The wall opposite the alcove led to a second chamber, a dark hole that inspired fear and dread in both women. Marcus stepped forward. When his torch illuminated the wall, the women quickly turned away, and even Marcus found it distasteful. The artist painted the monster as a man, and those were scenes of the things that happen between men and women, but the acts were as tainted as he.

Marcus inspected the second chamber and found the most unsettling thing of all. It contained dreamscapes from the mind of a monster and at its center, with the clarity of a portrait, he found a familiar face looking at him from what seemed like the other side of a mirror.

"You have to see this," Marcus instructed them with an urgency in his voice that made them hurry to his side.

It looked like Rowan at first glance, but the women knew better; the portrait was of Ariana in her true form. At the edges of fluffy clouds, the artist painted two little girls walking side by side, one in the sunshine and one in the moonlight, with their backs to the room. They didn't have to see the faces because they knew the truth.

Marcus directed their attention to the next scene where the true nightmare showed their monster as a man once again. Alena and Rowan were in his bed, naked, lying against him like lovers, feeding off his blood, but when they blinked, the image disappeared. The actual image showed someone lying in a pool of blood with her back to the room. They sensed that it wasn't Ariana, but another.

"He foresaw us," Alena said with fear in her voice, and behind Marcus, the two women held hands without even knowing they reached out for each other. Marcus hadn't seen the vision of their future reserved for their sight. This creature reached across time to touch them with this vile image. It took an effort to let go of each other before Marcus could turn and see their horror.

"Come, we have seen enough for tonight, let us leave this place. Marcus decided, and they followed him with the distinct realization that they were the hunted.

The girls were shy to face each other once they returned to their tent. The memory of that vision lay between them like a taint, and they felt no need to talk about it. Just as they didn't need to speak of Ariana or the dreams in which they saw her, and each other, until recently.

It was their secret, their bond, lessons from a far away stranger, that understood them better than they understood themselves.

Marcus was unusually quiet and withdrawn. His eyes often rested upon them as if he considered some thought.

"Something bothers you," Alena took the bull by the horns and touched on the subject that worried them in a different way than it did him.

"Why her face, and why you?" Marcus asked directly of Rowan, and she almost cringed from the intensity of his stare before she recovered her composure.

She glanced at Alena, and something passed between them in an apparent exchange of thoughts. Suddenly Marcus grew angry. He felt confident now that they kept a secret from him.

The girls fought with themselves, and the instruction Ariana gave them. Marcus had to hear some of the truth if they didn't want to lose his confidence.

"It wasn't me, and it wasn't my face," Rowan admitted, and Marcus observed them with eyes that betrayed both wariness, and the edges of distrust.

"The old soothsayer, she's..." Alena hesitated. "She's not old, and she's not human," Alena admitted with great care in her choice of words. "Father had a twin sister," Alena revealed, and Marcus raised a brow, surprised that he didn't know this, but also not sure how one thing pertained to the other.

"Her name was Helena," Rowan provided.

"One of Victor's close friends violated Helena and impregnated her. Knowing Father well, this friend brought Victor under the impression that Helena had fallen in love with a human and that the child was some half-breed abomination. He knew Father would never allow the baby to come to term, and his secret would be safe," Alena toyed with a piece of metal and Marcus took it from her with a frown.

"Victor rejected Helena, and she couldn't tell him the truth. His friend planned to murder her, and make it look as if Victor killer her, but she escaped them both," Rowan continued when Alena appeared unwilling to tell him this part.

"Helena found refuge with the old soothsayer, and when the woman died, she took her place," Alena explained and irritated with herself; she stopped her fidgeting and her hedging.

"Long before that happened, the child was born as one of the purest of our blood. They lived in seclusion hoping that Victor would never find them but eventually, Victor reappeared. They couldn't allow him to know that both Helena and the child lived, or that Ariana wasn't what he thought," Rowan told him, and in her heart, she envied Ariana her bloodline, but not the shame of her conception.

"Helena left Ariana to throw Victor off the scent, and Ariana became the soothsayer in her place. Sometime later Helena died under mysterious circumstances, and Ariana watched Father destroy himself. She saw the love he had for a human turn him from his family. She alone saw the extent of his manipulation of Rowan and her fate. Ariana witnessed Father's fall from grace and viewed it as karma for what he did to Helena," Alena watched Marcus's face become unreadable with a tinge of regret and fear.

"Ariana told us all this while you were sleeping," Alena explained into the thick silence. He glanced at her, and Alena realized that what Ariana did, bothered him much more than it should. Marcus wasn't just some guy; he was a man of character. Ariana had violated his sense of honor, and his manliness. She glanced at Rowan, and their thoughts were the same.

"So your cousin violated me in my sleep, and you two see nothing wrong with that because I am a man?" He asked with a tone of voice that made them even more uneasy with the thought. They didn't know what to say and hadn't realized that it affected him in such a profound way.

"What else should I know?" He demanded with enough anger to make the air seem to crackle with the power of him.

"We were the children at the edge of her dream, and Helena was the dead woman lying with her back to us. He saw into Helena's dreams and glimpsed the future. He saw us through her eyes," Alena explained, and his face turned to stone. Marcus's rage made them feel as if they stood at the edge of a precipice.

"He saw her, and us, before Helena was ever born. He had the same gift," Alena said because she didn't know how to handle his quiet.

Marcus rose to his feet and stalked into the night. His silence was more terrible than anything else he could have done. They knew so much they didn't share with him, and he would see that as a lack of trust — a betrayal. Ariana put them in a precarious position, but they both understood that the untold truth, might do more damage than the information they withheld. An hour passed, but he didn't return, and they had no words to fill the silence his absence left.

"Ariana kept him blind to the change in us; what will happen now?" Rowan asked with practical worry, and Alena's stark expression proved answer enough. The truth would condemn them. They chose Ariana over him, and for a man like Marcus, that would be the final betrayal. Neither of them could predict how he would react or what he would do once he found out. Telling him might even prove dangerous.

"The first tomb drew me to it, and the last one repelled me," Rowan murmured to distract herself. She didn't even want to imagine the expression on Marcus's face when he realized what they did without his consent or his knowledge. She couldn't imagine her life without Alena and Marcus. Couldn't think how such a thing was even possible. They became part of her in a way she would have never believed could happen. Marcus cared about their wellbeing, he looked after them, and he saw them as his responsibility. Rowan wasn't one of his subjects, but she cast her lot in with them, and that constituted an understanding.

"What do you want to do?" Alena asked. Ariana and time had taught her to trust Rowan's instincts.

"I want to go back to the first tomb. Why did they never use that tomb, but sealed the entrance?" Rowan asked, and Alena had wondered the same thing. Rowan couldn't face her thoughts or her guilt. Her choice to accept Ariana's gift had been selfish, but she hadn't realized that it would betray Marcus in such a way. She hadn't even considered the impact it would have on him. They would do Marcus even more significant harm than Ariana, and she feared that he would end up hating all of them. He might even abandon this quest.

They left without waiting for Marcus to return. They wandered inside the empty tomb, not really knowing what they were looking for until Rowan returned to the panel which held the map of the other grave sites. She allowed her fingers to trace the engravings. When her hand touched a part of the panel that differed slightly from the others, almost as if the same scribe didn't create it, it shifted. Rowan pushed it down and two more areas raised above the rest. One designated male, and the other female.

Rowan pushed down on the male symbol without even thinking about it, and something inside the wall moved like gears as one section lowered inside the wall and to the side to reveal a small niche.

Alena came closer, and they inspected it together, careful not to set off some trap, but it held only a cannister made from precious metals. Alena removed it with great care but could see no way to open it. Some instinct made her hand it to Rowan, who inspected it briefly before she spied a familiar insignia on the top, bottom and sides. Rowan didn't hesitate before instructing Alena to help her push all four buttons at the same time. The canister opened to reveal a single piece of papyrus, brittle with age. It didn't evade her mind that this canister could only be opened by two people.

They expected the document to be ancient Egyptian to fit with the container, but it was Roman. The discovered that the second expedition was never lost. The detachment of Roman soldiers came to demolish the black tomb but never finished their task.

Alena and Rowan rushed back to the camp but found their tent still empty, Marcus didn't return until just before dawn. His face held no clue to his emotions he'd withdrawn within himself.

Alena held the rolled parchment out to him, and he hesitated before taking it from her. She noted how carefully he avoided the touch of her hand. The document contained everything they hoped for and didn't help them at all.

"The treasure is cursed," Marcus read. Tightly in control of himself, and still angry.

"It makes the living dead and the dead living before they disappear as if they never were," already Marcus looked grimmer than he did before.

"Ceaser sent us to demolish the unholy tomb, and to eradicate every trace of its existence. We should have realized the monster would not allow us to ruin this place that holds the records of its existence. We were fools sent on a fool's errand, and we will never leave this desert alive. It followed us back and claimed our lives one by one. Two full contingents of Ceaser's best soldiers stepped down from our boats on this cursed soil. Our families will never see us again. We will not return home, and no one will come to retrieve our bodies," Marcus stopped reading, and his fingers delicately traced the words as he considered them.