Ankhu flinched as if from a blow and shook his head. “What are you going to do now?” The apology dangled in the air between them, unacknowledged.
Rae looked back at the river and the sun melting onto the horizon. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how the rebellion will survive without Asim. But it has to! Especially after the news I overheard last night. The nomarch’s men said that the pharaoh is dead.”
Ankhu’s eyes widened. “Dead?”
Rae nodded. “His son Meryamun will soon be crowned—and he sounds even worse than Amunmose himself. He’s not yet on the throne, and already he sends word to slaughter us. Last night was only the beginning. The new king means to quash any hint at rebellion in Sakesh. Unless we do something, the small freedoms we still enjoy here may soon be gone.”
Ankhu dropped his head and sighed. “You mustn’t take this burden onto yourself, Rae. We have survived hardship before, and we’ll do it again—as long as we stay together.”
“I don’t know if I can let this go, Yati,” Rae murmured, her voice unsteady. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see what happened.”
“I’ve seenplenty, Raetawy,” Ankhu said harshly. “Plenty and enough to know that if you continue on this path, the person you are now will be lost. War changes you. Do you understand? Violence changes you. Once you’ve visited that bleak country, there’s no coming back.” He leaned the staff against his chest so he could grasp her shoulder with his hand. “Please, we can talk about this more inside. It’s getting dark.”
“Not yet.”
Her father sighed but didn’t argue. She turned back to the river and listened to his slow footsteps recede.
The light on the horizon was almost gone.
She stood there for a little longer, lost in thought, her fingers tangled in the Sekhmet amulet still hanging around her neck. She might have stayed until nightfall, except for another sound snapping her out of her reverie: the sudden bleat of a sheep.
Rae turned toward it. A ram stood by the riverbank, watching her with its strange rectangular pupils.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the sheep.
Not surprisingly, the ram didn’t provide an answer.
Probably one of Baki’s, Rae guessed as she stepped toward it. It wasn’t uncommon for the shepherd to lose one of his flock whenhe put them in their pen for the night, but they never strayed far.
“Come on, now,” she said. “Time to go home.”
The ram didn’t put up a fight. He allowed her to lead him by the horn back toward Baki’s land, and the shepherd intercepted them halfway. Apparently, he’d already noticed the ram’s disappearance and had come searching for him.
“Rae?” Baki exclaimed when he saw her. He looked haunted, unwashed, unshaven. “Oh, thanks be to Ra, I thought you were dead! I heard what happened when I went to town this morning. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it! Asim, and the others…”
Rae blinked, and in that instant, she was transported back.
The blood.
The screams.
The whizz of arrows sailing past her head.
She inhaled sharply and felt a pain in her chest, but quickly shoved the memories back into the dark.
“Yes,” she managed.
“I can’t believe it,” Baki repeated, as if he’d forgotten there were other words to say.
“Where were you last night?” Rae said. “So many men were missing from the meeting.” She tried to keep the resentment and suspicion from her voice, but she needed to know the truth. At the time, the absence of so many of the Horizon members at the meeting seemed reasonable—it had been short notice, they hadn’t gotten the message, or they hadn’t come out of an abundance of caution. But in light of the ambush, she wondered if there was more to it than that.
“I received the message, and I was planning to come,” Baki told her. “But then I ran into the brewer later in the day, and he told me not to go. He said it was too dangerous to meet again so soon after the raid, and that we should all lie low until things settled down.”
“What?” Rae said sharply. “He did?”
Baki nodded. “It sounded sensible enough, so I stayed home. He must have spoken to some of the other men as well, because I bumped into a few of them in town last evening. Knowing what I know now, I’m glad I listened to him.” The shepherd dropped his eyes, abashed. “But at the same time, I can’t help but feel guilty for surviving when so many died. I’ll hold my son a little tighter tonight.”
Rae didn’t answer. She’d gone rigid, her body thrumming with an emotion whose presence felt like a comfort, burning through her shame and sorrow like a raging fire.
