Demons and Kings

Chapter 9

Isis had never been so happy.

Despite the fact that her brother had pulled that little bitch to sit between them during the feast. Despite the fact he had the other one at his beck and call, serving him drinks. Despite the fact that when Evelyn had entered the room and he had looked at her; in all of her glittering gold and blue-eyed glory that he hadn't looked away. He had looked at her like she was precious, something worth keeping. It made her blood burn even to think of it now.

But no.

That didn't matter, because even as he leaned in to touch the other girls' hair and whisper into her ear, Isis knew he didn't mean it. She saw it in the way Evelyn's shoulders tensed at his words, the way Carol choked on her tears. He wanted to hurt them too. Perhaps not as much as she did, but that was fine. They weren't important, they weren't even people. So as Memphis had all but pulled that insipid creature into his lap she had been the dutiful sister. Entertained the nobility and smiled. Then Kapta stood, and in a grand gesture that only their head priest could pull off, had gathered the attention of the entire room for an announcement. One that she'd been waiting her entire life for.

So, when the priest said the pharaoh was to be married, and that there was no better choice than her; sister to the king, she had practically glowed at the news. Who better to keep their bloodline pure, their reign absolute, their people united? Isis had kissed him in her joy, ignoring the repulsed looks of his newest acquisitions, reveling in the tears of the ridiculous princess that had been sent here to woo him and delighting over the fact that things were finally going according to plan.

There was so much to be done, so much to be planned and Isis was viciously going to enjoy every minute of it. Just one month, and she could have everything she ever wanted.

It was almost too good to be true.

She had left the hall, wanting to begin the preparations as soon as possible, completely unaware of a pair of sad dark eyes watching her leave.

The general sighed, melancholy, as she had walked away. The weight of his mothers' arm against his was of little comfort; there was no cure for unrequited love. He would suffer in silence.

Even if Isis had known the extent of the generals' feelings, she wouldn't have cared. There was only one man she had ever thought of wanting, and he would be hers. Even when Carol ran up to her in the hall, once again begging to home. To get her life back. But Isis just laughed, telling her that as much as she would have loved to have sent her home in that moment, there was no power in this time that could.

"The clay board," she said, grinning as Carol began to tremble, "was the only thing that could take you back, and we both left it behind."

Isis was still laughing about the heartbroken look on the girls face hours later, after night had fallen and the palace was asleep. She was laughing as a servant led the same Hittite princess that had wept at the thought of Isis's engagement into her temple. Deep underground, where no one would hear her scream. And when iron bars closed around the girl and the princess screamed, Isis smiled like a cat that caught the canary. Everything was going according to plan. Everything. She moved to look through the bars, whispering, and when she pulled back and turned to leave the other girl could only sob harder.

"You won't take him from me."

xXx

It was cold tonight, unnaturally cold, even for a desert night by the Nile and I shivered under the rough spun blanket I had pulled over myself to hide my face. I cursed Carol in my silent misery, watching her ahead of me – another covered shadowed – and wishing that had she hadn't slipped into my room earlier that evening to whisper half thought out rescue plans into my dreams. It'll be easy she said, no one guards the entrance to the dungeons. The king's arrogance was so great that the idea that someone might escape had never crossed his mind. Nor, apparently, was anyone going in of their own free will.