Queen of Ashes (12 page)

Sarina keeps walking steadily toward the door, pulling Sada with her. Laila realizes Brehan can't stop the dead girl without killing Sada. Sada doesn't seem to notice or care when Sarina slides the heavy crossbar off the door and steps aside. A dozen crazed quarry workers burst through the door wielding chisels and knives. They stand unmoving for a moment, taking in the scene. Twelve pairs of wild eyes fix on Laila.

They're looking for me,
she thinks, her heart hammering.
Riel has instructed them to kill me.

Just as they swoop forward Brehan drops his sword and raises both hands. Metal dissecting knives from all over the room hurl themselves into the quarry workers' eyes.

The men pluck them out but stumble around blindly, tripping over jerking body parts, screaming in rage, bumping into tables. One of them knocks a bucket of resin onto the floor. Another one just behind him pushes off the lit lamp Laila set down. The resin explodes in a ball of fire. Flames leap from one pile of linen bandages to the next. Jars of resin explode with loud bangs as smoke fills the air. More quarry workers pour in through the back door.

But men are also coming in the door from the next room—Wazba, raising a bloody sword, as other Wazbas press against him. “Wazba! Help us!” Laila cries through the smoke and flame.

Brehan and Amosis push the two women behind them as their swords and shields connect with the quarry workers' weapons. The
ushabtis
stream around the little group from the palace, and Brehan maneuvers them against the wall, through the smoke and out the back door. Amosis drags Sada, who is flailing, crying out that they need to rescue Sarina, too.

They charge into the yard of the mortuary, past stacks of painted wooden coffins and huge stone sarcophagi. A quarry worker jumps out from behind a sarcophagus, raising a long, cruel scythe. Brehan's sword flashes in the starlight, and the man's head hits the stone lid and bounces off. Then they race out the broken back gate and into the desert, sandals kicking up sand, toes stubbing on rocks, breath coming hard and jagged.

“Let's head for the rock up there,” Brehan says, pointing. Laila wonders if they could hide in the shadow of Perek-thet, out of the sight of eagle eyes so attuned to the slightest movement of prey, and wait for the
ushabtis
to come and guard them. One person can even fit inside the deep vertical crack running down the center of the rock. All Sharuna children have hidden there.

Brehan pushes into the crack but finds that his shoulders don't fit. He turns sideways and still gets stuck.

“Laila!” he calls. “Get inside.” She turns to obey, but then looks at something in the sky, her eyes widening in amazement. A bright orange light streaks toward them.

“Is that—?” Amosis asks. The light comes closer, burning brighter.

Her heart leaps into her throat. It is the Bennu, the phoenix, bird of flame. It is flying directly toward them. Laila has always had a connection with the Bennu and knows it is intent on one thing.

Kill the princess.

Its murderous rage—Riel's rage—pierces her skin like iron shards. Riel has taken control of the Bennu, has placed his mind inside it.

Two glowing eyes fix on her as it beats its mighty flaming wings more quickly. It is a missile deadlier than any flaming rock catapulted into battle, and aiming straight for her. Brehan grabs Laila and pushes her into the crevice. “In here,” he orders.

“But what about you and the others?” she asks, her voice cracking. “I can't just—”

“Go inside as far as you can fit,” he says, pushing her.
“Now.”

“Sada!” she cries. “Save Sada!”

“Amosis,” Brehan calls over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off the approaching bird, “take Sada out into the desert. Keep going. Don't look back.”

“I'm going to fight it with you,” Amosis protests.

“You cannot fight this,” Brehan says sadly. “But you can save Sada.”

Amosis sheathes his sword and grabs Sada's hand. Together they run, two small dark figures disappearing into the starlit dunes.

The bird heads straight toward Brehan, who stands calmly in front of the crevice, sword in hand. The Bennu will kill him. She cannot stop it. Already the desert around her is bright as day. By her calculations, she has time to say just one thing, but she can't find the words.

It's Brehan who uses the last moment for speaking. Peering inside the cleft, he smiles and says, “You must remember, my love, no matter what happens, loving you has been worth it.”

He turns to face his death, raising his sword to skewer the bird as it hurls itself into him.

Laila's protests of “No! Wait!” are drowned out by the sound of powerful wings and the explosion of unbearable heat that engulfs her.

Chapter Eleven

LAILA IS JOLTED in strong arms. She moans, wondering if she has been in an accident. Her face feels raw, her clothes smell singed. A fire. There was a fire...

Then she remembers. The Bennu. Riel took control of the Bennu and made it attack Brehan.

She opens her eyes and looks up at Riel, his face contorted with pain. He looks down at her, his green eyes swimming in tears. “Awake, are we?” he asks, his voice cracking. He sets her down so abruptly she nearly falls. “Good, then you can walk back to the palace.”

Laila wobbles, unsure if she can stand, and Riel makes no move to help her. His hands are on his hips. She takes a few unsteady steps away from him. She has never seen a face so malevolent. It is a thousand times more frightening than that of her stepmother throwing a jealous rage, than that of the most violent men in the brothel beating women to a pulp.

She realizes she is on Iron Street inside the city, not far from the palace. Around her, people are screaming, running. Some clutch possessions, others carry children. A man almost drives a cart full of furniture right into her, his horse whinnying in terror. Laila has no idea what is happening. The smoke isn't just on her clothes. It hangs heavily in the air. She hears the crackle and roar of fire devouring wood and sees a row of shops engulfed in flame.

“Brehan?” she asks, her throat raw from smoke. “Where is Brehan?”

“Dead! Because of you!” Riel spits.

Laila leans over, puts her hands on her knees and cries. No. Brehan. No. She inhales deeply and straightens, her right hand gripping Brehan's water bracelet around her wrist. It's all she has left of him now. Riel looks at it with ice-cold rage. The bracelet pops, returning to water, which sinks into the street and disappears.

“You killed him. Not me,” she says. “You attacked him through the Bennu.”

“I was trying to kill you,” Riel says through gritted teeth. “By the time I saw he was standing in front of you, it was too late.”

Tears rolls down his face, and for a moment Laila feels truly sorry for him. “He...was ...my...brother,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “Now I am alone here. Trapped. And it's all your fault.”

“Why is Sharuna on fire?” she asks. “Do what you want to me, but don't hurt my people.”

As if in answer, a hair-raising shriek pierces the night, and Laila sees a ball of fire wheeling and falling through the sky, shooting streams of flame into buildings. As it approaches, she sees it is the Bennu...with Brehan's sword, glowing molten red, still stuck in its breast.

“Stop it, please,” she says weakly.

“Stop it? I think not. Even dying, it is still doing my bidding.”

“A phoenix can never die,” she protests weakly.

“It can if a god kills it, even a weakened god. These are your precious Bennu's death throes.” He yanks her hard by the wrist. They walk past burning buildings, blasted temples and the bodies of people and horses. A small knot of people—two adults and two children—scurries past them. Riel raises his free hand and the Bennu tumbles wildly from the air, incinerating them with a breath. Laila wonders if she is in a nightmare, the most terrifying nightmare ever, and she will wake.

The gates to the palace are open, but the courtyard is full of bodies—royal guards and quarry workers. Numbness settles over her like a comforting blanket as Riel drags her over corpses and into the throne room.

He waves his hand; all the torches and lamps flare up and burn brightly. Digging into his pouch, he holds something up and the bright silver lotus pendant catches the light. “Recognize this?” he asks. “
This
is all that is left of Brehan.”

Laila feels sick. She is going to fall to the floor and retch until there is nothing left inside her. Riel grabs her by the shoulder. “This is my curse, Princess,” he hisses, “that you will live forever in a city of the dead. During the day, it will look like a normal, if empty, city. But every night at sundown it will return to the way it is tonight. Blasted buildings. Corpses everywhere.”

He pushes the lotus pendant against her chest, and Laila feels an unbearable burning, not just on her skin, but in every fiber of her being. Her muscles and bones and hair scream out in pain. Her soul shrieks in agony. She struggles with all her might to break away, but he is too strong, holding her in a viselike grip. Then he releases her, and she crumples to her knees and keels forward. Her cheek rests against the cool stone floor.

No, it is the floor that rests against her cool stone cheek. She is...not the same. She is something new. She is something ancient. She wonders if she is like Wazba, a fiery flame of a soul imprisoned by a body that is not flesh, though hers isn't of clay, but of stone. She doesn't know. She doesn't care. Brehan is gone. Sarina is gone. Laila is gone.

After a time, she pushes herself up from the floor and looks down at the diminishing pain in her chest. She sees a glowing white scar in the shape of the lotus pendant.

“This curse has burned your mortality away,” Riel says, towering over her, his arms crossed, “including any life you might have been carrying in your womb.”

Had there been life in her womb? She puts her hands on her flat stomach. She will never know. But she can feel that her insides have been scoured clean.

“And there's one more thing. No more fine white skin for you, my princess! You will have to sunbathe every day, all day long, or you will look like a corpse at sundown, too, just like your people. This is your new ritual of worshipping the sun god Ra.”

She doesn't care about the color of her skin. Not anymore.

“But I will do three things for you, so no one will say I am ungenerous. First, you may keep your
ushabti
guards. They will be the only living things—if living you can call them—within the city except for you, though at night they, too, will turn into frightening, decomposing things.”

Laila doesn't feel her heartbeat any longer, so perhaps she doesn't have a heart, but she does feel something like the rising tickle of hope in her chest. Wazba will guard her throughout eternity, as he always has done.

“Second,” Riel says, pacing back and forth, his hand on his chin, “in my bounteous mercy, I will give you a bit of a safe haven. The palace grounds will be exempt from any scenes of destruction or death, day and night. And third...”

He pauses and strokes his chin. “Well, let's just say there is a way to end your curse if you can remove that scar I gave you.”

He slips the lotus pendant into his pouch and grins wickedly. How could she ever remove the scar? Laila feels that it has been burned right through skin, muscle and bone into her very soul.

A wave of dizziness passes over her. She closes her eyes and covers her face with her hands. In a haze, she sees Riel standing before her red-faced, choking, his eyes with slit pupils like those of a snake. The face blurs; now the golden-haired man is younger, with different features. It is not Riel, at least not completely. And she smells the sharp metallic tang of what she knows to be the Earth Blood of Brehan's descendants. The vision fades. It is not real. Not yet.

“You haven't killed them all,” she whispers, lowering her hands.

“What?” he asks. “Speak up.”

“You haven't killed them all,” she says, forcing strength into her wisp of a voice. “One of your brother's descendants will avenge his death on you, just as Cassandra prophesied. I, too, can foresee things now. And I am not the only one cursed. You, Riel, are cursed with knowing you killed the brother you loved. You are also cursed with looking over your shoulder every moment of your wretched life for the descendant of Brehan who will destroy you before you return to the gods.”

All the taunting arrogance drains from Riel's face. He opens his mouth but says nothing. Then he turns on his heel and storms out of the throne room.

Laila drags herself up the dais steps and sits heavily on her throne. A barrage of images assault her—colors, sounds, movement, smells. There is a flash of a great walled city burning—Troy, she knows. Of slaves building a pyramid, the blocks rising rapidly to the sky, though no one has built pyramids for fifteen hundred years. Of a white marble temple gleaming on a tall rock above a city—Athens, generations from now. Suddenly, she understands. Laila can cast her thoughts anywhere in the world and receive images of the past, the present and the future. The sheer amount of information makes her dizzy. She must learn to focus, to see one scenario at a time, not all of them at once.

She calms her mind and concentrates on Brehan, remembering his smell, his touch, the sound of his voice, the dimple in his left cheek. He stands in a forest, a golden radiant god, smiling up at the trees and down at the earth. She relaxes, knowing now what she will do with eternity. She will spend time with Brehan, reliving every moment he ever had.

Boots clatter outside the door, interrupting her beautiful visions. Dozens of
ushabtis
enter and take up their place around the foot of her throne. But they look different now. As Riel said, they are cracked and flaking clay, and their eyes are orange flames.

Wazba bows. She feels a spark of recognition in his fiery eyes that she, too, is immortal.

“My princess, we will serve you until the end of time,” he says.

“Not quite that long, I think, dear friend,” she says. She leans back in the throne.

And dreams.

And waits.