Chapter Twenty-one
The walk back was not a triumphal march, but a weary trudge.
Every step across the desert floor now felt like a cruel, hot enemy.
The immense relief of escaping the collapsing labyrinth had given way to a crushing physical ache.
Every one of Eden’s muscles screamed, and her clothes were rigid with a foul mixture of dried sweat and limestone dust.
Max kept his arm clamped around Eden’s shoulders, his grip less a romantic gesture and more a necessity—he was half-carrying her, lending her the momentum her legs refused to generate.
The sun had dipped, but the desert still radiated heat, painting the sky in violent, bruised shades of orange and violet that only added to the feeling of disorientation.
Eden’s exhaustion was absolute, a profound fatigue that made the world narrow down to the next footfall and the rough, solid warmth of Max at her side.
I had it in my hand. And now it’s gone.
She hadn’t meant to take it anyway, but the fact that she hadn’t gotten to examine it further, hadn’t been able to take more notes or take tintypes... She felt physically ill at the thought that she’d come all this way, risked her life and Max’s as well, for nothing.
They finally reached the dim orange glow of the campfire, where they found Amir methodically cleaning his old bolt-action rifle.
He stood up slowly as they emerged from the shadows, his eyes instantly tracking the damage: Max’s split knuckles, the dried cuts on his cheekbone, and Eden’s ashen face, framed by dust-stiffened hair.
“You are alive,” Amir stated, his voice quiet. “We heard a rumble and thought the tunnels had collapsed.”
He gestured to the carpet spread out before the fire. Eden collapsed onto it, the notebook still clenched in her lap, feeling the chill of the evening air hit the fresh sweat on her neck. Max poured water from a small earthenware basin, wincing as he cleaned the deep gash on his palm.
“And the artifact?” Amir asked, his gaze settling on Eden. “Did you find it?”
“We left it behind,” Eden said, her voice gravelly and low. “We found it but left it behind when the shaft started collapsing.”
Amir watched them for a long moment, as if he was looking into their very souls.
Then he nodded. “Good. The desert gives its secrets only to the deserving, but it guards its power from the greedy. The Scarab of Duat is not for men to carry.” He picked up a small pouch of tobacco and began rolling a cigarette.
“You have knowledge now, Lady Eden. That is the only treasure that does not turn to sand in your hands. You have chosen the higher truth.”
He did not ask how they escaped or what had caused the massive collapse. He simply accepted their choice and their story. “We will head back to Cairo at dawn. Go now. Rest.”
A few minutes later, Max was guiding Eden into the suffocating dimness of their shared tent. The small lantern he lit illuminated the rough canvas walls and their meager, utilitarian belongings. The space felt temporary, a flimsy bubble of shared time that was already beginning to deflate.
They’d come to the end of the trail. There was nowhere to go but back.
Max peeled her dust-caked shirt off gently, the fabric sticking to her skin.
His touch was a balm, the only thing that felt real.
But beneath the physical relief, Eden felt a fresh, cold wave of panic.
She gazed at the notebook she’d dropped on the floor—the charcoal sketches of the cosmological blueprint, the frantic renderings of the Duat’s map.
It was the proof that her entire life’s obsession was real, but she’d only managed to capture a fraction of it before the tunnels had tried to swallow them both.
“Did I do the right thing?” she whispered, leaning her head against his bare chest, hearing the heavy, irregular beat of his heart. “Leaving it? It could have been... the key to everything.”
“You did,” Max murmured, his lips tracing the curve of her ear. “You saved it from becoming a trophy, Eden. For someone using it for purposes it was never intended for. Any other choice would have been wrong.”
She pulled away and poured some water into the basin, wetting a cloth and gently cleaning the cuts and washing the dust from his face and chest, slowly stripping off his trousers and then washing the rest of him, lingering over his thick erection, watching as his eyes went hooded, and he thrust gently into her hand.
Her exhaustion melted into a familiar, desperate heat, and her anxiety shifted focus entirely. In a week, they would be back in Cairo, and everything that had brought them back together would be done. There would be no reason for him to stay.
She pulled him down onto the cot with a fierce, almost panicked need. She was fighting the inevitable return to separate lives. This shared tent had an expiration date, and she could feel the final moments ticking by.
She ran her hands over the familiar geography of his chest, memorizing the texture of his skin, the powerful shift of his muscles, and the rhythm of his breath.
“I want to try something,” she whispered, holding his gaze and wondering if he was feeling the same way. Would he miss her, or would he just go back to his life as though this had never happened?
“You can try anything you like,” he murmured, his voice husky as he lifted his arms over his head and lay supine, hers to command.
She drank him in, her Max, so beautiful it nearly hurt to look at him.
Scooting down the cot until her face was even with his member, she reached out and touched him again, gently stroking him while she gathered her courage.
She’d gotten this idea when he’d made love to her with his mouth, certain there must be a way to return the favor.
Taking a deep breath, she leaned forward and kissed the tip, then ran her tongue across the broad head. He gasped, burying his hands in her hair, his hips jerking in obvious appreciation. “Yes,” he moaned. “Take me in your mouth, my love. I can’t believe you’re willing to do this for me.”
“Tell me what to do,” she whispered. “How can I make you feel the way I do when your mouth is between my legs?”
“You’re too good to be true,” he breathed. “I think I’ll like anything you do, but if you could try to suck, take me in as far as you can... Oh, yes, like that. That’s so good.”
She hollowed her cheeks and drew him in as far as she could, until the head of his cock was brushing the back of her throat. The sounds he was making, the soft curses and praise, made her certain that she was succeeding.
“I can’t... I’m going to...” With a soft curse, he pulled her against him, rolling her so that she was now on her back, and he was above her, staring down at her with an expression that melted her to the core.
“I want to be inside you when I come,” he growled, thrusting into her with one powerful stroke and seating himself to the hilt.
As he began to move within her, it was everything they had not said on the hike back: the fear of the future, the recognition of their temporary status, the sheer gratitude for still being alive to feel anything at all.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and met him thrust for thrust, that now familiar tingling sensation climbing within her until it crested at the same time he groaned and stiffened, finding his release as well.
When it was over, they lay tangled together, their breathing shallow and even, too exhausted to speak.
The lantern flickered, a tiny flame against the infinite blackness of the desert night.
Then, slowly, they fell into the deep, dead sleep of those who have stared into the darkness and somehow found their way back to the light.
The return journey back to Cairo felt a thousand times longer than their outward trip. They broke camp quickly the next morning, the heavy silence between Max and Eden thick with the memory of the night and the looming shadow of what lay ahead.
Max watched Eden closely over the next few days, and a new kind of worry settled in his chest, a concern that was sharper and more personal than the physical hardships of the trek.
On the way out, she had been a scholar on a quest, her spirit buoyed by the prospect of a world-changing discovery.
Now, she was just a woman, tired and raw, returning from an experience that seemed to have broken her in a way he hadn’t fully anticipated.
He could see the toll the labyrinth had taken.
It was in the hollows beneath her eyes, the way she held herself, a new fragility he had never seen before.
The grand revelation of the place, its immense, silent power, had been a kind of spiritual earthquake.
He had seen the truth of it in her face when she realized what the Scarab represented, a power so great and so terrible that no human could ever be trusted with it.
That moment—the one when she had turned away from the source of all her hopes and dreams—had solidified his respect for her into something more profound.
He had seen countless men, and a few women, in his line of work, driven by avarice and ambition.
They would have taken the Scarab and rationalized its use.
But Eden had understood in her heart that some things were too powerful for humanity, that the true act of courage was not to take, but to leave.
He was so proud of her.
When they’d set out on this journey, he’d wondered if she was still the girl he’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
The answer was that she was... yet she was also so much more.
She was a woman now, one who’d been hardened and shaped by all those years they’d been apart.
He’d gotten to know that woman, and he found he loved her even more than the girl she’d been.
Unfortunately, he feared that he still wasn’t the man she needed. Hell, what was he saying? This trip had proven beyond a doubt that she didn’t need a man at all.
Max found himself riding in a separate world, lost in his thoughts, his eyes on the horizon but his mind on Eden. Where did they go from here? He had no idea what she was thinking, and he didn’t know how to start the conversation.
When they’d stopped the first night, he hadn’t been sure if she still wanted to share a tent with him. She hadn’t spoken to him all day, and he didn’t know how to bridge the distance between them.
“I’m going to stay in my own tent tonight,” he’d said. “You seem like you need some space.”
She met his gaze for a long moment, and he prayed she’d shake her head and tell him she still wanted to sleep beside him, but instead, she had just nodded. “Yes, that’s probably for the best.”
He watched her on the long stretches, sometimes catching her staring at the smudged notebook in her saddlebag, as if trying to piece together what she’d seen.
On the third day, he saw dust on the horizon, and he turned to meet Amir’s gaze. “There’s a camp up ahead.”
He pointed to a small forest of poles and canvas rising from the dunes. As they drew closer, the sound of shouting and the rhythmic thud-thud of pickaxes echoed off the canyon walls.
“Should we go around it?” Eden asked, the first thing she’d said in hours.
He shook his head regretfully. “They’ll have seen us already.” But he put his hand on his revolver just in case. As they grew closer, he realized he needn’t have bothered.
Sir Thomas Albright stood under a silk-lined canopy, sipping something from a crystal glass that looked obscenely cold. He looked up, his eyes narrowing behind a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles as Max and Eden’s bedraggled crew shambled into the camp.
“Good God,” Albright said, stepping out from the shade. He looked like a man who hadn’t broken a sweat since landing in Alexandria. “Lady Eden? You look as though you’ve been buried alive.”
He didn’t offer a hand to help her down.
He stood back, as if fearing the dust on her clothes might jump onto his pristine Norfolk jacket.
Max slid off his camel first, his boots hitting the sand with a heavy thud.
He moved to Eden’s side, catching her as she dismounted.
She was light, her body trembling with fatigue she was desperately trying to hide.
“Sir Thomas,” Eden said, her voice thin but steady. She leaned into Max just enough for support, but not enough for Albright to notice. “I see you’ve brought half of London with you.”
Albright let out a short, sharp laugh, his eyes darting to Max with a look of pure dismissal. “When one hunts for the foundations of history, one comes prepared.” He gave a disdainful glance at their small crew.
Max’s jaw tightened so hard his teeth ached. He was used to being looked through by men like Albright, but he absolutely hated the way that bastard was treating Eden.
“I didn’t need this sort of circus,” Eden said coldly. “We did just fine.”
Albright laughed, his tone dripping with bored disbelief. He gestured vaguely in the direction they’d come from. “I take it the great discovery was a bust? I assume you found nothing but a few shards of common pottery and a great deal of misfortune?”
Max looked at Albright’s smug, smooth face and imagined telling him what they had found.
Telling him that Eden had found the discovery of a lifetime while he was busy chilling his gin.
This bastard had obviously pulled some strings in the Antiquities office and found out where they were headed.
Thank goodness his caravan was moving so slowly.
Even if he found the labyrinth, he’d never find its secrets now.
For the first time, he truly realized what it was going to cost Eden to go back empty-handed. All those men back in London would treat her just as Albright was. Her brave decision would ensure she’d never receive any respect.
“You’re right, Sir Thomas,” she said, her lip trembling. “We found nothing but sand and a very expensive lesson in humility.”
Albright’s smile was triumphant. He looked at her with a patronizing pity that turned Max’s stomach. “Valiant effort, my dear. Truly. But leave the desert to those with the constitution for it.”
He turned his back on them, shouting an order to a servant. “Give them some water. We can’t have the Lady Eden collapsing.”
Max turned the camels toward the water trough. He didn’t look back until they were a mile away, the camp a white speck against the rock.
“I should have knocked him on his ass,” he finally said angrily.
“I would have liked to see that,” she said, giving him a wry smile that made him think that maybe she would get past this after all.