The spells of Isis.
The magic words of Isis.
Nebet, Nebet—where was she now? Was she safe? Was Kenna? Would she see any of them ever again?
She cursed the amulets. All this time, the scarab and Isis knot were supposed to protect her from harm. But what is suffering, if not harm? What good is a strong body with a broken heart?
Queen of the throne. Goddess of magic, Sita prayed. Why have you forsaken me?
Sita thought of the girl she’d been—lying by the fishpond, staring into the water and dreaming of love. Sita mourned her too. She was as dead as all the rest.
After a long while, the torrent of her tears slowed to a trickle. Her breathing evened. She had no idea what to do next, but she had to do something. Behkai needed her. The kingdom needed her. The problem, of course, was that she had no idea what to do. She was a princess, but what did that count for, alone there in the desert? What good was her royal blood without the power of the crown?
One thing at a time. The least I can do is give him a decent burial, she thought.
Sita wiped her eyes and sniffed. Gingerly, she grabbed theedge of Karim’s singed, blood-soaked robe to cover his body whensomething slipped out of its folds and onto the ground beside her.
A large lapis amulet, carved in the shape of a scarab.
She picked it up.Another one of his spoils, she guessed,stolen from some long-forgotten tomb.
Brushing the sand from its surface, she saw that a shenu—the elongated oval that encircled names of pharaohs—was carved into one side. She’d seen its symbols before. Quite recently, in fact.
“Setnakht,” she whispered.
The amulet wasn’t fromsometomb. It was fromhistomb.
With trembling hands, she turned over the amulet and found more faint symbols engraved on the back.
It said:This is the heart of a king.
Sita stared at the blue stone in her hand, like a piece of the heavens come loose from the firmament. Suddenly, words and images began to flash through her mind, memories that, at the time, hadn’t meant very much, but now joined together and gathered strength, like streams converging into a fast-flowing river.
Her father, sickly but alive:When you’re inreallydeep shit, you must seek something unexpected inside you.
Mery, his hand on her cheek:The priests must bend their noses to papyri to learn the ways of Heka. But not us. You and me, our very flesh is godsflesh. We have magic in our veins.
Karim, telling her about some oracle in a dusty, forgotten temple:You held a heart in your hands.
And that mottled old woman, a too-wide smile stretching across her face in the afternoon light:Your words have power.When the time comes, remember that the word is the deed.
The word is the deed.
Sita’s skin prickled, up her spine and belly and into her chest, like a storm riding the western winds, filling her with a sensation that was both delicious and overwhelming.
Sita gasped as the sensation grew more and more powerful, and when she thought she could not take any more, it grew stronger still.
Was her skin glowing? Or was it simply the dawn’s light?
She cried out, arching her back, but never letting go of the stone.
The light grew brighter. Like white fire that warmed but didn’t burn.
She loved and hated this feeling. She wanted it to stop, and she never wanted it to stop.
And then—
The energy inside her body stilled. There was no sound anywhere, not a bird, not a hum over the dunes.
