But if someone would say, “There’s a lady here, waiting,”
Hear that, and you’d see me take heart in a hurry!
—Papyrus Chester Beatty I
Nephtys stood in the shadows and watched the lovers kiss and reluctantly go their separate ways.
A small part of her felt sorry for them. She, of all people, knew so well that one did not choose with whom one fell in love. It just happened. And usually at the most heartbreakingly inappropriate of times, with the least suitable person possible.
But mostly she felt anger and outrage. On behalf of her brother, who had been cuckolded right under his nose. And on behalf of Khepesh, which would no doubt suffer unforeseen consequences because of this betrayal. Gillian was to have been a wise and well-loved consort. Rhys was a valued member of the council as well as an insightful adviser to Seth-Aziz. He would be sorely missed when he was banished for his disloyalty.
Troubled, Nephtys stepped out from the shadows and made her way back to her suite in the haram. There was no option. She must report this treachery to her brother.
But first, she should seek her own counsel. The Eye of Horus. Perhaps another vision would guide her in how best to handle this situation.
She made haste to the prayer room, where she kept the scrying bowl in its place of honor on a golden pedestal. Silver was the color of the moon, and therefore the sacred metal of Khepesh, palace of the Guardian of the Night, but the amber bowl was hewn for and named after the god of their enemy, Re-Horakhti, Lord of the Sun, and therefore would be offended by a resting place of anything but the finest yellow gold.
She lifted the bowl and brought it to her favorite spot for meditation, amidst a scatter of soft cushions surrounded by a hundred ever-burning, delicately fragrant candles. She gingerly lifted a two-thousand-year-old Roman glass pitcher that had been filled with water smuggled to her by a spy she maintained in the temple of her own betrayer and Seth’s immortal nemesis, Haru-Re.
“Bring me a vision of wisdom, oh, Eye of Horus,” she prayed as she poured the sacred water into its depths. “So I may best know what to do.”
But when the vision came, sudden and vivid like a dust storm surging to life in the desert, her hand convulsed around the fragile glass pitcher and it shattered in a million pieces. Blood dripped from a dozen cuts on her fingers, turning the whirling waters scarlet. But she barely noticed.
She gasped in dismay at what she saw.
Haru-Re was standing in his palace audience chamber, lifting his arms in welcome to a new immortal follower of Re-Horakhti.
It was Rhys Kilpatrick.