Vanessa leaned over a backlit table in the university lab, carefully cleaning a piece of broken clay pottery. The shards of the original vase lay on her table in various states of restoration as she slowly cleaned and sorted them. Once all the pieces were restored, she intended to reassemble them.

Generally, she left the vases shattered out of respect for Kush burial practices, but this particular vase was one that had been used during the entombment of Teriteqas or Amanirenas. It bore paintings and hieroglyphs relating to them, and Vanessa could never pass up a chance to learn more about their lives together.

The piece she was working on now was the largest, and bore an image of the Kandake and Qore together, looking out over their kingdom. She smiled as she looked at it, thinking about the ancient queen whose love had conquered Rome, and also of her own little romance.

“How’s it coming, professor?”

Vanessa still wasn’t over the thrill of being called professor. She looked up at the undergraduate assistant who was helping her with various restoration projects and smiled. He was a native of Ksatta-Galan and one of her most promising students.

“I’m just about done cleaning these pieces,” she said. “How are yours looking?”

“Just finished!”

Vanessa looked over his work with a nod of approval.

“Very good!” she said. “We’ll get through the backlog in no time. Once we’ve cleaned and cataloged all of the pottery from the burial chapel, we can move on to the stuff in the actual tombs! Exciting, right?”

The young man nodded and smiled, but looked a little unsure.

“Professor?” he asked, a little wary. “Forgive me but…why are you doing this?”

“I’m sorry?” Vanessa blinked, not understanding the question.

“Cleaning pottery like this,” the young man elaborated. “It’s grunt work. You’re the famous Professor Hawkins, who solved the Maze of the Dead and found the Tomb of Amanirenas. Isn’t there something more exciting you could be doing?”

Vanessa considered the question for a moment and looked away. Certainly, there was plenty for her to do. Most of it involved writing papers and giving lectures and rehashing what she’d already learned a thousand different ways because no one was ever satisfied until she’d picked it apart from every available angle.

“Sometimes, I just miss getting my hands dirty,” she said, and figured that was explanation enough.

* * *

Work on the tomb had come to a slow stop. Exploring the maze was too dangerous until they could come up with a plan to safely disarm all the traps. The parts that had already been cleared during the rescue efforts had been roped off, and now tourists could walk through them, escorted by overpriced guides.

Much of the tomb itself was now open to tourism as well, though Vanessa had protested that it wasn’t yet well preserved enough to tolerate being open to the air and the constant disturbance of irreverent tourists.

They’d run into legal issues as well with a vocal anti-preservationist group claiming the university shouldn’t be allowed to open any more of the sealed burial chambers out of respect for the dead. Which, Vanessa understood, and actually agreed with to an extent. But there had to be a way to balance respecting these ancient cultures while also learning about and preserving their history and culture. And while they searched for that balance, work had ground to a halt. Vanessa was stuck working only on what they had already excavated from the main burial chamber.

Vanessa left work thinking about it and feeling the frustration settle in the pit of her stomach. The truth was, even before work had been stopped, she’d been running out of things to hold her interest. They’d already gone over the main chamber—Amanirenas’s chamber—with a fine-tooth comb, translating all the script, cataloging all the treasures, even examining the mummies themselves. All of which had served to paint a much clearer picture of Amanirenas’s life and rule.

But then they’d been done, and moved on to the lesser kings and minor nobles whose tombs also filled the massive ancient graveyard. And certainly, their lives were interesting and, of course, vitally important to the study of the region. But Vanessa kept finding herself going back to Amanirenas, searching for a hint of that spark she’d felt before, the drive and excitement she was used to feeling when she was searching for answers.

At this point, however, all the answers had been found. Now it was just a lot of academics rearranging those answers and reinterpreting the evidence until they could come to a consensus on what it all meant. Vanessa wanted to be out there discovering again.

* * *

Vanessa smiled to herself as she hurried home to the beautiful penthouse she now shared with Ramin Al-Zand, crown prince of Ksatta-Galan; her best friend and her lover.

“I’m home!” she called as she opened the door, not sure if he would be there to answer. He had told her that he would be busy with matters of state today.

But he appeared in the front hall before she’d even closed the door, sweeping her into his arms to kiss her so suddenly and thoroughly that she was left breathless and dizzy.

“Welcome home, my love,” he said as he released her, his voice a low, affectionate purr.

“That’s a good welcome,” she said with a giggle. “Almost makes me want to see how you say goodbye.”

She slipped a hand under his clothes teasingly, thinking his passionate greeting had been an invitation for more. To her surprise, he caught her hand, stopping her.

“Not just yet,” he said with a wink.

Before she could ask why, she heard a movement in the doorway, and turned to see an older couple hurrying towards them from the living room.

“Mom! Dad!” she said with a surprised laugh, stepping away from Ramin to hug them.

“How’s it going, Professor Hawkins?” Her father nudged her in the ribs playfully.

“Oh, you look so good!” her mother gushed. “The sun has been great for your skin. You were always such a pale child.”

“What are you doing here?” Vanessa asked, pleasantly confused.

“It’s been a while since you made it over to the States to visit them,” Ramin explained, putting his arm around her shoulders. “So, I flew them out here to come see you.”

She kissed his cheek in delight. She didn’t have the closest relationship with her parents, but she still loved and missed them. Getting to see them like this was a wonderful gift.

For a while they just talked, catching up. Vanessa told them about her work at the museum and the university. They talked about her mother’s private practice and the painting course her father was taking at the community center.

Talk eventually turned to Vanessa’s job, albeit not in the way it usually did where her parents were concerned.

“We’re just so glad that you’ve finally settled down into a real job,” her mother said at last.

“Just so proud of you,” her father added.

“We were worried you were going to be running around, digging in the dirt, pretending to be Indiana Jones forever.” Her mother laughed. “But a professor, now that’s a real career!”

“I’m not pretending to be Indiana Jones, Mom—” Vanessa started to argue, but her father held up a hand to stop her.

“What your mother is trying to say, is that we’re so proud of you for getting your life together,” he said fondly.

“We were really worried about you!” her mother said. “Getting yourself into debt with a degree in ancient history—what kind of job do you get with a degree in ancient history? But working in a classroom, writing papers, settling down with a nice young man, now that’s what we wanted for you. A nice, stable life.”

She patted Ramin’s hand as she said this, obviously thrilled with him. Vanessa squashed down her annoyance with some difficulty. Ramin was smiling, but it was the smile Vanessa had come to recognize as his ‘diplomatic’ smile, worn when he couldn’t afford to show how he was actually feeling.

“We should get going,” he said warmly. “We have reservations for dinner.”

Vanessa smiled at him gratefully and steered the conversation away from her work as they took Ramin’s town car to the restaurant. Vanessa recognized it as soon as they pulled up.

“Oh!” she said. “This is the place we ate at after we found Amanirenas!”

“Yes, right after we were released from the hospital,” Ramin said fondly, looking up at the tall building. “I made her promise to have dinner with me while we were still trapped down there in the tomb. I half expected her to refuse once we were free.”

Vanessa’s parents looked slightly uncomfortable at this reminder of how he and Vanessa had met.

“I don’t think I could ever refuse you anything,” Vanessa said with a smile.

They took the glass elevator up to the rooftop. As they ascended, watching the city skyline through the elevator walls, Ramin squeezed her hand.

“I have another surprise for you tonight,” he told her.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He winked.

“Wait and see.”

The elevator opened, and Vanessa saw a much larger table than the one she’d sat at with Ramin during that first dinner. Her eyes widened as she realized who was sitting around it.

Ramin’s father, resplendent with his long beard and bright white thawb, stood as they entered. Ramin’s mother stood beside him in a beautifully patterned abaya. On the other side of the table were Ramin’s uncle, Sheikh Ansar, and a woman Vanessa didn’t recognize.

“Your Majesty,” Vanessa said, inclining her head to the ruling Sheikh and Sheihka. “Your Highness.”

Her parents drew up short, at a loss.

“Mom, Dad,” Vanessa said, pulling them forward. “May I introduce Ramin’s parents, his majesty the Sheikh Al-Zand and his wife, the Sheikha Fatima. And this is his uncle, Sheikh Ansar.”

Her parents, a bit shell-shocked, murmured polite greetings.

“I’m sorry for not warning you they would be here,” Ramin said with a smile. “I wanted to surprise you. Tonight, our families will eat together.”

They settled down around the table, and Sheikh Ansar introduced his companion.

“This is Fareeha,” he said, holding her hand affectionately. He leaned closer to Vanessa to wink. “She’s a widow.”

Vanessa laughed, but she was glad he was finally finding some happiness in spite of his responsibility to his family. Though, she wondered what had changed his mind.

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” her mom was saying to Ramin’s mother. “I mean, we’d seen on the news that he was a prince, but there are so many of those in this part of the world, you know? I didn’t think about the fact that he was actual royalty.”

“As long as he makes my girl happy, I don’t care if he’s the King of Sheba or a bus driver,” her father said.

“I mean, not an actual bus driver,” her mother corrected.

“I know what I said, Helen.”

“She shouldn’t be dating anyone who doesn’t have a steady job, Michael,” her mother protested. Vanessa rolled her eyes as her parents devolved into bickering about Vanessa’s hypothetical bus driver boyfriend.

“I’m just grateful she’s willing to share even a little of her life with me,” Ramin said, kissing Vanessa’s hand and making her forget, at least for a minute, her frustration with her parents. “I’m incredibly proud to be with such a brilliant, accomplished woman. She’s already changed the world, and I know she’s only going to do more with time.”

“And I am proud my son has found such a worthy woman,” Sheikh Al-Zand said solemnly. “A woman not just equal to his title, but of surpassing wit and grace.”

That silenced her parents for the moment, and Vanessa smiled gratefully, her face flushed with delighted embarrassment.

“I suppose that whole thing with the tomb was pretty impressive,” her mother admitted.

Vanessa accepted that this was probably the best she would get and tried to change the subject.

“So, we’re working a new exhibit right now on Kushite burial pottery…”

* * *

A little while later, after the conversation had turned to a playful argument between Ramin and Ansar about the pronunciation of Amanirenas’s name, Vanessa’s mother leaned over to her to speak to her confidentially.

“You know your father and I are really proud of you,” she said. “Right?”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell,” Vanessa admitted. “Sometimes, I don’t think there’s anything I could do to make you approve of me. Nothing I did was ever enough.”

“We just wanted to push you,” her mother explained. “We could tell even when you were little that you were smarter than either of us. So, we just wanted to make sure you were, you know, always trying for something better! We didn’t want you to get conceited or complacent.”

Vanessa looked away, not wanting to comment and risk starting a fuss during dinner.

“I guess we should have been more careful,” her mother said, “about making it clear how happy we were with what you’d accomplished. No one could ask for a better daughter. We love you, honey.”

She took Vanessa’s hand, squeezing it encouragingly, and Vanessa smiled back at her. Her relationship with her parents might not be perfect, but she was glad there was a chance things might get better.

The dinner proceeded well. The food was, of course, beyond reproach. The chef would never serve less than his best to the Sheikh himself. Though Sheikh Al-Zand didn’t speak or smile much, he seemed to be having a good time. And her parents were getting along pretty well with Ansar and his new love interest.

Vanessa was, as always, just happy to spend the night with Ramin. But she had to wonder what all this was about. Flying her parents out to see her was strange enough, but organizing a dinner with all of his family as well? Something was up.

Her suspicion only increased as they lingered over dessert and wine and Ramin began to shift restlessly, clearly working himself up to something. She’d known him long enough to recognize that look of nervous excitement. She just couldn’t figure out what he was planning.

Then he cleared his throat, the rest of the table falling quiet as he raised his wine.

“I’d like to make a toast,” he said standing up, “to Vanessa Hawkins. What you’ve achieved in the field of archeology will change history, and your career is only just beginning. I know you’ll continue to make incredible discoveries long into the future. I hope I’ll be there to see them all.”

He smiled down at her kindly, turning to face her more fully.

“You and I both spent our youths looking for adventure,” he said. “Through history and fairy tales, we both struggled to find a greater meaning for our lives. But the greatest adventure I’ve ever had is just being part of your life. I know, standing beside you, the adventures will never end. When you met me, I was paralyzed with fear of being alone or trapping myself with someone who didn’t love me for myself. But you’ve never asked me for anything except my love. For love beyond life. For love that could conquer armies. For love, and nothing more.”

Vanessa’s heart skipped a beat as she recognized those words from the inscription above Amanirenas’s tomb.

“Ramin,” she said softly, forgetting for a moment where they were. He couldn’t be planning to…

But Ramin was already moving down onto one knee, taking a small box from his coat pocket. Vanessa’s breath caught in her throat, overwhelmed tears springing to her eyes.

“I want to stand beside you forever,” Ramin said, opening the box to reveal a beautiful ring, a reproduction of that worn by Amanirenas. “Through this life and the next. Vanessa Hawkins, will you marry me?”

There was a frozen moment as Vanessa stared at him, unable to find the words, and then suddenly she threw herself forward onto her knees in front of him to kiss him thoroughly. What better answer was there than that?

He held her tightly, kissing her back, both of them laughing against one another’s lips, giddy with happiness.

“Well, did you say yes or not?” Vanessa’s mom interrupted impatiently.

“Yes!” Vanessa said, laughing, as Ramin slid the ring onto her finger. “Yes, yes, absolutely yes!”

He kissed her again, then drew her up onto her feet. He looked away from her for only a moment to glance at his father, hoping for approval. Sheikh Al-Zand just nodded and smiled, the first time Vanessa had seen him do so.

Ramin beamed, squeezing Vanessa close.

“I have one more surprise,” he said to her, grinning. “I’ve already chosen a location for our honeymoon.”

“Really?” Vanessa asked, confused.

“South America,” Ramin replied with a grin. “I have connections there, one of whom just informed me of the possible location of a lost pre-colonial Aztec library.”

“A library?” Vanessa gasped. “But Cortez burned everything! There are only three pre-colonial Aztec codices in existence!”

“Not anymore,” Ramin said, delighted by her excitement. “At least, not if we can find it and translate them.”

Vanessa kissed him again, hard and fast with her excitement.

“When do we leave?” she asked as they separated.

“Wait, you’re going off to the South American jungles?” her mother asked, distraught. “What about your nice teaching job?”

“Oh, relax, Helen,” Vanessa’s father said, waving her down. “It’s what she loves.”

“It’s not all I love,” Vanessa said, smiling at Ramin adoringly.

She kissed him again as their family, now one, laughed and talked about the wedding preparations. But for Vanessa, all that mattered was that she was going to spend the rest of her life doing what she loved, next to the man she loved. The adventure, she knew now with absolute certainty, would never end.