“Marcus! You’re defeating the purpose,” I gasped as his fingers found my most sensitive place.
“Apologies, Little Ivanov, but seeing you like this—” He removed his hand, and within seconds, had my back against the wall, my legs wrapped around his hips. “—I … just … can’t … resist.”
We agreed to wash our own bodies after that, “to prevent wasting all the water,” Marcus had said. I’d laughed.
Finally, hand in hand, Marcus and I emerged from the trailer, clean and fully clothed. I wasn’t prepared for the dozens of Nejerets who offered us generous bows and congratulations as we walked back up the main drag to our tents. Marcus, on the other hand, accepted them graciously, almost as though he’d expected the reaction.
“I’ve never had so many people excited about my sex life,” I murmured, hoping only Marcus was close enough to hear.
He shot me a look that told me I was being unbelievably dense.
“Oh.” I blushed, realizing my folly. Apparently I was still thinking like a human. “It’s because I claimed you, and you accepted, isn’t it? So … what does that mean?”
“In human terms, we’re married,” he explained, stopping at the entrance to my tent.
I gaped up at him. Like having children, I had pretty much given up on the idea of ever getting married, instead opting to gallivant around the Mediterranean, searching for remnants of the ancient, forgotten past. Besides, Marcus was pushing at least five thousand, while I was pushing only twenty-five. And we were married? Oh my God … what are my parents going to say?
He kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “I’ll have some of the guards move your things into my tent along with a larger cot. Tonight we can further explore the more personal details of our marriage … if you’d like.”
Regardless of my mental woes, I smiled, feeling my body tighten in anticipation. “I’d like,” I said quietly. I was pretty sure the whole “marriage” thing had yet to really sink in.
Marcus pulled away, his eyes burning with promise. “Gather what you need for the day. I’ll meet you here in five minutes.” He walked toward his tent with purpose.
Ducking inside my own canvas home, I took a few humongous breaths. Much had changed since I’d left the previous night, and I couldn’t help but lose myself in the unbelievably pleasant memories.
“Lex!” Marcus called from outside. “Hurry up! I’m famished!”
Laughing at myself for getting lost in daydreams, I picked up my excavation bag and hurried out into the warm desert air.
***
“We thought maybe—” Neffe began, but she was silenced by a sharp sound from her father. “It’s her choice,” she snapped in response. She was sitting across from me at one of the green fold-out picnic tables underneath the canopy at the west edge of camp. Dominic sat beside her, and Marcus beside me while we ate a breakfast of oatmeal and fruit salad.
“What is my choice?” I asked, shooting Marcus a suspicious glance. He needed to learn that he couldn’t run my life by omitting certain significant pieces of information, mythic Egyptian god or not.
Ignoring her father’s furious glare, Neffe explained, “When I was growing up, shortly after Senenmut presented him with the tablet containing Nuin’s lost prophecy, he”—she pointed her chin at Marcus—“left my mother and me because Set threatened to take my life if he stayed. He didn’t know why Set made the threat, but he knew Set would carry it out because of what happened with Aset—Isis—and he knew Set would hold his word and not kill me if he left.” Her full lips curved down in a frown. “Set does have a sense of honor, twisted as his mind is. Anyway, my mother was furious—maybe because having Heru as her husband was part of what kept her in power as the mighty pharaoh Hatchepsut—so she took up with Set instead. My father made Senenmut stay behind to watch over for me and keep me safe in his absence, but my mother coerced him into obeying Set, if only to ensure that Set would stay with her so she could retain her power.”
God, she sounds like a real gem of a mother, I thought sarcastically.
Sighing, Neffe continued, “In the guise of my mother’s stepson, Set forced Senenmut to work as his own personal architect, designing and constructing a handful of projects throughout the land. We now know that one is the very temple we’re searching for, though nobody but Set, Senenmut, and the workers knew about it at the time, and Set cloaked all echoes relating to the temple long ago, before anyone knew to look for it in the At … not to mention he killed all of the workers upon its completion, including Senenmut.” A deep sadness stirred in Neffe’s eyes, and I instantly knew that she had cared deeply for the ancient architect.
“It wasn’t until we found Senenmut’s second tablet in his mother’s coffin that we had some idea of where Set had hidden the chest containing the ankh-At.” Squinting, Neffe looked up at the expanse of tan canvas sheltering us from the morning sun. “And that was maybe … around fifty years ago that we found the tablet.” She shook her head, swishing her thick black ponytail. “The point is, none of us can break through his cloak, but you can because you share his DNA and you’re a manipulator. None of his other children, at least not the ones on our side, can manipulate the At. But, if you can slip through his cloak and learn the exact location of the entrance in the upper Anubis chapel, it would save us from having to tear the whole thing apart in our search.”
I wanted to help, but I was scared. As the Meswett, I was supposed to be strong. I was supposed to save my people—and the world—but memories of Set and his poisonous words plagued me. And he had Jenny. What if I did something to anger him, and he took his rage out on my sister? But … what if we managed to find the hidden entrance, enter the temple, and somehow open the chest containing the ankh-At—Nuin’s power—and gain control of that power before Set could coerce it from me? Surely, once I’d accessed Nuin’s power over time, defeating Set would be easy. No Set, no Nothingness, safe world. It was ideal and oh so close I could almost reach out and touch it.
“I’ll do it,” I said, determined. Marcus’s hand clenched my thigh, but he let my decision stand. “When?” I asked.
Neffe’s eyes darted back and forth between us. “How about now?” she suggested.
“Now? Here?” Marcus spat. Turning all of his attention on me, he murmured, “You can do this later, Lex. We have time.”
I leaned in, giving him a very steamy kiss, and whispered, “Be back in a few.”
And then I was gone, enmeshed in the absolutely when-less Where for the first time. It intrigued me that the At’s kaleidoscope colors flowed ceaselessly up and down, as opposed to the round and round of the where-less When I’d grown so familiar with. Shifting my focus slightly to the upper Anubis Chapel, I thought about Set … really, really hard … and eventually the world slammed into place.
I stumbled forward several steps, listening as the ground didn’t crunch beneath my feet. When I finally righted myself, I noticed two robed men standing before me, one pale-skinned—Set—the other tan.
Set tapped on a limestone wall, speaking in what sounded like the same beautifully sibilant language I’d heard Marcus use several times—Middle Egyptian. It was so similar to Nuin’s language … just not quite the same, like Spanish versus Italian.
“You should know better than this by now,” Set said from behind me. I knew it was the real Set—his ba—not the echo of a past version of himself like the Set I was watching interact with a man I assumed was Senenmut.
I groaned. He’s right. I really should know better. I did know better … but people were depending on me.
“I’m looking for the entrance. I thought you wanted me to find it so I can access the ankh-At,” I said. “That way you can try to command me and all …”
Set laughed. “I want you to find it in the right state of mind. Are you in the right state of mind, Daughter?”
I refused to turn around.
“Be my daughter, my true daughter. Join my family in purpose as well as blood. You and I, we can do grea
t things together,” he cooed.
“No,” I said. “We really can’t.”
“Join me. Obtain the ankh-At for me. Obey me,” he urged.
“Never going to happen,” I told him as I watched the other Set, the one from millennia past, argue with the golden-skinned man.
“I’ll destroy your precious state of Washington,” Set said.
“And then I’ll never obey you. Not ever. I’ll have nothing left to lose,” I told him. Oh God … what if he really does it?
His hand latched around the back of my neck, squeezing so hard he forced my spine to arch. “You think that? I am not so sure.”
Suddenly, Set was in front of me. He backhanded me, hitting the left side of my face, and I sprawled onto the ground on hands and knees, spitting blood and saliva. I’d never been hit before, not really. The shock almost overwhelmed the pain … for about a second.
Kicking me in the gut, he said, “Take a look, Daughter. See exactly what it is you have to lose.”
I was suddenly crouched on hands and knees in my canvas tent, gasping for breath. The world was dead silent around me … too silent.
Did Set sent me back to my body? How’d I get back to my tent? I groaned. God, I hurt … Taking a deep, painful breath, I called out, “Marcus? Dom? Vali? Sandra?”
Dead silence.
I pushed myself up to my feet and swiped my swelling mouth with the back of my hand. It came away smeared with blood.
“Hello! Anyone?” I called, passing through the wide-open doorway and into the dry heat of Deir el-Bahri.
In the glaring midday sun, I hadn’t noticed the debris piled on the ground in front of my little doorway. I tripped, stumbling several steps before sprawling out on hands and knees again. My palms were quickly becoming badly scraped, with sharp little rocks slicing into my flesh.
“Damn it,” I grumbled, looking behind me to see what I’d tripped over.
It was Dominic. My Dominic.
“Oh no! No, no no! Dom? Dom!” I scrambled the few feet to his motionless body. “Help!” I yelled. “Someone! HELP!”
Even if the greatest doctor who’d ever lived had heard, it wouldn’t have mattered. Dominic’s open eyes were vacant, his face white and bloodless. I reached out, but snatched my hand back almost instantly. I couldn’t bear to touch him.
Jerkily, I crawled to Marcus’s tent. But after a quick peek through the open doorway, I knew it was empty.
Slowing down my panicked brain, I forced myself to remember where I’d been before I’d entered the At … before I’d encountered Set. At the tables under the canopy, eating breakfast with Marcus, Dominic, and Neffe.
Standing, I raced through the middle of camp. When I reached the west edge and saw what lay just beyond one of the tents along the perimeter, I skidded to a halt. It was another person. Familiar chestnut-brown hair fanned over the fine bones of a feminine, middle-aged face. Her arm was outstretched, fingers reaching toward the crumpled body of a stocky man.
Crouching at the woman’s side, I extended a shaking hand toward her to brush the hair from her face, but stopped short. There was no question. I thought maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it just looked like her. Maybe it was someone else, some other nameless woman. Someone else’s mom. Not mine.
“NOOOOO!” I wailed, pounding the earth with my bloodied palms. I reached for her, needing to feel her in my arms. I had to let her know I was there for her, even if it was too late, but my hands were stopped short … by something … by nothing … by At.
The realization that I was in an echo hit me soundly in the chest. I sat back, taking in my surroundings. Questions swarmed my brain, buzzing, humming, flapping. Is it real? What kind of echo is it? Is it the past? Did something awful happen right after I entered the At? Or is it the future? But why would my parents be here? I remembered Alexander once telling me that temporary, false echoes were allowed for training purposes. Is it a false echo? Did Set fabricate this place? Can he even do that? Marcus had told me that Set was the most talented manipulator of At, so I figured if anyone could create such a detailed, horrific false echo, it was him.
Terrified, I fled from the echo … or I tried to. After a brief jarring sensation, I ended up right back where I’d been—on the ground before my dead mother. I couldn’t leave the echo. Somehow, Set was keeping me there. I was in a cage composed of At … his cage.
“Lex? There you are! Are you all right?” I spun on my knees at Marcus’s voice. Marcus. Sanctuary. Haven.
“Marcus! Thank—”
My words were cut short by the splattering of warm wetness on my face. Blood welled out of a hole in Marcus’s forehead, and he fell to his knees.
All realization that I was in a fabricated echo evaporated. Marcus, my Marcus, lay dead in front of me. His blood was pooling on the ground, inching toward my splayed fingers.
“NO!” I screamed. Keening, ancient and instinctual, I rocked on my knees beside the body of the man I loved. My essence simmered down to one thing—despair.
Anything but him. Anyone but him.
“Ah, daughter, I should have known,” Set said with satisfaction, then winked. “Got you.”
***
Minutes, hours, days later, I trembled beside another bloodied, dead Marcus. How many? Why?
“Just do what I say. Obey me, and I won’t kill him again,” Set explained for the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time. “Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
Because if I obey you, mankind will be destroyed, you bastard! My perpetually bloody mouth opened in a grim smile, and I spat out some pinkish saliva. Splatters landed on his designer shoes. “Maybe I just like the sound of your voice when you’re pissy,” I cooed.
“You little whore,” he howled, kicking me in the abdomen. I curled into the fetal position, but it didn’t stop him. Aiming for my back and legs, Set kicked me until I could no longer think. There was only pain.
Sometime later, I heard the voice of an angel. “Lex … why are you on the ground?” It was Marcus, again.
I needed him … to hold me … to tell me everything would be okay … to remind me to survive. I needed him to remind me why I should want to survive.
“Don’t look at him,” Set commanded.
Right, I thought. If I look at him, he dies. If I disobey you, he dies. Against my every instinct, my every desire, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Lex … Little Ivanov, come here,” Marcus said, sounding worried.
“Tell him you hate him. Tell him he means nothing to you,” Set ordered.
But I love him … he means everything to me. “NO!”
A gunshot. The heavy sound of a body hitting the ground. Both had become so familiar that they were like my heartbeat and the whoosh of air slipping in and out of my lungs.
Again.
And again.
And again. Forever.
“Lex … why won’t you look at me?” Marcus asked, sounding heartbroken.
Because I can’t. Because you’ll die. I can’t watch you die, not again.
“Please Lex, tell me what’s wrong. I’ll do anything … I love you!” Marcus exclaimed.
“Tell him you hate him. Tell him he means nothing to you,” Set ordered.
With a deep, horrified breath, I croaked, “Marcus, I hate you. You mean nothing to me.”
“Now look at him,” Set directed.
I turned, and nearly fell to my knees. Marcus, in all of his masculine glory, was weeping.
“Why, Lex?” Marcus asked, his golden eyes burning accusation into mine.
“I … I … can’t,” I gasped.
“Touching, really,” Set said urbanely. “Now come give Daddy a kiss. And make it count.”
“Never!” I hissed and watched a bullet tunnel through Marcus’s skull.
Closing my eyes, I bowed my head at the death of my latest Marcus. I never wanted to watch him die again. I would trade the world for him. It was what Set wanted, for me to be willing to trade something for the world �
� for there to be some price high enough to buy my obedience … for me to make that decision on instinct, every time. He’d succeeded.
“I’ll give you some time to think,” Set said before vanishing.
But I didn’t need time to think—he’d broken me. He’d won. Anything for Marcus. The world for Marcus.
I would obey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Marcus
If anyone even mentioned the solstice or the Nothingness again, Marcus was going to lose it. He gripped the edge of his desk with both hands, waiting for his daughter or one of the men sitting on either side of her to speak. His head was throbbing, and his hands would have been shaking if not for their death grip on the desk. Bonding withdrawals. If he didn’t get them under control soon, the withdrawals would be the death of him. Literally.
Neffe opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and exhaled loudly. “This is ridiculous! The solstice is in a w—”
“I don’t care!” Marcus shouted, flipping his desk over as his rage and pain converged within him, erupting outward. Various pens, papers, and books went flying. He was sick of talking about things that didn’t matter. Finding her ba was all that mattered.
Marcus didn’t care that his refusal to leave his tent and its priceless occupant for more than a few minutes forced his people to come to him whenever they needed to speak with him. He was used to people coming to him. He didn’t care that everyone treated him like he had lost most of his mental faculties. He didn’t care about the excavation or the Nothingness or the destruction of the goddamn world.
Nothing mattered but the woman lying in At-qed on his cot—their cot. She’d been like that for nearly three months. He’d never heard of anyone remaining in the suspended physical state for so long, and he couldn’t help but imagine every passing second damaging her body. Theoretically, she could survive for years in At-qed without food or water. Theoretically, to her body, only a few hours had passed. Theoretically, if she woke at that moment, she would feel like she’d taken a several-hour nap. Theoretically.
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