"Bitter Happiness"
The celebration stopped abruptly. She could not see why, standing in the back of the room with some moonshine, thinking of a rakish smile and the blue eyes she had lost it to. But she did notice when the men stopped singing, when the woman stopped giggling, when everyone scrambled for weapons that were never far from their hands.
"Who are you?"
"Tel'shak'el."
She pushed to the front of the crowd, too tipsy to care about the mutters and not drunk enough to ignore this interruption. She saw a Jaffa with a black falcon-head tattoo on his forehead.
"Why are you here?"
She looked to see that it was Kafelere, "would die for Ra". She mused that a less suitable name could never be matched to an individual, yet Kafelere had never changed it. He claimed he liked the irony. But Kafelere was like that.
"I wish to inform you of the whereabouts of your leader."
The Jaffa was unarmoured and unarmed. What this meant she did not know, though it was probably a tactic meant to establish good faith. Now she spoke.
"What news of Sef do you bring?"
"He is dead."
There was silence and in it the Jaffa became aware that the danger to his life had just increased significantly. He continued, "Ra killed him. I was among those who burned his body and that of the hem."
"Is Ra dead?"
The Jaffa shook his head negative in response to Kafelere's question. Kafelere looked to her. As the new leader by default, it would be up to her to decide what to do with the Jaffa. She was silent, thinking.
"Nefertiti?"
"Jail him. I will talk with him later. Kafelere, I must speak with you now."
Two other rebels led the unresisting Jaffa away. Kafelere followed her to a separate room. He closed the door—she remembered how the Tok'ra had objected to the doors and even more to the cells—and she saw the rebellion milling aimlessly around the cavern. Then she turned away when all she saw was wood.
"Nefertiti?"
"Will they be loyal to me?"
Kafelere was quiet. She waited. It was her specialty, after all. Waiting for the chance to kill Ra, waiting for Sef to love her, waiting, waiting, waiting for the end of time and the dawn of freedom. Always waiting.
Finally he answered.
"They know that, despite the falling-out you and Sef had, he trusted you with the rebellion. Yes, they will be loyal to you."
"But."
Kafelere hesitated.
"But with Ra overthrown, there is no need for a Rebellion, and thus no need for rebels. They will go back to farming, or bartering, or whatever they did before they were rebels. They will continued their lives, find husbands or wives, have families, and forget the Rebellion ever existed."
And that was a rather large 'but'.
"Thank you for the truth. Dismissed."
Kafelere bowed and left.
She sat down on one of the stools, letting her head fall into her hands. Ra was overthrown. Sef was dead. She had not had the revenge he promised her. She did not have the love he promised her. She had nothing but an unnecessary rebellion.
She wished she had tears to cry, but they had dried the day she realized Sef did not love her. She wished she had some way to relieve the dark sorrow growing in her. She wished she had some way to ease the emptiness inside of her heart.
Sef knew she loved him, and that made it more painful for her. When they were children, so long ago, Sef had promised he would marry her and protect her from hurt. She had to admit he had. He had. Until he first talked with Meryre. Until he pledged himself to Meryre. Then he had hurt her.
She had not thought things could get worse after that. She was wrong.
But she smiled sharply as the grief hardened into indifference.
Meryre had been Sef's downfall.
She had the bitter happiness of knowing she had been right.