Ramesses stared at Sethi's ruined body, sprawled sideways, his blood leaching into the sand. He drew a shaking breath, seeking to calm himself before facing Istara. He could hear her running, closing the distance between them, her breathing ragged in the stillness of the hot air. Pulling apart the guard's ties, he shook off the bloodied thing and tossed it aside. He swiveled and caught her. She struggled, frantic, trying to escape. He shook her, hard.

"Sethi lied to you. It is impossible to sacrifice one's eternal life for another to live. He lied to you, so he could bed you."

She stilled. Her eyes, filled with hate, met his. "You may be the Pharaoh of Egypt, used to having what you want," she spat, "but you shall never have me. I will never be your queen."

She jabbed her fingers, hard, into a deep gash in his arm. An explosion of jagged pain shot through him, hot and sharp. He recoiled, grunting. Slipping free, she fell to her knees beside Sethi, and pressed the dagger against her breast, gasping as its tip bit into her flesh.

Ramesses scrambled after her, reaching for the dagger. She pushed on it, stifling a cry of pain as it eased in. A bright red patch of blood blossomed out, spreading across her breast.

"I beg you, cease!" he erupted, panicking.

Cradling the dagger's hilt in her hands, she regarded Sethi's butchered body in silence. A solitary tear slipped down her face. "I will be a token in a game no more," she whispered. "It is enough. I die here today, beside the one I love. Baalat, forgive me. Horus, I beg you, forgive me."

She pushed against the hilt, shuddering as the blade entered her breast, driving toward her heart.

Falling onto her with a cry, Ramesses grabbed her hands. Grunting, fighting her resistance, he freed the blade. Blood gushed out. Frantic, he sawed a strip of linen from his kilt and pressed the wadded material against her breast. Oblivious to him, her eyes remained on Sethi.

"I command you to live!" he shouted, unthinking, desperate. She did not respond. He placed her hand over the compress and bolted across the blood-soaked grounds, fearful. The blade had gone deep. She might not live, even with a surgeon's attention. He entered the vestibule, grateful for having had the foresight to have his surgeon wait outside. As he reached the door, an explosion of brilliant white light surged past him in complete silence, engulfing him, blinding him.

He stumbled, surrounded by a dense cocoon of blinding white. Shielding his eyes, he called out to Istara, his voice deadened by the thick atmosphere. Dread crept up his spine. He could not see past his outstretched hand. By increments, the glare subsided, from burning white, to a bright glow, to faint shadows, to the vague outline of forms and shapes. Squinting, his eyes watering, he made out the contour of Sethi's body. Stumbling, he pushed his way back through the shifting, viscous light, cursing with frustration. Nothing felt real; even the ground felt unnatural.

He stopped beside Sethi. His chest taut, he turned full circle, his eyes narrowed, searching. He called out Istara's name, once, twice, three times. Nothing. Fear crept up his spine. Footsteps approached. He spun around, defensive.

A beautiful, powerfully built man, wearing an elegant kilt, stepped in front of him, his bearing regal. Across his chest, strange, golden tattoos shifted and rotated. From behind the man, Istara appeared.

"No," Ramesses breathed, stunned, staring at Istara. Through the rent of her bloody gown, her breast lay whole again. "It cannot be. This is not real. I am dreaming, or dead."

"You are not dead, nor are you dreaming," the man said, his voice edged with disdain. "At great cost to myself, I have come to undo the damage you have wrought before it is too late." He knelt beside Sethi and touched his brow. "He still lives, though not for long." He looked up at Istara. "Know this, daughter of Kadesh, what I am about to do is not for you, or for him, it is for my consort."

Ramesses stared at the man, his strange words washing over him, what did he mean 'his consort'? He scrutinized the man, who wore thick golden armbands, reeking of age and more finely wrought than anything Ramesses possessed. Of course. He almost laughed at the audacity of his commander. Though Sethi thought he had kept it a secret, Ramesses knew he nurtured a quiet obsession for the arcane--Paser's spies had informed him of Sethi's continual search for ancient knowledge and reclusive sorcerers--seeking what should be long forgotten. Ramesses scoffed. So his commander had prepared, had sent for a sorcerer to aid him, who clearly had not wanted to do so. A quiver of admiration shot through Ramesses, Sethi had always been a dark one, but to try to escape death? Ramesses hadn't expected that.

"Whoever you are," Ramesses said, shoving his way between the man and Sethi, "I grant you, your sorcery is powerful," he glanced at Istara, "and you will be greatly rewarded for saving Princess Istara, but you will go no further. I forbid you to interfere with the justice of Pharaoh, a god."

The man glared at him. The air around him shimmered. He changed shape, his form sliding, seamless, into that of a man with a falcon head, wearing the double sekhemti crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Ramesses staggered, astonished, fear pounding into him. He sank to his knees, breathless, his mind skidding around the edges of the creature kneeling before Sethi, unwilling to accept what his eyes were seeing. Horus, the god he had worshiped his entire life, was real, he lived and breathed--

His thoughts juddered to a halt. Why would Horus aid Sethi? Fearful, his gaze moved to the butchered body of his commander. What had he done?

Horus shifted, becoming a man once more. "It is not I who has interfered," he said, "but you, Ramesses, Pharaoh of Egypt. Enough. Even here, in this temporary space between realms, we are running out of time. He breathes his last."

Moving Sethi onto his back, Horus placed one hand against Sethi's chest, the other on his brow. He closed his eyes. Ramesses watched, his heart tight, as tendrils of light gathered in Horus's torso, spiraling together, growing, coalescing, pulsing, building into a shining, living thing. Horus lowered his head, shuddering as the light surged down his powerful arms to his fingertips. Threads of light wove outward, wrapping around Sethi, covering him in layers of golden, shimmering light, concealing him within a glowing cocoon. Breaking the connection with a groan, Horus fell back on his haunches. Only a single tendril of light remained within him. Lost, it searched the darkness for its brothers.

He rose and inspected Sethi, wrapped in his light, waiting while it saturated Sethi's broken body. Ramesses remained on his knees, his heart pounding, willing Horus to speak to him, to acknowledge him as his servant, the Pharaoh of Egypt. But Horus ignored him, he walked past him, toward the dense wall of white light encircling them. He stopped, abrupt, and tilted his head, listening, turning in a slow circle, his eyes raking the hidden sky, searching. With a startled cry, he ran and leaped into the air, transforming into an enormous falcon, his wings pounding, the sweep of them deafening as he tore away, surging up to the invisible heights. Another brilliant explosion of white light eclipsed the space. Ramesses tumbled to the ground, blinded once more.

The white light diminished, and by degrees, the natural light of day returned. Rising to his feet, Ramesses staggered, struggling to gain his bearings, to align his mind back to the dull, flawed ordinariness of the palace. Istara knelt beside Sethi, running her hands over his clean, uncut flesh, weeping, overcome, oblivious of Sethi's blood--his old blood--seeping into her gown.

Sethi stirred and sat up, slow, disbelieving. He looked down at his body, stunned, marveling at himself, whole again. Istara cried out, taking his head in her hands, sobbing, telling him of Horus, using his light to heal him, to return him to life, just as his consort Baalat had done for her. With a cry, Sethi took her in his arms, holding her tight against him, possessive. Over her shoulder, he met Ramesses's eyes, fierce, triumphant: no longer just a man, but something more, a man with the light of a god in him. Untouchable.

Ramesses backed away, horrified by Istara's words. He fled to the doors, stumbling over the broken pieces of the khopeshes, Horus's words replaying in his mind: I do this for my consort. Hathor. Istara called her Baalat--the goddess from whom he had stolen the gold all those years ago in Kadesh.

He pounded against the door, desperate to leave, to put space between himself and the two kneeling on the bloody sand, bathed in the approving light of Re-Atum; their connection to the gods more real than his own.

His flesh crawling, humiliation ground into him, threatening to crush him. Compared to them, he was nothing, just a man with a golden crown, born of no one; his tenuous right to the throne gained by his grandfather, a commander in Horemheb's army, fulfilled through a quirk of timing and circumstance. Ramesses had bolstered his own nebulous claim to the throne through his marriage to Nefertari, shamelessly usurping her royal blood as his own.

The bar against the door scraped free, followed by the muted grunts of his guards as they pushed their weight against the heavy doors. By increments, the doors loosened and crept open.

Ramesses looked back at Sethi, still cradling Istara against him, kissing her tears away. Had his commander spoken true? Had he found a way to give up his eternal life to save a woman he believed would soon belong to another? Shame cascaded through him. He would never have done the same.

The doors swung open and thudded against the walls. Light from the outer courtyard flooded into the vestibule. His guards knelt before him, silent, subdued, their eyes darting to the bloodied training ground, several wiped away tears, not troubling to hide them. Realization, burning hot, seared through Ramesses. Egypt's commander was more loved than its pharaoh. He felt the silent condemnation of his subjects, crowding around him, closing in on him, suffocating him.

He stumbled into the outer courtyard, Horus's brutal rejection tearing the blinders away, exposing Ramesses for what he was: a vain, arrogant, selfish, grasping man, using his power as a weapon against his own people, a tyrant. In his arrogance, he had turned both his vizier and Ahmen--his oldest and only friend--against him. He was alone.

At the opposite side of the courtyard, Nefertari, flanked by two guards, entered, stripped of her crown. Barefoot, her head bowed, she made her way to the palace gate--reduced to nothing more than skin and bones, a shadow of her former self, a simple gown hanging loose on her frame. She lifted her head. Her eyes, large in her gaunt face, met his, her love for him plain despite all he had done to her.

He staggered to his knees as the truth slashed into him, brutal, glaring. He had done this to her, his choices, his actions. He had made her what she became, and then he had punished her for it. He clenched his fists. No more.

She slowed, coming to a stop, a flicker of hope glimmering in her eyes, faint, uncertain. He held her gaze, thinking of the thousands of wrongs he had committed against her, at times inflicted upon her for nothing more than his amusement. Shame enveloped him. Nefertari. His first queen, the mother of Egypt's heir; her only crime her love for him. Paser was right. She was sacred, and Ramesses had treated her as though she was nothing--disposable--his power blinding him until her life became meaningless, worth nothing more to him than his scorn. What would have happened to him, and to Egypt if he had replaced her with Istara? He stilled, the thought chilling him despite the stifling heat. Another thought struck him, sending a tendril of hope shooting through him: Horus had let him live. Ramesses had been granted a second chance; one he would not waste.

Silence saturated the courtyard. No one moved. Heat poured down on him, baking hot, a furnace. He lifted his hand to her--bloody from his crime committed against the gods--and called her name, his voice ragged. She stepped forward, hesitant, fearful. He called to her again, a plea, tears cutting into his eyes, blurring as she moved toward him, her fingers catching at her skirts, lifting them up as her steps quickened, her breathing jagged and desperate in the heavy air. She sank to her knees before him. Her lips trembled, his name slipped from them, filled with longing; an oasis to the desert of his soul.

"Never again will you suffer because of me," he said, his chest aching, dragging her to him, the faintness of her existence against his blood-splattered chest breaking him in two. She shuddered in his arms, clinging to him, sobbing, quaking, weak, whispering her regrets, her sorrow for all she had done. He tightened his hold on her and looked up into the sky toward the blinding disk of Re-Atum's barque, thinking of Horus, somewhere out there, flying free, once more in their world, watching over them, just as he had done in the days of gods and men. He shivered, despite the heat. With the return of the gods, the world would change; his power would change.

He collected Nefertari into his arms and strode away, carrying her, as fragile as a wounded songbird, back to the royal apartments. As he left the courtyard, the astonished cries of his men burst forth, exultant, shouting Sethi's name, hailing Egypt's commander, their sandaled feet pounding against the flagged stones, a roar of joy rising up, spreading through the palace, a thundering.

Tightening his hold on Nefertari, Ramesses pressed on, and did not look back.

Author's Note

The story is not over yet! The Epilogue still has secrets to reveal...please do keep reading!