Reawakened (The Reawakened Series) (18 page)

“I must use some power again, Lily, but I am warning you now.”

“Okay, fine. At least I know what to expect.”

“Yes,” Amon said, and then looked away. I sensed emotion rising in him. It tasted bitter, like regret mixed with a gritty determination. Standing in front of the angled shaft, he chanted, and I heard the hiss of sand shifting inside the tunnel. The hiss grew and became more agitated as small rocks and debris began to tumble. Curious, I stepped closer and peered down. It looked like a whirlwind was twisting inside the shaft. Everything, each loose grain of sand or rock, spun, gradually increasing in speed. Faster and faster the rocks and pebbles moved until I could see only streaks of black, gray, and brown.

What at first sounded clunky, like shoes thumping in a dryer, began to even out, and after several minutes, Amon took my arm and had me step behind him. With a thrust of his hand, what was left inside the tunnel whipped out past us and blasted against the far wall. As Amon braced his hand against the curved shaft, eyes closed, I approached and placed my palm against his cheek.

Amon’s hand slid up my arm to cup my hand and he opened his brilliant eyes. “Take what you need,” I offered.

“I will try not to hurt you,” Amon pledged. The siphoning off of my energy was less invasive this time, but I still felt hollow. It left me with a deep emptiness, a hunger I wasn’t sure could be filled. No wonder Amon liked feasting. If a feast had been set in front of me at that moment, I would have pounced on the food like a starving animal.

The once square shaft had now become almost circular, thanks to the wind funnel Amon had created. I wasn’t sure what the water had done. It seemed too insignificant an amount to have aided the process and yet, he’d accomplished his purpose. Crouching at the edge, I ran my hand along the inside. It was smooth; the rocks lining it were even, flat, and polished.

Amon crouched down next to me. “I am unsure if the entire shaft is smooth like your slide, so you will ride on my legs.”

I was suddenly uncomfortable. “I think I’ll just take my chances behind you.”

“I will not allow you to be further hurt, Lily.”

“No, really. It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Lily, do not make me force you.” Amon positioned himself at the top of the shaft and held out his hands. “Come,” he beckoned.

“You know, for a god, you can be kind of a bully,” I mumbled.

“I am not a god. I am a—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re just imbued with powers, blah blah blah. Let’s just get this over with.”

Awkwardly, I sat on Amon’s legs, and without any hesitation, he pulled my body back against him, nudging my legs up so they rested on top of his. He folded my arms across my chest and wrapped one arm over mine, leaving his other hand free to push off. “Are you ready?” he murmured in my ear.

“As I’ll ever be,” I grunted.

The awkward feeling turned into cold fear mixed with exhilaration. Amon whooped loudly, both arms now wrapped protectively around my body. Air whipped past us as we plummeted, and I had the sick sensation of being in free fall. Unable to stop myself, I screamed while Amon’s laugh reverberated in my ears. The thought occurred to me that if we lived through this whole experience, it might be fun to take Amon to a theme park.

The shaft became steeper and the ceiling lowered, so Amon angled his body back and I could feel the tightening of his abs against my back. My cheek rested against his, so I had a good view as the ceiling dropped toward us. I worried that if it got too low we’d be wedged in a tunnel that would likely rip us apart at the speed we were going.

Just when I was sure the ceiling was going to rip off my nose, it widened again and the angle started to even out. Suddenly, the slide beneath us disappeared and my scream echoed in what must have been a much larger space.

Amon, no longer laughing, cradled me even tighter against his chest and we landed with a heavy thump on a pile of sand. Though Amon took the brunt of the fall, he kept me locked in his arms as we rolled down, finally sliding to a stop with Amon’s body ending up on top of mine, pressing me into the stony floor.

Amon lifted his head. “Are you harmed, Lily?”

“I don’t think so…,” I answered, my words trailing off as his concerned expression was replaced by something else.

I could feel a delicious sort of torment rise within him, tempting him.

His gaze dropped to my mouth, and my breath caught. I was in a dark, dusty tomb, spiderwebs in my hair, sand in my boots, with sunburned, sweaty skin, but none of these things affected me more than the drop-dead gorgeous sun god who was currently hovering over me.

I wasn’t sure if what I felt was real or if it was a side effect of our connection, but I knew without a doubt that he wanted to kiss me. And Egyptian heaven help me, I wanted him to. But despite the fact that I was vividly imagining the press of his lips against mine, and the likelihood that he
knew
that I wanted to kiss him, he closed his eyes, murmured some soft words in his native language, and shifted, moving quickly off and away from me.

For some reason Amon was keeping me at a distance. I wasn’t one of those girls who lacked self-confidence, but his behavior was disconcerting enough to make me second-guess my girlish charms. Maybe there was more to our connection than he was sharing.

I was determined not to allow any more self-doubt to color my emotional response, but Amon’s repeated rejection left me feeling vulnerable and exposed.

As he turned his back to me and began studying the markings on the walls, I sighed, grabbed my bag, and murmured, “I was wrong. I think my ego was bruised in the fall.”

Amon gave me a sidelong glance and frowned, turning back to the hieroglyphs without responding and effectively shutting me out. Sighing again, I chose a passage as far as the light from his body would allow. Finding more carvings, I called out to him, “I think I found something.”

“What does it look like?” Amon replied. “Describe what you see.”

Squinting in the light, I studied the form and answered, “The first part is the sun, moon, and stars, like you talked about. Then there’s a guy with a weird-shaped head. I’ve never seen an animal that looked like that before. It may be a horse? Anyway, the guy looks like he’s pushing a rock. Hold on. There are little symbols on the rock.”

Tracing my finger over the carved grooves wasn’t enough to help me make them out. Leaning closer, I gently blew on the stone and a light powdery dust rose in the air, leaving the symbols beneath more clear. “Wait a minute,” I mumbled to myself as I backtracked a few paces. Sure enough, the large block I’d recently passed had the exact same carvings that the horse-faced god was pushing. Just to be sure, I dusted it off with my hand, took out a pen from my bag, and copied the markings onto my hand.

From around the corner, Amon asked, “What did you find, Lily?” his voice echoing in the large space.

“Just practice some patience for a few seconds and I’ll tell you!” I hollered over my shoulder as I checked the symbols on my hand against the god’s stone box. It was a match.

Pleased with my discovery, I headed back to the large stone and began pushing, wedging my boots into the grooves of the floor for leverage. As I struggled with the stubborn stone, I began describing what I’d found to Amon.

“It’s in the shape of a stone roughly the size of your chest, and it’s sticking out from the wall. The god on the picture is pushing, so I figure that’s the thing to do.”

“Yes, but what are the symbols you see?” Amon called from around the corner.

Gasping, I tried pushing the heavy stone to the right and then to the left, but the thing wouldn’t budge. Turning around, I braced my back against it and pushed with my legs. As I panted, I explained, “There are four pictures. Top left is a full moon with horizontal lines through it. Bottom left is a rectangle. Top right is a sun half over the horizon, and bottom right”—I grunted and laughed in relief as I felt the stone shift slightly—“is a pair of walking legs.”

“Walking legs?”

“You know, like a stick figure with two feet pointing in one direction.”

The stone moved several inches, so I adjusted my feet, bit my lip, and pushed again just as Amon shouted, “Lily! Stop!”

“Amon? What’s wrong?” I called out, but then the stone gave way and settled flush with the wall. Almost immediately the ground began to shake. A large section of it shifted and the side farthest from me gave way altogether, creating a slide that I was at the top of, with nothing to hold on to. My scream echoed as I slid down the rock. I scrambled frantically for purchase, vainly attempting to find a handhold to stop my descent.

Beneath me a gaping black pit waited hungrily to devour me, but right as I went over the edge there was a jerk on my arm that wrenched my shoulder painfully. My body banged against the side of the pit and I continued to look for something to grasp.

“Lily!” Amon cried out. “Hold on to me!”

“I’m slipping!” I knew that any second I was going to fall. As I swung wildly, I glanced down once again. Now that Amon’s light was making things more visible, I cried out with desperation when I saw sharp spears and jagged rocks waiting below.

If I fell I would be impaled and would likely be joining the Valley of the Kings tomb as its newest resident. Morbidly, I wondered if I’d get my own chamber and number. I’d be KV64, or maybe KV65, unless, of course, they didn’t discover me for a few thousand years. For all I knew I could end up as KV6565.

Amon’s frantic murmuring didn’t serve to make me feel any more confident in my chances, and then, to make matters worse, the dirt wall I was trying to cling to with my other hand started vibrating. Clouds of sand began to burst forth and swirl around me.

“Sandstorm not helping!” I cried out, choking and coughing, but a moment later the sand hardened, forming blocks that stuck out from the wall like steps.

“Climb on!” Amon hollered as he swung my body closer to the steps. Thankfully, I was able to clamber onto one of the narrow ledges he’d created, and I felt safe enough to tell him he could let go.

Amon scooted closer to the edge. “No,” he pronounced. “I will hold on to you as you climb.”

I carefully ascended the steps one by one, my back pressed against the crumbling dirt wall. Finally, I neared the top and Amon reached out, grabbed me under the arms, and yanked me up the rest of the way. He tugged me so hard that I lost my footing and collapsed against him. Immediately, I tried to back away, but Amon wasn’t having it. His arms locked around me in a tight grip.

“I almost lost you,” he said against my shoulder.

Twining my arms around his neck, I half smiled, half grimaced, the throbbing in my arm preventing me from truly enjoying the experience. “Thanks for saving me,” I murmured.

Amon lifted his head. “Did you think I would not?”

“No. I was pretty sure you would. After all, it’s not like there are a bunch of organ donors in these caverns.”

Amon frowned. “I did not save you merely for your organs, Young Lily.”

“No?” I teased, lifting my chin in a challenge. “Then is there perhaps another reason that you don’t want me to die an untimely death?”

“There are multiple reasons.”

“Such as?”

He shifted back, as he considered what to say. Finally, he offered, “You are…” He brushed his thumb against my cheek to remove a smear of dirt.

“Yes?” I pressed.

“You are…an excellent scribe,” he finally said.

I dropped my hands. “Really? Is that all I’m going to get? It’s nice to know my
penmanship
”—I spat the word—“is so important to you.” I folded my arms across my chest, wincing at the movement, and stared him down.

Amon ran his hand up my arm to my hurt shoulder, and I hissed as he cupped it with his palm. After a quick chant he poured enough warmth into the muscle to rival a heating pad. Still, he avoided eye contact. “Lily, I do not wish to talk about this.”

“I don’t get it. You run so hot and cold. I don’t understand what’s wrong. Am I not beautiful enough?”

Amon gave me an astounded look. “Why would you believe this?”

“I don’t know. You keep pushing me away. What else am I supposed to think?”

Amon’s other hand moved up my arm to cup my uninjured shoulder. “Lily, I can honestly tell you that I have never in my long life come across a creature as beguiling as you. You are as fresh and as lovely as a budding flower kissed by the dew of a golden morning. I breathe you in and am filled with the taste of sunshine, life, and hope. You are much more than beautiful. You are…temptation personified.”

An expression of shock instantly crossed his face as he muttered, “That is not what I meant to say. Please forget those words.”

“Um, unlikely. Unless they were false.”

Amon pursed his perfect lips and groaned. “The gifts I have received have made deception very…difficult for me. It was the truth.”

“Then I
really
don’t understand. If you like me that much, why won’t you kiss me?”

Amon sighed, removing his hands when I indicated with a nod that my shoulder felt better, and turned away, placing his palms against the stone I’d moved. He let out a sad, sardonic laugh. “This is why,” he said, nodding at the stone.

Taking a step closer, I peered at the offending rock. “What does it say?” I asked softly.

Ignoring my question, he moved around it carefully and held out his arm, beckoning me to hold on to him. When I’d crossed safely, he kept my hand in his, and after checking the hieroglyph map I’d found, continued down the passageway, leading me along. As we turned a corner, he said, without looking back, “Death. The symbols on the stone mean death.”

“If someone really wanted to kill you, why would they advertise it?”

“The carving on the wall showing the sun, moon, and stars is very old, but the etching on the stone and the rock in the carving was recently created.”

“So someone
was
watching for you.”

“Someone was warning us of a trap. And someone else created it. I cannot discern how long ago that image was added. It could have been fairly recently, or it could have been created a hundred years ago.”

Pondering his words, I followed him silently as we further explored the mysterious Egyptian tomb. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fully process what was going on between Amon and me because we soon came upon a new section of the underground labyrinth that needed to be solved.