That tugging, uncomfortable instinct told Neil that he needed to chance it.
Borthwick’s sepoys were fanning out in groups, moving to the nearby caves with organized precision.A couple of sentries remained behind by the camp, holding their rifles with the loose distraction of routine.
The soldier facing their way turned around.Heart thudding, Neil slipped from the grass, skidding down the steep, ruddy shale until he landed in the deeper shadow of the outcrop.
He froze, waiting for a cry of alarm to go up, but the rush of the nearby waterfall cloaked the sound of the shifting debris of his passage.
Constance dropped into place behind him.
“You shouldn’t be here!”Neil hissed.
Constance rolled her eyes.“Just get on with it, Stuffy.”
Neil repressed a groan.It wasn’t as though he could send her back.
Pressing himself to the wall, he peered out into the gorge.His instinct had been right in one respect.He could see more of the rock-cut chambers from his current angle.His scholarly brain whirred as he studied them.A guess put the ruins at roughly two thousand years ago, when this area would have been part of the ancient kingdom of Kalinga.
Neil’s attention danced over carved columns and narrow flights of stairs.Moss-covered bones rose from softly swaying stands of bamboo.
Something felt off.
I should close my eyes.
The impulse was a teasing whisper at the edge of his consciousness.Neil’s rational mind rebelled against it.How would seeing into the past be facilitated by closing his bloody eyes?
The instinct compelled him regardless.
Bugger it, Neil thought and obeyed.
Storm-scented air tugged at the fabric of his shirt.Birds chirped, wings beating softly through the nearby brush.The damp of the waterfall drifted to him on the breeze, a cool kiss against the exposed skin at his throat.
Worries spun through his mind—about what lay between him and Constance.About how he could possibly help Ellie and Adam.About Vanika, Subhas, and the rest of the Adrija.Those newer fears mingled with older emotions—a lingering pang of guilt for how he had failed Ellie during the years when she had fought to make her own path in the world.Gratitude for the moment Adam had chosen him as a friend.An ache of nostalgia for hours spent crouched in tombs with Sayyid, arguing over Middle Egyptian pronouns.
Neil let the feelings wash over him.What would be the point in fighting them?They were all real.
He smelled earth and ancient stone, flowers and the heat of an imminent storm.
Now, he thought.
He opened his eyes.
The mossy bones and ocher cliffs lay before him in vivid color, the ravine painted with sunlight.Borthwick’s men were still there, but Neil was only half aware of them.It felt as though they were shadows—vague, unimportant ghosts flickering across the landscape.
All that mattered—all that was real—was Neil’s powerful sense that a woman used to stand on the far side of the gorge.
The feeling was like memory, wistful with longing… except that Neil had never been to this place before.
He still knew exactly how she would have looked framed by the carved stone pillars of the colonnade that fronted her chamber.
Bare feet were brushed by the hem of a sari dyed with saffron.A red bindi blazed from the warm skin of her forehead.Fine lines accented the corners of her eyes and the perfect curve of her lip.
Beautiful,Neil thought distractedly.
She was unutterably beautiful.
The breeze gently tossed the locks of her glorious hair.The woman—the memory—raised her eyes to meet Neil’s stare from across the mossy bones and the gurgling stream.Something in her expression—faithful, enduring, and fierce—reminded him of his sister.
Song and laughter mingled with the clash of iron.The copper tang of blood danced through the fragrance of blooming flowers.
