Shadow Fall (15 page)

“I’ve been waiting for ‘later’ to happen since we came back from London,” he said, tearing open an antibiotic gauze pack. “It hasn’t come yet.”

“I’ve had a lot to do since we got back,” she reminded him. “You know I had to hit the ground running with putting the exhibit together. I didn’t know settling Bernie’s estate was going to take that long, so I was behind schedule organizing the artifacts for my part of the show.”

“There’s always going to be something going on, Kira,” he admonished her, wiping the gauze over her skin and causing her to flinch. “I’m done with waiting.”

She steeled herself to see a wound beneath the blood, to face a barrage of questions. Neither happened.

“You’re not wounded.” He threw the bandage into the trash.

“Is it your blood, then?” She didn’t see any scratches on him deep enough to cause the amount of blood staining her shirt. Her mouth didn’t hurt either, so it hadn’t come from biting her lips.

“You have a serious bruise here, above your heart,” he said, his voice still angry. “Spreading out from two indentations. It looks like you’re healing from being stabbed by a pair of chopsticks.”

Or a
was
scepter,
she thought. Out loud she said, “I don’t know what happened.”

She’d seen him scowl before. She’d even seen him angry. The look he gave her then actually made her heart skip a beat, and not in a good way.

“Do not lie to me, Kira Solomon,” he said, his voice sharp. “I am not so stupefied by being with you that I’ve become gullible. You are still my charge and I am still responsible for your soul. Lie to your friends. Lie to yourself if you must. But never lie to me.”

At that moment, his words stung more than the ache of her fading wound. She wanted to look away from that implacable glare, but she couldn’t. Of everyone in her life, Khefar seemed to be the only one without an ulterior motive. She’d known him the shortest amount of time, but she’d trusted him with far more than she had entrusted to others. With Wynne having a faith crisis, Zoo bulking up on spellcraft and magical protections, and Balm being uncommunicative, the Nubian was the only one she could lean on. If you couldn’t depend on the man who’d made a pact to kill you with honor, whom could you trust?

His fingers entangled with hers. “You’ve been jerked out of sleep for the last four nights that I know of,” he told her. “You quit our bed and don’t come back. Tell me what’s going on.”

Damn.
Kira should have known that Khefar would notice. He had an uncanny ability to gauge her mood, to turn her dark thoughts around and pull her back.

“I’ve been having dreams,” she confessed. “Not waking dreams, like what I have when I communicate across distances with Balm. Not regular dreams either. In the dreams, I’m excavating near Naqada. Comstock and I uncover a
was
scepter. Then a temple of Set rises from the ground and Set tells me to join him. When I refuse, he stabs me with the scepter and injects me with Chaos magic.”

Khefar’s expression blanked. No anger, no worry, only emptiness. Her heart stuttered again. She leaned forward to speak but he beat her to it.

“You’ve been having dreams of Set attacking you with his staff of power.” His tone made it seem as if they were discussing their dinner choices. “I guess he’s been hitting you here, the same spot the Fallen stabbed you?”

She nodded. The press of his fingers against her skin fluctuated somewhere between pleasure and pain. She whimpered. It was hard to be all badass with him touching her, even if there was nothing sensual about the touch.

His gaze caught hers. “This is real, Kira. This isn’t a dream. Isis and Ma’at warned us in a ‘dream’ about the Vessel of Nun and we ended up with a flooded bed.”

“I know.” She’d thought about that. But Isis and Ma’at were both awake and aware, not a slumbering god as Set was reputed to be.

Khefar apparently had the same thought. “If Set is able to affect your dreams, and has created a physical manifestation of something that happened in your dream … do you think he’s awakened?”

“I—I think it’s possible.” Kira’s throat closed up as a sudden shiver of fear coursed through her. She almost gagged before managing to whisper, “I think he wants to regain his place of power, and I think the Lady of Shadows is helping him do it.”

Khefar stilled. Kira wondered if her expression matched his: the tightness about the mouth, the widening of the eyes, disturbed, worried, and trying not to show it. She shouldn’t tell him anything else. What she’d already shared was enough. The need to share her fears, her burden, strained her control. Khefar would understand. Surely he would.

Unless he took it as a sign that she was losing her grip on sanity and was on a fast track to Shadow.

“Kira?” He knelt before her on the cold stone floor, his hands wrapped around hers. “Talk to me.”

“The dream.” She licked her lips, staring down at his hands wrapped around hers. She started over. “Comstock was in the dream. We excavated the town of Nubt and we happened to uncover an intact
was
scepter. I was surprised when he told me to pick it up, to lift it out of the earth and bring it to Light. When I did, that’s when Set’s temple appeared in all its glory. He—Set—welcomed me as his daughter, said that I was born of thunder and lightning and belonged with him. Each time I refused, he stabbed me with the scepter, and more Chaos magic got injected into me.”

She dropped her gaze. “I know it’s there, the Shadow magic. Solis knew it was there, when we went behind the Veil in Cairo. She said it always will be, because I’m not human. One thing has changed in the dream: since I got that chest from Balm, the last two nights I’ve told Comstock that I was afraid to open the box because I didn’t want to find out my father was a Shadowling. He acted as if it would be no big deal, that I wouldn’t be any different than I was before I knew the truth. Maybe I won’t be different because I’ve already got Light and Shadow swirling inside me, but I don’t know that for sure. Ma’at could have removed it, but she didn’t. Why not? She had to know that Set was gunning for me.”

That was the part that scared her, the part she’d been afraid of voicing. Would Ma’at set her up to be taken by Set? Why?

“You can’t really believe that the Lady of Truth would allow such a thing,” Khefar said. “That’s crazy!”

“Is it? Isis might have good reason to stand against Set, but does Ma’at? ‘Truth is neither good nor evil. Truth simply is.’ Solis said that, and it makes a lot of sense. Truth is what it is. It’s what people do with the truth that’s the problem.”

“That doesn’t mean that Ma’at would serve you up to the god of Chaos like a holiday turkey!”

“I didn’t say she would do that,” Kira said, finally looking up. Indignation mixed with astonishment on Khefar’s face. Yeah, she couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth either. “But Ma’at is Truth.”

“And what does the Lady of Truth say to you?”

“Nothing. No warnings like with the Vessel of Nun. I haven’t asked directly about it during my prayers because … well, it’s only been dreams. I thought they were intensified nightmares, you know, some sort of post-traumatic stress manifestation from our time in the Between-Cairo. Has Isis said anything?”

“No.” His face reverted back to its usual grim lines. “No warnings about Set awakening. I would think if she would warn us about anything, it would be the return of the god who killed her husband. Perhaps your dreams are simply that, really vivid dreams.”

They both looked down at her bloodied bruise. Neither one of them believed Kira’s problem to be simply overactive lucid dreaming. She decided to follow that train of thought anyway. “If they are nothing but dreams, my subconscious is trying to tell me something.”

“Which is?” Khefar prompted.

“Either I need to go on a dig, or I need to find out my parentage.”

Her hand brushed the feather tattoo at her throat, the mark proclaiming her as the Hand of Ma’at, bestowed by the goddess herself. “If I claim to be Ma’at’s devotee, if I am truly to be the Hand of Truth, I have to face the truth, no matter how unsavory it is.”

“You’re ready to open the box?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready,” she admitted, “but I think it’s time. I’ve been hounding Balm for clues for years. I can’t back down now that I’ve got them.”

Bracing her hands on her knees, she stood. “Would you mind getting me another tank top? I should at least try to be somewhat presentable when I see my mother for the first time.”

Fifteen minutes later, Kira sat on her couch, staring at the chest. The box seemed to be carved out of wood that had turned gray with age and sea spray, rough-hewn as if by a moderately skilled hand. Yet Kira had seen enough ancient artifacts to know the wood had been carved by a loving hand.

Kira breathed in deep and out slowly, pushing the mundane away. The Veil of Reality slid aside. Everything about her danced with the various colors of magic: the orange-red glow of the alarm system enhanced with her own aura, the soft golden-white sheen of antiques scattered about the cavernous room, and the bright blue glow that shrouded the opening to the lower level.

She turned her attention back to the box. With her extrasense fully engaged, she could clearly see the magic surrounding the box. Sigils were etched into the side panels—some sort of ancient cuneiform she hadn’t seen before but that hinted at Sumerian—glowing violet neon. That must have been the charm that prevented anyone else from opening the chest. With the kind of people she and Balm had to contend with, a puzzle lock would have been too simple.

Her hands shook as she raised them to open the box. She paused, clenching and unclenching her hands to relieve the sudden pressure filling her, tightening her muscles.
It’s not Pandora’s box. You can do this. You can handle this.

After a few more breaths to steady herself, Kira carefully pried open the lid. A bright flash of purple light swamped the room as the sigils extinguished themselves. Not knowing what to expect, she was disappointed when nothing happened, no assault of Balm’s thoughts or Lysander’s memories, or impressions of whoever had carved the chest. She placed the lid to the right of the chest and took her first look inside her past.

A sheet of handmade paper, folded in half, lay atop an ornately decorated golden box that would have done an Egyptian queen proud. She picked up the forceps she’d snagged from her worktable, carefully grasped the note, then set it on the lint-free cloth she’d spread on the coffee table. If she had to guess, she would say that the note had been written by Balm. Probably some sort of admonition concerning the contents of the box, or a chastisement of how headstrong Kira was.

She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, telling herself she wasn’t wimping out. Making every attempt at preserving everything in the state she’d found it was part of her archaeologist’s training. If she treated the act of opening the box and examining what it contained as cataloguing an artifact and not discovering her own past, the trembling that randomly shook her subsided.

The box inside the driftwood chest was covered in gold, carved and intricately inlaid with sparkling jewels. The inner box looked to measure roughly the length and width of a sheet of letter-sized paper. Judging by the outer container, the inner box stood maybe seven inches high. Whatever mementos Balm had of Kira’s mother, Balm had obviously considered them more precious than Kira had believed.

Making sure no part of her skin touched the outer box, Kira reached inside and lifted the case out. It wasn’t heavy. Not a secret cache of ancient gold coins, then. Nothing else lay beneath the jewel-encrusted box.

Kira stared down at the table, reviewing the items arranged before her. Curiosity screamed at her to open the shimmering box immediately, but she resisted. After all this time, years of not knowing, she would finally know something about her birth mother. She’d finally be able to peek inside her mother’s mind, to experience the thoughts and emotions, to discover why her mother had decided to entrust her to Balm instead of her birth family.

Silence pressed in on her, thick with anticipation. Her gaze fell onto the folded note. She tried to reach out to her foster mother, sending a simple
Hello?
along their psychic communication link.
Balm, are you there? What’s going on?

No answer.
I’m opening the box now. Is there nothing you want to say to me?

Again no response. Kira didn’t know whether to feel relieved or upset. Either Balm was incapacitated in some way, involved in extremely high-level Gilead business, or ignoring Kira. There had been times on Santa Costa when Kira had gone days without hearing or seeing anything from the leader of the Gilead Commission. There was nothing new about Balm’s lack of communication. Kira had also returned the favor, giving her foster mother the silent treatment for days at a time. And yet …

She remembered Lysander’s anxious demeanor, his urgent desire to return to Balm quickly. Something was going on. Or the Gilead leader wanted to prevent Kira from pumping Balm’s assistant for information.

“I know what you’ll say, Balm,” she said aloud, needing to break the oppressive quiet. “You’ll ask me what is the importance of wanting to experience the knowledge instead of just knowing, why what you told me wasn’t enough.”

She flexed her hands, gripping the edge of the table. “It’s not about what knowing will or won’t do, or what I’ll do with what I learn. It’s about truth. My whole life has been about uncovering truth. I will prove myself worthy of being the Hand of Ma’at. The Hand of Truth. I can do nothing less than pursue and uncover truth, no matter how deep in the shadows it lies.”

She picked up the thick sheet of handmade paper, unfolded it. Balm’s bold strokes only filled part of the sheet. “I had hoped to be with you for this, but I cannot. I’ve sent your mother’s locket to you. She wore it always, and then gave it to me. I now give it to you. Perhaps you will find what it is you seek. When you are ready, come to me.”