***
They came for her at sundown.
The head guard arrived at Sita’s chambers, sidestepping an attendant leaving with a basket of soiled linens.
“The king has called for you, Princess,” he said.
Sita looked up from the meal she’d just finished and nodded. Dressed once more in her usual fineries and smelling of cyprinum oil, Sita felt much like her old self again.
Too much.
She hadn’t considered what it would be like to be home, surrounded by the artifacts of who she’d been before. She hadn’t thought how easy it would be to slip into old habits, like the rut of a well-trod but ill-fated path. It had been simple enough to remake herself in Perset where no one knew her original form—but in the palace, she had a mold into which everyone expected her to fit.
She rose, and Nebet’s worried eyes followed her to the door.
In the hallway, they were joined by the two guards who’d been stationed in front of her rooms. As she strode toward the king’s chambers with this new entourage, Sitamun spoke.
“There’s no need to accompany me. I know the way.”
“King’s orders,” the head guard replied. There was no deference, no warmth, no standard formality of “my princess.”
It was not a good sign.
The guards stopped outside the king’s chambers, and two took up positions on either side of the door. The head guard gestured for her to enter.
Taking a deep breath, Sita pushed through the heavy curtain into a room transformed. The last time she’d been in the pharaoh’s chambers, her father had been on his deathbed. The room had been nearly empty, odorous, pitiable, much like Amunmose himself. That had all changed. Mery had packed the space with luxuries—fine furniture, rugs, ornaments—until each surface was spread with fur, anointed with gold, and bedecked with every rare and beautiful thing that could be found along the Iteru.
Mery stood beside a copper bathtub in the back of the room, tearing petals from a bouquet of blue lotus blossoms and scattering them into the filled basin.
“Come in,” he said without looking up.
Sita took a few steps inside, but no more.
“Mery,” she began, not waiting for her brother to make the first move. “There is no time to contend with what happened between us. I did not return for revenge nor forgiveness. I am here because you are king now, brother, and as pharaoh of this land you must know there is an imminent threat to Khetara. An army rides for Thonis as we speak. It is one of supernatural strength led by an equally powerful foe. His name is Setnakht, and he was once—”
“Get in the bath.”
Sita was so stunned, she didn’t know how to respond. “I’ve already washed in the basin. I don’t need a bath. Besides, you’re not listening to what I’m—”
“Get in the bath.”
Sita clenched her fists. “This isn’t a game! The kingdom is in grave danger. I swear it upon Amun himself! Do you think I would have placed myself back in your grasp if the situation wasn’t dire? Do you? Look at me!”
Mery stared at the water, fragrant and steaming.
“Look at me, Mery!”
He turned toward her. The glint in his eyes frightened her, but she pressed on.
“You’ve always known when people are lying to you. Ever since we were children. Can you not see that I’m telling the truth?”
Mery chuckled without humor. “I cannot, Sitamun, no. I thought I could see through people’s lies, no matter who they were. But I was wrong. I know that now. I allowed my affections to cloud my judgment. The lies piled up around me, putrid and rotting, yet I smelled only flowers.”
Sita’s forehead knotted in confusion.Is he talking about me or someone else?
“Frankly, dear sister,” he said, striding forward until they were only a breath apart, “it doesn’t matter if you’re telling the truth. If this army you speak of is a ploy to deceive or distract me from your true aims, I will root you out. And, in the unlikely event that you have come with honorable intentions, I have no fear of this threat.
“Tomorrow, I will bring such a curse upon each and every enemy of this land that none shall challenge me, lest I soak the earth with their blood. If you’d been at my coronation, you would know that I promised as much in my first address as pharaoh. I won’t settle for merely being as great a king as Sematawy; I aim tosurpass him. And nobody—not some phantom, not even you—is going to stop me. Now…” He paused and then added, his voice chillingly soft: “Get in the bath.”
