Trigger warning : this chapter contains a scene of rape, sexual assault

Pi-Ramesses, Early Autumn. Reign of Ramesses, Year 7

Meresamun sat up, alarmed, awakened by the quiet sound of her door opening. Apart from the single flame of the night lamp, her room lay drenched in shadow. Beyond the closed shutters to the terrace no night birds called, not even a breeze touched the garden. Silence permeated the city. Footsteps approached, cautious. Through the screen of linen hangings surrounding her bed, a man emerged from the shadows, his muscled torso bathed in the warmth of the lamp's flame, wearing an elegant, embroidered kilt and a wide, gemmed collar. Kohl outlined his eyes.

"Ahmen," she breathed, her heart pounding. She rose to her knees, hope exploding within her. It had been thirteen months since he had last been in her room--since he had last looked at her.

He stood, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes moving over her, his expression unreadable. Self-conscious, she lifted the sheet to cover her bare breasts, suddenly uneasy under his dark perusal.

She waited, the sheet clutched against her chest, the silence extending, excruciating. She eyed him, wondering if he was drunk. He caught her look; met her eyes.

"I'm sober," he said, quiet.

"Why--"

"Am I here?" he interrupted. He moved to the bed, and pushed aside the hanging, the thick cuffs of gold on his forearms gleaming in the soft lamplight, drawing her attention to his outstretched arms, strong, powerful, used to controlling galloping horses. Arms which had once embraced her while he swore he would never let her go.

"I have come from a private dinner with Ramesses," Ahmen said, reaching out with a ringed forefinger to tug the sheet away from Meresamun's grip, watching as it slid down to her hips.

"Just like our first night," he murmured, his gaze moving over her breasts down to her navel. "Although now you are thinner. Much thinner."

"My appetite is not what it was," Meresamun offered, diffident, into the silence lengthening between them.

"So I have heard," Ahmen muttered. He turned, abrupt, and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. "There has been news."

Meresamun waited. Ahmen rubbed his palms against his kilt. He stood again, facing her once more, his expression taut. "A messenger from Sethi's division arrived today. His men fell to an ambush, caught in a ravine in territory belonging to Egypt. The messenger succumbed to his injuries soon after meeting the pharaoh. Although Ramesses has sent men to aid the division, he is assuming the worst."

"The worst?" Meresamun repeated, taken aback. "Meaning he believes Sethi is dead?"

"The Libyans are good at one thing, and one thing only," Ahmen replied. "Ambushes. I should know."

Meresamun's gaze fell to his torso, following the length of the diagonal scar running from his hip to his shoulder, bequeathed to him by a Libyan blade.

"Has Istara been told?" she asked, meeting his eyes once more, the look in his, distant, emotionless.

"No," Ahmen said, "no one knows apart from the pharaoh's inner circle. We must wait for Ramesses's men to return; must know the truth before anything is announced. Perhaps Sethi has survived. We can only wait and see."

Meresamun looked down at the sheet pooled around her hips, wondering why her husband would come to her now, after more than a year of silence, to give her news meant only for the ears of the king's most trusted men. She glanced up, catching his look, a heartbeat of longing, shuttered, extinguished.

"If Sethi is dead, will you find peace?" The question came out, a whisper, but she felt as if she had shouted it. Shame enveloped her.

Ahmen looked away. He glared at the closed shutters of the terrace, the muscles of his jaw clenching. "I don't know," he muttered. He looked back at her, torment tightening the planes of his face. "Only time will tell."

"You can end your pain if you choose," she said, soft, lifting her hand, slow, opening her fingers to him. His gaze moved to her fingertips, impassive. "Leave this matter in the hands of the gods, and free yourself of this burden. Please," she whispered, "come back to me. Put this behind you. Live again."

He stood, rigid, staring at her hand, his chest rising and falling.

"I am your wife," Meresamun pleaded, sensing the chasm widening between them anew. "I beg you, let us love each other again."

He reached out, moving so fast he startled her. Taking hold of her wrist, he pulled her toward him. "How many times have I lain awake thinking of the first time I would take you after knowing the truth--knowing what you are?" he murmured, low, tight. "More times than I can count. You wish for love? First you must suffer my hate."

With his other hand, he reached down and untied his kilt with rough, angry movements. The material fell away, the starched pleats rustling as they piled onto the floor. His loincloth followed. Imprisoned in his grip, Meresamun looked up at him, wary, as he pulled apart the straps holding his shoulder collar in place and tossed it on top of his kilt, the gems clattering against each other, discordant, hostile.

"You are a whore," Ahmen said, harsh, taking hold of her jaw and steering her to his slack member. "So satisfy me like one."

"Please," Meresamun cried out, struggling against his hold, despite his fingers tightening against her flesh, hurting her, "do not debase me thus. I am your wife. I love you."

"You are a whore," Ahmen repeated, his voice hard, his hand moving to his member, stroking it, making it rise, readying himself for her. "Tonight I will fuck you like one. Tonight you are not my wife. Tonight you are Sethi's slut."

"Please," Meresamun panted, fear clawing at her, her heart trapped by the cold, hateful look in her husband's eyes. "I beg you, cease. Nothing good can come of this."

"Everything good can come of this," Ahmen bellowed, shoving her back into the cushions. He climbed over her and entered her, rough, her opening dry, tight, defensive against his breach.

"Open up for me, like you did for him," he roared, furious, thrusting hard, forcing his way in, brutal.

Pain rived through her, blades of raw heat--burning hot and sharp as a dagger's edge--sliced into her depths. She screamed, her body spasming, involuntary, seeking its escape. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, pushing against him, desperate to free herself from his weight.

"Scream all you want," Ahmen muttered, taking hold of her wrists and shoving them above her head, holding her down. "You filthy slut. Dirty whore. Bought for a crust of bread." With every insult, he rode her harder, ignoring her sobs of agony, his face lined with hatred, his eyes hard on her, black-dark, feeding off his long-awaited retribution.

"I will never forgive you for this," Meresamun sobbed as he took his fill of her, the path to her womb scalded and abraded. Caught in his unrelenting grip, her fingers tingled, turning numb.

"I am not asking for your forgiveness," Ahmen panted. Still holding her wrists locked in his hand, he pulled out and caught hold of his member. His seed erupted from it, hot, and pungent, spattering over her breasts. He shuddered, his jaw slack. After several heartbeats, he began stroking himself again.

"Now," he said, straddling her breasts and guiding his member to her lips--its head leaking thick, pungent drops of discharge. "Take me in your mouth."

Meresamun turned her head away, tucking her face against her raised arm. Tears slid, hot, into her hair. "Please," she whispered, her sex afire, aching, sore, "stop. I beg you."

"If you will not take me in your mouth," Ahmen said, tight, "I will take you where you will like it even less. Do not think I haven't had my share of whores and courtesans this last year, burying myself into their well-oiled offerings, willingly given. I see no reason why I should not expect the same from you, my little whore of Babylon."

"You go too far," she spat, edging away from his dripping member, the smell of it strong; sour from his hate. "You call me Sethi's whore? Then treat me as he did. He never mounted me before I was ready, neither did he force his soiled member into my mouth. The man treated me with respect, like a lover."

Ahmen pulled back, his eyes darkening, satisfaction oozing from him. "At last, the truth. Just as I have long suspected. You wanted to be with him."

"No," Meresamun snapped, sick of his unending accusations. "Until tonight, the only man I ever wanted was you. When Sethi took me, I closed my eyes and imagined he was you, my heart aching so much I wept. But I see now the man I loved is gone, consumed by bitterness and jealousy. There is nothing left for me here," she said, low. "It is over. I am leaving. I will go back to Babylon."

Ahmen stilled. He let go of her wrists, abrupt. He fell back, blinking, looking around the room as though seeing it for the first time, taking in the stain of his seed across her breasts. "What have I done?" he whispered, stricken. He eased off her and knelt beside her, his vindictiveness melting away, the hard edges of his mouth softening for the first time in over a year, allowing her to glimpse the memory of the man she once loved.

"Meresamun," he murmured, his voice raw with remorse, "what came over me--it was my hate for him, not you." He shuddered and rubbed a trembling hand over his brow. "How could I do this," he breathed, eyeing her, riven with anguish and regret, "to the only woman I ever loved?"

Meresamun said nothing. She lay still, his seed cooling against her skin, viscous, sticky. She longed to wash it off.

"When you disappeared, I broke my heart looking for you," he said, his words tumbling out fast, urgent. "I never stopped dreaming about you, or fearing for you. Even in the midst of the battle at Kadesh when I expected to die, I thought of you hoping I would not find you in the afterlife, already dead." He bent over the side of the bed and collected his kilt, using its pristine material to clean her breasts and torso, his gentleness at odds with his earlier violence. "And then, I found you," he continued as he worked, "you were soaking wet, your gown stained with the black mud of Kadesh. You looked miserable, exhausted. So unhappy. But to me, you were the most beautiful woman in the world. After what felt like an eternity of silence, my heart beat again. I lived again . . ." His hands slowed, his vision turning inward.

Meresamun edged back into the cushions and pulled herself up. A sharp twinge of pain lanced through her womb. She bit her lip, enduring its strafing passage as she tucked the sheet up under her arms and covered her breasts.

"And then, on the day we were bound, I learned the truth," he muttered, throwing his soiled kilt onto the floor, his jaw tensing anew. "If it had been anyone but him, I could have overcome this--" he looked back at Meresamun, defeated. "You do not know what it is like to live in the shadow of a man like Sethi. A man who fights like a god." He stopped, and swallowed, his gaze falling to his hands, clenching into fists. "More times than I care to remember, I have seen him with the courtesans. I know what he is capable of." The planes of Ahmen's jaw hardened. "The man even fucks like a god." He cut a look at Meresamun. "No man wants his woman to have slept with Sethi. No man."

Meresamun knew her husband was waiting for her to reprieve him, to forgive him. When she remained silent, he left the bed, the warmth of the lamp's light washing over him, cleansing him of his crimes.

"I have lost you, haven't I?" he asked, so low she had to strain to hear him.

She pulled the sheet tighter against herself, defensive, keeping her eyes on him, holding her breath, willing him to go, her throat aching with unshed tears. If only she had left sooner. Why had she waited, suffering for so long under his regime of hate, what had she been hoping would--

"I overheard your conversation with Tuy the night you spoke of your life in Babylon," Ahmen said, quiet. "He predicted one day the walls of my anger would fall, and all of this would pass." He looked away, bitterness seeping from him. "If only I had stayed away from you tonight. If only I had taken time to accept I would never have my vengeance." He caught her eyes, his, hollow, awash with regret. "I will not ask your forgiveness, for I deserve none. But what if your family is gone, where will you go? How will you survive? Stay here. I will move to my rooms at the royal stables--"

"It is too late to think of such things," Meresamun said, tight. She looked past him toward the door, cloaked in shadow.

"Don't go to Babylon," Ahmen said, bleak, sinking to his knee. "I beg you. I will do anything to amend this. Anything."

She gripped the sheet so hard, her fingers ached. A tear escaped, hot and treacherous. She let it fall, untouched.

"I wanted to punish Sethi," Ahmen breathed, desolate, "but I see now, far too late all I have done is hurt you." He rose and backed away. At the edge of the lamplight, he paused, remorse bleeding from him. "Long may I suffer for what I have done," he whispered.

Meresamun closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of his shame, his penitence. A heartbeat later, the door came to, soft. In its wake, the silence of her heart, deafening.