Chapter 1
Karim
Karim died young, violently, and with much left unfinished.
The manner of his death surprised him, but it really shouldn’t have. There had been many indications of its coming: the wrongness of the dark tomb he’d found in that valley, its unfathomable riches, the blood, the broken and dying boy he’d left behind.
And the creature he’d awoken.
It had pursued him across the desert, relentlessly, like the wind. He’d stabbed it, burned it, impaled it on a tree—and still it came. The creature wanted something. Karim had thought it wanted the amulet he’d stolen, but no.
It wanted him.
He had been the one to summon it, after all. Summoned his own demise, like a mouse blundering into a viper’s den. Just as the painting on that temple wall, the Oracle of the Lamb, had predicted he would.
Dying wouldn’t have been so terrible if he’d done it with a clear conscience. However, Karim’s death not only marked the end of his life—but also the beginning of another’s.
The forgotten king.
Setnakht.
The undead pharaoh needed Karim’s heart—the heart of an acolyte—to truly live again. Once he’d gotten it, Setnakht was free to finish the work he’d left undone when he’d died a thousand years ago.
The Oracle of the Lamb gave hints about where that work might lead. To a river of blood. To chaos, sorrow, and ruin. To a kingdom forever broken. And it was Karim’s still-beating heart, savagely ripped from his chest, that would enable Setnakht to bring those ill portents to pass.
Karim had never meant for it to happen. None of it.
I’m sorry.
Those had been his final words, the words of a man who, in his last agonizing moment, recognized that his sacrifice hadn’t saved the people of Khetara and the Red Lands as he’d intended.
In fact, he had doomed them all.
***
There had been pain, unfathomable pain. A lurch that shook his body to the core, and then—
Silence.
The quiet fell over him like a thick blanket, blotting out sound and light, erasing the weight of his body and the sensation of his breath, which he’d never quite noticed until it had gone. Karim’s consciousness hovered in the darkness.
There was nothing, nothing, nothing.
And then there was light.
The light did not originate from any specific point—it simply came into being, like an idea. It engulfed him, and Karim could sense something, or many somethings, within that light. Slowly, the shapes became defined.
A man’s silhouette, visible but ethereal. The man’s voluminous robes swirled, their many folds billowing as if underwater. Karim studied the contours of the man’s face, and a name formed within his consciousness.
Father.
The man smiled and opened his arms, and in that single gesture Karim felt the radiating power of his father’s love.
He willed himself closer, and soon other figures began to emerge from the light.
His grandmother, who had died when he was young; warriors from his tribe who had been killed in battle.
They were all intensely present, and yet their forms were as diaphanous as clouds.
Then he saw Djet.
The boy was as plump and full of youthful exuberance as he had been that fateful day in the valley. It gave Karim great comfort to see him like that, not terrified and bleeding from a dozen wounds.
Like his father, Djet looked happy to see him and gestured for Karim to join them, to move deeper into the world of light.
Karim could see his own hands now, still gossamer like mist, but growing sharper with every passing moment. He reached out to Djet, to his father.
I’m home. The thought was a balm to all his guilt and shame.
Then another figure emerged from the light. It towered over the other apparitions, dark and imposing.
Pasenhor?
The old priest of Khnum approached like a thunderhead. His presence was jarring, discordant—as if he did not belong in that place and yet had come through sheer force of will.
It’s not finished, thief.
Karim heard the priest’s voice, though his lips didn’t move.
Can you not hear her calling you?
Pa’s piercing eyes willed him to listen and remember, though Karim very much wished to forget. He wanted to join his tribe and let go of all that had come before.
Listen!
The priest’s command brooked no argument. Karim listened.
“Your story is not finished!”
The voice came from another world, catching hold of him like a rope around his chest, pulling him away from the light.
“I need you!” the voice said. It was both familiar and unfamiliar, like two voices speaking at the same time.
Karim fought the pull of the voice, his ephemeral hands grasping at the priest but finding nothing but air.
Pa regarded him without sympathy. Gather your flock, Karim of the Red Lands. Go out into the wilderness, find those who are lost, and bring them home. The oracle demands it.
No… Karim begged as the light dimmed and darkness closed around him once more. No!
The figures from his past faded from view save the priest, who stood against the light like a monolith, his voice loud in Karim’s mind.
Your story is long—too long, perhaps. But it must be told nonetheless.
The priest chuckled, heavy with irony. You see?
I was right. You’re a thief of time, after all.
Karim cried out as he was dragged through thick darkness, down, down, down to the heavy weight of earthly things, to breath and heat and hunger, to yesterday’s memories and tomorrow’s obligations.
And though he fought the chains of his mortal body with all his strength, with four words, the mighty voice locked him back into his flesh with a finality that made the earth around him quake.
“Come back to me!”
***
Karim opened his eyes and gasped. Above him, the cloudless sky was pink with the first blush of morning.
He blinked once, twice. His memories of what lay on the other side of death slipped away like grains of sand, until all that remained was a faint sense of having lost something precious.
His mind was jumbled, confused. Only a moment before, he’d been in the grip of the monster.
But Setnakht wasn’t looming over him.
The valley was quiet.
I’m alive, Karim thought. But how? The last thing I remember was…
Seized with terror, Karim probed his chest where Setnakht had ripped into him. He expected to feel torn flesh and exposed bone—but the skin was unbroken.
Unbroken, but changed. He tilted his chin to inspect the raised scarring that spread over his left breast. To his amazement, the scar formed a recognizable design. A design drawn onto him as if by a divine hand.
A scarab.
Deep within him, his heart—feeling heavier somehow—began to race.
What sorcery is this? he wondered.
He sat up. If he needed proof that his recollection of the attack was genuine, his singed, blood-soaked robes were more than enough evidence. He winced as he peeled them off and dropped them into an evil-smelling heap.
Setnakht did take my heart. But what happened after that? I died… So how am I still here?
He scanned the area. Sitamun was lying on her back an arm’s length away.
She was unconscious, but thankfully looked unharmed.
He put his palms on the ground, bracing for the pain that was sure to accompany his attempt to move toward her.
Over the past couple weeks, not only had his chest been torn open but he’d also been kicked, slashed, burned, and slapped.
Suffice it to say, there was rarely a time when movement didn’t come with a fair measure of discomfort.
To Karim’s great surprise, however, he felt no pain. It was as if every wound he’d suffered had vanished with the dawn.
As the shock faded and his awareness returned, Karim noticed other differences in his body.
A lightness. A prickling sensation that coursed through him, energizing him despite the horrific ordeal he’d just experienced.
And through his eyes, the valley around him looked brighter, clearer, and more colorful than it had ever looked before.
Karim breathed, and the air was sweet.
He hadn’t simply been resurrected; he’d been remade.
Nearby, Sitamun stirred and groaned, distracting Karim from his frenzied thoughts. At the sound of her voice, a memory from beyond struck him like a lightning bolt.
Hers was the same voice that had reached him in another world.
Called to him.
Commanded him.
Dragged him back to his broken body and somehow mended it.
With new eyes, Karim saw the same radiance—the same half-remembered, divine light that had filled that place between life and death—emanating from the princess like a beacon.
It was her! Karim realized. Her voice! Her command!
Sitamun struggled up onto her elbows and took in her surroundings. When she saw him sitting there, staring at her, her eyes widened in astonishment.
“Sitamun,” he whispered hoarsely. “What have you done?”
The princess blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed.
Karim waited, expectant, growing more irritated with each passing second. “Well?”
“You’re…alive?” Sitamun finally blurted.
“Yes, I’m alive!” Karim sputtered, clambering unsteadily to his feet. He was covered in gore and wearing only a loincloth, but he didn’t care. “You brought me back!”
“I did?” Sitamun said, bewildered. Following his lead, she stood up, wobbled like a newborn donkey, and collapsed. Karim caught her before she hit the ground. He led her to sit on a boulder, and the clouds in her eyes cleared. She beamed at him with childlike triumph. “I did!”
Karim squatted in front of her, amazed at how lithe his body felt. But no, no, he couldn’t think about that now. “I need to understand, sena. How did you do it?”
Sitamun’s expression turned to horror. “That…thing,” she said, her lip curling in disgust. “He tore you apart! He ripped out your heart! There was so much blood! So much…blood…” Her eyes rolled up into her head, and she sagged.
“Stay with me, sena! Stay with me!” Karim said, shaking her and patting her cheek.