"I must go," Sethi said, reaching out to steady Edarru. She collapsed against him, clinging to him, her weeping deepening, her grief tangible. Guilt assailed him, crashing into him, treacherous, sickening waves.

"Shh," he said, stroking her hair. "There is nothing I can do. It is the path I am destined to follow, though I do not yet understand why."

"No," Edarru moaned, despairing, her voice muffled against his chest. "I beg you, stay." She pulled back, looking up at him from her tear-stained face, imploring, desperation tingeing her words. "I can wait for you. However long it will take for it to pass, for your heart to mend. I may not be Istara, but I promise to love you well, to spend my life pleasing you."

"Edarru," Sethi said, pressing a kiss to her brow. "If only it were as simple as that."

She pulled back. "I know that tone," she said, dull. "It is the same one you used before you left for Kadesh. Your mind is made up. You will never accept me, not even now, when you have lost Istara to her husband."

"She believes I am dead," Sethi answered, taut, letting Edarru go. "You would allow the woman who saved your life--who saved Nesu's life--who welcomed you into her home so you could live in comfort and security to endure a broken heart without cause?"

Edarru blinked. "No," she whispered, despondent. "No. I would not. I just thought--"

"You thought all the pieces had gone back where they belonged?" Sethi offered, gentle, into the silence.

Edarru nodded, a soft sob escaping from her lips. She sank to her knees, her devastation sweeping into Sethi, washing over him in bleak, hopeless waves. "When will I stop loving you?" she whispered, her hands clenched into fists against her thighs, bunching up the material of her gown. "When will my pain end?"

"Once I have departed," Sethi said, low, "it will be better to assume I will not return to Egypt. I sense Babylon is where my journey is meant to end."

Edarru caught her breath. She looked up at him, stricken. "So you leave us to die. Again."

"I must," he repeated, determined. "All is not what it seems. I must ask you to trust me, even if you do not understand." He knelt before her, reaching down to prise her hands from her lap, holding them in his, stroking her knuckles with his thumbs. "In another life, I believe there is only you and me. We have many children, and live to an old age, our lives filled with love and joy until we go to the gods, buried side by side in the same tomb." He paused to wipe away a tear sliding down her face. "But in this life, it cannot be. In this life, I am bound to Istara until the end." He shook his head, thinking of the dream he'd had of Horus's memory, of Baalat's city submerged in flames. "Perhaps even beyond that."

Edarru looked at him, uncomprehending, just as he had expected. "I will miss you every day for the rest of my life," she whispered, a fresh tear following in the wake of the previous one. "Until the day I die I will never love another."

Sethi brushed a tendril of her hair back from her face. "You are young and beautiful, with a heart made of the purest gold. You are a woman meant to be loved, adored, worshiped. I would have you love again." She bit her lip, and looked away. "And you have my son, my only child," Sethi continued, soft, "recognized by the pharaoh as my heir. You possess great status now. Never again need you fear being outcast."

A heartbeat of stricken silence. Edarru nodded, desolate. With a heavy sigh, Sethi rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. She huddled against him, nestled within the crook of his arm, weeping, helpless. He turned and looked back at Sehetep. The dog waited in the shadowy light of Istara's apartment, cold and empty without her presence. He gestured for the dog to follow. Sehetep lunged to his side, eager, his warm body brushing up against Sethi's thigh. He patted the dog's back, guilt assaulting him afresh for the animal's suffering. He would have Sehetep's basket moved to Edarru's rooms. When Nesu grew older, the dog could become his son's companion, boy and dog growing up, adventuring together.

"Take me to our son," he said, gentle, pressing a soft kiss against the top of Edarru's head. "Let me see my boy."

In the warm glow of Edarru's room, Sethi held his seven-month-old son, admiring the sturdiness of his legs and arms, the grip of his tiny hand on his thumb; smiling as Edarru cradled their son, singing to him until he fell asleep, her eyes tender, filled with the love of a devoted mother.

They ate beside their sleeping son, saying little, Sehetep watching them from his basket, positioned in its new spot beside Edarru's bed. Sethi poured his once-lover wine, as he used to do, long ago, before Kadesh, in another time, another life--pouring far more than she needed, waiting until she grew limp from its effects. He led her to her bed, and lay down beside her, holding her against his chest.

"How I wish I lived in that other life," she breathed.

Sethi kissed her brow, his heart aching for her. She deserved better than what the gods had granted her. He decided to write a will, if he did not return within a year, his fortune would go to the mother of his son, making Edarru one of the wealthiest citizens in Egypt. When her breathing turned deep and even, her breath laced with the scent of his wine, he slipped out from under her, quiet.

For several heartbeats he watched her sleep, sorrowful, guilt assailing him anew. She was innocent of all of it. He glanced at his sleeping son, his little legs kicking in his sleep, his heart clenching. His son would grow up without a father, and for what? Horus had said nothing more of their 'great purpose', apart from the need to go to Babylon. Sethi backed away from them, blowing out all the lamps apart from one. He turned to look at them one last time--mother, son, dog. His family. He closed the door, and walked away.

Back in Istara's room, he lit a lamp and began the letter to Ramesses, revealing he had been joined by Horus, and would leave on the next caravan for Babylon. He was aware he wasn't asking for permission, but he didn't expect Ramesses to try to stand against Horus, not after what had happened on the training ground on that bloody, violent, impossible day.

On a second sheet, he wrote another letter to Ramesses outlining his provision for Nesu. Rolling the letters up, he held a cone of dyed beeswax against the lamp's flame, its point glistening as it softened. Dripping several drops onto the edge of each of the letters, he pressed his ring against them, sealing them closed. While the wax dried, he slipped off his ring and cupped it in his hand, the heft of its weight intentional: on the scarab's back, the dark green malachite gem bore the raised seal of the third most powerful man in Egypt. He set it aside. It would have to go back to Ramesses. Placing the letters and ring into a leather scroll case, he tied it shut and set it aside, ready to be sent in the morning.

His business done, he got up and drifted through Istara's apartment, searching for evidence of how she had spent her time during her last days within the walls of his villa. He stopped at her dressing table, trailing his fingers over her pots of cosmetics. From among a large collection of perfume jars, he selected one. Pulling the stone stopper free, he raised the long, thin stone dabber to his nose. The warm, rich scent of roses filled his senses, so intense he felt as though he stood within his garden's rose arbor at the height of its flowering. Replacing the stopper, he put the jar back in the exact same spot, not wishing to disrupt the sanctity of Istara's once-presence.

Within her cupboard, most of her gowns were gone--only a few remained on the bottom shelf. He reached in and pulled one out. It fell open, the scent of jasmine and lavender billowing out from its quiet folds. He examined the gown, frowning, trying to remember seeing it on her. He couldn't. Reaching in, he pulled out another, shaking its folds free. Something fell from it and landed on his foot. He recoiled, fearing a scorpion. A scroll bumped up against the bottom of the cupboard. Tossing the dress onto the divan, he went after it, hungry, hoping it might contain her words. He unrolled it. Disappointment sheared through him. It was written in Nesite, the language of Hatti. At the bottom, his gaze halted. He had seen enough documentation in his lifetime as Egypt's commander to recognize the royal sign of the King of Hatti. So, Urhi-Teshub had written to her after all. He turned the letter over, searching for a way to know its date, wondering how long she had had it, had kept it hidden among a pile of unwanted gowns. Putting it back into the cupboard he folded the gowns up and placed them back on top of it, perversely gratified by the thought she had left it behind.

He closed the cupboard and extinguished the lamps. With the shutters to the terrace closed, darkness shrouded him, thick as a tomb. He welcomed it. Feeling his way to the bed, he lay down, listening to its soft creak as it accepted his weight--the sound awakening the memory of the last time he had lain with her, the night before he departed for the Libyan campaign, her body meeting each of his thrusts, hungry, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she cried out, shuddering with her release. Pushing the memory away, he pulled her cushion against his chest and inhaled her faint scent: wild roses drenched in the heat of Re-Atum's barque. Roses. Always roses. He wondered if there were roses in Babylon.

"Istara," he breathed, his heart constricting as he pressed his nose against the cushion, inhaling the shadow of her existence--reliving their short time together; the secrets shared over wine; the ecstasy of their lovemaking; the tears she sometimes shed, unable to bear the agony of knowing his soul would be obliterated at death. He ached at the thought of her grieving, of her husband trying to win her back, seeking to salvage her heart from the ruins of her loss.

He closed his eyes, imaging her spending long, broiling hot days within the confines of a wicker palanquin, riding atop one of those strange, humped creatures the caravans used to cross deserts. The image changed. Now she sat upon a rug before a fire under a black sky bristling with a thousand glittering stars, their light cold, cruel, hostile. She stared, blank, into the fire's flames, bereft.

His heart aching, he followed after her, closing the distance separating them, his heart racing toward her over the dunes of sand, past the ruins of long-lost cities from Egypt's ancient kingdoms, gray in the moonless light; past the military outposts of the Horus Way toward the endless, rocky desert of Thamud. In the distance, piercing the desert's cold, dark silence--the light of several dozen fires, each surrounded by a little group of sloping tents. He slowed, moving past the humped beasts, their legs folded under them, their heads lowered as they dozed. He pressed on through the camp, ignoring the other men and women, their faces blurring as he sent his heart onward, seeking. Near the camp's center, he found her. He drifted closer, reverent, drinking in the sight of her. She sat unmoving, looking right at him, unseeing, her grief palpable. He longed to touch her, to trace the outline of her cheek, to press his lips to hers.

"Sethi," she whispered, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "I am lost without you."

"Courage," he breathed, his heart aching. He clung to her image, willing her to hear him. "I will find you again. I will love you again. Wait for me. In Babylon."