Chrysocolla (7 page)

“And if it isn’t?” Just like Ty to get to the truth. What if marriage wasn’t enough? Logan never seemed like the kind that could be deterred. What if we couldn’t get him to give up on me? Would he ever?

“Then we have to make a new plan, one that would be a bit more permanent,” Kye replied. His eyes darkened a little at the thought.

I didn’t want to ask, but I got the idea. Kye was ready to end Logan’s plans no matter what. I didn’t want to be with Logan, and I really didn’t ever want to see him again, but how far would I actually go to make sure of it? I knew what sort of future Logan had to offer, and Kye painted an even worse picture than I could imagine. Why couldn’t Logan be a normal person and just take no for an answer? Why did he have to make my life difficult?

“I wish you could tell us more,” Ty added. “I get the whole thing about why the goddess doesn’t want Mari to know, but I wish we could plan better. I hate playing just defense with him. I wish we could go on the offense.”

Kye nodded alongside Ty.

“I want to also, but I know the best way to play with Logan is to wait and respond to his game. Logan needs to feel in control. If we begin to fight back, then he is unpredictable and with the power he has right now, we don’t want to test how crazy he can become.” Kye looked over at me. “I already think we might have upset him past his limits by running away. I, in no way, want to ever see him again. I plan to keep my fingers crossed that marriage is exactly what needs to happen.”

I looked at Kye. He seemed to again be holding back. What wasn’t he telling me? Logan was changing the future as we spoke, and Kye was left ignorant about everything, but somehow it felt like there was more to the story.

“I hope you’re right,” Ty said as he swiftly stood. Footsteps of someone entering the garden stopped our conversation.

“For all our sakes, I hope you’re right,” I added under my breath. I had a feeling Logan wasn’t going to be too forgiving if he found a way to take me away from all of it again. I had to cross my fingers and try to will Kye’s plan for marriage to be the solution. I didn’t want to think of the alternatives.

My mother looked
beautiful in her crisp, white, linen dress the next morning. The marriage was only for show and quickly put together, but that didn’t matter to me. Any child who had grown up with one parent dreamed of what was happening right now for me: my parents were getting married. I knew nothing of the customs or even what it meant, but that didn’t matter. What it meant for us was that we were finally going to be a family.

As I stood and watched the women finish getting my mother ready, I was in awe. They had painted on makeup, and her hair was beautifully combed and styled, allowing her face to show but also all of her long, dark red hair hung free. When the last hair was in place, the servants turned to me.

“She can get ready after I leave.” My mother shooed the girls away. “I’ll comb her hair for you now.”

The five girls that had just spent over an hour making my mother look like an Egyptian painting quietly bowed and backed out of the room. I approached my mother and motioned for her to twirl. She giggled and spun, making the light fabric billow out.

“You look amazing,” I finally told her. I had been thinking that the whole time they were getting ready, but I didn’t want to interrupt anything.

My mother grinned like a little girl. She was giddy with excitement. “At least I got to keep my hair.”

“What?” I asked. I had no clue what she was talking about. Did they plan to dye it or something?

“They didn’t shave it off. I know they wanted to, but your father explained that I needed to have it for the ceremony,” my mom replied, motioning for me to sit in the seat she was standing by.

“They were going to shave your head?” Now that was something I would have paid to see. My mother had always had a head full of the most beautiful deep auburn hair I’d ever seen. There was no way she would have let someone cut it short let alone shave it.

“Head lice,” my mother explained. “Most people shave their hair and wear wigs to prevent head lice. I figured if we have any problems, you can just pop back into the future and get some shampoo for us. I might have grown up in this time, but I’ve lived too long with the conveniences of the future. And I don’t want anyone to shave my head.”

I laughed. That was my mother. She wasn’t caught up in her looks, in general, but her hair was a completely different story.

“Sit.” She motioned for me to take the seat she was just in. I obliged and sat before her and untied the band that was keeping my bright red curls in line. Taking out a large comb, she began to try to detangle the curly knots that were my hair.

“So what do you do today?” I asked. When they said they were planning a wedding, I assumed it would take a few days, maybe even weeks. My father was Pharaoh, after all. But no, it would be less than twenty-four hours, and my mother was getting married.

“There’s a ceremony for your father and me, and after that, a party,” my mom replied, just as cryptic as everyone else.

“What sort of ceremony?” I asked. I was really curious.

My mother shrugged. “Stuff to the gods and what not. I’m not completely sure, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it will be legal and that your father is excited to introduce you to everyone.”

I turned to peer up at her better as my heart caught in my chest.

“Wait, introduce me? This is your wedding, shouldn’t he be introducing you?”

My mother smiled. “Oh yes, me too, but right now making sure everyone knows you’re part of the royal family is just as important.”

I had enough to deal with; this was just icing on the cake. I didn’t want to be a royal family member. I just wanted to stay with Seth and not worry about all the responsibility that went with titles. I want to forget about the powers that the goddess gave me, too. I wanted to be a normal girl and just live a plain normal life.

My mother continued to part through my hair. She had to know that would be my response, but she didn’t stop me.

“An heir is everything to a pharaoh, and because your father has one, it is cause to celebrate, whether you want to be a princess or not.” My mother gently tugged on a knot. She was so good I didn’t even feel her getting through it.

“Why does it matter that much?”

I hadn’t asked the day before, but my father had been married already. Didn’t I have siblings? Wouldn’t all this attention make them mad? I felt like a phony. I grew up in another place and time and was just walking back into a life I should have had, but one that was as foreign as my life was to my father.

My mother laughed as she continued to expertly pull apart some tangled curls without hurting my head at all.

“You really don’t listen to anything, do you?” She paused before starting to comb through more of my hair. “Yesterday. Your father explained why we had to get married. He needs to claim you as his daughter before he marries you to Seti. He needs everyone to see that you are legitimately his daughter and not just some girl his general’s son plans to marry.”

I shrugged. I got that much. I still didn’t see the importance of it.

My mother stopped combing and came in front of me. “Mari, you are his only heir. Egypt will be yours when he passes onto the afterlife,” my mother explained. She waited to see that I understood before she moved back to finish the job of my hair.

Egypt would be mine. I hadn’t heard that detail before. This couldn’t be happening to me. I wasn’t really even an Egyptian. I was an American. I knew nothing of this place. I would stink at being a ruler.

“Wait.” I turned to her and regretted it as my hair pulled that was still in her hands. “How can I be his only heir? He was married before.”

“She died during childbirth,” my mother replied quietly.

It was strange to hear. I had grown up in modern times and didn’t know of a single family where the mother was gone because she died during childbirth. It was a reminder that I wasn’t in the modern future anymore. I was in the past. And it was a life I was going to have to get used to.

“So I have no siblings?” I asked. I kind of was hoping for several younger half brothers and sisters. I always wanted a sibling.

“No siblings,” my mother replied, parting my hair to start on another section.

She had wanted more children, but she never could love another person after my father. What they had just couldn’t compare to anything else.

“So what does introducing me to everyone entail?” I asked.

I remembered not too fondly my stay with my mother’s cousin in Nahrin where he was trying to use my hand in marriage to barter off the best alliance he could get. Maybe my dislike of being called a princess came from that and not wanting to repeat that experience.

“He has some sort of speech planned where he tells everyone we are now married, and you are our daughter. Simple really.” My mother was almost finished with my hair.

“And how many people will be here for all of this?”

“Not really sure.” My mother dropped the last chunk of hair she was working on.

I had to hope with the short notice it would be a nice small dinner party and no one from my mother’s family would be invited. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be happy to see me not with Logan, and even less happy to see that my mother went and married the pharaoh after they told Seth no. Good thing no one could just time travel right into the party. I had to at least be thankful for that.

My mother backed up, and I stood and turned to her. She really looked like a princess now. She was always beautiful, but now she really shined. Her eyes sparkled, and her hair had an incredible sheen to it. Her smile told me everything. She was more than just happy. She was completely where she always wanted to be. She was finally with the love of her life. I knew how that felt. I never wanted to be separated from Seth again. I couldn’t imagine how my mother made it through eighteen years without my father, but she was back with him now. That was how I wanted my life to turn out. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the one I loved.

My mother pulled me into a hug.

“Thank you for being brave and for coming back here. I know how much easier it would have been to stay in the future. As odd and weird as it seems, this is where we were always meant to be. This is our home.”

The servant girls entered the room again and our moment alone was over. It was time for my mother to go get married, and me to get ready for a party I really didn’t want to attend.

My mother briefly kissed my head before she left for the ceremony. I was disappointed to see her leave. There wouldn’t be too many more alone moments for us like this. Everything was changing, and that was good and bad. I was kind of sad to see her walk away. I really wanted to see my parents marry. Kye reassured me that the real wedding function was the party that night. My mother stopped at the doorway and turned back to me one last time.

“Welcome home, Marcella.”

I nodded to her. It was true, this was our home. We were home.

Chapter 3

Wedding Time

I stood in
my doorway and waited. The guards outside the room didn’t move as I stood there, nor did they look at me. It would have been nice to talk to someone. Kye had said he was coming right back, but I had beat him when getting ready. Ty stood behind me in the room, also keeping watch over me. I hated that I couldn’t speak freely to him when others were around. I had no idea how Seth got through doing that.

Kye returned from down the hallway. I followed him back into the rooms, away from the guards. Glad he was allowed to leave the room to get answers. The guards had made it very clear I wasn’t to leave the quarters I was confined to.

“The general and Seti will be stopping to pick you up,” Kye told me.

My heart did a little flip. Seth was coming back to get me. Since yesterday, I was nothing but disappointed at our short meeting. I had hoped he would come back after he left with his father, but he did not. Ty tried to reassure me that Seth wanted to be with me, but I still felt like he might be mad at me. I didn’t want to break up with him the last time I returned from the past. In fact, since the day he first told me that he loved me, I had been prepared to spend my life with him. Logan interfered, and all I could do now was hope that Logan didn’t win by making Seth hate me.

“And the room? How many people have arrived?” Ty asked.

Ty was calculating how to keep me safe. My father had told me that many people had been invited, but not many would show up. I really didn’t know what many meant to him. It could be twenty or two hundred for all I knew.

“The main hall is about half full. The general said that he is guessing that there are at least a dozen or more families left to arrive,” Kye replied.

Still not a straight answer. I didn’t even know how large of a room it was to even begin to guess how many people fit in it. He was watching me for a reaction. Yes, I wanted to hide under the covers on my bed, but no, I wouldn’t do that. I had a role to play. I understood that. Part of marrying Seth was to be my father’s daughter. It made somewhat logical sense, but that still didn’t mean my stomach wasn’t making me want to puke at the thought of a room full of people that would analyze every little detail about me.

“Are you ready for this?” Kye was concerned. I didn’t blame him. If he knew me as well as he said, he should be worried.

“Ready?” I replied.

Yes, I was nervous. I hated all this
parade me around for everyone
stuff, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t already done the same thing several times now in the past. That part was a bit annoying but as time clicked on, I was more nervous about Seth for the moment. The more I thought about it, the more I worried. I had broken up with him. I had broken his heart. He said that he didn’t believe me for a moment, and Ty had told me several times how much Seth loved me, but I still worried. Until I got time alone with him, I couldn’t be certain that Seth had forgiven me.