Chapter One

 

Ancient Egypt

When one dies while sacrificing their life for the sake of another, they live on. What is deemed a death isn’t really one at all, but rather a life that keeps going, extended through the living of another.

In honor of this sacrifice, the physical body of such a person is treated as a great treasure. They are cleaned of their organs—all except the mind and heart, the source of all thought and emotion. No afterlife can be traversed without it. They’re washed with palm wine that has been mixed with spices and rubbed with the precious minerals of the desert.

Then time. Forty suns must rise and fall before the linen is applied. The wrapping is the most crucial part of the process. It will either produce a curse or a blessing.

For the lucky dead, it is a blessing, but one can never be sure what the gods have in store.

Each limb is swaddled in the oil-scented cloth, followed by the torso and finally the head. This is where the ritual takes on magic. Precious gems are placed within the folds of the wrapping to protect and aid the person in their quest through the afterlife.

Each quest is different.

As I sat in my quarters, surrounded by my confidants, contemplating what was to come, I wondered what Ravi’s quest would be.

I knew mine. And it wasn’t going to be a simple one.

Ravi.

My chest hurt for him. The feeling of loss was dark in my center and stole my breath from my lungs.

“Are you certain about this, Cleo?” Anga asked me, her black brows furrowed over a prominent nose. “Let Pharaoh avenge the death of the prince. The Sorceress will surely be punished for this.”

I shook my head. “Nay. None of my father’s magicians know her magic. She defeats them at every turn.”

“Indeed.” Helter stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Her spells are fed by a hatred so dark even Ra the sun god cannot breach its shadow.”

If a truth was to be told, it would come from Helter’s mouth. And she was right. The Sorceress was an evil more pure than all the gold in the Ptolemy tombs.

“Her curse was meant for you, Cleo. You were to die. Prince Ravi… prevented that. Let it go. I beg you.”

My gaze drifted over to the small, shaking voice. Of the three of my enchanted handmaidens, Flixus was the youngest, the one with the purest heart, and with the least fight in her.

She would learn her way. Eventually. Learn what was worth fighting for and what was worth bowing for.

I cocked my head, feigning, for her benefit, that I was considering her words. “Do you truly think she will stop at this? She has pledged upon her very life that I shall sleep unwrapped for an eternity.”

I fought a shiver. Nothing sounded worse than that fate. Traversing the afterlife unwrapped? Without the blessings of the gods. Without any form of protection or guidance.

And forever. I might as well die a million deaths by a poisonous viper. I’d be just as well off.

Who could have known hate held such power?

She hated father because he became Pharaoh when it should have been her.

She hated Egypt because it belonged to him.

And she hated me because I was to succeed him as the first female Pharaoh.

In order to stunt our bloodline, she declared before Amun that if I ever fell in love, married, or bore children, it would enact the Curse of Anubis. A curse that would leave my death forever unfinished.

But I couldn’t let Ravi be punished for my family’s fight. For a hate that didn’t belong to him.

“There must be another way,” Flixus pleaded.

Her words were almost my undoing. They were the same words Ravi said to me just seventy-two nights ago. The last words he said to me.

They were significantly better than the last words I spoke to him. Horrible words. A denial that cut me as much as it must have cut him.

Is your mind taken by a sickness, Ravi? I could never love you. You know what my fate will be if ever I find love. How dare you even imply such a thing!

But the prince wouldn’t take no for an answer.

You were meant for me, Cleo. From your birth, you were to be mine. And I yours. It will be, even if I have to make it so in the afterlife. I promise this, meren.

Meren. Beloved.

I closed my eyes at the memory.

His words still chilled me to the bone. And warmed my hardened heart.

“Why, Ravi?” I whispered to myself, knowing nobody would answer.

That night, he knowingly placed himself in a trap that was intended for me. He intercepted the golden urn containing an asp. A cobra the Sorceress bespelled.

It didn’t matter that my love for Ravi was so well hidden behind the cage of my heart that I didn’t know it existed until he was gone. The Sorceress saw an opportunity and struck, planning my murder as easy as a snap of her fingers.

Except the prince stepped in front of the deathblow. The prick meant for me, lanced his skin instead.

And his spirit was gone. Somewhere I couldn’t feel him.

He’d been cleaned, dried… but not wrapped. Just as she’d promised.

Sure, the priests had attempted the wrapping. But upon returning to the tomb each morning, Ravi’s body was mysteriously absent of linen.

Without the linen, he cannot rise. Without rising, he cannot complete his quest, his death. He would never be at peace.

A fate meant for me alone.

But this day was the catalyst for my decision. Upon the waking of Ra, the prince’s body was declared missing from the tomb. And since he wasn’t risen, it was the Sorceress’s doing.

She had him. My enemy had my kha, my soul, and has hidden him from me.

Now, I was going to find him. And use my own hatred to do so.

I nodded my head, decided, and stood tall. The way a Pharaoh’s daughter should, and I felt the power of my father’s gods surround me. They would protect me. Lead the way to Ravi so I could redeem him.

“This is the only way.” I met each of my maiden’s kohl-rimmed gazes. “You know your part, correct?” Three distinct nods. “Then do it. Bring the asp.”

Anga, moving slower than the mud from the bathing rooms, reached for the urn at her feet. I gulped as fear caused every hair on my body to stand at attention. Was this how Prince Ravi felt knowing he was soon to draw his last of the air?

No, he was braver than I. He would have marched to death proudly for the right cause.

Seemingly, I was that cause.

The three maidens, my closest of acquaintances, drew near. “Let it be done,” I said.

Flixus stretched out her arm, revealing the soft, vulnerable flesh above her wrist while Anga uncapped the urn and Helter began to hum a luring tune.

At first there was nothing. Just a dark, empty space where the urn lid had been. Then a scaly reptilian nose tested the opening of the container. Gradually, more and more of the snake protruded. The beady, intelligent eyes, the hooded body, the slithering, forked tongue that wanted a taste of power.

Helter continued her tune, the hum growing louder and more persistent as the cobra slinked closer to Flixus’s outstretched limb. Her shaking limb.

“Do not be afraid,” I told her. “I won’t let it harm you.”

Her eyes darted to me and then back to the snake. “It’s not me I fear for, Cleo.”

I nodded, understanding her concern for me and loving her even more for it. It made what I was about to do a little easier.

When the snake was just inches away, when his fangs needed only a tiny dart of its lithe body to enter skin, Helter stopped humming. A strange stillness came over the room, almost hypnotizing. I had the feeling the asp was the only one not already fallen under its spell. But the quiet only lasted a moment. For in the next, Anga said, “Now”, and several things occurred all at once.

Helter began clapping, loud and sharp, she and Anga making threatening hissing noises.

My eyes trained on the cobra, I tracked its reaction and knew the moment he would strike.

Flixus held very still. Supernaturally still, knowing we had only one chance to get this right.

The widening of a hinged jaw. The dart of a scaly, hooded head. The piercing of skin by poison drenched fangs… and it was done.

My skin. My arm. Not Flixus’s.

I did it. I had intercepted the serpent’s bite. My life for hers.

A noble death that would surely bring me a blessing. A blessing I would need if I was to succeed in my quest.

The poison was quick. Lightning in my veins. Soon it would all be over. I’d find Ravi. Find a way for him to rise. I would take the Sorceress’s undeserved curse from him and bring him the peace a noble death warranted.

I felt my muscles becoming numb. It was exceedingly hard to blink. My chest was ice and fire at the same time. Paralyzed. I would be unmoving in moments and gone moments after that.

“Whatever happens,” I murmured to the three sets of tear-filled eyes, “Don’t let me remain unwrapped.”

“Never,” they promised.

I believed them. The next time I blinked was the last time I opened my eyes… alive.