“Yes?”
Karim lay a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Father would have been proud.”
Gamil’s upper lip trembled slightly. “I hope you find her, sen,” he said, and ran inside.
Dumiya rode up next to him, astride a silver mare. The Hudjefa warrior was clad in leather armor similar to Karim’s, though hers covered her whole chest and extended over her hips. Under that she wore a short gray tunic, as gauzy and ephemeral as smoke.
Karim gestured toward the battle before them. “Well, is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”
The older woman’s sunbaked face crinkled as she grinned, her dark eyes flashing. She urged the horse into a gallop and charged ahead.
Karim shook his head, whipped the reins with a“Yah!”and followed.
His stallion charged into the crush of fighters, and Karim directed him around the battle, working toward the citadel.Is that Sita on a platform ahead?There was a loud grunt beside him, and Karim looked over to find a familiar face. A face that had recently taken a heavy punch, given the state of her bottom lip.
Karim sidled up to her opponent, a brute who was thicker than he was tall, and brought the butt of his sword down on the top of the man’s skull. The soldier slumped to the ground.
Raetawy swiped a bead of blood from her lip, then squinted up at him. “I could have done that, you know.”
Karim scoffed. “I know. I just thought—”
“You thought you’d ride in on your horse like the big hero?”
“It’s nice to see you again, too, Raetawy.”
Raetawy smiled. “Greetings to you, Jackal. You and your people are most welcome here.” She tilted her chin toward the gatehouse. “We’re focusing on getting the prisoners out. They’ll be taken on the boats back to Sakesh. The rest of us will stay until the battle is won, though I fear the war is only beginning.”
A vision of Setnakht and his horde of stone men flashed in Karim’s mind. “You’re quite right, sena,” he said.
Just then, a soldier came screaming toward them, his spear aimed directly at Raetawy. An arm’s breadth before the spearhead could reach her, a snarling black beast leaped at the attacker, knocking him sideways. His shouts turned to shrieks of pain as Behkai tore into him before chasing him off.
“Still tolerating that dog, I see,” Raetawy commented.
Karim shrugged. “He’s grown on me.” Then his tone turned serious. “Sena, where is the princess? Is she here?”
Raetawy’s expression darkened. She cast a glance toward the platform near the entrance to the citadel. “The traitor? Oh, she’s here.”
“Traitor?”
“The little priestess and I had a plan to stop this ritual and take down the king. When Sitamun returned to the palace, Neff said she needed to be involved. I didn’t like the idea, but the priestess swore it was in service to some oracle, so I went along. Then Sitamun turned on us the first chance she got! She’s up there fighting with Neff right now! She must be stopped!” Raetawy hoisted some kind of stone hammer over her shoulder and started to run.
Karim prodded the horse to follow. He was thunderstruck. “Why would Sita do such a thing?” he called out. “It makes no sense.”
“How would you know? You don’t know her.”
“Actually… I do.”
Rae swung the hammer into a soldier’s stomach as she passed him and glanced back at Karim with a skeptical expression. “Did you steal her jewelry or something?”
Karim grumbled and drove the horse faster, overtaking Raetawy and reaching the platform first. What he saw confirmed what he’dbeen told: Sita had an arm slung around the young priestess’s shoulders and was violently wrenching the girl to her feet.
Alarmed, Karim pulled the horse close and dismounted onto the platform. He moved to separate the two women, exclaiming, “Sita! What are you doing?”
“Get back!” the princess shouted, brandishing a dagger. “Don’t come any closer! I’ll kill her! I’ll slit her throat!”
Raetawy vaulted onto the platform beside Karim. “You see?”
It was strange to behold Sita dressed in finery, her lips rouged, her eyes lined in black kohl. She looked so different from the girl he’d met in the market and had grown to love. Combined with her bizarre behavior, she seemed like a stranger.
