“Enough! Now stay still.”
The girl began to struggle as Rae attempted to bind her wrists.“Please, Rae! I know you’re a good person! I can see it in your eyes! You want to do what’s right for the kingdom!”
“Be quiet!” Rae snarled. She could feel her anger growing. It was all too much.
“You met him! Karim! By the riverbank! Isn’t that right?”
Rae froze.She couldn’t be talking about the Jackal, could she?
“You remember him, don’t you?” the girl went on, seemingly encouraged by the confusion on Rae’s face. “He saw you on a farm by the side of the river. He had curly hair. Stubble. Big smile. You gave him fish to eat, and he gave you gifts in exchange.”
Neff squeezed her eyes shut, as if straining to recall the memory. “When I met him, he said he gave you a…a ring, I think, and something else.” Then she gasped. Before Rae could stop her, the young priestess reached out, looped her finger under the cord around Rae’s neck, and pulled the lion amulet from its hiding place beneath Rae’s dress.
“This,” Neff said with triumph. “He gave you this Sekhmet amulet. For the one who wields the scepter.”
Thunderstruck, Rae jerked the amulet out of the girl’s grasp and tucked it back beneath her dress with a trembling hand. The hand wearing the very ring that Neff had also mentioned. The ring featuring four symbols: a snake, a feather, an eye, and a scarab. She glanced at the packs piled up in the corner of the tent, one of which contained her sekhem scepter. “You can’t know all that…” Rae muttered, her mind whirling. “You can’t! This is some kind of High Khetaran magic. Some kind of trick!”
“It’s not, and you know it!” The little priestess didn’t raise her voice, but the strength in her words shone through nonetheless. “Look inside you, Rae. Look into your soul and tell me you don’t believe!”
Rae scanned Neff’s face, searching for deception or guile, but found only a young girl begging for someone to share a burdenshe’d been carrying alone.
Rae growled in frustration. “Fine! I’ll…consider what you’ve told me. Now I must return to the palace. I’ll come back soon. All right?”
Mollified, the priestess simply said, “Thank you.”
“I need to tie you up again, but I’ll make the bindings looser this time.”
The girl didn’t move a muscle as Rae retied the rags around her wrists and mouth, and she seemed at peace when Rae gave her a final glance before stepping out of the tent. “I’m not saying I believe you. I’m only saying I’ll think about it.”
Neff didn’t need to reply, her eyes said it all.You may not believe yet, but you will.
Rae gripped the rough canvas and shut the tent flap. The memory of the Jackal’s thoughtful face filled her mind, profiled against the sun as he gazed out onto the Iteru.
The river gets its way, in the end.
She cursed.
21Sita
It was early evening by the time they’d helped the Hudjefa tend to their wounded and set up camp for the night. It was also when Sita noticed Behkai was missing.
Karim must have had the same realization, because he came running over to her, his expression frantic.
“I can’t find that cursed dog anywhere,” he said. “No one has seen him since we fled the city. What if he didn’t get out? What if…?”
He didn’t need to finish his thought. Sita knew full well that Behkai—stupidly, wonderfully brave Behkai—wouldn’t have hesitated to attack one of the ushabti if it had been hurting an innocent person. The dog couldn’t have known that the stone men were impenetrable. But he would have broken all his teeth trying to bite them anyway.
“Come on,” she said, handing the pile of makeshift bandages she’d collected to another woman. “Let’s go look for him whilethere’s still a little light left.” If the dog was alive, he could have been anywhere by then, but they had to try.
They walked back toward the valley, careful to keep an eye out for any movement as they scanned the horizon. Sita knew that the only ushabti still in Perset were there to guard the city as Setnakht had commanded, but she didn’t want any more surprises.
“Behkai!” she called for the twentieth time.
“It’s no use,” Karim finally said, leaning against a boulder. “He’s gone.”
Karim had stayed busy helping the bereaved and making plans with Elyas, but Sita could see the strain of the day and its grief had finally caught up with him.
“Let’s walk a little while longer,” she said.
