Maya's POV
The alarms won't stop screaming.
I'm still standing in the courtyard with Khalid, the Temporal Ankh clutched in my shaking hands, when soldiers start running past us. People are shouting orders. Someone's crying. The smell of smoke drifts on the wind.
"The Great Shattering," Khalid said. "It's begun."
My brain can't process this. Two minutes ago, he had a sword at my throat. Now we're supposed to save an empire from destruction?
"I need to go back," I say, staring at the ankh. "I need to go home. Right now."
Khalid grabs my arm. "There's no time—"
"I don't care!" I twist away from him. "None of this is real! The prophecy, the war, you—it's all insane!"
I press my palm against the ankh's surface, exactly like I did in the museum. Nothing happens. I press harder, concentrating with everything I have. The metal stays cold and dead.
"Work," I beg it. "Please work."
Still nothing.
"Maya, we have to move—"
"No!" I'm shouting now, tears streaming down my face. "Take me home! Take me HOME!"
The ankh doesn't even flicker.
Khalid's expression softens for half a second. "Maya—"
"Don't." I back away from him. "Don't say it. Don't tell me I'm stuck here. Don't tell me this is my destiny. Just don't."
But I can see the truth in his eyes. The ankh isn't working. The glow is gone. The magic is dead.
I'm trapped 3,000 years in the past with no way home.
The world starts spinning. My chest feels too tight. I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't—
"Maya!" Khalid catches me before I hit the ground. "Breathe. You need to breathe."
But I can't. My lungs won't work. Black spots dance across my vision. This is it. I'm dying in ancient Egypt or wherever this place is, and Sebastian won, and I'll never clear my name, and—
"Look at me." Khalid's face fills my vision. His hands frame my face, forcing me to focus on him. "Count with me. One."
I shake my head. I can't—
"One," he says again, firmer.
"One," I gasp.
"Two."
"Two."
We count to ten together. Then twenty. Then thirty. Slowly, my lungs remember how to work. The black spots fade. I'm still crying, but at least I can breathe.
"Good," Khalid says quietly. "You're okay."
"I'm not okay," I whisper. "Nothing about this is okay."
He doesn't argue. At least he's honest.
More soldiers run past. The alarms keep screaming. Somewhere in the distance, something explodes.
"I need to join my men," Khalid says. "But I can't leave you unprotected."
"Then don't." I wipe my face roughly. "Take me with you."
"Absolutely not. You're not trained—"
"I'm also not staying alone in a palace under attack!" I stand up, still shaky but determined. "You said I need to learn to survive here. Fine. Let me start now."
We stare at each other. His jaw is tight, his eyes calculating. Finally, he nods.
"Stay close to me. Do exactly what I say. If I tell you to run, you run. Understood?"
"Understood."
He pulls a dagger from his belt and hands it to me. "Do you know how to use this?"
"Pointy end goes in the bad guy?"
His mouth almost twitches. Almost. "Close enough."
We run toward the chaos together.
The palace is a war zone. Soldiers fight in every hallway. Bodies lie on the marble floors. Some wear palace uniforms. Some wear black armor I don't recognize. All of them are bleeding.
Khalid moves through the violence like death itself. His sword flashes. Men fall. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't slow down. This is what he was trained for—what he's good at.
I try not to look at the bodies. Try not to think about how real this is.
We reach the throne room to find it already half-destroyed. The Pharaoh stands in the center with a handful of guards, surrounded by at least twenty attackers in black armor.
"Go!" Khalid pushes me toward a pillar. "Hide! Now!"
I don't argue. I dive behind the pillar and crouch low, clutching my dagger with white knuckles.
Khalid charges into the fight. He's magnificent and terrifying. Fast enough that I can barely track his movements. Strong enough to send men flying with single strikes. His eyes are glowing that weird silver color again—the one that proves he's not fully human.
The attackers focus on him. Four of them work together to try to bring him down. Khalid kills three and wounds the fourth in under a minute.
But more keep coming. Too many. Even Khalid can't fight them all.
I should stay hidden. I should be smart.
Instead, I see one attacker sneaking toward the Pharaoh's back, and I move without thinking.
I throw myself at the man, stabbing wildly with my dagger. It's clumsy and desperate and nothing like proper fighting. But I'm screaming and he's startled, and my blade catches his arm.
He roars and backhands me across the face.
I hit the ground hard, stars exploding across my vision. The dagger flies from my hand. The attacker looms over me, raising his sword—
—and Khalid appears between us like a ghost. His blade goes through the man's chest.
"What did I tell you?" Khalid shouts at me. "Stay hidden!"
"He was going to kill the Pharaoh!"
"Better him than you!"
We don't have time to argue. More attackers pour into the room. These ones are different—wearing robes instead of armor. Their hands glow with the same kind of magic Nefertari uses.
They're here for me. I can feel it. They're chanting something in a language I shouldn't understand but somehow do: "Kill the Star-Marked. End the prophecy. Erase the future."
Khalid positions himself in front of me. "Get behind me and—"
The entire room explodes in light.
I'm thrown backward, slamming into the pillar so hard I taste blood. Through the brightness, I see figures appearing out of nowhere—just materializing in the middle of the throne room.
There are six of them. Five wear the same black armor as the attackers.
The sixth wears a business suit.
My business suit. The exact outfit I was wearing the night I touched the ankh in the museum.
No. No, this isn't possible.
The figure in the suit turns, and I see her face.
My face.
She looks exactly like me. Same hair, same birthmark, same everything. But her expression is cold and cruel in a way mine has never been.
"Hello, Maya," she says, and her voice is my voice. "Surprised to see me?"
Khalid's sword is up instantly. "Who are you?"
The other-me smiles. It's wrong—like someone wearing my face as a mask. "I'm what happens when you make the wrong choice. I'm the future you create if you stay here." Her eyes lock on mine. "I'm you. Ten years from now. And I've come back to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life."
My blood turns to ice.
She's lying. She has to be lying. Time travel doesn't work that way. You can't meet yourself. That creates paradoxes that—
But the ankh brought me here. Magic is real. Gods walk among mortals.
Maybe she's telling the truth.
"You're going to choose to stay," Future-Me says, stepping closer. "You're going to choose him." She points at Khalid. "And it destroys everything. Your world. His world. All of it. Because you were too weak to make the hard choice."
"I don't believe you," I whisper.
"Then believe this." She pulls something from her pocket and throws it at my feet.
It's a photograph. Faded and burned around the edges, but recognizable.
It shows me and Khalid, older, standing in ruins. Everything around us is burning. And written on the back in my handwriting: This is what happens when you choose love over duty. I'm sorry.
My hands shake as I pick it up.
"In ten years, your choice causes a war that tears reality apart," Future-Me says. "Millions die. Both timelines collapse. And you get to watch Khalid die in your arms, knowing it's your fault."
"No," I breathe.
"The only way to prevent it is for you to go home now. Let the ankh die. Let this timeline proceed without you." Her expression is merciless. "Choose your world over his. Or doom them both."
Khalid moves to stand beside me. "Don't listen to her. This is manipulation—"
"Is it?" Future-Me challenges. "Or is it the truth you're both too scared to face?"
The throne room is completely silent now. Everyone's watching us. Waiting.
I look down at the photograph in my hands. At the ruins. At the proof of a terrible future.
Then I look at Khalid—at the man who saved my life tonight, who trained me, who kissed me like I was precious.
"You have one minute to decide," Future-Me says. "Use the ankh now, go home, and save everyone. Or stay here and watch the world burn."
The ankh in my pocket suddenly flares to life—glowing bright enough to see through my clothes.
It's working again. My way home just opened up.
But Future-Me's words echo in my head: Let this timeline proceed without you.
If I leave now, what happens to these people? What happens to Khalid?
But if I stay, do I really doom both worlds?
"Thirty seconds," Future-Me says.
My hand moves toward the glowing ankh.
Khalid's hand catches my wrist. His eyes are intense. "Your choice, Maya. Not prophecy's. Not hers. Yours."
I have twenty seconds to decide the fate of two worlds.
And I have absolutely no idea what the right answer is.