Page 20

KYRA

" Y ou're quiet," Max said, his hand warm on Kyra's back as they strolled the village paths. "Thinking about the figurine?"

"Among other things." Kyra sighed. "I'm just not looking forward to leaving on another adventure when my sisters need me here."

"They'll survive without you," Max said.

"I'm not sure. I would feel much better about leaving if Jasmine would be here to help them, but she is coming with us. They will have no one to turn to."

"Your sisters are fighters too, in their own way. They'll manage. Besides, Onegus might decide that he can't spare me, and I'll have to stay behind. If so, I'll help them as much as I can."

Kyra stopped in her tracks. "You have to come with us. I'm not leaving without you."

Smiling, he cupped her cheek and leaned in to plant a kiss on her lips. "My warrior queen. If you give Onegus the look you've just given me, he will insist on my going with you."

She chuckled. "You make me sound scary. I doubt your boss is impressed by a former rebel."

Every time she uttered the word 'rebel' it was accompanied by guilt. She'd abandoned her adopted ragtag family of rebels for her real family, and even though it was the right thing to do, she still felt horrible for doing it.

As they approached Soraya's house, the front door was open, and through it, Kyra could see all four of her sisters sitting in the living room.

"Looks like they're having a meeting," she murmured to Max.

"Without inviting you?"

"I'm inviting myself." Kyra knocked on the open door. "Hello there. Can Max and I come in?"

"Of course." Yasmin waved them over. "You're right on time."

She looked tired, grief still etched in the lines around her eyes, but there was also a new spark of determination in them that hadn't been there the day before.

Her sisters sat with cups of black coffee, all four looking excited. If Kyra didn't know better, she would have thought that one of them was expecting a child, but since they were all single at the moment, that wasn't an option.

Unless someone conceived before arriving and had just discovered it now.

"Who's pregnant?" She swept her gaze over her sisters.

Soraya snorted. "I hope it's you. None of us wants more children."

Kyra's hand instinctively went to her stomach. "I'm not, but the four of you look way too excited. What's going on?"

"Sit down first." Yasmin gestured toward the couch. "Can I get you both coffee?"

"Sure," Max said.

"Count me in." Kyra sat down. "Where are the children?"

"Arezoo took the little ones to the playground," Soraya said. "The older children are studying with Vrog's programs. They have a lot of catching up to do."

That explained the unusual quiet in the house.

Yasmin handed them each a cup of the strong, black brew that transported Kyra instantly back to the rebel camp and conversations over similar coffee while planning operations against the regime.

"How was the meeting at Kalugal's?" Rana asked, but there was an impatience in her voice that suggested she had other things on her mind.

Kyra took a sip of coffee. "Illuminating.

Kalugal discovered a figurine in Egypt that was a stunning depiction of the Clan Mother.

He wanted Fenella to do a reading of it.

Jasmine and I were there to reinforce her ability.

Long story short, it turns out that this figurine was modeled on an older and better one that had been created by Khiann's squire, who had apparently survived the destruction of the gods' city to carve the likeness of the goddess and inscribe its base. "

"That's amazing," Soraya said. "Did Fenella see all that just from touching the figurine?"

Kyra nodded. "We all saw it. I mean, Jasmine and I piggybacked on Fenella's vision, and we all saw the inscription when the carver looked at it, but we couldn't read the script.

Luckily, the Clan Mother could, and she told us that the original artist was Esag, Khiann's squire.

He made the figurine in honor of her memory, thinking that she had perished with the other gods.

" Kyra paused to take a breath. "That means I'll need to travel to Egypt soon to help search for him. "

Her sisters exchanged looks.

"It's good we're having this meeting today, then," Soraya said, leaning back into her chair with the natural authority of the eldest. "You can help us before you go."

"With what?" Kyra put down her cup.

Another round of silent communication passed between her sisters before Soraya spoke again. "We want to open a store in the village."

The words hung in the air for a moment, unexpected and yet somehow perfectly logical.

"What kind of store?" Max asked.

"Like the neighborhood stores we had back home," Yasmin said, her hands gesturing as she spoke. "The ones on every corner where you could buy groceries, fresh bread, and some other baked goods."

"Candy," Parisa added. "Chocolates. The kids loved going to the store to get some treats."

"This place needs a store," Soraya said.

"Every time we need groceries, it's a whole procedure of ordering them and then waiting for someone to deliver them because only members of the community can get in here.

Even when we get cars of our own, it's a long drive to the nearest supermarket.

I'm sure we are not the only ones who find it inconvenient. "

"I hate ordering groceries," Rana said. "It sucks all the fun out of shopping. There's no browsing through produce, no haggling over prices, no aunties gossiping while they squeeze tomatoes to check for ripeness."

Kyra smiled. "You want to recreate a piece of home here."

"It's not about that," Soraya said. "We want to contribute, to earn our keep.

I don't know what arrangement we can come to with Kian, but we can figure it out.

Maybe a share of the profit for managing the place, or salaries, and some of it will be deducted for housing and everything else we've been getting for free. "

Kyra understood, and she was proud of her sisters for their initiative.

"We can even sell home-cooked food." Parisa's usually quiet voice was firm with conviction. "I'm sure that will be in high demand."

"I'm not much of a cook, but I can handle the business side," Rana said. "I can keep the books, manage orders."

"We want you to talk to Kian for us." Soraya's dark eyes fixed on Kyra. "We were thinking of using one of the empty residential houses for our store."

Yasmin nodded. "We've already identified a few that might work—good locations and enough space for storage and display."

Her sisters had put considerable thought into this. "You've been planning this for a while."

Soraya shrugged. "It was easy to figure out what this place was missing, but we don't have the connections to put things in motion.

The immortals have lived so long, they've forgotten some of the simple pleasures of life.

When did any of them last argue with a shopkeeper over the price of eggplant?

When did they gather somewhere just to share the small dramas of daily life? "

Kyra laughed. "Forget the haggling. No one does that here. And there is enough gossip going on in the café and the Hobbit Bar."

Soraya pursed her lips. "Well, if they don't like haggling here, we can live without it. It's less fun, though."

"Maybe we can also serve coffee," Rana suggested. "We could have a few tables outside in the backyard."

"I don't think Kian would agree to that." Kyra glanced at Max. "What do you think?"

"I think that a grocery store is a wonderful idea, but having it in a residential area is problematic. The other residents will not want the commotion disturbing their quiet. We will need to come up with another solution."

"Like what?" Kyra asked. "It's not like there are any empty spaces in the village square."

"There might be." Max rubbed a hand over his jaw. "We can build an extension behind the office building, but it's really up to Kian to decide."

"I'm sure Kian will love the idea," Kyra said. "I'll arrange a meeting with him for all of us. You should present this to him yourselves—he'll want to hear your vision directly."

Relief and excitement washed across her sisters' faces.

"We've already come up with preliminary plans," Parisa said, producing a folder from beside her chair.

Kyra took it and flipped through pages covered in her sisters' neat handwriting.

"This is impressive," Max said, reading over her shoulder. "You've really done your homework."

"We had help," Soraya admitted. "The girls searched online for prices for us."

"You've been busy." Kyra flipped through the folder again. "What about the children?" she asked. "Running a store is demanding work, and you are in charge of homeschooling here. It's not like the kids are at school most of the day."

"That's part of why we want to do it together," Soraya said. "We can rotate schedules and share childcare duties. The older children can help after their studies are done. It will be good for them to have responsibilities and be useful."

"The older boys in particular need purpose," Parisa said. "Arman still has nightmares."

"They are angry," Parisa added quietly. "So much anger. For us, leaving our home, for the immortals, for not saving Uncle Javad."

"The children need purpose, routine, and a sense of belonging," Yasmin said. "That's another reason the store is important. It will give them something to be a part of, to be proud of, a way to contribute to their new community."

"Essa has been incredible with the younger children," Soraya said, speaking of Yasmin's eldest. "He's stepped into his father's shoes, perhaps too much so. He needs to be a teenager, not a surrogate parent, but the only boys his age here are Kra-ell, and he doesn't feel comfortable around them."

Kyra marveled at how her sisters had woven together all these threads into a single solution, but she feared their expectations for this endeavor were inflated.

"Donya has made friends with some of the Kra-ell kids," Soraya said.

"Initially, that worried me because they look so strange, but so far, there have been no issues.

Laleh decided she wants to be a Guardian when she grows up.

" Her sister chuckled. "It's your fault, you know.

Seeing female warriors opened up a whole world of possibilities she never imagined.

I'm not saying I want her to fight, but seeing women in positions of strength, treated with respect—it's good for her. "

"For all of them," Yasmin agreed. "This place offers them futures we couldn't have dreamt of back home." She looked at Kyra. "I really don't want you to leave right now. We need you."

"I know." Kyra leaned over and took her hand. "It's not like I will be gone for long, though. For the simple reason that Kalugal will need to return sooner rather than later."

"What about security" Rana asked. "Is Egypt safe?"

Kyra shrugged. "It has to be safer than infiltrating Revolutionary Guard installations."

"Don't joke about it," Yasmin scolded. "We've lost enough already."

The reminder of Javad's death cast a momentary shadow over the room. They'd all lost so much. Their homes, their loved ones, the lives they'd built over decades. But sitting here in Soraya's living room, surrounded by her sisters' determined faces, Kyra also saw what they'd gained.

"The store will be good for the village," she said, changing the subject back to safer ground. "The immortals need what you're offering, and not just the groceries. It's the rhythms of normal life."

"That's what we hope," Soraya said. "To build something lasting here, something our children can be proud of. A bridge between the world we left and the one we've joined."

"Have you thought about what you'll call it?" Max asked.

The sisters exchanged smiles.

"The Pearl," Rana announced. "It's Parisa's idea. After our mother."

"It's perfect," Kyra said.

"We want to paint the door blue," Yasmin added. "Like home. To ward off the evil eye."

"I'm sure Kian won't mind that," Kyra said, though privately she wondered what the architecturally minded immortals would think of such a departure from the village's Mediterranean aesthetic. Then again, Kalugal had his red door, so a precedent already existed.