❝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 WAS THE ONLY ONE in their group to not drink from the bottle Jonathan had stolen from the late warden's pouch. Even Evy at one point had snatched it from her brother. Mara had thought that display particularly amusing, because she'd never seen Evy drink anything more than a glass of wine or a flute of champagne. Her previous exhaustion had crept back up on her around the time that happened and didn't see much of her friend's drunken activities, aside from hearing a few vague giggles while she slept.
Because she was the first one to sleep, Mara was the first one to wake as well. The dawning sky was turning from onyx to cobalt and the stars were fading away to make way for the sun, which should be coming over the horizon in about half an hour by her calculations. All three of her companions were still sleeping, she found when she looked at them. All three would probably be nursing hangovers, varying in painful degrees, when they woke.
There were a few embers left in their fire, but they were burning out quickly. It wouldn't be long before they'd join her in wakefulness and they could continue with their previous interrupted investigation of the sarcophagus that had been buried at the legs of the Anubis state. He That Shall Not Be Named, the hieroglyphics said. What could a man have done that his name was not written on his sarcophagus, and instead there was that?
Mara was awake for about fifteen minutes, she wagered, when she noticed O'Connell starting to wake. The rifle had been by his side the entire time he slept, prepared in case there had been another attack. She said pleasantly to him when he sat up, "Good morning."
O'Connell raised an eyebrow at her. Then he glanced above him, to the sky, like he was gauging the time. He clearly hadn't expected for her to be awake. "Do you ever sleep?" he questioned.
How bemusing a question. She had always been an early bird, it had always bothered her family. "I like to watch the sun rise," she informed him with a light shrug.
"Smiling 'cause you're gonna be the only one without a headache all day?"
Mara laughed at the remark, knowing she'd just made the same assumption, and said, only half-sincere, "Maybe." O'Connell threw her a spiteful smile. "Though from what I saw you drank less than both Carnahans. I never thought Evy could drink like that. It must have been amusing."
"Yeah, somethin' like that," O'Connell muttered, scratching underneath his leather wrist guard. Mara looked at him curiously, brown eyes lowering to his wrist when he took off the guard, grumbling about a bug bite. She couldn't see any bites from where she sat (this didn't stop her from opening her kit to find something to help relieve the itchiness he seemed to feel), but she could see the tattoo on his wrist.
