Page 164 of A Thousand Nights Before Dawn
Dread filled Zahra’s chest.Tartarus.
The servant of Djehuty nodded, as if reading her thoughts. “All the ones you call thetheosare with them.”
“Then how are you here?” Zahra asked. “Are you in the mortal plane as well?”
“I am the guardian of Djehuty’s temple in Inebu-hedj,” he said. “It is the place you and the other Pharaoh have spent many days and nights studying.”
The Pharaohs’ Library. He was the statue that stood at the front of it.
“And the other servants of thetheos?”
“Lost in this place.” He gestured to the space around them. “All of us are now wanderers. Ourtheoscannot reach us, and we do not have the power to reach them.”
The wall threatened to block her once more and she squinted, grunting at the effort it took to stay in the Duat.
“You must return, Pharaohsibyl.” He stepped back out of her light. “Or else you will be lost just as we are.”
Zahra gasped as she was forced from the Duat.
Namir was standing over her, his eyes filled with panic. Relief filled his face. “Zahra.”
Zahra’s lip quivered. “You were right. They are gone—all of them. Iset has won.”
Namir sat back down. His mouth twitched as he fought for words, but there were none.
Zahra forced in a strangled breath. “I saw you standing over the united lands. I thought… I thought we would win this.”
Was it all a lie? A dream to push them both to try their hardest, even though there was the chance they would inevitably fail?
Namir put his hand on her forehead and brushed her curls from her face. He looked up. “Heba, she is getting worse.”
Heba returned to Zahra’s side with a handful of crystals. She picked up Zahra’s hand, holding her closed fist over Zahra’s skin. Slowly, marks began to glow orange.Cracks.
Heba trailed her fist over Zahra’s body. The cracks crept up Zahra’s limbs, covering her legs and arms and reaching for her heart.
“I—I have never seen a case as bad as this.” Heba squeezed Zahra’s hand. “The only other person I treated died before the cracks reached his heart. I am so sorry,o chara, but I fear if the cracks reach your heart, yourpsycheitself will perish.”
Namir shook his head. “There must be something we can do.”
Heba’s hands fell by her side, and tears pricked her eyes. “There is nothing more I can do. Her fate is up to Selene now.”
And Selene is gone.
A deep shiver wracked Zahra’s body, and she wheezed for breath. Namir stood, putting his hands on either side of her face. “Zahra, please. I cannot lose you, too.”
Zahra’s vision blurred as Namir spoke to her once more, but she couldn’t make out his words. She did not want to be lost, but the pain was too great. Her body was heavy with the loss of her people. Iset would soon find them in this place, and Zahra could do nothing but lie here, useless.
Harsh wind whipped around Zahra’s frame as she opened her eyes back in the Duat. The cracks had begun to creep up her shoulders to her neck. Around her were great walls of dust and wind of a mighty sandstorm, and it was coming fromher.
Zahra stumbled to her feet, crying out as pain shot through her legs. Her skin was turning into sand. The tips of her fingers and toes were disintegrating. The cracks were working their way up her torso. Soon, she would be covered in them. What would happen to her then? Was Heba right, and herpsychewould be lost forever?
Zahra took a step before crumbling to the ground. She sobbed as she covered her face, letting the sand consume her. Her father, Heba, Ahmose, Jala, Faisal, and all of her friends would perish. And Namir, her King, would fall with them.
Zahra wailed, clawing at the sand and screaming into it.How could this have happened?
A child’s laugh echoed in the distance, and Zahra pushed herself to her knees. Though her eyes were closed, she could see the memory in front of her—on her family’s boat with her mother and father, watching the eagles soar. She saw her father guiding her to Aur, her time with Heba under Bahiti’s roof, and the night she met Namir under the starlight.
Zahra clenched her fists around the sand, wishing she could still feel Namir’s hand holding her own. She opened her eyes,placing her hand on her forehead. Her sibyl mark was still there, glowing against her palm.
