Behkai capered around him, mistaking it for a game.
Sita couldn’t help but laugh. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. It felt really freeing at first, but then it felt wrong.How can you laugh after all this tragedy? How can you even smile?
She stopped. With one wet hand, she tried to smooth the wild strands of her hair. Only when she’d managed to tame it did she turn to face Karim again.
He sat gazing at a browned translucent papyrus spread out on a rock in front of him. It was covered in rough sketches of mountains, valleys, and little red stars.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Karim glanced at her, and for a moment, Sita thought he might reroll the document and give her some vague answer—like when she’d asked where he was from. But he set his jaw and replied.
“It’s a map.”
Interested, Sita sat next to him where she could see the papyrus for herself. It was a partial map of Khetara, showing lands south of Thonis. Some of the town and city names were familiar, others less so—and many places that should have been marked on the map were missing.
“This is old,” Sita remarked, her interest piqued. “Really old. Where did you get it?”
Karim tensed beside her. Then he asked, “Can I trust you?”
Sita frowned. It was the most unexpected question she could imagine. “Canyou”—she pointed to him, with his bristly face and coarse robes, and then back at herself—“trustme? I’m Khetaran royalty, for Amun’s sake.”
“Yes, exactly,” he said with slight distaste. “So, can I trust you?”
Sita raised her eyebrows. “Um, yes?”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
She sighed in frustration. “Yes, Karim. You can trust me.”
“Sena, I pray to your gods and to mine that your word is good.”
“The word is the deed,” Sita intoned.
“What?”
“You’ve never heard that before? It’s a common Khetaran phrase, something you’d say at the end of a prayer. It means that words have great power. When you speak something out loud, it goes from your lips to the gods’ ears, and by doing so, you make it happen—you make it true.” She cocked her head. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?”
Karim shook his head. “I hail… from the Red Lands.”
Sita’s eyebrows shot up.The Red Lands! Of course!She’d heard of the desert tribesmen, but had never met one herself. Her father had considered them little more than bands of godless, unscrupulous ruffians who spent most of their time fighting among themselves. Someone like Karim would never have beeninvited within a mile of the palace.
“You don’t seem like a warrior.”
“I’m not. Most of my tribe are shepherds, not warriors. But I’m not one of those either. I’m a… a…”
“A what?”
Karim hesitated.
“Spit it out, will you?” Sita said impatiently.
His cheeks flushed. “I’m a tomb robber, all right?” he said, a little too loudly.
Behkai whined, his tall ears flattening against his head.
“I was part of a group called the Jackals. We’d find Khetaran tombs in the desert, strip them of valuables, and sell the spoils. Now, the map—that I stole that from the Temple of Amun—but strictly speaking, that’s an outlier. Usually I steal from the dead, not the living. So there. Now you know.”
Sita rocked back. Karim had given the whole speech in a fast, angry rush, and then fallen silent. She’d heard of men—Khetaran and otherwise—looting tombs, but somehow Karim didn’t fit the image in her head of what such a man would look like.
