Carnelian (27 page)

As the group made it up the last sand dune,
I felt the tingles shoot through my hand and arm. I had no idea how
the time travel thing worked yet, but I was glad to be able to at
this point. Maybe I was going to make it back home after all. I
looked down to my hand and realized it was my right hand that
tingled, not my new markings. Only one person could make me feel
that way--Seth. I didn’t need to hide. He had found me. I did my
best to wait by the well as the riders approached, and not bolt for
some type of cover, though it felt intimidating. After seeing Seth
fight the men that attacked me, I had no fear he could protect me
from whatever was coming my way.

The first man dismounted, and I looked past
him to the eyes of the men with him. He had a scarf that covered
his face, but I could still see his eyes. The man was not Seth. My
worry returned a bit more. If he wasn’t Seth, then who was he? He
seemed to be in charge of the group. He unwrapped the scarf around
his face, and I sucked in my breath. His eyes were a bit different,
but his face was like the one I had been staring at for months now.
This man was an older version of Seth. I had one guess as to this
man being related to Seth.

Behind the first man, the next man unwrapped
his face from the cloth that was around his head. He didn’t move,
but stared at me. Just his stare sent more tingles through my arm.
He wasn’t exactly happy to see me, nor was he completely mad. He
seemed even a bit confused. Seth was right in front of me. After
weeks of waiting to find him, even I was a bit speechless. I broke
my stare as the first man moved in front of me. The first man
analyzed me intently, not missing even a little bit.

“Are you alone?” he asked, his voice deep
and authoritarian. I nodded. He moved closer and analyzed me more.
I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I just waited. “What are
you doing out here alone, waiting for someone?”

“I don’t know how I got here, and I am not
waiting for someone right now,” I replied. It was easy to twist the
truth craftily to answer the man honestly. I doubted he was one you
could lie to. The men around him made it clear that this man was in
charge, probably the military general father Seth had talked about.
From his looks alone I could tell they were related. “I don’t know
where I am, or even what time it is.”

“Seti, help feed and get her water while we
rest,” the man said to Seth before turning back to the other men
behind them. The general nodded to his son and turned to bark
orders at the men behind him. Seth nodded back to his father and
walked stiffly over to me. He pointed to a tree a bit away from the
group, and I walked there. I really wanted to just throw my arms
around him, but his attitude told me not to.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Seth
asked sternly, once we were far enough away from everyone.

“Coming to get you,” I replied. Seth sighed
and pulled his scarf off his head. He rubbed the short, cropped
hair as he looked like he wanted to pace. Instead, he pointed to
the base of the tree.

“You can sit there,” he said.

I looked over the well to see his father
watching us. I followed Seth’s direction without complaining. I was
too stunned to complain. This wasn’t the reunion I imagined. Maybe
I was too used to Hollywood endings and thought I’d be jumping into
his arms while being showered with kisses upon sight, but even so,
I expected something. This wasn’t it. He acted as if I was just
another person. No one special. I thought I was someone special to
him. Something was off with Seth. He didn’t even move to touch me.
Seth stood silently beside me as the men went about watering their
animals. His father marched among them, checking the men. It was a
small group and by far not an army with less than two dozen
men.

“We will rest now, and will travel again to
the main army in the afternoon when the sun isn’t as high,” Seth
explained. He went back to watching his father and the men. He
didn’t say anything more.

I just sat and waited as people finally
began to settle down and sit around the well under the trees. They
moved quickly and efficiently with their jobs, and then sat to
wait. Ty was not in the group as I looked around. I stole a few
glances at my guard Seth, and began to wonder if I did the right
thing. He wasn’t looking at me, and he didn’t even seem to care
that I was there. I wanted desperately to reach up and touch him.
He had been gone for weeks, and it was complete torture. The tingle
in my hand was pulling to me to touch him. I looked across the camp
and found his father watching us intently.

The general was wrapped in a white skirt
just like his son and men, but there was something different about
how he stood and observed the people. My urge to touch Seth faded
instantly. The man was clearly observing us and weighing every
movement. He had the same-shaped face as Seth, and their lips were
identical. I always wondered if any of my traits were similar to my
own father. Seth was identical to his father, except for the eyes.
His father’s eyes were hard and unwavering, where all had I ever
found in Seth’s eyes was love.

“This way,” the general said, pointing to an
area a bit more secluded and off to the side of the men and
indicating that I should stand.

I followed behind the general and Seth, and
as soon as we were isolated from everyone else, Seth stood aside.
His father eyed me over. His hawk eyes took in every detail of me.
It was a bit unnerving, but I stood as still as possible and did
not shrink under his gaze. He was imposing and probably more deadly
than I could imagine. Life in the military was hard even in the
twenty-first century, but I couldn’t imagine how hard the man was
before me to live through an ancient war and still be alive.

“Who are your parents, child?” he asked. He
was not being unkind, but very suspicious.

“My mother’s name is Keeya, and my father’s
name was never told to me,” I replied. I really didn’t understand
why my parents had anything to do with the situation, but it
couldn’t hurt to be honest. My mom wasn’t miles away, she was
centuries away.

“Keeya?” he asked, repeating what I had just
said slowly. “Keeya… Hmmm…” he repeated himself as he thought a
moment. “You look an awful lot alike to the Princess Hepa I met
many years ago,” the general replied, giving me a bit more
information of why he was studying me.

My mouth dropped. How did this man from the
past know my mother’s real name? I had only seen it once when I was
a child looking through records, but my mother, at one point, was
called Hepa. She never went by that name, and everyone knew her as
Keeya. I always thought it was strange that she had a different
name. Could this man be talking about my mother? Had he traveled to
the future? Could this man know who my father was?

“The missing princess?” Seth asked. His
father nodded. Seth didn’t seem to be alarmed that his father could
have known my mother. Maybe he knew something else, too.

“You are very much like her, it’s amazing,”
the general said in awe, eyeing me over more. “I can only have one
conclusion for the resemblance. You must be related to the
princess.” There were no feelings behind his words. He could not
have been the one that came to my mother, but then how did he know
her?

“Father, she cannot be. Trust me, her mother
is far away from here. I doubt it’s the same person,” Seth
interrupted and the general’s hardened stare returned, this time
aimed at his son.

“That’s my mother’s name, though I have no
idea how or when you met her. And she isn’t a princess, just a
mom,” I put into the conversation. I had no idea how the general
met my mother. Maybe he traveled to the future with my father. Seth
turned to me finally and his eyes met mine. He was as confused as I
was by his father.

“Yes, I doubt she’s a princess now. I was
part of the group sent to transport her to marry the Pharaoh. She
went missing along with one of my fellow generals sixteen years
ago, and I can now see why. There’s no way she could have married
the Pharaoh, pregnant and expected to live. I wonder if he knew and
was helping her,” the general said, like he was just stating the
facts.

“Not possible,” I whispered. My mother could
not have been from the past. She might not like all the latest
technology, but she was from my time. I had pictures of her holding
me as an infant. I had proof that she had been in the present for
as long as I knew. I searched back through memories. My mother had
always been in my time.

“I suppose it could be just a coincidence,
but does she have a scar about this long on her back right under
her left shoulder blade?” the general asked. He could see my doubt.
I could not reply. She did have a scar. I asked her once how she
got it, but all she would say was a childhood accident. “There was
an assassination attempted before we left the Nahrin palace with
her. She was injured, and it delayed our trip by weeks, giving her
time to heal.”

My legs felt weak like they were going to
give out at any moment. The general was sure he knew my mother. I
wanted to deny it, but how could he know about the scar?

“You’ll rest here with me and my son. You
will be more protected this way. Don’t leave this area, and stay
near the men. There are always thieves around, and a Nahrin
princess is a pretty good catch.” He motioned to the mats on the
ground someone had put down behind some trees. It was more private
than being viewed by all the men sitting around, but not completely
private. “Seti, you have done a great job. I don’t know how you
knew to go this direction, but it will be to our advantage. We can
discuss this later, but you just might have found a way we can
solve one of our problems. The Nahrin will be happy to have this
girl back, even if it isn’t the one we lost years ago. I’ll be back
in a little bit. Make sure she’s fed and well hydrated. We will
join the army later tonight, then set up a group to take her
north.”

“Yes, Father,” Seti replied, bowing a little
to his father as he left.

Seth stood by the trees and watched his
father walk away. He waited a bit more and then returned to me and
found me a mat. I couldn’t help it. My legs couldn’t keep up with
the news I had just received. Seth knelt beside me and felt my
head.

“Do you feel okay?” he asked softly.

Tears I couldn’t stop trailed down my face.
I couldn’t look up at him. I had gone back in time to find him, and
he didn’t want me. Instead I had found that maybe it wasn’t my
father that was from the past but my mother, and I had no clue what
that really meant for me. If my mom didn’t belong in the present,
did I? Would the goddess come and take her away? How long would I
have my mother for when I returned some day? Seth wiped the tears
away and tilted my face up to look into his eyes. In one
conversation, my whole world changed. I didn’t even know who I was
or where I was supposed to be now.

“Mari,” he said quietly while pain filled
his eyes. “Why did you come after me? How did you come after me?
Why didn’t you just stay there? I had to leave some day. I wanted
you there and safe. I haven’t even had time look for you yet.”

“I needed you,” I admitted. “But I can see
that you didn’t need me.” I tried to look back down to the ground,
but he wouldn’t let me. His hands firmly held my face looking at
him. The calluses on his thumbs were familiar enough to make me
want to cry more. Here I found him, but he wasn’t still mine.

“Marcella Navina, I am in love with you.
I’ve been in love with you probably since the day I first feel into
your lap. I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life
with you, but I can’t. I’m from this time. I had to return. You are
from your time. You should have stayed there. No matter how much we
may love each other we’re from different times. The best we can
hope is for stolen time here and there. I would have found a way
back to you,” Seth said, still wiping away tears that were not
stopping. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you now.”

“Let me get this straight. You love me, but
don’t want me to be here?” I asked as new tears flowed. He still
loved me.

“Mari, I want you beside me forever. There’s
nothing more that I want in the world than to have you.” I
hiccupped from the crying, and he gave me a genuine smile. Leaning
down, he rubbed his dry nose to my wet one. “I can’t believe you
followed me,” he said in awe before kissing me.

I wrapped my arms around him and savored the
kiss. I had been waiting weeks to feel him beside me again, and now
here he was kissing me. His warmth and love was all around me. The
tingles from my hand filled my body. This was the meeting I
imagined. Seth pulled back after a short while and shook his
head.

“I can’t believe you’re a Nahrin Princess,”
Seth added.

“Or so you father says. But it doesn’t
matter unless they can prove it,” I tried. I wasn’t about to
believe it either. How could my mother keep something like that
from me for my whole life? It didn’t seem possible. She had to have
lived a lie for eighteen years. Suddenly a new thought hit me.
“Would that make a difference to your family accepting me?”

“I don’t know,” Seth replied. Apparently he
hadn’t thought about it either. This was a new adventure we’d have
to figure out. “I need to think. There might be a way. But I need
to do this now. I still can’t tell my father about us knowing each
other. We can’t let my father know that I care for you. If he does,
I’m sure he will keep me away from you. I haven’t been back even
more than a day, and he has told me who he wants me to marry. Until
we know who your father is, we can’t let him push the issue forward
of my marriage. If your father isn’t an enemy, then they might
consider you a great match.”

“You have a fiancée?” I asked, defeated. The
whole point of going back to the past was to be with him.