The queen only stared at her, foam gathering at the corners of her mouth.
I’m going to be alone, Sita thought, her grief sudden and crushing.They’re all gone. Father, Mery, Mother, and—
There was a sudden cry behind her, and Sita whirled to find Neff holding Kenna, radiating unimaginable joy. “He’s alive!” she wailed. “He’s breathing! He’s alive!”
“What?”Leaving Karim to support her mother, Sita dashed toward them and knelt on Kenna’s other side.
Her brother blinked up at her through a curtain of blood. “Sitamun?” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
Sita laughed, overwhelmed, hysterical. “It’s a miracle!” she said through tears.
Neff collapsed onto the prince, wrapping her arms around him as she sobbed.
Kenna patted the girl. “There, there,” he said awkwardly, seemingly uncertain how to react to such an outpouring of love. He peered around the room in growing dismay. “What happened?” he asked Sita.
“Mother thought Mery killed you, so she…” Sita couldn’t finish the words. “He’s gone,” she said instead. “And now she’s taken some kind of poison. She’s dying, Kenna.”
Kenna’s brow furrowed, shock driving the fog from his eyes. She felt his muscles constrict as he tried to rise.
“What are you doing? Your head! You’re bleeding!”
Kenna ignored her, straining to move despite his injury.
Seeing that he would not be dissuaded. Sita helped move him closer to their mother. Karim had laid the queen on the floor in front of the throne. Her breathing was shallow, her eyes closed.
“Mother,” Kenna said.
The queen’s eyes opened and focused on the prince’s face, bloody but very much alive.
“Bakenamun?” Her voice was feathery and barely audible.
“Mother,” Kenna repeated. Like Mery, he seemed to be reduced to a child before her. “You didn’t need to do this… Why did you do this?”
The queen reached for him, her hand trembling, and caressed his cheek. “My boy. You never asked for anything. Never caused me any pain—even at your birth.”
Kenna’s face was awash with grief.
The queen coughed again, each word a struggle. “Yet I caused you...so much. Made you feel that you were not enough.”
“Mother…”
“I should have loved you better.”
“Please, don’t—”
The queen’s face, which had always been so stern and full of tension, relaxed.
Sita clapped a hand over her mouth and cried.
Kenna bowed his head as they knelt together beside the dead queen, silently honoring her final bloody gift.
Then they stood, Sita helping her injured brother to his feet and slipping an arm around his shoulder. She looked at Mery, seated in the wooden throne. Only a little blood dripped from the knife wound down his chest, staining his fine green schenti. His head was tilted to the side, exposing his chiseled jawline, and he’d thrown one of his hands over the arm of the chair, as if he were holding a cup of wine in it. Even in death, he was the picture of elegance.
Bitterly, Sita said, “All he ever wanted was to save the kingdom. How could he go so wrong?”
“Mery never cared about the kingdom, Sitamun,” Kenna replied. “He only cared about the crown.”
The double crown of Khetara lay at Sita’s feet, broken, no longer dazzling, and with no head to bear it.
