Stolen By Shadows (Beasts of the Briar #6)

Prologue

West bank of the Nile, outside Luxor

Francis shifted the weight of the brass vase in his arms, sweat running down his spine like the Nile itself.

He could hardly breathe. It wasn’t just the desert heat that made the air thick down here; it was the dust, the smell of old stone and things that should’ve stayed buried.

The flickering torchlight stretched shadows high up the carved walls, granting the painted figures an eerie, shifting life.

Around him, the salvagers laughed and jostled each other, as careless with the treasures as they were with the cards and whiskey they spent their nights on. But they’d promised Francis a share of the profit if he helped them carry things, so he tried not to complain too much.

Clyde Webb, the ringleader, had a face of sun-beaten leather and a silver watch he never took off, as if that gave him some kind of fancy shine that made him worth respecting.

He was the only one with a gun, and that made him king down here.

His right hand, Roy Berker, round-faced and always chewing something, had been prying out gold inlays from the shattered coffin and stuffing them into a burlap sack.

The man tied up across the chamber wasn’t laughing.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing!” Grover—or was it Glenn?—strained against his ropes. He was one of the fancy archaeologists they’d found digging up this spot. “This tomb belongs to history. You’re desecrating the final resting place of Horemheb—”

Clyde snorted, inspecting a gilded mask before tossing it onto the growing pile. The shadows seemed to crawl over him like a snake. “Never heard of him.”

Francis hadn’t either. Didn’t care to. The past wasn’t worth much when you were scraping by in the present.

Clyde explained it all, simple and true.

They were actually helping the archaeologists, who would stuff all this junk behind a glass box only to have rich people stare at it.

But if they took it, then it would be of real benefit to real men. Honest, hardworking men like Clyde.

And if Francis didn’t complain and carried his weight, he’d get a whole two percent of the profits.

A gust of air stirred the dust by the entrance, and Francis glanced up. He didn’t like being underground, thinking of all that sand above him. They’d descended so many steps, it felt as if they could have gone all the way to the center of the earth the way Mr. Verne went on about.

Another gust of wind blew back his thick, copper hair. It smelled fresh, nothing like the air down here. Was someone up there?

There’d been two other people with the archaeologist: a little boy a few years younger than Francis, maybe twelve at the oldest. And a woman. He’d only seen a flash of her as she slipped away, but she’d been beautiful, with enormous eyes, long brown hair…

Well, at least the woman and the kid had escaped. Clyde only needed one of them to tell him if any more treasure existed in these parts. Had she and the boy come back? If so, they were idiots. Nothing a woman and a little boy could do against three grown men.

Francis shifted the sack of loot higher on his shoulder as Clyde jerked the archaeologist up by the ropes around his wrists. “Time to go, Professor,” Clyde said. “We’ve got enough to take a load up.”

Roy slung a bundle over his back. “Should gut this place proper before we move on. Could get another few rounds of treasure.”

“This could be Horemheb’s tomb!” the archaeologist—Gus?

Maybe his name was Gus—red-faced and furious, yelled.

“The evidence in this tomb could help the theory that Horemheb was the one who restored Egypt’s religious beliefs after the Amarna period.

And I don’t think I need to describe the enormity of that prospect.

It was when Akhenaten promoted a cultlike worship of Aten instead of the—”

“Sure, sure.” Clyde cut him off with a wave of his hand. “A real important dead guy. Not so important they bothered to write about him in the paper though.”

Francis sighed and followed them up the sloping tunnel, away from the flickering torchlight and into the cool bite of evening.

As he stepped out, the desert stretched before him, endless and quiet, all burnt orange fading into blue.

The wind hissed through the dunes. He didn’t enjoy it out here.

His eyes landed on what he liked the least.

The columns.

They jutted from the sand like something out of a story, half-unearthed, half-lost, their surfaces carved with strange figures with too-long arms and animals for heads. The light of the setting sun turned them copper, while the moon washed their edges silver.

It didn’t sit right with Francis. How had one man, one woman, and a kid managed to dig this much out? The sand in this part of the valley had swallowed people whole. And yet somehow, they’d dragged a king back into the world, only to have Clyde and his crew turn him into a payday.

“Drat,” Clyde said, spinning around and patting his shirt pocket. “Watch must have slipped off while we were down there.”

“The boy can go and get it.” Roy roughly ruffled Francis’s hair. “His legs aren’t tired yet.”

Francis sighed. His legs were tired, turned near jelly. How many times were they going to go in and out of this tomb? There was still a lot of treasure down there.

A few yards away, the camel shifted on its tether, stamping at the sand. Lanky, dune-colored, and moody, she eyed the horizon with disdain. The archaeologist gave her a sad look. “Cleo,” he muttered under his breath.

Clyde snorted. “You name all your camels after queens, Professor?”

Gerald—yes, it was definitely Gerald—set his jaw. “Just the ones with more dignity than you.”

Francis bit the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling. Foolish move, talking back to Clyde, but he had to admit, he liked Gerald’s spirit.

“George!”

A sharp cry split the air, and all Francis could wonder was Who the dickens is George?

“Anya!” the archaeologist—Gerald, or George, Francis supposed—yelled.

The woman appeared at the edge of the rocks, her hair wild, her boots kicking up sand as she sprinted toward them.

She wasn’t armed. No rifle, no knife, nothing but fire in her eyes.

Fear pricked through Francis regardless.

George turned to him, Clyde, and Roy. “You’re all fucked now.”

Anya threw something small and metal, glinting silver in the moonlight. It landed with a clatter at Clyde’s feet. A coin? No. A pocket watch. Clyde’s pocket watch.

Cleo reared up, braying and thrashing against her tether. She must have been spooked, maybe by the watch, maybe by Anya’s sudden charge, but in the chaos, the rope snapped, and one thousand pounds of furious camel bolted straight for Clyde.

The salvagers shouted, scrambling back as the beast barreled forward.

Damn, she’s clever, Francis thought.

But where was the boy? Francis looked around, then spotted a smudge behind a nearby pillar.

The little boy. There was something strange about him.

He wore his dark hair too long, brushing his shoulders like a girl.

And his eyes…they weren’t a color Francis’d ever seen before. Purple as a violet sunset.

Francis averted his gaze, a chill shuddering through him.

He should tell Clyde the boy kept hovering around…but what harm could a little kid do?

Anya darted toward George.

The gunshot cracked through the air before Francis saw Clyde raise the revolver.

Anya’s body jerked, then she collapsed to her knees. She pressed a hand to her side, fingers coming away dark with blood.

George screamed, the sound raw. Francis’s stomach twisted.

It just wasn’t right to shoot a woman, even a crazy one like her.

Clyde barely spared her a glance. “Damn fool,” he muttered. He kicked his watch aside, reloading his gun.

Francis swallowed hard, shifting on his feet.

The desert was still again.

Except for Anya, who closed her eyes, muttering to herself, hand clasped over her wound.

Clyde strode up to Anya, pressed the barrel of his rifle to her head. “Now, you gonna behave, broad? Let Roy put those ropes on your wrist, and we’ll think about letting you live.”

Anya heaved in a ragged breath, still clutching her wound. Roy marched forward, tugging a rope between two meaty hands.

“Get away from her.” A voice cut through the night air as the little boy stepped out from behind a pillar.

Fear curled through Francis. Fear he couldn’t explain. He dropped his bag and staggered back. It didn’t make sense. He was just a boy, younger than him.

Clyde and Roy didn’t appear afraid though. All they did was laugh. “Go sit like a good boy beside your father,” Clyde sneered, “and maybe you won’t experience your first beating.”

They turned to where George had been tied up—but he was gone. Francis’s eyes widened. George was now standing next to Cleo, a knife in his hand, ropes cut. He raced toward them, arm pulled back, and slugged Roy in the face.

“I’d rethink that if I were you.” George’s voice was low, deadly.

“Want to get shot too, tough guy?” Clyde raised his weapon, his hands shaking a little. He tilted it to the little boy, still standing eerily still. “Or better yet, your son?”

The little boy quirked his head. “That’s not my father,” he said softly. “My father is… Yes, Father. We could.”

“Caspian, no!” Anya snapped her eyes open, panic crossing her face for the first time. “I’m alright. See? I’m alright.”

But the boy—Caspian—wasn’t looking at her. He’d closed his eyes, muttering to himself.

“Caspian!” Anya screamed and sprang up. She moved her hand away from her side. The wound didn’t look as bad as Francis had first thought.

“I said to stay down, woman,” Clyde roared, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“And I said to get away from her,” Caspian said. He opened his eyes. They weren’t that violet sunset anymore. They were green.

And, by grace, they were glowing.