Ahkmenrah: The Fourth King of the Fourth Kings

Chapter 82: The Truth of Kings

Sabra woke with her tongue parched and her head aching. Almost as if she had drunk too much wine. But she knew that wasn't so. She tried to open her eyes, but there was still darkness. That was when she realised the darkness wasn't because her eyes were closed, but rather because there was no light at all in the room.

"Are you awake?" It was Nitocris.

"Yes," she managed to breath out. She felt a pair of hands reaching for her helping her. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she made out Nitocris's figure beside her. Her silver curls in disarray.

"What happened?"

It was a stupid question. They had obviously lost.

"He played foul," said Nitocris her voice was hollow as if all her tears had been spent. "They launched an attack. They didn't even bother asking who your second was." She paused. "They killed Father."

Dread formed in the pit of Sabra's stomach. Was this the end then?

"Sabaf?" She asked.

"He's been taken away. I don't know what's happening to him."

"Where are we?"

"In a prison cell, they decided we were both for better use alive."

Yes, of course, the King's Commander-in-Chief and the daughter and heir of Heq-At would be of more use alive than dead. Sabra looked at Nitocris and noted the nail marks, rumpled, torn and bloodied attire and her protective stance.

"Did they...?"

"Yes, they did."

Sabra's blood boiled her heart beat rapidly. Animals, all of them. How many more women did they defile in the name of their heretic King?

"They didn't touch you." Said Nitocris as a way of assurance. "They seemed to fear even your unconscious body."

Wasn't that what she had always wanted? For them to see past her female body and to look at the warrior within? Yet now she knew she would have withstood a thousand rapes if it meant that no other woman suffered.

"I'm sorry..." she breathed. "It was my fault."

"He played foul," Nitocris told her. "It wasn't your fault."

"We cannot give up." Said Sabra. Were those tears? Was she crying? "We can't we have to fight back."

Fighting back was the only thing she knew.

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How could he?

Kahmunrah was his brother, his soul, his conscience. He had been his everything, his world. How could he become the monster who stood by his bed, ready to kill him?

You were my brother Kahmun Ahkmenrah's thought. I loved you. I still do.

He had felt the universe around him shatter, the stars crushed to a million small shining fragments, dimming leaving him in darkness. For hours he cried under the old date tree, where the two of them had once played. Kahmunrah had carried him around on his shoulders when Ahkmenrah's small toddler legs became too tired to walk.

That had been real.

He remembered the two of them trying to build boat boasting to the servants that they would sail the world. He remembered how it had fallen apart within an hour, it hadn't even reached the water.

That had been real.

He remembered the first time they had fought. It had been over the last honeyed date in the bowl. Ahkmenrah had gotten so angry that he had scratched at his brother's cheek. Even now sometimes in some lights you could see faint slivers of lines on his cheek.