Then, silence.
Rae bit back a sob, her body quaking with grief.
“Pick that up and bring it with you,” the head guard said, nonchalant. “The nomarch will want to see evidence of our victory. Perhaps he’ll have it as a keepsake.”
The other guards gave their assent, then began the business of collecting fallen weapons and comrades. It seemed an age before they made their way out of the Garden.
Rae held her breath as they walked by her. With the arrow protruding from her body and her robes soaked in blood, both she and Omari made convincing corpses. It was only after they’d safely passed that she opened her eyes to peer after them. Her blood turned to ice.
One of the guards held Asim’s head by its hair, no differently than one would carry a dead goose killed in the marshes. It swung pendulously from the guard’s grip, the mouth gaping open as if those final aspirational words were still caught on the tip of Asim’s tongue.
Rae squeezed her eyes shut, flooding her cheeks with hot, angry tears.
Soon, the guards were gone. Rae dared not move a muscle until the sounds of their travel had long since faded.
Lying awkwardly on her side, she gazed up at the shroud of imperishable stars. Each one, her father had taught her, was the soul of a pharaoh. She wondered how many of them had been moral men, and how many had been blood-soaked tyrants like Sematawy, or greedy like Amunmose. And she wondered bitterlywhy they, regardless of their actions, were given the opportunity to shine.
Sometime later, an unexpected voice broke the stillness.
“Ra be merciful. No. No. Asim…Asim!”
Rae struggled to rise and peered around the low wall to see a man kneeling beside Asim’s headless body, his back hunched in anguish.
“Menk?” Rae whispered in amazement.
Menk’s head shot up, alarm quickly changing to disbelief. “Raetawy? You’re alive!”
“Shot in the ass, but yes,” Rae replied with a grunt. “Omari too—please, come quickly, he needs help.”
Menk rushed over to her, shaking his head at their injuries. Omari was regaining consciousness, but he was fuzzy-eyed and unsteady.
“They killed them, Menk,” Rae said as he struggled to get Omari to his feet and took in the destruction around them. Her voice was high, verging on hysteria. “They killed them all.”
“I know. I tried to warn you, but by the time I saw them, it was too late.”
“You did everything you could.”
“No, I didn’t. I could have fought them! I could have died with them!” He cursed and dropped his head in his hands.
Rae, too, felt the burden of guilt heavy on her shoulders. “I would have died with them too,” she said softly. “But Asim wanted me to live.”
Is this what it was like for him?she wondered.To survive when so many others did not? Is this what made him the man he was?
Omari leaned against Menk for support and gazed blankly at the corpses. “What do we do now? We can’t leave them here like this.”
Rae pressed her lips together, considering the fallen rebels,their blood soaking into the sand. She wouldn’t have called any of them her friends, but they were good men. They’d given her a chance. They’d come that night on her suggestion and walked straight to their deaths.
“We have no choice,” she finally said. “We’re in no condition to carry them home, and after tonight, it will be too dangerous for any of their families to venture here to claim them. The nomarch’s men will surely be watching for that. But we’ll do what we can before we go.”
Though each step gave her pain, Rae paid her respects to each of the dead men, crossing their arms over their bodies and laying her father’s copper dagger on their chests before she prayed.
“Hear me, Ra. Maker of Hours, Lord of Days—hear me and cast your light upon this man. Burn away the fear in his heart, and watch over him as he travels West to the Field of Reeds…”
When they were done, they left the dead men resting in the dawn’s light. After a thousand years, new bones had been planted in the Garden of the Dead.
Rae shivered with cold as they made the long arduous journey back to Sakesh. But even as the sun bled over the horizon and kissed their filthy, tear-streaked faces, Rae never once felt its warmth.
Her heart was just too heavy.
