Page 126 of Tomb of the Sun King

He groaned, dropping his head back against the stone.

Constance shoved at him as she tried to extricate herself. The narrowness of their perch just above the racing surface of the water didn’t leave her much room to maneuver, and Neil found himself shockingly aware of every limber inch of her muddy efforts.

He lurched away and nearly fell off the ledge. Constance caught him and yanked him to his feet.

They balanced there, bracing each other’s arms, until Constance abruptly released him.

“Why did you throw the tablet?” she demanded angrily.

“He was about to kill you!” Neil shot back.

She grabbed his shirt, shaking it with furious agitation. “Will it tell them where to find the tomb?”

The blood drained from Neil’s face. He couldn’t answer her.

Constance shoved him loose with a growl of disgust. The move nearly sent him sliding back into the river. He found a handhold on the cliff that rose beside him, using it to steady himself as his knees threatened to give out.

Neil couldn’t feel guilty for what he had done. He had been willing to die to keep the tablet and its secrets out of Julian Forster-Mowbray’s hands.

He hadn’t hesitated to sacrifice it to save Constance’s life.

She eyed the cliffs, her mouth tight with lingering frustration. “We need to find someplace less exposed in case they turn back the boat.”

“They can’t turn back the boat.” Neil’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. “The current is too strong, and the wind is against them. They could only reverse course by offloading the crew and dragging the boat upriver by rope, and they can’t do that along these cliffs.”

“Well, that’s something, at least.” Constance grimly eyed the steep rocks that rose around them. “This way.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. With the sturdy confidence of a goat, she picked out a path up the ragged face of the mountain. Neil struggled after her, torn between his terror of being left behind and his fear of losing his grip and plummeting into the river. Both outcomes felt entirely plausible.

He followed her to one of the square-cut openings in the rock. The doorway was barely tall enough to clear Neil’s head. Beyond it lay a narrow chamber cut into the face of the cliff, empty of anything but a scattering of rubble.

The ridge at Gebel Tukh was known to be peppered with rock-cut tombs, none of them considered to be of particular archaeological interest. All had been looted in antiquity, and their relative inaccessibility, suspended as they were above one of the most dangerous sections of the river, had deterred both casual explorers and professional excavators.

Neil’s eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom. If there had ever been a burial in this tomb, it was long gone now—not that he could make out much more about the place when it was all a blur. He fumbled for his glasses, taking them from his pocket and making a futile attempt to dry them on his soaked shirt.

He settled for blowing on them for a bit before slipping them back onto his face.

The world came back into focus—as did Constance.

Her hair had come loose, falling in damp waves around her shoulders. Her fashionable lawn dress was streaked with slime from their landing on the ledge. The fabric clung mercilessly to her well-proportioned figure.

Neil’s mouth went a bit dry, even as he considered with mortification how disheveled he must look himself.

That consideration vanished as Constance began picking at her buttons. She wriggled out of a sleeve.

“What… What are you…” Neil stuttered, panic rising.

“Stop gaping and take off your clothes,” she ordered.

“Mywhat?!” Neil squawked, fumbling to catch his glasses, which threatened to slide off his damp nose.

“They’ll dry better if you lay them out, and you’ll be less likely to catch a chill,” Constance clarified with barely concealed irritation.

She shoved her dress down over her hips and stepped out of it. Plucking it from the ground, she expertly twisted it into a knot, wringing it out.

Neil stared at the strong curve of her hip where it pressed against the fabric of her chemise. His mind blanked.

She rolled her eyes. “Stop looking so horrified. It’s not like I have any designs on your virtue. I had been considering it, but you scuppered any chance of that when you turned out to be such a lily-livered snitch.”

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