The Curse in Her Blood

Chapter 40

Set

I can't stop thinking about Robin.

It's stupid, but I can't.

I'm replaying the kiss we had on the patio in my head and when that gets to be too much I replay her kissing my cheek, wishing I had just swooped in and kissed her back. But I'm not debonair like my brother, or Horus. I don't make moves on women because when I do they freak out.

I know that's stupid though.

Obviously Robin wasn't going to scream at me, she wouldn't push me away but it's been an immortal life time of rejection, she is the only outlier so those doubts linger.

And now I'm up here on the Atet and I'm missing her. Standing at the edge, staring over the newly patched railing down at the world below. I was focusing in on my kingdom, it even looked greener from up here, but it wasn't my kingdom on my mind.

It was still Robin.

Not for the first time the realization that I actually miss her washes over me. Not for the first time this voyage, and not for the first time before this voyage. I come up here and I don't want to go home because I miss my palace and my kingdom, I miss her. Her presence is soothing to me, like everything's fine so long as she's beside me smiling up at me.

Now that I'm away from her I'm unsettled, my fingers unable to stay still, my foot bounces against the polished wood. I'm impatient to get the fight on so I can go home. I know if I can get my arms around her it'll take the unsettledness out of me.

My father comes to stand beside me. He glances down to the world below. It's been a very long time since he's lived down there, sometimes I wonder if he misses it. If I'll miss it when it's time to leave.

I used to think I wouldn't, that I would be happy to rid myself of the shackles of my family and the reputation they've given me. Now... I'm not sure I'd be okay if I did. Not if it were Robin I was leaving behind. And I have to force myself to remember that it wouldn't be Robin I left behind but Astarte, and then I'm conflicted again. Not just about which woman I want, but if I would miss the world I left behind if it were Astarte I'd be leaving in charge.

I'd definitely worry about Duat though.

There's a bit of silence between us. I'm sure my father knows what's on my mind and I don't want him to know that I miss this woman, that I'm confused and conflicted, that I'm having a hard time differentiating between my want for Astarte and my want for Robin. That, at one point, that feeling had mashed up into one, but now, now it seemed I was feeling things for Robin that I had never once felt for Astarte.

Eventually my father turns to me and says: "Well... go on?" For a moment I'm certain he's telling me to jump. I turn to him and don't need to ask for an explanation. "Go get your mortal."

Now I'm doubly confused. Does he really want me to jump off the Atet land in Duat and then bring Robin back up?

"Father... I left her behind... you watched me leave her behind..."

"No you didn't. You packed her aboard."

"No I didn't."

"Then who's in the bedroom?"

I stare at him for a moment. I know he's right, I know if I go that onboard bedroom just below the deck that was meant for me when we shared the Atet that I would find Robin. I just didn't want him to be right.

I wanted my father to be wrong for the first time.

I leave his side, march my way down to the room that was mine and threw the door open.