“Shut up!” the demon roared at Anat, making her grab her own throat as if she hoped to choke Anat out of her.
“No!” Anat gasped. “I won’t let you kill my daughter!”
I lunged at Anat, pushing her to the ground and pulling her hands from her throat. The demon growled at me and slapped me across the face. I fell back off of her and she tried to pin me to the ground, but Saleem knocked her to the ground and grabbed one of her arms in his maw. Zakai bit the other arm. Oringo stood in pouncing position, ready to rip her body apart if I ordered it. But I did not order it. I stood before Anat.
“Anat?” I asked. “Are you in there?”
“Yes,” she said. “Kill me before it’s too late!”
“No!” I said. “I can’t! If you are in there, maybe I can save you. Ramses needs you.”
“It’s too late!” Anat said, shaking her head. Then she grunted and groaned as though she was fighting with the demon in her mind. “I was nearly to Aaru when Keket forced me back. And it was so beautiful! I want to go there, Sanura. I want to be at peace, not trapped in this corpse shell. Please release me!”
Tears came to my eyes. “I…I can’t!” I said. “I love you! Come back to me!”
“Stop her!” Anat said, looking past me. I turned and saw that Keket was running back to the city gate. I started to run after her, but Zakai yelled at me.
“Stop!” he said. “You cannot allow this demon to run free! Kill her, or I will do it for you.”
I moaned in pain as I held my khopesh before me, and then I cried in despair as I ran it through Anat’s chest.
“Forgive me!” I screamed.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and once again, she was dead. The lion kings released her and she fell to the ground.
I turned back to the city and ran at Keket. I leapt over the rift where the mummies had crawled out of the ground, all three of the lion kings beside me. Keket ran into the city gate, but she did not have time to close it behind her. I heard her scream orders at the men on the wall to close it, but they laughed at her. As Oringo used his body to throw the city gate open, the men on the wall cheered for us.
“You can run, Keket,” I said, hoping she was using the wind to hear me. “But I will catch you.”
15
As we ran down the main street toward the palace, the city looked as though there had been an explosion. Buildings were in ruins, shops had been ransacked, people lay dead along the side of the road. Stray cats and dogs picked at what was left of bodies or rotten foods and growled at us as we passed. I could see scared faces peeking out at me from the darkness of what were once bright, happy homes.
“I am home, my people,” I whispered. “I am here to save you!”
Ahead of us, Keket was running as well, her robes and long hair flapping in the wind. The lion kings were faster than any natural beast and were gradually leaving me behind, but Keket was using her own powers to increase her speed, staying well ahead of us. I knew we would not catch her, but I was not worried about that. She was going to the palace, to Ramses, and that was where we would catch her. What she planned to do once she got there, I had no idea. She was exhausting her powers, but I had no way of knowing how much power she still had or could call upon. She could still be dangerous. She would always be a danger to me. Even if her powers were drained and she was a mere mortal again, she would always hate me. Always want me dead. Even a mortal could be a deadly assassin with enough anger and skill. No, I did not believe that there was any way for this to end without one of us dying. But would I be able to do what was necessary when the time came? I had dreamed of killing Keket for so long. I had threatened to do so many times. I had just killed my own mother. Then why did a part of me still hesitate at the thought of killing Keket?
I shook such thoughts away as Keket climbed the palace steps and slipped through the massive front door. As we flew up the steps only moments behind her, we heard the clank of the heavy iron latch secured on the other side. The four of us slammed into the door with all our might. The door shuddered, but it did not break or even splinter. I banged on the door with my fists.
“Keket!” I yelled. “You coward! Open this door now! Face me!”
The lion kings growled as they paced around the door.
“She will not willingly open the door to her own death,” Saleem said.
Oringo clawed at the door, resulting in long gashes down it, but the wood was thick and hard. It would take forever for him to claw through it.
“I have a better idea,” Zakai said as he looked up the side of the building to the balcony of the main audience hall that overlooked the city. He grinned in a way that showed his terrible fangs, still dripping with the entrails of the mummy army. He reared up on his hind legs and dug his claws into the wall. He used his powerful arms to lift himself up, climbing bit by bit up the side of the sandstone palace.
Saleem and Oringo laughed as they got in place to do the same thing.
“Climb on,” Oringo ordered me, and I did so, wrapping my legs tightly around his waist and winding my hands into his luscious mane to hold myself steady. As he began climbing the wall, it took all of my strength to not slip off and fall to my death below us. But I trusted in Oringo’s strength.
Above us, people who were still in the palace looked down from the edge of the balcony in shock and terror. I recognized every one of them. They had been my servants and slaves for most of my life. People who fed me, clothed me, obeyed my every whim. Were they in the palace because they hated me as much as Keket did and wanted to see her kill me? Or were they her captives and stayed for fear of losing their own lives? I didn’t know. I decided that I would give them the benefit of the doubt and spare their lives. I would allow them to stay and continue serving me if they wished. My only goal was to rid my palace of Keket. My city. My throne.
Oringo moved so quickly, we were at the balcony before my strength gave out. The lions pulled themselves over the balcony’s edge and the people who had been watching us ran away screaming.
“Have no fear!” I told them. “I am not here as an enemy invader, but return as your rightful queen. Your protector. Your deliverer!”
The people looked at me and then each other hesitantly. Then one young woman known as Dalia ran to me and dropped to her knees.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty!” she cried. “I was so scared. I did not know what to do.”
I placed my hand on the back of her head. “I forgive you,” I said.
At that, the rest of the servants clamored around me, kneeling and reaching for my hands, begging for my forgiveness and protection.
“The true queen has returned!” someone said.
“The Lioness of Egypt!” another said.
“The daughter of the pharaoh!” someone else cried through their tears.
“Please,” I said, “there is no time. I must stop Keket.” When I looked at the lion kings, they had transformed back into their human forms. When I saw Saleem, I could not help but run into his arms. He embraced me warmly.
“Sanura,” he sighed.
“You returned just in time!” I said. “Why did you not tell me what you were planning?”
He pulled away and wiped a smear of blood from my face. “I did not know for sure it would work. I have been able to speak to lions and request their aid in smaller matters before, but never something so massive as this. I was not sure I could get them to follow me. I did not want you to rely on me if I failed.”
I shook my head. “You could never fail me. We would have lost the battle had you not arrived when you did.”
“I suppose Sekhmet was smiling down on both of us this day,” he said.
“Sanura!” I looked up and saw Ramses stomping out onto the balcony.
“Ramses!” I ran toward him, but the anger on his face made me stop.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “How are you not dead?”
“How can you say that?” I
asked him. “I am your sister! I’m here to save you.”
“Where is Keket?” he asked. “What have you done to her?”
I pulled my khopesh from my belt. “I haven’t done anything to her…yet.”
Ramses looked around and saw the servants kneeling to me. “What are you worthless slaves doing?” he yelled. “Get up! Kill her!”
Instead, the people gathered behind me and my men.
“Traitors!” Ramses screamed.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked him. “Can’t you see that Keket is evil? She has destroyed our city! Waged war on our allies. She killed Father!”
“You killed Father!” he said. “I saw the blood on your hands.”
“No!” I said. “Keket possessed him, made him crazy. He attacked me. He killed Habibah. I was only defending myself. His death was an accident.”
“It’s true!” Dalia said, peeking around from behind me. I suddenly remembered that Dalia was the servant who had said Father had requested my presence on that fateful night.
“It was you!” I said. “You were there!”
“Yes,” she said, her face downcast and tears dripping from her eyes. “I went to ask him if he needed anything for the evening, but he grabbed me by the arms, shook me violently. He screamed, ‘Bring me Sanura!’ His eyes were black. I was terrified. I ran to your room, mistress. I…I should have warned you, but…but I was so scared…” She broke out into sobs.
I placed my hand on her shoulder. “I understand,” I said. “That was a terrible night, but it was not your fault.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand,” Ramses said. “You killed Father. Keket said that you were the reason Egypt was falling. The reason Father couldn’t subdue Africa. That she could help me be the cobra. Only a cobra’s strike can bring down a lioness.”
“But why would you want to hurt me?” I asked him. “I love you.”
Ramses rubbed his head. “I…I thought I could make Egypt strong. Make the world into Egypt…Avenge Father…”
He grabbed his stomach as though he suddenly felt sick, and my heart broke for him. He might not have been under a spell, but Keket had taken advantage of him. She had twisted his thoughts to use him against me.
“Ramses,” I said, opening my arms to him. “Come.”
He ran to me, and I embraced him. He then began to weep, and I ran my fingers over his smooth head.
“What…what is happening, Sanura?” he asked. “I’m so scared.”
“I know,” I said. “We will stop Keket. And then everything will be right again. You’ll see.”
“You will never defeat me!” Keket said, stepping onto the balcony, a scroll in her hand. My heart froze, remembering that she had held an ancient scroll in her hands when she banished me.
“No!” I said, but she started chanting in her ancient language again. The wind picked up, swirling around us. The servants screamed and tried to run away, but there was nowhere to go. Keket was in front of us and the balcony’s edge was behind, though the area was quite large.
My men transformed into lions and roared, charging at Keket. But as they did so, she wielded the wind like a whip, knocking them back. Saleem was pushed over the edge of the balcony, and I screamed as I saw him start to fall, but at the last moment, Oringo grabbed him. They struggled together for a moment, but then Zakai went to them and they worked together to pull Saleem up. I left them to it. Small as I was by comparison, I would be no aid to them, and I needed to stay focused on Keket.
“What are you doing?” Ramses yelled at Keket. “Stop! She didn’t kill Father!”
“Of course she didn’t, you idiot,” Keket screeched.
Ramses’s face went hard and red. He knew he was not the most clever boy, but he hated nothing more than being called an idiot or stupid. He ran at her, slamming his body into her and knocking her to the ground inside the audience hall. She dropped the scroll and the wind died down. I ran over and snatched the scroll up, but I couldn’t read it. I threw it down and ran toward Keket as she was pulling away from Ramses.
“You’re ruining everything!” she screamed and she blasted him with a bolt of lightning that sent him across the room.
“Ramses!” I screamed as he slammed into a wall and fell to the ground, his clothes smoking. But I could not run to him. Keket was uttering more words and her hands were sparking as though she was about to call up the lightning again.
I held up my khopesh and charged at her. She wielded the lightning like a shield, blocking my attacks, sending flashes of light into the air. She ran away from me, putting as much distance as possible between us, but I pursued her. She turned and tossed a lightning bolt my way, but I easily dodged it because she did not have time to take aim. I attacked her again, slashing left and right. She deflected my blade every time, and I was growing frustrated. Why didn’t she just die!
I realized I was attacking out of anger, which was no way to win a battle. I recalled everything Chike had taught me and I backed away but retained my defensive stance. I took deep breaths but still held my khopesh aloft.
“Growing tired?” Keket asked me as she moved her hands in circles to collect her power again.
“Not at all,” I lied. “I’ve been waiting for this day a long time. I only want to delay my gratification.”
She chuckled. “You haven’t waited nearly as long as I have. Nor do you have my power. You are nothing. A mere mortal. You might be a queen, but you are just a pitiful human.”
“So are you,” Saleem said. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him holding Keket’s scroll. He had returned to his human form.
“What are you doing?” she asked, the alarm on her face clear.
Saleem began reading from the text. I didn’t understand the words at all, but Keket did.
“Stop!” she said. “No! That’s impossible!”
“His teacher taught him to interpret ancient languages quite well,” I told her, a smile spreading across my face. I didn’t know what Saleem was doing, but it was upsetting Keket, so I knew he was hurting her in some way.
“You mongrel!” she yelled as she tried to run past me toward Saleem, but it was as though she had completely forgotten I was there. I stuck out my foot, tripping her and sending her crashing to the floor.
Saleem continued reading from the text, and Keket began to scream as though she was in pain.
“Stop! No!” she cried as she fell and writhed on the floor. Finally, Saleem finished reading, and Keket laid still.
“Is she…dead?” I asked him.
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “The last part of the scroll is an incantation for removing spirit powers from an unworthy being. If she was using the powers to keep herself alive, she might be dead now.”
I frowned as I looked down at the lump on the floor and felt…disappointment. I had been fighting her for so long. Dreaming of killing her. But it had all ended so…easily. So bloodlessly. Why did I not feel satisfied?
But then, Keket began to stir. “I’m…not…dead…yet…” she said, her voice dry and cracked. I cautiously walked over to her, my grip on my khopesh tight. I nearly gasped at the sight of her.
Keket was indeed old. Perhaps the oldest person I had ever seen in the world. Her hair was thin to the point she was mostly bald. The hair that did remain was stark white. Her skin hung loosely from her bones and she was nearly as thin as a skeleton. Her face was so wrinkled, I could barely recognize her. But her eyes, those bright green eyes, still sparkled with life and I knew that this was the same wicked woman who tried to take my life from me.
“I told you I was ancient,” she said with a dry chuckle that turned into a hacking cough. I lowered my khopesh an inch.
“Don’t trust her,” Zakai hissed. I looked over and saw he was still in his lion form, still on the alert.
“Look at me! I can’t even walk. But do what you must, Lioness of Egypt,” she said, mockingly. “Kill this old woman if you think it will bring you any peace.”
I s
crewed up my face in frustration. I had won not just the battle, but the war. It was over. But as I looked down at my wizened enemy, we both knew that the victory would be sour for me. There was no glory or honor in killing an old woman, an unarmed one, no matter what harms she had committed against me.
I exhaled and hooked my khopesh to my belt. “You will be taken to the dungeon below the palace and put in chains,” I said. “However long it takes for you to die is not my concern.”
“How magnanimous of you,” Keket said, followed by her coughing laugh.
I turned to walk away, too disgusted to look at her anymore. But as I stepped away, I heard the familiar twang of metal being removed from a sheath. Before I could turn to face her, though, Zakai lunged past me. I heard Keket scream and the crunch of bones. I froze as I saw Zakai close his massive maw around Keket’s throat, breaking her neck, her blood spilling from his mouth. He then spat her out as though her taste was vile.
“Being a leader means always doing what is necessary, no matter how distasteful it may be,” he said.
I nodded to him, acknowledging that he had been right. I should have ended her when I had the chance. It should have been my sword that spilled her blood. But now, looking at her lifeless body, her dark blood pooling around her, I was glad that Zakai had been the one to kill her. I could see now that her death was not a comfort to me. Killing her changed nothing. It brought peace, yes, because I knew she couldn’t hurt me anymore. But had I killed her myself, that peace would have been tainted by my own guilt. And I already had enough of that to carry with me.
I turned away, ready to put all of Keket’s wickedness behind me, but then I saw my brother, still lying on the floor where he fell after being struck by Keket’s lightning bolt.
“No!” I cried as I ran to him. I turned him over and looked at his beautiful face, but his eyes were closed. “Ramses?” I said, giving him a shake even though I knew I was too late. “No!” I held him to me, rocking him. “My darling boy! No!”
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