Karim’s head lolled back, his eyes wide open. His despair was as black and vast as the night sky. He could have stopped this. If he had thrown himself into the river or slit his own throat, the creature wouldn’t have been able to achieve its goal. But instead, he’d given it exactly what it wanted.
If Karim had never found that tomb, the creature never would have woken—all Setnakht’s true acolytes were long dead. If Karim hadn’t shed blood onto the coffin, the ritual never would have begun. And if Karim had killed himself, the monster would never have been able to harvest his beating heart.
All the small streams, the strong current, they had been carrying Karim toward this moment. Except the destination wasn’t what he’d expected at all. He’d expected to die a hero.
Instead he was the sacrificial lamb, slaughtered in the name of a god he didn’t believe in. He’d been wrong. Nothing was finished. The oracle’s prophecy had only just begun.
Images flashed through his mind as his heartbeat slowed.
Behkai sleeping on his lap on the skiff.
Sitamun bending to smell flowers along the path.
Djet smiling at him as they stood by a valley, far away.I’m coming with you!
I’m sorry, he thought.I’m sorry, I’m so—
There was a sickening lurch, and Setnakht wrenched his heart from his chest.
***
Karim didn’t see what happened next.
He didn’t see the creature press the dripping, glistening heart into the ruin of its own chest. Didn’t see the reddish glowthat erupted from the creature’s body, surrounding it, knitting together bones and ligaments and skin and infusing it with the blush of life.
Soon the wounds and burns and missing pieces were filled in, patched up, made new. Loose threads of sinew wove back into place as if guided by an unseen hand.
Karim felt nothing when Setnakht dropped his body to the ground and stood, not a flesh-and-blood man, but much closer to one than he’d been before. He couldn’t hear the ancient king’s voice when he finally spoke, with a throat made whole and a tongue that had been stilled for a thousand years.
Perhaps that was for the best.
To hear such a sound, a sound not unlike the eerie vibrations of the wind over the desert hills, was to hear doom itself.
“You made a poor acolyte,” Setnakht said, gazing down at Karim’s wide, unseeing eyes. “But your heart is strong.” He looked up at the stars, seeming to take note of their position in the sky. “It has been many years, but it is never too late to start again.”
The last embers died as Setnakht left the valley. In his wake, the desert was silent except for the distant sound of a woman weeping.
33
Neff
Neff studied her reflection in the polished bronze disk. For the second time since she’d arrived in Thonis, she’d been transformed.
From the moment she’d woken that morning in a grand chamber at the palace, Neff hadn’t had a single minute to herself. She hadn’t even gotten out of bed when four female attendants arrived with trays of sumptuous food and a jar of freshly pressed grape juice. They’d sat by impatiently as she ate the best meal of her life, and then whisked her straight into a deliciously warm, jasmine-scented bath. After that, they dried and rubbed her all over with fragrant oils and began to dress her. It was, in every way, more enjoyable than her initiation into the temple with the Wabet, but it felt equally strange. Instead of being purged of her old life, it felt like a new one was being grafted on, using fine linens and makeup and jewelry.
Back at home in Bubas, it took the space of a minute for her to get dressed for the day. She’d smooth out her kalasiris dress, comb her fingers through her hair, and that was that. Her ablutions at the temple had taken somewhat longer, but still not a lot of time.
At the palace, despite the fact that there were four other people helping her, dressing took hours.
When they finally finished, the attendants left in a flurry, off to complete the next task on their list for the prince’s coronation ceremony at the temple. Alone in her chambers, Neff sat in a daze on an acacia-wood stool by her dressing table, staring at herself in the handheld mirror.
She could hardly believe her eyes.
Is that really me?
Her lips and cheeks were rosy with rouge, her large round eyes lined with black kohl. Over her bald head, they’d affixed a black wig cut in a chin-length style, its tresses woven through shiny gold tubes in a complex pattern. It was nothing like her natural hair, which had been curly and mouse brown. The wig was bold and rich and alluring.
The rest of her costume was no less impressive. Golden cuffs clasped her ankles and wrists, and they’d placed a jeweled collar with an image of Bast around her neck, a tribute to the goddess who’d brought her to Thonis. Finally, they’d wrapped her in a pleated sky-blue dress, its hem decorated with lotus flowers stitched in gold.
