Takes place right after The Heart's Arrow.
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Ja-kal sat himself down heavily on the steps leading to their sarcophagi, pain thrumming up and down his injured arm to the tune of a heartbeat he didn’t have. He let out a breath of air and fitfully dozed, or maybe Rath had already been there. Regardless, Ja-kal couldn’t help but chide himself; injured or not he should not be so easily snuck up on.
“Everything go alright?” Rath asked, arms crossed as he regarded his leader.
“I parked the Nile-ator in the garage.”
“Not what I asked.” Rath knelt and looked over the injured arm, fingers ghosting over worn bandages and adjusting the sling. “Presley is home safely?”
“Of course.” He should be offended by the question but Rath couldn’t help it. He winced at the adjustment and then continued, answering the ignored question. “Presley helped me send a message...despite everything, Arakh is my brother. I can’t just...leave things as is.”
Rath hummed and sat back, eyes narrowed to slits. “They were not like us. We were bound here, our souls in sleep to await our prince’s return, but Arakh and Kimas both long ago moved on beyond the gate. It’s where they belong.” He paused a moment, considering. Comfort was not his forte. “At least your nephew knows the truth of you and your love for him now.”
“Yes, but it shouldn’t… It wasn’t always like this, you know. Between me and Arakh.”
“Really? I recall him being quite terrible even when you were boys.”
Ja-kal glared, “That’s not what I meant. I meant…” he shut his eyes, “Even after we’d badly parted ways, when Kimas was born Arakh called me to his home, welcomed me with open arms. He gave me Kimas to hold and he looked so proud, happy. I remember him smiling at me and in that moment at least we were brothers. It happened sometimes.”
Again Rath was quiet a long moment, working through his words before he said them. It wasn’t a way of showing he cared that most people picked up on, but Ja-kal was very familiar with it and when in a better mood appreciative. “You should hang on to those moments then. Remember things as they could have been.”
“I would, but in hindsight...Arakh would have harmed his own son to get to me, nearly did,” he scrubbed at his face with a hand, weary, “Were these moments I’ve clung to, treasured even, more blindness on my part? Was Arakh proud to be a father, or was it merely him trying to show me up? I don’t know…” He dropped his hand and looked to the sorcerer. “How do you handle your regrets?”
Rath shrugged. “I study them, learn from them. Then I ignore them.”
“Ignore them.” An incredulous statement more than a question.
“What good does moping do me? Find the error and do not repeat it.” He stood and circled Ja-kal, checking his bicep and shoulder from behind. “This should heal well, just don’t overdo it.”
“Do we even heal normally?”
“Hm, magic is the bending of truth, and while we’ve died we are alive again...somewhat. We simulate life, so we heal like it.” He paused, “Don’t think about it too hard, it could undo some things…”
“I know how to do it safely,” Rath said, tone and the tilt of his head nothing but smug. He moved past Ja-kal over to his makeshift workbench, one of several he had throughout the sphinx outside his lab. “Is there pain?”
‘No’, Ja-kal nearly answered, a habit born in life he still hadn’t dropped, but he could hear Scarab’s voice now, mocking his warrior pride that left him vulnerable. “Yes,” he sighed because it was true.
It was quiet then, save the grind of a mortar and pestle, the hiss of burners, Rath muttering. Ja-kal shut his eyes and let the susurrus of alchemical workings lull him back to a doze, only to snap back to focus as Rath thrust a vial into his view from behind.
The ichor was thick and congealed, but Ja-kal took the vial and downed the fluid.
Bandages ripped to his eyes bulging out of their sockets as he snarled before the whole of his face collapsed inward.
“Gah!” he sputtered as Rath took back the vial from his hand, “What is that? Did you make it from Khati’s leavings?!”
“Don’t ask what you don’t want to know…” Rath sing-songed behind him, back at his bench.
Ja-kal tried to spit the taste out of his mouth while Rath was distracted. Ra above, even being dead didn’t spare him disgusting medicines.
The padding of bandaged feet behind him marked the sorcerer’s return. On another day, Ja-kal might appreciate his care but in this moment he wished the man would go away.
“You should return to your sarcophagus. Even in this modern age, rest remains the best method of healing.”
Ja-kal didn’t answer but sat in silence. Rath didn’t like being ignored so he only had a precious minute before the magician would repeat himself or more. Instead his mouth opened and he was speaking thoughts that were meant to remain within.
“He was my last chance. Kimas, my nephew… He was so young when I last saw him. The idea that Arakh poisoned him against me shouldn’t be a surprise and yet…” He meant to drop his face in his hands, but the injured arm protested and with a wince the one had to do, “Was my death not enough for him? Did Arakh truly have nothing but hate for me that even his son became secondary to revenge? Everything I did was for him, did I push too hard? Was I so blind to my father’s favoritism that…”
“Ja-kal,” Rath interrupted, voice low but form in a way the hunter hadn’t heard in a long time, “Arakh was a grown man, his choices his own. And even in his youth he pushed back against any who tried to help. You were the only one who kept trying. But his pride allowed nothing else.”
He went quiet then, and Ja-kal didn’t interrupt the boon of silence. Rath was not tactful by nature, an oddity considering he practically grew up at court, and had to think things through.
“You succeeded in Kimas, but more than that, he is not your last chance. There is another still that needs you, but at least that burden is shared now.”
“Of course. He does look up to you, even if he doesn’t show it well. He always has.”
“And do you hate me for that?”
He didn’t have to turn around to know Rath was frowning, eyes narrowed.
“I’ve never hated you.” It was a flat yet sharp delivery, and they both left it at that. Rath sniffed in his way and continued, “We all four of us must make up for our failure. Presley is our last chance. But things are in motion now, we need to be careful.”
“What?” Finally Ja-kal turned, concern lit, only to have his head jerked as Rath grabbed one of the loose strips of bandage on his head and yanked him to his feet.
“To your sarcophagus, come on.”
Ja-kal whirled and jabbed a finger into the slighter man’s chest, “Knock it off, I can beat you up.” It was the most childish thing he’d said in millennia but considering the pain, his turbulent thoughts of his brother, and Rath’s incessant chatter, he didn’t care.
Rath was unimpressed and brushed his hand away. “Not with that arm right now you can’t. Sarcophagus, now.” He grabbed Ja-kal’s uninjured arm and bodily spun him towards their standing sarcophagi.
Grumbling, Ja-kal gave up and moved, yet there was in him too pride that railed against this. That wanted Rath to back off, to shut up for once and let Ja-kal deal with his own hurts, physical and otherwise, in peace. But Arakh’s triumphant sneer flashed in his mind and the fight and anger subsided to give way to exhaustion. So much so that yet again the question he never wanted to ask limped out.
“Do you think he resents us? For failing him? For letting him die?”
That brought Rath up short and he paused. “I...don’t know. I don’t think even Presley knows. Even still he calls to us when in need, so there’s that.”
He nudged Ja-kal further and the hunter dutifully stepped into his Horus sarcophagus, turned and leaned back into it. “Will we ever know?” he can’t help but ask.
“I try not to think about it.”
“Ignoring the regret?” He can’t keep the bite out of his tone.
Rath looked at him, the torchlight reflecting off the glint of the gilded sarcophagus making his eyes glow, illuminating sorrow there all too familiar.
“I take comfort in the fact that none of us will let it happen again,” he said and shut the lid.
Ja-kal dropped his head back as darkness enclosed about him, sound muffled but not gone. He did need rest. He did need quiet to think.
Ignore it. He wished he could. But there was wisdom in Rath’s philosophy. To study and learn… Since waking up in this time none of them had spoken of their last day alive, of what happened, save Rath’s confused, “All three of you?” when they returned to the Sphinx to claim it as their new home. Even then, no one had answered. Why think back to the pain of death? Look forward, protect the reborn prince… But their failure did need to be examined. The why, especially for him. He was the leader, had he made a call that doomed them all? As Arakh attacked him Ja-kal had assumed his team right behind him, fighting forward...but had they? Had they been split apart and each alone done for? Failing the prince, failing themselves…
Perhaps when he woke, when he was rested and more himself, they could go over that day. It would be hard, but they had to know where the failure was and not repeat it.
Ja-kal had too many failures, he would suffer no more.
The thought led him to sleep and regeneration, then down farther into dreams. Of young Kimas in his arms and his brother beside him, smiling at him, a warm hand on his shoulder.
