AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Khan Ankh-Muranu had spent the last month plagued by strange omens. He was a magi, so he had learned to interpret signs and symbols, the night sky, and the scrying bowl.
He was unusually gifted, but he still couldn't interpret the symbols in his visions. They followed him into his dreams, where he was hunted by a golden-eyed wolf. Every single night for a month.
As a magi, he could have spent hours divining a meaning, but as a prince, he had limited time to search for the messages the goddess was trying to send him.
Inanna, give me patience or an answer, he prayed and lit another incense stick at the small altar he kept in his chambers. Inanna had been his mother's goddess, so he always burned her favorite incense to honor both of them.
Khan took out a clay bowl that had been glazed with the peacock blue pigments favored by the Atrahasi. He filled it with the water he had left in the light of the previous night's full moon. He found moon water extra potent for scrying; if this didn't work, he was at a loss for a solution. With a deep breath, he tied his long black hair back into a knot and tried to clear his thoughts.
Whispering a prayer to Innana and Ea, the god of magicians, he poured a vial of oil into the water. It was an action that Khan had done so many times that the routine settled the last of the uneasiness in his veins.
Breathing in the incense, Khan's mind stilled and expanded. He opened his eyes and stared at the water. The oil and smoke swirled and danced over the surface, and an image formed in the center. It was one vertical line, with two diagonal lines, like a tree with only two branches on one side.
Khan swore and smacked the water with the palm of his hand, banishing the image and scattering the oil.
"Tough vision, cousin?" a deep voice rumbled from the other side of the room. Khan looked over his shoulder where Kashmet was lounging on a day bed. Khan hadn't heard him come in, but that wasn't unusual. Kashmet was the stealthiest warrior he had ever seen, the second only to his twin sister, Kemes. She was quieter than the unseen goddess Amunet when she wanted to be.
"How long have you been there?" Khan asked.
"Long enough. You were deep in it, and I didn't want to disturb you." Kashmet pulled his long, elaborate braid over his shoulder and leaned back into the couch. "Any luck? Or is it the same?"
"The same. The two-branched tree. I feel like it's a sigil of some kind. I can sense that much about it. It has power, but I don't recognize it." Khan gnawed at his bottom lip. "I bet Sargon would know."
"Well, our grandfather is back home in Atrahasis, and unless the Pharaoh is willing to let you go to ask him, then you will have to work this one out for yourself." Kashmet couldn't hide the longing in his voice. None of them could.
"I want to go home too, Kash. The Pharaoh has denied my request again." Khan rubbed his eyes and cursed when he saw the smeared kohl on his fingers. He would never get used to it, no matter how many years he was forced to remain in Ankhara.
"He won't be pharaoh forever," Kashmet said.
"Bite your tongue. I have no desire to be pharaoh."
"You'll have to get used to it one day. Then we'll be able to do what we want instead of playing these ridiculous court games."
Khan tipped his scrying water out into a potted bougainvillea plant.
"I have told you and Kemes more than once that you may leave. I wouldn't blame you."
Kashmet snorted. "And leave you in this adder pit with no one to watch your back? Not going to happen. We have been sworn to protect you since we were four years old, Khan. We can wear this crocodile-headed Medjai armor and play along for a few more years."
"Also, Sargon would actually kill us," Kemes said, coming into the room. Her hair was woven in long Atrahasi warrior braids, the feminine version of her brother's, and her black leather and gold Medjai armor was polished and gleaming. She took a good look at Khan and tsked in annoyance.
"Why aren't you ready? What have you done to your face?" She grabbed a cloth out of his bathing chamber and tried to clean up his makeup like an angry mother would a grubby child. "You look like I have given you two black eyes."
"Why not Kash?"
"Because we all know that Kash is too slow to give you black eyes," Kemes said, making Khan laugh.
He smiled into her mischievous dark face. "Thank you, little mother."
"Someone has to make sure you're presentable. You really need a bath so you don't stink of incense."
Khan frowned. "Presentable for what?"
"The Feast of Sacrifices. You forgot?" Kemes groaned. "You have to go, Khan. Your father asked you to attend on his behalf, and you agreed to it. We don't want to give Hasina any more fuel to feed the court gossips."
Khan screwed up his face at the mention of his younger stepsister. After his mother had died, the Pharaoh had taken a bride from the House of Sekhmet. The bride had died in childbirth, and Hasina had been raised by the ladies of the court. By the time Khan had returned from Atrahasis, Hasina was a young woman. She had no interest in getting to know her older,inferiorbrother.
Hasina was everything about Sekhmet House that Khan found intolerable. She was showy, a gossip, snide, lazy, and more interested in the entertainments of the arena than what was happening in the rest of the country. She was beautiful and spoiled and utterly brutal when someone crossed her.
