“I thought it would,” Kye replied. Kye didn’t look at Seth as he spoke. He kept his eyes on my father. “I wanted it to. Really. But he still wins. I don’t know how. He went back and changed everything again since we’ve returned. He kept me out of his memories to keep me from knowing what he’d plotted now. He thinks I won’t remember, but I do. He is trying to win and knows that I’m on your side now.”
“Are you?” Dee asked. He was just as upset at the news.
“Yes, he is and always has been,” I answered for Kye. I could see the accusation in Dee’s eyes. They didn’t believe him. I didn’t blame them, but I was beginning to feel even more protective of Kye since I found out the truth.
“Are you sure we can trust him?” Seth asked, more tenderly, but with just as much caution.
“I am sure,” I answered.
I didn’t doubt it for a moment. Kye bet his life on our trip back and was willing to disappear. He certainly wanted the future to change, and I couldn’t tell the room why. If they found out without the details, they wouldn’t trust Kye. I was a bit concerned that even with the details Seth would never trust Kye being that he was part Logan.
“Then how do we set this straight?” my father asked Kye directly.
Kye looked at me and then Seth. Seth looked back with a bit of jealousy. At that exact moment it would have been nice to tell Seth the truth and have him understand there was nothing to be jealous of, but I got the feeling with Seth it might make him even more jealous.
“We marry these two before Logan can even come to her.” Kye was certain.
Seth’s face lit up at his suggestion. All jealousy was gone in an instant.
“That’s all it will take?” my father asked.
“I hope so,” Kye replied. “But with Logan you never know.”
Seth dropped his hand to my back. I could feel the warm hum. Married. I wouldn’t have considered that during my first trip into the past, but now I was actually excited about that idea. I could feel his happiness through the bond. He certainly liked that idea. I did too, but I wasn’t sure if that would stop Logan.
“But,” the general interrupted my happy thoughts. “We can’t legitimately name her as your heir unless you’re married as it is.”
My father looked over to my mother.
“Well, I’m pretty sure she’s ready to follow through on her duty as a Nahrin princess.” My father was still holding on to my mother. In fact, I hadn’t seen them let go of each other since she’d returned.
My father glowed as he looked at her. That might have been the weirdest part of it all. I could never imagine my father, but to imagine him in love with my mother was even stranger. I wanted to pinch myself. It didn’t feel real.
“They need to do that as soon as possible,” Kye said. He looked to me. I could feel the urgency in his stare. Any delay in me marrying Seth was going to cause problems. Maybe this was the thing that was going to let Logan win.
“Then let’s plan a wedding,” my father answered.
My father stood and offered his hand to my mother. She smiled and took it. The general stood behind them as they moved to leave the room. Our little meeting was over. I hoped it would be enough. I was so close to winning, and I couldn’t let Logan take that away from me.
“Do you think it will work?” I asked Kye as we stood.
“I don’t know. He’s changed my past too much for me to know what happened to you now. You didn’t marry Seth in my original past; maybe it’s what we need to change everything.” Kye was hopeful, so I had to be, too.
I didn’t get the reunion that I wanted as Seth left with his father, but I was more than happy that he left Ty back in the room with me. It wasn’t fun to know Ty was meant as a wedding gift, but since Ty was going to stay with Kye and me, I did my best to not reject the offer and lose my best friend. We waited until my father left to sneak back to the gardens to talk more.
As soon as we were away from watchful eyes, Ty turned and grabbed me in a bear hug.
“Gods I was so worried about you,” Ty told me as he let me down.
“Worried? Why would you be worried?” I pretended like everything was fine. In the back of my mind I kind of wished it was all fine, but it wasn’t.
Kye led the way back to the pond that we had been sitting by before.
“No. Why would I be worried when Logan cut you off from us? It just about drove Seti mad,” Ty replied and sat next to me. I liked this Ty. Not the “scared that someone was going to punish him for moving” Ty. My best friend Ty I knew in Minnesota. The real Ty.
It had been too long that Logan had kept me away from my friends. Ty was the one that had been with me the whole time when the guys were sent back. I missed him greatly, and to be kept from them was torture. Ty was the older brother I always wanted to have.
“I hated to do that to him, but Logan threatened to keep me away from everyone. He told me that if I didn’t cooperate, Seth would die, and I’d never learn how to keep you in the future. And besides, I couldn’t travel and worried a little he would take me off to another time. Even if I couldn’t talk to you guys, at least I wasn’t in a different time period,” I replied.
Everything was easy with Ty. It felt like nothing changed between us, and he was still the same old friend that he was that helped me learn how to time travel.
“Sorry, you got sucked back here. I didn’t have time to learn from Logan how to keep you guys safe. I really didn’t want you to come back here and have to live this life.” I sat beside him and placed my head on his shoulder. It was easy to forget how large he really was until I sat beside him and didn’t even reach above his shoulder I was now lying against.
“Mari, you have to know by now that I can live this life and would a hundred times if it kept you safe. It isn’t safe with Logan. You can’t trust him.” Ty was warning me what I already knew. I should have trusted Ty and never allowed Logan to get me to believe he wanted to help. Ty had been cautious, and now I completely understood why.
“But you aren’t free here,” I complained.
It was my last regret of leaving the future I had grown up in. I broke my bargain and was sure Logan would never teach me how to keep Ty in the future and away from the past we were in now.
“No, but now I get to stay with you. Maybe I’m still a slave, but the best kind of person to be an owner is one that doesn’t want to have slaves,” Ty replied. I know he was trying to make me feel better, but it still didn’t work. I didn’t want to own him. I wanted him to be free.
“You know there’s something you can do,” Kye said.
“About?” I asked.
“Ty,” he replied as if I should already know. “If I heard correctly, he now belongs to you. You could always free him.”
“What?” I asked in shock. I turned and looked at Ty. Why didn’t he tell me that? Why didn’t Seth free him?
“It’s not that easy,” Ty replied, trying to cover up my shock.
“Not that easy?” Kye replied.
Glad Kye knew more about my time than I did. He might not have lived in Egypt, but at least he had lived in the time period for several years.
“Sure she can free me, that’s not the hard part. But to try and get a job after being a slave? There isn’t much I can do, and nothing that would allow me to stay here to keep Mari safe. Yeah, being free sounds like fun, but I can’t leave Mari alone in this world.” Ty slung his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. “I never knew what my purpose was in the world, but when I found her something just clicked. I was sent away before I ever knew my younger siblings, but something about Mari feels like family. I can’t leave her now. If she frees me, I might never get to see her again.”
“But don’t you want to go home?” That’s what I always thought he would do. He was giving up freedom so easily.
Ty seemed shocked by the suggestion. “I can never go home.”
“What?”
“I can never go home. When my father bartered me for our p
eople, he made it so that I can’t return there, ever. I have to stay in Kemet, either as a free man or a slave. I can’t leave. And if I can’t leave, I’d rather not be anywhere but here with you.” Ty grinned at me. He seemed relaxed by an idea that was shocking to me. “I found my family the day I bumped into you at freshman registration. I can’t just leave you now.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” That had to be the reason.
“Not in the least. It’s the truth.” Ty patted my back. “Really. Kye told me that in every version of the past I was always there as your friend. Just accept fate. You are stuck with me, Mari, and stop trying to change that.”
I couldn’t help but be relieved that he wasn’t mad at me for leaving before I got the answer to how to keep him free. I was worried he would be disappointed in me for not giving him a future that was more enticing than what he had now. He was my partner in learning how to do all the traveling. And really, of anyone I had met from the past, he was the most trustworthy of them all. It was kind of nice to have him by my side. I just still didn’t like how it was that he was beside me. There had to be something I could do. Once we straightened out Logan, I would try to find a way to keep Ty and free him at the same time. I wasn’t about to give up on that dream.
I looked over at Kye. What did he know of all my pasts? Was there more I should know? Did he tell Ty that just to keep me happy, or was it the truth? I eyed him up, but he didn’t seem to mind. He stared right back at me.
“So do you think this will work?” Ty asked us, pushing the subject from him and back to what we needed to talk about.
Kye shrugged. “I won’t know until it actually happens. At this point, things are still going to end badly.”
“What else should I know?” I couldn’t help but ask. I was curious. Really. What more was there to know? Shouldn’t I have been told by the goddess or Kye how I defeated Logan each time?
“I can’t tell you,” Kye replied.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Really. I can’t. The goddess made me promise. She’s afraid that if you know things you might choose the wrong way. Just because it worked before, doesn’t mean it will work again. In fact, she is more than certain that Logan was counting on you knowing everything from the goddess. The fact that you don’t is keeping the chance of going in a different direction alive. Logan can’t predict what you will do because you don’t know what you’ll do.”
Okay. I couldn’t blame him. That made sense. How did my son become so much smarter than me and he technically wasn’t even born yet?
Ty looked at me, and I shrugged. It was Kye’s choice if he told Ty or not. Obviously they had been talking a bunch as it was. I trusted Ty, but I couldn’t put Kye’s safety on it.
“How do we know when we do it right?” Ty voiced the question that everyone hadn’t asked yet. I had no clue how Kye was going to explain it to everyone, and I was glad I got to see how he told Ty.
Kye looked at me only once before turning back to Ty.
“When we do it right, I’ll disappear.”
Guess he trusted Ty also.
“Like completely gone?” Ty asked for details.
“I don’t know. What I do know is that I shouldn’t exist. If Logan wins, then I’m here. If Logan loses, then I’ll be gone. I’m the mistake that changes the game in Logan’s favor.”
Ty looked at me for my opinion, but I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t like that Kye would disappear. Part of me wanted a different solution for the problem, but I searched my mind, and there was still nothing I could come up with. He was going to have to go away for me to get the end I wanted with Seth. It stunk that my choices were between keeping Seth and keeping Kye.
“Explanation?” Ty asked, looking between us both.
This wasn’t my place. I turned to Kye.
“I wasn’t supposed to be born. The fact that I’m here means that Mari ends up with Logan and not Seti. She needs to end up with Seti. You don’t even want to know what will happen to everything if she doesn’t. I can remember a couple different pasts, but any of them coming true will mean bad things for everyone, not just Mari and Seti. We need the past to be the past that was fated to happen,” Kye explained without giving the exact reason why.
Ty looked at Kye more. Then he shook his head as realization set in.
“You’re Logan’s child, aren’t you?” Once people looked closer, they would realize the truth. Ty held his breath and waited for confirmation of his observation.
“And Mari’s,” Kye added what Ty could already see.
Ty nodded, letting his breath out. “I get why you know this isn’t over with yet. So what can we do to make this work for Seti and Mari?”
“Get them married as quickly as we can,” Kye replied. Again he was certain that we needed to get rid of him. I hated not having an alternative.
How could he be set to disappear? I was now having doubts. I wanted him to stay, and I wanted to be with Seth. Why couldn’t I have both? Life wasn’t fair.
“Just married will do it?” Ty asked what I already assumed.
It wasn’t marriage Kye was actually talking about. I got the hint, but I really didn’t want to think about that. I was nowhere ready to start a family and with the life I was now living, running from Logan, I doubted I would want kids anytime soon.
“Not exactly, but marriage is kind of the first step here. I really hope once she’s married Logan will give up. She never married Seti in the pasts I remember. I’m hoping that’s the key to it.” Kye shrugged. He seemed to be going on gut instinct, and I hoped his was better than mine. I had trusted Logan. I knew Kye did not.
“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 dr
eamed 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.