small smile, and with him on one side and Ahmose on the other, it felt like all was right. We set out together—the four of us, including Tia—and it wasn’t long before I realized there was a reason I’d had a problem remembering Amon. He was distancing himself from me on purpose to protect me, but I could still feel his heart was calling out to me. Now that I had Asten and Ahmose at my side, the distance from his heart felt unbearable.
We pressed on, me doing my best to ignore the pain and the suffering that I could now feel reverberating in my body. It weakened me to the point where I found it difficult to walk. Soon, I noticed Asten and Ahmose were also distressed. Something was draining us. Stealing our energy. At some point I was carried and I finally drifted off, dreaming of something horrible, deadly. And that something knew I was there.
Opening my eyes didn’t scare away the monsters. Just the opposite happened. My level of discomfort increased. Asten and Ahmose were nowhere in sight. The fire I could have sworn was burning earlier was gone. I was in a sort of waking dream. I stopped dead in my tracks when the crack of a whip reverberated in the darkness. Then a familiar cry made me snap out of it and I took another step forward and then another.
The indistinct shape in front of me turned out to be a rock covered with a fine powder of sand. The air was hot and oppressive, like something thick and sticky had seeped into my lungs. It wasn’t long before I felt a stitch in my side from the labored inhales and exhales. Still, I knew the cry had been Amon’s. I had to find him.
Amon’s heart scarab beat violently against my shoulder, its rhythm erratic instead of his usual steady, strong pulse, but I could feel the pull of it guiding me, pushing me forward. My own heart began mimicking its unsteady and fearful pace. Creeping through the dimness, all I could do was hope to find the beast that caused Amon’s distress.
A smoky, guttural voice carried out from the path’s depths. “Yes. She approaches. Just as I have foreseen.”
“L-leave,” Amon sputtered, “leave her out of this.”
“I think not,” the voice answered before letting out a shrill cackle that caused me to shiver. At the same time, the sound of a thousand sets of wings seemed to take flight.
I could see nothing, but my imagination conjured flocks of creepy winged things all around me ready to rip out my eyes and nibble on strips of flesh. I gasped, realizing that very thing could be happening to Amon right now. I picked up my pace, one hand trailing the large stone, the other groping in the darkness. When I came upon a smooth section, I stopped and examined the structure with my sensitive fingertips.
“It’s not stone at all,” I murmured quietly.
An instinctive urge made me lean forward, and I closed my eyes and inhaled. Even without Tia’s help I somehow knew what it was. I could almost taste it on my tongue. “It’s iron. An iron wall.” Wondering where I could possibly be, I moved on.
The heat continued to press against my lungs with each breath, as if the devil had wrapped his hands around my rib cage. My feeble inhales became more shallow and forced. The last thing I wanted to do was faint. Amon needed me. I panted as I hurried toward the voices, but there was no opening in the iron wall, and it soon became clear that the conversation I was eavesdropping on was happening on the other side.
Amon screamed and the desperation building up tore at me.
“There’s got to be a way,” I murmured.
Ascend, Tia whispered. Almost instinctively, I allowed the power of the sphinx to flow through my limbs; the warmth running down my arms filled me with strength. My fingers tightened and elongated, the wicked claws sharpening before my eyes.
With a grunt, I took a few steps back and leapt. My eyes sharpened on a dim point overhead that I might be able to use as a handhold. When I shot easily past it, I gasped in surprise and scrambled awkwardly on the stone until my claws actually caught. To my human eyes, the wall was smooth and impassable, but with my heightened senses I could feel tiny imperfections, thin ridges and narrow gaps.
Like a cat on a tree,