They started down the hall, which had broad windows on one side and flickering torches lining the other. One of the palace cats sat on a ledge, its golden eyes curious as they followed Sita and Femi’s passage.
The wailing continued, a chilling, tortured keening.
Like someone’s heart is being ripped out, Sita thought with a shiver.
She rushed toward it, pushing Femi to go faster. They passed sleepy courtiers and their wives emerging from their rooms, blinking and bewildered. Finally, Sita pushed past Femi and ran.
The closer they got to the sound, the more certain Sita became about who was making it. And why.
Her dread intensified.
Please, she prayed,not that.
Bile rose into Sita’s throat as she slowed and then stopped at the door to Maet’s room.
Oil lamps and incense burned inside, but it did nothing to mask the sour smell that permeated the room and flowed out of it like a curse. In the dim light, Sita saw Maet’s mother on her knees at her daughter’s bedside. She was rocking back and forth, wailing, crying, tearing the hair from her head. The sight of her was like a physical blow. There was no air to breathe. The world had suddenly become a void filled with nothing but suffering.
Sita turned away.
She didn’t want to look.
If she didn’t see, maybe it wouldn’t be real.
You don’t deserve to be spared this pain.The voice in her mind was harsh, but it spoke the truth.This is on your hands.
Look.
Look at what you’ve wrought.
With effort, she dragged her gaze to the small, still form lying in the bed.
“No,” she murmured. “Maet…”
The blanket had been pulled up to the girl’s chest, clearly smoothed by a mother’s desperate hands, helpless to do anything else. Maet lay with her head turned toward the door, her eyes open and staring. Her lips were slightly open too, as if she were about to call out.
See-see…
I’m scared, See-see…
Why didn’t you help me, See-see?
Sita’s legs gave way beneath her.
Femi caught her before she could fall. “Sitamun, are you all right?”
He sounded far away, and it was several minutes before Sita regained her bearings and was able to stand again on her own, swaying unsteadily on her feet. She touched her face and found tears there.
Others arrived. Priests, courtiers, guards—and soon, the wailing was overpowered by the hum of prayers and hushed conversations, of arrangements being made.
Montuhotep appeared, assessing the situation. He looked unusually disheveled, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Frustration coloring his face, he pushed his way past the crowd into the bedchamber.
“Out of my way,” he said. “I should have been the first to know about this—the first!” Without addressing Maet’s mother, he stood over the bed and began to speak. “Praise to you, OAmun, Lord of All, mysterious of form,” he recited, “Take this child into thine arms, for she is ready to go West; make her heart as light as air, so that she may be judged and found worthy to enter the Field of Reeds—”
Suddenly the queen appeared in the corridor, her eyes filled with panic. Sita was surprised at the strength of her emotion—Maet wasn’t her blood, after all—until she spoke, and everything changed.
“The king!” Queen Bintanath exclaimed. “No one can find him! He’s vanished from his chambers. He was there moments ago…”
Father is missing?Sita could hardly wrap her mind around this new information.
