Chapter Ten

 

The room was quiet. The shadows darker than normal. My body was draped across Ravi’s and my smile couldn’t be tamed.

When he said he’d have me every way possible before morning… he hadn’t been exaggerating. We’d done things I didn’t even know were doable. Explored places I’d never thought could be pleasurable.

My body was sweat-soaked and sated.

But my mind remembered Anubis’s warning.

Soon the sun would rise, and where would we be then?

I turned my face to find Ravi asleep. His long lashes laid across his cheeks like they had in the casket. But this time, his chest moved with breath and every few minutes, I thought I could hear his heartbeat where my ear rested against his chest.

Was this more of the magic fading? Was Ravi coming back to life? And did that mean his heart had chosen to go back? To ancient times. To the life before the betwixt.

I didn’t know. And when I asked what his choice was, he said it didn’t matter. That the only choice to be made was not where but… who.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears that welled in my lids.

If he was right, then I only had to choose him. And he only had to choose me.

Ravi. Ravi. Ravi. Ravi, my kha.

I repeated the words in my head over and over until the shadows in the room began to lighten with the coming of Ra.

Leaning up, I shook his chest to wake him. “Ravi,” I murmured. “It’s time. Ra is waking.”

But he was still.

“Come on, kha. You can’t sleep in. Not today.”

I shook him harder.

“Ravi?”

So hard his head moved on his shoulders like a ragdoll.

“Ravi, wake up!”

My gut twisted with foreboding. Fear tingled up my spine bringing new tears to my eyes. I wasn’t used to crying anymore. But somehow, I hardly thought of it.

“Ravi? Ravi. Damn it, wake, kha. Wake up. Wake up!”

I was full-on beating against his chest and screaming now, but he might as well be dead because he didn’t respond.

Terrified, I pressed my ear to his chest.

No breath. No pumping of his heart.

“Shit. No, no, no. Ravi, wake up!”

But to my horror, he didn’t move. In fact, he felt different.

Gritty? Like sand or… powder?

I jerked my hand away and saw that he shimmered. Much like the linen did just before it…

No.

Gods, no.

“Ravi,” I whimpered, gingerly touching his cheek. Please, please.

But the moment I did, his body began to fade away.

Like dust in a wind.

“No.”

Like sand on the desert floor.

“No.”

Like our wraps had earlier, but this time it was horrifying.

“No, no!” I cried, tears rolling down my cheeks like rivers. “No, come back. Please, gods. I can’t lose him again.”

I grasped at the grains of sand, uselessly trying to put Ravi back together, to keep him with me a little while longer. But I knew, deep down, he was already gone.

“No.”

I wasn’t going to let this happen. I hadn’t searched for him all these years just to lose him. Fuck the gods and all their laws. Fuck them hard.

“Anubis!” I screamed to the ceiling through my tears. “Fix this! Help me!”

The spot where Ravi’s body had lain was scattered with his ash now, but even that was fading. I would lose him all if I didn’t act now.

“Anubis, you bastard! Help me, or by the gods, I will—”

“I admit I’m a dog,” a hard voice shot from the only remaining shadow in the room. This time I could see his eyes. They glowed green. “But I don’t usually come when called. I was busy, torturing my Sorceress. You interrupted. I don’t like being interrupted.”

“Fix this,” I demanded. “Ravi is gone and I want to be with him. Where he is. Now. Do it.”

“You’re a demanding little thing, aren’t you?” he said, annoyed.

“My heart chose wrong. I want to be with Ravi, in the before. Make it happen.”

“The heart never chooses wrong.”

“It did. Mine did.”

“You sure about that?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the tone of his question made me stop. My heart wouldn’t have chosen anything but Ravi. I knew it. But…

“Why can’t I feel him? Where is he?”

“Waiting for you,” Anubis said. “Where the curse began.”

“Then why am I not with him? Why didn’t I melt away like that?”

“Is this normal, for you to ask questions two at a time? Because I have to say, it’s maddening.”

“Answer me!”

Anubis growled and his power strangled away anything else I might’ve said.

“Because you died after him. He moves from the betwixt first. Simple really. Humans,” he sneered. “Such an impatient lot.”

Relief slammed me so hard I had to close my eyes. “Are you telling me I just freaked out over nothing?”

“Freaked?” Anubis said. “You’ll need to work on your vocabulary, princess. Can’t be using words like that anymore. Open your eyes.”

When I did, I almost crumpled at what I saw.

I was back in the palace. In my father’s banquet hall. A feast was stretched the length of the table and familiar faces were seated to dine. I wore my headdress and collar. Strings of beads hung from my neck and arms, barely covering my breasts. And hello, sandals.

I’d forgotten what real clothes felt like.

I knew this night. This was the night Ravi intercepted the viper’s lethal bite.

I spotted my handmaidens. Helter and Flixus and… yes, thank the gods, there was Anga.

Oh, Anga. She was safe.

More tears filled my eyes, and I wondered if my tear ducts were just trying to make up for all the years of dryness.

“Can they see me?” I whispered.”

“Not yet. You’ve not fully crossed over. But soon. Minutes. No, seconds.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Anubis.” I couldn’t see him. He was somewhere behind me. Tucked in a shadow, for sure.

“Now you wish to be grateful?” he scoffed, and then admitted, “Not necessary. I have my Sorceress trapped in the betwixt. It’s all the thanks I need. Now go. Sit, eat, and careful with the wine.”

I nodded, feeling the eyes in the room turn toward me as I walked forward, into my father’s banquet. Back into the Egypt of my youth. Of my future.

“Oh! Wine, yes that reminds me,” Anubis muttered. “You should know that you and the prince created a life inside the betwixt.”

“What?” I hissed, hoping no one thought I was crazy for talking to myself.

“A life. A baby. I don’t know how it was possible to make life in a place where there is none. You’d have to ask Osiris about that. If you can even get him to talk to you. He’s incredibly haughty, that one.”

“A child?” I squeaked.

“Yes. One grows within you. No idea what that means for the future, but I thought you should know. Bye for now, princess.”

A baby within me. Ravi’s baby.

Could Anubis be believed?

I swallowed down that piece of information and found my seat at the table. People chattered, unaware of me after my entrance, and I drew in a deep breath to calm my nerves.

Anga leaned in to whisper, “Welcome back, princess.”

My eyes went wide. “Is this real? Is it true?”

“Aye.” Flixus nodded. “We had quite an adventure, didn’t we?”

“New Kairo. The hovercraft. The neon lights. They don’t exist?”

“Not yet.”

Helter sighed. “I will miss it though. A little. Won’t you?”

“Not me,” Flixus argued.

“A little,” Anga agreed, and I wondered if she was thinking of a certain zombie. “But it’s nice to know that french fries will exist someday. And hey, maybe I’ll be reincarnated as an American where there are fries on every corner!”

Helter screwed up her face, the khol around her eyes crinkling. “Hashtag, ew.”

“Dreams come true, is all I’m saying.” Anga shrugged.

The meal began and I chewed my meat but it felt like nothing more than sawdust.

Bomani entered, and sat near Ravi’s guard. My maidens cringed and I stiffened, knowing what I knew of the future.

“We must remember,” Helter whispered. “The Bomani we knew was from the afterlife, the future. And he only chose evil because of his grief. He will be new now. Never will he align with the Sorceress. He will be all he should have been had his only family not been taken from him.”

“Hmph,” Flixus murmured. “I can still hate him for a while. He’s a dick.”

“Shh. They don’t say dick in old Egypt.”

Flixus rolled her eyes. “Well, they should.”

My mouth was dry with nerves so I reached for the wine. But my hands shook. Ravi disappearing before my very eyes was something that would haunt me for a while. And until I saw my kha, I wouldn’t be sure things were okay.

But I fumbled the urn and it clattered to the table. My breath caught in my chest as I realized what this was.

This was the moment.

A snake. A hiss. Fangs. Ravi’s last breath.

The moment that had haunted me for an eternity.

But none of that happened. Not this time.

Instead, a strong arm darted forward to steady the urn. And arm with bronze skin and flexing muscles. The arm that had held me so tightly through the night.

“Careful, meren. Wouldn’t want you to spill the wine.” Then carefully, Ravi tipped the urn into my cup letting the deep red liquid fill it.

Wine. There was only wine.

No viper.

No curse.

I looked up into smiling eyes. Eyes that had shown me love for so long.

“Ravi!” I jumped from my seat and threw my arms around his strong neck. “You chose me.”

His arms came around my waist, pressing me close. “Of course I did.”

“I was scared.”

“I know.”

“I threatened Anubis.”

“I know. He told me.”

I sighed, burying my face in his broad neck. “It’s really over, isn’t it?”

Ravi kissed my temple softly. “No, meren. There is no end and no beginning for us. There is only now. And this is where I want to be forever. With you, in the now.”

And he was right. Our love story was a twisting one that had taken us to death and then back around again. But this… this moment right now… it wasn’t the end. It wasn’t even a new beginning. Because life and death, weren’t that cut and dry. There was only now and the space between.

I’d lived a lifetime in the betwixt. I would spend the rest of it with Ravi, in the now.

I rose up to kiss him and he gave me one hell of a passionate one back, bending me backward with the force. I heard my father clear his throat but I wasn’t going to stop with my kha. Because we deserved this. Time to love and be loved. Time to feel without fear. Time to give what needed giving in so many ways.

And the time. Was. Now.

The magic of love is a curious thing. It’s the key that unlocks any curse, rights any wrong, and defeats any demon. When one dies while sacrificing their life for the sake of another, they live on. It’s the law of love, and the only law that can’t ever be broken.

THE END

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