I Shall Rewrite the Stars

Chapter 6

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“The sea is calm tonight,” Juba says, several hours later. “It should be safe to rest a while. We’ll need our strength for the remainder of the journey.”

Resting my cheek against his bare knee, I look back at my siblings. Leaned against the prow, Helios holds Ptolemy with his chin upon her head and his tunic still clenched between her fingers. Though they’ve slept for nearly two hours, their cheeks still glisten from tear stains.

“You should sleep,” Juba adds. “I can keep watch for a while longer.”

“How could I?” I ask, my voice a dry croak. “After what I’ve done—or rather, what I’ve failed to do, how can I simply lie down and sleep?”

“I thought we laid your self-pity to rest back in the garden.”

I tilt my head to meet his eyes. “I knew everything that was going to happen, and still failed to prevent it.”

“You and your siblings are neither chained nor being loaded onto a Romasian ship. Your elder brother is, as far as we know, not dead yet. Aren’t those differences good enough?”

“My people aren’t so fortunate, and my parents…”

I can’t bring myself to say it.

“Small victories are a lot given all you stood to lose. You need to be grateful and set your sights ahead.”

“I am, and I have. But that doesn’t negate how—” I stop short the moment my voice quivers. No matter how badly it hurts, no matter the sadness knotting my chest, I will not cry. I shed too many tears in my first life, and have already shed too many in this one.

Besides, crying does nothing but waste time.

“From my perspective, whatever it’s worth, you did all that you could,” Juba tries, whilst I lower my cheek back to his knee.

“I didn’t,” I argue, and suck in a trembling breath. “I hesitated, made excuses. I kept telling myself that if Mother didn’t listen, surely Father wouldn’t either. And until it was too late to matter, I was right. They didn’t trust that I could withstand the superstitions of our people, and now they’re…they’re gone.”

“In fairness, I’ve met precious few parents who trust their children, and fewer still who trust any strangers who might judge said children.”

“I understand, but…” I clench my eyes tight against the tears welling in their corners, and pull my knees to my chest. “When I needed to fight, to prove that I wasn’t the child they believe me to be, I crumbled. I ran and hid and cried just like I did in my first life.”

“I—”

“But I am not a child! My body is young, but my mind is six years older—six years matured from hardship and suffering. I should have done more. I should have screamed until someone listened. I should have gone straight to the alarm horns and blasted them myself, from the very moment I arrived in Alexandria!”

“That’s all true,” Juba says, his tone calm and without a hint of cruelty. “And I’m not saying you should pretend you’re okay, but regretting things you cannot change is pointless.”

“The very reason I went back in time was to change the past, yet I’ve failed.” I pause, wiping my eyes against my skirt. “Now, all I can think is: what if I can’t save Cearion? What if I can’t convince allies to help us? If my own parents wouldn’t trust and listen to me, why will anyone else?”

“All valid concerns.” Juba is quiet a long moment, then says, “The maharaja will be the easiest ally to convince, given your peoples’ history. How do you plan to win him over?”

“I don’t know. If all my parents saw in me was a silly, sheltered girl, then I don’t imagine the maharaja will think any better of me. None of our allies or potential allies will.”

“You’ve got your brother and sister to help.”

“I’ve already watched them die, once,” I say, hardening my heart. “I won’t allow them to die twice.”

“And what happens when you alone are not enough to sway the great rulers of the world?”

My lips tilt up just a bit. “You’ll step in.”

“Once we’ve reached land, I’ve no reason to stay with you,” Juba notes. “It’d be safer for me to run—to vanish amidst the dunes and wait out Gustavian’s interest in recovering my body.”

“Even so, you know he’ll never stop searching for you, thus your safest bet is to stick with us regardless of the risks.”

The last word has barely left my lips when Juba tugs my head back by a handful of hair. Our eyes meet, and his glare pins me to the boat floor.

“I don’t care about you,” Juba sneers. “I don’t care if a handful of royal brats live or die. I don’t care if Kemet ever rises again. No matter how much you claim to know me, I don’t know you, and right now it’s safest for me if that fact never changes.”

I can’t stop the tears from slipping down my cheeks at that, and Juba curses under his breath the moment the first one falls.

“I know,” I breathe. “I know it’d be best for you if we never spoke again. I really do! But…but…”

My vision blurs, my lips quivering too hard to hide. If Mother and Father died in this second life, then anyone else can die too. Including Juba. And that thought alone decimates my poor heart. It’s the saddest realization of all the many I’ve had so far.

What if loving him, means letting him go? What if we meet again and again, and every time I have to choose to let him walk away from me?

I’ve nearly succumbed to weeping when Juba brushes the tears from my cheeks. Jaw tight, he stares at me a long while, then heaves a deep sigh. “I have the survival experience you lack, and you’ve royal blood and the privileges that go along with it. All else aside, we do make an arguably good match.”

“But this could be your one true chance at freedom,” I say.

He shrugs. “It could also be my one true chance at putting an end to Gustavian’s tyranny. Cowering for the rest of my life would be simpler, safer, but taking your hand might just be the smarter decision. At least until I find a better means of freeing myself from Roma.”

“You’re only saying all that because you hate to see me cry.”

He wipes another stray tear away, his cheeks tinging pink. “I don’t care if you cry. I’ve seen too many people cry to let it bother me now.”

“In our first lives, you finally declared us friends when you admitted that my tears bother you,” I say. “You told me the sight ate at something inside of you, that you’d thought had long ceased to exist.”

His blush deepens to a lovely red. “I don’t…I mean, it’s not like I—”

A hand falls onto Juba’s shoulder, wrenching him back and away from me before he can finish speaking. Where he’d sat Helios now kneels, glaring between us with bloodshot eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.

“Helios,” I snap, turning onto my knees to help Juba up, only to hit Helios’ hip when he blocks me.

“Chatting,” Juba groans, halfway upright when Helios kicks him back down.

“You don’t need to touch her to chat,” Helios growls, and sets his hand on the hilt of Father’s sword, which he’s buckled around his waist.

“He was comforting me,” I say, batting Helios’ hand to the side. “You can’t be so quick to assault people, Heli. A Sa-Nesut of Kemet isn’t brash.”

“If our parents had been brash, maybe they’d still be alive.”

I reel back, horror-struck. How could he say something so…

But then I really take in my poor twin. His hands tremble just as mine have, and his brilliant eyes have lost their youthful glow. In our first life, Helios had done little but glower and spit curses until his sham trial.

Now—

“You may take out your anger on me, but it won’t change anything,” Juba says from beneath Helios’ sandal. “At least Selene is trying to decide the best course of action from here. You should learn from her example.”

“As if I need a Romasian mutt to criticize me,” Helios seethes, jerking the sword from its sheath. “Do you realize what your master has done to us—to our family—to our homeland? Do you realize all that we’ve lost because of you?

“It wasn’t his fault, Heli,” I shout, stumbling as the boat wavers when I stand, and throw my arms around my brother. “Juba has been hurt by Roma just as badly as we’ve been. He isn’t to blame for what Gustavian’s ordered!”

“She’s right,” Ptolemy drones, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “Everything that’s happened is Selene’s fault. If you want to blame someone, blame the coward who didn’t sound the alarms in time to save us.”

“Shut up, Ptolemy!” Helios roars, wavering onto one leg when Juba shoves himself free.

“I truly didn’t have anything to do with the attack,” he says, sitting up and turning a cold stare on my sister. “While you twirled around a dance floor and stole sips of wine, she sounded as many alarms as she could. If Selene is guilty for failing to stop Roma’s invasion, what are you for having done nothing useful before, during, or after?”

Ptolemy’s cheeks burn red, her eyes narrowed with indignation, and she all but flies to her feet with one finger whipped out toward Juba’s face.

“You filthy, lowly—how dare you speak to me that way? I am a Sat-Nesut of Kemet!” She stomps two steps closer, rattling the boat. “I am your superior in every way! How dare a mere Romasian dog even think to dare bark at m—oh!”

“Ptolemy!” Helios shouts, reaching for her a moment too late.

Having lost her balance, Ptolemy throws both arms out at her sides, but is unable to keep from tipping to the right and plummeting into the choppy waves below.

“Ptolemy!” I scream, and Helios throws himself in after her, rocking the boat so hard that water floods the floor.

“Curse those fools—the both of them!” Juba shouts, jerking up to his feet.

I reach for him, unsure how to help, but lose my footing.

I feel Juba’s fingers brush mine just before the water swallows me whole.

Sinking, unsure how to swim as Mother never believed that Ptolemy or I would have use for such a frivolous skill, I kick and punch at the icy water. But it’s so painfully cold…

My muscles lock, my skin feeling as though it’s being pricked by thousands of needles.

The saltwater burns my eyes, blurring my vision, and without any moonlight to illuminate the surface, it takes only a couple seconds to lose track of where’s up and where’s down. In a way, I feel like I’m drifting into the night sky, and as my chest begins to ache, bubbles seep from the corners of my lips, and I feel the odd sensation of floating in a dream.

‘Selene.’

‘Selene!’

A deep, masculine voice rises from the darkness, wrapping around me like a caress. I melt into its gentle touch.

‘Are you Serapis?’ I wonder. ‘Have you come to welcome me into the afterlife? Has Isis given up on me, and now it’s your turn to offer a chance at going back in time?’

‘The sea cannot harm you—I forbid it to ever harm you. So hold on just a little while longer. Help will be here soon.’

‘Help is…but who could possibly save me all the way down here?’

My last bit of air bubbles past my lips, and a new, deeper darkness closes in just as I feel my head settle against something hard.

‘A moment longer,’ the voice begs. ‘My precious girl, just hold on for a single moment longer.’

I fear I am already gone, lost to the whims of fate and the grasp of Death once again, until something gives three sharp tugs at my hair, and my head is tilted back.

Lips seal over mine, parting them to pass sweet air into my mouth. It lasts only a moment, but is more than enough to draw my senses back from the brink.

I open my eyes, unsure what exactly it is that I’m seeing.

Long figures drift around me, tendrils of seaweed—no, hair I think, cloak much of their bodies from view. I can’t make out their faces, legs, or feet, but I do feel two pairs of hands latch onto my arms as the water shifts around us.

Up and up they haul me, swimming faster than I knew was possible.

Not that I’m of any mind to question it. Whoever they are, I am entirely at their mercy, and can only hope that whatever they ask in return for helping me will be within my means to give.

The surface shatters with the breaking of my head above the waves. I gasp, choking in air with great, heaving gulps. Shot strands of silver plaster across my face, the sensation annoyingly itchy, but I’ve no strength to brush the hair aside.

I’ve barely the strength to hold my head upright.

“Stay with us,” a melodic, feminine voice begs from my right.

“The shore is not all that far away,” another says, this time from my left. “Not for us, at least.”

With the last of my strength, I peer over to find the shimmering, pale face of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her wide, green eyes sparkle beneath waves of turquoise hair, and she smiles with teeth white as the snow from Father’s stories of his childhood journey to the north.

“Don’t be afraid,” the woman says. “We shall carry you to safety, and all will be well.”

I try to speak, to thank her, but my raw throat only croaks in response. So I dip my chin in a grateful nod, instead.

The woman giggles, a look of pure affection crossing her face. “It’s been so long, Selene. Far too long since you last joined us in the sea. I know that it’s cold for now, but already the waters are warming at Father’s command. You will be at ease again before you know it!”

Once again, all I can manage is a nod.

Once again, the woman giggles, and gently pulls me forward—off into the midsts of the Medi Sea. 

***