Prologue
Egypt: 1105–1069 BC
Karim was no one before he became a priest. His parents were not unknown within the city—in fact, his father was such a sought-after jeweler that he sold most of his pieces directly to the royal court. But Karim was the youngest of twelve children, and although he grew up lending his hands to his family's jewel craft as much as any of his older siblings, any artistry he possessed disappeared in the crowd of family members more skilled. As the eldest, his brother Hamadi inherited their father's most prestigious customers and connections, which was only right. Hamadi's work was fit for the pharaoh himself.
Karim, on the other hand, was mostly set to carve heart scarabs by the dozens because the dead did not care so much if their scarabs had uneven wings, only if the amulet did its job of keeping heart attached to body for the afterlife. A crooked-winged scarab could still serve. And Karim was content to serve, to sit quietly in a corner, carving, letting his mind dream grand things, because there was safety in knowing they would never happen. Only fourteen years old, he had years before he had to pursue any future, and once he did, it would be a simple one.
That simple future was uprooted the day Hamadi said, "Karim has heka."
It set the family in uproar. Father was overjoyed; Mother was skeptical. Jealousies and demands for proof rose from some of Karim's siblings while Masi and Neema both declared they'd known it all along.
"I don't!" Karim protested. "I couldn't!"
Hamadi took the bucket where Karim had been soaking animal bones, preparing them to carve. He compared them to Neema's bones. Karim's were softer, more pliable. They bent easily to carving beneath Hamadi's skilled hand.
Oba scoffed. "It doesn't mean anything."
But the seed had been planted, and it couldn't rest. Father tested Karim relentlessly. When Karim saw the test plainly, he failed, because he willed himself to fail. But when Father prepared things subtly, he passed each time. In his father's eyes, it was enough.
"I will present you at the palace," he said. "You will be a priest to Pharaoh himself."
Karim didn't want to be a priest. It was not the job for a crooked scarab. He would be overshadowed by everyone, and it was one thing to be overshadowed at home, where at least his insufficiencies could be ignored, but no one was ignored at the palace. He would embarrass himself. His family. The pharaoh.
His father presented him all the same. Karim was placed in training alongside eleven other candidates more skilled than he. Outnumbered. He felt wholly exposed, and he determined to willfully fail in order to retreat to safety, no matter how it would disappoint his father.
Then he met Isis.
She sat on the cushion beside him, wearing a simple white dress and beaded azure earrings. Her hair was black, but her eyes were bright.
"Are you scared to be here?" she asked.
"Yes," Karim said, because he couldn't lie while she stared him down like a hawk.
"Me too."
It was their entire conversation. High Priest Akhenaden himself came to oversee their first exercise, and he stood at the head of the room like a statue, his gold eye more terrifying in person than it had been in glimpses and rumors. Under that golden gaze, Isis walked without falter. She was the first called to be tested, and her steps carried her confidently to the front of the room, to the brazier beside their teacher. She extended a hand that did not tremble. Her expression was calm as summer. At her command, the glowing embers in the brazier flared and shot sparks. A single tongue of flame leapt and vanished.
She looked fearless. Karim was convinced she'd lied to make him feel better.
Until she retook her seat next to him and promptly threw up.
She must have been embarrassed. Her face was red. The other candidates laughed. Slaves cleaned the mess quickly, and the teacher made no derogatory comment, but all the same—she must have been embarrassed. Karim would have fled the palace. Maybe even the country. Isis carefully adjusted her hair, tucking it back from her earrings, keeping her gaze on the ground. But she didn't flee.
Karim couldn't bring himself to be a coward next to that. When he was called up, he walked even though his legs trembled, and he gave his best effort to the exercise. His reward was a burst of fire larger than any other candidate's. High Priest Akhenaden looked directly at him and gave a nod.
Karim was no longer the unseen son of a jeweler. He was a priest in training.
Their class divided quickly into smaller groups, friendships formed by similar interests or family circumstances. One particularly nasty group of three shared the interest of gossip and tearing others down, but the rest of the candidates were at least decent. Karim would have drowned on his own, an isolated outcast and easy target, but Isis had apparently decided their friendship after their single conversation, so she became his companion. Karim had no complaints. Another member of the class invited himself to their group. Shada. He was the son of a palace scribe, and he surely would have been more at home in the group that had bonded over a palace upbringing, but he chose Karim and Isis with stubbornness, never giving a real explanation why.
"I've had enough of the palace," was his only attempt. He was fourteen, the same as Karim. Isis was only twelve, the youngest of the new priests in training.
Still, she could stand with any of them. She said, "Once you're a priest, you'll live and breathe palace."
Shada stuck his tongue out. "I won't be a priest for years, if ever. Let me have my years as I want."
Karim only shook his head. He was the most reserved, and many of their interactions consisted of his silent observation while Shada and Isis battled out one topic or another. But he never felt ignored, not when his friends sat on either side of him for every meal like guardians, not when Isis asked him for pointers on more difficult exercises or Shada corrected his hieratic writing without making him feel foolish over the mistakes. They were the greatest friends he'd ever imagined having.
And eight years later, when the time came to anoint new high priests, they were the people chosen along with him to accept Millennium Items.
Karim's entire family came to the ceremony. His father cried. His sisters brought him gifts. But the best gift came from Hamadi, who'd crafted Karim a beaded neckpiece finer than any he could have dreamed. It fastened at his shoulders with falcon heads cast in gold, and in the network of elaborate beading across his collarbone, lapis stones formed the Eye of Horus.
"You could sell this for a fortune," Karim protested.
"And who could dare wear it besides a high priest?" Hamadi smiled. "You serve Egypt now, little brother. Let me serve you."
When Karim's eyes welled with tears, his oldest brother hugged him. Before Hamadi left, he was sure to pass along the message that their mother expected a new daughter-in-law now that Karim could no longer use his training as an excuse to avoid marriage. Karim's face heated.
During his anointing, he recited his vows with precision. He pledged heart and life to pharaoh and country. When the time came, he lifted the Millennium Scales high, and the crowd below the palace balcony roared its approval of the court's newest high priest.
For two days, there was hardly a moment to breathe. He presented himself to the pharaoh, endured the celebratory feasts, moved into his new palace quarters, met with the other high priests, and began his training with the scales. When he was finally alone at his balcony, breathing the cool night air and wondering if a crooked scarab shouldn't have run years ago after all, he wasn't alone for long.
"Your rooms are smaller than mine," Isis said. She stepped into the torchlight with a smile, and the orange glow reflected across the Millennium Necklace at her throat. "But your balcony faces the river. I'm jealous."
She kissed him, melting away all the tension Karim carried. Whenever he felt out of place, drowning, Isis brought him back to land.
"This is beautiful." She traced the beading in his necklace. "Care to introduce me to the craftsman?"
"He's taken," Karim said.
"I was thinking more of an introduction as his newest sister-in-law."
She'd asked him before. Karim wasn't even sure what held him back. As Shada frequently reminded him, Karim spent too much of his life in hesitation and doubt. It was his biggest failing. Shada himself was newly married and, in his own words, more blessed than ever.
A high priest could not be a coward. And no coward was worthy of Isis.
After stealing another kiss for courage, Karim presented her with the ring he'd carved and held onto uselessly for two years. It bore the symbol of the winged throne, the seat of Isis, goddess queen and institutor of marriage. It wasn't terribly clever, but Karim had never claimed to be.
And Isis accepted him just as he was.
They were married immediately. Karim's massive family welcomed Isis with warmth and enthusiasm. The only family she had was her father, and the man leaned heavily on a cane at their meeting. He grasped Karim's hand and urged him to care for Isis with his entire soul. Karim accepted the charge with a solemn nod.
Although Karim would have been pleased to leave things at informing their families, Shada announced it to the entire court. He also ensured the other high priests threw a celebratory feast—at which, he gave an overly emotional and embarrassing speech about Isis's eternal patience and Karim's great triumph over cowardice at last.
"You weren't forced to marry him, were you?" Isis asked Shada's new bride.
Rana laughed. "It took me many years to see his charm. But I appreciate it now. He cares for both of you deeply."
Karim knew that, but it didn't stop him from twisting Shada's arm when his friend attempted a hug after that monster of a speech.
The most prestigious guest at the feast was Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen himself. In all of Karim's wild imaginings as a child, he couldn't remember if he'd ever envisioned being someone the pharaoh would personally congratulate for anything, much less his marriage.
When the pharaoh approached, Karim and his new wife bowed low until he bade them rise.
"I know we are newly acquainted," Akhenamkhanen said. "Nevertheless. I am always pleased to see happiness within my court. May the gods bless your union for many years to come."
Karim couldn't manage words, but Isis covered for him smoothly with a heartfelt expression of gratitude.
The eight-year-old prince stood beside his father, and at a gesture from the man, he stood a little straighter and said, "May the gods bless your union."
Poor kid. His eyes clearly darted to the exit when he thought his father wasn't looking. Karim would have liked to escape as well. Even now, he sometimes missed those carefree years before his heka was discovered. It was a heavy burden to stand beneath the weight of every hope in Egypt, and the future pharaoh bore it more than even a high priest.
So he managed, "May the gods bless you, too, my prince."
Unlike his father, the young prince had an easy smile. Karim hoped to never see that change, but it did.
Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen's health declined with each passing year. His mind grew ever more fragile. Five years after Karim's marriage, the pharaoh lay on his deathbed, and though each high priest dedicated all the powers of their items to preserve him, the pharaoh passed.
After the thirteen-year-old prince took the throne, his smile was never easy again.
"I feel for him," Isis said. She and Karim sat in the moonlight late one night, their daughter already asleep and the new baby dozing in Isis's embrace.
"He has the blessing of Ra," Karim said. "There is nothing impossible to him."
Isis gave a stern frown. "I still remember what it was like to be twelve and facing down great responsibility. Have you forgotten so soon?"
"No, I shall always remember the girl who threw up in the palace."
Her look withered him on the spot. Karim gave his own look of apology and adjusted to wrap his arm more securely around her. She held stiff for a moment before relenting, resting her head on his shoulder.
"The necklace has shown me things," she admitted quietly. "A great darkness ahead." Before Karim could express concern, she added, "It is only vague. And I should know better than to worry over shadows when we are in the midst of transitioning power to a new pharaoh. Such a critical event casts deep ripples. In time, the future will settle."
Karim trusted that it would. But they were both wrong.
Four years later, the world crashed down around them.
At thirty-one years old, Karim was a widower, a single father of three children he wasn't sure he would even see again. He and Seth were the last remaining high priests, and Seth had fled like a coward. Karim could not be a coward, not even when his heart begged him to abandon duty for fatherhood, not even when it thought of the reflection of his fallen wife in his eldest daughter's face.
"I'm sorry." The pharaoh crouched beside him, his hands dark with Karim's blood as he bound a wound on the high priest's thigh. Tears marked the teenager's face, and he somehow looked younger than he had during their very first conversation, nearly a decade earlier at Karim's wedding feast.
"We will face him together," Karim said, his breathing ragged despite the force of his will. His knuckles whitened around the scales.
"No." Any reminder of youth fled as the pharaoh pointed directly into Karim's face, his expression as fierce as any his late father had ever worn. "You will stay hidden here. You will survive. I command it."
Karim had never disobeyed a command. His sworn duty claimed he never could.
All the same, he said, "My pharaoh—"
"If I am your pharaoh, then obey me."
Would Isis have obeyed? Would Shada? They had both given their lives in service. How could Karim do any less?
Above them, the cavern ceiling trembled. It shed thin streams of dust. Karim thought he could feel the ghosts of the massacred village pressing in on him from every side, leaving his skin cold. Perhaps it was only the blood loss.
"My most sacred duty," Karim managed, "is to protect you."
The pharaoh sighed. He gripped the Millennium Pendant, bound like an anchor around his neck. He said, "All my life, I have been protected. From disease, from danger, even from family. Had my father not protected me from the truth of the items, perhaps we would not be here." He looked up at the dim earthen ceiling, at the pillars that supported the secret cavern beneath Kul Elna. Softly, he added, "This place will be my tomb, Karim."
Karim shook his head. He struggled to raise himself. The pharaoh gripped his shoulder, kept him down. The boy's violet eyes were fierce.
"But if it is yours," he said, "so help me. I will meet you at the weighing of the heart, and I will tip your scales myself."
Karim felt his eyes burn. Duty pulled him in two directions, an impossible contradiction. He had to make his own decision.
"You will stay hidden here." There were tears in the pharaoh's eyes, too, but he held himself like a king, and they did not fall. "You will survive, Karim. I command it."
Karim chose to obey.
As the dust settled on the pharaoh's final conflict, leaving no trace of him or his enemy behind, nothing but an empty cavern beneath a village of ghosts, Karim held the Millennium Scales with shaking hands, and he invoked their power of balance. He commanded them to preserve the memory of his beloved pharaoh's final moments.
In trade, the scales demanded a memory of equal significance.
The tears dripping, at last, down his cheeks, Karim gave them his first meeting with Isis. For one final moment, he held in his mind the fiercely brave girl who sat beside him, who asked if he was scared, the girl who reached beyond her own fear to magic and set herself on a course of ultimate service and sacrifice. The girl who did not turn back for embarrassment or any other reason. Cutting out the treasured memory of his wife—the very thing he'd promised to never forget—left Karim's soul bleeding. He whispered a prayer for her forgiveness.
The scales accepted the balance. They carved the memory of the pharaoh's sacrifice into the skin of his back. Karim established the tombkeepers to preserve it and the other relics of the Nameless Pharaoh, to be handed down until a future day when the pharaoh would return to need them again. His own son took up the mantle, and so did a boy his age, the orphaned son of Karim's best friend. Shadi.
On his deathbed, Karim passed the Millennium Scales to Shadi, along with a blessing from the gods that Shadi would survive. It was the only gift Karim could give his fallen friend, and it was the pharaoh's final wish for his servants. For his friends.
To survive.
Note: Guys, I cannot believe we are here. I'm crying happy tears here in my corner. I've rewritten this story so much through the years, and this is the first time I've ever made it to part three. We're going all the way through to the end. Thank you for sharing the ride.