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"Can you believe I'll be chief wife to Harsiese the Magnificent, Nafretiri?" My eighteen year old sister, Shamise, exclaims as she greedily drapes a shining, gold necklace across her neck where it gently grazed her breasts.
Her silver eyes glitter as the sun set and casted a ray of light from the open door on the balcony and her ebony hair and skin glistened from the oils her body servants had put on her during her bath.
My lighter, green eyes trail from the window where I watched the pomegranate tree, that my mother planted years ago before she died, sway in the slight wind, in the small garden that was mine and my mother's old happy place, to her as I try to hide my frown. It was the first month of Shemu and the days were becoming hotter. Our ladies fanned us from the heat, trying to stop us from sweating as the Nile flooded.
I was sad to leave it, to leave my home in Akhmim and go to Thebes, where Pharaoh Harsiese resided in the Malkata palace, to help my older sister as she fought for Pharaoh's approval over his other wife of five years, Bahiti.
Pharaoh Harsiese had been in power since I was young and the Romans invaded even though he was only a few years older than I. He was nearly fourteen when he become Pharaoh and now he is twenty and I sixteen. The people of Egypt adored him as he took over and saved our country from starvation and poverty with the help of the viziers.
They didn't mind how different he looked from the past pharaohs; how his skin paled during Peret, the colder months, and how his hair was the color of the sand that covered the ground. To them, he was a god and from what I had seen and heard, he looked like one.
The first and only time I saw him was when I was almost fourteen and he eighteen. He was being carried on a gold and lapis litter through the streets, waving to his people, with his wife, Bahiti by his side as they showed off their newborn son. He was absolutely breathtaking and for a moment, I was jealous of my sister who has always been promised to him.
Sadly, a few months after, their son died in the night, smothered himself in his sleep by his own blanket, and they have yet to have another child. It was said the pharaoh was getting impatient, demanding a child and an heir from Bahiti soon or he would throw her into a harem.
That's why my father, one of the most respected viziers to the royal family, took his chance and is finally making Shamise take Harsiese's attention and become chief wife.
I go to answer my sister's question, that she asks at least twice a day, when the door to the room opens and our father walks in, his smile immediately becoming adoring as he lays his eyes on his two daughters.
"Senit," he leans down and kisses my head lovingly as he whispers the word for little girl before doing the same for Shamise. I pet my beloved cat, Khensu, meaning traveler of the sky, as he slept peacefully in my lap. I named him after the God of the moon as he loved to explore at night.
