Chapter 34
Neff
She remembered a dream of being alone in the desert, listening to the words of a bloody god…
Beware! Sorrow and ruin to the Children of the Two Lands!
She remembered staring at a painting of Isis after the Wabet cut her hair and transformed her into a stranger…
Who am I now? If you know all the names, can you tell me mine?
Hovering before the face of the Invisible One in the Holy of Holies, hearing his sacred words in her mind…
Amun created everything, even himself. And all while no one was watching.
Standing before a sea of faces at the king’s coronation and finding her mother and father among them…
They’ll come to see me from all over Bubas, from all over Khetara, to hear your story.
She remembered meeting each of the three people from her visions for the first time:
Sitamun, beautiful and full of secrets, approaching the goddess during the Festival of Bast.
Karim, all charm and mischief, sneaking into the temple alongside a merchant and a donkey.
Raetawy, a force of nature barely contained, kneeling in the palace courtyard.
The lamb, the lamb, the lamb…
Neff had feared the responsibility the gods had placed upon her, feared that she was unprepared for the task, yet she’d never questioned the validity of the oracle, never once doubted that all the pieces would fall into place, and that Khnum’s word would lead them here.
One wore a crown, another carried a scepter, the third had two shadows, and the last…she was small.
She remembered…