Chapter 28

28

D joser | Cairo, Egypt | Early 2000s

Rummaging through his mostly empty kitchen pantry, Djoser picked up a can of green beans, huffing.

"It will have to do," he said to his relatively empty apartment as he walked a few steps, putting him officially in the living room. He had a rusty nail held in between his teeth, grabbed it with his left hand, and placed it on the wall above his modest wooden desk.

Djoser whacked the nail four times with the bottom of the can of green beans, grunted in approval, and tossed it aside. He grabbed the frame off the desk and hung it up. The walls in his small Cairo apartment had been completely bare until now.

Djoser took a step back to admire his handiwork, his master's degree in archaeology now displayed proudly.

"This is stupid," he mumbled bitterly and grabbed the framed degree with embarrassment, taking it to the kitchen and throwing it into his small trash can under the sink .

The worthless things humans hold onto . . .

He was pent up, with his schooling program over and no one to boss around politically in secret. He was beginning to worry that he might be irrelevant.

How fitting, death becoming irrelevant.

If the worst thing in his life was that he needed to go out to a pub to have a drink because he had nothing else to do, then he felt he could not be complaining. He had been through so much, but today may be the start of his retirement chapter. Maybe he'd like it.

Djoser grabbed his keys and marched right out of his apartment door, not bothering to lock it as there was nothing in there for anyone to steal, and marched downstairs before exiting the dusty exterior door.

It was another sunny day. The harsh rays were beating down on his long-sleeved shirt and pants. He pulled out his sunglasses, cheap from a local vendor, and moved down the street on foot. He passed more slummy apartment buildings in old towns, children playing football in the streets while mothers yelled for them from windows.

Shortly after he began his journey, Djoser turned into a small pub, dark and smelling of dirt but filled with high-spirited men on their fourth or fifth rounds despite it only being lunchtime. A match was playing on the television above the bar, and the goalie missed the block, making everyone lose their shit with either triumph or despair.

Djoser stood at the bar and lifted a finger to the man attending it, who nodded at him. Moments later, a frosty pint of yellow beer sat before him.

"Keep it open." Djoser nodded to the bartender with appreciation and handed him a credit card from his back pocket.

"And I'll take whatever he's having," said someone suddenly standing right beside him, utterly too close. Djoser shot the stranger a warning before realizing who it was, his shoulders relaxing as he grabbed his pint and took a large gulp from the glass.

"Arryn, you know, believe it or not, you are a sight for sore eyes, old pal," Djoser said, a true smile on his face. Djoser was facing his panicking moment of boredom, but if Arryn was showing up unannounced, that meant something needed to be fixed; someone likely had to die. Purpose; Arryn showing up likely meant purpose.

"I don't believe I've ever seen you happy to see me," Arryn said, solemn and stern. The bartender sat down a second pint, and Djoser watched Arryn grab it, drinking half of the glass in two swallows. "That's not bad," he added.

"What brings you here?" Djoser asked. "I have not sensed any other Vrae here in the city."

"This could be related to Vrae, but it's uncertain. Either way, I don't know if I'll get through it alone."

"You know," Djoser said. "You should consider getting a mobile phone."

"So I've heard."

The two sat there for a few moments in silence, drinking their beers. Djoser looked at the bartender and signaled for two more while finishing the one in his hands.

"Allienna's child has been located," Arryn said. "My child, too, I suppose. Yet all I can think of is what happened to her mother. How do I find her? I saw the twins in France?—"

"You flew to France? On your own? You are a notoriously old grumpy fool who hates to travel," Djoser chuckled, the second half of his second beer relaxing him.

"Precession indicated that the child might be in danger. Reign also indicated the same thing," Arryn continued.

"Why don't you take Reign and collect the child? I don't understand the problem," Djoser said.

"The problem is that whenever I look at Reign, I see Allienna's best friend. I see someone who had to know what happened to her, who likely promised to look after her and keep her secrets. I can't stand to look at Reign right now. No, I know she's been hiding something from me."

"You are serious right now, aren't you?" Djoser smirked, shaking his head down at the floor. "Right then, so I'm your second choice. We can't stand to be near each other for more than forty-five seconds, but you spent all that time in the air to get little old me?"

Arryn slammed his now empty second glass on the table, frustration visibly growing.

"When was the last time you unleashed yourself? I thought this journey could give you a guilt-free opportunity to do that again. That's all this is," Arryn mumbled.

"Ending life, no matter how deserving, will always take its toll on me. You know that. Also, you are an utter lightweight." Djoser slid off of his barstool, his feet hitting the ground hard.

He knew the depression, the desperation in Arryn's eyes well. He remembered those fits he would have when they were children before Allienna put her skin on his, relieving him of the depths his magic would pull him to.

Arryn was a man of immeasurable pain, and he was insufferable for it.

"When was the last time you created?" Djoser asked him, eyebrows raised. Arryn would get dangerous, locking away that magic without an outlet.

"I have a handle on it. If you won't help me, it's time I make my way there alone," Arryn said.

Djoser let out a dramatic sigh, hiding his every intention of supporting Arryn on this.

Fucking purpose.

"Where is she?" Djoser asked, signaling for the check.

The flight had been gruelingly long, and Djoser had wished he had started much drunker than he was to help pass the time. He had never flown so far west before without stopping, exploring, and getting into trouble.

If there was a thing that they had never figured out, it was talking in the air. The wind and the pressure made hearing anything downright impossible, so they flew silently. Djoser stole glimpses of Arryn, his face determined, yet entirely horrified.

Arryn was facing his demons, and despite Djoser's general distaste for him, he could respect that enough. Even if boredom didn't have a role to play, Djoser would have chosen to come.

They finally touched down, the sun rising over the horizon. They were in the middle of a paved street, large grandiose houses lining up on each side of them. The two Kinnari had their wings out, and Djoser realized that he likely had human eyes on him at that very moment.

Instinctually, he pulled his wings in before staring at Arryn, looking for a signal of what to do from here.

"I'm not exactly sure which house she is in," Arryn muttered, walking forward down the road. "We could know it when we see it."

Great. No fucking plan.

After passing a few blocks, each home larger and more opulent than the next, Arryn stopped and nodded to the home on the left side of the street.

"Look, there, on the grass," Arryn whispered.

Djoser looked up, and the movement took a moment to register. A young girl, maybe six or seven, swayed back and forth as she sat cross-legged on the grass. There were no adults around, no concerned parents. It was too early in the day for her to play outside on her own, something that was off about the whole thing.

"Excuse me, sweetheart," Djoser found himself calling to her, feeling insecure about the interaction. "Are you okay? Do you need us to call someone for you?"

"I don't have a phone," Arryn muttered under his breath to Djoser.

Gods, he's an idiot.

The child looked at them and got to her feet. She seemed eerily familiar, with big ears and a small frame, soft, creamy fair skin, with contrasting black hair. She was tapping her foot impatiently, like an angry housewife in the movies .

"It took you long enough to find us," her frilly voice sounded like a song. "I flew to you nearly a month ago."

"Reign?" Arryn stepped closer towards her, his eyes wide. Djoser shook his head, doing a double take, and realized that the child that stood in front of him was indeed the child that they had grown up with.

"Care to explain why you are four feet tall? I mean, not that you're much taller as a full-grown adult, but still, it's noticeable," Djoser couldn't help himself. This was going to be fun.

"I come to you, you miserable oaf, to tell you that you have a daughter who is in danger, and it takes you weeks to get here. Are you serious?" She turned to scold Arryn.

"I feel like I'm being ignored and have way too many questions," Djoser interrupted.

Reign looked at Djoser up and down and stomped her foot like the child she was.

"Fine, but can you at least hide behind that bush? It's ridiculous how visible and casual you both are." She moved towards the area of the lawn that was outlined by shrubbery and young trees.

Reign crouched down, though she was hidden perfectly well standing upright. Djoser couldn't help the smile on his face, seeing how perfectly flawed all of the strong Kinnari around him genuinely were.

They might have been starting to grow on him, though he'd never admit it. They were all assholes, of course.

"The night Vrae attacked Tristan, we saw him die, right?" Reign started to answer Djoser's question in a hushed, yet hurried, voice. "Undoubtedly, he was not returning from an attack like that."

Djoser cocked his head, his mouth open, stunned.

"And yet," Djoser began, "we saw him again as a child. He said that he hadn't died."

"Right, you got it, bingo," Reign said, flailing her arms as if the connection was obvious.

"So, you died then?" Arryn asked .

Reign stood up and looked towards the mansion they sat in front of, her gaze hard and unnerving.

"Inside that distastefully large home," she began, clutching her fists. "Are seven or eight Vrae, plus their leader."

Djoser stiffened at this. It was a struggle to kill one Vrae, even with all his might.

"And I'm guessing we are here because Arryn's daughter is here," he said, dropping his head down and rubbing the back of his neck with his hands.

"Right, I got tired of waiting for this big blond oaf to show up, so I tried to rescue her. It didn't work. The girl is probably traumatized, and I got eaten."

"Eaten?" Djoser raised an eyebrow. "How did that feel?"

"Like taking a bubble bath," Reign snapped, "except worse. What kind of question is that, you fucking idiot?"

Djoser did his best to hold his laughter back. The Kinnari who stood in front of them was quite intimidating. If anything, he preferred to avoid her. However, she was undeniably adorable, standing there with her arms dramatically clenching by her sides in anger.

"Do we have a plan?" Arryn asked with dramatic flair, his chest puffing out slightly.

"Why are you standing like a peacock right now?" Djoser asked him.

"We have to get to my daughter," Arryn said, ignoring Djoser.

Heroes are so dull.

Arryn pushed his tall body through the shrubs that hid him and began marching straight up the driveway.

"So much for being sneaky," Reign hissed at Arryn's back before scurrying behind him like a timid squirrel.

Djoser stood there for a moment, watching the two move towards a place that he was certain he wanted nothing to do with. It would feel good to unleash himself in a fight, that was true, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

This environment felt too calm, too normal. It creeped him out .

He followed the two up the driveway and straight up to the front door, where Arryn and Reign looked at him expectantly.

"If this goes badly," Arryn started.

"Which it will," Reign said, sing-songy.

"Unleash yourself. Truly. You cannot hold back." Arryn didn't break eye contact with Djoser as he said it, though he knew he was ordering a death sentence for them all. Arryn was asking Djoser to explode like a nuclear bomb, and he would eliminate any structure, item, or person in this neighborhood if he did so.

"I have no interest in being eaten alive today," Arryn added.

Djoser nodded his head once, showing he understood. It went against everything he was, everything he had worked his entire life to be, to become this symbol of destruction.

"Should we not be sneaking in through a window?" he asked the two others as Arryn lifted his hand to knock.

"We knock. We fight. We leave. And then I will have my answers," Arryn said, his fist coming in contact with the door.

"Your answers?" Djoser asked.

"Of course, I'm here to discover what happened to Allienna."

Reign shook her head, a scowl overcoming her small face in reaction to Arryn's words. The lock in the door was audibly unlatched, and the door cracked before being pulled open.

"I knew it was you," Reign said, staring at the sliver of a face peering behind the door. Amis took a moment, seizing them up before opening the door and stepping out of the way, inviting them in.

"He wouldn't have let you take the girl. I had to get out of the way," Amis explained as Reign, Arryn, and Djoser cautiously walked inside the foyer, standing near the table underneath the pentagram.

"That's normal," Djoser said, pointing up at it.

"It doesn't mean anything. The boss bought the place and didn't bother to get rid of its quirks," Amis said, shrugging his shoulders.

"You are working for Vrae, now then, Amis?" Reign asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Care to share your side of the story before Djoser kills everyone in a twenty-square-mile radius? "

"First, I'd like to ask you to please not do that," Amis asked Djoser nervously. "Second, we've been preparing for a greater battle. One that we all got way too close to accidentally starting twenty years ago."

"That day with the Life Gifter? The day I was there to beg for the lives of Allienna and me? That didn't seem to work too well. We both ended up dead at some point," Reign said.

"Yes, that day," Amis said. "I had only agreed to come along because of what I've been working on with Sheng since right after Tristan's attack.

"I don't care about any of this. I'm here for the girl," Arryn interrupted.

"You mean your daughter," Reign muttered to him. Arryn grunted in response.

Djoser snapped his head towards the eastern hallway, where he noticed something lurking in the shadows. He let the magic pool up at his fingers, small wisps of smoke emulating while he became on edge.

"Your daughter is meant to bring us together, to create the ultimate tool for all of our survival against a common enemy," the figure hidden in the shadows said, stepping out into the foyer. He appeared human enough, but there was something in his eyes, a confidence of sorts, that suggested otherwise.

Djoser had never seen a Vrae that didn't look like a demon. Hiding in plain sight among humans was such a disturbing concept that he immediately had to move past it.

"She and I have gotten married and will conceive children, creating a new species, starting an army to defend us against the most volatile thing on the planet: Ayurveda. I'm Sheng, the first of Ayurveda's children." He turned, speaking next to the hallway. "Jenny, Saul, you may all enter."

Djoser instinctually took a step back, and as he did so, a flood of royal blue cloaks buzzed out of the same hallway. Hooded figures, eyes blazing with the devil's fire, stood behind this Sheng figure .

He looked into their faces. None seemed like a likely candidate for a daughter of Arryn's. Was she even here, or was this a setup?

"She will blow up, jealous of the lives we have all successfully built here, while she is forced to sit in the Life Gifter's shadow. When this happens, the Earth will plunge into darkness, and so will all of us. It would be too big of a catastrophe to stop, even for Kinnari." Sheng smiled.

"Arryn can create a new sun," Reign huffed and puffed.

"None of us would know it had happened until it's too late. When we stare at the sun, we see it as it was eight minutes ago." Sheng began pacing in front of them. "By the time the event reaches our eyes, the Earth will have already been lost."

"What will teaming up accomplish?" Djoser asked. "It's not like we can start a war to kill Ayurveda either, if that's even possible. It would have the same outcome."

"Our job is not to wage war," Sheng said. "Our job is to distract. To keep my mommy happy. What is the greatest gift an adult child can give their parents? Would you even know?"

Djoser shook his head.

"Grandchildren, of course," Sheng laughed, throwing his hands back.

"If we are on the same team, then who will the Vrae hunt for sustenance?" Arryn took a few steps forward, now nose-to-nose with Sheng.

"Your lovely Kinnari Amis has been farming half-breeds for us since that first attack. See, we are quite civilized." Sheng winked.

All eyes turned to Amis, who appeared to shrink before them, eyes glued to the floor.

Djoser's memory flashed back to the breeding, the culling of the village. His heart dropped from the horrific realization of what it was all for.

"How could you," he whispered to Amis.

The hooded group of Vrae behind Sheng was getting restless with every passing moment of silence, cheeks that were human skin began to reflect a dark sheen, revealing the demons inside .

"I think we should just kill them all," Reign said, tapping her foot. "They kidnapped your daughter and killed me. I honestly just don't give a fuck about their story."

"Ah, yes, little one," Sheng cooed. "You just showed up too early. We needed your leader to be here, to agree to support our cause."

"I think we should at least kill Amis," Djoser said, his eyes sharp, flickering to the Kinnari traitor.

"No, no, no one is killing anyone today. This is a peaceful gathering. A true meeting of the minds," Sheng said. "To prove it, take the girl. Leave here with my wife, your daughter. Bring her forward."

Sheng snapped his fingers, the Vrae behind him parting as the sound of a girl's frantic grunts filled the foyer. A blonde, small body was carried to the front, her hands and feet bound by rope.

"Just a precaution—she tried to run the other day," Sheng explained. "Once you've had your family reunion, please bring her back. We have an Earth to save, a sun to defuse, a mother's resentment to dismantle."

Djoser looked at Arryn's daughter, barely old enough to be a woman. He noticed her wings along with the bite marks on her neck. She did not want to be here.

"Hailey, this is your father. He has come to get you out of here. We all are here, actually, to bring you home," Reign said, stepping forward.

Djoser watched the girl's face as she took in Reign, her eyes widening as if not understanding what was in front of her.

"Oh, right, it's me, Reign. Your fairy godmother. I'm not dead. Our body type regenerates back to our youth. A new discovery, apparently. We don't die all that often . . ."

"My name isn't Hailey," she said quietly.

"True, that's true," Sheng said supportively, his hand on the girl's shoulder. She jerked away, staring up at Arryn, who only looked at her like a mild inconvenience.

Was he fucking kidding?

"Let's go," Arryn said to her, his voice kind but his eyes dismissive. Reign walked up to her, holding her hand out for support .

"I'm not going anywhere with any of you," she said flatly. "I'm going to my home, back to the only family that has always been there for me."

Why does everyone have to be so dramatic?

"I promise you'll warm up to him. Let us get you to safety," Reign's childish voice cut through a thick blanket of intensity that hung in the air.

Hailey, or whatever the fuck her name was, shook her head no at Reign and took a step back towards Sheng. The Vrae smiled at her, absolutely delighted, and Djoser wanted to rip him to shreds for it.

"It might be a situation of sending a puppy off to a new owner," Sheng mused, "though I have to say, this puppy might be one of the most impressive I've seen . . . ever in my life."

The girl shot him a look at that, her face hard to decipher, but Djoser thought he sensed gratitude.

She was fucking grateful. Unbelievable.

"What is our next step, diffusing the sun and all?" Djoser asked. "I can't imagine you would sit here and wait a full year to have a child that Ayurveda would likely just want to kill. How do we even trust that anything that you are saying is fact? How do you know of the goddess' contempt?"

"Oh, that's an easy one," Sheng chuckled. "Twenty or so years ago, a Kinnari went into Mrilyosis, begging to make a deal with the Sun. Ayurveda must have agreed, must have given her the ability to get pregnant, and ended in some kind of exchange for her immortality. A Kinnari truly dead, for the first time . . . who could have believed it?" Sheng paced back and forth, rhythmically beating his hands together.

"What motivation would the Goddess have for such an exchange?" he continued, "To alter another god's creation in such a dramatic way? She's declaring war against us, the gods, the Life Gifter, the universe."

Djoser's eyes fell on the girl, who shifted uncomfortably and blinked back tears .

Reign also noticed and walked right up to her, flinging her arms around the girl's middle.

"Is this true?" Arryn asked, his eyes on his daughter.

"Allienna, your mother, won't ever come back?"

The girl gently pushed Reign off of her and looked up at Arryn, meeting his eyes. She contemplated her next move, her answer to him before giving it, but not before her eyes turned angry and dark.

Djoser noticed her eyes flicker around the room, as if she was following someone he couldn't see. It was just a small moment, almost unnoticeable, but her chin bobbed down before meeting Arryn's eyes again.

"My name is Hadley," she spoke so quietly, scornfully.

Suddenly, Djoser felt like he'd been hit by a tank, slipping out of consciousness as he toppled down to the floor..