A/N: It really doesn't help my any-excuse-to-turn-a-short-ficlet-into-a-novella inner author when the opening Japanese song to the Memory Arc has the lyric 'take the power of the past memory' playing when Anzu appears on screen looking angsty and pensive while holding Atem's cartouche. Half of the stuff that has ended up in this fic wasn't in my original plan, but wormed its way in after I started watching that arc in Japanese for the first time – including several of what are now MAJOR plot points. It just goes to show that research is your friend! It also makes for some giggles when 'Millennium Puzzle' is instead translated in the subtitles as 'Ancient Block'. That doesn't sound very mystical, subber-whose-first-language-is-clearly-not-English.

6. Gifts and Curses

She is the one, all that I wanted,
She is the one, and I will be haunted,
She is the one, this gift is my curse for now.

- from Gifts and Cursesby Yellowcard.

Seren used to think she would never be useful for anything. It was a tenet of her whole life – she took up space and ate food that could be better fed to those who actually did some good in the world. The idea that she could be useful was the stuff of dreams, and she'd never thought she could make those dreams a reality.

Since she was a small child, the people of her tribe had told her she was pathetic, switching to words like 'worthless' and 'of no value' when she grew old enough to learn that she could never bear children. She had always been frail, suffering from too many sicknesses as a baby and possessing a natural tendency toward ill-health. People thought she was bad luck, since nobody could survive in the harsh wilderness with a burden like her weighing them down. They told her mother she would be better drowning the sickly girl. She already had a healthy little boy, after all – what did she need a useless daughter for?

Yet her mother refused to listen. She kept Seren close and nurtured her under the disapproving gazes of her tribesmen. For a while it seemed Seren would outgrow her frailty, or at least rise above it and become a worthwhile member of the tribe. She had quick hands and a quicker mind, and though she couldn't run and jump as well as other children, she learned how to thread a necklace before any other girl, and could paint beads with intricate patterns that always sold best when the men went into towns and cities where markets were held. Many times her brother would run to their tent with stories of how the men had brought back all the things they hadn't been able to trade. No sack ever contained Seren's jewellery.

Tragedy struck when their mother died of sunsickness, thrashing and delusional in her bedroll until she sweated out her life while her children were helpless to do anything but watch. The shock took its toll; but while Jono saw their only parent's death as a reason to make himself stronger, Seren was devastated by the loss. Her health began to suffer. She lost weight. Her hands weren't as sure as they used to be. She produced only meagre jewellery of a poorer quality. People remembered how her mother had ignored their warnings, and the old resentment that Seren had proven them wrong began to simmer. With her mother gone they told Seren to her face that she would never amount to anything. She retreated further into her and, eventually, despite Jono's protests, started to believe them.

As she grew older she had to spend more and more time in the tent she shared with her brother. She didn't venture out in case one of the Elders ordered her back where nobody could see her. After Elder Goza went into such a tirade that his heart gave him pains, Seren stopped going out entirely except for when they mopved camp. She was an embarrassment. No other tribe ever had such sickly children on show. They kept her hidden because Jono refused to let them make her leave and Jono was quickly becoming a prize they couldn't afford to lose.

Seren made bits of jewellery and repaired the clothes her brother wore out or tore during his training, but her confidence suffered from the minimal human contact and it showed in her work. Where once she had picked out stones from the trail as they travelled, polishing them up and painting exotic amulets from the Storyteller's tales, she now painted dark swirls and bleak patterns that were beautiful in their own way, but radiated so much sadness that nobody ever wanted to trade for them.

Lack of exercise just made her weaker, until everyone but a select few declared her a drain on their resources and talked openly about casting her out into the desert. Times were hard, they said. It was the kindest thing to do. Why let her live a life where she knew she was worthless when a quick death would solve all their problems. The wilderness would kill her inside a day and her body could feed the beasts and keep them away from raiding the camp. She would be much more useful that way than eating their food and taking up space. Seren would sit close to the tent flap, listening to them discuss her future like she was a sack of rotten grain, and try her best not to cry and wish for her mother.

Her encroaching blindness was the last straw. Poor, useless, worthless Seren's days in the tribe were numbered when Otogi the Seer prophesied her sight would be completely gone by the next full moon. It was only through her brother's quick thinking and sacrifices, plus the help of Maibe and Otog's apprentice, Téana, that Seren was still alive at all. She had resigned herself to her fate before Jono smuggled her out of the camp one night, and half expected to die on the journey into the desert. After all, she was useless, wasn't she? What hope did she have of surviving in a situation like that? What right did she have to make her brother give up so much for her sake?

It seemed impossible to her then that she could ever be happy again, much less living a new and wonderful life in the pharaoh's city, deep in the heart of Egypt.

"Look, Jono! Look how much I wove today!"

Jono looked at the half-finished reed basket his sister waved at him. "That's fantastic, Seren." His proud smile was nearly as dazzling as hers. "Really fantastic."

Happily, Seren settled down to finish what she had started. Across from her, an old man with white hair shook his head and smiled with a mixture of happiness and bemusement. "You have a natural talent, my dear."

"I didn't think I'd ever be able to do anything like this," she confessed. "My eyes, you see. But it's like you said – it's not about seeing at all, it's about feeling where each strand should go."

Hopki nodded. He was nearly blind himself with age, but had long since developed ways of making his living in spite of it. He wasn't quick, but he was meticulous and had years of experience. Everyone knew that if you wanted a basket made fast, you could go anywhere, but if you wanted one that would last you went to Hopki. In his youth he had been the most famous and talented weaver and basket-maker in the whole city, but as he got older it had fallen more and more to his daughter, and then this granddaughter, to help him keep up with demand. When Seren's group arrived on his doorstep he had been nearly falling over with fatigue, trying to compensate for the sudden tragic loss of his family by taking on their workload as well as his own.

"I still find it hard to believe," he had said more than once, "that you were guided to me when I most needed help. Truly, the gods smiled on me when they sent you to my door."

Téana didn't answer, but Seren had gotten to know her on their trek through the wilderness. She knew Téana was thinking it hadn't been anything to do with the gods. The Great Spirits, maybe, but not the gods and goddesses Hopki prayed to. Téana's second sight was both a gift and a curse from the Great Spirits who ruled over the sky, desert and great Nile River. It was only through her Visions that they had known to go to Hopki.

Hopki hadn't judged them or asked more questions than they wanted to answer. Instead, he had welcomed them into his home when he realised how their need for shelter coincided with his need for help and companionship. Téana's Vision had told her he was someone who could be trusted with their true identities, and that their honesty with him would be rewarded tenfold – though Jono was more reluctant to tell Hopki who they were in case it somehow got back to the people chasing them.

"Shouldn't you, um, be more worried that we're thieves or murderers or something?" Jono had asked when Hopki first took them in, not entirely trusting the old man's generosity. He had kept his hand on Seren's shoulder the whole time Hopki and Téana were talking, and dug his fingers in a little too firmly when Hopki came across to inspect the rest of them. "You're being very trusting, considering you don't know us. We could be lying to you."

Téana had thrown him a murderous look, but Hopki had just smiled and shaken his head.

"I know that you're the first people to speak to me since my daughter and my granddaughter died. I know that if you'd intended to kill me you could have done it already. I know that I have nothing worth stealing, and I can tell you're telling the truth when you say you need sanctuary, and that you're willing to trade your time and skills for it. I'm an old man. I need all the help I can get."

"How? How can you possibly tell all that? Are you a seer?"

"No, but with age comes wisdom. It makes up for the bad back and aching feet."

Hopki had taken to Seren immediately, perhaps seeing some of his lost granddaughter in her thin shoulders and eagerness to learn. Seren latched on to anyone who showed her kindness. She was already devoted to her brother. In the last few weeks, since they risked life and limb getting her out of camp, that devotion had spilled into her feelings for Maibe and Téana too. They had escaped with her across the mountains so they could hide their trail from their pursuers in the great city, and somehow done the impossible by finding a place to stay and means of making a living while they waited for the season to change and those pursuers to return to the tribe without them. Every morning Seren woke up with genuine surprise that it hadn't all been a wonderful dream.

"I can't thank you enough," she had said to all of them more times than she could count. "If it weren't for you …"

"Hey, don't worry about it," Maibe always replied. "You really think I was going to let those old farts toss you into the desert to die? If anyone deserves to be left like that, it's those three Elders for thinking a woman's worth is only measured by how many children she can squirt out."

Maibe was always saying things like that. It made Seren uncomfortable a little wary. A wife and mother was the highest accolade a woman could achieve. Maibe was such a strong person, however, that even with her strange ideas Seren admired her.

Téana, on the other hand, often replied to Seren's gratefulness with a hug that cut off her words and made Seren just savour being touched. "You're more valuable than they ever gave you credit for, Seren. Never, ever listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. I don't think I could have lived your life and stayed as positive as you have."

"I'm just happy I have you, Maibe, and my big brother."

And now she had Hopki, too, who kept giving her little treats and talking to her like she was an equal, not just some half-blind nomad barbarian who'd blown in from the desert on the wind.

Seren's fingers slid over the reeds, finding tiny holes in the weaving thorugh which to pass each tip. Her very first basket was turning out to be quite good. After it was finished, she decided, she'd ask Hopki if she could keep it. He could sell every other basket she ever made, but she wanted to keep this one; the first thing in her new life that she had made with her own two hands. Despite her best efforts, since her eyes began to fail she had become awful at threading necklaces or making jewellery. The satisfaction of finally finding something she was good at was like a rainstorm after a drought.

Jono continued to try with his own basket. It wasn't work meant for a young man, much less a young warrior, but they all had to keep a low profile. He had decided to stay close to his sister and try his hand at basket-making too. Unfortunately, he was much less talented. A thin strip of dried, hardened reeds slipped from his grasp and thwacked him across his face. He yelped and clutched his nose, swearing.

"Oh, stop being such a baby," Maibe reprimanded. She was working at the cloth stretched between four pegs in the floor. Like Seren and her basket, Maibe had proved a dab hand at cloth-making. Strong muscles from living in the wilderness helped her kneel and work tirelessly with the thick thread, turning it from coarse fibres into beautiful cloth. "Honestly, all the fuss you make. Anybody would think you'd been stabbed."

"It hurt!"

"Poor baby. Did the mighty warrior get attacked by the even mightier basket?"

Jono pouted, picked up his basket and fought on defiantly.

Seren giggled. "Where's Téana?"

"I don't know," he said grumpily. "Probably trying to divine the future from a camel turd or something."

With Téana that wasn't idle joking, but Seren said nothing. The red welt on her brother's face made her fogive his crankiness even faster than usaual.

They had lived with Hopki for almost a week now. While Maibe, Seren and Jono had settled into this life as best they could, Téana hadn't been able to do the same. She was on edge all the time. Her shoulders stayed hunched nearly to her ears and she slept badly. Though Seren had trouble reading the finer details of facial expressions, she was better than most at reading voices and could pick out in Téana's tone how worried she was. Téana had tried basket-weaving and cloth-making, and wasn't bad at either, but her mind strayed too much and she often became unfocussed, making mistakes that took twice as long to go back and fix. It was as though her spirit had momentarily left her body. If Hopki hadn't already known she was a seer he would have guessed something was strange by the way she acted.

Last night she had taken a stick of wood and a flint, sat on the flat roof of Hopki's house and stared at the flaming tip until it burnt her fingers. She had jumped when Seren asked what she was doing, since she'd thought she was alone up there.

"Otog used to see things in the campfire," she had explained. "I thought maybe I could do it too." She had looked down at her sore fingers and muttered an oath that surely came from too much time around Jono. Seren could ever remembering hearing Téana curse like that before they ran away.

"Don't worry," Seren had said, reaching to find Téana's shoulder so she could give her a comforting hug. "Nobody expects you to be as good as Otog. He had years to learn how to use his gifts. I'm sure you'll master yours with time."

"But we don't have time. We need to know where Usi, Hondo and Makalani are now. It's possible they're still looking for us in the wilderness, but if they've somehow managed to track us to the city we need to know about it. I haven't had any Visions since the one that brought us to Hopki. I've tried to force them but … and … argh!" She'd trailed off with a frustrated noise and scrubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I'm sorry, Seren, I don't mean to worry you, but I can't help feeling like I'm failing somehow. I'm supposed to be the one keeping us safe and one step ahead of Usi's party."

"But you've already done so much for us. We can't expect any more than that. We can't rely on you when you're already doing your best. We have to do our part, too."

Téana had looked at her strangely then. Seren's eyesight wasn't good enough to make out the emotions behind her eyes, but she heard the note of gratefulness in the other girl's voice. "You know, that's the first time I've felt like anybody really means it when they say they're not relying on my powers to solve everything."

Seren had blushed. Later, when they retired to bed, she had curled up and thought how wonderful it was to have people who treated her like her opinions meant something.

Now she sat on the low stool, her mostly-finished basket in her lap, and wondered whether Téana was once more hiding away trying to force her second sight to show her things.

Hopki solved the mystery. "I sent her to the market to fetch some dye for the cloth. It's to be a tribute to the Pharaoh for his crowning ceremony. All merchants have to pay homage to our new king with the best of our wares."

"Oh." Seren brushed her fingertips over her basket. Everyone kept saying how they had to fit in here in the city. "I'll give him my first basket, then."

"It would be a great honour for anyone to have your first basket, Bekah."

Seren pretended not to notice he called her by his dead granddaughter's name. He did that sometimes. They overlooked it because he'd been so generous and he usually corrected himself anyway. If one of the reasons he was allowing them to live with him was because Seren allowed him to pretend he hadn't lost his family, then it was a small price to pay.

"I hope she comes back soon," muttered Jono. "I don't like it when we're separated for too long."

"I gave her a headscarf to cover her hair," said Hopki. "And now she wears kohl and the clothes of a proper Egyptian, it should be more difficult for even those who know her to recognise her."

"Hmmf." Jono didn't sound convinced. "I hope you're right."

Even though it was a dangerous place, Téana enjoyed the sights and smells of the market. After being cooped up in Hopki's house it was refreshing to experience the hustle and bustle of trade. She liked being near people who laughed and talked openly; people who didn't have three armed warriors trying to drag them back into the wilderness.

Which, of course, they don't. Obviously.

She sighed and drew her arms tighter over the small clay pot of dye. Much as she would have liked to stay, she knew she had to get back. Not only was it safer not to be outdoors while the threat of Usi, Hondo and Makalani was still fresh, Jono and the others would be worried.

It was extraordinary how she, Jono, Maibe and Seren had become so close so quickly. In the tribe Téana had viewed them with detachment, more concerned with her own problems until the pale stranger wandered into camp and changed how she looked at the world. How could she have gone so long without realising how much they had to give? Even Seren – no, especially Seren – had affected changes not even Téana's second sight could have predicted. Maibe had planted ideas she never would have thought of on her own. As for Jono; he was hot-headed and could be crude, but his devotion to those he cared about was breathtaking. She could do far worse than model that part of herself on him.

A stab of guilt went through her. Jono would never keep secrets from rest of the group, especially not for selfish reasons.

Someone tapped her shoulder. She turned without thinking, let out a small gasp and nearly dropped the pot. It was as if her thoughts had come to life and snuck up behind her.

"Ammon!"

Ammon's smile was just visible beneath his deep hood. He wore the same loose-fitting robes as the last time she had seen him. Since then he had often strayed into her thoughts, though she hadn't mentioned him to the others. She knew Jono would be angry that she had revealed so much to someone whose trustworthiness no Vision had endorsed. Yet part of Téana didn't want to share Ammon's existence. It was an inexplicable, selfish impulse, but he felt like a glorious secret; something special and just for her. She couldn't understand why she felt that way, or why knowing it was foolish and selfish failed to stop her keeping her mouth shut.

She felt like she had swallowed a bat that was flapping around inside her stomach. Trying and failing to force the feeling away, Téana opted for a small smile of her own.

"I told you I would find you again, Téana of the Black Dragons," he said in that rich, oddly formal voice that had haunted her dreams instead of more useful Visions.

"Hush!" she said, suddenly anxious. "Please don't mention that while we're in public."

"Ah, I apologise. You are still in disguise – although this one suits you far more than your last attempt."

Her cheeks heated. "Yes, well, I had help this time."

"You did? From whom?"

She looked around. Suddenly the people she had enjoyed being near seemed nothing more than giant ears with legs. "If you'll walk with me, I'll tell you as we go."

He nodded. "I will gladly walk with you. Come, we shall find somewhere we can speak freely, away from all these ears."

….

"So, did you just hang around the market until I finally showed up?"

"Such impudence," Ammon said, but there was little fierceness to his words. "I do not go to the market as often as I would like. I did, however, hope that I would find you there today."

"Today's the first time I've been back since the last time we met," Téana admitted. "It's a real coincidence that you'd be there, and at the right moment too. The Great Spirits must have decided to bless me." For once.

"I'm not sure about your Great Spirits, but the gods certainly smiled when they arranged for you to be there on the very morning I managed to make my escape."

"Escape?" Téana looked sideways at him. His expression had darkened. Obviously he hadn't meant to say that. "You mean you're not meant to be here? Why? Who'd miss you?" It was impertinent, but she wanted to know more about him. She had already told him so much about herself, after all.

Ammon seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he sighed. "I have demands made on my time by many people for many reasons. At this moment I am meant to be practising my writing skills. Instead, I am here talking to you."

"You're a scribe?" She supposed he must be an apprentice, since he had said 'practising'. He wasn't much older than her and it took years to train to be a scribe. Even in the desert she had heard about how only a select few Egyptian children were able to rise to that level, and that it was a long and arduous road that taxed the mind almost to breaking. That would certainly explain a few things – like why Ammon was obviously educated and why he kept himself covered up. He was as much in disguise as her.

Ammon mulled over her question. "I am training in the skills of a scribe. I know how to read common and formal Egyptian and I am well-practised in hieroglyphs."

"I'm not." Téana shrugged. "You have my respect. I've seen things written down since I came to the city and I can't understand any of it. There wasn't much need to learn reading or writing where I'm from, and certainly not for a girl-child."

"But what of your history? How else so you tell future generations of your triumphs and achievements?"

"We had Storytellers. Everything about our history was taught by one Storyteller to the next. They keep everything in their memories. We'd often spend long evenings gathered around campfires, listening to the Storyteller teach us about how our ancestors learned how to survive in the desert, or why our tribe was the strongest and more fearsome of all the wandering people."

"Memories fade," Ammon said disapprovingly. "Stories alter with every teller and every retelling. How can you know that the stories you heard are what actually happened?"

"I suppose it's a matter of trust."

"Telling bedtime stories cannot be as accurate as our written history."

"Well how can you tell what's written down wasn't embellished to make your ancestors sound better than they were? They aren't around for you to ask, are they? "

"Egypt's past glories are imprinted. No matter the voice or the eyes that read them, the words never change."

"But history's always written by those who survive it. Who's to say that those who survived didn't leave out the things that sounded less glorious, or made them sound less deserving, or even embarrassing stuff? Who'd know, after all? You just trust it's the truth because that's all you can do, just like we do with our Storytellers."

Ammon levelled a look at her that could have been a glare. "You are doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Offending me, my country, my gods and my customs. I think was how you put it last time, was it not?"

Téana's heart sank. "I didn't mean to. I was just … talking." And not thinking – at all. At that moment she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, or a raging horde of wild bees to sweep through the city as a distraction while she ran away.

Ammon continued to glare. Abruptly, it vanished and he started to laugh.

"You're … mocking me!" Téana realised.

"I apologise. Although, if I were a zealot, you would already have been arrested and quartered by now."

"Really?"

"Egypt is proud of its history. To insult it is to insult its people and everything they value. They would take it as a personal affront if you implied that their ancestors were not the celebrated champions they believe them to be."

"And you?"

"I am possibly one of the only people who would not be insulted by your words. As I have said, I believe in the new Pharaoh's vision of a future in which everyone is valued in the same way and able to speak their own minds as equals. I am more open-minded than many of my peers."

"Which is why you're talking to a barbarian like me in the first place."

His gaze flicked to her face. "I would not describe you as that now that I know you. A barbarian is a beast with a body of nothing but brute strength with no integrity or decency to guide it. That is not you, Téana of the Black Dragons."

"Um, you don't have to keep adding that to my name," Téana said, embarrassed. "And, um … thank you, but, um …" She trailed off. "I'm sorry. For what I said, I mean. About your history and writing it down. I do admire people who can read and write. It looks so complicated. It must be difficult to remember what all those different symbols mean. I wouldn't even know how to write my own name." She laughed, trying to alleviate the tightness in her chest. It felt like trying to catch your breath while the wind kept whipping it away during a sandstorm.

"Would you like to?" Ammon asked.

"What?"

"Would you like to learn how to write your name?"

"I … um …" Why not? What could it hurt? "Well … yes please, if you're offering to teach me." Jono and the others could wait a few more minutes. She would just tell them the dye merchant had been awkward and kept her longer at his stall than they had anticipated.

She and Ammon were walking along a side-street. He looked around and went over to a patch of ground covered in loose sand. He smoothed it with one sandal and crouched, gesturing for her to crouch beside him.

"Téana," he murmured, sounding out each syllable as he drew things in the dirt with his index finger. "Tay-ah-nah. There. That is your name, Téana."

Téana peered at the series of images – a semi-circle like the rising sun, a feather standing on its end, a bird with folded wings, a jagged horizontal line and another bird. Her mind could make no connection between these and the individual sounds that made up her name. They were just too disparate to ever be connected for her the way they obviously were for Ammon.

"Now you try," he said.

"Me? I couldn't."

"Just copy what I have drawn." It wasn't a request. There was something about the way he said it that gave the impression he wasn't used to being disobeyed. Téana supposed the household of a scribe would have lotds of servants ready to do their master's bidding and that of an apprentice scribe as well.

Still, she wasn't any slave or servant. Ammon wasn't the only one who could pretend offence at having his customs slighted. "Where I come from, you say 'please' when you want someone to do something."

"You're in the city now, not the wilderness."

"So manners are unfashionable here?"

Ammon blinked at her. Then another small tugged at his mouth. He not only understood her, but was willing to play along. "If it would please you, please copy what I have drawn."

"Thank you. It'd please me very much." Téana scratched out a wobbly facsimile of the symbols with her fingertip. "There. How's that?"

"Terrible. My tutor would shout if he saw such poor workmanship."

Téana blushed and bristled at the same time, which was an odd sensation. Ammon was good at making her feel conflicting emotions in such close succession that she didn't know whether she was a person with feelings or a ball of feelings with a person attached.

"But I am not my tutor," Ammon went on without stopping, "and I think that for a first attempt you did very well."

The bristling faded, leaving only the blushing. Téana dipped her head, wishing her headscarf could hide her face the way her hair usually would when she bent her neck forward.

"You have a very pretty name," said Ammon. "I have never heard it before."

"In my tribe it means 'Follower of the Great Spirits'."

"Then perhaps you were destined for them to bless you from the beginning."

"Perhaps."

"You do not sound convinced."

"Sometimes I think my 'gifts' aren't much of a blessing at all. Since I escaped I've been wondering whether the Great Spirits have just been punishing me over and over for something I did wrong. I can't think what it was, though. Before all of this I was a dutiful little thing who never broke any rules."

"Well I, for one, am grateful that you decided to change and start breaking them." Ammon coughed into his fist and stood up quickly – too quickly, it seemed, as he wobbled and had to brace his hand against the wall.

Téana stood as well, tucking the pot of dye in the crook of one arm and reaching out to grab his elbow with the other. "Are you all right?"

Ammon shook her off. He stopped in surprise, looked down at his arm and then up at her face. "Nobody … to touch me," he mumbled, some of his words inaudible.

"What?" Téana leaned forward. "I asked if you were all right."

"I'm fine," he snapped tersely.

She was stung. "Oh. Well." She stepped away from him. "I should be getting back." The playful mood had been broken.

"To the old man who has taken you in?"

"I … yes."

"The one your Vision showed you is trustworthy enough not to sell your secrets to the highest bidder?"

"Yes."

Ammon narrowed his eyes. "Are you certain of that?"

"My Visions have never been wrong before," she said defensively. She may not always understand or like them, but each thing her second sight told her was absolute truth. She had never had any reason to doubt that and she wasn't about to start now. Her situation, and that of her friends, was precarious enough without unnecessary doubts.

Ammon nodded once. "Good. I would not like to think that that sort of harm would come to you while I am not around to prevent it."

She stared at him. "Wh-what?"

Ammon seemed to realise the implications of what he had said. He coughed into his fist again. "You, uh, may not be educated, and you may have all the social graces of a camel in make-up, but you have a quick mind and it would be a waste for it to be banished back to the wilderness."

"Was that a compliment?"

He grunted. "Do you … do you think I am trustworthy, Téana?" It was the first time she had ever heard him sound hesitant.

Téana bit down on the question like it was a piece of tough meat, chewing it over before replying. "I do."

"Did a Vision tell you this?"

"No."

Ammon stared at her. He had a very penetrating stare. Téana felt like all her half-truths, omissions and secret, selfish thoughts were being sifted through. He would know everything about her if he just stared at her long enough. She shifted uncomfortably.

"I see," Ammon said in a tone she couldn't decipher. "For someone with so much at stake, you are very trusting, Téana."

You have no idea. "It's always good to have faith."

"Yes. You said as much the last time we spoke. Odd that someone with such a cynical view on the nature of humanity would still have such faith in it when it comes to placing herself, her safety and her dreams for the future in its hands."

"I never said –" Téana broke off. Sounds of a commotion came from the street beyond the line of houses. Someone was shouting, but she couldn't see what was going on.

Ammon, however, reacted immediately. "I believe it is time for us to part ways again."

"Is that your tutor looking for you?"

"No, but it will not be long before that is the case. He may be drawn by the disturbance, therefore I must bid you goodbye." He made a short bow at the waist, but followed it something unexpected. He stepped forward and took Téana's free hand in both of his own.

His hands were dry, the skin slightly roughened, but not as much as that of the goatherds or the warriors in her tribe. When Jono first began his training he was presented with a shaft of untreated wood to make into his own spear. Every day he had to grip and twist his hands around it smooth it down and also to create calluses on his palms to toughen his skin. Ammon's hand felt nothing like that, but his skin wasn't delicate either. She suspected he knew how to ride and the roughness came from holding reins; or maybe using writing equipment was more demanding than she had ever imagined.

"Téana, do you trust me enough to tell me where you are staying?"

"Wh-why would you want to know that?" Why was she stammering? She forced her throat to stop quivering. The touch of Ammon's hands was doing strange things to her insides.

"I … would like to see you again," he said, almost uncertainly.

"A third time?"

"Yes."

"You don't sound like you do."

"This is … not something I do very often. I will admit that I have doubts about what I am asking; but this is hardly a normal situation, is it? As soon as the danger of your pursuers has passed you will leave the city, will you not?"

Téana opened her mouth to reply but paused. That had been the plan, after all. After Usi, Hondo and Makalani were no longer an issue she, Maibe, Seren and Jono had planned to go back to the desert where they were more comfortable. They were wanderers, not city folk. Plus Egyptian customs were so strange – and dangerous if you got them wrong.

Yet standing beside the patch of dirt with her name written in it, Ammon holding her hand and looking at her so intently, the thought of leaving and never coming back seemed as awful as going back to the tribe and asking them to keep her chained by her ankle to her tent pole forever.

This is ridiculous, she thought angrily. You barely know him. You're acting like a fool. It's not like you've been promised to him, or him to you. You shouldn't even be alone with him! What are you thinking, acting so shamelessly? Besides, even if you didn't have Jono, Maibe and Seren depending on you to keep them safe, Ammon's an Egyptian; and a high-ranking one too. You're just a nobody in his world; a 'barbarian nomad' who doesn't even know how to write her own name –

"Téana?"

She bit her lip. She couldn't tell him where Hopki's house was. She couldn't. If he came to see her and saw Maibe, Jono and Seren – or if they saw him – the truth would come out and they would all know she had lied. It would be messy even if they realised why she had done it, especially when she talked so much about trust and having faith in people …

"Will you leave?" Ammon prompted.

"Maybe," she settled for. "If I thought it would be safer for me to keep travelling rather than stay in one place for too long."

"So if you felt safe here you would stay?"

"I … I don't know."

His shoulders sagged. The movement was so small it barely stirred his cloak, but ti was there. If she hadn't been so attuned to him at that moment she probably wouldn't even haven noticed. He straightened. "But if you do decide to leave, then in the meantime I must make the most of your company while I still have the opportunity to do so."

The shouting grew louder. Whoever was doing it was getting closer. Ammon's grip grew tighter still. Téana's fingers actually started to hurt under the pressure.

"I must go. I hope …" But whatever he was about to say was lostin a grunt of apparent frustration. He released her hand and retreated down a nearby alley.

Téana remained where she was, not sure if she was pleased or upset that he hadn't pressed her to tell him where she was living so he actually could see her again. Her eyes fell to the floor and she smiled.

Even though it meant he had been forced to jump further than was comfortable, Ammon hadn't stepped on her name.

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To Be Continued ...

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