Nights in Egypt
Chapter Twenty: Darkness in the Heart
The Prince opened the doors to his mother's chambers and was again met with the same darkness that had draped over the room nearly a week before. He stood there a few minutes alone before venturing further, not bothering with the other rooms, or the sitting room where the dancer was most likely curled up on the couch—still dressed and fuming over the Pharaoh—and entered his mother's bedroom where the lights from the candles shined under the door.
The queen was sitting in the centre of her bed, still pale and shadowed under the eyes, with her hair drawn away from her face in braids. As he was about to address her, she turned over her shoulder and put a finger to her lips a silly grin on her waxy lips.
"Shhh, shhh, my son, come forth."
Cautiously, he did finding that, half-hidden by the curtains around the bed and lying with her head across his mother's lap was Katara.
He made a noise of outrage, but his mother only smiled, stroking the girl's locks gently. "Shhh, Zuko, Zuko, do not get angry. You do not know everything there is to know of this girl."
He stiffened, eyes falling upon the girl's sleeping face, and the vulnerably that was so clearly laid upon it. It was something he had never seen on her before. She always woke before he did, tending to the fire, staring out the window; Zuko sometimes wondered if she did sleep. When promoting to demand that she slept, she would often glare at him and say she did not need rest, she had plenty, thank you. Always acidic, of course.
He looked to his mother whose eyes were glazed but kind as always. There was something different about her, something not right.
"Zuko, my son," her voice called him to the present. "What do you plan to do to this girl?"
"Nothing mother, she is simply a dancer the Pharaoh brought to entertain."
"Really? Then why are you with her?"
"We were caught in the—"
"Zuko," His name on her lips is enough to halt his lie and he is reminded that his mother is not just a woman scorned by her husband, she is also a queen. She was a queen of two once separate kingdoms and the martyred princess sent to keep them together. She was the woman who loved her people even whilst they threw stones at her. She was the woman who devoted herself to a man who never loved her. She was the woman who gave him life and stayed with him when his first breath was halted, and everyone in the kingdom—physicians, priests, his father—thought he'd be dead by morning.
"My son, be wary where you step, these are dangerous times and dangerous kingdoms. This girl here," his eyes flickered back to the woman's face still asleep despite the talk happening above her. "Is not meant for the games you set her in. Free her; let her go."
Instantly, he recalled all the conversations he'd had with the woman when he first brought her to his Uncle's estate home.
"She has nowhere to go from here, we have a deal, once it's fulfilled, she is free to go and I'll be sure of her safe arrival myself."
When he woke the next morning, the woman was already up and about in his mother's library with a large book laid out in front of her. "Most of these were stolen from the South Pole, you know."
"Why were you in my mother's room last night?"
She looked up at him, blue eyes tired and shadowed heavily under her lids.
"I fell asleep. We stayed up talking."
"Really? What did you speak of? Did you tell her my plan?" As if sensing his discomfort, her eyes began to look more awake and alert. Her shoulders hunched and she drew into herself as almost in submission, but her expression was simply blasé.
"I said nothing—"
"Liar!"
"I am not!" She stood, slamming her hands into the table. "I do not lie! I told her nothing of your plan! Calm down!"
He glared. "And how was the meeting with my father?"
The question instantly seemed to affect her, as if she had been struck; she froze and her lips parted and shut for a few moments as if contemplating on what to say before her own eyes narrowed. Muttering a hasty oath under her breath, she darted out of the room.
"Disturbing."
The next few days they were graced with some distance from each other. The message had been spread throughout the kingdom by hailers and messenger-boys and guards.
"We caught the Man in Green."
Zuko noted the look of disappointment in the woman's eyes as she returned to her own quarters and shut herself up in the room. He supposed he could understand; in the end she would become a killer.
But in the end, she would also be a savior.
He entered her room through the secret passage and found her leaning over a bowl of water and her hand poised above it, making the water rise and fall from the bowl in lethargic movements that he'd seen her do so many times before.
"That's not going to kill anyone." He said to announce his presences and her wrist curled, bringing the water to a high arch and freezing it into a deadly wicked shape. "That might."
"What do you want?" She asked and stood from her place on the ground to cross her arms over her chest and locked her eyes with his. Composed and tall as any aristocrat, she looked like some displeased deity.
He shoved that image away and surveyed the room.
"Aren't you tired of being locked up in here?"
"No, I have your father's letters to keep me company." She gestured to the hearth and he noticed the jewels lying on the table near the fire as well. The chains of gold and ruby she had threaded through her hair to meet Ozai a week ago were nowhere to be seen. "Was that all or . . .?"
Zuko straightened His stance.
"My family is coming from the south by the Nile this afternoon and tonight there will be a dinner, my father will be there and—"
"No he won't."
"What?"
She waved a letter, flourished from her bodice, like it held the answers to the world. "He won't be there. He told me he was going to 'play hookie' and purposely not go."
Jaw slacked, Zuko almost didn't believe her. "Give me that."
Skimming the letter a few times he found that, indeed, his father was going to skip the meeting of his in-laws, and the dinner, all together. Groaning he set the letter to flames and watched the ashes seep through his fingers. "Is that bad?"
"Yes, it's bad. That means Azula and I have to run it . . ."
"Didn't Azula leave for her private beach house today?"
"Agni damnit!"
The ship pulled into dock and his mother's family descended the ramp in their finery and smiled at the crowd of people who hated them. His mother's sister was leading the pack and wrapped her arms around him. They looked nothing alike, in Zuko's mind, but when he was young Aunt Pyra would often stress the similarity between her and Ursa's hair color and noses.
Aunt Pyra's hair was gray and wiry, and her nose was long.
His mother's hair may now be dyed, but her nose was a graceful slope.
"Welcome aunt," he forced a smile for her and kept the pleasantries up as Aunt Pyra continued with a lengthy reintroduction to his cousins, Zalia and Jorgera, who batted their eyelashes and smiled as they were told.
"Oh, Prince Zuko, you've grown into a most appeasing male specimen."
"What a stern expression, you resemble much of the warriors from our past."
It was all artifice though, their cheap talk and plastered on smiles. Zalia and Jorgera never thought anything of Zuko—since he got his scar, not many women did—he was a sign of shame, of rebellion, someone to be ignored. His scar marked him as that, it was a symbol of something much unspoken, but everyone knew: he risked being assassinated for this mark.
What his lady cousin's hoped to gain from matrimony from him? He had no clue, but perhaps it would involve pinning for more freedom in the southern ring of Egypt. More money, more slaves, more more more.
An influential wife and a high ranking husband were a dangerous combination.
He couldn't really blame them.
Over the past seventeen years Southern Egypt had not really become the most ideal place to live; if they could change even a fraction of the conditions there, they would achieve a sort of status similar to sainthood in their midst. Sort of like his mother.
"Zuko!" At the sound of the familiar voice the Prince turned to find himself staring up at his older cousin, Lu Ten—well not too much, he had grown over the last months since he'd seen him last.
"Lu Ten!" Clasping each other's forearms, and grinning broadly the two princes greeted the other in a courtly fashion, but the smiles and shoulder clapping was enough for the wondering eye to note that the two were closer than standard family appearances. "How have you been? Where is Uncle?"
Lu Ten smiled and stroked his newly grown beard. "Couldn't even comment on this? Heh, little cousin?"
Smirking Zuko managed a petty comment on how he must have all the foreign women swooning and restated his earlier question. He had been getting letters from his Uncle, yes, but the furthering delay of his arrival set him on edge.
Where the battles at the boarder of Africa truly becoming that bad?
Uncle told him not to worry, not to worry, and likewise never mentioned anything other than the war and where he was and how he was feeling.
"I think he's taken to camp somewhere in the Nigeria provinces, he's running drills."
To a perfect T the stories matched up.
Call him paranoid, but he and his Uncle had made up a secret letter exchange when he first got his scar. There would always be a torn edge at the top of the paper too deliberate to be accidental and too unseen by the naked eye to be noticed.
The flourish of his name. The seal of his stamp.
Everything was matched and matched.
"Too bad," Zuko mused. "He will miss the feasting."
"Oh, he's feasting enough. That I know." Lu Ten smiled and clapped him on the shoulder again before assisting to the royal family off to their arranged litter back to the palace. "Good to see, little cousin!"
Katara stood among the crowd with a silk shawl of a highbred aristocrat wrapped around her shoulders as she stared into the distance of the capitol and kept a wary eye out for familiar faces. He knelt close to her ear. "Will you stop stealing from my mother's closet?"
"Ursa offered it, she said it would keep me warm and she was right. It's cold outside." As if to prove a point, she wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders and looked back to the southern royal family as they got into the rhino-horse carriage. "What are they doing here?"
"They're here to celebrate the merging of the two kingdoms." Zuko explained. "Today is my parent's anniversary, they come every year to celebrate, but no one really celebrates anymore. The southern ring is no longer a kingdom since Ozai took all their resources for himself and my mother no longer holds any favor. It's become a diplomatic occasion since it's easier to talk things over with them while they're in the lion's den, so to speak."
"Then why were all these people here?"
"They were hoping to see Ozai, or perhaps Ursa."
"What a disappointment, they ended up with you instead."
He's about to retort when a smaller voice called them back.
"Excuse me, my lady," Both looked down to see a small boy standing before them in a customary servant uniform of a page-boy. He smiled and presented a blooming fire lily to the Katara. "My master saw you from the helm of the welcoming party and wishes to know if you will accompany him to dinner tonight."
Zuko noted the seal and the carriage that had not yet gone.
Lu Ten. It had to be Lu Ten.
"Dinner tonight?" the Prince scoffed at the boy. "Tonight's dinner is for diplomats—!"
But the two were in their own little world, and Katara knelt down to the boy, though he was now taller than her, she gathered her skirts at her knees and smiled up at him before accepting the flower graciously and sniffing its scent. She smiled luminously and the boy flushed childishly under her gaze.
"Thank you, kind sir," she smiled again. "But I am afraid I already gave the my word to the King I would not go with any other man to the dinner tonight."
That's new.
"What?!"
Again, he fell upon deaf ears and the boy's smile was unbroken, eyes alighted with joy that could not be wavered after being addressed so formally by a lady of the court. "Then he shall attempt to capture for, but a few a sacred moments, your unrivaled attention."
He bowed and she feigned a curtsey, only standing once he had walked away and she twirled the stem of the lily around her fingers.
"I forgot to tell you, the Pharaoh has invited me to the private dinner." Her nose crinkled as if at the memory. "It must have slipped my mind."
"Why didn't you tell me this?"
"It slipped my mind, you made this seem so important, and it was hardly a three-ring circus!"
"Dinner is much more important."
Much, much more important. They would discuss the very fabric of the kingdom tonight, negotiate terms and have long lengthy discussions on the gold importing and game hunting and the war with the Lands of Water and Ice.
"Why do I feel that it won't be?"
"Why are you even invited?"
"Your father said he wanted me to have a taste of the good life, high dining and high society and other flimsy whatnots."
"I've given you that already." Zuko yanked open the door of the carriage and Katara rose to step inside.
"Hardly." The woman laughed as she slid into her seat, only stopping when she caught the look that must have been on his face. Her smile dropped and evolved into something he had not seen before. "What is it, you highness?" she asked in a mocking dry tone. "Has your skin turned green with your jealousy?"
"J-jealousy! Absolutely not!" He nearly fell off the step.
She smiled, lips curling over her teeth. "And I think you're a lair."
"Absolutely not," he composed himself and stood on the little up step that was meant to help him into the carriage, like he couldn't go inside until he cleared the air. "You belong to my father, the Pharaoh, the King and even so why would I be jealous? It's not like you'll actually fall head over heels for my father?" He smirked though he had his doubts.
They were instantaneously quelled when the woman's cheeks inflated and a ruddy flush of anger colored her cheeks. "I most certainly will not!" she cried and he felt a smile beginning to crack at the corners of his lips.
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah!"
"Etiquette, Queen Katara, etiquette." He chastised teasingly and fell back onto the cushioned seat adjacent from hers.
Third time he said her name, he's teasing.
The dancer gave him a funny look; blushing dying down and shoulders less tense. She crossed her arms over her chest and directed her attention to the window to her left, fast enough to give herself whiplash.
"I was merely joking." She huffed, then smiled at him. "So, when we return to the palace, I shall get ready for this evening, yes?"
"No." he deadpanned.
"You, my Prince, are hell sent."
Was he really surprised to see the dancer dressed to the nines in a fluttering red dress and decorated in jewels like the nighttime sky? No.
But the fact that she was standing before his bed chamber, out of breath and flushed defiantly surprised him.
"What are you—how did you—?" He's trying to knot his hair up when the woman cut him off by grabbing his wrist and began to pull him towards his door. "How did you get past the guards?"
"What guards?"
Of all the—
"What do you want?" he snapped.
"It's your mother; I think she's taken ill again." The dancer confessed, eyes swimming with worry and Zuko stared at her skeptically.
"You think or you know?" he asked and hoped it was just her imagination.
"That's just it. I don't know. She's been acting bizarre all day, and I've been with her. She's been smiling and singing and walking around her rooms, but it's like she's looking but not really seeing."
"She's sleepwalking. My mother sleepwalks."
Frustrated, her voice took up a more commanding tone. "Look, I'm not sure, but I think you should know—!"
He turned his back on her and headed back to his mirror to pull his hair back up into a topknot. "And thank you for telling me, but if it's not that serious, I think you'll be perfectly able to handle it."
"Your—"
"Katara, please!" Slamming his fist into the table, he nearly sent his hair piece crushing to the ground where it would crack and crumble into a million tiny ruby etched pieces.
The woman looked shocked.
"I need everything to go smoothly tonight. No mishaps or the usual like."
"But—!"
"Go! If my mother needs me, I give be there in two hours, three tops. If she is in such dire need of watch; you should be attending to her!"
When she left the room, she slammed the door so hard it made the glass vase nearest to it vibrate with the motion and topple over.
The sound of broke glass reminded him of the look in her eyes.
Zuko is the first in the dining hall, save the slaves who are working on last minute arrangements and when the first of the guests begin to arrive and are announced he is the one to first and foremost greet them and make small talk until the next one comes along.
Really, he'd rather take about fire blast to the face.
People were beginning to take their seats when he noticed a flash of red from the corner of his eye from the slave quarter doors.
It's Katara.
Zuko glared at her while she walked into the room and was greeted by two young generals, both flushed and smiling as they commented on her dress and how beautiful she looked; Zuko lunged forward and his fingers brushed the skin of her elbow. "Excuse us, generals; Mistress Katara agreed to be escorted by me this evening."
As he tugged her away he whispered in her ear, "I told you not to come."
She glared back at him, eyebrows drawling together. "And I told you; that something important has reached my notice."
He was about to snap back, but his Aunt Pyra caught sight of them and darted into their path as he's about to shove her out the door.
"Prince Zuko, who might this young lady be?" she asked, looking genuinely curious as her gold eyes hungrily roved over the woman's face—the natural beauty of it—and strained to place her as any aristocrat she studied from a book she kept of them.
"Oh, uh,"
His gaze swept the room to find everyone now staring at them, waiting to be introduced.
"Ladies and gentlemen," His back straightened instantly and he held the woman's hand in his as if she were a highbred lady and he did not want to shove her out a window. "This is Mistress Katara," he paused almost not knowing what to say next. The woman was obviously foreign, obviously not from around Egypt, lower ring or none, but his mind quick twisted up a lie. "From the Fire Colonies in the north."
He felt her hand tighten around his own almost cripplingly tight.
Either over the fact he still claimed her to be from the north, or the fact that he'd brought up the Fire Nation's annexation of some of the warmer regions of the Lands of Water and Ice.
"Oh! Which colony?"
Katara answered before him. "The Colony of Ignis-Aqua, where the remaining Ice and Water aristocrats reside."
They are all taking their seats and Katara is answering questions left and right, Zuko at the head of the table, where the Pharaoh sat, and Katara a few five seats down—adjacent from his usual chair and one away from Azula's. Lu Ten is a chair away from her.
"Now that I have a better look at you," a woman began. "Your skin is a tad dark."
"My great-grandmother's mother," Katara answered naturally. "The love story between a noble of the Watertribe's court and a Fire Nation general is quite the Oma and Shu romance of my family."
He's impressed and his aunt buys it easily.
"Ah, yes, I think I may have heard word of that." Aunt Pyra frowned. "It must be hard on your family, everyone thinking you are some lowly northerner while you are a fourth generation mix of fire blood, you can still not shake the most unattractive features. It must be hard to find a suitable husband."
Zalia giggled.
"Actually no," Still in a sickly sweet voice, she's forcing a smile with all of her teeth. "The only problems that occur are the terrible, terrible brutality of the colonies."
Now where has she heard that?
That's probably why she chose it.
Everyone nodded, for most have heard of it, though it is Lu Ten who speaks next.
"I have been there most recently, Mistress Katara, and I must agree." Zuko raised his eyebrows as if to say: do you now? and the dancer is wearing a similar look. "Yes, it is absolutely revolting to see the filth's blood lying about in that . . . uh . . ."
"Snow?" she offered.
"Ah, yes, snow." Lu Ten smiled. "It's as if you read my mind."
"You are most welcome." Her voice hit a pitch almost too sweet and the Prince swears he saw her eyes flash.
Three courses in, Zuko has won the debate of foreign trades and is slowly working himself through the generals and explaining his ideas for the movement to minimize rebellion the annexation of the Lands of Earth with minimal bloodshed. And he's proud and happy and even though he feels at the top of his game and no one could stop him; his eyes flicker occasionally towards the other end of the table. Watching his cousin carefully as he stared at Katara with the same intensity of lust his father looked at her with, but Katara—mighty as ever—remained calm and calculating. Taking a dainty drink of wine from her chalice, the gleaming gold of her jewelry caught the light of the candelabras around her making her shine like gold.
He couldn't tear his gaze away if he tried.
She easily adapted into the conversation, answering questions left and right on the Ignis-Aqua Colony and the slave labor being forced upon the Watertribe minority. He sees her jaw flex distastefully once or twice during the conversation, but otherwise she manages not to slit any throats.
"Mistress Katara," Lu Ten began slowly, mouth not quite moving with his words. "How long have you been in Egypt?"
Katara looked at him, measuring his importance by where he sat and answered with a curt, "Awhile, I suppose." Her answers are much more blasé towards him, he noticed, and numerous. Lu Ten could not take his eyes off of her, or the fire lily she had weaved into her hair.
"Really? I don't know how I could have missed you. . ." The 'complement' hung in the air and was scarcely heard from Zuko's side of the table, but he watched the two. Ears straining to hear just as Lu Ten strained over Azula's empty seat to be closer to her. Katara seemed to almost shy away from his advances rather that counteract them like she usually did. She took such joy in unmanning the lower crust the male species; Lu Ten was a perfect specimen for her.
She looked nervous, actually, failing to meet his eyes on multiple occasions.
Zuko's eyes flickered to the right of him—his mother's family; her unfortunately ugly sister, Aunt Pyra, with her unfortunately in debt husband and their unfortunately ruined daughters that prettily batted their muddled topaz eyes at him from behind their wooden fans.
He knew he had to be nice to them—for his mother's sake—but if Zalia and Jorgera kept looking at him with those suggestive looks he was sure he was going to hurl under the table, or make a mad dash for the door and hide until they left.
If he was to marry either of them, he'd surly kill himself.
Suddenly, Katara jumped. Her lips pulled back over her teeth and her eyes flashed in a look of . . . repulsion? Zuko watched her scoot away from the table and stand, making the room go quiet; he studied her gaze as it swept the table of important generals and war heroes and politicians only to find a regal command in her eyes.
"Please excuse me, but I am feeling a tad under the weather this evening, I think I shall retire." She pressed a hand to her forehead and her eyes lulled in a sort of fatigue. The men at the table all smiled and nodded, bidding her goodnight.
Zalia and Jorgera snorted impolitely and were quickly reprimanded by their mother.
"Would you be needing someone to escort you to your rooms, Mistress Katara?" Lu Ten asked politely.
"No, thank you," the words seemed to sweetly drip venom. "I am sure the Prince could take me."
That was followed by a long moment a silence. Silence in which many, many, many new gossip stories were either born, thought upon, or confirmed.
Was the new Mistress Katara with the foreign features pinning after the Pharaoh? And the Prince?
All eyes turned to him and the Prince found his face flushing angry crimson.
The woman gave a formal sweeping curtsey to the table and backed out.
Zuko followed her, thunderously. "What are you doing? You and me being seen together is not good!"
She ran a short way down the corridor before turning to face him; in her hand was a crushed fire lily she ripped from her hair, it withered in her fist.
"It was the only way!" She snapped and continued her way down the corridor.
Apart of him realized she was right. She couldn't very well leave on her own, that would be too scandalous, and if she left with another escort it people would think he was keeping the supposed 'royal colonist' in a broom closet! Still, he couldn't exactly find his wits after the looks that had been cast at him through the dining hall.
"Do you want to die!?" He roared at her retreating back and she froze in mid-step, shoulder's trembling and fists curling in.
"I—I'm sorry."
Zuko suddenly halted.
Was she. . .crying?
"What's the matter?" His voice hit a softer tone, one he did not know he possessed.
He heard sniffling and she turned, her eyes were glassy yet no tears fell. As if she were holding them back with all she had, no tears were going to dare to roll down her face. "Of course, I'm fine. Just tired." She took a moment to compose herself. "But Urs—the queen, she is not alright."
"What?"
"She—" the woman let out a shaky breath and clutched at her neck like the very words were suffocating her. "I'm sorry, I just, I can't—I can't believe I didn't realize this before it's so . . ."
"What!?" he howled, growing increasingly more and more irritated with her stuttering, especially on account of his mother.
"The insence in her room are not incences, they are mercury."
"Mercury . . . ?" His eyebrows drew together, having heard the word many times before in old stories of his ancestors.
The woman nodded to explain.
"It's a compound of sorts, and when it's burned the scent of it is said to make people lose their minds to insanity and . . . if applied for a long enough time . . . they'll . . . die."
He was running to his mother's room before she could say another word.
Hey guys~! It's Monday! And thank you for your support, especially Ksmitterley thanks for the words of wisdom and encouragment.
Okay, there's a killer writing contest coming up that I won last year for Most Creative, so the next two chapters should be out by the end of the week because do or die is coming up soon.
Sorry if this sucks, I'll fix it later if I come to my senses in the morning. But this is TWELVE PAGES and 5,000+ words. And I had to break this chapter into three!
Notes on Story:
*In Egyptian times, mercury was given as an incent to somone one you don't like. It would be a slow process of death that would take the course of months and regular exposure to, but the before effects were insanity due to the killing off of brain cells or something of a very painful nature. (It's very weird that they teach us how to commit murder in our school, there's a class where you have to write a paper on commiting a murder and then an analysis on the evidence that would be found.
*I'm just noticing all the themes here: family, hurt/comfort, adventure, murder, and the life lessons which I had in my head and now escape me.
*GirlWithAWritersSoul you're assumtion was correct and yes, Lu Ten is the man from Katara's past.
*Let's keep in mind that we never knew Lu Ten or his character, and that even though he was raised by Iroh, everyone wears masks to appease the ones around them. He's the Humbert Humbert of this story and I've got the next chap all locked and ready to go for Thursday at the earlist.
All haters to the left~
NEXT TIME ON: Nights of Egypt: The world is full of monsters and demons that haunt your life, and for Katara, it's time for her to face her own.
Review me, tell me if you have a question! Reviews make me update faster! I must have at least ten!
~QueenVamp