by N J Adel
They ripped off the tightly-folded cloth all at once, leaving my brother nude on the cold tiles.
With no effort to cover his lean, brown flesh, he rose on his knees and elbows, his hair a mess of nightly curls covering the nape of his neck. Crawling, palms fumbling through the way, he shook. “I’m cold, and I cannot see you, sister.”
“Cold? That’s the first thing that comes up to your mind to say to the sister you strived to eradicate from all history? What do you expect of me? To fetch you some bloody covers?”
“To tell you anything with meaning, I must look you in the eye. When I regain my sight, I shall speak.” He stopped a tile away from my sandals. “As of now, I remain the last king of our dynasty. If you truly are the queen you’ve always called yourself, you will respect that and clothe me in front of the present commoners.”
“Respect?”
“Yes,” he hissed as he stood to his feet, but instantly he tumbled on mine.
My grip pounced on his face, my fingers clawed around his jaws. “That is one of the many things you will never have as long as we both shall live.”
“Advance on me in my weakest state…how noble.” A rattle clogged his throat as his closed eyes strained to open.
His provocative attempt fell empty on me. When my free thumb and index finger touched his eye, he flinched. I stretched his sealed eyelids one by one, tearing the petrified lashes apart, his groans of pain a song in my ears. “Now you see me, little brother. Speak.”
The bottomless chasms of his black eyes stared back at me, into me, devoid of any attribute that made a human. His lips moved, quivered, yet his tongue mute. The sound of him trying to swallow joined the angry hearts surrounding us. “I have one thing to say.”
I arched a brow. “I’m listening.”
His gaze yawed right and left, landing on my handmaid’s face and then on my guard’s before it settled on the throne. I sensed him at this moment. The depth of his envy. The intensity of his loathing.
And when I dug deeper, the hidden fear.
Were the conditions of the moment what razed his wall? Or did he not have one in the first place?
Unlike a true king, he failed in even protecting his emotions. What a disgrace.
“How are you still alive?” he rasped.
My eyes narrowed at him. “I’ve always thought you’re many things, stupid isn’t one of them. We are alive the same way you are. My knowledge you’ve always ridiculed saved the soul you wanted dead, and your sorry one.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he slurred. “I had my men slaughter your precious priest after the mummification and gave them enough gold to last a hundred years to slaughter you too when you rise.”
“Ari didn’t die, you catamite, and all your men are long gone,” Drusus snarled, coming forth. Nur placed his hand on Drusus’s shoulder before he blazed and revealed our secret to the enemy.
Drusus backed down, acknowledging my warning stare, realizing he might ruin my plan if he didn’t compose himself.
The screech of the second sarcophagus burst in my ears. “Huh, what do we have now? Your treacherous ball of ghella shall rejoice in our beloved reunion.”
A dark flame from inside Bessen Ra burned cold in his stare, waiting for the next opportunity to destroy.
A flame of animosity.
I have learnt such strong hatred was only born when love is betrayed or destroyed in some manner. When have you ever loved me, brother, to hate me this much?
On my command, Drusus dragged Sekhemre’s mummya to this chamber. When Drusus let go of him next to the usurper, High Priest’s fat body plopped on the floor like a sack of potatoes.
Nur then handled the linen and the eyes.
Sekhemre’s bald head glinted with the zebaq light and the undulating fire on the walls as he rested on his knees. His heart shivered like a little boy with a fever.
I smirked at his snake eyes. “Behold your king. On his knees. Naked. At my feet. Behold the offender you betrayed me for, me, your Queen. Was he worth it, my teacher, my secret keeper?”
He couldn’t meet my face, sweat beading the hairless sides in front of his ears and down his chin.
“Where are the acolytes you promised me when I’m awaken?” Bessen Ra struggled as he spoke.
“Silentio!” I tightened my grip around his jaws.
His eyes lifted to me, his brows hooked in a question.
“Oh, I forgot you haven’t become aware of the time yet.” I glanced at my apprentice. “Do the honors.”
“We haven’t slept for a hundred years but a thousand. Our beloved kingdom you almost killed us to rule now belonged to the Romans, and Egyptians no longer speak our tongue,” Nur said.
The past months hadn’t eased the slicing of my heart every time I was reminded of those facts. My hand clutched at my chest, at the aches that would never fade. “The loss of our home will always be on your hands. Both of you.”
Both chests of Sekhemre and Bessen Ra heaved with rage and shame.
With dormant fires.
They might have been disloyal to a certain ruler that didn’t work in their benefit, yet they remained loyal to the realm. Egyptians were born in that fashion. We would sacrifice our last breath for the land.
“How do you feel now, traitors?” I fought the urge to tear the face I was holding into shreds. “You couldn’t just let me keep my reign, could you? It had to be you on that seat. And look what you’ve done with it.” I pushed him on the floor and rose.
My own fire scorched my gizzards as I stared down at Sekhemre. “Behold what you’ve done, High Priest, Guard of the Temple, Keeper of the Kingdom.”
He bent over, grasping my ankles, and stained my toes with his slimy kisses like a guilty dog.
I kicked him off of me, my stomach flipping. Then I entered his treacherous mind.
It wasn’t as easy as it had been with my companions. Sekhemre was a knowledge master and the greatest politician of our time. He knew how to protect the corners of his head.
If it hadn’t been for his shame and defenselessness in this instant, I would have struggled to compel him, perhaps even exposed myself. Yet the stars worked in my favor. I grasped onto the gyri of his brains and hit hard. “Sleep.”
Without effort, he surrendered and swam in the short death.
Now onto the usurper’s mind. Let’s see what lurked in the darkness of his evil.
Bessen Ra’s eyes widened in fear. “What did you to him?”
A gloating smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I headed toward him. “You mean you do not know?”
With his arse on the floor, he paddled away until he hit the wall. “I created that myth. It cannot be true.”
The fear that was wrenching his heart traveled in the air like the aroma of sunflowers and water lilies to me. “There is no smoke without fire. Another thing of which you are not aware. I am Seratis.”
Frantically, he shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, brother. Sekhemre wasn’t telling you the whole truth when you fabricated your atrocious stories. Even though I’d never done any of the awful things you made up about me, I am the Goddess of Sleep. I can compel any man to my wish, and you, the miserable last king of our dynasty, are not immune to my powers.”
“Wait!” He stared at the throne. “Have you claimed your reign back? Despite the presence of this chair, my guts tell me you haven’t.”
“None of your concern.” I started penetrating his head before his fear or anger triggered his fire.
“Meha, please, I can help you claim back that throne.”
Examining his dark features, I smirked. “How desperate are you?”
“Listen to me. We need to put our differences aside for the sake of—”
“Not a word.”
He bared his teeth at me. “Then kill me and put me back me in my tomb. I’d rather die than to be your captive slave.”
“I have better plans for you, brother. A better use to that body than lay it lifeles
s in await of the afterlife.”
Panic flashed in his eyes. “What plans?”
I pasted the most villainous smile I could muster on my lips, using images of the many he’d given me to imitate. “You shall see.”
He held on to my wrists, squeezing. “Kill me. Finish me now, you whore!”
Redamun darted at him and slapped him so hard his head whipped.
Blood trickled from Bessen Ra’s obnoxious grin. “Come to defend your concubine’s honor?”
My guard was about to lunge at him, but my hand was faster on his chest, stopping him in his tracks. “Redamun, no!”
Another blow from Redamun, and my scheme would succumb to a terrible end. I had to find a quick entrance to grab hold of Bessen Ra’s mind before the wound in his gums healed.
“Really, sister? What’s happening here? You should be dancing on my bloody corpse not protecting me? I surely would if the roles were reversed. Why am I very important to you and your plans?”
Focus, Meha. The greatest of arts is to control your enemy, and the key to victory is to go through the vulnerable spots of his mind.
I snatched my other wrist from the usurper’s fist. Working fast, I knew where to search his brains. His weakest points. The father who molded him into a ruthless animal. The serpent that made him the evil malice he was today.
He held his hands up between me and him, closing his eyes, as if shielding himself from my powers.
How silly!
I roamed the memories, clawing my powers into the darkness.
Then his eyes opened against his will, dilated in defeat.
Locking my gaze with his, I commanded, “Sleep.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I wore my crown with pride all the way to the vault as my companions carried the limp bodies of my captives.
The first battle had been concluded with ease. Other than Redamun’s and Drusus’s flickers of rage, the plan worked. The odds to come out at the end of the long journey ahead of us triumphant were in our favor.
Why I’d waited this long to embrace my powers eluded my perception. I’d never regretted anything more than my past lapse of judgment. The mistake we would continue to pay for as long as we walked this earth.
It was upon me not to make another soul suffer because of it, and I would carry that burden gladly.
In the past fifty days, my throne wasn’t the only new built item in the house. The experiment hall had been relocated to the roof, and the vault was turned into a dungeon for the usurper.
The second vault had been emptied of my valuables, which were secured in a recently-designed treasury next to the experiment hall, and was fitted as a second cage for the traitor.
Placing the two together or even within the vicinity of their preternatural hearing range was out of question. These two would live and die in the dark about their powers.
Redamun and Nur chained my sleeping brother to the wall, while Drusus and Tia moved Sekhemre to the other vault.
My guard tugged at the steel shackles. “I forged them as fortified as I could. But if he becomes aware of—”
“He won’t,” I interrupted. “As long as I’m not experimenting on him, he will be kept unconscious. No exceptions.”
Nur pointed up at the top of the wall. “Worry not, Guard Redamun, if the usurper tugged hard on the chains under any circumstances, rocks twice his size will fall over his head, burying him alive.”
Redamun touched the restraints of wood and iron around Bessen Ra’s wrists. “What about these…riddled locks that architect designed? What’s his name, the donkey head’s brother?”
“Hector, and do not call Drusus that,” I warned.
His jaws tightened and flexed. “Apologies, my Queen, but I still do not trust him or his family. What if the bastard solved those riddles? Why not lock the chains with regular keys I can keep guarded at all times?”
“How would he discover the nature of the locks? Look at them. They seem as any regular-fashioned locks with keyholes and everything,” Nur said. “Let’s even assume he became aware of the riddles. One wrong move would squeeze his wrists hard enough to crush his bones and not chop off his hands so he would remain trapped and in intolerable pain.”
“Drusus and his brothers built this house over the usurper’s tomb, helped us from the day we woke, designed Majesty’s throne and devised these work of art locks. I think they’ve spared nothing in power or resource to be in our aid. Even the poor thing you call donkey head has forsaken his trades, lived with us, lost his natural life for good, yet he hasn’t complained, not once,” he added.
“Why would he complain? He gets to…” Redamun shifted is gaze to Bessen Ra, shaking his head.
“Your personal feelings are compromising your judgment. Should I be worried?” I asked.
Redamun’s head jerked toward me. “No, my Queen. My judgment has never been affected by my emotions. Never will be.”
“What about that moment in the burial chamber?”
He blew out a short sigh. “My Queen, the bastard was calling you names.”
“He was provoking us on purpose!”
His hands clasped behind his back. “Fine. I might have made the wrong move. Won’t happen again.”
“Very well. As for the Aris, a little caution is required, but there’s no reason you should distrust them this much.”
“Yes, Majesty.” He glanced back at Bessen Ra. “May I torch him now? I have a lot of fire to release. His body seems a far better host than the pond.”
I exchanged a glance with Nur, who shrugged. I walked to my captive and moved his head right and left. It fell over his chest after I released it, confirming his sleep. I even pulled his hair and stomped on his toe, yet he didn’t flinch.
“All right. Day Sixty-two. The usurper Bessen Ra’s Awakening Day. Third hour after dawn. Experiment five hundred twenty-four. Subject: Bessen Ra. Theory to be tested…” I filed my lungs with air. “Ability to die. Trial one: death by fire.”
I stepped to the side, making enough room for the experiment. Then I peered at my guard. “Be my guest.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
An empty noose hanged from the vault ceiling, and the usurper curled up under it in a fetal position, blubbering like the frightened boy he’d always been.
“Why can’t I just die?” His question sounded more of a plea than an inquisition.
“You don’t know how much I want to grant you your wish,” I said.
“Then put a sword through my neck! End my misery, you useless cunt!”
Seething, I hurled a fireball at his body to silence him. “I tried that already, and it failed. You just don’t remember!”
I dipped a feather in ink and scratched out trial hypothesis number twenty-seven. Death by strangulation.
Thirteen days and thirteen nights of research. Of scrolls with scratched out hypotheses and piles of useless documentations.
Burning. Poison. Stabbing with eleven different kinds of blades that all broke before reaching the seventh layer of his skin. Decapitation. Drowning. Freezing. Starvation. Desiccation. Blood drainage. Seven different predatory animal attacks he survived while they didn’t. And now the strangulation.
Throwing the feather on the table, I took a seat. As the seared flesh of my nemesis was restored, I compelled him to forget the hanging trial and commanded him back to sleep.
Nur knocked on the door with unmistakable calmness. I’d recognize it anywhere even if I were blind to see his face, deaf to hear his heart and lost the sense of smell to identify the yasmine scent always covering him.
“Enter!”
He manifested inside.
“You’re the only one who doesn’t need permission to be here. Why do you keep knocking?”
He shrugged. “Respect.”
I sighed in frustration. “Spare me the nonsense.”
His gaze scrutinized my expression for a moment. “Majesty is upset.” He approached the table and glanced at my recent inscrolled lines. Th
en he peered from the noose to Bessen Ra. “I see why.”
Without another word, he lifted the usurper and chained him back on the wall. Then he took a seat at the table.
“Is it wrong that I want him dead?” I barely met his eyes. “To seek closure? Revenge even?”
“What you give out, expect to receive.”
A dull pressure resonated in my core. “This can go both ways.”
“He started it. Majesty didn’t give out hate or destruction. He did. His death won’t be revenge. It will be justice.” He leaned forward. “I think Master Ari was right to mummify the usurper. It’s the right punishment for him, to live only to die again and again.”
I glanced at him, taking my time before I spoke. “And ours.”
“Majesty…”
My hand lifted to silence him. “What did you come down here to tell me?”
“Yes…our first guests have arrived.”
Quickly, I peered at his hands. A frown upset my face when I noted they were bare. “Have you received them?”
He left his seat and stood behind mine. His fingers found my shoulders and started fondling them in a soothing rhythm. “Drusus is doing the honors, and worry not, my Queen, he’s been wearing his gloves all day.”
I relaxed a bit. “Do you think they will help?”
“I cannot be entirely certain. The gloves act like a shield, a very fragile and thin shield, but…”
My eyes closed as I sighed.
“They will be a last resort to absorb the energy first if we fail to stop transferring it out of our bodies in the first place. However, the only successful way I know of to do so is containing the energy like we do with the fire. If we master that, I believe we won’t infect any other Ari.”
You’re so tense. I should do something about that. You don’t need a shoulder rub. You need a koss rub. I know I need to give you one for I’ve missed you so much.
My eyes snapped open, and I bit my bottom lip, picturing him doing exactly what he yearned for. I chortled, shaking my head.
He paused. “Did I make a wrong move?”
“No… Nur, I have to share a secret with you.”
He moved to my front and knelt. “Yes, Majesty?”
