The breath I’d been holding rushed out of me. “Well, at least there’s that …” I took another sip, reaching the dregs, and set the cup down. “Where’s my next stop? I’m assuming I’ll just keep moving backwards, since you said this is the last time you’ll see me until, well, the first time I see you.”
Aset and Nik exchanged a look.
“What?” I eyed them. “What is it?”
“You shall see us next in Iceland.”
“We shouldn’t say more, Mother,” Nik said.
“I know.” Aset’s eyes were troubled when they returned to me. She lifted her shoulders, then let them fall, looking defeated. “As frustrating as this is for you, Lex, it is for us as well. But the timeline—”
“Must be protected,” I said, thinking of Marcus and the argument we’d had in our suite what felt like a lifetime ago. “I know.”
What I learned of my future, especially when that future was fated to play out in the relative past, could change my actions. Any information might compel me to act differently, reshaping the sands of time into a new, unknown design. I might undo everything Re had worked so hard to orchestrate as Nuin, and then through Nik. I might help Apep win. I might unmake the whole damn world and leave the universe in shreds of writhing chaos.
I let my eyes slide closed, rubbed the back of my neck with one hand, and sighed. I was so over time travel.
10
Land & Sea
Dark clouds had moved in, signaling a rare summer storm, but the weather held, not breaking until we were rowing toward the beach. My withdrawals, however, were another matter entirely. A dull throbbing had begun in the base of my skull just after we cast off that morning, emanating up to my temples and down my neck to my shoulders.
I huddled on the middle bench of Aset and Nik’s canoe, a coyote fur draped over my shoulders, countering the cool sea breeze. I ducked my head to avoid the increasing rainfall and dug my fingertips into my shoulder muscles in an attempt to alleviate the ache. My stomach cramped and churned, and a low groan emanated from my chest. I’d never been one to suffer from motion sickness, but with the twins snug in my womb, all bets were off.
“You’ll be indoors soon, Lex,” Aset said from behind me. “We have money for you. You’ll be able to purchase a warm bath and some new clothes on top of whatever my brother provides. Just hold on a little bit longer …”
I rocked my whole body instead of nodding.
“The next time we see you in, oh, a hundred and fifty years or so, you’re not going to have any idea who we are,” Nik said from his seat in front of me. He glanced over his shoulder. He was talking about their future, not mine, about the first time I met them—Aset in the hospital and Nik on the bus. “That should be interesting.”
Aset tsked.
“Mother’s going to have to suffer through university in order to get a job at your hospital, but she has a while to wait,” Nik continued. I appreciated the distraction of his words, though my pained brain had a hard time making sense of what he was saying. “I can’t believe women still aren’t allowed.”
“Please,” Aset said. “They wouldn’t be able to teach me anything I don’t already know, anyway.” She grunted with the effort of her next row.
“Maybe you’ll end up teaching them.” I squeezed my eyes shut as soon as I started speaking, unprepared for the reverberation of my voice in my skull. But I was determined to keep the conversation going. Silence had stretched out the journey for too long already, making the nauseous moments expand into relative eternity. “You’ll have to keep a low profile when you go to college. Heru is a professor—in the future, I mean. He goes by the name Marcus Bahur.”
“Of course he’ll be a professor,” Aset said. “My dear, oblivious brother is so good at unintentionally making our mission more difficult. I look forward to the day when Nik and I can emerge from hiding and reclaim our lives. To live without fear that any of our kind will discover us and ruin our hard-laid plans …”
Shame welled inside me, and I twisted to look back at her, which was a mistake. The rain-spattered sea surrounding us spun, the shore, foothills, and mountains beyond bobbing and swaying far more than the movement of the canoe warranted. I gritted my teeth. “Aset … I’m so sorry.”
She froze, her paddle dripping over the water’s choppy surface. “For what?”
“For you having to hide for so long. I just—I’m sorry.”
Aset was quiet for a long time, the splash of her and Nik’s paddles dipping into the water mixing with the pat-pat-pat of rain hitting the water’s surface. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Lex. You rescued me not once, but twice. As I told you so very long ago—my life is yours.”
I gripped the side of the boat. “What do you mean twice? I only freed you from Apep when he abducted you and—” I just couldn’t bring myself to actually say what he’d done to her when he’d been possessing the Nejeret who’d fathered Nik. Because I hadn’t rescued her, not really—the deed had been done. Aset had been abused and tormented for days on end, and Nik had been conceived.
“I—” Aset met my eyes, only to look away hastily when she resumed rowing. “I spoke without thinking. Please, Lex, you must disregard my words.”
“But—”
“Let it go, Lex,” Nik said. “You’ll understand in time.”
“Oh.” I pressed my lips together, sealing in the questions fluttering around in search of freedom, and shivered. I wrapped the fur more tightly around myself.
Ahead, tiny rocks in a rainbow of grays covered the shore. Scattered driftwood formed a haphazard line higher up on the beach, just before the mass of rocks gave way to low sandstone cliffs. A lush forest cascaded over the crest of the cliffs; ferns, moss, and bunches of blackberries dangled over the precipice. Even a few slender pines bowed outward over the rocky beach below before straightening and reaching for the sky.
When the bottom of the canoe scraped against the rocks under the water, Aset’s delicate hand settled on my wrist. “This is where we will leave you, dear Lex.”
“What?” I spun on my bench, ignoring the dip and twirl of the shoreline. “But—we’re not there yet. I don’t know how to get to Fort Nisqually, and—”
“Do you see that path over there?” She extended her arm, pointing off to the right of the canoe where a trail led up along a deep groove worn into the sandstone. “It leads directly to the fort, joining with a wagon road near the entrance. It is well traveled, so you have no fear of losing your way.”
I turned back to her, imploring her with my eyes to stay with me just a little bit longer.
She smiled, her expression filled with confidence and encouragement. “You’ll be fine, Lex. I promise.”
I’d never navigated my way through a past time period on my own. When I first landed in Old Kingdom Egypt, Aset had been there to guide me to Nuin, and when I jumped back even further to rescue her from her abusive captor, a young Heru had been there, helping me make sense of things. Even when I first arrived in this time, Tex had been there to guide me—however devious his intentions had been—to a place where I’d found more reliable help.
Now, I would truly be on my own.
***
Even in the dog days of summer, forests in the Pacific Northwest retain quite a bit of moisture. Maybe it’s the near-unbroken canopy of piney branches that help the woods hold that precious water in. Maybe it’s the abundance of rain that falls throughout the other nine months of the year. Maybe it’s the fact that the woods covering the Olympic Peninsula are technically a rainforest—a notoriously wet place any time of the year. Maybe it’s all three put together.
Regardless, on the rare summer days that it rained, that residual dampness expanded. To mud. Not sloshy mud puddles that pock parched earth, but yard-long patches that are equal parts water and dirt, where the end of one “puddle” signals the start of another until it seems like there’s no end to the sticky, mucky, mud-pie mess. By the time I’d reached the top of the shallow clif
f and taken barely a dozen steps into the woods, I’d given up all hope of trying to pick my way around the muddy patches.
I touched the drawstring purse hanging from one of my belt loops. It was large enough to hold a softball and was currently half full with heavy gold coins—eagles, Nik had explained. They’d sent me off with about five hundred dollars. Accounting for inflation, I calculated I was carrying roughly ten thousand dollars’ worth of gold in my native time’s terms. It felt like a blaring beacon calling out to any and all unsavory folks in the area.
I curled my fingers around the small purse and scanned the trees and dense underbrush on either side of the path. There was no one in sight, and the splat drip-drip splat of merged raindrops falling from the branches overhead drowned out the usual sounds of the forest around me. I proceeded along the trail, throwing furtive glances around, one hand clutching the heavy purse, the other partially outstretched to help me balance each time I slipped in the mud. With my low-tread leather boots, my balancing act wasn’t always successful.
It took at least an hour to reach the wagon road, and by the time a break in the trees was in sight at the end of the trail, the lower half of my jeans was caked in mud, along with my right arm and half of the coyote pelt draped over my shoulders, thanks to one rather glorious spill.
“Oh, thank God,” I muttered when I first caught sight of the road. It didn’t look any less rain-soaked than the trail, but I was betting the hard-packed dirt was at least covered in that waterier, less pesky variation of the mud puddle. And—bonus—walking the rest of the way to the fort in the open rain would wash some of the mud off me.
I picked up the pace as the pathway widened and gave way to harder packed earth. A flash of bright white lightning lit up the road ahead, and several seconds later, thunder rumbled among the trees. The rain, which had dwindled to a weak drizzle, picked up to a downpour.
I jogged the final few steps to the road, relishing the chance to clean up. It was like the universe had heard my desire, my need. It was like, for once, the universe had listened. I rushed into the center of a road that was barely five feet across and stood, arms outstretched, eyes closed, and face tilted up toward the dark gray sky, gratefully accepting its offering.
“What in tarnation—” The shout was cut short by a shrieking neigh.
I spun around, arms instinctively covering my face from the flailing horse hooves not a foot away. I stumbled backward and lost my footing in a deep puddle, landing on my butt with a splash.
“Christ almighty, woman!” I could hear the splat-splat of the rider’s boots as he approached, but I couldn’t see him through the curtain of mud-soaked hair hanging in my face. “I done nearly killed you. What were you thinking flying out of them woods like that?”
I held my arms up on either side of me, letting the water drip off of my dangling fingertips. “What were you doing riding like a bat out of hell like that?” I retorted.
“So you speak English.” He grunted. “And pretty damn good, for a squaw.”
“I’d appreciate you not using that term.” I shook off my hands and wiped the gritty hair back from my face. “I’m not Algonquin—and some find it quite offensive,” I added, glaring up at the rider. He wore leather chaps over brown wool trousers, a tailored wool coat over a shirt and leather vest, and knee-high leather boots. A wide-brimmed hat finished off the outfit, making him appear very much the gentleman cowboy. My eyes widened when they reached his ageless, bearded face. He wasn’t human; he was Nejeret.
He whistled. “Well, now …” His eyes scoured my face, and I had no doubt that he was looking for something familiar, for a hint at my immortal bloodline. “I find myself wondering what a Nejerette like yourself is doing running around in the rain out here, wearing God knows what.” He held out a hand to help me up.
I pushed myself off the sodden ground with one hand, using the other to straighten my coyote pelt and reassure myself that the purse was still there. “And I find myself wondering what a Nejeret like yourself is doing out here trying to run people down.” I shot him another glare, more than a little pleased to discover that I had a few inches on him.
The unfamiliar Nejeret used his rejected hand to raise his hat. He ran the fingers of his other hand through his short mop of hair, smoothing it back. “I do apologize for that, Miss … ?”
“Alexandra.”
“Alexandra … ?” He settled his hat back on his head, his eyebrows raised in question.
“Just Alexandra is good enough for now,” I told him.
“Well, every lady is entitled to a bit of mystery.” He bowed his head and held out his hand once more. “I’m Dorman.” He glanced up at me and winked. “Just Dorman is good enough for now.”
I placed my hand in his as though to shake it, but he turned my hand over and raised it to his lips. The whiskers of his mustache tickled my knuckles.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Alexandra.” He released my hand and straightened, his entire demeanor changing. He seemed very much the gentleman now, not so much the cowboy. “Now, is there some way I might assist you? I am expected elsewhere, and I’m running a tad late”—he flashed me a crooked smile—“which is precisely why I was in such a hurry. But you do seem like you might be in a bit of distress, and I’ve never been one to abandon a damsel in her time of need.”
I snorted a laugh, liking this Nejeret in instinct. “I’m hardly a damsel.”
His eyes widened, hopeful. “Maiden?”
I gave him a look. “Mr. Dorman—”
“Just Dorman,” he said with a cheeky grin.
“Alright, Dorman. The only thing I need from you is for you to point me in the direction of Fort Nisqually. Is it this way or that way?” I asked, pointing up the road with one hand and down it with the other.
“Well, isn’t that mightily serendipitous,” he said. “It just so happens we’re headed to the same place. I would gladly escort you to Fort Nisqually and would greatly appreciate the pleasure of your company.” He winked, a charming grin splitting his short beard.
I found his good nature addictive, and I couldn’t help but return his grin.
Dorman’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Shall we?” he asked, offering me his elbow.
I gave him a look that said, Don’t push it, buddy.
He shrugged and pulled back his arm, then reached behind himself for his horse’s reins and clicked his tongue. “C’mon, Isis, your master will be glad to know I’ve brought you home safely.”
I stared at him, my heart thudding in my chest. Isis—it was the anglicized version of Aset’s name. It could just be a coincidence. Or not.
“Isis is an interesting name for a horse.” I licked my lips. “Who’s her master?”
Dorman eyed me. “Whyever do you ask?”
“I—” I hesitated. “I’m looking for someone.”
Dorman cocked his head to the side, still eyeing me curiously. “Pray tell, who are you looking for?”
I held my breath, hesitating. “Heru. I’m looking for Heru.”
With another whistle, Dorman let out a low chuckle. “Serendipitous, indeed.”
11
See & Know
“Here,” Dorman said, stopping and shrugging out of his coat. “It’s a fair bit drier than your fur there …”
“Thanks.” I accepted the coat. It was just a touch ripe, but it mostly smelled of earth and horses and campfire. I handed him the soaked coyote fur before slipping my arms into the sleeves of the wool coat and hugging it closed over my chest. It wasn’t quite long enough to entirely conceal the purse hanging from my belt.
“I figure you’ll make less of a stir among the soldiers if you’re not quite so wild-looking.”
I flashed him a wide, grateful smile. “Such a gentleman.”
He handed me back the coyote fur. I wasn’t sure, but I thought his ears might have reddened.
Continuing on our way, we rounded one sharp bend in the road and the open gate to Fort Nisqually came into vie
w a hundred yards or so away. Its wall of standing logs stretched out on either side of the entrance, spiked tips pointing skyward. Lookout towers with horizontal slats for rifles or arrows, possibly both, stood tall at either corner, and a uniformed watchman peered over the wall near the gateway, a rifle slung over his shoulder.
“What you got there, Dorman?” the rifleman called when we were nearly to the gate. “You finally find yourself a woman to clean your drawers and ride you like a little pony?”
I glanced sidelong at Dorman. His expression had darkened. “Best watch yourself, Turlow. You offend the lady’s honor any further and I might find myself in a position where I need to defend it. Now, you and I both know you don’t want that, don’t we?”
Turlow’s only response was to sneer and spit a long, dark globule over the wall. He wiped his chin as we passed through the open gate.
“Charming fellow,” I said under my breath.
Dorman’s lip curled. “Just a moron flapping his mouth, is all. Don’t you mind him.” He veered to the right, aiming for the largest building within the walls, which was situated in the center of the fort—a whitewashed, two-story house surrounded by a deep covered porch. He headed straight for the hitching post out front, standing between two shade trees. He tied Isis’s reins around the wooden pole, then met my eyes and nodded toward the front door. “After you.”
My heart was beating a steady, expectant rhythm against my sternum, and I suddenly felt parched despite the rainstorm. I stared at the door. “He—he’s in there?”
“Should be.” Dorman headed for the three steps leading up to the porch and scraped his muddy boots on the edge of the bottom stair. He eyed me over his shoulder. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I’m fine,” I said, taking a deep breath. I straightened my spine and followed him to the porch stairs, pausing at the foot of the steps and staring down at the clumps of mud from Dorman’s boots. I didn’t think any amount of scraping would get my own mud-caked boots clean at this point.
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