Return Once More

*

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 pla

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.

Ru

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.

Chapter Twenty-Three

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

The Egyptian night stu

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 fu

The feeling of accomplishment straightened my tired spine as I trekked up the beach and then away from the shore, searching for the i

My bio-tat pulled up the best available mapping of the surrounding area and located two i

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.