Chapter Twenty-Two

Day 47.

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself as we step out into the cool night air. The hulking shadow of the synagogue looms behind us like a mountain, slowly shrinking in size as we sneak closer to the genizah. Around us, the trees sway in the slight breeze, the flickering of the leaves composing an eerie symphony that sends icicles down my spine. I hear a rustle in the bushes ahead of me and just about jump out of my skin. Ahmose's head jerks around at the unexpected movement. The corners of his lips twitch.

"Something scaring you, najmay?"

"Don't be an ass." I grumble. "I'm terrified."

My confession wipes the bemusement off his face. "We can do this, Kiara. We can beat the golem. Tahalaa bial'iiman. Have faith in us."

"It's not that I don't have faith. I have bundles of that."

"Then what are you scared of?"

"You really don't know?"

Ahmose turns to meet my gaze. His expression is grim. He reaches over and squeezes my fingers. I squeeze back just as tight.

He knows.

We push past the throng of bushes lining the edge of the synagogue and emerge out into a small, overgrown clearing. In the middle of the clearing is a run-down, grey-stone building, just shorter than Ahmose's stocky 6"3 frame. The genizah is so over-run by snaking vines and weeds stretching their fingertips to the moon that one would almost miss it, if they weren't looking for it. Clenching my fists at my sides, I inch past Ahmose and closer to the small building. My heart stutters in my chest. Small fingers of blue lightning lick my fingertips, crackling over the surface of my palms. I wet my lips, my voice hoarse.

"Ahmose."

"I know." He whispers.

"There's nothing there."

"I know."

"Where's the golem?"

"I do not know."

"Well aren't you a well of information!"

"Kiara, I know as much as you do. You know I have not reached this point before!"

"But—" I tug on the end of my ponytail, staring at the genizah in perplexity. "It's just a stone building in a clearing. There's nothing else here. No pile of clay, no unusual stack of stones, nothing."

"Well it is an age-old monster. Perhaps it has become very adept at camouflage—"

Out of nowhere, Ahmose suddenly lets out a loud yell. Moment later, he rockets through the air and crashes into a bush behind me.

"Ahmose!"

I whirl around.

My jaw drops.

Towering in front of me, the weathered gray stones of the genizah still twisting and shuffling into place, is the golem.

"Oh." I whisper. "There it is."

Its eyes glowing like molten lava, the golem straightens up, its head equaling the tip top point of the synagogue in height. It opens its mouth and lets out an almighty roar, so powerful that it rattles the very blades of grass at my feet. I squeak, jumping back a foot.

"Ahmose?"I stammer, throwing my arm back and blindly feeling around in the air for him. "A-are you hurt?"

Ahmose pops up at my side. If I wasn't frozen to the spot in terror, I probably would've laughed at the look of total outrage twisting up his features. "The only thing bruised is my ego."

The golem roars again and throws a stone at us. We both barely manage to dive to the side before it shoots past us.

"Okay. He's mad." I roll to my feet and shout at Ahmose across the 5 feet that now separates us. "What's our plan of attack?!"

"It's a very simple plan. Attack!"

"What?!" I shriek."Ahmose!"

"Just distract him!" He yells back, charging forward.

I gape at him, so shocked that I'm surprised my eyes don't bug out of my head like a cartoon. "What?!"

Ahmose jumps up in the air as the golem throws another rock at him, twisting mid-air and transforming into a hawk in the same fluid motion. Hawk-Ahmose shrieks and darts towards the golem's head, but before he can get anywhere near it he's batted away by a lightning-quick stone hand. He crashes into a tree-trunk and lands in a feathered, unmoving heap on the grass. My heart leaps into my throat. The golem's red eyes glint maliciously. It starts thumping towards him.

"Ahmose!"

Almost without thinking, I throw my hands up in the air, aiming my palms at the golem. Arches of azure-blue lightning shoot out of my palms and strike the golem in the chest. It stumbles back half a meter, the sudden movement causing the ground to tremble like an earthquake. Its momentary lapse in attention gives Hawk-Ahmose enough time to ruffle his feathers and return to the air, his trajectory somewhat wonky. I breathe a sigh of relief.

Then the golem's burning gaze lands on me. A stone is launched in my direction. I yelp and dive out of the way. The stone smashes into the spot I had been occupying only microseconds earlier. I jump to my feet, my knees only trembling a little. Hawk-Ahmose lets out a loud trill, circling around my head.

"Yeah, distraction. I'm working on it!" I yell.

Clenching my fingers into fists, I throw my hands up in the air again and direct my palms towards the golem.

Nothing happens.

The golem turns to me and lets out an earth-shattering roar. It strides towards me, another stone materialising in its right hand as it crosses the entire clearing in one step. I scramble back, hastily throwing my hands up in front of me. A scream is ripped from my lips as the stone smacks into my wrists, pain reverberating through all the bones in my body as I crash to the ground again. Hawk-Ahmose screeches and dives to my side, materialising into his usual human form.

"Are you alright?" He exclaims, pulling me to my feet with one hand. The pain throbbing through my body dissipates almost immediately when I notice how he cradles his other arm against his chest.

"Yes." I nod, my expression twisting up in concern. "Are you?"

Ahmose ignores my question and yanks me to the side as another stone flies past. The golem bellows, clenching his fists at his side .This time a stone appears in both its hands. I flinch.

"All we're doing is making it angrier!"

"That much is very clear!" He growls through gritted teeth. He clutches me by the shoulder and speaks quickly. "We need to distract it long enough for one of us to get the scroll out of its mouth. Considering I am the only one of us who can fly, I vote I do that."

"What about your arm?!"

"I am fine. If we do that, you need to focus on distracting it long enough for me to do that." He looks me clear in the eyes. "Kiara, can you do that?"

I want to scream, 'Of course not, are you crazy?! You're the one with a broken arm!' but I can tell from the look on his face that he won't back down. I swallow. Everything narrows down. All sights, all feelings, all sounds of the golem fade into the background until it's just the two of us. Time stops. All I can see is the golden flecks in Ahmose's honey-coloured eyes, the warmth smouldering in their depths. All I can feel is his strong hand squeezing my shoulder, emanating comfort with his sturdy grip. All I can hear is the sound of his breath pushing through his lips as he pants slightly, his breathing more laboured than normal. He searches my face, his expression in that moment more open than I've ever seen it. It's like I can see into his very soul. I set my shoulders squarely and nod.

"With Hapi and Horus as my witnesses." I whisper.

Something glints in his eyes.

"Okay." He whispers back.

Time starts again. Everything returns with a humongous whoosh around us. Two stones soar through the air, flying arcs of death beelining straight for us. This time when I raise my hands the stones disintegrate mid-air, sand raining down on the grass in front of me as blue fingers of lightning crackle in the air around us. Ahmose nods at me, squeezing my shoulder one last time, before leaping into the air and transforming into a hawk once more. He circles the golem's head, shrieking loudly, causing it to roar and swat at the air in frustration. The next time Ahmose soars up, I attack the golem's knees with my lightning, focusing on the joints between the stones. The golem's knees buckle. It stumbles back, its groan of frustration echoing through the clearing. It turns its head towards me, and my ears scream at the sound of stone scraping on stone. The golem locks me in place with a molten glare and releases another earth-shattering roar. I squeak and scramble away as it stomps over to me, crossing the clearing in a single stride. I hurriedly manage to fire off another lightning bolt in time to disintegrate the stone launched in my direction, but I barely manage to put any more distance between the golem and I before the monster throws another rock at me. I'm not quite so lucky at dodging it a second time. A strangled howl is torn from me as I crash to the ground, trapped underneath the excruciatingly heavy stone. A rumble radiates from the golem. Its red eyes glint. It reaches down for me.

"Ahmose! Hurry!!!"

Hawk-Ahmose screeches and aims a desperate dive for the golem's mouth; before he can get anywhere near the golem's head, it swats him away like an annoying fly. This time, he doesn't get back up. My heart starts pounding so hard I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. The golem turns back to me and reaches forward again. Before I even have time to raise my hands, it has me clutched in a deadly grip, slowly crushing the air out of my lungs between its humongous stone fingers. I gasp, struggling furiously to push myself out of grasp.

I don't move.

I focus all my energy on my fingertips and push. Crackles of lightning emanate from my fingertips and dance harmlessly over the surface of the golem's hands. The golem laughs again.

"Puny human." It finally speaks, its voice scraping against my eardrums like fingernails on a chalkboard. "You call this fight? This pathetic. Angry god-man lie to me. You bad fight."

"Yeah, and you know what?" I spit. "You're a talking rock."

The golem narrows its eyes at me. "You bad human too."

"And you're ugly!"

The golem bares its teeth back at me and slowly starts tightening its grip on me. A scream hisses through my teeth. "Bad human talk no more."

"Hey!" A sudden yell stops the golem in its stone-crushing tracks. Ahmose stands tall in the middle of the clearing, his expression thunderous. "Rocks for brains! 'adhhab 'iilaa aljahim."

The golem smiles maliciously, turning to face him. His grip loosens. "Puny human go to hell before me."

The golem's momentary lapse in attention is all I need. I slip my hands down to my sides, close my eyes, and focus every single cell in my body on pushing energy into my fingers. A tingle washes through my body.

All time pauses for a moment. All sound shrinks away. All feeling flushes from my body.

A bright white light flashes through my eyelids.

A supersonic boom echoes around the clearing.

The golem howls in pain.

I hit the ground with a loud thud. Around me, I hear several slightly softer thuds as something slightly heavier rains down around me. I open my eyes.

"Kiara?" Ahmose stares at me, his jaw agape. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I nod, slightly breathless. I look around. Any breath remaining in my lungs is sucked out when I notice all the grey stones scattered around the clearing like hail. "Did I...?"

A roar interrupts me before I can finish my sentence. Across the other side of the clearing, the golem pushes itself up to its feet, its eyes glowing white-hot as its entire body starts throbbing, red-hot molten stones growing out of nowhere to rebuild its missing arms.

"Oh god." I whisper. "It won't die. Ahmose, it won't die."

"We need a new plan." Ahmose mutters. "This is not working."

"I am painfully aware of that." I puff. We both dive to the side when a flurry of stones rocket through the air towards us. I leap to my feet and childishly throw a rock back at the golem. It bounces harmlessly off the golem's forehead. It still bellows like I hit it with a planet, though. I wince and hurriedly turn back to Ahmose. "I have a plan. Kind of. A semi-plan. If it works. I don't even know if—"

"Kiara!" Ahmose clutches my shoulder, shaking me slightly. The ground underneath my feet shakes as the golem advances on us. "What is this plan?!"

"I need you to distract it. Keep all its attention on you." I say. "Can you do that?"

"I can. You may not like it, though."

"I don't care. Just do it." My voice falters when I look him in the eye and see the desperation building in his eyes. "We need to take this hunk of stone down, before—"

"I know." Ahmose nods, cutting me off. He squeezes my shoulder and hesitates. Those few seconds last for a lifetime. Then he presses his forehead to mine, places a lingering kiss on my forehead, and charges off.

I blink, staring after him. My brain fills with fog, rooting me to the spot as I try to navigate myself through the thick clouds of confusion his actions had plunged me into.

Did that just happen?

"Kiara!"

A muted flash of green light and a sharp shout from Ahmose is enough to disperse the fog blurring my brain and ground me in reality. I shake my head and blink several times. My jaw just about hits the ground.

Rising up from the ground, creaking and crackling and groaning in a way that sends my heart skittering up into my throat, are ten, twenty, thirty decaying bodies.

And they're alive.

The skeletons move with a ghoulish agility towards the golem and start crawling up the stone monster's legs. The golem howls and starts stomping and swatting at the skeletons, having just about as much luck as one would scraping barnacles off a whale. With every skeleton it manages to shake off, another three clamber into its place, until the golem looks like a writhing, living mass of skeletons.

"Ahmose?" I look over at him to see him standing tall as a statue at the back of the clearing, his arms raised and his expression deadly determined. Streaming from the ring on his finger is a transluscent green glow, that dances over his skin and pulses in his veins like electricity. In that moment, he takes my breath away.

He's a god.

Ahmose looks over at me, veins popping up all over his forehead.

"Kiara, now!"

"Right!" Shaking my head, I clench my fingers at my sides and suck in a long, deep breath. Slowly letting it out through my lips, I close my eyes and concentrate. I drown myself in the memories of the past forty-seven days.

Meeting Ahmose for the first time.

Agreeing to help him break the curse.

The unforgettable feeling of familiarity that washed through me the moment I stepped foot on Egyptian soil.

The butterflies that danced in my stomach when Ahmose smiled that special way.

Hazel, dying.

The fear of a future unknown, unburdened by the curse.

I open my eyes. I release my fists. The energy that built up inside me explodes from every single fibre in my fingertips. With a deafening crack! I'm propelled up into the air by a forked tree of lightning that sprouts from my fingers. The wind screams through my ears as I whip through the air towards the golem. The golem turns in slow motion to stare at me, the fury burning in its eyes barely visible behind the crawling facade of skeletons. For a moment, something heavy passes over my back, and I almost feel like I hover in the air in front of the golem for a few breadths.

"This is for Ahmose." I whisper, locking eyes with the towering monster in front of me.

Then I reach forward, stretch out my fingers, and yank the scroll from the golem's mouth.

And the moment my fingertips touch that scroll, my entire world bursts into flame.