I Shall Rewrite the Stars

Chapter 15

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The world blurs as I’m jerked to my feet, turned, and hauled back into the corridor. Helios roars his fury, demanding that Raja be freed from any ties to us. Ptolemy weeps, screaming the rights owed to her as a Sat-Nesut of Kemet.

When I find my footing the guards on either side of me release my arms, and Juba is shoved up to walk on my right. I meet his eyes for all of a heartbeat, before we face forward and accept the march to the yuvaraja’s chamber.

But when a door is thrown open and we’re guided inside, we find not the decorated dwelling of a royal heir, but an ordinary room with a single, narrow window set above an empty bed. Against the left wall a table rests covered with wooden bowls and jars, but otherwise, the place is empty.

I’ve no chance to ask what’s in the bowls or where we are, before Helios is thrown inside and the door slammed shut.

“This is ridiculous!” he growls, pale-faced and eyes ablaze as he shoves himself up on one knee. “Raja told me that her father had ordered her to bring us here. She did nothing wrong!”

“Worry about yourself,” Juba says, already at the table’s edge and peering into the jars. “We’ve a single day to come up with a cure for their principe. I don’t want to imagine what’ll happen if we fail.”

“Who knows if they’ll even let us live, regardless! I mean, look at all that madman’s done already. He—”

Helios sways on his feet, tumbling into me. Blinking fast, he presses a hand to his temple with trembling fingers.

“Helios?” I ask, breathless at the sight of his dilated pupils. “Juba—Juba help me get him onto the bed. Hurry!”

“Selene…” my twin whispers, as the first beads of sweat break out on his forehead.

Juba curses, rushing to pull Helios’ arm around his shoulders as we guide him to the bed. My poor brother tumbles onto it with great, heaving gasps, swallowing twice—no, three times, and shaking his head.

“My chest,” he gasps.

“Helios,” I say, taking his hand between mine.

“Keep back,” Juba commands, ripping a corner of his tunic to dab the blood from Helios’ neck wound. Taking a sniff, he throws the rag across the room. “He’s been poisoned.”

“They wouldn’t!” I say, and hold on tight as a tremor wrecks Helios’ body.

Sweat pours down his face, dampening the fabric under his arms and around his waist. His lips part, but only a gurgling sound comes out.

“Fight it!” I demand, refusing to shed the tears welling in my eyes. “You healed me—the power of the sea is greater than poison. Use it, Heli!”

‘He is too far from the sea,’ Isis whispers, materializing at my side. ‘Serapis has no power here.’

“Then tell me how to save him,” I beg. “You said that moonlight was important when we made it to the stream. Surely you have some healing power of your own.”

‘My power affects the flow of time—in that case, the time surrounding your body. As I’d reverted your leg to the point before you’d been injured, Serapis drew the poison out and away, before purifying the spot where it had entered.’

I take a deep breath, willing myself to calm. “Help me to turn back time, then. The maharaja said he can’t touch me, so if I force the others to stay outside the palace, then—”

‘Your brother’s suffering is premeditated. Haven’t you noticed the odd presence of the wind? Jambudvīpa has always been the favored home of Samira, and just as she hears all things spoken in the world, so too does her Chosen, Ashoka.’

“Selene?” Juba asks when I spit a curse.

“What is this—another test?” I roar. “Raja swore that she didn’t know what has made her son ill. Was that a lie? Did the maharaja use the very same poison on my brother?”

‘I can’t speak of his daughter, but I do know Ashoka to be fearsomely clever. He was friends with your mother, and once swore to do no harm to her or any children she might bear—’

“What is this, then?”

“Tell me what you’re hearing,” Juba commands, and listens patiently as I relay all I’ve been told. “I see.”

“You see?” I scoff. “You see what? That we’re finished? That my mother has been betrayed and my brother left to die?”

“Consider the broader picture of what’s happening here.”

“I don’t care what else is happening beyond the horrible sight before me.” Beneath my hands, Helios’ heartbeat has begun to slow, but his breathing is still labored and he hasn’t spoken a word.

“I knelt at Ptolemy’s side in our first lives, whilst she lay dying just like this—until she took her final breaths and was torn from my arms by Gustavian’s guards. I can’t—”

“Look at me,” Juba says, and takes my shoulder in tight grasp. “The maharaja’s heard everything we said since the very night that Kemet fell. He knows we’ve already assumed the identity of the poison. He knows that Helios can cure it—or at least, he assumes as such.”

“So why incapacitate my brother?”

“Maybe to…to hide his power.” Juba closes his eyes, his brows knit. “If Helios simply marched in and healed the yuvaraja, word would spread fast. Poisons flow through Jambudvīpa like air and water. If someone who can cure them all suddenly appears, that man would become the primary target of every enemy to the royal family.”

“Are we supposed to let him die, then?” I demand. “Allow Helios to succumb whilst we heal Raja’s son in secret? I refuse!”

Lifting his eyes though he cannot see her, Juba addresses Isis. “Anyone familiar with the tricks and tests of the maharaja will know by now that Helios has been poisoned. Is it safe to assume the maharaja’s already let slip that Helios has the power to heal?”

‘I imagine so,’ Isis says, and I relay her response.

“If they assume he cannot heal himself while incapacitated, then they’ll have to believe that all three of us can heal—four when including Ptolemy. They’ll assume it to be some secret, Kemite knowledge.”

“Mother was renowned for studying poisons,” I admit. “But this is all just supposition unless we somehow manage to save my brother, and I’ve no power to heal him.”

“So reverse the time around him.”

“I…” I turn to Isis. “Can I even do that?”

‘You’ve access to my power,’ she says, folding her arms around herself. ‘But the moon wanes. I can make no guarantees that you’ll be able to channel enough power on your own to save him.’

“Is our bond severed during the new moon?”

‘It is.’

“Then we have until tomorrow night to fix this mess—more than enough time to try and perform a miracle.”

“Have you used her power before?” Juba asks.

I shake my head. “This’ll be a fir—Helios!”

His body jerks with convulsions, his eyelids fluttering. I throw myself over Helios, desperate to keep him from falling onto the floor. Juba secures his head, his own craned around to look at the table.

“There’s seawater in the jars,” he says. “Once we’ve got him stable, maybe he’ll be able to finish healing himself.”

“Or maybe I can expediate the effects of the cure,” I gasp. “You said you have a bit of antidote, didn’t you?”

“For Strychnos, yes. But given Helios’ symptoms, I don’t think this is the work of such a poison.”

As Helios begins to still, I look him over. Dilated pupils, a racing heart…no, his heartbeat has gradually been slowing for some time now. He’d sweat so profusely in the beginning, but even that has begun to fade.

All the telltale signs of Strychnos have changed.

“What is this?” I breathe.

“Given the rash around his lips, I’d place my bet on Cicuta,” Juba spits. “Gustavian personally cultivated it to look just similar enough to Strychnos that none would think to search for a different cure.”

“And is there a cure?”

Juba’s lips press into a thin line, and a swell of panic rips through me.

“You’ll have to reverse his time as far back as you can,” Juba concludes. “At least far enough to get him conscious. From there we can…I don’t know, force the seawater down his throat if need be. He’ll have to handle the rest.”

“That is too great a gamble—”

“It’s the only chance he has.”

My lips tremble, the urge to cry almost overwhelming me…and when I look at Helios’ face, for a moment I see Ptolemy’s instead.

It’s no wonder, for her symptoms were just the same as his. She suffered from tremors and fever, then her body gradually became so terribly cold…

“Selene,” Juba says, and I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

“How do I do it?” I ask Isis.

‘Coat your hands in seawater, then place them over his wound,’ she explains. ‘Purification will keep the poison from soaking through your skin, but the water will still draw out its toxins. You will have to stop regularly to wash the poison from your hands, lest it pool and seep back into Helios’ wound.’

“Understood.”

I relay the instructions to Juba, who is quick to fetch two bowls and a jar of seawater. Setting them between us, he pours into the left-most bowl, and leaves the other empty.

The water is cool when I set my hands in it, cupping a fair bit before I tip my palms over and press them to Helios’ throat. The skin there is hot to the touch.

“Turn back,” I whisper, allowing my eyes to fall shut. “Turn back to when he was well.”

Nothing happens.

No tingle of power, no sense that anything has changed. I feel no different than I had before I’d spoken, and when I dare a glance at my brother, he lies in just the same state as he had moments before.

“Turn back,” I demand, louder.

‘You need to feel for the flow of time,’ Isis says, setting her hand over mine. ‘Imagine an hourglass, its sands pouring steadily toward the bottom.’

I clench my eyes again and do as told. In the darkness behind my lids, a golden hourglass forms. Its sands glitter, flooding down and down without end.

‘Will the sands to slow, stop, and reverse. Will them to flow back up into the hourglass’ top.’

I try to picture it, to imagine the sands flowing in reverse. But a building pressure in my forehead leaves me breathless. Every push I send toward the sands rebounds like the weight of a pyramid crashing down on me.

“Turn back,” I command from between clenched teeth.

The sands hesitate, then continue their flow.

“Turn back!”

The weight on my head doubles, forcing me to my knees.

“Selene!” Juba shouts, and I feel him kneel beside me.

“Turn back!” I cry, pressing my hands harder against Helios’ throat, the weight on my head forcing it to bow.

But I will not bow—I will not stop. If I have the power to reverse the sands, then I will do so!

By one means or the other.

“Turn!” I gasp, throwing myself forward both in reality and in my mind. The hourglass trembles, shoving back with a mighty heave of its invisible force.

‘Turn,’ Isis commands, helping me to push at the hourglass once again. 'By my name I command you to turn!'

Slowly, inch by inch, the hourglass tips to the side and falls with a tremor that shakes my soul.

Then it goes bottom up.

The air rushes from my lungs, my head whirling. Somewhere in the distance I hear Isis begging me to hold on—to be strong! But it’s so hard to listen or think. I can hardly remember what I was even doing here…wherever here is.

“Selene,” Juba whispers, his voice sounding so very far away. “Let go of the power.”

Have I got ahold of something? It’s so hard to look down, and when I do, I see my hands glowing with a silver light. It’s beautiful, mesmerizing. I feel like I could fall into it and simply disappear—

‘Selene!’ Isis shouts, her voice shattering the serenity just long enough for me to reel back.

When I do, the hourglass jerks back upright, and I am thrown from the darkness back into my physical body.

“Selene!” Juba shouts, leaning over me.

“Ju…ba,” I wheeze, hardly able to see through the blur in my eyes.

A throbbing headache gnaws at my temples, and my body feels heavier than it had before I’d turned the hourglass.

“Selene?” Helios whispers, his blurred form sitting up and leaning over me. “What’s happening? I—”

“The seawater,” I croak. “Juba—”

“Drink!” he snaps, smacking something into Helios’ face.

‘Helios,’ I hear Serapis whisper, before his words turn into mumbling.

“More,” Juba commands, then his voice comes closer. “Selene, are you alright?”

“Focus on…on Helios,” I whisper, and allow my eyes to fall shut. “I’m fine.”

“But—”

“I don’t understand,” Helios says. “What am I—”

“Drink the whole jar,” Juba says. “All of it, then focus on healing yourself. I’ll take care of Selene.”

“But—”

“There’s no time for buts, Helios. Now, drink!”

Breathing deep, I listen to Helios chug and Serapis mumble. I listen to Juba fret over me, whilst Isis worries alongside him. And though I’ve no strength to speak, I will my lips to smile.

Whatever the cost to my body, I’d heard the strength in my brother’s voice. Somehow, someway, Isis and I managed to turn back his time. We did it!

Now, all that’s left is to wait for Helios and Serapis to finish the rest. 

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