Their Promise

by Waifine

"When he looked at her, Kisara knew for certain. His scowl was just as hollow as her smile. Inside, they were both screaming in pain." The untold story of Kisara, from Atlantis, to Ancient Egypt, to Medieval London, to its final conclusion in Modern Japan.

10. To Disgrace the Name

Book I | To Disgrace the Name

Memory Arc

Part III

High Priest Seto: 20 years old

The Lady of the White Dragon: 18 years old

…

The wind blew in through the curtains of his balcony, bringing Seto once more out of the stupor into which he'd lulled. It was the hour before morning. He blinked and looked down at the papyrus document over which his reed quill now dangled a forgotten and precarious drop. With great care he guided the quill back to the ink jar and settled it to rest. For now.

This conflict between the Palace and the 'Thief King' Bakura had built to a pitch– the Pharaoh now missing, the throne without a king, and the kingdom in disarray. …So why was it that Seto's mind was plagued, more than anything else, by his last encounter with Akhenaden? The young Guardian leaned on his elbow and pinched the rim of his nose, thinking back….

"Lord Akhenaden." Seto's greeting reverberated off the walls of the Shrine of Wedju where they had met many times before. Still, he looked about him as he entered, and the sight never ceased to amaze. It was a great Temple, with many kas sealed away in stone tablets lining the walls as high as the eye could see, all brought under the will of the Pharaoh by the hand of justice with the aid of the Millennium Items. These included, of course, the three Hidden Gods, whom only their current Pharaoh could summon. And there, at the altar, at the top of a great length of stairs, was Seto's mentor and master, the Priest Akhenaden, wielder of the Millennium Eye.

From the foot of the steps Seto saw the older man's head turn, and he nodded. A sign that his sacrifices to the gods were complete and that Seto might draw near. The younger man's every step echoed into the vast granite space. Seto felt the pull at his muscles after an entire day of riding in the cramped littler. Once at the altar he bowed to the gods and, more importantly, to his mentor.

He told Akhenaden of the 'patrol' he and Shada had gone on and of the monsters that they'd found within people's souls. But the older Priest did not react with the pride that Seto had anticipated. Rather, responded only with a panicked rebuke. No. Not panicked. Nothing so fleeting. Akhenaden seemed… afraid.

Seto felt slight disgust rise in his throat at the man to whom he had come with his pledge of loyalty and his plan for power. Surly not Akhenaden too? Surely not, at a time when such madness roamed their land, did he to make a council of his conscience. Seto's upper lips twitched. "Fear…" he spat the word like the useless syllable that it was. "Faced with the threat of the fall of the Dynasty, an ordinary person might be afraid. You, however, should be proud of the work I have done."

The older man blanched at the remark, a helplessness seeming to spread across his wizened face. "Well I am not!" he retorted. "Now, release these innocent people immediately!" he half begged, half ordered. "You must do as I say!" Seto's face remained unmoved, and Akhenaden knew it. The older man straightened up, his own face now riddled with disappointment. "You are a Guardian, Seto, and you must act like one. Free those people," the old man's one eye narrowed. "…for you have disgraced the name of the Pharaoh."

That his mentor had hurled upon Seto the deepest insult that the young man could have endured, Seto did not show. He did not so much as twitch. Akhenaden had taught him all he knew since coming to the palace, all those years ago, off the streets as an orphan. To be thrown such a blow, and from the man from whom Seto most sought approval- he did not know how to react.

"But what about this?" Seto blurted out, after a moment of silence between them. "What if I found a person with a ka to rival the gods?" The words were out of his mouth before he could even register what he was uttering. And, once out, they could not be brought back. All that he could do was watch to see what reaction they would invoke upon his master's face. It was not as though he had intended to hide the presence of the girl from Akhenaden. And yet… he had not resolved on telling him either. Until now.

The shock that washed across the older Priest's face at such a claim was instant and absolute. There would be no stopping now. "What?" he rasped, the question reverberating off of each stone tablet that surrounded them. "A ka to rival the gods?"

Once more the image of the girl prostrate in the street loomed before Seto's eyes. That pale skin, that bloodstained hair. That whispered '…Thank you…so much…' However, he had spoken out, and he could not stop now. His master's one keen eye demanded that he press on. "Right now," Seto continued, focusing on the ka rather than on its keeper, "it is like a baby whose heart had just begun to flutter. But eventually that heartbeat will become a mighty pulse that will shake the heavens." Despite himself he could not contain the excitement he felt at such a power, though he knew that, to speak so, most of all as a Priest, was high blasphemy.

Akhenaden's eye flicked with curiosity, even over his reserve, pressing Seto on.

"The one who holds that ka is a woman…" Here Seto found himself faltering. What was he to tell his master? What could he say about her? What did he know about her himself? "She's very weak, so I'm letting her rest." He concluded. For an instant he thought he saw curiosity flicker through his mentor's eyes at such an uncharacteristic act of compassion. Then again, it might have been Seto's own paranoia. "As soon as she regains her strength, I plan to find a way to draw the greatest amount of power from that ka," he added almost immediately. His mind wandered to the cages in the dungeons, with all the prisoners piled on mass, where Seto had refused to have her placed. His eyes met that of Akhenaden, and suddenly he felt compelled by the interest which he saw there, almost despite the old man's best efforts, to carry on. "I'll use the prisoners from the city to research the best way to do that," he added, filled with bravado and malice. Malice towards Bakura. Malice towards Shada and Akhenaden. Malice towards all those who went only so far as their conscience permitted, and no further. False friends. Malice, most of all, towards the Lady of the White Dragon, who had made him doubt the limits of his own conscience by reminding him that he had once had one. "I'll torture them in any way I have to," he snarled in conclusion at the older man, and turned upon his heels to leave.

He did not disgrace the name of the Pharaoh. He fought with every fiber of his being for its endurance. His master should not have thrown out that insult so lightly. With one final glance at Akhenaden before descending the stairs, Seto spat, "I'll come back when I can show it to you…" A sneer fixed on his face. "…When I can show you the White Dragon."

That was his last memory of the man who had raised him as a father. That look of pain, hurt, and horror, before Seto had turned away from him and swept out of the Shrine. Since then Akhenaden had been attacked by Bakura and fallen into an unconsciousness from which he had yet to awaken. In the resulting hunt for the fiend-assailant, their Pharaoh had been lost to them. All was in chaos. …Since that last encounter with his mentor he, Seto, had learned- had remembered- just who the Lady of the White Dragon had been to him, in his past, before he had ever thought of Palaces and Pharaohs.

The sky was greying. Dawn would be upon them soon. Seto squinted at the horizon. He really ought to get some sleep. And then… perhaps he would visit her again. Perhaps…

"My lord," a slave had appeared in his doorway.

Seto turned a fraction to acknowledge that he was listening, his eyes still fixed upon the horizon.

"Lord Akhenaden has awakened."

Seto's head snapped around to look at the slave. After a moment, he nodded, the slave bowed, and left the High Priest's chambers. Slowly, Seto's gaze slid back onto the cracking dawn, and a small smile graced his face. It was the first good news in days. Perhaps now, with his mentor once more among them, they would at last find the Pharaoh, and Seto would at last come to terms with the strange girl whose fate had fallen into his hands.

…

Teana, wife of the Pharaoh, rushed into the Royal Throne Room. She had hardly slept for nights, the hollow space in her bed too profound to allow any proper rest. Now, roused from her chambers by the thought of news, she swept in upon her inner court. "Shimon," she called out to her husband's vizier, who had just come into sight around the bend. The small man turned and, above the veil which concealed most of his face, his two violet eyes creased in a sympathetic smile. She reflected his smile in turn, and reached out her hands to take his. "I was blessed with the good tidings this morning that Priest Akhenaden is once more with us." Looking about the room she saw the Priest himself, his bandages removed, and made an acknowledging nod to him, which he answered with a deeper bow. Queen Teana returned her attention to Shimon. "I had heard that one of the scouts returned, and wondered if there was any news of my husband–"

"You still have not found the Pharaoh?!" Seto snarled, expressing, he believed, the frustration that all of the currently assembled High Priests felt, though they did not voice it quite as vocally as he did. The soldier at his feet trembled. Shimon, in turn, closed his eyes, seeing to pray for patience on all accounts and with all parties concerned.

"Lord Seto," the man on his knees whimpered, "the search party has not come back yet–"

"That's enough!" Seto cut him off. "Find him, even if you have to drain the Nile to do it!"

"Yes sir!" With many bows from his already crouched position, the unfortunate bearer of bad news half crawled and half scampered from the room.

Seto turned and, for the first time, caught sight of Teana. He made a bow with an accompanying murmur of, "My Queen," and prepared himself for a chastisement. The Pharaoh's wife was a woman who believed in negotiation over force. She believed in alliances and friendships over conquests. With deep shoulder-length brown hair, warm blue eyes, and a very strong will of her own, she and the High Priest Seto clashed often.

Now, however, she merely nodded at his deference, and responded quietly with a thanks. "We are grateful," she said, "for your unwavering loyalty in this time of terrible crisis, when Our husband is not with us." She surveyed all present in the room, her grip tightening on Shimon's hands. "All of you. Many thanks."

Akhenaden shifted. Doubtless his wound still agitated him.

Karim, a stocky man with black hair, and High Priest and Guardian over the Millennium Scales, asked quietly, almost desperately, his eyes fixed on the gates through which the most resent empty-handed soldier had fled, "Could it be… that the Pharaoh has fallen to Bakura?"

If Seto had not already wanted to round on the man for uttering such an absurdity in and of itself, he certainly felt no compunction about doing so after Karim had so idiotically voiced his insecurities before their Queen. However, before he could so much as turn on his heels to face the fool, Shimon responded calmly and rationally. The man had, after all, been a High Priest of the Millennium Key in his own right, before passing it on to a younger Priest. "Shada is still out with the searchers," he said. "If not only the Millennium Ring, but other Millennium Items have fallen into Bakura's hands…" He did not name them. He did not put names to the Pharaoh's Puzzle and Shada's Key. "…Only four are left in the Palace," he concluded.

Queen Teana's shoulder sunk. It was all the flint on the fire that Seto needed. His temper flared."The Pharaoh must be alive! His Majesty still walks this earth!" he snarled at all those around him with their sorry dejected faces, as though they had already laid their King to rest in his tomb. "And his dream to protect his country is still strong! We must not lose faith that the Pharaoh will return! If we expect Egypt to survive, our King must resume the throne!" He was not one to give outbursts of faith and dreams, but he did believe. Above all other things, Priest Seto believed in his Pharaoh.

Teana gave Seto a weak smile. Tactfully, Shimon turned to Isis. "What do you see, with your Millennium Necklace, which can glance into the future?"

Isis, a striking woman and only Priestess among the Guardians, on whom the shadow of Mahad's death still lingered in the hard lines of her face that had never been there before, raised her hands to her Necklace expertly, and closed her eyes in concentration. Her forehead creased. Her fingers became ridged. "I see a ripple move across a sea of shadows… As it spreads one among us will vanish…" Her voice wavered. Perhaps it was her choice as a seer to say 'will' rather than 'already had.' She continued. "I see the reflection of the shadows…" she whispered. "If only one, it will soon fade… But… if two… three… ripples overlap they will become a great swell that will drown us in tragedy. Time is running out." She swallowed, her fingers giving off the slightest tremor.

As much as Seto tended to sneer at the vague nature of prophesies, and found the Necklace to be the least reliable of the Millennium Items, this one forewarning left a chill in the room which had up till now been well warmed by the noonday Egyptian sun.

"Does this foretell the fate of our Kingdome?" Shimon whispered.

"Old friend," Isis looked to him. "I fear this foretells the fate of our world."

"The divine order of Ma'at upheld by the seven Millennium Items has already begun to unravel," Akhenaden cut in.

"And I thought it would last forever," Shimon sighed, pinching the rim of his nose.

Akhenaden barked. "And by the hand of one thief–"

Isis's eyes snapped open and stretched wide, her fingers once more around her necklace. "I- I know what will prevent the tragedy!" she cried, her calm voice raising to a pitch. She stumbled. Karim caught hold of her, holding her upright. "We need a vessel," she whispered on, staring wide-eyed into the ceiling of Throne Room. "A vessel to hold that swell…" A vessel? They all looked to one another. Seto's eyes narrowed. None of them could know for certain what that meant. Seto's mind shifted to the only vessel that he knew of. He, Shada, and Akhenaden. Seto was careful to avoid eye contact either of them as he fixed his gaze on the ground. Surly Isis did not mean–

One of Seto's personal guards quietly stepped up behind him. No one seemed to notice. Not the High Priests, and not the Queen. "Lord Seto, I have a report." Seto nodded for him to continue. His fellow High Priests remained deep in debate on the nature of the vessel. "The woman with the WhiteDragonis awake." The words reverberated in Seto's head. Seto's jaw clenched. What was he to do now. …He had not visited the Lady of the White Dragon since that one fitful time. Four days ago. And since then so much had happened. The attack on his mentor. The disappearance of the Pharaoh. It had been so easy to just leave her in her cell, confident that she was not yet awake and that she was getting the rest that she needed so desperately. Confident that, so long as he did not approach her, he could not further betray the life that she had gifted him so long ago.

Numbly, he nodded. "I will be along shortly," he found himself whispering back to the guard.

…

With a groan the girl felt all of the sores and pains flood back into her body, as though they had been lying in wait for the moment she would feel them most acutely. She blinked blearily up at the ceiling, the grated window swimming in and out of focus. She narrowed her eyes, attempting to comprehend it. Bars. There are bars on these windows. Her eyes flew wide open. A jolt of panic when through her and, with it, a jolt of pain. She hissed, her back arching. She writhed from the surprise aches coursing through her body.

Waking up had been a sorry business, as it usually was. Gritting her teeth and digging her fingers into the woodwork of her cot, the girl heaved herself up into a sitting position, to find herself confronted by a large guard with a plate of bread and a cup of wine. "Up at last?" he said. "You've been groaning half the morning. Here," he put the food down by the girl's side. She hardly moved her head. She hardly thought she could. "Eat. I'll be back in half an hour."

Her vision swam.

Another clang. He was gone, and the grated door shut behind him. She blinked, trying how she could to pull her thoughts together. He hadn't looked like a slaver. He hadn't looked like a magistrate either. She squinted, trying to remember the last thing that had happened to her before she had lost consciousness. She had been attacked by the villagers. Not the first time. No more new to her than these sorts of hellish mornings.

I was attacked by the villagers… and then… And then the attack had stopped. The girl remembered a voice- a very familiar voice- calling off the attack. But whom would the villagers possibly have listened to?

She leaned back against the stone wall against which her cot was wedged. Everything hurt. Nothing made sense. She almost smiled, casting a halfhearted glance at the bread and the wine. Everything hurts and nothing makes sense. What else is new?

Time and her consciousness blurred in and out of focus. She didn't try to control it. When her consciousness left her, so did the pain. The cell door clanged open once again. The girl's eyes cracked ajar. She squinted. It was that same guard.

"Are you done eating?" In truth she had no stomach for food. The guard opened the door further. "Get up," he ordered.

She shifted, her knobby knees knocking together. She did not oblige him. Instead the girl looked up into his face with the only emotion that she could muster. Apathy. "Where… am I?" she finally rasped out, her voice scraping against her throat on its way out of her mouth.

"The Hospital Wing of the Palace," he responded crisply. The girl raised a white eyebrow, her eyes trailing around the cell. Right. A hospital with bars on the doors and windows. Naturally. What had she been thinking.

The guard continued, "You were so weak when they found you, you slept for four days. They weren't sure you would wake up." He himself was surveying her as though she was some sort of bizarre anomaly. A normal enough occurrence. "While you were asleep, a specialized doctor took care of you… Did everything he could to make you well."

She blinked at him, confusion lacing across her face. It was true that she was not ordinarily able to sit up after an encounter with the natives of one village or another. But the idea that someone had actually gone out of their way to make her well? Perhaps it was the mugginess in her head, but such an alien notion was not one she could fully wrap her mind around at the moment.

Seeing the expectant look on the guard's face the girl closed her eyes, took a deep, preparatory breathe, and attempted to stand. Aches tore through her legs and needles seemed to bite into her feet. She clenched her mouth shut, made not a sound and, when she swayed, caught herself on the wall. Satisfied that she could at least remain upright, the guard turned, implying that she should trail after.

He continued to speak over his shoulder as she followed him out of the cell. "It's all because of the High Priest," he explained. "You owe him your life."

Her eyebrows creased as her forehead knitted together. Doing what she could to follow, the girl blinked hazily down at the ground. …High …Priest?

…

His footsteps reverberating, Seto made his way through the halls at a pace he knew to be faster than prudent. Still, he could not help himself. He wanted to speak to her. To find out who she was. How she came to still be in Egypt. …To know if she still remembered him, as he now remembered her.

All such thoughts flew from his mind as he rounded the corner and found the door to her cell flung open and the guards lounging idly against the walls. Dread constricted him. Seto billowed past them and into the cell, his head whipping every which way. She was nowhere. She was gone. Someone had discovered her. "…Oh no." Then, in a quiet fury, he rounded on one of the guards. "And where, exactly, has our guest gone?!" he hissed.

"I- I thought you knew, Master Seto," the luckless man spluttered back. "Lord Akhenaden sent orders that she was to be taken away."

"He did what?" Seto's eyes budged. His master, Akhenaden? The only man besides himself and Shada who knew about the girl. "Did he say why?"

"Because," Seto turned at the sound of his mentor's voice. Akhenaden was leaning against the doorframe of the cell, arms crossed. "I felt that it most sensible to have her examined properly. Honesty Seto," he said, a look of mild surprise on his face at the hostility in Seto's eye. "What are you thinking? The priority is the Pharaoh and the kingdom that you have been entrusted to protect. Isis said she needed a vessel? Well, here was a vessel, of sorts. So, I ordered that she be taken to the underground at once. Though, admittedly, it has been a long time since I have been there myself."

Seto's shoulder slumped. His master's simple explanation put him to shame. Of course the Pharaoh and the kingdom came before all else. He felt hot with his own disgrace and did not meet his master's eye. As for the underground- Seto did what he could to fight down a childish slight. He had, himself, intended to go and inspect the long forgotten place once he had collected enough kas. To learn that his master already knew of it, and had been there himself, made the young High Priest feel foolish and upstart.

Mutely he nodded at his recovered master, and followed him.

The Priests Seto and Akhenaden swept down the darkening halls of the Palace's lower levels. Seto had to admit that, despite their last dispute and his own guilt after the attack on his mentor's life, it was good to have the old man by his side again. Seto walked at a speedy pace. He had not yet seen the facilities in which the ka were harvested and, now calmed that that the girl was in the care of his watchful master, Seto felt enthralled at the prospect of the underground.

"So, you say she truly is a woman who harbors a god?" Akhenaden hissed, panting to keep up with his disciple, as he now himself broached the topic of the girl.

Seto's jaw tightened. He could not regret his choice in sharing knowledge of her with his master. "Yes," he simply said instead. "When I was on the ka hunt in the city we found her with Shada's Millennium Key. We also have another prisoner…" Seto's thought flickered to the criminal and his curse, before banishing him from his mind, "…who witnessed her White Dragon god with his own eyes."

"A White Dragon…" Akhenaden sounded disbelieving, but not disinterested. Not at all.

"You are welcome to confirm it with your Millennium Eye," Seto hurried to add. The gods forbid that his mentor suspect that he harbored any kindness towards this woman, "Lord Akhenaden."

They walked on, footsteps echoing through the high-roofed ceilings of the unused corridors. "Seto…" Akhenaden broke the silence between them at last. "If something has happened to the Pharaoh..." Seto's nerve pricked, "then we have lost the protection of the Three Great Gods." Akhenaden was, of course, referring to the three Hidden God, the Giant of the Palace, the Hawk with the Wings of the Sun, and the Dragon King of the Heavens, whose names had been hidden to all but the chosen Pharaoh. This Pharaoh. "And that means that the Palace is helpless."

Had any other man said so much, Seto would not have stood for it. But, from his mentor, he listened.

"We need a ka stronger than those gods." Seto's eye slid to look at Akhenaden's face as the older man spoke. He felt cautious. Since when did he feel cautious? "Strong enough to bring anyone to their knees." Of course. Yes. Seto did not disagree with the sentiment. However… "Yes," Akhenaden seemed to have quite forgotten Seto was there, and was now simply uttering his own frenzied thoughts. "And one more thing…We need a leader! A new Pharaoh!"

Seto faltered in his footsteps.

The word 'pharaoh' echoed off the walls, and back against Seto's affronted ear. A volt went up his spine. "Only the missing Pharaoh can summon the Three Great Gods," he cut in. He did not want to hear this, least of all from his master.

And yet he would have to hear, as Akhenaden continued without giving sway to Seto's point. "To become the next Pharaoh, one needs even greater power… one needs new gods to fill Egypt's needs." Seto blinked, not daring to look into his mentor's impassioned eye. Now who was speaking blasphemy? "Seto." Despite himself, he met his master's gaze. Seto blinked. There was something dark in the man's eye which he had not seen there before. "You must gain power to surpass the gods! You are the one in Isis's prediction. The vessel to become the Pharaoh…"

Seto opened his mouth. However, before he could make any answer they had turned a corner, and Seto was forced to throw a hand up to shield his eyes as the light of a lantern assailed them for the first time in this descent into darkness. A small, withered man with an unpleasant face that resembled a compressed tomato emerged from the shadows behind the light, holding the lantern. His name was Gebelk, and he had been with the Palace for many years, though few had seen him, and certainly none in the upper court. Seto knew him, of course. After all, Gebelk filled the vital role of Master of Prisons. "I have been waiting," he whispered moistly, smiling at first one High Priest, and then the other. "Lord Seto, Lord Akhenaden." A glint of sickly enthusiasm bristled in his half-closed eye. It was not every day that he could showcase his handiwork to such an esteemed audience. The hunched figure of a man guided the Guardians to a set of stairs that would take them still deeper into the lower tiers of Palace, to its very foundations. "This leads to the underground prison wing," his words echoed down the stairwell and back up again. "Please watch your step." Akhenaden used one of the walls to steady himself as he descended behind Seto. It was slick with the damp. "The Pharaoh doesn't even know this place exists." Gebelk said with authority, like a noble giving a tour of his estate, "This facility had been closed since Akhenamkhanen's reign. I had quite a time finding the keys to the torture chambers…" His smiling silhouette reflected like a grimace against the walls by the light of the lantern.

As they descended the stairs Seto learned from Gebelk what progress the little man had made on the ka extraction. It appeared that hunger and fear were the best stimuli to bring out violence within a ka. However, to make it grow, one needed something more. Seto had been harvesting men with monster ka, which were different from the spirit ka that he and the other High Priests processed. Spirit ka were born alongside the soul, and were strengthened with training and meditation. It was the secret to strengthening monster ka that Gebelk had sworn to find for Seto.

The three men now stood before a pair of doors, guarded by soldiers that Seto recognized to be his own and Akhenaden's. The doors towered out of sight and let loose a creak of the hinges with a low groan on the woodwork when the solders opened them on command. The High Priests found themselves in a vast chamber with a gaping abyss at its center, plummeting into darkness. The smell of sick and blood assailed their nostrils. Seto looked around, awed by the magnitude of the space. Every wall was bedecked with all manner of torture devices. In the center, suspended over the void, were several tiers of what appeared to be bridges, planks and levels, descending down until, after a twenty-foot drop of absolutely nothing, there was one final platform riddled with spikes, making any fall instantly fatal. At the far end of the chamber stood a pedestal, prepared with two thrones for Seto and Akhenaden.

"Please," Gebelk gestured, "please, have a seat."

Seto eased himself onto his throne, side by side with Akhenaden, and his sense of wonder now only swelled as he directed his full attention to the suspended tiers and levels before him. What is this?! Thrill and terror filled him. Before his eyes men and monsters were battling on the suspended platforms filled with pitfalls and, Seto now noted, on the lowest level of spikes he saw bodies already impaled and limp with death. An arena! As Seto watched, and as the men cried out in anger, the monsters swelled before his eyes. A thrilled smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "I can't believe they had kas such as these…"

"No, Lord Seto," Gebelk interjected, too proud to even contain himself. "When I first saw these criminals, their ka were small and weak. I raised them. Those two have been fighting on and off for thirty-four hours, as the candlewax burns. They were given only one rule when they began." Gebelk's smirk contorted his face to the point that his eyes seemed lost in the folds of his own wrinkled expression. "Only one man may leave the arena alive." He was positively gleeful. "At first there were ten prisoners in the arena. But those two are the only ones left." Now once more Seto directed his attention to the bodies already skewered on the lowest tier of the suspended arena. "Lord Seto," Gebelk dragged his attention back. "What makes a monster ka strong… is the wielder's desire to live."

Seto's eyes widened. The will to live? Could it truly be so simple? Certainly enough, both men in the arena were bloodied, their wounds swollen, and their bodies severely taxed. And still they threw their spirits into the fight with equal ferocity. Gebelk was a disgusting little excuse for a man, to be certain, now yelping out, "KILL AND GROW STRONGER! Now strike down your opponent lest you be struck down yourself!" Seto smirked up at the monsters. But Gebelk did produce very satisfactory results.

"Lord Seto." One of his guards approached the pedestal where he and the still silent Akhenaden sat. "We've brought the woman." With this the guard gestured to a cage- a cage just like that of the slavers' caravan, in which the white haired girl stood at the back of the chamber. But she had no eyes for him. Her eyes were only for the horror and carnage being battled out over their heads. She gripped onto the bars with her hands, just as she had done all those years before.

Seto's mind went blank. Here? They brought her…here? He slowly turned to look at his guard in concealed horror. This was where Akhenaden had sent her? It was true that he had not before seen the facilities Gebelk used to test the natures of human ka. There had been too many matters, with the attack on Akhenaden and the disappearance of the Pharaoh. So when he agreed with his master that the guards should have brought the Lady of the White Dragon… but he had not meant here.

Where exactly did you mean? A nasty little voice in his head asked. Your chamber? And then, by the mercy of all the gods, she was standing before him. They had hauled her from her cage, and she was standing before him. Seto half rose from his seat. Here she was, amid the stench of guts and blood, by the half-light of the flickering torches lining the walls and the implements of pain flitting in and out of shadow, she now stood, a splash of light against the otherwise complete darkness.

Of all the ways that he had spent the last four days offhandedly imagining their first encounter, it had not been like this.

Seto's jaw clenched as one of the two guards that had escorted her shoved her forward, and she stumbled, still clearly uneasy on her feet. One hand raised to push the loose strands of white hair out of her face, she looked up. Their eyes met. For the first time in five years, five years that had taken them both through so much, their eyes met.

And Seto saw, even by the half-light of this chamber of the underground, the shock flit across her face as she too remembered him.

Five years ago he had looked into those eyes, the eyes of a child, through a slaver's cage. Now he was the slaver. Weak and sick to his stomach, Seto eased himself back into his seat. Their eyes remained locked. Through the politics, the disappearance of the Pharaoh, and even the desperate need of the kingdom, a clarity broke upon Seto that was his and his alone. It was a clarity he had not felt since the night he had felt compelled, he knew not why, to save her. And now here she stood, flanked by his guards, in his torture chamber. Oh gods, what have I done.

…

The girl was no stranger to the smell of death. After all, it had followed after her all her life. From the threshold of her parents' house, through the cargo slave ship that had fished her out of the water, down the caravan and, once she had been freed, though every town that left its beggars out in the hot sun to bloat and puss.

Death was an old friend of hers.

But not so good a friend that she could casually look into the face of one whom she though claimed by death long before, in a country far from this one. And yet, here was that face again. The skin was darker. The hair was different. The eyes were a shade of blue which they had not been before. This was the boy who had saved her from the caravan. She squinted at him. Strange… but in all the years that had separated that night from this, she had almost come to regard him as a spirit of her own wild imaginings.

Yet, side by side with an older man with a golden eye, here sat that boy, now grown into a man.

The moment broke as a foul little person came between them, arms open as though the envelop her. She flinched away. "Well," he leered at her as so many had done before. She reached up for the hood she had stitched into her dress to hide her hair, only to find that she had been garbed afresh, and that there was no hood. Her fingers scraped at thin air. The little man spoke on. "So this is the girl who harbors a god." Her fingers stilled. Her mouth went dry. Without taking note the man turned to the Priest whom she remembered as a boy. "My Lord, it will be easy for me to find."

The girl's lips tightened. Her fingers curled. A god? What were they talking about? She looked into that little man's dead eyes. Finding no answers there save the desire to ingratiate himself with his overloads, she turned her eyes back onto the man whom they called 'Lord,' and 'High Priest.' She swallowed. Surely not. Surely not you, whose face I recalled as a dream for these last five years. Who gave me hope such as I had not felt since long before even then…

His gaze was still rooted to her. She blinked at him. One way or the other he had saved her from the mob of villagers. For that much at least she owed the man her thanks. "My Lord," she spoke at last, her voice still weak. His jaw clenched and his gaze intensified. She continued. "I have no way to thank you for saving my life…" The girl placed a hand on her heart. "You have my eternal gratitude," she said quietly, inclining in a bow. After all, this was the second time this man had come to her aid. For better or worse.

He did not say anything. The silence dragged on between them. Finally, she glanced back up to see if he had even heard her. He was still staring at her, fixated. "Woman," he finally answered. A shivered went up and down her spine at that voice. It was not the voice of the boy whom she had met five years before. It was the voice of a man. It was a voice from an all too distant memory. He paused, swallowed, and then, as it seemed he was about to ask a question, was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from the suspended platforms over the great chasm.

The girl turned and watched in horror as the monsters suspended in the chains of the different tiers expanded in size before her eyes. Her lips pressed together and her eyes went wide. She was no foreigner to monsters. Beasts of the darkness were just the sort that had followed in her every shadow since her childhood. But that did not mean that she had ever wanted to see them again by the light of day. "My Lord," she whispered, electing for control of her voice over volume as she addressed the young man. "Why have I been brought here? What is this place?"

It was the young High Priest whom she asked. It was the nasty little man who answered. "This is an underground prison," he cooed at her, wet eyes and lips glistening. "Specifically, this is the arena where the monsters in men's hearts are given free reign."

…Free reign? You want to give it free reign? In mute horror she turned to look at the young man who had brought her to this place. You have no concept of what you are dealing with.

So full was the girl's mind that she hardly even heard the little man prattle on. "Why are you so surprised by the prisoners' ka?" he chuckled, misreading her silence. "Surely you know…" he pointed to her chest with all the expert knowledge that he did not possess. "…You have felt the demon you carry within your own heart… There is a ka inside your soul as well."

Mutely, the girl turned back from the man whom she had thought to have been a friend, to the finger now pointed at her heart. She stared at it, numb. A ka? Is that what you think? Just another one of your shadow monster, born of this desert land, which you think you can actually control? How wrong they were. What was inside of her was much different from anything they had ever seen. She began to shake her head, resolute. "What ka in my soul?" She said in a deadpan. She knew she could not detour them, but she had to deny them all the same. "There's nothing like that inside of me." It was not even entirely a lie. There was nothing like any of the monsters they had seen before inside of her.

The young High Priest interjected. "All living things have an energy that normal people can't see," he explained, as though he thought that the girl needed clarification. She did not. She knew perfectly well what they were referring to. It was they who had no idea of what they were trifling with. Still, it was sympathetic enough of him to attempt the explanation. "Some people can give this energy a physical form with the power of their soul, their ba. This is what we call ka… and you call monsters." He had no idea what it was that she called 'monsters.' The thing inside of her was a monster. She stared at him, mute to his explanation. "You too have this power!" The High Priest uttered earnestly, as though he was telling her anything worthy. Why was he even trying to make her understand what they were doing to her? It was clear no one else cared to. Why did he care? "They say your power surpasses even a spirit ka… and rivals that of the three Gods…" He concluded, eyes fixed on her to gauge her reaction to this news. There was none. Her face remained blank. Silence hung between them.

"My Lord," the little man turned to the High Priest, away from the girl. "Let us determine the extent of that power right now." Both the Priest and the girl looked at him questioningly."It's simple," the man smiled, several of his teeth missing. "We make her fight the prisoners in the arena!"

All of the feeling seemed to leave her body. Blankly, she turned her head back from the men deciding her future, to the men who would shortly kill her. Currently, both monsters had found soft flesh and were tearing at each other's stomach, blood spurting over all of the chains and platforms. In the arena? Vaguely, the girl thought that it must have been a good thing she had not eaten earlier. She would invariably have heaved it all back up now.

The monsters roared in pain and savage frenzy behind the little man as he continued to speak, gesturing about himself as though he was simply offering a new set of drapes for a room, or perhaps a different daybed. "When this girl's heart is filled with fear," he explained, "she will involuntarily summon her ka! It will come to her side to defend her!"

The girl wanted to cry out. She wanted to cut in against this moronic little creature who had no concept of what he was talking about. She wanted to say to all present that what they were proposing would not work. That it had never worked. But she knew that they would not believe her. Her eyes flitted to the young High Priest whom she had only just thanked minutes before. They will think that I say it only to save my own skin. If only they knew how useless a thing her own skin really was to her. But they did not. And they would not believe her. So the girl remained mute as the men around her debated her fate.

And yet, the young High Priest did not immediately acquiesce to the hunched man's request. "Are you sure?" he first said, his eyes flitting from the man to the girl and back again. Then, as though to explain his actions, he continued. "She doesn't even know what it is! How could she control it?"

The girl blinked at him. Was he… stalling for her? She tried to take another step back, away from the arena. One of the guard's gripped hard into her shoulder, and pain laced through her as his fingers dug into a place that a rock had smashed days before.

"If she is truly possessed by a god it will be simple for her to defeat the ka of a mere criminal," the little man rationalized in response to the High Priest's objections.

"You cannot be serious about this. She might die!" The Priest blurted out. The girl looked at him, not entirely comprehending. It had been a very long time since she had heard the emotion that she once known to be… concern.

However, just as the little man seemed about to give way beneath the edict of his master, the older man who sat in the second throne shifted. "Enough. Stop being so naive!" He cut in, turning to fix the eye which was not made of gold upon the younger priest. The girl flinched. How was it possible for the flesh eye to be more frightening than the golden one? His words were more frightening still. "Let us test the power of gods." His words brooked no argument. "In this case the innocent must be punished in order to benefit the greater good of our people! Trust me. This girl may be the key to the survival of Egypt!"

Were she not so near to collapsing the girl might very well have laughed. A sick little grin flitted across her lips, if only for a second. Once before had the power within her been considered the key to the survival of an empire. That empire was now swept from the face of the earth, and she its sole survivor.

Meanwhile, the old man's callousness seemed to take even his fellow priest aback, as the young man blinked at him, seemingly too dumbstruck to respond. The grizzled one-eyed man continued. "Without the Pharaoh, the Palace is wide open," he said. "We have no gods to protect us! We must make a new god as soon as possible! If not… anarchy… death… destruction."

All of which I carry in my wake, whether you control the dragon inside of me more no, the girl thought, staring at the ground.

The young Priest was genuinely trying to keep her from the battle. She blinked up at him. He now even attempted to stand against the passion of his elder, though the look in the older man's eye left him stripped of words. "But–"

The older High Priest waited no longer. He rose fully from his throne in a swell of white robes, and pointed at the girl. "Put that woman in the arena!"

"Yes sir!" the two guards chorused. The girl barely felt them now as they gripped into her, her head lulled back, and eyes fixed on the monsters before her. Her feet dragged as the forced her forward.

"Do as they say," the quieted order came from her right. She blinked up at the scene before her, before tearing her eyes away to look at the man who had spoken. She was now standing side by side with the throne of the young High Priest. He sat, arms crossed, his own gaze resolutely fixed on the arena ahead and not on her. She blinked at him. He swallowed. "Get ready," he whispered.

Her lips tightened. "Seto," she at last uttered the name that no one in this palace had told her, and that she had once screamed out from the back of a horse. "Please. Help me–" In the next instant she was shoved onto the drawbridge that descended to link to the suspended platform of spikes.

…

"Now go!" One of the guards shoved her down the drawbridge and Seto watched as how, on unsteady legs, she teetered and stumbled across to the platform and to the impaled bodies that stood out starkly against the iron spikes. Every creak of the woodwork resounded against his ear like a thunderclap as he stared blankly ahead of him. She remembered him. She more than remembered him. She had whispered his name like a last plea for salvation. And he had disgraced that by bringing her here. By allowing her onto the drawbridge. He had disgraced her memory of his name. …Just as Akhenaden had accused him of disgracing the name of the Pharaoh.

She made it across and righted herself. And, when she did, the girl looked up to find herself faced with the two now bloated beasts towering over her. From here Seto could see how those pale knees began to shake. She did not move. The girl was constricted by fear.

The great chamber went silent as the clash between the two convicts stilled and they slowly turned to look upon the new arrival. "What the…" one panted.

"It's a girl!" the other rasped, squinting down from the upper tiers, running the back of his hand across his bleeding lip.

"Is she a prisoner too?" The chains that upheld the different levels groaned as the monsters latched onto them and, using them as supports, slowly twisted to face the small wisp of a girl.

"Who cares?" The fatter of the two guffawed, a welt across his stomach leaking. "If she's in here that means we can do what we want with her." He rocked back and forth on the shackles that upheld him, making a lewd gesture in the air. "Let's take a little break," he wheezed with a smile to the man who had only moment before been his enemy- now his ally. Then, with a sharp gesture, he threw an arm out to point at the girl and one of the monsters – a spiderlike creature – shot out a web of rope that bound the girl's hands down. She gasped and, her balance undone, stumbled backward, to the brink, where she teetered.

Seto's fingers gripped on the arms of his throne, his knuckles going white. He could not stand for this. He could not. He had promised to protect her. He had sworn an oath, on bended knee. Seto blinked. Sworn? An oath? …Where had he gotten such an idea?

Meanwhile, men and monsters rounded on the girl. All eyes were upon her, riveted.

"Don't hold back your rage, my dear! Show us the beast that dwells within!" Gebelk jeered across the expanse. "It will be just as I said," he cackled at Seto's side, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of having his experiments confirmed before two High Priests of the inner court. "When fear of death floods her body, her ka will be called forth, and her desire to live will make her ka strong!"

The desire to live was, of course, imperative for his formula to succeed. The monsters plunged for the attack.

The world seemed to mute, as though a great hand had clamped over Seto's ears. He did not even realize he had risen from his seat. He did not hear himself scream out, "Call the ka now!" his eyes fixed on the girl. Why does she hesitate? …Perhaps she is not who I thought? Then, for one instant so brief that if he had blinked he would have missed it, she turned her head a fraction to look back at him, before returning to the monsters.

The girl then closed her eyes, and lowered her head. She was finished. She knew it, if the men on the platform behind her did not.

No, Seto thought, looking about himself frantically. I cannot allow this madness to continue.

"What's wrong with her?" Gebelk panicked, seeing now that his overlords' most precious prisoner might very well die on his watch. "She isn't resisting?"

Akhenaden stared, riveted. I was told that this child possesses the most powerful creature ever imagined. So then why does she not call it forth to protect herself? Perhaps the answer might come to him through the mind-reading powers of his Millennium Eye. The man raised two fingers to his temple and fixed his gaze upon the girl. Through the power of the Eye he saw such a brightness radiating off of her that it seared into him. Her silhouette gleamed against the grime and gloom of the underground and burned into his skull. It was as beautiful as it was terrible, and as tantalizing in the instant as it was impossible to bear. "Argh! That light!" he hissed. "It's blinding!" He clamped a hand over the Millennium Eye, as though mere flesh could protect him from the burn imprinted upon him by this strange woman's very spirit.

And still she did not defend herself.

Seto then understood. He understood as though it had been whispered into his ear. Her poise. Her posture. It all indicated one thing. She's prepared to die. The harrowing truth echoed in his mind. The will to live was the one thing required. The will to live was the one thing she did not have.

In a world of silence, it was the only truth that resounded.

She would not defend herself. She had finished fighting. After however many years of torment and struggle she was prepared for it all to end here, before his eyes. …Well, he would be damned if he was prepared for it to end. Not now. Not when he had just found her again. Once more Seto did not hear himself call forth, now his own spirit ka, Duos. The armor clad warrior was simply there suddenly, by his side. Just as, with a leap and a resounding creak from the woodwork of the drawbridge, he too was suddenly by her side.

As though he, Seto, was her ka whom she had summoned to her side.

Duos battered off the two assailants, sending them back into a standstill. Seto unsheathed the knife which rested within his Millennium Rod, and cut through the web that entangled her. He then moved to stand in front of the girl, his arm out to shield her. He wanted to yell at her. Why won't you call the White Dragon? He wanted to demand an explanation for why it was she was so ready to forfeit her life! His eyes locked with hers once again and his words, whatever they had been, caught in his throat. Suddenly, there was only one question that mattered. The same as that he had tried to ask earlier, at the thrones, when he had been interrupted. The only question that had ever really mattered, and to which, after five years, he needed to have an answer.

"Lady," he asked. "…What is your name?"

As the girl blinked through the fear and the shock, the smallest of smiles flitted across her thin lips, and a calm seemed to settle on her shoulders. As her lips formed the sounds, Seto's ears finally unstuck, and he heard again. "Kisara. …My name is Kisara."