Chapter Thirteen

Day 10.

I gasp and stumble, staring at my hands with wide eyes. The green and blue tendrils that had thrown the anubites back trail from my fingers like smoke from a gun, dissipating into thin air the longer I stare. I stagger back, curling my shaking fingers into fists and snuffing the turquoise wisps out. Everything around me seems to snuff out with that one action as well, burying me in thick, crushing darkness as I gape at my fists.

What the hell just happened?!

"Kiara!" Ahmose suddenly appears in front of me, his voice breaking through the silence suffocating me. I blink at him blankly. I hadn't even see him get up. "Snap out of it!"

"What just—how is that—" I blubber, unable to get a full sentence out. "How did I—"

"I don't care how you did it, but do it again!" Hazel yells, her gaze whipping between the anubites and me at an increasingly alarming rate. "Before they get up and gut us all on their fingernails!"

"I just—" I stutter, staring at her. Even though her lips are moving, I can't hear the words coming out of her mouth. "I don't understand how—"

"Kiara." Ahmose's steady voice cuts through the fog of my brain. He grips my shoulders tightly, urgency clear in his gaze. "We must go. Now."

The criticality clouding his usually emotionless tones snaps me out of my stupor. I shake my head. "What?"

A low growl interrupts him before he can reply. One of the anubites leaps to its feet, murder smouldering in its gaze. I flinch, instinctively holding my hands up again. Nothing happens. I stare at my hands again.

Okay. Seriously. What is happening?!

Ahmose mutters something under his breath about "not having this problem if I didn't have my halqa," and picks the packs up off the ground, slinging them over his shoulders with ease. He grabs my hand, yanking me forward.

"We need to go." He says shortly, taking off at a run without waiting for a reply. I yelp, barely managing to snag Hazel's hand before I'm stumbling after him.

We run for what feels like hours, staggering over the sand-dunes as we flee the anubites in the dark. The entire time we run, I refuse to let myself look back over my shoulder, too terrified that I'll see the terrifying dog-headed creatures chasing us through the night. Every time I felt myself starting to slow down, my energy and adrenaline waning on the same diving curve, Ahmose would tug me forward again, the look he gave me shooting fresh adrenaline through my veins.

Finally, when my lungs are nigh on collapsing and my chest feels like it's being repetitively stabbed with a white-hot poker, Ahmose slows to a walk, and, after ducking into an alcove of trees, stops completely. I brace myself against one of the trees, trying my hardest to stay quiet as I gasp for breath. Hazel tumbles to her knees, gulping as erratically as I am. She forces out a jilted sentence once she's recovered enough to talk.

"Did we..." She sucks in a shuddering breath. "Lose them?"

Ahmose nods, seeming much less out of breath than Hazel and I. "We will be safe if we stay here."

"How the hell did they manage to find us, Ahmose?" I demand, crossing my arms and shoving my hands under my armpits. "The last time we saw them, they were in America. How did they manage to make it to Egypt?"

"Screw that." Hazel retorts, cutting off Ahmose just as he's opening his mouth to reply. She pushes herself up to her feet and gesticulates wildly at me. "How the hell did you manage to expecto patronum those freaks away from us?!"

"'Expecto patronum?" Ahmose looks utterly bewildered. "I don't understand what that is supposed to mean. Is that some kind of American slang?"

"No freakshow, it's a reference to one of the greatest movie franchises in all existence. Do your damn research for once in your life." Hazel shoots back, not even bothering to acknowledge him with her gaze as she stares me down. "What gives, Collins? Since when the hell have you been a wizard?"

"I... I... I..." I stammer, wracking my brain for a logical explanation. I come up horrendously empty. I shake my head violently, glancing over at Ahmose. My reply comes out no louder than a whisper. "I don't know what's happening to me. Why is this happening to me?"

Ahmose's expression softens. He leans the packs against one of the trees and steps forward. "You were chosen by Isis, Kiara Collins."

"But why? How? Why? I don't understand any of this, I can't—" I shake my head again, blinking back tears furiously. "Why did she choose me, Ahmose? And how does that suddenly mean I can shoot the Aurora Borealis from my fingertips?"

Hazel clears her throat, glancing between Ahmose and I, and points over her shoulder. "I'm uh, going to go and check that the coast is clear. Make sure that the freak-a-zoids haven't caught up with us or anything. Avoid the touchy-feely situation that I'm pretty sure is about to arise."

Ahmose nods at her, respect fleeting through his eyes. As soon as she's out of earshot he looks back at me, something completely different to respect clouding his gaze. I bite my lip, wrapping my arms tighter around myself.

"I don't understand what's going on, Ahmose." I whisper. "I've been ignoring the logical part of me that's been trying to understand this all ever since I met you, because things still had a semi-normal element to them, but this is suddenly way too much. A week and a half ago, I was just a normal teenage girl who had just finished high school; now I'm a normal teenage girl who can shoot magic out of her fingertips. How did that..." I break off, laughing a little in pure incredulity. "How did that happen?"

"You have never been a normal teenage girl, Kiara." Ahmose replies quietly. He steps almost imperceptibly closer. "Isis would not have chosen you if you were a normal teenage girl."

"That's the other thing. What exactly does that mean?" I ask. "You keep using that as an explanation for all my questions, but it's just creating more questions."

Ahmose is silent for a few moments as he visibly ponders on the best way to answer my questions. "When I was first cursed," He finally begins. "Osiris and Isis approached me. They told me they sympathised with my situation and that they did not think Ma'at's decision was fair, so they would help me in any way that they could."

"I already know this." I say, frowning. "You've already told me this."

"What I did not tell you is what that help entailed." Ahmose replies. My mouth snaps shut with a click. "Osiris decided that he would help me by binding my spirit to his. That way, whenever I have my halqa, I can harness some of the divine abilities he possesses. Some of his abilities, like the ability to bring life to things already dead, I can access without my halqa, as you have already seen."

"That still doesn't explain why I can shoot magic from my fingers."

He rolls his eyes a little at my impatience.

"Isis also decided to help. She decreed that..." Ahmose pauses, something flickering over his expression. It's almost like he wants to say something, but changes his mind and continues on with something else. "She decreed that whoever possessed Nafretiri would have the potential to harness some of her abilities, to aid them if the situation ever became dire enough."

"Hold up." I stare at him, my voice hollow. "Are you tell me that I was just using Isis' powers?"

"In a sense, yes."

"How did I do that?" I demand. I hold my hands up in the air in front of me and scrutinise them. "Seriously. How did I do that? Like, is there a spellword, or..."

Ahmose chuckles lowly. The rich, melodic sound swims around in the air around us. "Unfortunately, that is something she did not tell me."

"You're telling me that I can somehow channel the magical powers of an all-powerful goddess but you have no idea how I can do it?" I ask with an incredulous laugh, raising my eyebrows at him. Ahmose smiles a little.

"I do not choose what the gods do or do not tell me, Kiara."

"So what, I could just point my finger at you and poof!, no more Ahmose?" I ask, making a finger gun and taking a shot.

Ahmose laughs again, his eyes twinkling. "It would take a lot more than that to get rid of me, I assure you."

The corners of my lips twist up for a moment. I sober up. "This is crazy, Ahmose. Why did you feel the need to keep this from me? Why didn't you warn me? Why did I only find out now?"

Ahmose lets out a long breath, running a hand through his hair. "I wish I could answer your questions, Kiara, but..."

"But you can't." I finish slowly, sighing when he nods. "Why not? Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?"

"Of course not." Ahmose shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "On the contrary. You have proven I can trust you with my life."

"So why won't you open up to me?" I ask softly. When he doesn't reply I step forward, closing the gap between us. I hesitantly reach out, falteringly touching his forearm. "Ahmose, I want to help you. Really, I do. But I won't be any help if I don't understand what's going on, and I can't understand what's going on if you don't tell me. You're the only one who has the potential to answer my questions, and the fact that you're skirting around them tells me that you at least know the answers. I want to help you break your curse, and I..." I cut myself off before the sentence can run off my tongue, shaking my head. "How much help am I, really, if I have the potential to channel the powers of a goddess but don't know how to do it in the first place?"

"I do not relish the idea of keeping you in the dark Kiara, trust me." He says quietly, lifting his head to meet my gaze. "But it is the only way to ensure protection."

"Protection for who? You?" I ask. He shakes his head. "Me? Why would you need to protect me? And what from? I think I have more than proved that I have the ability to protect both myself and you."

He shakes his head again. Pain flickers through his carefully constructed poker face for a second. "Things are far more complicated than you could ever realise, Kiara. What I am trying to protect you from... it is a far more complex danger than you realise. You must trust me when I say that I would tell you if I could. If the danger ever abates enough, I will tell you in a heartbeat."

I bite my lip, physically barring myself from speaking so I can mull over his words. The voice inside my head urges me to keep pressing him on the issue, that I need to find out exactly what it is that he's trying to protect me from, but I somehow find myself unable to do it. There's clearly something much bigger going on here, something that's affecting me as much as it's affecting Ahmose.

But it's also something that's caused Ahmose more pain than he's letting on. I know that if I press him more for details, it'll be like twisting the knife into an already agonising wound. And suddenly, I find every cell and fibre in my being hating even the possibility of causing him pain.

So I do the one thing that has the aspiring journalist inside me howling in horror.

I let it go.

"Okay." I say simply. His head jerks up to stare at me. He seems just as surprised as I am at my willingness to extenuate the issue. "I'll trust you. But can you promise me one thing?"

"Of course." Ahmose replies instantly, his brow furrowing.

"Can you promise me you won't keep any more secrets like this from me?" I ask softly. "I'll let this one slide, but if there's anything else this big you're keeping from me, you have to tell me. We have to be on the same page if I'm supposed to help you break this curse, and I need to know if I'm suddenly going to have the ability to sprout wings, or something crazy like that."

The corners of his mouth quirk up a fraction. "It will be an extraordinary day if you ever develop the ability to sprout wings."

"Okay, good." I laugh breezily. "Because suddenly being able to shoot magic from my fingers is just about as crazy as I can handle right now."

"It is not as crazy as you think." Ahmose says, his tone as light as the smile on his face. "I am sure you will figure out a way to control Isis' magic."

I stare at him for several seconds. Then I start giggling uncontrollably. "I have magic. Magic."

"Yes you do." Ahmose replies, his golden eyes shining as brightly as the moon. I shake my head, still giggling.

"This is really, really weird. When did my life get so weird?" I ask, looking up at him with a smile dancing over my lips. He arches an eyebrow at me.

"Are you expecting me to answer that question?"

"No. It was rhetorical. I know exactly when my life got this weird." I reply, haughtily raising my chin up in the air and pointing at him. "It was when I met you. You've officially turned me into a full-on, belongs-in-fiction, shoots-magic-from-her-fingers weirdo."

Ahmose opens his mouth, looking like he's actually going to seriously respond to my teasing. I stop him before he can get a word out with a bright beam.

"But I wouldn't have it any other way."

That shuts him up quite effectively.

— — —

It takes us three full days to trek to Hermopolis. Luckily, our sprint through the night somehow managed to shake the anubites off our tail, and we didn't encounter them at all during those three days. That didn't stop us from being overly diligent though. We'd gotten lazy, thinking that we'd managed to lose them back in Washington, and the night I'd discovered my magical abilities had taken us by horrifying surprise. Ahmose, in his determination to ensure we were safe from the anubites surprising us again, almost stayed awake the entire seventy-two hours that we traveled. He would have succeeded too, had I not forced him to get some sleep on the second day — much to his incredibly vocal objection.

Hazel had lovingly and frustratingly called that our 'most hilarious lover's spat to date'.

I almost threw my pack at her.

When we finally arrived at our destination, we were all more than exhausted. We'd run out of food the previous night, and were basically running on fumes by the time we all staggered into Hermopolis in the late afternoon of the third day. The moment we stumbled across a store selling food, Hazel and I fell through the doors in our haste to feed our screaming stomachs. If Ahmose hadn't practically dragged us out of that store by our hair, I don't think we would have left, either. Trekking across the Egyptian outback with the constant terror that the terrifying monsters that go bump in the night will finally catch up with you will do that to a person apparently.

Especially on an empty stomach.

Once we'd eaten our body-weight in cheap crisps, soft fruit and tasteless ready-made meals, we all grudgingly drag ourselves up off the ground and set off again, heading for the remains cast under the shadows of the sunset. Even though we'd all burnt the candle almost completely out by this point, we all had an unspoken agreement to get this little side-quest done as soon as possible. What Hazel's motivations were to complete it, I had absolutely no idea, and Ahmose's motivations I had too much of an idea. But my motivations? I thought I had an idea of what they were — I wanted Ahmose to get his ring back just as badly as he did, so that he could come back to full strength and we could continue on this quest. But after everything that had happened recently, I started to wonder whether that's the only thing that was motivating me. Whether my motivations were a little less selfless and a little more selfish. Because the more time I spent with Ahmose, the more I realised that I wanted to spend time with him, for reasons that I wasn't sure I wanted to even accept as possible.

Because accepting that they were possible would make my world even more chaotic than it already was. And I still wasn't entirely sure that I could handle that.

I sigh, running a tired hand over my face as I trail after Ahmose. At the soft sound, he glances back at me, concern creasing his forehead when he catches the look on my face.

"Are you alright, Kiara?"

"Yes. Just tired." I expel another deep breath through my lips, plastering on a breezy smile that's almost genuine. Almost. I change the subject rather abruptly. "Are we almost at the temple?"

Ahmose nods. "I believe it is—"

"Are you looking for the temple of Thoth?" A quiet voice suddenly interrupts us. We all pause, glancing up at the same time to see a tall, slender Egyptian man standing on the hill in front of us. He watches us with sharp, calculating eyes, like an eagle sizing up a peculiar animal it's flown past. When his gaze focuses on me, I feel like the man suddenly knows every single thing about me with that one look. I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself protectively. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Are you looking for the temple remains?"

Hazel and I step up to stand beside Ahmose so we're all on the same level. Ahmose crosses his arms over his chest, adopting a stoic stance. "We might be. Why?"

"I do not mean to cause alarm. I am merely curious, that is all." The man replies, stepping forward. "I know a lot about the temple you seek. I am, what you could call, somewhat of a tour guide around these parts."

"A tour guide?" I echo. My face twists up in bewilderment. Ahmose eyes the man, suspicion clear on his features.

"Yes. But only for free, of course. I enjoy imparting my wisdom on those who wish it, and seek no monetary reward." The man responds, watching us with piercing silver eyes. Ahmose inhales sharply. "However it is getting late, and access to the temple will be closing shortly. I would advise that you come back in the morning, when you will have more time to see the temple in it's full magnificence."

"Thank you for the advice, but we'd really rather prefer see it tonight." I reply politely, smiling at him. "We're on a tight schedule."

"What kind of schedule is that tight?" He asks, amusement lightening his tones. Hazel, Ahmose and I share a look.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you." I say with a small laugh. The man arches an eyebrow at me.

"No, seriously. You wouldn't believe us." Hazel pipes up. When the man continues to look less than convinced, she leans forward, and in a stage whisper says, "We're on a mission to break an ancient Egyptian curse."

Ahmose and I round on her with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"Hazel!"

"What?" She asks me, shrugging a little. "We're never going to see the dude again. He asked — we might as well spin our tale for him."

"Oh my god. You have officially lost it." I mutter, looking up at the man apologetically. "I'm so sorry, she's very tired and—"

"No, no, it is quite alright." The man interrupts, chuckling. His eyes twinkle with merriment, as bright as the moon rising up behind him. "I find her statement quite intriguing. Is it true?"

"Uh..." I open my mouth, and after trying and failing to come up with a response, look to Ahmose. He watches the man through narrowed eyes, studying him as obstinately as one does when they're trying to find a meaning within a complex painting. "Ahmose?"

"I agree with Hazel." He murmurs, not taking his eyes off the man. I do a double-take, staring at him in shock. Hazel's so gobsmacked that I'm pretty sure her jaw hits the ground. "Let us tell this stranger the truth."

"Really? Ahmose are you sure? We've spent so long trying to stay under the radar, I—" He gives me a look that stops me in my tracks. My sentence dies down in my throat. I shrug slightly, pausing for a few more seconds and glancing at him out of the corner of my eye before I reply to the strange man. "Well... like Hazel said, we're on a quest to break an ancient Egyptian curse. And we want to get into the temple, because, well..."

"We're trying to find Thoth." Hazel finishes.

"Thoth? The Egyptian deity?" The man asks. I nod with a grimace. It sounds even more ridiculous coming out of his mouth. "Why are you trying to find him? For what purpose?"

"Two words." Ahmose speaks up. The man's attention snaps to him. "Moon. And wisdom."

At Ahmose's words, the man suddenly stiffens. Understanding lights up his face in the form of a small smirk. An all-knowing look glitters in his striking silver eyes as he speaks.

"Well, you need not look any further. You have found him."

My brow furrows in confusion as I stare at him. "What?"

"You have found him." He repeats. With those quietly spoken words, there's a blinding flash, and he triples in size. My eyes grow to the size of saucers. I gasp as the man's appearance changes, and suddenly, it becomes all too clear who's standing before us. He smiles a dangerous smile that has shivers skittering down my spine. "Welcome, Ahmose. It is about time we finally met."