Demons and Kings

Chapter 17

"Search the city, search every city! I want no stone left unturned."

Memphis didn't know where he was going, but he knew he couldn't stand still. He hated this feeling, that utter sense of hopelessness that came with the knowledge that Evie was gone. Made even worse by the fact that they had waited to tell him – waited until hours after she had disappeared and the sun was high enough in the sky to be blinding and even then, the news had been delivered reluctantly.

He scoffed because they knew, they all knew how important she was. Minue, Imhotep, every priest and advisor that followed at his heels and simpered like the dogs they were knew. He could feel the rage, the fear, as though a steel band had wrapped around his heart, his lungs, making it impossible to think or breath beyond the fact that she wasn't here. With him. Where it was safe.

"This shouldn't have happened."

I blame you. It hung in the air between them like fog.

Minue followed after his king, blinking as they stepped out from the shaded pavilion and into the harsh desert sun.

"Your Majesty..." He didn't want to have to be the one to say it, to mention what was clear to see for everyone to see but his king. The bodies they had found, the blood in her rooms, a shattered vase. She had fought them, at least there was that. At least no one could say she had gone with them willingly.

"She... Evie is most likely not in Egypt anymore, and if she isn't, we have no way of telling where she might have been taken." If she was taken anywhere at all. "Unasu is missing as well, I believe that he followed them."

"I want to know how this happened, Minue. How a group of armed men managed to break into the most heavily guarded area of my palace and steal my future wife."

A demand, Memphis was beyond questioning. Minue hesitated – because gods he didn't want to answer – then swallowed, "The guards last night... there were less men than there should have been outside Evie's rooms. I was ordered to relocate most of my patrols to wherever you were."

"So, there was no one but the two men personally assigned to Evie outside her rooms that night." Memphis stopped, "And under whose authority was this order given?"

A rhetoric question, but one he was expected to answer nonetheless.

"Your sister gave me my orders."

He didn't even need to see his kings face to feel just how angry he was. It was clear in the line of his shoulders, the shake of his hands. Minue wanted to apologize – it was on the tip of his tongue. And it felt as though that was all he had been doing lately, apologizing. Making mistakes. Soon enough there would be a mistake he wouldn't be able to fix or make better.

But he loved her – Isis– in all her cruel cold glory, he loved her. Would do anything, be anything if it meant she would spare him a glance. But this... he didn't want to believe that Isis might have been a part of Evie's kidnapping, no matter how much harder it was getting to deny that that was true.

"You continue to be a disappointment Minue, and I am beginning to see a pattern to your actions, one that you should carefully consider moving forward." Memphis stopped, but not to look at him, no. He laughed, and it was a grating, broken sound. "Do you think she screamed for me? Hoping that I would come and save her."

Minue would have hung his head in shame at the words, but Memphis was moving again, and he was expected to keep up. Imhotep was waiting for them by the palace gates, stone-faced and grim. The group of soldiers behind him all silent as the grave. He said nothing as they approached, simply held out a hand. Evie's cloak was clutched in his white knuckled grasp, covered in red. There was no way to hide how the older man's hands shook as Memphis took it from him.