House of the Burning Sun
Some chapters could get away with a K rating. Others are borderline M. T seems like a happy medium. Be prepared for: language, sex, and violence.
Oh Mother, tell your children,
Not to do what I have done.
Spend your lives in misery,
On the Throne of the Burning Sun.
Prologue
Gift of the Nile
The sun was a merciless fiend, endlessly scorching the land and all those who dared live on it.
The Nile was a capricious savior, sometimes bringing them deliverance in the form of a devastating flood, and other years ignoring them completely.
They became used to the heat, laughing at the foreigners who would faint in the streets and wake up missing anything that was of value to them. The sun strengthened them.
They learned how to channel and distribute the water in times of drought. While neighboring countries struggled with famine, they laughed at their poverty. The Nile nourished them.
They worshipped their gods. They grew stronger. They gained power.
They were the Egyptians.
It was a heat wave, even by their high standards. The air scorched their lungs; simply existing was enough to make a person sweat heavily. Adults lounged indolently. Children played in the shallows of the Nile, watched by poor girls who were given a few bread loaves to keep an eye out for crocodiles. The slaves continued on with their work – they were never allowed the luxury of a day's rest.
On the fifth day of the unbearable warmth, when no one else dared venture outside for fear of heat sickness, the pharaoh was finding a way to keep himself occupied in the midst of the lethargy that had crept into his nation.
Pharaoh Uranus II was the embodiment of the perfect royal – to the lower class, he was reserved, cold, and impassionate. He protected them as long as they paid proper dues to the temples and the royals. But when it came to his territory's richer occupants, he was charming, persuasive, and attentive. And in return, the building of the temples was funded, the army was maintained, and his family lived in luxury.
Gaia, his queen and a foreigner he'd made his favored wife for political reasons, had finally bore him a son after countless years of disappointment. The young infant, less than a year old, was destined to take his place one day. Kronos, she'd named him.
But the pharaoh had been plagued with lingering paranoia. His wives tried their best to soothe him, but nothing could be done. And so on that fifth day, he summoned Hrashmi, high priestess of the temple of Solem Deum, the one who was gifted with his foresight.
The priestess was barely a woman, hardly more than 16 years of age. She had been no older than a toddler when the previous high priestess had been taken by the gods and Solem Deum had marked her as the next in his chosen line.
It was the high priestess's job to oversee the royal temple of her god, lead her sisters in worship, make the proper sacrifices when due, and consort with the pharaoh when he called for her presence. It was up to the pharaoh to decide which high priestess he would favor – if any. Some had chosen to completely ignore the powerful women; others had gone so far as to make them their queens.
The two primary high priestesses were those of Solem Deum and Aquam Deus. Settrah, the chosen of the latter, had visited the royal family to aid them in the conception of a son. She had sprinkled her holy water over their bed and chanted, touching the rippling mark on her forehead that marked her as the chosen of Aquam Deus.
But, with Hrashmi fresh in her womanhood right in front of him, Uranus wondered why he'd ever wasted time with the aging priestess of the water god. The priestess of the sun had dark hair that brushed the floor, but it was kept away from her forehead so that the mark of Solem Deum was clearly displayed – a large circle with a smaller dot in its center. Every exposed inch of her coppery skin was covered with calligraphy, the scriptures of her temple spelled out on flesh so they would never be forgotten. The dress she wore bordered on sheer, and it clung to her body where sweat had pooled over her long walk to his palace.
"Pharaoh." She bowed before him, kissing the ground before rising. "I am happy to assist you however I can." Behind her voice was something stronger than a mere girl. It was as if Solem Deum was speaking right along with her.
He looked down at her from his golden throne. "Tell me, priestess. Does Solem Deum make you wise in the art of interpreting dreams?" His voice boomed throughout the spacious hall.
"He does, Pharaoh. He enlightens me in all things prophetic, just as Aquam Deus makes his priestess a powerful healer." The silvery mark on her forehead gleamed, standing out against her darker skin. "Have you something you wish me to help you with?"
"Shortly before this heat started, I began to have strange dreams. Dreams of riots in the streets, the temples being burned to the ground, of Egypt being thrown into complete-"
"I know," the priestess interrupted him. Only someone of her standing could get away with such an act. "Solem Deum has given me the same visions and instructed me to wait until you asked me to explore the matter further. Please, Pharaoh. Step down from your throne and kneel with me."
Uranus stepped down from his throne, the hot floor of the palace burning the soles of his feet. He knelt next to the young girl so they were both facing the direction of the rising sun. The floor seemed to give off heat – making him quickly break into a sweat.
She reached into a fold of her dress and pulled out a bag. She wordlessly handed it to him and bent her head, touching her fingertips to her forehead and chanting. "Deus ex solis luce est. Ostende nobis futura sapientia tua omnisciens. Sequar te in vita mea, amica mea et lumen. Iter illuminabit."
He shook the bag a few times before pouring out the contents before them. A variety of colored stones with unfamiliar markings scattered for a few moments before assuming fixed positions. He'd seen priestesses of different gods use many forms of divination, but those used by those who followed Solem Deum always seemed to become the most reliable.
Hrashmi hovered over the stones and breathed softly. The pharaoh watched in a stunned silence as the symbols changed before them, some becoming more familiar.
"These represent you and Gaia," she said in a tone almost trancelike, pointing to two large stones in the center of the arrangement. They bore matching marks, a small circle surrounded by a star – the symbol for their royal house. "And these smaller stones. They are your children."
"But there are eight." One more than he and his wife possessed. "Kronos is our last child, and he is our seventh."
She pointed to a deep blue stone. All the others bore the same symbol as the first two, but this one had a marking that was unfamiliar to him. "There are powerful forces at work – stronger than you or I can comprehend. This child is not born of you, but he will receive your inheritance. He is near the same age as your son, and he will steal Kronos' legacy. He will be the next pharaoh."
"That's not possible."
The high priestess continued on as though he hadn't spoken. "You are afraid of what I say. But this child is not to be feared. He will bring Egypt into even stronger times. He is born of lower blood, perhaps even a slave." Her hand hovered over a filthy stone, then moved on. "But there is a choice you need to make, Pharaoh. You must decide if you will accept the gifts bestowed to you or fight them."
Her shoulders slumped, and he felt as though some strong presence had left them. "That is all the stones say, Pharaoh. We can try another means of divination of you like, though Solem Deum is satisfied that he has answered you."
"No, priestess. I am fine. You may leave now." He stood, allowing her to bow down before him again. He dropped a few gold pieces into her hands, telling her to find a satisfactory animal to sacrifice to her patron in exchange for his wisdom.
It was no more than two hours after his meeting with Hrashmi that the Uranus made up his mind. "Tell me, Nen. The slaves – how are their numbers?"
Nen was his eyes and ears. He was called the pharaoh's cruentis manibus. The moment he'd had been named successor to his father, it was Uranus' first duty to choose his, and he'd picked Nen, the son of a wealthy merchant who had no problems with…breaking the rules.
"More abundant than ever, Pharaoh." He picked something out of his fingernails with his dagger. Only the cruentis manibus could get away with such flippant behavior in front of the ruler of Egypt. "Perhaps, too abundant?"
Nen was bloodthirsty, often too much so, but at a time like this, it became rather…expedient. "Assemble the first strains of our army. I will make the command," Uranus directed him.
And as the pharaoh spoke it, it became true. And as it became true, it was written in stone, to be kept so that future generations of Egyptian rulers could look to their ancestors for guidance.
I, Pharaoh Uranus II, ruler of the land of Egypt by the power given to me by the gods, declare this to be true. The numbers of our slaves have grown too numerous, and the threat of a rebellion emerges as the new wave of children grow. To avert the risk, all male slave children under the age of three are to be killed before Solem Deum brings us a new day. So declares the pharaoh who sits on the throne of the burning sun, this is true.
"Thalia, get the shades."
The young girl normally would have at least put up a semblance of a struggle, but something in her mother's tone told her now was not the time for childish theatrics. Now was the time to listen and obey. She drew the cloth curtain and let it hang over the opening in the wall.
Her mother swaddled her infant in a sheet, born only three days prior. "Hush, child." Sahri was desperate. She'd heard the screams of the other women, seen them weeping outside the doors of their houses as the soldiers did their dirty work inside. No matter what she did, she was going to lose her son.
She was going to lose the last piece she had of the man she loved.
"Grab the fruit basket," she told her daughter. "You're going to need to carry it down to the river. Can you do that for me?" The little girl nodded, frightened. She'd never seen her mother act like this. Sahri was calm, compassionate, and slow to anger. This woman who'd replaced her mother was frantic.
While Thalia grabbed their large wicker basket, Sahri peeked through one of the cracks in the clay that made their house. They'd been spared so far because of their house's secluded location, but they couldn't trust their luck to last much longer. She pressed her newborn to her chest and made her decision.
"Come, Thalia. We need to hurry." Sahri grabbed her daughter's thin wrist and began a mad dash down the streets of the slave neighborhood. She tried to ignore the hunched figures of the women she considered friends, sobbing as though their souls were being ripped apart. The heat was debilitating – she wanted to fall down and never get up.
"Mother, come on. You're slowing down." Her daughter tugged on her skirt. She had been dutifully trying to carry the fruit basket and keep up with her mother's pace, and now she was the one pulling her forward. Tears streamed down Sahri's face.
They only met soldiers once, and Sahri was fast enough to pull herself and her daughter into a crack between two buildings. They were right next to the corpse of a woman who had been pregnant, her stomach slashed open and still bleeding. She prayed to the gods that her daughter wouldn't see.
The journey to the Nile had never seemed so long or perilous as it did when she knew her son's life depended on it. Finally, they arrived at the bank of the river safely. Sahri sent up a prayer to Aquam Deus, praying that her son would not meet a fate worse than that which he faced at the hands of the Egyptians.
"The fruit basket, Thalia."
Her daughter handed her the wicker basket, her mother's plans finally dawning on her. "Mother, you…you can't send him away. We can hide him. He'll be safe with us. We can protect him."
"Thalia, you know we can't." She hated how each word her daughter said pierced her heart, because these were the exact same fantasies she wished could work. "We have to put our faith in something else."
She kissed her child's forehead one last time and placed him in the wicker basket. She took off her necklace, nothing more than a dark blue stone on a leather string and placed it with him. "Promise you'll one day bring him back to me," she whispered, replacing the lid.
"Wait here, Thalia," she commanded, wading out into the river until the water was almost waist deep and she could feel a current begin to pull her.
Before letting go, she sent up one last silent prayer.
You swore the water would always be safe for him. For the sake of all the promises you never kept, please, please keep this one.
The royal palace was designed so that one of the small branches of the Nile came directly to it, forming a small pond that they could enjoy without ever having to venture out of the comforts of their home. Out of all the designs the palace had undergone as different pharaohs ruled, none had ever changed that one feature.
Pharaoh Uranus II had redesigned his palace in a way that the main doors faced away from the Nile, so when the sun struck his residence, it practically gleamed like god. His wife had complained so incessantly though, that he'd finally created side doors that led directly to their small piece of the river.
Said wife was dangling her feet in the water, nursing her young son while her daughters played further out. Gaia enjoyed the cool breeze that came from the water and hoped her infant benefited from it. She worried that he would get heat sickness and be taken by the gods. And then her position as the future pharaoh's mother would be jeopardy – she was well aware that her husband had many other sons born by his other wives and concubines.
"Theia – don't go so far out. Rhea, quit splashing your sister," Gaia called out from where she sat. Her son let out a sound of displeasure, and she readjusted him on her chest. He was beginning to look more and more like her, something she knew her husband was not pleased by. He had her golden hair – something no native of Egypt had ever seen before, though it was common in her homeland.
"Mother, there's a basket coming our way!" Themis, her eldest daughter called. She was rapidly approaching marrying age, but seemed to be perpetually obsessed with childish games. Gaia worried about finding her a suitable husband – no first daughter of hers would be anything other than a royal's first wife.
"Themis, please don't make up stories."
"No, there is, Mother!" Tethys called. She was holding Mnemosyne, who at only a year and a half of age was too young to swim like the other girls. "What do you suppose is in it?"
Her girls would pay dearly if this turned out to be some trick. She pulled up her skirt with one hand while holding her baby in the other, and made her way out to the other girls. The basket was only a few feet away from Theia, who had swum out farther to grab it.
Gaia was just as curious as her girls, though it was probably just some commoner's fish basket that had accidentally been swept away. "Come, girls. Let's take it to the shore and look."
She handed Kronos to Themis, who tried desperately to stop his fussings in protest of being interrupted in the middle of a meal. "Hush, Mother will be back in a moment," she whispered soothingly.
The other sisters all gathered around as their mother lifted the lid. "Oh…oh, look at what the gods have blessed us with, girls," she whispered. An infant, no more than a few days old, was sleeping peacefully in the basket. He had a thin sprinkling of dark hair, and his skin was uncharacteristically light. Resting on his chest was a small stone attached to a leather string.
"Come girls, let's go show Father your new brother," Gaia said, scooping up the infant.
When Uranus saw the child, his face clouded. He took the stone in his hands and studied it. "Damn the gods," he whispered to himself, slipping it into a pocket.
"What was that, love?" Gaia asked, looking down lovingly at the infant. He knew there was no way to avoid what Hrashmi had predicted.
"Just that he needs a name, my queen."
"Perseus," she whispered. It had been the name of many great people in her homeland. "We'll call him Perseus."
