From the Travel Tales series | A Story Set in Ancient Türkiye

The excavation team arrived before the sun reached its peak, their boots crushing the dust of centuries. Alya stood hidden behind a curtain of olive trees, watching them with a wariness carved from a lifetime of solitude. She had seen tourists before noisy, clumsy, hungry for relics they did not understand  but this man was different.

He moved with the grace of someone who belonged to the land, not someone trying to own it.

He was tall, with olive-toned skin and hair as dark as volcanic stone. But it was his eyes that stopped Alya cold. Gold flecked and sharp, they glinted like the eyes of Anpu, the jackal headed guardian of the dead a god worshipped in secret by only the most ancient of cults.

As if feeling her gaze, the stranger turned towards the trees. Alya flinched, heart pounding. For a moment, their eyes locked hers filled with caution, his with something older than memory.

That night, the winds turned restless.

Alya lit a candle and unrolled the scroll again. The symbols burned in the dim light, trembling with energy. She traced the words with shaking fingers:

“When the jackal-eyed returns to the place of forgotten blood, the earth shall tremble and the vow shall be tested. One will rise. One will fall. And the gods shall judge.”

She had read the prophecy a hundred times. But tonight, it felt different. Alive.

A soft knock came at the door.

Alya’s breath caught. No one ever came here.

She opened it slowly.

The jackal-eyed man stood at the threshold, dust on his boots, a leather satchel slung over one shoulder, and an ancient-looking ring on his left hand  the symbol carved into it exactly matched the seal on her scroll.

“I believe,” he said in perfect Anatolian, “you have something that belongs to me.”

 Travel Footnote:

The Hittites believed that the soul journeyed through the earth to reach the afterlife. Jackals were sacred guides through the underworld, often carved into the hidden chambers beneath their temples.

Coming Soon:

Chapter 3: The Ring of the First Betrayer

He knows her name. But she does not yet know his.