❝death is only the beginning.❞
Mara El-Masri's fascination with the long-ago world of ancient Egypt started with the stories her stepfather would tell her when she was a child. Her brother Talib El-Masri is missing, left after their mother's funera...
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☾ ☽
MARA ONCE BELIEVED she'd never see again the vastness of the Sahara from the height of a bird's flight in such a way that she was now. Somehow it was different seeing it all before her rather than through windows in an actual plane, fastened in her seat travelling to and from London. Seeing the desert through windows, she'd never viewed it the way she had strapped to the wing of a biplane those years ago. Perhaps it was the feeling of moonlight on her skin, the sound of wind in her ears.
The breezes were low as the airship sailed through the night sky, quiet but faster than she thought it would, and Mara sat with her arms against the railing as she looked out at the world below her. It looked far more beautiful this way. There was the Nile, right there, and if she was correct they had just passed over Amarna (Akhetaton in the ancient world), the remains of the capital city established by Akhenaten. At this rate, they would be at Karnak by afternoon tomorrow.
Movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Jonathan was sitting down beside her, leaning against the side and remarking as he did, "You've been awfully quiet since we got on this thing."
Mara glanced at him for a moment. Indeed she had been quiet for the few hours they had been on the dirigible, too lost in the changing scenery and the sunset and her thoughts. She asked after a short pause, "Aren't I usually?"
"Not like this. What's on your mind, Mara Carnahan?"
"I'm just..." Mara started, and paused again. The answer was that the entire day the only thing that had been on her mind was the child she was carrying. And the child that was somewhere in the desert lost. The only thing she could think was how unfair it all seemed. "...thinking about Alex. Rick and Evy."
Jonathan followed her gaze to Evy, who stood at the head of the ship looking out at Egypt. Rick was talking to Izzy at the wheel on the other side of the ship. He looked back to her. "I don't think you've thought of anything else in the past twenty-four hours."
"I can't fathom the pain they feel right now," Mara continued, voice getting quieter. She didn't take her eyes off Evy. Even unable to see her face... "And looking at them, I realize that's how my father must have looked five years ago. All the time Talib was gone."
As she spoke, her hand had subconsciously risen to her neck, fingers hovering over the scars just a few centimeters from them. He saw and asked her, "Are you okay?" She looked at him. He gestured vaguely to his own neck. "They held a knife to your throat. Reminded me of Riyadh and that didn't happen to me. And don't tell me you're fine. No one's fine."
"You seem to be."
"Or am I just good at pretending?"
She held his wry gaze for a moment before she smiled lightly, looking away from him. He was right. No one was fine. How could any of them be fine after what happened last night? And the knife to her throat...the scars had burned when she felt it. That man's voice had been in her ear for years, taunting her. It only got worse after she remembered and knew that those flashes and whispers were real, knew for certain that the face that haunted her in sleep was his. It was something else that had scarcely left her mind the past twenty-four hours.
