Return Once More (17 page)

“You would be surprised how little is known about you, Caesarion.”

“I am allowing you to remain mysterious because it pleases me to peel away your layers, Kaia, but soon I will demand answers.”

The idea of him peeling away anything shot hot desire through me, and pried a novel, throaty voice from my throat. “I prefer we enjoy the time we are afforded.”

“I will allow it. For now.” He slid a date into my mouth, fingers lingering for a moment on my bottom lip. They were salty next to the fruit's tart sweetness. “Something true about me … anger aside, I would not rule Rome in my father's place, given the chance,” he admitted.

“Why not?”

“My home is Alexandria. I know it would not make a difference to Octavian—he wants Egypt, too, and would not leave it to me, but I would let go the grievances of my past if he would let my people be.” Caesarion shrugged, his cheeks ruddy, and not from the sun.

“He wants Rome, and Rome wants the world. Egypt is an important conquest. If it's any consolation, he's remembered as a great Caesar. Not kind, but important.” My heart leaped into my throat the moment the words passed my lips, but they were too far away to suck them back in.

Caesarion tensed and electricity charged the air. “How could you know such a thing?”

Maybe I should have just told him the truth about coming from the future, about our connection. Caesarion believed in fate. What held me back even more than the rules was the fear that he would dismiss me as a raving lunatic and never wish to speak with me again. We still had weeks before his death, days that could be spent lazing by rivers, eating dates, and getting to know each other. I didn't want to give those moments away, not even one.

I sat up straighter, brushing crumbs off my palms and scooting closer until our legs pressed together atop the scratchy wool, trying to forget that the time to leave stumbled closer with every breath. The day was too hot to be touching but the contact spread comfort through my blood, and Caesarion did not pull away.

“Would you believe me if I told you I have a feeling the world will be better off because of his reign over Rome?”

His forehead crinkled. “You are an oracle?”

“Something like that.”

We fell silent, our legs and arms pressed together, his hand covering mine. The food was gone and the horses would be ready to continue soon. The pull between us had settled into a thrumming, steady current. It heightened my awareness of everything around us; I felt the pulse in his wrist, heard breath pulling in and out of his lungs, smelled the salty sweat on his skin. His heartbeat twined with my own, our breathing synchronized, and our scents combined until we felt like one person instead of two. It was more than our molecules aligning. I loved everything I'd learned about Caesarion today—his intelligence, the way he talked about his people. That he didn't fear death. I wanted to be more like him in the same moment as I wanted him to be more like me—to be willing to fight, to break the rules if it meant getting what he wanted—a longer life.

He didn't necessarily seem to want that, though, and every last atom in my body, each one interlocked with this boy's, screamed in protest.

Perhaps spending time with him would be enough, and my slide down the slippery slope toward my brother's fate could be aborted before rock bottom rose up to crush me. Caesarion would die, as he was supposed to, and I would have my memories. My moments.

The guards waded to the shore and began to saddle the horses, and sadness sank into my bones until it seemed to fuse with a part of me people once called a soul.

Caesarion saw them, too, and turned to me with a rueful smile. “We must press on.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me, my peculiar oracle—if that's what you are—what caused you to seek me out?”

“We're supposed to be together.”

“Be together.” He gave me a slight smile, suggestive enough to curl my toes. “In what way do you mean?”

I wanted to tease back, but emotion clogged my throat. Caesarion was my True Companion—as long as I lived I would never feel this innate connection with another person—and now the potential fallout of my impulsive decision to meet him became clear. Nothing would ever measure up again.

“In every way,” I whispered.

We stared at each other for several seconds. His eyes trailed to my mouth before traveling back to my eyes, and the pull between our bodies stirred, increasing with each passing breath. I needed him closer, to see what he tasted like, but now wasn't the time or place.

“That gives me hope.”

“For what?” Our breath mingled, our faces hovering inches apart, begging to connect. My skin prickled, hairs standing on end as though reaching for him. Heat swam through my blood, simmering closer to a boil.

“That I'll get to kiss you again.”

I had fallen so far into his gaze that the sight of a young girl running through the reeds, panic twisting her dark features, seemed at first as out of place as me. Then Caesarion flew to his feet at her frantic words, deciphering the local dialect and taking off with a warning shout.

His guards dropped what they were doing and followed Caesarion through the reeds. I raced after them, responding to the girl's desperate plea for help, and skidded to a halt at the horrible scene fifty or sixty yards down the riverbank. A woman lay on the shore, her arm torn off at the elbow and her blood pumping into the matted, wet grass. A little boy floundered in the water, choking and sputtering, trying desperately to get to the opposite bank as a crocodile stalked his every move, water sluicing around its ugly snout. The woman sobbed weakly, her eyes on the child even as the light inside her dimmed.

Caesarion barked orders at one of the guards, who dropped to his knees beside the woman and tied a scarf tight around her bicep. The data flashing in front of my eyes said it wouldn't be enough, that she'd lost too much blood. Others gathered, faces drawn with concern, as my True splashed into the water toward the crocodile.

He had the advantage of taking the animal by surprise, but it didn't stop my heart from lurching sideways at the sight of its teeth. My hand grasped the locket at my neck, air burning in my lungs as Caesarion raised a sword and drove it straight down through the reptile's head.

It thrashed and rolled, smacking Caesarion hard with its powerful tail. He flew sideways and went under, but the wound he'd inflicted seemed to confuse or frighten the croc enough that it floated away, ribbons of red trailing over the frothing water in its path. Caesarion righted himself and reached for the tiny child, who clung to his neck as they waded back toward the bank.

I looked down to see that the woman had died, but the girl who had run for help embraced the boy. They both looked up at my True with eyes filled with gratitude and a hero's worship.

Pride swished through me. Underneath it ran a certainty, a knowledge, that filled me with sorrow, but in the midst of this wonderful day, I couldn't figure out why.

“I have to leave, Caesarion,” I whispered over the racket in the inn where we'd stopped for supper.

He turned around in his wooden chair, confusion and something akin to panic tightening his cheeks. “No. It's late. Where will you go?”

My fingers itched to reach out and touch him, but this time I let the bio-tat have its way with propriety. The pain meds had worn off, and if Caesarion and I had the chance to really be alone again it was going to inflict a horrible headache. Not horrible enough to stop me, but still.

“Would you come outside with me? I need to speak with you privately before I go.”

The request in itself raised eyebrows up and down the table, and the round-faced, too loud innkeeper even shut his trap to stare. Caesarion's guards kept their gazes averted, perhaps grown accustomed to the strange rhythm of our relationship, perhaps just accustomed to Pharaoh doing what he liked.

The largest guard radiated distrust and anger. He did not like me here, and if it mattered in the grand scheme of things, he would have scared me. Maybe he should frighten me more—there were no rules, physical or otherwise, that prevented a Historian from dying within the past. I was fully here, and vulnerable. At the mercy of this world, not mine.

I cast the burly man a wary glance while Caesarion unfolded his lanky frame from the short table. He gave his manservant a small shake of the head before taking my hand and pulling me outside. I didn't stop on the other side of the door, but took the lead, tugging him into the sagging barn to the left of the main building.

A few lanterns lit the interior of the rickety wooden building. It smelled of animals and hay, of spicy earth and manure. Between the lanterns, the last beams of setting sun pierced the cracks in the ancient wood, combining with the warmth spilling through my body and casting the whole moment in a surreal glow.

“Why must you leave, Kaia? We don't have long. I had hoped we would spend these days together. I promise to behave.” His voice was soft, coaxing.

In another lifetime, another past or present or future, I would have done anything he'd asked. And I wouldn't have wanted him to behave.

“Do you think I'm insane? Not right?” I tapped my head, unsure if the translation came through correctly when a Greek word that wouldn't quite fit into English fell from my lips.

He frowned and reached out, setting his hands on my hips. His long fingers wound around my back, pressing lightly through the thin fabric and weakening my knees. This molecular compatibility thing wreaked havoc on my basic motor function. And with keeping down dinner.

“I do not know
what
to think of you, Kaia. You are clearly something different. The things you say, they do not seem possible. And yet …”

“And yet?” I pressed.

“And yet they feel not only possible, but true. If a man cannot trust one's heart, then what can he trust?”

My chest filled with happiness and I grinned up at him, struggling to breathe. “Your heart says you can trust me?”

“My heart seems to know you, even if I do not. Yet.”

I nodded, pulling back a little to try to clear my head. Nerves trembled in my hands and I closed a fist around my ancient locket, determined to draw on my family's courage.

A deep breath steadied me. We weren't supposed to
speak
to people in the past, never mind tell them about the future. Caesarion was different, though. He not only accepted the inevitability of his death, but understood that things happened the way they were meant to. My lifelong loyalty to the Historians warred with my instinctual faith in this ancient king. I knew that I should stop, let him go on believing I was an oracle—something he understood.

But he trusted me. I wanted to show him that I trusted him, too.

Not to mention, I had to disappear in a minute. There wasn't a way to explain
that
he would understand, and the last thing I needed was him freaking out and telling everyone in ancient Egypt about flighty, disappearing girls who wore black pants under their dresses.

A deep breath didn't help, but three more started to work. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “I'm not an oracle. I know what's going to happen because I'm not from a distant land, Caesarion, I'm from a distant time.”

Pain slammed into my brain in a fruitless effort to snatch back words already spoken. I tried to keep the effects of it from my face, making a mental note to bring more painkillers next time.

Breath caught in my chest. Would there be a next time?

Caesarion said nothing, just stared at me, looking a little dumbfounded. I tried to step away, assuming he had changed his mind about my craziness, but his fingers tightened on my waist.

“A moment, please, Kaia. You do not need to run. I need … a moment, is all.”

“I can't stay in the past longer than twenty-four hours, and the longer I stay, the bigger chance that I will be missed.”

“You are not supposed to be here with me?” he asked after another lengthy pause. The expression in his eyes conveyed the curiosity I had grown used to, along with a befuddled confusion and the tiniest sprinkle of disbelief.

“No.” A hysterical giggle escaped. “Definitely not. And I'm not supposed to be touching you or talking to you at all, never mind telling you who I really am.”

“Why, then?”

“I told you the truth before—we're supposed to be together. I wanted to know you.”

He pulled me toward him almost unconsciously, sinewy arms gathering me close until only the smallest sliver of light could wriggle between our loose clothing. “If what you say is true, and we do not exist in the same time and place, how is it that we are supposed to be together?”

“Our sciences are very advanced. We can predict ultimate compatibility based on a number of genetic factors.” Frustration thickened my tongue. He wouldn't understand any of those concepts. “Honestly, I've never understood it until you told me of your gods earlier today.”

“What do you mean?”

“That our lives are a single breath in an infinite lifetime. Perhaps your time and mine seem aligned to their faraway eyes.”

“But you do not believe in my gods.”

“I believe the universes are infinite, and mysterious, and harbor a great many secrets.”

He pulled me closer still, raising a hand to my jaw. His thumb swept over my lips. Our gazes locked, and everything except the million feelings crashing over me faded away. His hands on my skin. His eyes lighting a fire deep, deep inside me. The sense of perfect rightness cloaking us as surely as the creeping twilight.

That he would die. That I should let him.

The kiss felt different this time. Familiar instead of strange, with both our bodies desperate to touch the other. His lips were soft, like petals falling against my mouth, and it felt as though my body cracked open. As my hands found their way to his chest and slid up his neck, he pressed me flush against him. The moment changed, growing demanding as his tongue slipped against mine for the briefest of moments before he eased back.