Chapter Eighteen
Eden awoke to glorious, enveloping warmth.
Her back was pressed tight against Max’s chest, his forearm anchored her snugly across her waist, and the heavy wool blankets provided a cocoon of heat against the desert chill.
She could hear the faint sounds of the Bedouins breaking camp outside—the clank of metal, the deep, rattling grumbles of the camels—but she didn’t want to move.
She just wanted to luxuriate in being this close to Max, completely safe, for as long as she could.
His big body twitched, and then he hugged her tighter for a moment before letting out a slow, contented sigh and rolling away. “We overslept,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep as he reached for his trousers. “We need to get going.”
“I know,” she said, reluctantly pushing herself to a sitting position.
She gave herself permission to watch her beautiful man get dressed, his movements fluid and powerful even in the cramped space.
His hair was a charming golden tangle, and his short beard caught the soft light. “How did you sleep?”
She’d slept deeply and dreamlessly, the sort of complete rest she’d been desperately needing. A surge of potent energy pulsed through her, and she jumped to her feet as well, not feeling any of the self-consciousness she might have expected at being naked in front of him.
He turned, fastening his belt. “Too well. You were absolutely right. We’re going to keep doing this. Who cares what the rest of them think?”
She laughed, the sound light and free, and threw her arms around him, kissing him deeply—a fast, fervent kiss that promised more later. “Good. Now, let’s go show them what two well-rested explorers can accomplish.”
They quickly pulled apart and went about the business of breaking camp, moving the few remaining items he’d left in his tent to her pile.
Despite her good night’s rest, the day proved to be the most difficult yet.
The sandstorm had left drifts so deep that the camels labored and snarled, and the sunlight was even harsher, blazing down on the disrupted landscape.
Eden’s lips cracked, and every muscle in her body ached.
The renewed energy of the morning had been spent hours ago, and she hid her shaking hands by knotting them around the reins, feigning focus. If Max noticed, he said nothing.
By noon, they reached a place Amir called “the station.” There was nothing to mark it, just a stretch of plain.
A faint trace of pottery shards in the dirt told Eden this was once a Roman stopover, a place where legions watered horses and plotted further conquest. She knelt to examine the shards and heard Max and Amir fall into a low, urgent conversation behind her.
Amir pointed toward the southern horizon, where a faint plume of dust was rising. Max’s body instantly went rigid.
“Riders,” Max muttered, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, meant only for Eden. He moved closer to her, his shadow falling over the shards. “Amir thinks they’ve been tracking us since the sandstorm. They’re taking a parallel route.”
Eden’s heart seized. She felt a sickening drop in her stomach, the sudden appearance of an unseen enemy threatening to nullify every step, every ache, every triumph she’d earned. Her mind raced. Max will call it off now. He’ll say it’s too dangerous. He’ll be right.
She looked at him, her chin lifting stubbornly even as a tremor ran through her. “Robbers? Or do you think it’s Sir Thaddeus Albright? He has been far too interested in what we’re up to.”
Max didn’t answer right away; he squinted against the glare, calculating their options. “It doesn’t matter. We’re too exposed here. We need to move, and we need to move fast.” His gaze flicked from the dust cloud back to her face, assessing her endurance.
Here it comes. The moment he gives the order to retreat.
But then Amir spoke up, his voice calm, still directed at the horizon. “No, Max. Not for us.” He gestured with a leather-wrapped hand. “The dust turns. They are taking the path to the south. The old salt road. They go to Siwa, perhaps. They are not following our tracks.”
The relief that washed over Eden was instant and physical, so potent it almost buckled her knees, leaving her trembling not from fear, but from the cessation of it. She realized she’d been holding her breath for a full minute.
“A trade route,” Max murmured, the tension in his shoulders easing. “They just happened to be near.”
“The desert is never empty,” Amir replied, wrapping his facecloth tighter before turning back to his camel. “But it is very big.”
Max met Eden’s eyes, and in his gaze, she saw that he had been ready to risk everything—even the expedition—to protect her. Gratitude swelled within her.
They pressed on, the sun now beating down with renewed cruelty. The false alarm had burned up their mental reserves, and the next hours were a blur of sand, sweat, and silence. Every muscle screamed in protest, and Eden didn’t know how she managed to cling to her camel.
They camped that night in a low depression, half-hidden by a cluster of jagged rocks. Amir prepared a meager meal while Max pitched the tent and unrolled the bedding.
They ate in silence. Eden didn’t bother to inspect the surrounding rocks, too tired to even think of the scroll. She simply wanted the blessed oblivion of sleep.
Once they finally entered the tent, she pressed against Max’s side, feeling the comforting solidity of his hip against hers.
“I’m so tired, Max,” she whispered, not hiding it this time.
“I know, my love,” he replied, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her flush against his chest. “I am too.”
They did not speak again. Max blew out the lantern, and they slipped beneath the blankets fully clothed, too worn out for anything but necessary warmth. Eden burrowed into his side, feeling the soft rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her ear.
She fell asleep instantly, her last conscious thought the profound gratitude that, after the day’s anxiety, the only thing touching her was Max. She knew, with a certainty that erased all fear and doubt, that she was exactly where she belonged.
The two days following their scare were perhaps the hardest yet.
The momentary rush of adrenaline from the false alarm had vanished, replaced by a consuming fatigue.
They rode in silence, the desert demanding every ounce of their focus.
Yet, every night, sharing the tent restored them.
Eden slept as she hadn’t slept in years, the steady weight of Max’s arm across her middle acting as an anchor in the darkness.
Then, late in the afternoon of the seventh day, the air changed. The brutal, dry heat did not diminish, but a new, subtle scent arrived on the wind. It was the scent of water, and it nearly undid Eden.
The Bahariya Oasis wasn’t the lush Garden of Eden she’d pictured as a girl reading Herodotus in her father’s study, but after days of sun-blind delirium, the small stand of date palms and the crisp surface of the spring were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Amir, his face half-shadowed by the ragged leaves of a palm, murmured something in Arabic that sounded like a prayer. Even the camels slumped into the shade, grateful for the respite.
Eden dismounted with a groan, her muscles protesting every movement. She cupped her hands into the trickling pool. The shock of the cold water made her gasp, but she didn’t hesitate; she drank deeply, then rinsed the worst of the gritty sand from her neck and wrists.
Max arrived a minute later, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, golden hair slick with sweat.
He dropped his pack and knelt by the water, bringing scoop after scoop to his face.
She watched him in the glassy surface: his jawline thickly stubbled, eyes narrowed as he indulged in the cool water as well.
He looked up, caught her watching, and offered a soft, tired smile.
“I can’t believe we are finally here,” she told him, excitement filling her despite her fatigue.
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’ve done so well. Not one woman in a hundred could have done this. Hell, not many men either.”
His continued praise made her walk a little taller, made her certain that even though it had been difficult, she might actually make it through this.
They ate in the palm’s ragged shade, Amir keeping to himself, chewing dates with monkish deliberation, and the rest of the men talking quietly, the water having obviously raised their spirits as well.
When they were finished, Eden unwrapped the battered scroll case from her satchel, careful not to let the dry palm fronds brush the delicate papyrus as she laid it flat on a cloth.
Max shifted closer, his thigh brushing hers—a simple contact that felt immensely reassuring. “The moment of truth, then?” he asked softly, nodding at the scroll.
She smoothed the papyrus, letting her fingertips linger on the faded ink. “The translation is sound. It says this is the place we must wait.” She pointed to a line of looping, angular script. “This is the map. And this—” she tapped a block of Coptic, “—the key.”
Max peered over her shoulder, his breath warm on the flyaway strands of her hair. “Is everything lining up the way you thought it would?”
She felt the familiar rush of intellectual fervor, but this time it was tempered by fear, not arrogance.
“Yes. The valley described is not on any of the official maps. The text says the approach is visible only on the night of the new moon. When the stars align in the form of a hunter, and his eye touches the peak of the white ridge.”
Max studied the papyrus, his expression thoughtful. “You’re betting everything on a celestial compass, Eden. What if you’ve misinterpreted the mythology?”
“That is the question that terrifies me,” she confessed, her voice barely a whisper.
“But the ancient word here is too specific—it translates to ‘feint,’ or ‘illusion.’ A place that seems to exist but does not until seen from the correct vantage.” She spread out her own hand-drawn chart next to the papyrus, cross-referencing her notes.
“We wait two days for the moon to vanish, then observe from that chalky rise.” She pointed to a ridge on the horizon.
“The entrance will show itself as a single star—’the false sun’—at the rim of dawn. ”
Amir, who Eden had assumed was resting, opened his eyes. “There is a story about this,” he said in his careful English. “A sheikh once tried to follow the stars, and when he returned, he had lost his shadow.”
Eden raised an eyebrow, a flicker of scientific skepticism welling within her. “Superstition?”
Amir smiled thinly. “Everything is superstition until it is not.”
She glanced at Max, almost crippled with worry. “Then we’ll prove it. Or disprove it.”
He reached out and gently took her hand, his thumb tracing slow circles over her knuckles. “You have two days to rest and calculate. When the moon is right, we’ll face the feint together.”
They spent the afternoon preparing: Eden staring at the scroll and making notes, Max repairing a broken tent pole, and Amir and the others resting. As dusk began to settle, Eden climbed a nearby dune with her telescope, aligning it by instinct and memory.
She had to be right. She just had to be.
As darkness descended, the stars revealed themselves. Max joined her on the dune, arms crossed against the sudden cold that nightfall always brought.
“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice low.
Eden didn’t look away from the eyepiece.
“Tired, but I think a few days of rest will restore me.” She found the hunter’s constellation and traced its arc across the sky.
“I used to think the ancients worshipped the stars out of ignorance. Now I think it was reverence. They knew how to read what was written in the dark.”
Max was silent, watching her. Then, his hand dropped, and his fingers closed over her shoulder, squeezing gently. “Amir is restless. And I don’t like the look of that far horizon.”
Eden followed his gaze. A small, indistinct plume of dust, far to the north, was moving laterally across the desert. It was faint, but unmistakable. The same cold, sick feeling of fear returned, tighter this time.
“They’re tracking us,” she breathed. “They knew we’d stop for water here.”
Max immediately slid down the dune. “We need to pull back into the deepest shadow of the palms. Amir, can you tell which route they’re on?”
Amir came quickly, his movements economical and swift. He watched the moving dust cloud for a long moment, then turned to Max. “They travel the upper track. The road to Siwa. They are not coming into Bahariya. Not tonight.”
Max waited, his tension palpable, until the plume’s trajectory was confirmed to be taking it away from the oasis. He let out a long, heavy sigh. “Two scares in two days. This desert is wearing down my nerves.”
He turned back to Eden, his eyes dark with the exhaustion of constant vigilance. “Come on. Let’s go to our tent.” He offered his hand, and she took it, her fingers gripping his tightly.
In their tent, they simply fell together. Max didn’t even bother to take off his trousers; he just blew out the lantern and pulled Eden immediately into his arms. Eden pressed her face into his neck, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of him.
“Just hold me, Max,” she whispered against his skin.
“I’m here,” he mumbled, his voice already heavy with sleep, and she fell instantly into a deep, dreamless rest, assured that nothing—not bandits, not fear, and not the desert—could touch her while she was in his arms.