Hello my friends! I know, I know, I said I was done writing for HOA….but if any of you have ever paid attention to when I update you know I'm not very good at keeping promises. That said, I discovered none of the other fandoms are as lovely as you guys, so I figured Hope, you've got a new plot, why not write it. And after much arm twisting (read, none) I'm back, and this story should be fun. In case you're wondering, no, this has absolutely nothing to do with My Ring of Osiris saga. Really, that's over. Like really, really, over. This takes place instead of season 3 because let's be honest, everything makes more sense when we pretend none of that happened. Enjoy, and don't forget to review! I missed you guys! Now that you've read my long explanation, let's get to the story.

Chapter 1

House of Returns

"Nina Martin I am the god Anubis come to claim you for your destiny. Muh ha ha ha!" A falsely-deep voice voice whispered from behind my unsuspecting ear. Jumping a foot, I turned around to see the darkening hair of none other than Eddie Miller.

"Eddie!" I cried hitting him. "You terrified me! What are you even doing here? I thought your plane landed weeks ago." Actually, I knew his plane landed weeks ago because his letters had become increasingly more…annoyed now that the teachers and staff of Frobisher Academy surrounded him daily.

Eddie rolled his eyes before following me towards the luggage claim, "I have been at school, but Amber took an early plane in and arrived yesterday. I swear if I had to listen to one more minute of her talking about Rob Patts I was going to go nuts. Picking you up at the airport was the first excuse I could think of to get out of there."

Yeah, Amber could be a bit much sometimes, couldn't she? Still, the girl did mean well. "Well I don't have as many bags as Amber, but you can help me carry this," I decided tossing the bag holding my uniforms onto his extended arms. If Eddie thought I'd just let him slack off while I carried everything he was very, very wrong.

"Hey! I'm not a caddy," the boy pouted causing me to burst out laughing. We'd never gotten a chance to talk last semester, considering Senkara was trying to kill me most of the time, so I'd never gotten a chance to just interact with Eddie. Last I'd seen of him he was exorcising an ancient pharaoh from my body and that tends to be a silent endeavor. We'd written a lot over the summer, but I'd never paid attention to the little nuances in his face before. Now that I actually looked, what Patricia saw in him was just a little bit clearer. (Not that he came anything close to my type, of course.) Speaking of my type…

"So Amber's back already…is Fabian?"

Eddie grinned; clearly he'd been waiting for me to ask. "He wasn't there when I left, but I just got a text that said he'd probably beat us back."

Good. I didn't want to wait a moment longer than I had to. The international calling was so astronomically high we hadn't even spoken once all summer and emails…they just didn't come close to comparing.

With Eddie's help, I quickly made it to the parking lot where he'd brought a school van. Thank God; I hated the trains and taxis I always had to take. The ride back to school was a long one, but Eddie's a good talker. I'd tried to explain over email all the things he needed to know now that he was a part of Sibuna, but from all the questions Eddie dawned, I hadn't done a good job.

"So, we put our left hand in front of the eye, right?" the oddly-nervous boy asked for what had to be the third time.

"No, we put the right hand in front of our eye."

"Right, the right, that's what I said."

Beads of sweat rolled down the boy's forehead, and I couldn't let this carry on much longer, "Eddie, what's wrong?"

"It's just," he sighed clearly not ready to talk, but needing to none-the-less. "Look, last year I knew there was a sort of club only Mara, Joy Jerome and I weren't allowed in, but I never knew what you guys were really up to. Now I'm not only a part of it, but also your destined protector or whatever, and I'm just not sure I'm up to it."

Just your normal teenage fears, "You'll be great at being the Osirian. I had no idea what I was doing either, but I figured it out. You will too."

"But aren't we supposed to be opposites, so if you were good at it doesn't that make me automatically terrible?" Hmm…I'd never thought about that. Actually, I'd barely thought about this at all. Maybe it was because I'd had a whole semester to figure out what I was whereas Eddie just got it dropped on him one day, but being the Chosen One never freaked me out. Apparently that wasn't so much the case with Eddie.

"I don't think it works like that," I answered despite not really knowing one way or another. "Look, I'm not the Chosen One all the time. Most of the time I'm just me, Nina Martin, and when I do need to be the Chosen One I just know what to do. I'm sure it's the same way for the Osirian. You're still Eddie, but should I need help you will know what to do. You knew what to do to Senkara last spring, didn't you?"

"Well yeah…"

"Then you'll know what to do next time it happens. This is a good thing Eddie, I promise." Maybe I didn't want to be the Chosen One, but in an odd way it made my life better. It gave me a family in Sibuna, and really that was the best family I could want.

"You're probably right," Eddie confessed and I wished I had a tape recorder. (Because how often does Eddie Miller A, talk about his feelings, or B, admit he's wrong?) "I'm sure that when the time comes I'll know what to do."

"If the time comes," I reminded him with a gulp. "We don't even know if something will go wrong this year. For all we know neither of us will ever need our abilities again."

My words might say otherwise, but my gut agreed with Eddie's face. Something was brewing for us in Sibuna, something big, and whatever was about to happen would change our lives forever.