Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh by Katie Hamstead

Chapter One

I sprinted through the dusty narrow streets, my two younger sisters hot on my trail. Their footsteps slid in the dirt as they took the corners, their hands occasionally slapping the mud brick walls for balance. I took a sharp turn and headed for the abandoned temple district.

I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with the grand gates to the Temple of Bast, where I paused. Only a few years earlier, we Hebrews had not been allowed into that sector of Thebes, and I still felt apprehensive.

“Naomi!” My sister Rena screeched as she saw me step up into the gateway of the temple. “Don’t go in there!”

I reached out and touched the smooth stone wall. “Are you afraid I will be struck down by Bast for being unworthy to enter?”

“Yes!” She gazed up at the heavy gate. “Well, maybe not Bast, but … you know what I mean.”

My sisters halted in their tracks and watched me in fear.

I turned and looked across the wide courtyard at the temple doors. “No one has been inside in years. Aren’t you just a little curious?”

“No,” Eliora, my youngest sister, answered with a quaking voice. “The Egyptians are evil. The things they did in these temples are abominations before God.”

I scoffed, suppressing my fear while trying to look brave for them.

“It’s just an old, abandoned building,” I said, pulling my shawl tighter around my head as I turned and began marching across the courtyard.

“Naomi!” they both called to me, but I ignored them.

I reached the door of the temple and tested it. Finding it unlocked surprised me. I pushed it open and waited.

Inside, darkness met me. A few high windows dotted the walls, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw a mirror not far to the right. Remembering that Egyptians liked to use trickery with mirrors, I stepped over to it and pointed it upward. Light from the doorway caught its surface and bounced around the room to other mirrors. In the better light, I saw several more mirrors by the windows. I rushed over to them and repeated what I did with the first. The room lit up, as if I stood directly under the sun.

I looked around.

The temple, stripped of its wealth, appeared barren. Empty shelves stood by the walls, and in the middle of the room an altar, which looked like it had once been ornately decorated, now sat chipped and beaten. Partially damaged hieroglyphs marked the northern wall, scarred by the removal of Bast’s name and those of her offspring, but I stepped over to read them anyway. The markings detailed a ritual sacrifice, and as I read, I realized they offered up the virginity of young girls.

I gasped and turned away in horror. For Bast, a fertility goddess, such a sacrifice was logical. It would have seemed appropriate to them, no matter how revolted by it I felt.

As I turned, movement caught my eye. I saw a dark figure hiding in the shadows of the far corner. I panicked and ran for the door, but being faster, he caught me.

He grabbed my mouth and held me tightly as I struggled. He spoke in a foreign language, but then said, “Do you speak Egyptian?”

I elbowed him in the stomach. His grip loosened, so I pulled away. He caught my arm and held on. “Let me go!” I said in Egyptian.

He raised his eyebrows, impressed that I spoke the language. Hebrew women never learned Egyptian, only some of the more elite men. He pulled me back and held my mouth again. “I will let you go if you listen to me first.”