Chapter 15 #3
Our stories are not defined by our demons, said the voice of her conscience or a goddess or both. They are written about the choices we make when we are left alone with them.
Choose, said the light.
Choose, said the darkness.
Is the truth a poison?
Or a cure?
Will you fight?
Or will you die?
Sita only had a few breaths left before her end. Only a few moments before the choice was made for her.
She gasped. “I choose to fight!”
The word is the deed.
Her next breath came a little easier.
The two cobras remained motionless before her, watching, waiting. The voices in her mind came as if from the serpents themselves. Tell us your name, child of Khetara! they commanded.
“I am Coward! I am Fool!” Sita cried, her body still glittering with pain. “I am the One Who Faces the Storm! The One Who Defies Death!”
Her legs returned to her, and she struggled to her feet.
“I am Betrayer, Healer, Lover!”
She lurched toward the sarcophagus, and the two cobras slid back, allowing her to pass. The flames in the braziers seemed to burn brighter.
“I am the Candle in the Darkness, and the Shadow in the Dawn!”
She reached for the wooden staff and closed her hand around it.
“I am Sitamun, Princess of Khetara—and I am not finished!”
With that, she swung the staff from its seat. It struck the floor with a thunderous boom that shook the earth around her.
Then, like two obedient servants, the cobras slithered up the length of the twisted wood, winding around it and each other until they reached the crest. There they froze, alive no longer, but sculpted of red copper and black iron, entwined as one.
Queen Anet’s staff was whole once again, and Sita herself—free of pain—felt complete for the very first time.
For she had many names, and she finally knew them all.
***
“Sena! I’m coming!”
The shouts were so muted that if the silence hadn’t been total, Sita never would have heard them.
Karim! she thought.
She rushed out of Queen Anet’s tomb into the dark tunnel, which grew darker the moment she entered it.
Puzzled, she turned back. The burning braziers in the tomb had gone out.
There was no fire, no heat. Even the potent, acrid smell of smoke that had filled the chamber was gone.
The only light shone from the serpent staff, which glowed faintly in the gloom.
Full of wonder, Sita ran her fingers along the spine of the black cobra, and could have sworn she felt it breathe.
I believed in stories once, she remembered telling Karim long ago, perhaps in another lifetime.
“I’m sorry I lost faith,” she whispered, reveling in the way her hand fit perfectly into the twists of the wooden staff. She gripped it tightly. “It won’t happen again.”
She rushed back to the pit, and she was waiting there when Karim’s agitated face appeared high above.
“Sena!” he exclaimed when he saw her peering up at him. “Zev and I have come to rescue you!”
“Zev?” Sita said, surprised.
“He says he is the strongest man in the tribe and would have taken offense if I had brought anyone else!”
“Didn’t you think he might take this opportunity to kill us both?”
There was a pause. “I did not consider that, no!”
Zev’s head popped over the edge next to Karim’s. “I can hear you, you know,” he grumbled. “And I’m not going to kill you, though you deserve it for all the trouble you’ve caused. Still, Elyas would be…displeased.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Sita replied. “Now will you please lower the rope? I’d like to get out of here.”
Karim looked surprised, but he tossed the rope down to her. “What about your ankle, sena? I assumed one of us would have to come down and carry you out.”
“No need,” Sita said. She lifted the staff over her head and secured it into the back of her belt before grabbing hold of the rope. “I’m stronger than I thought.”
***
“What is this accursed place?” Zev asked as they trekked to the main hall.
Karim’s eyebrows raised when he saw the serpent staff Sita carried, but he was wise enough not to ask questions in front of Zev. The staff’s light had vanished once she climbed out of the pit, as if it knew it was no longer needed. Later, Sita had mouthed, and Karim nodded in assent.
“It’s a temple for the dead,” Sita answered. “An underground necropolis built by the people who lived in this city a thousand years ago.”
Zev eyed her with his usual suspicion. “First you mend a broken leg, and now this. You know too much to be some simple Khetaran commoner. You may have the whole tribe fooled, but not me. You’ve been lying to us since the moment you arrived.”
Sita nodded, unbothered by the accusation. “You’re right, Zev. We have.”
Karim stopped short. “Sita!”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “We cannot remain here any longer, Karim. We’ve learned all that we can from this place.
We must tell the Hudjefa who we really are and demand our immediate release.
No more waiting. No more lies.” She turned to the other man.
“I apologize for our deception, Zev, but it was not without cause. You did try to kill us. It didn’t seem wise to reveal my true identity. ”
Zev’s hand went to the dagger at his belt. “Who are you?”
Sita drew herself up. “I am Sitamun, Daughter of Amunmose, Princess of Khetara. And if you value the lives of your people, you will not stand in my way.”
Zev’s hand dropped back to his side. “A princess…” he murmured in disbelief. “But why—?”
Sita pushed past him and strode toward the steps leading up to the surface. “There’s no time to explain. Already too much has been wasted.”
Karim hurried forward as they began to ascend the stone stairs. “What happened to you down there, sena?” he whispered. “You seem…different.”
“Not different,” Sita replied. “I am finally myself.”
Karim nodded. He clearly wanted to know more, but he didn’t press her. “Why the sudden urgency?”
Sita recalled the ruined wall painting inside the tomb, the stone fragment bearing the image of the lamb. She was no seer, but she knew an ill portent when she saw one.
She was about to answer him when a scream came from the surface.
Sita and Karim looked at each other with dread.
They ran the rest of the way without waiting for Zev to catch up.
Sita tore out of the stone portal into the scorching light of day.
It was so bright and sudden that, at first, she couldn’t see a thing.
She blinked rapidly, and out of the white radiance, she glimpsed a small figure dashing toward her, shouting her name.
Aya.
In her haste, the little girl tripped over the hem of her robes and went down in a cloud of sand. Sita was upon her in an instant.
“Aya!” she exclaimed, pulling the girl to her feet. “What’s wrong?”
Aya’s face shone with terror, and her voice was high and thin. “Something is coming!”
Sita put her arm around the girl’s shoulders, then startled as an insect scuttled over her hand. She cried out in surprise, flinging it away. The creature landed at Karim’s feet.
Zev rushed up behind them, skidding to a halt.
Together, the four stared.
The huge scarab beetle crawled across the sand, its shell gleaming green and gold in the sunlight. Scarabs were common in Khetara, so seeing one shouldn’t have been a surprise—except this scarab was quite a bit larger than usual.
Another scarab erupted from the sand beside the first.
Then another.
And another.
“What is this?” Zev exclaimed, backing away from what was quickly becoming a writhing, crawling mass. “What wickedness have you brought upon us?”
Sita’s attention was drawn to the head of the valley. Far in the distance, a dark shadow appeared against the lapis blue sky. Sita glanced away when a beetle skittered across her foot, and when she looked again, the shadow had vanished.
She shivered as Aya’s warning echoed in her ears.
Something is coming.