Chapter Twenty-One

Day 42.

The night air settles around us, the cool exhale of the time that passed us by while we were in the temple. I curl my fingers into a ball and slowly glance over at Ahmose. He lets a long breath flutter out past his lips, casting his gaze sidewards. My heart stings as he pointedly looks everywhere except in my direction.

"Ahmose."

Silence.

I try again. "Ahmose."

Silence.

I click my tongue in frustration. "Ahmose, you can't ignore me for the next sixty days. You kind of need to talk to me if we have any chance of fixing this curse."

He grunts and reluctantly turns his head. "What?"

"Shouldn't we look at it?"

"Look at what?"

I tug on the end of my plait and try not to let my annoyance filter onto my face. He's acting like a toddler mid-tantrum. "The clue?"

He arches one tantalising eyebrow. "We?"

"Yes, we." I finally snap. "Why are you being an ass all of a sudden, Ahmose?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me! Why are you being an ass? Has something in your brain broken? I know it's only a saying that you are what you eat, but I could swear right now that you're eating too many nuts because you're just being plain nutty! I have—"

"Kiara."

"—had it up to here with your mood swings. I have not done anything wrong and you're treating me like... like your old mummification dressings! And when I ask you why you're being more bipolar than opposite ends of a magnet, you ignore me or pretend the grains of sand we're constantly walking over are more interesting! I want—"

"Kiara."

"No. You do not get to interrupt me this time. I am holding the speaking wand this time, bucko." I snap. "Whether you like it or not, we are in this together, Ahmose. You are the one who sought me out. You are the one who asked me for help. You are the one who, up until a day ago, was pushing me to get this curse broken, despite what happened at the last trial we had to face! I dropped everything to help break this curse, and you're acting like you don't want me here at all." My frustration filters out of my tone, softening it. "What is going on with you? Why are your walls giving me more attention than you?"

Ahmose clenches his jaw. A few seconds of silence pass us by. I sigh, stepping closer.

"Ahmose?"

He flicks his nose with his index finger. Stifling silence swallows up the next minute. He produces something from his pocket. The moonlight bounces off the shiny surface of the scroll, highlighting the mahogany inscriptions scrawled over it's surface. My heart sinks.

"Well?" He waves it around in the air in front of me. "Did you not just yell at me for not procuring this for you? Do you want to look at it or not?"

I chew on my lip, giving him a look. "Ahmose..."

Ahmose pretends he doesn't hear me and opens the scroll with a flourish. A breath of dust whooshes out with the movement, tickling the inside of my nose. I jump back, a horribly high-pitched sneeze ripping through me. That earns a small smile from Ahomose.

"Shut up." I grumble. "I have a horrible sneeze."

"No you don't. It's adorable." He replies simply.

I blink. "What?"

Ahmose stares at me for a moment. He clears his throat and looks back down at the scroll. "There appears to be writing on it."

I just about smack him. "No, really? There's a stinker I didn't see coming!"

If Ahmose registers the sarcasm in my tone, he doesn't respond to it. Instead, he pulls on the ends of the scroll so it opens fully. I move closer so I can study the small ink scrawlings etched onto the surface papyrus.

"I can't read it."

He flicks a wayward glance my way. "How can you not read it? It is very clear."

"Yes it is. It's also written in hieroglyphics." I point out. "I can't read hieroglyphics, genius."

"Yes you can."

"No, I can't." I bury the urge to huff in frustration. "I'm not Kasiya, Ahmose."

Ahmose doesn't appear to share the same restraint and lets out a loud sigh. He steps closer to me and places the scroll in my hands. "You are looking wrong."

"What on earth does that mean?" I stare at him incredulously.

"You are looking with Kiara's eyes. Of course Kiara cannot read hieroglyphics; she was born in this century." He explains. "You need to look with your eyes."

My incredulity doesn't lessen. "You sound more bat-crap crazy than Osiris."

"I am not crazy, najmaty. You need to focus." Ahmose tells me. "You are not just Kiara. You are also Kasiya, and Katherine, and every other reincarnation that has lived. That means that within you, you have all their attributes and knowledge, including the ability to read hieroglyphics."

I stare at him. "You're all about these late revelations, aren't you?"

Ahmose shrugs. "Not late. Just revealed at the necessary times."

"Yeah, I think when you first met me was probably the most necessary time." I quip. "If we don't make it through this reincarnation, can you promise me that you'll make a manual for the next Kiara so she has all the information available the first time you meet her?"

"Do you not have faith that we will solve the curse this time?"

"Oh, I have faith. I don't want to die." I retort. "I'm just saying, this would have all been a lot easier if you had given me a Kasiya manual at the beginning instead of throwing all this information at me in the least expected moments."

I can tell from the way the corners of Ahmose's mouth quiver slightly that he tries really hard to hide a smile. He covers it up with a brusque comment. "Just focus, Kiara."

"Okay." I let out a long breath and grip the edges of the scroll tightly. I narrow my eyes at the unfamiliar black hieroglyphs. "Okay. Okaaaaaay."

"Kiara."

"Okay. Sorry." I grimace when he gives me a look. "It's kind of hard to stop once you start."

"Focus."

I nod and refocus my attention back on the scroll in front of me. The hieroglyphs stare back at me, taunting me with their incomprehensibility. I press my lips together and narrow my eyes. They begin to ache, I'm straining them so much. Then, just as I'm on the precipice of giving up and throwing the scroll at the nearest unemotional mummy, something inside my mind clicks and the hieroglyphics come alive on the page. My eyes widen.

"That is cool." I breathe. "I can read hieroglyphs!"

"I told you."

"Oh, wipe that smug smile off your face." I smack him with the end of the scroll. "What does this say?"

Ahmose points at the first line. "I believe this is an indication of what creature we are fighting next."

"'A varmint designed from clay, the next creature you must slay'." I read out. I look up at Ahmose. "A varmint designed from clay? Is that what I think it is? Is it telling us the next monster is going to be a golem?"

"I believe so. I cannot think of any other creatures that are designed from clay." Ahmose responds with a furrowed brow.

"Well that doesn't surprise me Ahmose, they're not exactly common!" I exclaim, throwing my hands up in the air. "Aren't golems known for going crazy and killing people?!"

"Aren't most of the monsters we've faced by this point known for going crazy and killing people?"

I stare at him and splutter, "That's not the point!"

"What is your point then?" Ahmose asks bemusedly.

"I don't want to be killed by a crazy lump of clay!"

"Trust me, that is not my intention either najmaty." Ahmose replies. "But I would like to point out that we do not know how big this golem may be, or whether we have to fight it, like we did the cockatrices, or solve a riddle, like we did the sphinx."

"That doesn't scare you though?" I ask. "We don't know anything about this stage at all, Ahmose; you don't know anything about this stage. We've never gotten to this point before. We don't even know where it is."

"We may know that." Ahmose points to the line below. "I believe those numbers there are co-ordinates."

"50°05′25″ North, 14°25′15" East." I recite. "Where is that?"

"I am unsure." Ahmose muses. "But I would hazard a guess that it may be in Prague."

"Why Prague?"

"The most famous Golem in modern history was brought to life by a rabbi in 16th century Prague." Ahmose explains. "It seems logical that the gods would hide a monster we would need to seek out like that in plain sight. It was a lot easier to hide supernatural creatures back when humanity was a lot less focused on what was 'realistic'."

I roll my eyes, ignoring his cynicism. "Are you sure? Wouldn't it seem more on par with what we've experienced already that the answer isn't the most obvious one in front of us?"

"We need to start somewhere, Kiara. All we need to do is find out what location these co-ordinates are for and that decides our next bearing."

"Alright. Say it is in Prague. How on earth are we going to get there? We have no money." I point out.

Ahmose smirks. "I have my ways."

— — —

Ahmose was right about one thing; the co-ordinates did lead us directly to Prague — to the Old-New Synagogue in the heart of the city. He was right about another thing; he certainly did have his ways to secure us a free trip to Prague, Czech Republic.

What he failed to mention was that way involved him flirting uproariously with an air hostess right in front of me.
To give him credit, it was horrifically successful. She managed to sneak us into the two seats at the back of the plane that were reserved for "That Hot Egyptian and his Grumpy Sister" all for the price of one steamy flirt-session. However, his 'grumpy sister' felt so horrifically sick after witnessing said steamy flirt-session, that involved the long-legged blonde running her ironically sky-blue claws over his biceps, that she had to bury her head in online books and articles on golems to avoid throwing up on him.

I probably could count on one hand the amount of words I spoke to Ahmose on that plane ride, which should have been a blindingly clear indication to anyone who knew me that I was upset. But Ahmose didn't acknowledge it. In fact, he made it all too clear that he knew I was upset by continuously calling that same air hostess over for a million unnecessary requests, his golden eyes locking onto me every time he greeted her with a heart-melting smile. His erratic behaviour frustrated me to no end, particularly because I couldn't figure out why he was suddenly acting like a complete, to put it frankly, ass. It was like he had been replaced by the world's most sleazy playboy overnight, and there was nothing I could think of that could explain why.

By the time we touched down in Václav Havel Airport, I was seething more than a volcano on the precipice of explosion. The moment the doors were opened, I snatched my belongings out of the seat pocket in front of me, climbed less-than-carefully over Ahmose's slumbering form, and hightailed it off the plane before I could witness the finale to the "Ahmose and the Air Hostess" show.

If I had learnt anything from the rest of the show, it was that it was going to be a vomit-inducing and heart-smashing doozy.

Ahmose catches up to me at the international baggage claim, his clothes slightly askew. I don't pause in my enraged endeavour to tame my tangles into a side-plait.

"You should have woken me." He says, huffing slightly.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I feign remorse. "I just thought I should leave that privilege for your new girlfriend."

"My new girlfriend?" Confusion laces Ahmose's tone. I still refuse to look at him. "I do not understand who you are talking about."

"Of course you did. Don't play dumb." I snap. "You spent the last ten hours practically sucking her face off in front of me."

I don't need to look at Ahmose to know that his silence signals his understanding. "She is not my girlfriend. I was merely ensuring we had sufficient travel to Prague."

"That was all you were doing, was it?" I retort, finally turning my withering gaze to him. I can almost swear he shrinks back a little. Ahmose doesn't respond. I return my gaze to the conveyor belt in front of us. "That's what I thought."

Ahmose clears his throat. I feel his muscles tense up beside me as he crosses his arms over his chest. "I have also ensured we have sufficient al'iiqama while we assess the challenge we are about to face."

"Let me guess. Her bed?" I fire back. "While I get to stay in the luxurious a'la garden shed?"

"Najmaty, do not be like that."

"Don't call me that." I snap. "You don't get to call me that after the way you know you just treated me."

Ahmose clenches his jaw. I wait for him to flick his nose, smiling a little bitterly when the expected habit rears it's head. "Adéla has given me the keys to a small al'iiqama her parents commonly let people use for money. She has kindly allowed us to stay there for the remainder of our travels here."

"Well how kind of Adéla." I sneer sarcastically, purposely pronouncing her name wrong. I wrench our backpacks off the conveyor belt as they pass by and kick his towards him. "Let's go then. Are we going to walk there, or are you planning on hitting on our taxi driver for a discounted fare?"

Ahmose snatches his bag up off the ground and gives me a look. "You are acting like a child."

I narrow my eyes at him. "I think it's safe to say neither of us have been acting maturely recently."

Ahmose's expression darkens. He throws his bag over his shoulder and starts to stalk away. "We walk. Try to keep up."

"Oh trust me." I mutter, scurrying after him. "I'm trying my hardest."

— — —

To give her credit, the house that Adéla so kindly allowed Ahmose and I to stay in was a big step up from the tents we had been slumming it in the past few weeks. It had proper walls, and air conditioning, and running water. The moment I discovered the shower, I disappeared for well over an hour so I could scrub the grime and sand that had firmly lodged itself in every single pore on my body. It also gave me some well-deserved time alone to really dwell over what had over the past couple of weeks without Ahmose pressing me to 'stop tormenting yourself over the past and focus on the torments of the future'. I hadn't really had a chance to mourn Hazel, and I needed some time alone to grieve the death of my closest friend.

After my shower, I emerge from the bathroom to find Ahmose nowhere in sight. After searching the incredibly small house for more time than I would like to have admitted, I finally settled for setting myself up in front of the roaring fire, which Ahmose had apparently brought to life while I was enjoying the concept of running water again, and busied myself with writing down all the information I had found on golems on the flight over. I figured that the more we knew about the golem, the better chance we'd have at beating it, particularly considering we couldn't even be in the same room for very long without verbally abusing each other.

Ahmose finally returns with the retiring sun, storming less than quietly into the lounge and throwing a bag down on the chair beside me. I raise my eyebrows at him from my sprawled position on the floor.

"What's the matter? Adéla stand you up for your hot date?"

"There was no hot date." Ahmose snaps. "I was merely securing food and information on the potential whereabouts of the golem."

"And I'm guessing from your sunny disposition that you were entirely successful in that endeavour?"

Ahmose gives me a look that would scare off even the most battle-hardy of anubites and mutters something under his breath in Arabic.

"What was that?"

Ahmose clenches his jaw. "No, I was not successful."

I push myself up to a seated position and cross my legs. "Well, if you'd actually decided to acknowledge my existence in a way other than sneering at me, then you'd realise that you could have avoided that lack of success completely."

He frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I've been doing all this research," I gesture to all the papers on the floor in front of me. "Precisely on the golem. I probably know more about the golem than the golem does himself. You could have avoided all that trouble by just talking to me."

"Kiara..."

I throw my hands up in the air, getting to my feet. "But hey, I get it. You didn't want to talk to me. You didn't want anything to do with me apparently. And I don't quite know why that is; I mean, I wasn't the one who blatantly flirted with a beautiful leggy blonde air hostess called Adéla."

Ahmose sighs, sitting down on the arm of the chair. "I have upset you."

"What was your first hint?"

"Why are you upset?"

"Are you kidding me, Ahmose?" I ask incredulously. "You seriously don't know?"

He folds his arms over his chest, his expression unreadable. "I do not."

I laugh hollowly, tugging on the end of my plait. To give myself a moment to compose myself, I busy myself with unpacking the contents of the bag he'd brought in. "If you really don't know, then I really can't talk to you right now."

I hear him sigh. A moment later, I feel a presence at my elbow. "Kiara."

I don't respond.

"Do not be like that."

I continue to unpack the groceries, laying the pasta and tomatoes out on the bench. I hear another sigh. When I go to drop the onions on the stone top, Ahmose places his hand on mine, halting my progress.

"Najmaty." He takes the onion out of my hand and turns me to face him. "Do not ignore me."

I glance down at my hands, refusing to look him in the eye. He cups my chin with his hand and raises my head to meet his eyes. His eyes glow with an unexpected warmth, almost unfamiliar to the acidic derision that had hardened his gaze the past two days. "Please. I cannot stand you ignoring me."

"Well I can't stand being treated like crap for absolutely no damn reason." I respond bitingly. "So if ignoring is what it takes to stop being treated like something you can't scrape off your shoe, then that's what I'll do."

"Alright, you have made your point." He drops his hand. "I am sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"For acting the way I have the past two days. It was not my intention to hurt you." He says. I give him a look. He lets out a long breath. "Alright, that is not entirely true. I did not mean to truly hurt you."

I smile bitterly. "Too late for that."

"I know. My behaviour was inexcusable. I knew that... flirting with that woman would upset you, particularly if you witnessed it all. For that, I am sorry." Ahmose says quietly.

"Why did you then?" I ask. "Why were you trying to hurt me? What have I done to deserve that?"

"You have done nothing, najmaty."

"Then what is it? What's going on, Ahmose?" I ask softly.

Ahmose smiles humourlessly. "If only it were that easy, amyrti."

"It would be if you just told me, Ahmose. What do I have to do to prove to you I am here for you?"

"You do not have to prove anything, najmaty." Ahmose places the onion down on the bench and walks over to the fire. He sits down on the couch in front of it, staring into roaring warmth. The flickering flames cast dancing shadows across his face, the slow movement of the dancers echoing the sudden solemn mood tainting the air. I follow him and slowly sit down, carefully making sure to leave space on the sofa between us. I tentatively broach the silence.

"Then why won't you tell me anything?"

Ahmose takes a moment to respond.

"Do you know how many times I have had to do this, Kiara?"

I shake my head. "No."

He smiles minutely. "I do not either. I have lost count. Despite that, though, I remember everything. Every single reincarnation, every single attempt, every single time I have had to watch you die, morphed into a torturous montage that I see every time I close my eyes."

My breath catches in my throat. "You do?"

He nods. "The first time we faced the sphinx, you got the answer wrong, and she suffocated you in a sandstorm. The second time you got it wrong, she called upon a plague of scorpions and held me back as they attacked you. The third, seventh and sixteenth time we faced the cockatrices, you caught their gaze and crumbled to dust. One reincarnation, I did not even get to you in time, and you died alone in an orphanage of the bubonic plague. I found out later that year when the gods decided to take pity on me and woke me just to tell me that."

My heart stutters in my chest. "Ahmose..."

"I have been fighting this curse for as long as I remember. Sometimes I even forget for a moment my original life, what my family were like, what my life was like." He shakes his head. "I do not know what happened to them after Ma'at placed the curse upon Kasiya and I. I was unwillingly forced to yield to the curse, without even getting a chance to say goodbye to my family. The next I awoke, they were all dead. All I can hope is that they found out what happened to me, instead of thinking I abandoned them in their time of need."

I swallow. "I'm sorry."

"You do not need to be sorry, najmaty. It is not your fault." He looks over at me, something smoldering in his golden gaze. "None of this is your fault. It is all mine."

"Don't say that, Ahmose." I place a hand on his arm and beseech him with my eyes. "None of this is your fault."

"Thank you Kiara, 'ant hlu." Ahmose places his hand on mine. "But it is. You would not be in this situation if it were not for me. Sometimes, I find myself forgetting that. And that is not fair to you."

I squeeze his arm. "You know, you can have my family if you want."

That earns a minute smile from him. "You do not like them?"

I shrug. "Oh, I like my father. And I liked my brother. But my mother was sent straight from hell to torment me."

"Liked your brother?" Ahmose doesn't miss the past tense.

I shrug again, looking down at my fingers. "Yeah, liked. He died when I was ten. He was six."

"What happened?"

"Humanity happened." I say simply. "We were walking home from school one day. I went to cross the road. A car came flying out of nowhere. I managed to dodge it. He wasn't so lucky."

Ahmose's expression softens. "Najmaty, I am sorry."

"It's okay. It was a freak accident, you know?" I smile, biting my lip to stop the tears from welling up. "The person behind the wheel had an unexpected seizure, which caused them to lose control. It wasn't their fault at all; they had a brain tumour, or something, that they didn't know about it. Still, they survived. Toby didn't."

Ahmose doesn't say anything, only squeezing my hand in response. That helps more than a verbal reply, though.

I clear my throat, looking over at the fire. "Anyway, that's when my parents first started having troubles. Mum went crazy, tried to sue the other person for all they were worth, but Dad didn't let her. He didn't think it was fair, considering it wasn't their fault. That's when the fractures first appeared in their marriage, I guess. It didn't take long for my mother to lose herself in her work, both figuratively and literally, and it took even less time for my father to move out. They were so caught up in dealing with the death of their son that they forgot about their other child."

"That must have been difficult."

"I learned to cope." I shrug again. "I think moving out helped to clear my father's head, because he got a lot better when he moved. Mum won the custody battle though, unsurprisingly, so I had to stay with her. Didn't take long for me to want to move to the other side of the world so I wouldn't have to see her ever again."

Ahmose laughs. "You care for her a lot, then."

"Well of course I love her. She's my mother." I say with a small smile. "But she's also quite literally the worst person I've ever met. I don't know how her and my father ever stayed married for as long as they did; he's as mellow as she is demonic."

Ahmose laughs again, before growing quiet. His hand still hasn't moved from squeezing mine earlier. "I am sorry you have had to leave them behind to help me."

"I'm not." I say simply. He turns to me, questions in his flickering gaze. "I would do it again in a heartbeat, Ahmose. I ..." I pause and cut myself off, clearing my throat. "I want to help you break this curse. No matter what."

With Hapi and Horus as my witnesses.

Ahmose watches me, his expression unreadable. Then he stands up, dropping my hand as he does so. "Best get some sleep, Kiara. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

I watch him walk away, my heart sinking with every step he takes.

"Yeah, I guess we do." I whisper.