1
Brogdon Castle
She was no stranger to war.
She had walked the fields of many plagues through the centuries, offered healing and comfort to the mortals who lay dying there.
She had borne witness to the fall of kingdoms, knew well the tastes and scents and sounds that split the air before a world was shattered by an apocalyptic storm.
Bektaten felt those things now. They rode the brisk, ocean winds that swept her long walks atop the sea-facing cliffs. They drummed against the stone walls of the Norman castle she had so recently restored. They rose high above the English Channel, spun off by the thunderheads rolling over the German Empire.
War was coming.
But the reports from her spies throughout the world, her beloved Heralds of the Realms, had convinced her this cataclysm would have no precedent in history, and so her eight thousand years of immortal life could not prepare her for it. Cannons that could turn a battalion of soldiers to a sea of charnel would soon be rolled into battle. Machinery that once defied imaginations would service an interlocking web of conflict unlike any she’d ever seen. All the great nations of Europe would soon be embroiled.
She could feel the coming thunder of it in her unbreakable bones.
And so she retired to her library with its leather-bound volumes containing her ancient journals, where the great mastiffs she had recently rescued watched her attentively from all corners of the stone-walled room. Outside, the Celtic Sea roared against the bases of the cliffs on which her castle stood, but within her citadel she could hear only the drumbeat of war. She lifted her pen to paper and she wrote. She wrote to all the immortals who had so recently been placed under her care. Immortals who’d been rendered so without her consent, but through the power of an elixir she had created thousands of years before.
She wrote to them of the war she feared and the temptations it would place before them all. When she was through, her loyal servants, Enamon and Aktamu, would make all the necessary copies of the letter and see that it was delivered to all of the recipients addressed therein. To Ramses the Great, once Ramses the Damned, and his immortal lover, Julie Stratford. To the dashing and mysterious Elliott Savarell, who she’d yet to meet. And to the American novelist Sibyl Parker and the immortal to whom she was still mysteriously connected, a woman who may well be the risen Cleopatra herself. She wrote to this Cleopatra as well, sweeping aside the question of whether or not she was truly Egypt’s last queen reborn, or a fragmented clone residing within her resurrected skin and bones.
Essential to address them all as one, as if they sat collectively before her. For how else to impress upon them that they were an alliance, a council in the making. The first citizens of a new kingdom that must endure within the shadows and gaps of knowledge that defined mortal humanity.
With each stroke of the pen, she tried to summon her wisdom and her experience, hoping it would form a river of strength through the fear that dominated her thoughts.
She knew it was essential to write them, not just as their queen, but as their compatriot, and so she began by opening her ancient heart.
You are my children now, all of you, and given the extent of all that I must protect here at my citadel atop the windswept cliffs of Cornwall, you are my subjects too. And so I share these words with confidence that you will each place flame to paper once you have absorbed the contents of this letter so as to conceal from history the many secrets alluded to within these pages.
The events which drew us all unexpectedly together have reached their conclusion. Saqnos, the prime minister of my ancient kingdom, who for thousands of years strived to steal from me the formula for the pure elixir, has been vanquished, along with his acolytes, the fracti.
I grieve Saqnos. I cannot be untruthful about this. He was once my lover and prime minister before he turned traitor, before he was lost to his rage over the fact that I had kept my discovery of the secret to eternal life from him. But he was one of but a handful of witnesses to the glory and expanse of Shaktanu, our fallen kingdom, our ancient world. With him died memories of glittering palaces now ground to dust by time, great sailing ships lost to the winds of history, of a forgotten time when the Sahara, now desert, was dappled with crystalline pools and glistening rivers and trees that shifted lazily in temperate winds. These were the
gardens of a kingdom that was spoken of by the ancient world, as Atlantis is now spoken of by this modern one.
But the destruction of Saqnos is but a prologue to what I wish to share in this letter. For his vile plots have brought us all together, and now that we are roughly and newly united, our new burdens commence.
Given the power you all possess, I must speak to you now of the terrible war I believe to be on the wing.
2
London
They were kind men, these officials from the British Museum. But their presence here in her front parlor stirred painful memories of other agents of that august institution who had tried to force their way into Julie’s home months before, all in a frenzied effort to make off with Lawrence Stratford’s last, great discovery—the ancient mummy and artifacts her father had unearthed in the hills outside Cairo just before his murder.
Of course, those men hadn’t possessed the slightest idea of the true magic and mystery contained within her father’s finds. They’d financed the expedition and felt entitled to its end results. And they’d thought it terribly ghastly Julie had insisted on displaying the mummy right here in the front parlor of her family home in Mayfair. And like the world, they’d no idea of the miracle that followed. A miracle wrought by ancient magic and the sun, the very kind of fierce, midday sunlight that filtered through the stained-glass ceiling of the conservatory now, illuminating the empty shelves that had been filled with her father’s journals only moments before.
But these were different men standing before her in this moment, gentler men. And she’d invited them here. They’d not come to collect an ancient mummy and its related artifacts, for the occupant of that sarcophagus had, to the eyes of London, mysteriously disappeared. No, these men had come for something far more intimate and personal.
Lawrence Stratford’s journals.
“I must say, Miss Stratford, we’re most impressed you were able to make a survey of this many volumes so quickly. Especially given recent events.” Eyebrow raised, the shorter of the two men studied her.
Ah, there it was again. They were beset by curiosity about the mysterious tale of her betrothal party to an Egyptologist named Mr. Reginald Ramsey. To say nothing of the earlier scandals that had marked Mr. Ramsey’s rather mysterious and sudden arrival into London society.
“My father’s legacy had been marked by much excitement, that’s for sure,” she said. “But I didn’t read the journals just these past few days. I’d spent much time with them already, so it was short work, removing the ones too personal. Surely you can understand that some of Lawrence’s innermost thoughts must not be…”
“Oh, of course. Of course, Ms. Stratford.”
Both men practically fell all over themselves to agree.
She felt a stab of guilt. Part of what she’d just said was a lie. But hardly a damnable one. In fact, she’d read the entirety of his journals—thirty-five volumes from a lifetime of expeditions to Egypt—in a single day’s time. And she’d memorized every word. These were talents afforded her by the same elixir that had changed the color of her eyes to blue, that ensured her tangle of brown curls remained the same length and the same shining luster. That made her flesh and bones all but indestructible. That had given her the gift of eternal life.
But she could not tell these men this.
And she felt grateful for them. Grateful that in this time of conflict and unrest, they would provide a safe and sheltered home for the chronicles of her late father’s travels and blazing insights and passions for the ancient world.
They popped open the clasps on their leather cases. With gloved hands they gently placed the stacks of volumes within. It seemed fussy, the amount of care they showed. The journals weren’t in danger of falling apart. Indeed, the most recent ones were in such fine condition they served as a painful reminder of how recently Lawrence had been lost. Nothing among them was as ancient as the accounts contained inside the leather-bound volumes the great queen Bektaten guarded in her castle perched on the Cornish coast. But still, the sight of their methodical packing comforted Julie, made her feel as if this was the right choice.
“Even so, that you would take the time to facilitate during this time of trouble,” one of the men said.
“Come now, Mr. Starnes,” the taller one commanded. “Mustn’t sour Ms. Stratford’s day with your dire predictions about the troubles on the Continent.”
“Forgive my colleague, Ms. Stratford,” Starnes said with a smile. “He believes this will be a short war.”
“It will be!” the taller man pronounced. “The British declaration is but an ornament, meant to deter the Germans out of any silliness.”
“Whether it’s short or long,” Julie said, “I’m grateful to know these precious items will rest secure within the museum’s walls.”
Both men beamed at this, the little tension of their disagreement having vaporized. And then there were handshakes and assurances she could come and visit and read through the journals again at any time she liked as soon as the archivists had cataloged them all.
And then they were gone and, with them, much of her father’s memories.
She had not been prepared for this, this harsh stab of grief that struck her now as she found herself alone in the double parlor, the empty shelves in the Egyptian Room exposing the extent of all she’d handed over to strangers. And the sunlight filtering through the stained-glass window in the conservatory nearby a reminder of all her father had been deprived of. Poisoned by her scheming, greedy cousin before the true miracle of his discovery could be revealed to him.
With her heightened senses, she detected movements just outside the front doors, assumed it was the men from the museum lingering, perhaps struggling with the weight of the cases before descending the front steps. Then there was a slight scrape, and when she returned to the foyer, a white envelope rested on the little Oriental rug.
In elegant cursive, the names on the envelope read mr. ramsey and ms. stratford. And on the flap, a wax seal below the words brogdon castle.
Her heart thrumming, she tore open the letter. When the enormity of its contents became clear, she hurried upstairs in search of the other addressee, the same man who’d torn the mummy’s wrappings from himself in the front parlor of this very house months before, stepping fully into the sunlight that had streamed through the conservatory’s stained-glass ceiling, rousing from centuries of slumber.
To Mr. Reginald Ramsey, once Ramses the Great, and then Ramses the Damned, immortal counselor to Egypt’s ancient rulers. Once a powerful king of that land yourself, while swelled from the heat of victory in battle against the Hittites, you stole the elixir from a woman you dismissed as a mad priestess when you happened upon her isolated cave during your wanderings. You stole it without knowledge that this woman was my companion, and that it was not she who had discovered this elixir quite by accident, but I who had concocted it thousands of years before. I repeat these facts here not to shame you for that long-ago murder of my friend, the Hittite priestess Marupa. For all you have done with the elixir’s power since, in my view, absolves you of the initial heinousness of that crime. You used your immortality not to become an all-powerful tyrant, but to provide wise counsel to kings and queens who might otherwise have placed the ancient world on a path to ruin. You have guarded the elixir’s formula from those whose only desire is to destroy or acquire. You have balanced power with wisdom, despite your rash acts.
No, I repeat these facts of history so they might make clear to all the significance of the treaty to which you and I have agreed, a treaty which dictates that you will engage in no more rash acts. I speak specifically of your use of the elixir some months ago to resurrect remains you identified to be those of the last queen to which you gave your counsel, the last queen of Egypt, your former lover, Cleopatra.
Under your alias, Mr. Reginald Ramsey, you have promised me and those to whom you are now intimately connected that you will engage with this modern world, not seek to disrupt it or thwart its natural course of events with your incredible power and strength. Henceforth, your actions will be guided by your thirst for knowledge and experience, and tempered by your love for your immortal companion, Julie Stratford, daughter of the man who accidentally discovered what you assumed would be your final resting place. For reasons which have become clear since our parting a short time ago, I must hold you to this promise now more than ever.
Kinship, Ramses said to himself as he passed the letter’s pages to Julie. Let me feel only kinship with my new queen. Not this roiling anger. Not this sense of being imprisoned through elegant words.
But it was a struggle.
He’d read the letter several times in its entirety, then reviewed the passage addressed specifically to him once more, hoping his anger would recede. But it did not. And now he gripped the arms of this soft upholstered chair in the bedroom where he and Julie never slept but made love frequently.
There was so much of his life the historians would never know.
Ramses II of Egypt did not die of old age as the biographies claimed. No stela had recorded the truth of those years—that his own son realized his father was not aging as a mortal man should, that the makeup and beards Ramses wore were a ruse, and that whatever the source of this miracle, it posed a threat to his own ascendancy. Not Plutarch, not Herodotus, not the historians of this twentieth century, not a one knew the hours Ramses spent being tortured by his once-loyal offspring as the man furiously demanded the secret to eternal life Ramses had guarded ever since its discovery.
It’s theft, he reminded himself.
They would never know the bargain that had saved them all. Ramses would give up the throne, fake his own death with the corpse of an unloved man, and, in return for his son becoming king, he would be allowed to keep secret the source of his immortality.
But there’d been one other condition. Ramses would depart Egypt entirely, so as never to endanger the ruse or his son’s throne by lingering in the kingdom’s shadows.
Few could understand the loneliness that had overtaken him as he’d traveled the ancient world for the first time. A robed and solitary figure capable of standing strong against the most powerful winds, greeted in small villages as a mystic or a god, revealing little. Listening, learning with a mind expanded by the elixir’s magic. New languages, new philosophies, new tribes unknown to him when he was king. He dazzled all he met with eyes turned bright blue by the elixir’s power, but his real identity was unknown to them. He was a traveler of vitality and strength who never slept and ate almost constantly, but also a nomad. A wanderer.
During those first journeys, his loneliness had been threaded through with the wonder and majesty of all the glorious sights he beheld for the first time: the vast forests of Britannia, islands of volcanoes and ice in the farthest north. The raw and rolling earth of the very lands that now composed those empires marching into war. He had touched and tasted and smelled these lands in their purest form. Had moved among their ancient peoples. But his only companion had been the knowledge that he walked alone, experienced alone, learned alone, fell in love with mortals whose light would soon be snuffed out by time alone.
Only one creature on earth had tasted this depth of solitude and the isolation it could bring, the great queen Bektaten, so newly known to them all. And now the author of a letter that had by turns saddened and enraged him.
For with solitude had come freedom.
When he’d relinquished the double-headed crown to his traitorous son, the last of his mortal burdens had left him. A century later, he’d returned to Egypt and placed himself in service to the empire’s new rulers, but he had done so on terms of his own design. The old priests with whom he’d conspired to keep his secret were all given the same instruction. They might lead the new pharaoh to him only if the pharaoh sought true counsel. For any who tried to raise him as an all-powerful warrior or weapon, the retribution would be swift. Never again had he bent his knee to a king, a queen, or a pantheon.
And now, he answered to one who could reduce him to ash in an instant.
She would be loath to do this, he was sure. She felt the same kinship to him that he struggled to invigorate now. But her letter, with its forceful language and queenly decrees, made him feel imprisoned nonetheless. Not in a tomb designed for a long and sunless slumber, a tomb he’d entered of his own volition. Imprisoned in a construct of rules and laws designed without his input or consent.
Julie read aloud, “ ‘And to Julie Stratford, whom I am tempted to address as Young Julie, even though immortality powers you now and forever. I give my utmost support and endorsement to the love you share with Ramses, for I believe it gives Ramses the nourishment and balance he needs to embrace the modern world without disrupting it. But I must caution you not to lose yourself in a slavish devotion to him. What you experienced as a young mortal woman—the murder of your father, Ramses’s resurrection, your near death at the hands of a risen Cleopatra—these events resulted in the shattering of your belief system. The immortality the elixir grants you cannot in and of itself replace the beliefs you have lost.
“ ‘No ideology or moral purpose resides within its chemical structure. These you must construct on your own! And you must do so as Ramses’s partner, not his possession! I understand there to be a fierceness in you that is more than up to the task I describe. But I fear your passionate desire for Ramses along with a persistent awe over his centuries of lived experience might conspire to trick you into believing you are merely a jewel he has acquired along his centuries of travel. You are not this, and the weight of immortality might crush your spirit should you fall prey to this false and limited sense of self. Your grief for your father continues to ring inside you like a bell rocked by a constantly shifting earth beneath your foundation. Perhaps it is made worse by the terrible knowledge that your father was so cruelly murdered by a relative before he could come to know the true wonder of what he had discovered inside of Ramses’s tomb, before he should share in these dazzling adventures you’ve recently experienced. I do not wish to speak for your soul, but I wish for you to discover yours in full.’ ”
Julie paused and gave Ramses a seductive smile. “Is this what troubles you? Her fear that I might cling to you like a schoolgirl? Your precious jewel.”
“Read the rest, Julie. Read the rest.”
And she did, settling onto his lap. Intoxicating, the smell of perfume radiating from her tailored men’s attire. He embraced her, nuzzling against the hot porcelain nape of her neck.
“She fears immortal intervention in the war,” Julie finally said. “I understand her concern.”
“She addresses us as if we’re children with no control of our impulses.”
“She doesn’t think us weak, Ramses. She thinks the threat is strong. Without precedent. And the temptation to stop it, stronger.”
“And so we do what she asks? We sail to America. All to ensure we don’t throw out our powerful hands to stop the soldiers on the march.”
“You speak often of Manhattan.” She kissed his forehead, tenderly cupped the back of his neck, the gentle slip of her fingers against his flesh sending blissful shivers through him. “You couldn’t reach the Americas on your ancient travels. They’re open to you now.”
“I don’t wish to intervene in this war. These temptations she describes, they are hers. She endows us with them without cause. I’ve borne witness to many battles and intervened in none. To do so would be to invite chaos.”
“I know,” Julie whispered.
“I counseled the kings and queens of Egypt for centuries and never once cast the elixir about like a balm. Her words…they treat me as if I am new to all this, Julie. An infant in her magical world. If she can share her ancient journals with me, she must allow me to move about the world as I desire.”
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but a transatlantic crossing entails a great deal of movement.”
“I am. I’ve crossed the Mediterranean with you twice.”
“Well, it’s like that, only longer. And on the other side, a brave young nation neither of us has ever seen. Far from this war.”
“I’m not disturbed by the destination. I don’t wish to journey there atop a tide of the great Bektaten’s superiority. That’s all.”
“Oh, Ramses. Her words describe a potential. A potential in us all. She addresses us as family. Perhaps that’s what’s disturbing to you. She doesn’t treat you like a king or a lone advisor, but a member of an alliance.”
“And her comments on your slavish devotion to me? What are your thoughts on this, Young Julie Stratford? Do I treat you like a possession?”
“So long as we possess each other, I see no issue,” Julie cooed.
“Ah, how the nuances of the English language allow one to mislead.”
Julie smiled before her expression turned serious at whatever she saw in his blue eyes.
“Don’t see her as a queen, Ramses,” she said. “You’ve not known family for centuries. It’s no surprise you’d recoil from her parenting.”
“So she mothers us. I see.”
“If anyone has the right to, it’s her. And no one else.” Julie rose to her feet. “I’ll contact Thomas Cook at once and book us passage on the Lusitania. It’ll give us cause to close the house. I think that’s best. Rita and Oscar will be relieved of their duties. With pay, of course. They can stay with their families during this time. Safest for them. Safest for us all.”
“You truly fear this war will come to these shores?” Ramses asked.
“I don’t know what this war will do. It seems no one does. Not even our great queen Bektaten.”
“And so she’s a queen again in your eyes,” he grumbled.
Julie approached him, gripped the back of his neck, ...
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