Seratis Daughter of the Sun

by N J Adel

  “Again, Your Worship say that as though it was a bad thing.”

  “It might be with your other qualities.”

  “Goddess…if my sight is short, enlighten me. If I’m impatient, teach me not to be. My Queen,” he knelt, “I’m offering myself to Your Worship.” His eyes beseeched me. “Make me one of you.”

  “Oh, Hector.” I lifted my frustration to the sky and the moon and the stars. “You have no idea what you are asking for.”

  “Don’t turn me away. Drusus is not the only one who has been enchanted with Your Worship his whole life. He is not the only one who can serve you with the devotion you seek.”

  Temptation played its games on me for I desired him despite my best judgment. My eyes returned on his stern face, and he met them with ardent thirst.

  “I’ll be your most dedicated soldier in the army you will soon need. Just give me the chance, I beg of you. I would do anything,” he murmured.

  I reached a glove-silked hand to his face. Here came those war horns again, accompanied by my guard’s emotions, surprisingly not of jealousy but fury and offense.

  I withdrew my hand almost instantly. “You want a chance, Hector, you must be patient. This is my final my word to you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  After the events of this long week days trying not infect any of the Aris or their children and longer nights trying to end my prisoners, I took off my blue crown and threw myself stomach down on the royal bed.

  In the chamber lit only by the silver light and our dark visions, Nur and Redamun worked on my back, undressing me and massaging my muscles. The flesh itself wasn’t tired or tense courtesy of the healing power. I was.

  My chin rested on the pillows. My eyes closed. My mind drifted with the wonders. “You heard what he whispered in my ears at the feast, didn’t you?”

  “He said what he said out of spite.” Nur started with my foot.

  “Not that it makes any difference. Half-brother or not, he is the usurper.” Redamun’s fingers fondled my shoulders.

  My guard was right. I had made yet another mistake when I didn’t stop calling that monster brother with the first war. In my heart, I believed I did not try hard enough to finish him when I had the chance. Something in me kept looking for ways to defeat him without killing him because of the lie of blood.

  The stars align in paradox. In the past life, I thought the usurper was my blood so I didn’t kill him when he could be killed. In the new life, I know he isn’t, and I’m trying everything in my might to bury his soul, yet he couldn’t be dead.

  “What if I cannot kill him?” The question fell off my tongue.

  “You will,” Redamun replied without a speck of doubt, his fingers working miracles around my coccyx.

  “He grew a heart in the name of everything that is holy. What if there is no way to end them? Ever? No closure. No justice. Nothing.” The possibility alone made me cringe.

  Nur paused for a moment from pressing my toes. “Then we shall lock him up. Keep him a prisoner till the end of times. Make sure he would never see another sun ray.”

  An ominous feeling invaded me. “What kind of life would that be? To live as jailers and nothing else? Wouldn’t that make us his prisoners as well?”

  The fondling stopped. The notion must have disturbed them. The next moment, Redamun’s kisses covered my back, and then he met my face. “How about we put him back to sleep in a tomb? For another thousand years? And when he wakes, we put him there again?”

  “That’s…not such a bad idea.” Nur resumed rubbing my foot.

  “Actually, it’s a very good idea. We are bound to stay on this earth for a very long time, perhaps even till the end of times. We cannot spend it locked in a house guarding a usurper and a traitor.” My mind eased with what might be the solution to all my problems with the enemy.

  If we couldn’t walk, we might as well learn to fly.

  I rolled on my side and kissed Redamun’s lips. “Thank you. You’ve always been my savior.”

  He kissed me back. His warm lips pressed against mine as his slick tongue slipped between. My hands wrapped around the back of his neck instinctively. Yet the image of Tia came through my brain reprimanding me for my impatience.

  I pulled back. “We have to wait for Tia. I promised her I wouldn’t start without her.”

  Nur’s fingers reached my calves and the little dip behind my knee. “A little warming wouldn’t hurt.”

  The cotton surface sank on my side as he climbed on the bed. The two men embraced me between them on the softest of sheets. Their tongues, lips and fingers finding all my fire-igniting spots.

  “This is not a little warming.” I chortled. What’s taking her so long? She was only confirming Drusus, whose turn is to stand guard for the first time tonight, is all right.

  The ominous feeling returned to invade me so roughly that I had to push my men off of me. “Something isn’t right.”

  I grabbed my dress and slipped it back on. As my feet touched the mosaic, Tia manifested in the room.

  “Here she is, Majesty. We can enjoy the night now,” Nur said.

  It was dark, yet I could see the glistening of her eyes. The sound of her panting and the absence of her words froze me in place.

  “What has happened?” I asked hoping against hope she would tell me a different story that the one I predicted before she told it.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Goddess,” she whispered.

  “What is wrong, Tia? Speak up,” Redamun shouted.

  Her sobs echoed in the chamber. “The prisoners… They’re gone.”

  “Aa’ha!” Redamun swore.

  “How?!” Nur hopped off the bed.

  “I knew we couldn’t trust that khawal.” Redamun swore again.

  My head spun. I felt as though I was going to faint, but my body wouldn’t give me that luxury. “No, Redamun. It’s not Drusus. You distrusted the wrong brother.”

  His hand went through one of the Djed pillars, rendering a hole in it. “Bloody, treacherous Hector.”

  CHAPETR FORTY

  At the vault where Bessen Ra was kept, I inspected the shackles. They were intact, the locks unriddled. Hector was the only one beside us who knew how to open them, but that wouldn’t explain how he managed to rid the two prisoners of my compulsion, drag them out to the secret passage and escape from the back garden.

  Drusus sat on his knees, his face bowed. “He has turned.”

  Readmun grabbed his hair and tilted his back. “By you?”

  Tears draw a path over the dark stains on his faces. “I never touched him.”

  I eyed the dry blood and black smudges on his flesh and burnt clothes “What exactly happened in here, Drusus?”

  “I was watching the vaults, alternating between this one and the other when I heard some noise near the traitor’s. I jumped there, and Hector…” His eyes squeezed. “He lunged at me, took me by surprise, burning me with fireballs before I could even think.” He shook his head in sorrow, tears flowing.

  “And then what happened?” Redamun growled.

  “When I healed and woke, Sekhemre was gone. I jumped here, and it was empty as well.

  “But how did he turn?!”

  “I swear I do not know. I kept my gloves on every day and every night. Even with them I haven’t touched anyone.” He peered at me, his eyes never been darker. “I’m sorry, Goddess. I have failed you, and I deserve any punishment you sentence me. I’m so sorry.”

  I placed my palm over his head, and he burst into tears. “Be calm. If anyone knows how it feels to be betrayed by their own blood, it’s me.”

  “If none of us has turned that treacherous sodomizer, then how did he become like us?” Redamun growled again.

  “We’re not the only one who could have turned him. The energy runs in the prisoners,” I muttered.

  My guard grimaced. “But how did he reach them?”

  “Hector built this house. He must have had keys to the vaults. He touched one of t
hem and waited for the transformation to happen. And when it did…” I let out a long, slow moan, my chest burning with a tangle of darkness that wouldn’t leave me be.

  Hector had been playing me even before I’d met him. He didn’t build this house on Bessen Ra’s tomb for me. He built here for this moment. The time who would see which of the two rulers would serve him best.

  Every corner was designed for a double purpose. The modern art on the vault walls to mislead me so I wouldn’t recognize the tomb and stay here doubtless. The vaults built to be the only secure places fit to be dungeons, of which of course he had spare keys. The secret exit to the back garden for his escape. The riddled locks he could solve.

  If my companions hadn’t built the new treasury themselves, that disloyal arse would have robbed me dry as well.

  “In my case, the transformation took days to happen. Does it mean he entered vaults before?” Drusus asked.

  “He must have. Lurked in the dark, waiting for the moment Tia or Nur weren’t looking,” I answered.

  Redamun burst with curses and foul threats. “And how did he wake the prisoners?”

  “The only way to wake them without my power is to kill them and wait for their revival. Hector must have noticed that at the feast and used his new abilities on them,” I said, running out of patience.

  “But why? Why would he do that? How could he do that?” Drusus whimpered in disbelief.

  “Because he wanted power I said I wouldn’t give. He couldn’t wait or learn. He didn’t have the faith to follow!” I took a deep breath, keeping my fire inside. There was no use dwelling on whys and whats. “He made his choice and sided with my enemy. Thus he becomes my enemy, too.”

  What’s done is done. Now I have to deal with it.

  I locked gazes with Drusus. “The question is, which side are you on?”

  He winced and swallowed. Then his eyes burned with flames of wrath. “Yours, Goddess. Always.”

  I asked the Aris the same question and waited patiently for the answer. It was not to be rushed. A decision not to be made in haste.

  “I won’t rest until my enemy is beaten, and I don’t mean just beaten down, I mean dead,” I said. “For that to happen, as much as I’ve tried to avoid it, a second war is in order. So make your choice now. Choose the side you wish to serve for all eternity.”

  To my surprise, no one left. The skeptic stayed before the loyal. Once I spoke, no word was raised against mine. These were my people now. My soldiers.

  Run all you want, Bessen Ra. There isn’t a place you can hide, I will find you, destroy you. I don’t much care how it happens, or how much I will make you suffer, I will have your cold black eyes extinguished from this universum.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  Thanks for Reading!

  What a ride  I hope you enjoyed reading Seratis as much as we loved writing it.

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  GLOSSARY

  Zebaq: mercury

  Mummya: mommy

  Rnp: man

  Aa’ha: a word of objection to something incredible good or bad as in “what the hell?” but more powerful.

  Yasmine: jasmine

  Shebr: a length measurement unit equivalent to the length of five fingers, around 6-7 inches/15-20cm

  Nefrtsheps: beautiful and of noble origin

  Nake: f*ck/f*cking

  Koss-ek: Vagina, your vagina

  Zebb-y: penis, my penis

  Aiwa: an enthusiastic expression of approval

  Khara: shit

  Ya lahwy: expression to indicate a person likes something or hates something extremely It’s like saying, “it’s so good I’m going to die.”

  Merr-i-ten: I love you said to a female

  Tanaha: indifference and the ability to show no expressions to an emotional situation

  Teez-ek: Butt, your butt

  Wskh: an ancient Egyptian collar that covers the chest and shoulders and not the neck, normally colorful

  Ghella: balls of natural fertilizers (animal feces)

  Khawal: an insult to men meaning lacking man attributes

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Noor, I love you.

  Rina, you’re my friend 

  Mom, you’re beautiful.

  My betas, thank you for reading so fast and calling me on my sh*t.

  Kylee, thank you for being my assistant.

  AWESOME READERS, I don’t just love you. You’re the reason I write.

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  Author Bio

  N. J. Adel is a cross genre author. From dark women's fiction to sci-fi and fantasy. From sexy short stories to full-length literary books. She loves it all.

  She teaches English by day and writes fun smut by night with her German Shepherd, Leo.

  He is not a fan of her dark work!

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