Omari smiled grimly. “Now our people know the pharaoh’s true nature. When we arrive on their doorsteps and ask them to sail north with us, to take every city and village along the way for Low Khetara, they will come gladly. So, you see, this was really your idea all along.”
“No,” Rae said, her fury rising, brighter and hotter than before. “You’ve taken my words and my intentions and corrupted them. You used me, undermined me,lied to me…”
“Oh, give it up, Ay. I don’t care about your sanctimony. We’ve wasted enough precious time.” He tilted his head toward Neff. “We need to finish our business here and get back to Sakesh to start amassing our forces.”
Rae felt a frisson of dread. “Finish our business?”
Omari yanked Neff toward him and shifted his grip to her shoulder. Then he lifted the freshly sharpened knife to her throat. “Yes. We kill the girl and leave her on the riverbank outside thepalace for the guards to find in the morning. Like I said, she’s seen our faces, Rae. She knows our names and our plans.” His lip curled. “The king wanted to send a message to the Low Khetarans. I intend to send one back.”
Neff gasped as the blade pierced her skin.
“Stop! Stop!” Rae held up both hands as blood pounded in her ears. She scanned the ground for a weapon and saw the handle of her sekhem scepter sticking out from the tent. It must have fallen from the pile of their belongings and slipped through. She snatched it up and hefted the scepter into a two-handed grip. “Let her go,” she commanded.
Omari looked unfazed. “Or what? Her throat will be slit long before you reach me.”
Curse him, he’s right.Not knowing what else to do, Rae raised the scepter over her shoulder. “I’m warning you, Omari,” she said. “Stop this madness now.”
Neff cried out as the knife dug deeper into her flesh.
Omari narrowed his eyes. “I’m done taking orders from you. For all your unchecked rage and recklessness, you’ve never had the courage to do what really needs to be done.”
Rae’s heart was in her throat as Omari’s forearm flexed, ready to deal the fatal wound—when his hand inexplicably stilled. It was as if an invisible force had grabbed hold of the weapon and refused to let go.
“What in the name of Ra?” Omari exclaimed, straining until the knife slipped out of his sweaty palm and skittered across the ground. With a frustrated growl, he clamped both hands onto Nefermaat’s neck. Omari was strong. Strangling the girl would take mere seconds.
Rae thought only to stop him. To deliver a blow that would make him let go, stand down, back off.
But in moments of crisis, finesse often falls by the wayside.
She closed the distance between them and brought the stone head of the sekhem scepter hurtling down. Rae was too frightened, too horrified by Omari’s cruelty to lessen the force of her swing.
Her best friend, whom she’d known all her life, whom she loved—though not in the way he’d wanted her to—was a monster. She didn’t want to believe it, but the truth had its fingers wrapped around a young girl’s throat.
“Let her go!”Rae cried.
The scepter crashed into the side of Omari’s face, crushing it like an egg.
His hands went limp and dropped from Neff’s neck, and his body slumped to the ground.
Neff looked down at him and screamed. Despite the dark, Rae could see there was blood everywhere. Omari didn’t move or make a sound.
The scepter slipped from Rae’s hands as she fell to her knees. “Omari?” she whispered, staring at his body. “Omari?”
Suddenly there was shouting by the riverside, and Buto and Kay appeared, staring at the gruesome tableau in shock.
Buto ran up to her, thinking she too might be hurt. He hauled her to her feet. “Raetawy, what happened? Was there an ambush? Is he dead?”
Rae’s body shook. Kay had gone to Nefermaat. The cut on her throat was bleeding but not dangerously so. Still, the girl looked as if she might faint.
“I hit him,” Rae admitted. There was no point in lying to them. “He tried to kill the girl, and I stopped him.” In as few words as she could, she related the events to the two men—omitting the part about Omari being secretly in love with her.
Buto and Kay were astounded.
Kay said, “Omariwantedthe king to attack Sakesh? So our people would agree to open war with High Khetara?”
Rae nodded. “I didn’t intend to hurt him so badly, I swear it. I only wanted him to stop—”
“For the love of Ra, he might still be alive!” Kay exclaimed. “If he still breathes, there’s a chance he could survive.”
