Chapter Ten

Merenkahre looks firm, "You must understand, Alexandria, that there is no getting rid of the power. It is yours now, and will be yours for the rest of your life. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good. We are going to teach you to use the power, and how to control its effects on your mortal body. Your body is still getting used to the magic in your veins. Once you learn to harness it, you won't have the troubling effects I'm sure you've been having."

I nod my head in relief. At least that weird gold vision and awful light-headedness is only temporary.

"The tablet has nine individual double sided panels. They could be placed in different combinations, meaning that there were over three hundred thousand things that the tablet could do. Not even I know all of the spells. It could be something as simple as helping a flower bloom, to something as complex as taking someone's life without lifting a finger."

That's a scary thought.

"Your mind has become a sort of index. You can pick which spell you want to use just by thinking about it. But, all spells, especially more complex spells, will have their ramifications. Ramifications on your physical state, or the natural balance of the Earth. You should never attempt to bring something back from the dead that wasn't already tied to the tablet, such as Ahkmenrah, my queen, or myself. Everything in this museum is an inanimate object or material. The three of us are the only human beings, and the only human beings that the tablet can affect without potentially harming you. Of course, the more you use the spells, the higher your body's tolerance for magic will be."

He pauses for a moment to allow that to sink in. All of the nerves I was feeling before come rushing back. What if I can't do this? Almost as if sensing my fear, Ahk's hand gently squeezes mine. I can do this. I can do this. Merenkahre turns to the group behind us. Larry, Nick, Tilly, and Lancelot are all regarding me with varying levels of concern.

"This requires focus. If you could leave us, it would be much appreciated."

The men of the group look as if they would much prefer to stay, but Tilly is too afraid of the pharaoh to object. She ushers them from the room, leaving me alone with Ahkmenrah and his parents.

"We'll start with something easy, then."

Merenkahre leads me to a small display along the wall, a bar of sand. Various Egyptian pots and small figurines are nestled within. Ahkmenrah hasn't let go of my hand, his fingers tracing their usual pattern onto the back of my hand. It feels nice.

"You can make the sand move, if you concentrate hard enough. Just take it slow, don't push yourself too hard. We can't have you getting hurt too soon."

Ahkmenrah's arm comes around my waist, and the other holds my hand a little more tightly. He's bracing me against him, in case I faint again. What am I about to get myself in to?

"Just think about it." Merenkahre encourages.

So I think about it. I stare hard at the little grains of sand in the bar. I think about making them move. I squeeze a little harder on Ahk's hand. Nothing happens.

I heave a sigh and break my focus, "Nothing is happening."

"You shouldn't think about doing it, think about it happening." Shepseheret murmurs.

She's been so quiet, I had almost forgotten she was here. Alright. It's worth a shot. I refocus on the sand, imagining them blowing in a nonexistent breeze. I allow my eyes to roam over each grain, admiring the tiny dunes and wishing I could make them change. Suddenly, one of the tiny slopes topples. Ahk's grip tightens on my hand. He saw it too.

"Keep going."

His voice distracts me, briefly sending a flurry of butterflies through my stomach. I push his dizzying influence out of my head and refocus my attention. I reach out a hand, willing the sand to follow my fingers. I sweep them up the side of a dune, taking the sand with me. It sweeps up into the air and falls back down the other side with a soft swish. I hear Merenkahre's delighted chuckle. I sweep more sand into the air, twisting it in pretty patterns weaving a few feet above the bar. Okay. I can do more than that. I concentrate a little harder, picking up more sand and weaving it into the existing cloud. I move it up over our heads, fanning it out over the exhibit in pretty curls and spirals. Ahk is getting excited, I can feel him pull me a little closer against him. But my concentration is broken by him once more, and the sand falls all over the floor and sarcophaguses. Oops.

"You can put it back." Ahk whispers in my ear.

I'm starting to feel a little out of breath. Merenkahre urged me not to push myself… But there's no harm in putting it back. I can't leave such a mess. There is sand all over the floor, as if a sand storm blew through the exhibit and left no nook or cranny unfilled. So, I concentrate once more, drawing strength from Ahkmenrah's arms around me. Slowly but surely, the sand lifts itself from the floor and rises back into the air. In one powerful gust, the sand blows over our heads and settles back into the bar in its small dunes.

Before I have time to be proud of myself, the sand turns gold in my eyes, and my knees buckle beneath me. I feel as if I've just run a marathon, my lungs are bursting. Ahk lowers himself to the floor with me. I squeeze my eyes shut to force the gold away. I can feel myself shaking. Ahk just rocks me back and forth until I open my eyes again. The gold has disappeared, and now I just feel tired. Of course Merenkahre was right. I pushed myself too hard.

"That was incredible. Very promising so far." Merenkahre says, satisfied.

"Are you alright?" Ahk asks.

"I feel very shaky. Can we sit for a while?"

"Of course."

"You can speak Arabic?" Merenkahre asks, surprised.

I nod my head, "I want to be an Egyptologist."

He smiles at me, "You could have saved me a lot of stumbling through my English."

I manage a breathy laugh.

"Do you think you can manage something else?"

"If it doesn't require too much energy." I smile at him.

The pharaoh has forgotten all formalities, treating me as one of his own already. I want to think it's because he likes that I can speak his language, but the distrustful part of me is convinced it's probably because I could be a rather powerful weapon. But, I don't want to believe that.

"It shouldn't," Merenkahre hasn't stopped smiling, "do you think that you can summon Larry back to us?"

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Reach out to him. He'll hear you. Why don't you start with Ahkmen?"

How am I even supposed to do this? Do I just say something in my head? I think about what Shepseheret said, about imagining it happening. I reach out to Ahk with a tentative Hello?

I feel him shift beneath me, "Hello to you, too."

It worked? Oh my God. I'm literally in your head right now.

He chuckles, "If only I could speak to you in your head as well. We could carry a whole-"

Conversation.

On just a whim, I was able to get him inside of my head, too.

Woah. Am I… I can still hear his voice, even though he's not speaking out loud.

Inside of my head? Yes. I pull away from him and smile, and he returns it with a bewildered one. This doesn't take any energy at all. I could do this all the time.

"Okay, what are you talking about? I feel left out." Merenkahre is grinning at me.

This man is not nearly as imposing as I thought he was when I met him. He's really just a father. Who also happens to wear a crown.

"Nothing." Ahk says with an innocent smile.

I keep my connection with him open, but I reach out to Larry. I don't know where he is, but I can suddenly feel my connection to him like a small electric pulse.

Hey, Larry. You can come back now.

I open up the connection both ways like I did with Ahk, but I'm not sure that Larry will know how to respond. Sure enough, my head remains quiet.

"No response. But he should be here."

Suddenly, Larry's voice bursts into my mind with a surprising force. I wince at the loud noise. Alex? Alex, please tell me you can hear me.

I can hear you, Larry. What's wrong? Are you okay?

Ahkmenrah's fingers tighten around mine, noticing my worried expression.

I don't know. Something happened. Something really bad. Hurry.

I shakily get to my feet. Ahk follows, his expression becoming more and more concerned.

We're on the way.

I start to tug Ahkmenrah out of Egypt, down the hallway. I can feel Larry's presence ahead of me, I instinctively know where to go. Merenkahre and Shepseheret are following us.

"Alex, what's wrong?" Ahk asks, falling into step beside me.

"It's Larry. He said they're in trouble."

Ahk says nothing, only tightening his grip on my hand and walking with me down several more hallways. Larry's presence intensifies ahead of me. I walk as fast as I can without running, I don't think that I could handle that yet. I'm so focused on finding Larry that I don't notice Ahk telling me to stop until he has to pull me back himself. It's then that I hear a voice. A man's voice. One that I don't recognize. Ahkmenrah and his parents, however, seem to know exactly who it is.

"Who is that?"

"That is my brother," Ahk murmurs, his eyes hardening, "Kahmunrah."

"Who's Kahmunrah?"

Judging from the expressions on the royal family's faces, he's not a good person.

"He's a very evil man," Shepseheret begins, looking shaken, "certainly not my son. I don't know how he has come back."

"Come back from what?"

"The dead." Merenkahre responds.

"But if he's a member of the royal family, shouldn't he have been bound to the power?"

"Not death. The underworld. Several months ago, Kahmunrah attempted to unleash an army of Horus warriors on Washington D.C. using the tablet's help. Your uncle was able to stop him in time, and he was banished to the Egyptian underworld."

"Duat?" I ask tentatively.

Merenkahre pauses, smiling at me, "I keep forgetting that you already know much about our culture. Yes, he was banished to Duat. No one is ever brought back without the assistance of Osiris, and I have no idea how he managed to get it."

That does seem to be a little odd. Osiris is the god of death, more specifically Duat, and he has always been portrayed as a very cold, short-tempered deity. But the way Shepseheret is clinging to her husband tells me that Kahmunrah is no saint either. He must have done something awful to cause such a loving mother to disown her son. Ahk looks like he wants to punch a hole in the wall. He has let go of my hand, his fingers clenching into fists so tight his knuckles are white. His chest is rising and falling rather quickly.

"Larry is in trouble. I need to go in there."

"You are still weak. You cannot do anything substantial yet. Don't doubt your uncle's ability to maintain calm."

"Why don't we listen for a while, and see what we're dealing with." Shepseheret murmurs, her grip on her husband anything but loose.

This man has seriously affected this family. Especially Ahkmenrah. He isn't looking at anyone, and he isn't speaking. I have a feeling that what Kahmunrah did is more closely related to Ahk than anyone else. I finally glance up at the sign to see where we are. It's the "Hall of the Afterlife". How fitting. A little plaque specifies that this exhibit explains how different cultures dealt with death. We all step closer to the corner of the wall, hearing Kahmunrah's voice echo around the corner in a confident, cocky tone. He seems to have a lisp, greatly diminishing his credibility. His English is rather fluent, like the rest of his family's.

"-miss me, Larry? You know, I had a lot of time to think, down there in the underworld. A rather dreary place. Lots of time alone. But when word got around to me that the tablet had lost its power, well, I just had to come back and see for myself."

"It hasn't lost its power," Larry's voice radiates poise and confidence, "it has been transferred to another vessel."

"Oh? What. A cat, perhaps? Maybe a vase?"

"No. My niece."

Kahmunrah pauses, "Oh. Oh. That's a juicy little tidbit. It looks like the prophecy has been fulfilled at last! That's wonderful news. You know, it was so hard to take the tablet last time. Maybe this girl will be a little easier to handle."

I grit my teeth. I'll show him "easy to handle".

"If you so much as lay one of your dead fingers on her, I'll break your face." Nick growls.

"Oh, will you, now? I'm shaking in my golden sandals."

I glance over at Ahk. His face is pale, and he looks more furious than I've ever seen him. He still hasn't spoken, and I don't want to interrupt him. His jaw is clenched. He's scary when he's mad.

"Now, I've had a marvelous time watching you both try to be threatening, but I must go look for my new tablet."

I can't take it anymore. I step out from behind the wall as defiantly as I can. I hear Merenkahre's hiss of protest, but I'm not just going to stand here. That's certainly not my style.

"I'm right here."

The man in front of me is certainly in his late thirties, maybe early forties. He is dressed similarly to Merenkahre and Ahkmenrah, in a golden crown, and a blue wrap with the golden wings of a scarab beetle on his chest. True to his word, his sandals are golden. He narrows his eyes at me, giving me a once over.

"This is the newest power? You?"

I fold my arms over my chest, glaring at him, "I hear that I'm very important to you. I wouldn't recommend insulting your plaything."

He chuckles, "And she speaks our tongue. Impressive. But, dearest, you are not a plaything. You are a weapon. Although, I can imagine all of the ways I could play with you."

Ew. Kahmunrah's eyes flicker to something behind me. His eyes widen for a moment, the only sign of fear he's shown so far, before he returns to his nonchalant state.

"Brother."

I turn to find Ahkmenrah directly behind me. He is livid.

"Don't you dare speak to her like that." he growls, looking utterly terrifying.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Kahmunrah replies, smirking at Ahk.

As if to prove his point, Kahmunrah closes the distance between us. He raises a hand, pressing a fingertip to my temple. I flinch, but don't pull away from him. That would show weakness. He slowly traces his fingers down my cheek, my neck, and over the delicate skin of my collarbone. His touch is as cold as death itself. Ahk makes a strangled noise from behind me, but doesn't do anything. Just as quickly, he raises his hand back to my neck, and squeezes. His strength is blinding. I'm quickly gasping for breath. His lips curve into a disgusting smile as he chokes me.

I don't even have time to raise my hands and push him off of me before Nick is on him with a punch so hard Kahmunrah falls to the floor. Kahmunrah's eyes ignite with fury as he picks himself up off of the floor and pulls out his khopesh. It's a terrifying two foot long blade, slightly hooked to inflict as much damage as possible. It could easily slice flesh, and slice flesh he does. Kahmunrah lunges forward and whips the blade over Nick's side with a sickening swish. The blade cuts through his hip and is pulled out forward through the side of this stomach. Nick doesn't even have time to cry out before he crumples to the floor, his blood already creating a massive puddle on the tiles.

A shocked scream flies from my mouth, and with it comes a surprising burst of crackling electricity. Kahmunrah is hit with the blast, and thrown across the room into the stone of a wall. I rush over to Nick and kneel beside him on the floor. He's already almost gone. Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Now I can see why Ahkmenrah hates this man so much. I hate him too. I tug Nick's head into my lap, trying as hard as I can not to look at the gaping gash in his stomach as I pull his shirt away from the blood. It gets all over my hands and clothing, but I don't care. He killed Nick. He killed Nick. Larry rushes over, attempting to staunch the blood in any way he can, but there's too much. We're both crying.

"Oh my God. Nick. Nick, I'm so sorry. I love you, okay? I love you. I'm so sorry."

It happened so fast it doesn't even seem real. I feel like I'm in a nightmare. My fingers are shaking so hard I can't even hold his hand. I can see the ghost of a smile on his lips before his eyes focus on the ceiling, and his light blinks out. My uncle shakily reaches forward and closes Nick's eyes. Awful sobs that I have never felt before wrack my chest. I'm crying so hard it hurts, but Larry almost has me beaten.

Wait.

I can bring him back.

Merenkahre said I could. Who gives a shit if I mess with the "natural balance of the Earth". Those consequences are insignificant compared to the loss of my best friend. Soon enough, my sobs turn to deep breaths as I place my hand on his chest. I don't know what I'm doing, but my body seems to have natural instincts. My right hand is over his heart, and my left is over his forehead.

"I give life to you. I give life to you. I give life to you."

I hear a protest from Merenkahre behind me, but I tune him out. I tune the world out. He said that this would take energy. My body feels alive with electricity, I can feel it running down my arms and into my fingertips. Into Nick.

"I give life to you. I give life to you. I give life to you."

Larry jerks away from Nick as the electricity becomes too much for him to handle. The gold is flowing into my eyes, but somehow I can see through it this time. I am dimly aware of Merenkahre yelling at everyone to leave the room, something about how it is too dangerous. I can barely hear him over the hum in my ears. I don't care. Nick's body beneath me is my only focus.

"I give life to you. I give life to you. I give life to you."

Seconds blur into minutes. I don't know how much time has passed, but suddenly, the electricity within me blinks out. Nick's eyes snap open with a pained gasp. The wound in his side is gone, save for a thin white scar about a foot long wrapping from his hip to the middle of his stomach. His eyes dart around for a moment before they land on mine.

"Did I just… die?"

I can't answer him before the gold overtakes me, and my world goes dark.

hey there beautiful humans! alex is pretty powerful now, huh? what's kahmunrah doing back? what consequences will alex have to face? dum dum dummmmmmmm... anyway, hello and thank you to all of the people that favorited and followed. I feel awful that I can't thank you personally, but when I was writing out your names and then deleting the email, my internet crashed and I lost the progress. and unfortunately now all of the mail I have from fanfiction is jumbled together, and it would be a huge hassle to try and find it all again! please don't hate me, just know that I love you all tons and bunches and I am beyond grateful for all of the support you guys have given me! if you enjoyed this chapter, please review, favorite, and follow! see ya next time ;)