Page 132 of Immortal Sun

Cyrus heaves a sigh then shrugs. “Sure, just tell her not to kill anyone.”

“Bast, don’t kill anyone,” I say right away.

She seems to literally roll her eyes and then joins us as we leave the cave.

Kratos is guarding today again; he’s holding his daggers tightly in his grip.

“So…” I try to keep it casual as we walk along the beach. I’m barefoot, Bast is running ahead of us and jumping into the sky—for birds maybe? I can’t tell, but she’s excited. If she wasn’t so huge and panther-like, I’d think she was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

She jumps one more time; her jaws get a seagull and she swallows. I stumble, but Cyrus grabs my arm and holds me up, all smiles. “She really hates birds.”

She’s chomping down on the last piece of bird, and when she runs back to us I swear I see a white feather poking out of her mouth.

“Wow.” I manage to choke one word out. “Maybe try a magpie next time?”

Bast tilts her head like she’s truly thinking about it, then bounds ahead of us again.

“She likes you.” Cyrus’s smile is so open and free that I’m almost convinced this is just a walk between a gorgeous man and the girl that was always supposed to be here having a blind date taking a stroll on the beach.

Instead, I’m with immortals.

One holds the sun in the palm of his hand—while holding mine.

And my brother’s life is at stake along with the chaos of the world.

There is no end of what’s to come only what’s been told to me. His left hand is shoved into his pocket as he walks, and I’m weirded out when each footprint made into the sand slowly fades back as if he was never there.

When I turn around there’s only one set of footprints, mine. “Why aren’t your footprints showing up in the sand?” I stumble forward in shock. He grabs me by the elbow and helps me keep my feet under me before I fall.

The waves aren’t even touching us, and his footprints are nonexistent.

I look down at his bare feet. Sand almost floats around his feet, rising and falling like the tides.

Bast completely ignores us, most likely in search of an approved bird, and Cyrus is still holding onto my elbow.

Slowly he releases me and goes down to his knees and presses a palm against the sand. “Do you know why there’s so much of it all over the world?”

“Sand?” I’m so confused, which seems to be my MO ever since coming to this place. Who wouldn’t be? Everything needs an explanation and even then, with those explanations unless they terrify you into believing it, it’s hard to swallow.

He picks up a tiny, nearly impossible-to-see grain of sand, and it flickers in the moonlight. “I refuse to desecrate the dead that have passed. Human bodies return to the dirt, but the dirt, the sand has memory. It remembers its creator. Some might say it’s part of me, just like you are. Some are trapped in the waters, the other realms, the underworld even, but most return to the earth later to be blessed by the Nile.” He walks over to the water.

Stunned, I follow him as he sets the grain of sand in the waves. I’m having a full-onMoanamoment when the water parts for him only to splash at him as he walks and walks until he should be waist deep. He releases the sand into the sea and comes back toward me, then freezes.

I don’t realize I’m standing in the water or that water is lapping around my legs until it’s too late.

His eyes flash.

And the waves, while not touching him at all, crash around me, arms pull at me, hands tug my hair.

I want to scream but know if I do, I’ll drown. I squeeze my eyes shut.

He’ll save me, right?

He wouldn’t let me die like this?

I’m starting to black out when strong arms pry me free and toss me onto the beach until my body bounces against the sand.

“Idiot!” he screams right in my face. “Do you know what could have happened to you?”

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