Hindsight
When Zara came to, the entire world was upside down.
Through the shattered glass where the windscreen used to be, she could see a man walking towards them across the cracked road, cane in hand. Her mind spun, and she felt something trickle off the side of her head. She swiped at it, the movement sending shards of pain through her shoulder. Her hand came away dripping red.
Blood.
Marc was still next to her, held in by his seat belt, slumped against the door. Fighting the haze of pain and dizziness wracking her entire body, Zara shook him.
“Marc! Marc, wake up!” She glanced frantically at the man approaching, getting inevitably closer to the truck. Marc didn’t stir. “Damn it, I told you you were a Harrow-magnet!”
Zara unclicked her seat belt, groaning as she dropped down, landing on her shoulder. Miraculously, the door still opened, and she managed to crawl out of the car as Harrow reached it, looking down at her sympathetically. “The reach of Khonshu’s damage truly knows no bounds,” he shook his head, as if rueful. “I am truly sorry that you have been caught in his lies, too.”
Zara painstakingly rose to her feet, her left leg feeling like it might buckle under her weight. Blood seeped from the side of her head, and she swiped it away. “I don’t work for Khonshu.”
“You don’t?” Harrow tilted his head with an air of mild surprise. “I’m sure he lets you think that, but trust me – he will manipulate you into doing his bidding. It is all he knows how to do.”
“And I suppose Ammit is much more reasonable,” Zara choked the words out, her vision swimming. This was bad. But she couldn’t summon her armour without giving herself and Sekhmet away.
Harrow merely chuckled. “Ammit only seeks to eradicate evil from the world, before it takes its course – ”
“By murdering people,” Zara cut him off, using all her effort to give him her best glare. “Innocent people.”
Harrow considered her for a moment, and she got the distinct feeling he was reading her like a book. It was a feeling she knew well. And she hated it.
“Something tells me you are not one to judge a killer.”
Zara staggered back as though he’d struck her, her agony-ridden mind reeling. Harrow merely continued, as though having a conversation with a friend. “Is that why you try to prevent Ammit’s resurrection? Because you know that both you and the few people you have come to love would not live to see the world she creates?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hissed. “I would never have chosen that life for myself. None of us would have.”
“And yet you lived it.” For every step she took back Harrow stepped forward, advancing like a hyena cornering its prey. “None of us can escape judgement. Not you, not I…” He glanced back to the wreckage of the truck. “Not even Marc Spector.”
He twisted his cane on the ground and she was launched backward, managing to roll as she landed, the impact still knocking the wind out of her. She stumbled forward to her feet as Harrow approached the truck, the crocodile-headed cane glowing with menacing purple light. She should run. She still had the scarab, and every instinct in Zara was telling her to run while she still could, to get out of there and escape to Luxor, to finish her mission – but her legs wouldn’t budge. For years, she’d been forced to put agendas before human lives. For her whole life, she’d had to follow orders, with no say in what she’d been forced to do. She saw Marc still unconscious in the truck, Harrow crouching down to his level, the cane in his hand moments away from ending his life.
Even the goddess of war could not have stopped her now.
“He doesn’t have it,” she yelled, and Harrow shifted his gaze to her. Zara raised the golden beetle above her head, using all her might to force herself to focus through the pain. “You want the scarab? Come and get it.”
Harrow stood slowly, approaching her with an extended hand. “Please, give it to me. You have no idea of its importance – ”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Arthur,” Zara sneered, stepping back on shaky legs. “These gods are my heritage. And I do not need you to explain them to me.”
Harrow shook his head, a melancholy falling over his features. “I was hoping you could see things differently,” he sighed, raising his glowing cane. “I truly wish you could live to see the world we create.”
The cane split the ground just as Zara pocketed the scarab, drawing her swords in a flash. Two jackals sprung from the chasm, launching themselves at her with lightning speed. She rolled to the side, coming up low as one lunged at her, slashing it across its maw. The beast howled, the sound sending a splitting pain through her head, adding to the simmering agony that was already there. Zara slashed at the second one, but not before it struck – sending her soaring backward. Her instincts couldn’t spare her this time and she hit the ground hard, pain shooting through her ribs as she gasped for air. Her vision swam as the jackals approached, and vaguely she saw a golden object on the ground behind them. Harrow snatched it off the road, and she stumbled shakily to her feet. “No!”
Zara brought one sword down hard, slicing a foreleg clean off the jackal closest to her. The creature roared, and she dodged the swipe of its claw as it hit the ground, bringing her other sword down in a fatal arc, the jackal’s head coming clean off. The victory was short-lived as she turned, the other jackal swiping at her, the blow connecting and sending her tumbling backwards, her swords clattering to the ground. She just managed to roll to the side as the jackal’s claw split the road next to her head, grabbing her by the throat with its other hand. The creature pulled her from the ground, the pressure from its hand around her neck compounding with the searing pain radiating in waves through her skull. Her vision began to swim again as she fought for air, black spots appearing at the corners of her eyes. Everything began to fade – images, sounds, even the agonising pain that seemed to permeate every cell in her body. A last gasp of air entered her lungs, and she choked the words out, memories shimmering across what was left of her vision. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly something jolted the jackal forward, the pressure around her throat releasing as she was dropped to the ground. Agony coursed through every part of her, her skull feeling as though it was filled with lava. Vaguely Zara felt herself be rolled onto her back, a shadow leaning over her, its hand on her arm, one hand holding the back of her head. The shadow shifted and Marc’s face came into view, his dark ringlets the only detail she could make out, plastered to his face with sweat and blood. He was blurry and out of focus, and she could swear she felt his hand cupping her face as the black spots in her vision crept forwards again. He was saying something but she couldn’t hear him, her eyelids suddenly feeling like lead weights as she struggled to keep them open. I failed, she thought, with absolutely no idea if the words were being said aloud. I failed, and I’m sorry.
Marc was yelling something to someone, his face coming in and out of view as her eyes slowly closed, the pain beginning to feel like just a memory. Then the world faded out, and all that was left was blackness.