”
The wretched trickster searched our faces, peering into our wide and angered eyes as if looking for something. Then, when his transparent face plumped with a sly idea, I knew he caught on to our plan to keep him in the stone.
“I’ll agree, only if you swear to put me back in my body afterward.”
Silas all but jumped out of his own skin. “And let you continue to ruin our lives and the future of humanity?” A guffaw chopped from his mouth. “I think not.”
Tempest Minds: A Time Travel Fantasy Romance (Kingdom of Sand & Stars Book 2) Page 13