Chapter Sixteen

Day 41.

"Hazel!"

A guttural scream rips through my throat, so distorted by horror that it sounds animalistic. I stumble over my own feet as I rush forward, but Ahmose grabs my hand, holding me in place so tightly that I almost get whiplash. I gasp, twisting my wrist in his iron-clad grip.

"Ahmose! Let me go! I have to—" An sob tears through me. "I have to—"

"I know." His voice is soft, indistinguishable above the ear-splitting hissing that grows louder the closer the cockatrices slither to us. It's almost like turning Hazel to stone encouraged them. "You can't."

"No. No." I shake my head stubbornly, surging forward a second time. "I—I have to help her, I have to save her, I have to—"

"Kiara." This time he wraps his arm around me, locking me in place. I struggle and kick and fight like a mad thing, desperate to free myself so I can get to Hazel. But Ahmose is equally as stubborn in refusing to relent, keeping one hand over my eyes as I continue my frenzied attempts to break away. "You cannot help her. Not anymore. You will only get yourself killed."

"Yes I can help her! She's—she's..." The words slowly fizzle out in my throat as reality crashes down on me like a ton of bricks. My knees buckle. Ahmose catches me before I hit the ground. "Dead. She's dead. The cockatrice got Hazel, and now she's—"

I stiffen so abruptly it's almost like I was the one who was turned to stone. Suddenly it's all too clear why Ahmose is covering my eyes. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Hazel is dead, or dying, or dead, and we still have to defeat the cockatrices. Hazel is dead because the cockatrices turned her to stone, and we still don't know how to defeat the stupid monsters, and—"

"Kiara. Kiara. Kiara." Ahmose cups my face, cutting my incoherent babbling off with one look. "Kiara I am sorry, but I need you to snap out of it. I know she was your best friend, but we don't have time for this right now. I need you to clear your head, or we will not survive either. Can you do that?"

"I don't know." I whisper, staring at him blankly. I completely miss the worry that flashes through his expression as he notices how close the cockatrices have drawn. "I need to help her. I have to. I'm the only one she's—"

"Kiara. Najmay." Ahmose's voice softens. He sighs, wiping away the tears tracking down my cheeks with his thumbs. "Hazel is gone. You cannot help her anymore. She's gone. But I am right here, and I need your help. I know you do not want Hazel's death to mean nothing, so I need you to stay strong for me, 'iilaaha, please. I cannot beat this trial without your help."

The way his voice catches slightly slices through my reverie like a hot knife through butter. I swallow hard, choking back the tsunami of emotions that swell up at Hazel's name, and nod wordlessly up at him. A breath of relief flutters through his lips.

"Alright." Ahmose rests his forehead on mine, searching my eyes. "Now this is important, najmay, so I need you to think. What did you see when you looked up?"

A spine-tingling hiss erupts from the monsters surrounding us at his words. We both flinch. Ahmose instinctively pulls me closer.

"I, um..." I lick my cracked lips and lower my voice, my mouth suddenly dryer than the Sahara desert. "I think they're a beehive."

"A what?"

"A beehive." I try to clarify. The confusion twisting up his expression only deepens. "They're following the actions of one leader. The queen. Or king, or whatever. Whenever they do something, they all follow one cockatrice's lead, like a Mexican fan. I—I think if we defeat the leader, then we'll defeat them all. Like a beehive."

"Alright." He murmurs, glancing up fleetingly. The colour abruptly drains from his skin, as an entirely unnatural shudder jolts through him, and for a horrifying, terrible moment, I think he's been caught in the gaze of a cockatrice too. But then he clears his throat and looks back down at me again, his beautiful golden eyes still wonderfully warm and alive. "But we still do not know how to defeat them, Kiara."

"I—I don't know Ahmose." I stammer, struggling to suppress the hysteria rising up inside me like toxic bubbles. "I—I've never faced these, these things before, Ahmose. I'm not a whiz at this stuff like you, or—or—"

The words die down in my throat when I realise he's not looking at me anymore.

He's looking at Hazel. Or, more specifically, at her glasses.

"Ahmose, what is it?" I whisper, my gaze flickering between him and Hazel's glasses. They slide down her stone nose slightly, catching the reflection of one of the cockatrice's terrifying rooster-heads.

My heart stops.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

But nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Realisation hits me like a bullet train.

We can see them in a reflection. Their reflection can't hurt us.

I peek open one eye and look up at Ahmose again. "What are you thinking?"

"Learn from the rooster." He murmurs. I gawk at him in utter perplexity. Something lights up behind his eyes. I'm surprised I don't see a lightbulb flash into life above his head. "He provided us with the solution. It's been in front of us the whole time."

"What? What's the solution? Who provided it to us?" I exclaim, pressing him further when he doesn't say anything. "Ahmose! Speak!"

"There is one way that you can defeat a cockatrice." He murmurs. The hissing grows in intensity.

"Well? What is it?!"

"A rooster's crow." He says. I screw my face up at him in hysterical bewilderment.

"How are we going to get that?! All the roosters are trying to kill us!"

A small smirk slowly spreads over Ahmose's face, and a small twinkle lights up his eyes. He steps back, twisting his ring around on his finger. "I need you to close your eyes and promise me you will not lose your composure."

"Why would I lose my—"

Ahmose transforms into an eagle.

I scream, jumping a mile in the air and spinning around in a circle all at the same time. The cockatrices begin hissing so loudly it sounds like someone's shaking a rattle right next to my ear. They all look up as one at the majestic golden eagle hovering in the air above us. The eagle lets out a loud trill, it's eyes glittering, and circles around my head a couple of times before diving back down to the ground again. I yelp, flinching away and covering my eyes with my hands. A bright flash bursts through my fingertips. When I gather the courage to peek between my fingers, my jaw almost hits the ground. The Ahmose-eagle has metamorphosed right in front of the queen cockatrice into an immense rooster, its feathers a striking, shimmering liquid gold.

The Ahmose-rooster takes a step forward, its large form towering over the cockatrice. It tilts it's head to the side, staring down the hissing monster. Then it lets out a ear-piercing crow, the shriek echoing all around us like a bullet. The queen cockatrice stiffens, her hiss cut so abruptly you'd think someone had pressed mute on her, and falls to the ground in a flurry of feathers.

The moment she hits the sand, all the other cockatrices drop to the ground in one fluid motion, as if someone had yanked the power cord out of them simultaneously. My hands fall from my eyes to cover my mouth in pure shock.

"Oh. My. God."

The Ahmose-rooster turns its head at the noise. Then, next thing I know, my Egyptian mummy materialises in its place. I yelp.

"Oh my god!"

"Kiara. It's just me." Ahmose holds his hands up, stepping forward. I unintentionally flinch away, staring at him with wide eyes. "I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you."

"How—how—how—" I stammer, pointing a shaking finger at him. "How long have you been able to do that?!"

"From the moment Osiris decided to bind his spirit to mine. It is one of the abilities of his that he granted me the power to wield." He responds calmly. I continue to gape at him. He bends down next to the queen cockatrice and moves the monster's body to the side, detaching something from it's leg. "I was not able to use it before now because I did not have my halqa."

"And you didn't think it would have been a good idea to tell me?!"

"I did not think you needed to know. Before now, that is." Ahmose says with a small smile. The queen cockatrice stirs slightly. He freezes, the smile dropping from his face. "Come. We need to leave. They will not remain petrified for much longer."

"Wait, they're not dead?" I blink. He nods. "How do we know we defeated them, then?"

"Because we managed to get this." He holds out his hand to reveal a petite little scroll, tightly bound up with string. It looks positively ancient, like it's been snatched from the time where Cleopatra reigned as Queen of Egypt — probably because it actually is.

"What is it?"

"The location of our next task." He replies, a twinkle glinting in the corner of his eye. "We did it, Kiara."

"We did it." I echo. A small smile ricochets over my lips. "We did it!"

I jump up in the air with a shriek and throw my arms around him in an ecstatic hug. Ahmose stumbles back, catching me with a laugh.

"We did it! We actually did it! Hazel, we—" I glance around excitedly, ready to throw my arms around her in an even more euphoric embrace. My gaze falls upon a horrifyingly familiar stone figure. Reality hits me like a knife to the chest. My knees buckle, an anguished cry erupting from me as I trip over in my haste to get to her. When I finally reach her and look into the lifeless stone eyes that had been so full of vibrant emotions less than five minutes before, my heart shatters in my chest. A violent sob tears through me.

"Hazel!"

I fall upon the statue, wrapping my arms around it as destructive sobs wrack my body. For a brief respite of a second, a small, stupid part of me hopes that my embrace will somehow cure her of her more granite-like appearance. But it doesn't. That just makes me cry even harder.

"Hazel, please." I beg, desperately grabbing the statue's head and looking into it's eyes. "Please, please say something. Make one of your sarcastic quips, or make fun of me, or make a joke about Ahmose being an older fossil than the dinosaurs, I don't care. Just please, please say something. Say you're okay. Say you're alive. Say something."

Silence.

I feel a familiar presence at my shoulder. Ahmose touches my arm softly. "Kiara, she is gone."

"No." I sob. "She's my best friend. She can't be dead. She can't be gone. She can't leave me, she's the most important person in the world to me."

"I know najmay, I know. But she is gone." He says softly. "And I am sorry to do this, but we must leave, now. We will not be able to escape the cockatrices as easily a second time around."

"No. No." I shake my head stubbornly and tighten my hold on the statue. "We can't just leave her here! We—we have to do something about her! And her parents, oh my god her parents! What are we supposed to tell them? She's a statue, and they think we're on a holiday! Oh my god, they think—"

"It does not matter anymore, Kiara." Ahmose replies. His grip tightens as he attempts to pull me away from Hazel. "She is irrelevant."

"She's irrelevant?!" I roar. I rip my arm out of his grip as I whirl on him wildly. "She is my best friend, Ahmose! How dare you say she's irrelevant? I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for her, neither of us would! Don't you dare say that she's irrelevant, because she is a hell of a lot more relevant to me than you will ever be!"

Ahmose's eyes widen a fraction. He reaches for me again. "Kiara, I am sorry, I did not mean—"

"Don't touch me." I spit, stepping as far away from him as I possibly can. He holds his hands up in the air.

"Kiara, I did not mean to imply that she was irrelevant to you." He tells me, his tone riddled with remorse. "For that, I am sorry. But I meant it when I said we needed to go. If we don't—"

"I could not care less if the cockatrices woke up in ten seconds or ten minutes, Ahmose!" I exclaim. "I care more about Hazel than I do about either of us in this moment. Her parents are—"

"Not going to remember who she is."

My mouth dries. "What?"

"The cockatrices do not just eradicate you from the living world by turning you into stone. They eradicate you from the world's memories, too." He replies, his tones quiet as he watches me with a hooded gaze. "The moment she turned to stone, all of those who knew her forgot who she was. Her parents don't know they had a daughter."

"Wha—what?" I whisper. "They... they forgot her? Everyone in her life just forgot her? Every single person in her life? Just like that?"

"Yes."

"Oh... oh my god." I suck in a sharp breath. "Does that mean that I... I'm..." My voice breaks. "I'm going to forget her?"

His expression softens, and he moves closer. I step back, crossing my arms over my chest protectively. Ahmose sighs, but doesn't push his luck any further. "No. You will not forget her. She is your best friend; not even Set himself could destroy that bond. And even if she was not your best friend, you have Isis' power coursing through your veins. That alone means that you are immune to the cockatrice's amnesia-inducing powers."

I blink at him blankly, his words barely registering in my mind. "Okay. We still have to do something. We have to help her. We can't just leave her here."

"Kiara, we can't." He casts a glance over at the cockatrices again. Alarm registers on his face. "We have to go."

"No." I shake my head obstinately, stepping closer to the statue. "I won't leave her."

He sighs again, his gaze reproachful. "Then I am sorry."

Before I have the chance to ask him why, there's a sharp blow to the back of my head. My breath is ripped from me as my knees buckle, the world around me collapsing into darkness as I collapse into his arms.

— — —

"Kiara."

I don't move, keeping my eyes fixed on the fire crackling in front of me.

"How are you feeling?"

I draw my knees up even closer to my chest, curling myself into as tight a ball as I can.

"Kiara, please." Ahmose tries again. "Najmay, please. Don't ignore me."

I slowly turn to him, my expression as emotional as an ice-wall. "Like you ignored me earlier, when I said we couldn't leave Hazel behind?"

His earnest expression crumples. His head falls into his hands. "You gave me no choice, Kiara."

"No choice?" I retort incredulously. "She was my best friend Ahmose! My best friend died, and you didn't even give me a chance to mourn her! You just knocked me out and left her behind like she was... was garbage! Is that all she meant to you?"

"No! Of course not, Kiara." Ahmose insists. "But if we had stayed there any longer, we may have very well become victims to the same fate. I know Hazel would not have wanted that for you."

"You don't know what she would have wanted." I turn away again, wrapping my blanket tighter around myself. "You were just trying to protect yourself. This is the furtherest you've ever gotten in trying to break your stupid curse. You were just making sure it wasn't all for nothing."

"Kiara, that is so far from the truth — much farther than you could possibly imagine."

"Enlighten me then."

I hear Ahmose sigh. Suddenly, he's crouching in front of me, his face less than an inch away from mine. The dancing flames illuminate his silhouette in a fiery glow, causing him to appear even more ethereal than normal against the black of the night. His warm golden eyes search mine as he speaks quietly. "I am not trying to protect myself anymore, najmay. I haven't been for quite some time."

"Who are you trying to protect then? Hazel?" I retort scathingly. "Because you did a stellar job on that one, Ahmose."

His shoulders pinch together. He smiles sadly. "Do I really need to answer that question?"

I stare at him for a few moments, the silence pierced by the sharp pops! of the fire. I shake my head. "You know what, don't bother. We both know I'm not going to like your answer, no matter what way you phrase it."

"Why?"

"Because if you say that you were protecting me, then it means you weren't protecting Hazel aswell." I shoot back. "And I don't think I could forgive you for that."

"Kiara, it isn't my fault that Hazel died."

"Yes it is, Ahmose." I snap. "It's your fault, and it's my fault, and it's her fault; it's even freaking Ma'at's fault. The blame belongs to all of us for different reasons, but right now, you're the only person I can blame apart from myself. And trust me, if you think I'm being harsh on you, you should see the war that's broken out in my head, because I blame myself a hell of a lot more than I blame you."

"You can't blame yourself, Kiara. This wasn't your fault."

"Really?" I laugh humourlessly. "Ahmose, she wouldn't have even been in Egypt if it wasn't for me. Yes, it was the monsters we had to defeat to break your curse that killed her, but I agreed to help you, and I agreed to let her come along. If it wasn't for me, she'd be safe in Washington, throwing chopsticks at the people who annoyed her in her parent's restaurant. And now..." My throat closes up, and I shake my head to try and deter the tears. "Now her parents don't even know she died. We're the only ones who knew she existed."

Ahmose is silent for several heartbeats. Then, "I'm sorry."

"What for?" I ask dully, resting my head against the tree he'd previously propped me up against. "You're not the one who let her come on this stupid quest, only for her to die to prove a point."

"For everything." He says, his gaze veiled as he looks down at the ground. "If you had not agreed to help me with... my curse, this would not have happened. You would both be safe and alive in this very moment. If it was not for me, none of this would have occurred."

I can't find it in myself to respond to that. I roll over, turning away until my back is facing Ahmose. I hear him let out a long breath, and the crunch of sand as he gets to his feet. I feel his gaze linger on me for a few seconds, before he trudges over to the other side of the camp.

"Try and get some rest, najmay."

I don't respond, pulling the blanket completely over my head to hide the tears rolling down my cheeks in silent heartbreak.