Saqnos gazed past them; at what exactly, she did not know. They could hear the gentle lapping of the sea beyond the cavern's rock walls. The sunlight penetrating the cavern had begun to dim.
Dusk would soon fall upon this island, and with it, their father might choose to begin another sleep.
"We travel to London," Saqnos finally said. "We travel to London so that we can learn all we can from this Mr. Ramsey."
Part 2
10
SS Orsova
The ship was infinitely more powerful than the one that had carried her to Rome thousands of years before.
Outside of a sandstorm, she'd never felt winds this strong.
Before she was willing to venture out onto the decks, she'd forced Teddy to assure her that she would not be swept away.
"This is how fast things move now, and their movement creates this great, sustained wind," he had explained. "If there had been no roof on the train to Alexandria, we would have felt much the same thing, my beautiful queen."
That had been on the first day of their voyage, and now, a few days later, she'd found the courage to release the rail and drink in the pleasurable sensation of the wind lifting her hair from the back of her neck.
Absurd, these thoughts. Absurd to believe the strength provided her by the elixir would not be enough to keep her feet rooted in place.
And look at the other passengers! They weren't being whisked off into the sea air like grains of sand. But this is why she needed the handsome young doctor with her: to illuminate the sudden and unexpected mysteries of this modern world with its flying machines and roaring trains.
If only Teddy could also reveal to her the my
steries of the elixir.
But for that she needed Ramses. Again this fact aroused great bitterness in her, threatened to make this modern journey across the seas towards London into a kind of death march of the spirit.
How was it that her thirst for revenge had faded so quickly?
Weeks before, she would have delighted at the prospect of torturing answers out of her old lover, her old counselor, her immortal king. Now she dreaded it. And there was no putting his life in peril, of this she was sure. Of course, there were the lives of those he now loved, those with whom he had toured Egypt. And so if he refused to offer some explanation for the strange visions that had begun to plague her, she could threaten one of them with ease.
And this marriage to Julie Stratford--did it mean he'd given her the elixir as well? She doubted it. A pale-skinned little weakling, Julie had been. Far too cowardly to embrace the challenge of eternal life.
But she doubted Ramses would have offered Julie the elixir in the first place. He craved only the illusion of attachments to mortals. At the end of the day, he wished to be free so he might move on to the next long slumber, the next new age. Why else would he have denied her request for the elixir all those years ago and brought about Egypt's utter ruin in the process?
He didn't deny your request for the elixir. Maddening to have the voice of her rational mind sound so much like his voice, Ramses' voice. He denied Marc Antony's request for an immortal army. To you, he offered it, and you refused because you believed you would reign as queen until your body gave out.
Such confusion still.
She pulled the cable Teddy had brought her from the pocket of her dress, and tensed her fingers to keep it from flying off into the wind.
FATHER ARE YOU WELL STOP ENGAGEMENT PARTY FOR JULIE AND RAMSEY EIGHTEEN APRIL OUR ESTATE YORKSHIRE STOP MOTHER THRILLED PLEASE COME OR WRITE YOUR SON ALEX
"We'll make it in time," he said now. "Don't worry."
He'd approached silently.
"With you, I have no fear, Doctor," she answered.
"Nor should you." He kissed her earlobe gently, lips nuzzling against the nape of her neck. "Bella Regina Cleopatra."
But his words only served to bring to mind the last man who had called her by this beautiful name.
Alex Savarell, youthful and handsome and eager. Even amidst the mad disorientation of her resurrection, his gentlemanly attempts to control himself in her presence had seemed like a kind of worship. In turn, his desire for her had made him seem as new to this modern world as she was. How she longed to see that eagerness again, to feel it, to taste it. To feel and taste him.