Pharaoh Nadiyya paced before the guarded doors within the sterile passageways of the infirmary. She scrunched her nose, holding a sour expression. The palace guards were stoic and resplendent as usual, a strange comfort within this discomfort. It was a horrendous scent even when she expected it, absolute torture when it left the confines of the infirmary. The gore of battle didn’t boil over her stomach as much.
“And you think me bloodthirsty girl?” Pride laughed through their bond.
Nadiyya grunted and crossed her arms, never breaking stride even as a groan escaped through the closed doors. Soon slippers made their way towards her and the palace guards opened the doors before the physician could do it.
“How are they?” Nadiyya rushed towards him when the doors shut behind him. “Any progress, any words?”
“No Pharaoh, their wounds are not the problem. Although they are grievous, it is their minds that worry me. They are beyond my skill to heal.”
“But I heard them, they groan.”
“I must insist on my earlier suggestion. Perhaps Lord Khadim could,”
“No! No, I’m sorry, but we cannot. It is on you I place all my trust.” His name escaped her, but there was no need to ruin it now. “Keep them alive. That is all I ask, and send for me the moment they can talk. You have my favour.”
“As you say Pharaoh,” he bowed and his scent exploded with sweet pride. He returned within.
“Whatever he needs, I hope you provide with discretion,” she muttered to the guards.
“It will be done.”
Nadiyya rushed away from the sterile smell without running. Her strides were as wide as her short legs allowed. She replied the endless greetings and bows with quick waves. Pride snickered when she inhaled the fresh air. Under the shade of a tree, he lounged to the side. Out of the way of the doors.
“You are a strange girl,” Pride hummed when she knelt to scratch his luscious mane. More to catch her breath in a more suitable manner than bent over and clutching her knees.
“Where is the kumkani?”
“Where you left him, and no, I will not carry you there.”
Her pout failed and Pride buried his golden gaze beneath his paws, rumbling her chest with his snoring. Nadiyya sighed and Pride’s humour trickled through their bond as she strode away towards the exit of the palace grounds.
She felt nude walking through the noble ring. Her dress streamed behind her, no armour, no khopesh, only her rings and her hidden knives. Nadiyya reached for the long hair that wasn’t there, then adjusted to running her fingers through her short curls.
There were few eyes doing their best, yet still failing to snoop without attracting her attention. It prickled at her flesh, filling her with regret. The comfort of script strengthened armour would have drawn their eyes to bolster her vanity. Instead, she squirmed within, rushing until the lion district barracks came into view.
There was a commotion before it. Nadiyya cursed under her breath. Lihle argued amidst a small group of Lions in bronze. His was the sole calm voice amongst strained anger.
“Don’t patronise us, Kumkani. We know what we saw. That was darkness which killed him!”
“We all saw it. That’s dark Tamer magic.”
“Like those dark ones that attacked the lynx gate!”
“You will not continue to speak about things you know nothing of! Tamers do not possess magic, nor are they the ill omens to blame for all your troubles.”
Their grumbling continued after Lihle’s scolding. His eyes fell upon her and she caught a hint of relief tinged with anxiety in his scent.
“What is the meaning of this insolence? What kind of Lions speak to allies like this? Who has little trust in the words we ought to heed?”
“Pharaoh Nadiyya,”
“No, not yet.” She raised a silencing hand.
Nadiyya stomped through the gap amongst the district guards.
Lihle followed her back towards the barracks doors, and he rushed to open them for her. The air was odd within the dim entrance. Only open windows allowed any sort of light in. It felt wrong, and her fingers itched for one of her knives.
“What happened?”
The grumbling from the district guards outside returned, bubbling their fear once more. Mutters about the scourge of the dark Tamers took root, and she dreaded the spread. The prospect of pulling out weeds during a siege made her stomach spin.
“I don’t have the words. Only your eyes can answer.” Lihle’s fear was unexpected.
A few strides later, and her nose couldn’t bear the oddity emanating from the cell. The corpse sat peacefully with his legs crossed and head resting on his chest. She scrunched her nose at the sour dehydration forcing its way into her nostrils. Unique, and the source was clear.
Nadiyya pushed open the cell doors and knelt before him, eyeing the blackened slit on the side of his neck. Veins of the blackest black splayed outwards from it in all directions. A taint of unbearable stink dried his corpse of his life rather than spill it out. There was no blood on him, despite the location of his wound. She did not wish to approach, nor use a knife to study him.
“What do we do with him?” Lihle asked.
Her eyes fell on the darkness to the corpse’s left. Not a shadow but a pile of ashes, a surprising amount considering she hadn’t noticed it until now. She blew a gentle gust from the smallest of openings between her lips and watched the featherlight petals shift before fading, crumbling further into nothing.
Are they even ashes?
“We send for more protection in the infirmary. Someone is covering up their tracks.”
“Nadiyya, this is… I have never.”
“I trust you know this stays between us.”
“Not a word.”
“The districts are mostly quiet, the odd arrest and prison death, but nothing to worry about,” Nadiyya said.
Gawahir grunted as he continued his endless scribbling. He looked greyer than before. Hollow-eyed and gaunt cheeked, cloaked by shadows, with a solitary lamp lighting his desk. They were alone in the cramped, stale room. Though he was in a different world.
It pained her to linger outside whatever torture forced him to keep her out. All she wished was to make it better, ease whatever troubled him. She knew it couldn’t have been the throne. She was there for his earlier, better years. Mazin and Zaki’s early years kept most of her attention, but he was nowhere near as ghastly as he seemed now.
“Is there anything else?”
“You need sleep Gawahir,” she begged, sinking when he sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose.
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“You’re right,” he smiled, his following laughter shocked her.
Gawahir kicked his chair back and rose with a loud grown. Awakened from his corpse-like dreariness with another smile returning some colour. Her heart fluttered when his grin lingered on her. He stumbled, and she rushed towards him.
“I’m fine, I’ve just — wow, I have lost track of time,” Gawahir snickered while he braced himself on his desk.
Nadiyya lingered, watching him struggle, recovering what little strength he hung on to. She wanted to latch on to him, give all the strength she didn’t need to him.
“This war has exacted a heavy price. I believe it is finally hitting me.”
“I would argue that most of your life has demanded too much of you. There’s nothing wrong with resting.”
“From the woman who has lived the toughest life, especially with me,”
“No Gawahir, you have given me more than I ever thought possible. My gratefulness to you is unfathomable.”
“Unfathomable, you say? I can recall many nights when,” Gawahir grunted when she slapped his chest.
They strode together from the war room, out of the crystalline great hall, with Pride padding close behind. Arm in arm muttering sweet nothings while enjoying the respectful greetings of palace guards and surprised grey ghosts. Not even their whispered sourness hidden behind their hands dampened her soaring mood.
The fresh, fruity aroma of their vast room washed over her when the doors opened. Still arm in arm, her head on his shoulder right until the doors closed and Pride lounged across from it in the passage.
“Nadiyya I,”
She couldn’t wait, planting her lips on his after jumping up to her toes. He laughed after tasting her and she rushed to undress him while his hands wandered all over her curves. Not at the point of tearing off his rich, albeit stale, silks, but very much ravenous.
Nadiyya allowed Gawahir’s strength to take over, and she floated in his greedy arms towards their bed. He threw her down, and she sank into the soft feather stuffed mattress. She grinned when Gawahir climbed atop her, wrapping her arms around his neck. A moan escaped her nibbled lips at his first gentle thrust.
Her legs wrapped around his waist and locked, guiding and strengthening his hastened rhythm. She nibbled his neck and clawed at his back as they were both drenched in the wetness of their effort.
Nadiyya dried herself off with a towel, enjoying the cleansing, muscle loosening heat steaming off her flesh. Her skin still tingled some minutes after departing the hot bath. An hour since their wondrous lovemaking. A sensation she struggled to combat.
She donned the amulet of a sky-blue Sinha, crowned with a golden jagged sun before anything else. Her eyes enjoyed the jewel hanging off her neck, and she caressed the sleek metal while admiring the tight body reflected in the pristine glass. Her figure hardened, and her muscled belly was proof of it. Nadiyya flexed her arms and thighs, relishing the tightened bulges that appeared.
Her moment of vanity disappeared when a gust whistled into the room through the open balcony, reminding her of winter’s chill. She hurried for the fragrant oils and rubbed her hands until they were warm on her nude flesh.
“I’m old Nadiyya.”
“What makes you say that?” Nadiyya asked.
“This bath can't soothe the aches. They arrive sooner than usual.”
“It almost sounds like you are blaming me?”
“It is a price I would pay without fail, but not without complaint,” Gawahir chortled, sloshing his bathwater behind his partition.
“If I were you, I’d sooner blame your hunched scribbling at your desk before you lose the opportunity to pay for this price altogether.”
Gawahir tinged with a fearful scent. Then came the guilt. Nadiyya clenched her entire body and froze her oiling.
Did I push too far?
“Nadiyya I…”
She rushed the rest of the oil over her body and donned her thickened under clothes before scurrying towards the partition. He jumped when she flicked it open and shut in a flash before kneeling beside his grand brass bath.
“What is it, my love?”
His eyes dropped towards the amulet resting above her cleavage. Gawahir’s lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile. Then he sighed and his scent of guilt worsened further.
“I don't know how I'll live through this war.”
“Gawahir?”
“Dare I say meeting my end within the streets or atop the walls would be a relief, though I know that is the voice of my growing cowardice.”
“Don’t speak like that, please,” she clasped his wet arm with a trembling hand. “You have done all you can, weathered more than any pharaoh has in generations, lesser Atum Ras would have withered into dust against the pressure you survived.”
“That’s it, isn’t it? All I did was survive.”
“We are at the end of the war because you did your duty. I'm proud of that, my love. Release these dour thoughts and see the sun.”
“Wouldn’t that be something, Nadiyya? To experience true peace at the end of a Tiger’s blade? The war ends either way, with our heads with Jun or his in ours, but imagine the peace.”
She could not keep her anxiety under control. He smiled at her as if it were his true want, a desire so deep that she had trouble hiding her concern.
Why is this happening? Must immediate misery always soil my joy?
Pride’s concern trickled through their bond, but her misery smothered it. Her smile quivered at Gawahir and dropped when he turned away. The hurried strides of approaching plated boots pulled her away from the man’s sombreness.
“I must see this through. Face what comes after. It is my duty, and I’ll be damned if I allow any sort of cowardice to stain me, whether in death or life.”
The boots paused before her doors and a knock soon followed.
What now?
She almost voiced her pitiful moan, then eased Gawahir’s attempts to answer before doing it herself. As she rose, she noticed Pride’s concern never left her, nor was it for what she assumed. Plain faced, dressed in the blandest clothes. Her ornate plate armour followed, for the worst of interruptions awaited on the other side of the doors.
They parted and a palace guard in the blackest scale armour bowed, worsening the news about to spill from her lips. She removed her helm when she rose, and adjusted her black and cold cape. Her eyes were mournful.
“Pharaoh, the emperor has arrived.”
Nadiyya paced atop the lynx wall, tightening the straps of her golden bracers. Every district clanged with bells as the gathering torches before the towering sandy wall amassed upon the browning fields.
Sunrise was a few hours away, but winter delayed the sun’s arrival. Her eyes didn’t leave the swarm of lamellar gathering ahead. There were sparkles of gold floating in the darkness, with pairs of ruby red as well, sparsely organised amongst the emperor’s vanguard.
More darkness stretched out into the east. Many pairs of red eyes sparkled in the night before the walls of the tiger district. Torchlight sparkled upon gaudy plate armour towards the west, amassing before the walls of the jaguar district.
A growing fiery ocean of flickering light, Tigers, Panthers and Jaguars together. Their march and suspected numbers were one thing, but to see them first-hand. Her yearning for battle was foolish. Thankfully, Pride did not remind her how right he was.
The dark Tamers growled and the lynx gate guards in their fur lined plate armour mumbled their fear, smelling worse. Darkness took hold and wrapped around her heart, dimming the odd torch flickering from the parapets.
“Captain.”
Sun-kissed faces jumped at her call, but there was no reply.
“Captain!” Nadiyya almost shrieked, and this time the others echoed her call until the reply came.
“Pharaoh?”
“We need braziers. Spread the word to every district. I want the city to be at its brightest at night…” she trailed off when an unseen pull tugged at the fine hairs on her neck.
Nadiyya spun around and drew her khopesh in one motion. The script strengthened blade shone before a tear of pitch blackness in reality. A blacksteel scaled boot with script decorating the surface stepped out. The scaled breastplate had a red eyed Sinha carved into it.
She hesitated, lowering her blade, calming her racing heart, but the dark Tamer of the palace guard bowed, before removing her roaring Sinha helm to reveal a gaunt face, with the sharpest cheekbones.
“Pharaoh Nadiyya, the people are being escorted into the noble ring, and our order is ready to serve.”
The bells tolled ceaselessly, drowning out the panic below. The shrill alarm hammered even the stench away. She nodded at the palace guard and the woman rose to her feet.
Nadiyya sheathed her khopesh and turned towards the besiegers once again, inching closer to the parapets. She adjusted her own heel and rested her gloved hands on the grained stone.
It begins.