Page 25 of Ra (The Scarab Prophecy #1)

“Who are these men, Azi?” Ra asked, having stepped up beside her and gently encircled her arm with his hand. It was clear to both Abasi and Dr. Henry Clement that it was meant to show his protection of Azi, no matter who they were.

“This is Abasi, he is my assistant and supervises the workers on all my digs. And this is my father, Dr. Henry Clement.”

Ra actually performed a slight bow to Azi’s father. “All respect due you, Dr. Clement.”

“It is I who respect you, endlessly, your…” Henry Clement looked at Abasi with a worried expression. “Highness? Excellency?”

Ra smiled, inclining his head. “I am just Ra. There is no other word that implies such reverence.”

“Ra,” Azi’s father said, bowing his head.

“It is with great pleasure that we have awaited your return, Ra,” Abasi said.

“Of course, you have.” Ra said, his chin raised as he instinctively became the god and sovereign he’d always been, in personality at least. After a second or two of thought, he focused on Abasi. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Myself and my family. We have watched over your temple, guarding it from disturbance of any kind until the right individual arrived to welcome you into the modern world.”

“How did you know of my temple if it hadn’t yet been discovered?” Ra asked.

“My ancestors were priests of your temples. We and several other families were given the responsibility of keeping watch and nurturing the prophecy,” Abasi said, as he bowed yet again.

“Naturally,” Ra said with more than a slight bit of sarcasm. “I suppose you knew we were locked away, forgotten for thousands of years as well,” Ra snapped.

“Unfortunately, so. But we had great faith that you’d be awakened by the right person, in the right time,” Abasi said, keeping his eyes on the floor.

Azi turned her back on them and calmly walked toward the side-stage.

“Azenath!” her father called before she got more than a few steps away.

“Azi! Where are you going?” Ra demanded, going to her side, where she’d stopped to glare at them when her father called her name.

Ra reached out and tried to take her hands, but she yanked her hands away from him. “Don’t touch me.”

“What have I done? They are the few that have manipulated and betrayed your trust! I have done nothing wrong!”

“Do you actually believe I’m that clueless, or just hoping that I am?

The three of you are working together on something that I’ve obviously been kept in the dark about.

The actions of all three of you are needed for whatever this prophecy is!

I have no doubt that each of you has made me your pawn, and none of you hesitated to make a fool of me in the meantime.

How could you? How could any of you? I trusted all of you,” she said.

“We are not working together! I do not know these men! I am nothing but what I’ve presented myself to be, Azi,” Ra said, his voice nearing exasperation.

Abasi took the scarab that had been part of her ring out of his pocket and walked over to her, extending his hand toward her with the scarab sitting in his palm.

“How did you get that out of the wall?!” she demanded.

“A magnet,” he confessed.

“How did you know I even got it stuck? And then to use a magnet… never mind. You simply waited for me to figure it all out, then for me to place my scarab into the wall so you could go back for it.”

“The Scarab Prophecy cannot be activated without this scarab, and only this scarab,” Abasi explained. “That’s why it was gifted to you. We knew you’d do your part when the timing was right.”

Azi took the scarab from him and held it in her hand, looking down at its decorative body. “What does The Scarab Prophecy foretell?”

All three men looked at each other as though they weren’t sure who would do the explaining.

Ra took the lead. “There was a time thousands of years after creation, that I and my fellow gods became filled with jealousy toward one another. No matter what we had, and we had a lot, it was never enough. We fought constantly, we battled one another. We tried to influence other gods to join us in our arguments against those we wanted to do away with. We begged Neith to mediate, but what we really wanted was for her to choose our side against whoever it was we wanted gone at the moment. Neith got tired of our pettiness and locked us away in my temple. I suppose we were lucky she didn’t fully destroy us and never look back. ”

“If I’d wanted you destroyed, I wouldn’t have given you a way out,” Neith said, and with that comment, making her presence known.

“The prophecy is your way to freedom, and to live again,” Azi said.

“Yes,” Ra said.

“What exactly does it say?” Azi asked.

“The prophecy is three part. It states that things must happen in sequence for all of us to be freed. First, I must be resurrected before any of the other gods. Second, the woman who frees me must willingly give her heart to me. I cannot manipulate or influence her in any way otherwise I negate the prophecy. I can only be successfully resurrected if those things happen in the correct order, without any influence on my part. She must give of her heart of her own free will. Then I can live again, and only then will the others have a chance to follow suit.”

“So, I had to find you, and fall in love with you — without you manipulating me in any way, for you to have a second chance at life,” Azi said. “And I needed this scarab to do it with.”

“Yes,” Ra said.

“That’s only two requirements,” Azi pointed out.

“The third is…” Abasi started.

“…the fact that I’m human, without warning I might add,” Ra said, tossing a resentful glare toward Neith.

“That’s not…” Abasi said, planning to explain what the third part of the prophecy really was.

But Ra stopped him. “Yes! It is,” Ra practically growled, considering removing the man’s head from his body.

“I have to say, I thought the fact that I’d resurrected you as a human with none of your powers was quite amusing. You haven’t complained about that once until now,” Neith said.

“I am not complaining now. I’m simply answering my Azi’s questions,” Ra snapped.

“Well, well. Have we grown up some?” Neith asked, her expression one of surprise.

“This is Azi’s life. My life. I’m pleased you find it so amusing, Neith,” Ra spat.

Neith watched him for a few moments. Finally, she nodded slowly, seemingly answering some unspoken question that only she heard.

“Azenath, the idea was that he would have to change so much in order to be worthy of love, that he would earn your heart simply by being who he is. That kind of change is worth a second chance at life. As he was before there was no chance anyone could love him,” Neith said, matter-of-factly.

“If he could not become who he needed to be, then he’d be no good for the world. ”

“And all of this” Azi said, waving her hands demonstratively around them all, “is why you continued to give me dig after dig, when so many others were competing for the same opportunities. You needed me to find the temple and fulfill the prophecy you created. It had nothing to do with my abilities, my education, my expertise… it was all about your prophecy! Why not just free them yourself? Why drag me into your games?!”

“There is something you must understand, Azenath.”

“God, I hate my name. If there is one thing I am not, it’s belonging to you,” Azi mumbled, shaking her head in disbelief.

“No, you don’t hate your name. You hate being deceived.

But I didn’t deceive you. I don’t personally care if you ever free Ra and his cohorts.

To my point of view, you are simply very good at your job.

And you’re interesting. You’re respectful.

You respected my past, and you respected my present, not making me waste hours of my life pretending to speak about things that don’t matter to me.

You’re one of the few humans I don’t mind.

If you wanted to learn more about our origins, so be it.

I gave you the digs you wanted because of you. ”

“Cohorts?” Ra asked, his tone fully offended. “I am not a cohort!”

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you and all the gods you felt you needed to create cohorts? All you did was complain and accuse and compete and irritate,” Neith said. “It has been quite peaceful without all of you these years.”

“They are not my gods. And I was not as irritating as they were!”

“You created them. That made them your gods. Perhaps if you’d been the only one I had to contend with, you might not have been that irritating.

Unfortunately, you created more of you than were necessary, and they all wanted, you included, to be me.

You can’t be me. I am the only me, and I’m not going anywhere.

That means I remain the strongest, always. Forever,” Neith shouted.

“We did not…” he stopped and rethought his intention. “I. I behaved badly. I offer you my sincere apology,” Ra said.

Neith looked at him suspiciously, but didn’t respond.

Azi rubbed her thumb over the scarab she still held in her hand. She looked up at Abasi. “You knew all along it would be me.”

Abasi inclined his head one single time, maintaining eye contact with her, taking full responsibility for his part in it.

“I deduced properly. I knew in order for all the parts to fall correctly into place, the individual to activate the prophecy would have be someone who loves Egypt the way my people do. When I met your father, which I arranged to seem it was quite by chance, he had a little daughter. I placed all my faith on the fact that you would be the one we’d awaited. I was right.”

“Because you made it so.”

“I did not make it so. I simply gave you all the pieces if you chose to act upon your destiny.”

“You knew where the temple was. You knew that I was supposed to stumble upon it, release Ra, and fall in love with him. You arranged it so that I would find the temple.”