That made sense, if this truly was a sarcophagus.
Whoever was entombed within would have a scarab amulet placed directly over their heart, inscribed with magical spells. She found this aspect of Egyptian mythology both fascinating and horrifying—the idea of the heart being weighed against the Feather of Truth once the deceased reached the final gates into the afterlife. One’s heart would desire to confess its ill deeds, but the charmed amulet bound it to silence.
Still, she’d never heard of someone having a host of decorative scarabs like this.
Looking into the statue’s unrelenting gaze, Onora felt her own heart speed. She was too young, surely, to have amassed a great many sins, yet she had a sense of the unknown goddess looking into her soul, searching there.
And finding something dark?
Onora trembled.
She wantsto find that place inside me.
The voice that filled her mind seemed not to be her own.
Everyone has the potential for darkness. A corner of their heart that’s selfish, jealous, vengeful even.
The hot, constricted feeling came over her again, making her want to tear the clothes from her body, to prostrate herself on the floor.
Leave me alone!
Falling against the sarcophagus, her fingers raked the scarabs. Her nail pried one upward and she closed her hand about the thing, though it seemed to sear her flesh, branding itself into her palm as her fist curled tight. She slumped down, moaning with fear and pain.
“Onora! What in damnation are you doing!” A figure strode forward, his lantern near blinding her. “Get up from the floor!”
“Father?” She managed to croak the word, and with it, the strange, all-consuming heat receded.
Sir Montague snapped at his daughter. “Do you know how worried I was, and howhumiliated, having one of the night watchmen fetch me to say you were skulking about. I guessed immediately you’d be here.”
She blinked as he bent over her. “I just wanted to see. I didn’t mean to…” Her feeble pleading seemed to infuriate him more.
“We’re leaving.” Snatching up her lantern, he propelled her from the chamber, his grip firm above her elbow. Not until they were halfway across the open courtyard did he pause, releasing his hold, almost pushing her from him.
“I don’t understand…” Never had Onora seen him like this; never heard him shout—at her or anyone else.
“It’s all right, child.” He heaved a sigh, the ire draining from his features. “You’re safe. There’s no harm done.”
She rubbed at her arm, not yet trusting him.
The scarab!
It was still there in her palm, though cool now, but she darednot show it to her father.
She fought the wobble in her voice. “It shouldn’t be there, should it, that statue? Nor the sarcophagi. Who are they?”
“We don’t know, as yet.” Her father didn’t meet her eye.
Why are you lying to me?
“I’m sorry, my dear.” He shook his head, looking every one of his three and sixty years. “You’re at a difficult age. If only Eleanor was still with us…”
What has my age to do with anything? Or my mother?
“When you’re older, you’ll understand; when you’re married.” Her father was deflecting again.
As to marriage, it was the subject upon which Onora could never argue. The wealthy lord who funded their dig had retreated to Cairo while they undertook the monotonous task of clearing the sand covering the temple but was due back any time now. She knew little of him, other than he was titled and in need of a wife, his first having died some time previously without having presented issue.
Onora had youth and, she was told, the sort of looks that would be considered beautiful, once she’d grown into womanhood—her golden-red hair being particularly unusual. Moreover, she was accustomed to life in the desert, having accompanied her father since the earliest age. She supposed that was important, since his lordship seemed to prefer this part of the world to his family seat in Northumbria.
