Chapter 21
Sita
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 while there’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.
Karim nodded but said nothing. They continued in silence.
Sita snuck a glance at him. Is it really possible that he cannot die?
She wondered what he was thinking and how he must feel, and she desperately wanted to ask him—except this wasn’t the time.
The experience was still too fresh, too raw.
Besides, she feared his answer. She bore the responsibility for his newfound immortality.
The sight of him that morning at their campsite in the valley, his body soaked in blood, his eyes glinting strangely in the dawn’s light, was seared into her memory.
Sitamun, what have you done?
She shivered and asked a different question instead.
“Do you think it’s wise? Bringing the Hudjefa across the desert in the hope that the Anen will take them in?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Karim asked.
“No, I just thought you weren’t on good terms with your tribe. What makes you think they’ll agree?”
“The Anen’s numbers have been dwindling ever since the Shass began besieging us every chance they got.
There are good fighting men among the Hudjefa, and their women are skilled too.
Dumiya’s abilities alone make her more valuable than ten common fighters.
An alliance between the tribes would be fruitful for both, especially as Setnakht’s army rides on Khetara. The Red Lands must be protected.”
Sita frowned. “I wish you luck. In my experience, simply because a plan makes perfect sense, doesn’t mean people will agree to it. But I’m certain you will find a way to convince them.”
Karim regarded her warily. “Why do I get the feeling you aren’t coming with me?”
Sita tried to meet his gaze but found that she couldn’t. “Because I’m not,” she said evenly. “I must return to Thonis.”
“What?” Karim said, suddenly furious. “You can’t! We barely made it out of there alive! And now you’re going to march right back into your brother’s house? He’ll kill you! Or worse—marry you!”
Sita glanced at the twin serpents that wound around her staff and held it a little tighter.
“Things have changed. I’m no longer afraid of Mery.
And I’m one of the only people in the kingdom who knows what’s coming.
It’s my duty as a princess and a Khetaran to warn the palace of the oncoming horde.
My brother will have no choice but to put aside our differences until Setnakht is no longer a threat. ”
Karim raised an eyebrow. “In my experience, simply because a plan makes perfect sense, doesn’t mean people will agree to it.”
Sita scoffed.
After a long moment, Karim said quietly, “I thought we were supposed to do this together, sena. Until the end.”
“I’m sorry,” Sita replied. “You have a duty to your people, and I have a duty to mine.”
Another silence washed over them, this one heavier than the first.
Sita turned northwest, toward the river, toward home, a mixture of excitement and dread churning in her veins.
She squinted.
A black animal galloped toward them.
Sita grabbed the thief’s shoulder and pointed. “Look!”
Karim laughed. It was the first truly joyous sound Sita had heard that day. “I can’t believe it,” he said.
Behkai did not stop running until he’d reached them, and then he leaped straight onto Karim, knocking him flat on his back.
“Get off me you great oaf!” Karim complained as the dog stood atop his master, his long, thin tail wagging furiously. “What is that? What’s in your mouth?”
“I think it’s a rabbit,” Sita observed with amusement.
As if on command, Behkai dropped the dead hare onto Karim’s chest.
While Karim struggled to extricate himself from both dog and rabbit, Sita chuckled. “You should be grateful! He’s brought you dinner. Look at him. He’s so proud of himself.”
Behkai sat on his haunches and looked between them, panting gloriously, tongue lolling.
A grin crept into the corner of Karim’s mouth. He reached out and gave the dog a hearty pat. “It’s good to have you back, boy.”
Sita bent down and placed a kiss on top of the beast’s head, right above the white handprint on his face. “It is.” Her gaze met Karim’s as they fawned over Behkai, and Sita felt a sharp sting in her heart.
I am going to miss this, she thought. I am going to miss this very much.
***
Sita and Karim hardly spoke for the rest of the evening, busy as they were helping build a fire and ration out the water the tribe had managed to bring with them during their flight from the city.
They only had enough water to last a day or so, and it would take more than that to reach the river on foot, especially with the wounded in tow.
“We will make it,” Elyas said to Sita as she worried over the meager water jars. “I have faith.”
Elyas wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
Karim and Sita’s presence seemed to inspire the Hudjefa.
None were smiling that night as they ate the roasted rabbit Behkai had caught along with some other wild game, but Sita noticed there was a calm among the survivors.
A feeling that despite their terrible plight, they were in the hands of a power greater than their own.
Sita wished she felt the same. On one hand, she couldn’t wait to set her eyes on Thonis, to smell the jasmine on the breeze, to walk through the yawning, vivid halls of the palace, and to see those she loved, especially Nebet.
On the other, she knew full well the danger she was walking into.
If Mery didn’t believe her story about Setnakht—for it was a fantastic story indeed—all of Khetara might be doomed.
And that’s if Mery didn’t kill her first.
He wouldn’t, would he? He loves me—tainted though that love might be.
She thought back on what Setnakht had said when he’d mistaken her for his wife, Queen Anet, a woman whom he’d obviously loved deeply.
When Sita rejected his advances, he’d told his soldiers to kill her and throw her body into the mortuary temple.
The experience taught her an important lesson: Mery’s enduring love for her was not a shield. If anything, it was a poison.
I must be prepared for him, she thought. For his cunning. For his games. I must see the board in front of me and all the players upon it.
It was hard to imagine confronting her brother, but it was easier than thinking of Karim.
When had she fallen for him? There hadn’t been a single instance she could pinpoint, but a constellation of tiny moments that amounted to love: sharing his meal with her that first day on the riverbank; the way he looked while washing in the river, his lean body glistening under the sun; how he’d gently tucked the blanket around her when he thought she was sleeping; the way it felt living as husband and wife in Perset, far away from their troubles and their true identities.
Could she ever feel that way again? Or was their fantasy doomed to end with their parting?
***
Late that night, after Sita finished changing her last bandage on one of the wounded, she was sitting by the fire, gazing into the flames.
Behkai had bedded down with the children, treating them like his pups and making sure they were all fully licked before going to sleep.
She sensed Karim come up beside her to sit on the blanket Miri had provided.
The fire hissed and crackled, illuminating their faces with a golden glow. It was a long time before either of them spoke.
“Will I ever see you again?” Sita asked.
Karim turned to her and chuckled without humor. “Given my penchant for eternal life, sena, I expect you will.”
“Perhaps you can’t die, but I can,” Sita murmured.
She felt Karim’s body tense. “I wish I could come with you,” he said softly. “But I know this is a battle you must fight alone.”
Sita’s focus hadn’t left the fire. She was so afraid to look at him, so afraid the emotion on his face would be her undoing. Except he was like the river’s current—irresistible, inevitable. She turned to him.
How could she have ever thought he had a common face?
One like any other in a crowd? How had she neglected to see the rugged beauty of his stubbled jaw, his roguish smile, his earthen skin, and the waving, windblown glory of his curls?
Perhaps they’d started out as ordinary features, but now they were inexorably attached to the memories she had of him.
Each extraordinary moment they’d shared had transformed a stranger into her beloved.