4 Sita
Sita
Where do the gods end, and I begin?
Sita contemplated the question as she and Karim walked to the river, with Behkai leading the way. After packing up and leaving the valley, they decided to make a quick stop to bathe before starting their journey into the desert to find the lost city.
“I’m filthy, and you…” She scowled, giving the tomb robber an appraising look. He was absolutely covered in gore. “You need to be boiled. Twice.”
“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Karim said. He sniffed his armpit, then gagged. “Fine, sena, have it your way. We’ll have a bath. My robes could use a wash as well.”
It didn’t take long to reach the river. They waited for a trading ship to pass before approaching the riverbank, which was thankfully shielded from view by a thicket of reeds and some squat palm trees.
“Turn around!” Sita commanded as she set down her pack and removed her belt.
Karim rolled his eyes and obeyed. “Hurry up, will you?”
Feeling both embarrassed and exhilarated, Sita stripped off her dress and loincloth and stepped into the river.
She gasped. So cold! She dipped her head under the water, and the temperature that had chilled her became refreshing.
She broke the surface, slicked her hair back from her face, and began scrubbing her body clean.
“No peeking!” she said.
“I’m not!” Karim protested, although she could have sworn she saw his head turn.
When she was done, she got out, squeezed the water from her hair, and quickly washed the dirt and bloodstains from her kalasiris before slipping back into it.
The wetness turned the white dress nearly translucent, but that couldn’t be helped.
“All right. Go ahead and do your business so we can get going.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re very pushy?” Karim said as he turned toward her. His gaze dropped to her chest before refocusing on her face.
Sita crossed her arms, cheeks reddening. “What are you looking at?”
“Only what I’m being shown, Princess,” Karim replied, his eyes full of mischief. With that, he shouldered out of his robes and took a running jump into the river.
“Ugh!” Sita cried, covering her eyes with both hands. Obviously, the thief didn’t care about modesty.
She heard him splashing around, humming to himself.
What a dog, she thought.
Then, after a long moment, she spread her fingers and peered through them.
Karim stood waist-deep in the water, his arms up, his hands working through his brown curls. The water clung to the dark hair on his scarred chest and slid in rivulets down his stomach and the V-line of his pelvis.
Suddenly, she felt as if she were transported back to the pleasure garden, peering through the poppy flowers to watch something private.
You’re as bad as he is! Sita scolded herself.
She looked away and moved up the bank to wait for Karim to finish washing himself and his clothes.
The sight of the scarab scar on his chest—shaped exactly like the amulet she’d placed inside him—brought her back to the question that she’d been asking herself since the thief’s miraculous resurrection.
Did I bring him back? Or was I simply a vessel for the gods’ will?
The quandary left her quiet and thoughtful as she and Karim filled their waterskins and made their way east toward the open desert. Neither of them said a word until they were out among the dunes, having left all vegetation behind.
“Your lips are silent, sena, but your face speaks,” Karim said.
Sita startled. She hadn’t noticed him watching her.
He went on. “Are you worried we won’t be able to find Perset? Or that we’ll perish in the attempt? There’s an oasis marked on the map near the lost city, so as long as it’s still there, we should be able to find it.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said. She paused, searching for the right words to explain. As if sensing her unease, Behkai trotted to her side. She reached down to scratch between his tall, pointed ears. “The oracle you told me about, the Oracle of the Lamb—you really believe it’s true?”
Karim sighed. “It is a source of extreme confusion. On one hand, the oracle is Khetaran doctrine, and I have no faith in such things. On the other, I cannot deny what my own eyes have seen.” His gaze flicked to hers with a subtle wariness.
“I cannot deny that it was through Khetaran magic that I stand here and speak to you now.” There was a bitterness in his tone that made her sad and angry at the same time.
She quickly suppressed those feelings. You cannot blame him for being upset when his faith is thrown into question.
She thought about what he’d told her about the ancient oracle, about its omens of death and destruction, and her own role—along with Karim, a priestess, and a warrior—in that dark future.
“How about you, hey?” Karim asked. “Do you believe?”
Sita shook her head. “It’s complicated. I don’t think you’d understand.”
Karim bristled. “Why? Because I’m an uncivilized Red Lands tribesman and not an educated Khetaran like you?”
“No! It’s not that at all! It’s…” She dropped her head back and stared at the wide-open sky.
“I’m the daughter of a pharaoh, all right?
Up until a few days ago, every detail of my life was decided for me.
When I ran away, it was the first time I took control of my own destiny.
But if this oracle is real, then it means I was meant to run away.
It means leaving the palace, meeting you, even bringing you back—all of it was decided a thousand years ago.
If everything I do is predetermined by the gods, then do I really have a say in anything?
Do my choices even matter?” She clutched the Isis knot and scarab pendants hanging at her breast, the last remnants of her old life.
“If the hand of a god guides me, am I truly free?”
Karim didn’t respond right away. He stared at the rolling dunes stretching out before them, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “Have you ever made a plan, sena?”
Sita thought about all the parties and banquets she’d organized, and the fowling days out on the river. “Many times, yes.”
“And did each detail always happen as you intended?”
Again, Sita recalled musicians who fell ill, tardy guests, strong winds that blew her specially prepared party food into the river.
“Of course not. There are too many variables. You can’t control everything that happens.” She blinked. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”
Karim gave her a little grin. “Just because a god—whether it be mine or yours—has a plan, doesn’t mean it always comes to pass.
We can choose to walk the path set out for us, or we can choose not to.
Or maybe something completely out of our control alters the entire situation, hey?
None of that changes the fact that there was a plan. ”
Sita nodded. The thief’s logic was sound. “You really think we get to choose our fate?”
Karim shrugged. “I think we get to choose whether we follow the path set out for us, Sitamun.” He paused. “And I think we get to choose with whom we share that journey.”
Had he moved a little closer to her? Or had she suddenly felt his closeness?
“Perhaps you can call me Sita,” she said. “Sitamun is so formal, and we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”
Karim’s eyes twinkled. “Very well, Princess.”
They walked in comfortable silence after that, Sita occasionally reaching down to give Behkai a pat on the rump, and Karim scanning their surroundings as he consulted the old map he’d stolen from the Temple of Amun.
Sita’s muscles ached, and blisters grew on the backs of her ankles where her ornate sandals rubbed her raw.
Like herself up until that day, her shoes had been built for looks, not work.
When the pain became too much to bear, she kicked them off and walked barefoot.
The sand between her toes was soothing, and the glorious, golden expanse all around them distracted her from dark thoughts.
Every once in a while, she stole a glance at her companion. His boyish, rugged face. His dark eyes that flashed when the light hit them just right. Only two days ago, he was a stranger, and now… What was he? A friend?
Not like any friend I’ve had.
The men in Sita’s life treated her much like one of the decorative statues she’d seen in the Thonis marketplace: as something to be bought and sold. Or prey to be hunted, she thought, remembering Mery’s hand on the back of her neck.
She shivered.
Even Femi, like all the other servants and courtiers, had treated her with deference.
Not Karim.
He’d argued with her! Called her names! Although none of them, she admitted, were nearly as bad as the ones she’d called him.
And he seemed to have no interest in the value of her station.
On the contrary, he had nothing but disdain for the Khetaran throne.
Karim was, without a doubt, the most difficult, peculiar man Sita had ever met.
She watched him throw a tamarisk branch for Behkai to fetch, howling with laughter when the dog lost his footing and tumbled down a dune.
A friend, she thought again. The idea filled her belly with a warm, fluttery feeling.
She wondered how she might describe him to Nebet, while her attendant brushed out her hair at night like she used to do. He’s insolent, abrasive, unapologetically rude, and a criminal, she imagined saying.
Karim caught her looking at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
You’re being stupid again, Sita told herself. Letting yourself be fascinated by a man totally unsuited for you. It was true, of course, but with only sand and sky to look at for hours on end, Sita couldn’t help filling her mind with silly, impossible thoughts of him.