The Kingdom of Nefertiti (The Desert Queen Book 3) by M.L. Bullock

Author:M.L. Bullock [Bullock, M.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-05-14T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Pah—Fire and Water

My head itched like a hundred angry ants were biting me. I rubbed at it and felt nothing but fuzz. The itching was inside my head, not on my skin. It was a strange sensation. Surprised at feeling something besides smooth skin, I could not stop touching my head. At last my hair was returning, and along with it, my memory. That I wished I could forget.

My memories came at me in a tangled ball, and the unhappy ones always arose together like an unwelcome group of friends. With those memories came the emotions in a dark mass of ugliness—ugliness all of my own making. My captor Margg slept beside me, and I sighed at the sound of her snoring. It was difficult enough falling asleep without the older woman’s night sounds ringing in my ears. Sleeping with someone did not bother me. I had spent most of my nights with my sister. She did not snore but often talked in her sleep. I suddenly wished I could reach out to her and touch her hair or skin. How that used to comfort me, and I longed for comfort before I fell asleep again and slipped into another nightmare.

Sometimes in my dreams the Kiffians came with their pawing hands and biting mouths and…other things to violate me. I would awaken in smothered screams with Margg leaning over me, seemingly immune to the power of my blows. She never struck me back but chided me, I assumed in her own language. Margg’s lack of teeth did not help me discern what she was saying. I soon gave up, and so did she. Now we communicated mostly with looks and gestures, but she never failed to wake me from the nightmares. For that I was grateful.

In the past few weeks, or at least I thought it had been that long, I had seen more faces than Margg’s. A bevy of priestesses questioned me daily about my home, where I was from and what I knew about their goddess. Their endless questions tired me, and I felt no obligation to answer them, not at first.

“We know you can see in the fire and water,” they would say to me. “Tell us what you see. Can you see our Pharaoh?” I refused to look in the flames or lean over the pools at first, but my hunger and thirst got the better of me. Sometimes it was easy to go without food, but there were times when my body screamed louder than my mind. They knew. The priestesses knew I could not hold out forever. So they watched and waited. Daily I demanded that they release me and allow me to go home, but daily they did not. A pot of tea was always by my bedside when I woke for the morning ministrations. One day Margg mumbled at me, trying to compel me to drink. I would not. Believing that I refused because I feared poison, she poured herself a cup, drank it, called me “stupid” (I think) and then walked out.

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