He pressed his mouth to hers and breathed into her. He kept up the resuscitation, waiting, hoping she’d open her eyes.
He pulled back, dragging in a breath. “Come on! You can’t leave me. I can’t lose you.”
He leaned back down, continuing to breathe for her.
Suddenly, her body spasmed. Dec pulled back and she started coughing.
Thank God. Panicked relief made him feel lightheaded. He rolled her onto her side, holding her tight as she coughed and water poured out of her.
When she was done, she blinked. “Declan?” she said weakly.
He pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her.
“Hey.” She nestled into him, her palm pressing to his chest. Right over his hammering heart.
“You were facedown in the water. Lifeless. God, Layne.” His voice cracked.
“Shh. I’m fine.” She leaned over and scooped up some of the water from the pool. She rinsed out her mouth. Then she turned back to him and pressed light kisses to his jaw.
“I…God, I was so afraid.”
She kept kissing him, along his jaw, his cheeks, his forehead. “I’m fine.”
He held her tight and breathed her in. He stroked her wet hair. The rise and fall of her chest against his was the thing that soothed him most. “Let me check you over for any other injuries.”
She sat still while he did. She had a lump on her head, but her pupils seemed fine. Battered, bruised, but alive.
Then he felt her go stiff in his arms.
“What?” He pulled back. She was looking over his shoulder.
“Look at the walls, Declan.”
He turned and spotted the cave paintings.
“They’re prehistoric.” She pushed to her feet.
Declan stood beside her, waiting to see if she was steady on her feet. She was limping a little, but her entire focus was on the art covering the rock walls. “Take it easy,” he warned.
She waved her hand but didn’t even look at him. “I will.”
He shook his head with a smile. Nothing could keep his girl down for long.
His girl? He blinked, shocked at the thought. Then she moved, and his focus returned to making sure she was okay.
She walked along the wall. “These are thousands of years old, Declan. Thousands of years before Egyptian civilization. Simply stunning.”
The figures were simple, but almost elegant in their design. There were images of people and lots of animals. The paint ranged from a deep orange to a very dark red, with a few streaks of white here and there.
He spotted giraffes, elephants, and many beasts he couldn’t identify. The humans were just as intriguing. He leaned closer. Some were drawn horizontally, almost as though they were swimming.
“These are all reminiscent of other cave art found close to the border with Libya.” Her gaze traced along them, her face alive. “The Cave of Swimmers and the Cave of Beasts are the most well-known. The Cave of Swimmers has always been confounding. Why would people be swimming in the desert?” She glanced over at the large pool of water nearby. “Maybe they were swimming underground?”
“I guess it isn’t too surprising,” Declan added. “Considering the Great Man-Made River Project.”
She spun, frowning. “The what?”
“Libya started a project in the eighties to supply water to parts of the Sahara. Underground, all through this area, is the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. It’s the world’s largest known fossil aquifer system. Libya started extracting water from it in the nineties.”
“My God.” She turned to look at the paintings again. “There was water here all along.”
“I’m not sure anyone anticipated this.”
They walked deeper into the tunnel and Dec clicked on his flashlight.
“This is just amazing,” she said. “But this art is very early. Far earlier than the Egyptians.”
“But it must be linked,” he said. “It must be a precursor to the Egyptian civilization.”
“Probably.” Then she frowned. She studied the art on one side of the tunnel, then the other. “Look at this.”
Right there on the wall was an entire pack of set-animals.
She studied them more closely. “I don’t think these paintings are prehistoric. They are just made to look prehistoric.” Her face lit up. “I think it’s another clue from the Zerzurans.”
“Why? Why did this priest of Seth leave these clues to their secret oasis?”
“I think they did it for other followers of Seth who were looking for a place where they and their god wouldn’t be persecuted by the followers of Osiris and Horus.”
“So it was kind of like a test, a trial?”
“Exactly.” She held one finger up, following the paintings along the wall. “Egyptians liked that kind of thing. The Book of the Dead, and its precursors, listed spells that a dead soul needed to pass through the trials of the underworld. Only the true and honorable could make it through.”