Chapter Twenty-Three Amunet
TWENTY-THREE AMUNET
The crackle and pop of the pyre was a consistent roar in my ears, mercifully drowning out the scraping in my head.
The only mercy the giant flame would bestow on me.
Prayers rolled through my mind like sand down a hill, gathering grains and speed, one plea following the next.
Yet the back of my neck continued to burn.
The way I’d figured it, a pyre was like one huge candle, with the bonus of fifteen sacrificial bodies. It was worth a shot to try to reach out to Shaya here.
On the other side of the flames, Nasir spoke with families of the deceased, gold-flecked eyes glittering with sympathy as mothers cried in his arms. It appeared genuine.
Not too far away, slightly distorted by heat waves, Jasim struck up conversations with soldiers to figure out why the fuck we were still here. The bodies were burned to scorched crisps. Funeral was over. Time to move.
With each extra second, my paranoia rose, and my side throbbed with the reminder of the assassin’s blade.
The sweat searing its way down my neck wasn’t helping matters.
My whole body shook as I resisted the urge to scratch.
Thousands of scorching pinpricks crawled farther up my skull.
I’d chucked my wig to the ground some time ago, unable to handle even that minor touch.
Comfort seemed like a fairy tale, like something I’d never known.
A deep, familiar chuckle sounded directly in my ear. I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut. Just another symptom of my separation from Shaya, like the itch, like the claws in my head.
Yet the feeling of eyes on me lifted the hairs along my arms.
I blew out a hard breath through my nose and focused on the roar of the pyre, on the heat of the sun on the top of my shaved head.
Stop this, Amunet, chided a familiar, creaky voice. You look like a fool.
I bit my lip harder against the answer that jumped to the tip of my tongue. He wasn’t here. Talking to him would only make—
You know why Shaya’s not answering, King Zaid goaded. He’s not punishing you. He doesn’t care enough to punish you. He’s moved on. After all, twenty years is a long time to wait for someone to become useful.
He was wrong. He hadn’t moved on. I was his daughter.
Like you were mine?
“I was never your daughter.” The words were out of me before I could stop them.
Ah, that’s it, is it? That’s why you’re out here pouting? His chuckle sounded again, shuddering down my spine. Better to think I was the villain and Shaya the hero than to accept that I simply did not love you.
“Shut up.” My cheeks felt hot, my chest tight.
I tried to push his voice away, to focus on my prayers, to generate a plan for how Jasim and I would make it to the temple without Nasir’s help.
But I thought I felt the king’s breath brush against the side of my face, could almost see his smile within his gray beard, his vindictive green eyes.
I tried, Amunet. But there’s nothing about you worth loving.
“Stop it.”
You think Shaya’s different? You think he will stand beside you? You think he loves you? Oh, you poor, stupid little girl—
“Shut! Up!” My eyes burst open.
Sara stood a few feet away, eyes wide and brows low.
No King Zaid. Of course.
My cheeks were hot for a different reason now. I reached up and slashed my nails across the back of my head. “What do you want?”
“Who were you talking to?” Sweat darkened the orange of the headscarf around her face as she surveyed the space around me. The clearly empty space.
“I’m praying.” I infused my words with as much impatience as I could muster, all while fighting the tears that threatened to well in my eyes. Tears of fear, frustration, hurt.
The guard approached me. Hatred gleamed in her hazel eyes.
Nothing new, is it? King Zaid whispered in my ear, and my body stiffened. If not irrationally devoted, like your little pet, hatred is the only other option.
Go away! I mentally shouted at him.
“I didn’t realize our deaths affected you so much,” Sara said blandly.
“Any Ashoran death affects me. I’m a Gods-Chosen.”
King Zaid cackled, echoed by Sara’s scoff.
“Come off it, Your Majesty. You don’t give a rat’s ass about us out here.
” I didn’t even see the dagger in her hand before it was pressed to my throat.
I went very still. “Your presence at their pyre is an insult,” she snarled.
“You don’t care about any of our dead. You don’t care about Ashorah at all.
” Her eyes flashed, the brown momentarily outweighing the green.
“There’s only one reason Shaya would sire a child, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize it has nothing to do with saving Ashorah.
Quite the opposite, in fact.” She bared her teeth at me. “You’re going to free him.”
As much as I was loath to admit it, King Zaid was right.
This was nothing new. It was an accusation that had been thrown at me numerous times in Khada Palace.
If someone thought of me as the spawn of evil, then they were also incapable of thinking Shaya could be something more than the villain.
That he could care about the living as much as he cared for the dead.
But if I was being honest, I didn’t care.
If Shaya wanted me to save Ashorah, I’d do it.
If he wanted me to free him from the Underworld, I’d do it.
If he wanted me to burn the whole world to the ground, I’d do it.
I sent those words toward the pyre, hoping Shaya would hear them.
If he didn’t, I’d repeat them at his temple.
“I made a deal with Nasir,” I told Sara. “And if you don’t remove that knife from my throat in three seconds, I’ll tell your prince the deal is off and you are to blame.”
“Can’t do that with a hole in your throat.”
My hand shot up to grip her jaw, nails biting into her cheeks. She flinched, knife jerking against my throat. “Do it,” I snarled. “Deal ends either way.”
She ripped her face out of my grip, angry red slashes now adorning her cheeks from my nails.
“I might hate you, Your Majesty, but I know you’re smart.
It doesn’t matter what truth Nasir heard in your deal.
I’ve known him my whole life. There are ways around his magic, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out. Your words mean nothing.”
“I didn’t realize people here had such little trust in their prince.”
“I don’t trust you. Deal or no, you’ll betray us.
My parents were screwed over by you Khadas.
I will not let it happen again.” Keeping her eyes locked with mine, she walked backward, Phadar’s sun on her chest catching in the midday light, a promise in her hostile face.
Her sandals crunched in the sand as she finally turned and strode back the way she came.
She certainly seems to think your precious Shaya is the villain, the king mused.
“Just stop,” I said under my breath, turning my gaze back to the pillar of fire as if it were the king himself. “Please, just stop.”
He didn’t. Every story needs a villain, Amunet. And make no mistake, the Gods-Chosen is a story. A nice little fable to give the people hope.
“It’s more than a story,” I gritted out.
Wake up, you stupid girl, he spat. If you were Shaya’s beloved daughter, why would he abandon you? It’s a lie. You are a lie.
“No.” I shook my head hard, trying to clear it. The voice might be the king’s, but the doubts were my own, simmering somewhere deep in my mind for weeks. They were heresy, sacrilege. They would only push Shaya further away. I could not allow them into the light of day.
Fine, he went on ruthlessly. If you’re so sure Shaya isn’t the villain, and I’m already dead… what characters remain in your story? Who is left to play the villain? Except you.
“I am not the villain. And this isn’t a fable. I exist because of your deal with the jinn. I am a solution to your mistakes, your ineptitude.”
The king didn’t respond. There was no chuckle, no breath against my cheek.
The quiet was more foreboding than the rasp of his voice.
“Hey.”
I gasped with a flinch.
But it was just Jasim. He paused a foot away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I replied instantly. My mouth was dry, my chest heavy, and there was a dull ache in my throat where Sara’s knife had nicked me. But I sank into two decades’ worth of training and schooled my face into one of smooth indifference. “Did you find out anything from Nasir’s soldiers?”
He observed me a moment longer.
The truth attempted to sidestep my training and spew from my lips, anticipating his strong arms around me, the warm press of his body against mine. I clenched my jaw tight. This habit of wanting to tell Jasim things was… new.
Eventually, he said, “We’re leaving.”
“Anything more specific?”
“Now.” Jasim jerked his chin over my shoulder.
I turned to find a collection of Reeda soldiers, perhaps twenty or so, waiting in disciplined rows. Beside them were a couple of wagons holding jugs of water rations, sacks of food, and supplies for shelter. Sara joined the militia with a line of goats in tow for sacrifice.
“Queen Amunet.” Nasir approached with a boyish smile, though there was a heaviness to his gaze. A smudge of dullness to his gold-flecked irises. The weight of his people’s deaths. He tried to stand tall as he swept his hand toward his waiting soldiers. “Shall we?”
We were going to the Temple of Shaya. I really was just being paranoid. As I followed Nasir to one of the wagons, I waited for the relief to set in.
It never came.
First the itch. Then the claws. Now irrational paranoia and ghostly voices. What would come next? How much worse would this get? And for how much longer?
Because I didn’t think I could survive the rest of the month like this.