Last Dancer of the Egyptian Sky
Contents & Kinks Overview
The entirety of this book contains: Erotic Dancing, Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Anilingus, Threesome & Threesome+ (you’ll see), Master/Slave Dynamic (meaning mildly dubious consent but only due to power dynamics between the MCs and the master they perform for), Main Character Death (temporarily; it’s part of the plot as explained in the blurb), Attempted Un-aliving (which is stopped), Knotting, Bondage, Praise Kink, Toy Use (with Egyptian false beard), Breath Play, Cock Pocket, Sounding, Tail Play, Feather Play, Double Penetration, Mask/Identity Kink, Face Riding, 69, Heat & Cold Play, Intersex Rep, Monster/Beast Sex, Tail Play, Pain & minor Blood Play, Contortionism, Brief Dubious Consent, Safe Word Use, Airborne Sex, Power Bottom, Primal Play, Stigmatophilia (Tattooing as Kink) or Being Written On/Marked, Mirror Kink, Orgasm Denial, and Hot Oil Play.
Enjoy!
Prologue: The Sacrifice
MERYT
More precious than gold. More captivating than the coil of a lasso. More full of warmth and brilliance than Amun-Ra’s gaze at its utmost peak. And more arousing than the seductive sway of goddess Hathor’s hips in the midst of a dance.
Those were my lover’s eyes.
My Nakht’s eyes.
Dawn to my dusk.
“Beautiful,” husked the general, voice already rough with growing arousal, as I arched backward, spine curving for my hands to nearly touch the floor. Before they could, I tightened the muscles of my stomach to roll upright with a flutter of the fabrics so minimally covering me.
Nakht’s eyes greeted my ascent. Our bodies moved in synchronization, with Nakht emulating me, his spine curving backward now as mine curved forward.
“Beautiful,” rumbled the general again.
We were. Especially when together.
Our outfits were little more than chokers and belts draped with sheer fabric that scarcely hid our nakedness, presenting the lines of our cocks as tempting shadows, and our nipples through the top fabric as teasing peeks. Our tops may as well have been handkerchiefs, short enough to show our midriffs. We wore bracelets and armlets, rings and earrings, all accented with stones or colored glass.
I was in blue, while Nakht wore red. The only differences in our ensembles were the sleeves added to mine. Nakht’s russet hair and bronze skin against carnelian stones and ruby textiles made him the perfect sunrise. My darker skin and hair against shimmering azures and lapis lazuli made me the first moments of twilight.
Or so my mother said when she chose our colors upon our first royal dance together.
“Slower,” General Paser said, and we instantly found the tempo in the music beyond our curtained area of the hall to restrain ourselves to half speed.
Nakht’s hair, long and intermittently plaited, shimmered reddish from the nearby torchlight. The golden baubles and beads woven into his locks shimmered too, tinkling to the music as his head faced the floor.
An occasional shadow might slink past our curtains, another performer or drunken nobleman, or perhaps more often one of the palace cats. Although, when one of Pharaoh's celebrations got particularly raucous, the cats left us to our revelry and tended to keep the guards company or seek empty beds.
When Nakht rolled upright again, I echoed him, only this time our hips nearly ground together when both of us stood erect. We allowed the faintest brush of our hardening lengths, but only that, only enough to ignite the general’s lust all the more.
He grunted, and in answer, we flitted our tongues out to taste one another like hungry snakes. No more than that yet either. Even as our bodies rolled and rippled around each other in continued dance, no part of us touched again. We were a harmonized push and pull meant to embody the sensual perfection of not only Hathor, the goddess most associated with dance, but of all things divine. For we belonged to Pharaoh, and he was divinity on earth. What he owned and found worthy was forever blessed.
And he owned us.
Nakht and I rolled and rocked, contorting our bodies in practiced movement. Our muscles strained all the more at the sluggish pace, but in those brief moments when we were truly parallel, we found reprieve, with Nakht being the salvation leading me home.
“You, in red, keep dancing. But in blue…” The general’s voice turned husky as his eyes slid to me. “Come.”
We paused at our next apex, bodies aligned. While it was Nakht’s touch that I favored, always, forever, it was no hardship to be shared nor to share him, for even a performance with another was for Nakht’s eyes to devour.
I moved with that in mind, dancing toward the general with all thought on Nakht’s gaze watching the slow swivel of my hips. Nakht and I were equal in height, but where my muscles were more defined and compact, Nakht was lean and sleek with broader shoulders and a trimmer waist. Where my nose was delicate and broad, his was long and sharp. My smile was subtler with plumper lips, while his was wide and full of teeth.
In private, Nakht was the quieter one, content to lounge in simple repose, reading or writing poetry. I was the one who could chatter on for hours, whether with Nakht or our peers, feeling stifled by silence. But when we danced, Nakht became the bold and brash one, and I the coquettish seductor.
The general reclined on a lavishly cushioned daybed. He didn’t reach to pull me onto his lap, so I danced over him, leaving what came next to his discretion. Although narrow, I knew the daybed was sturdy enough to accommodate several bodies. Soon, I imagined, it would.
General Paser was the highest-ranking commander of Pharaoh’s armies, elitest of the elite excluding Pharaoh himself or his vizier. To be beckoned by him, chosen by him, was a great honor, especially tonight.
Paser positioned himself enough at the end of the daybed to drop his knees over its edge. He spread his legs, coaxing me to dance between them. He was handsome, rugged from many battles with a finely chiseled physique beneath his linens and leather cuirass. He wore a ceremonial version of his armor tonight, for this was an anniversary of peace time and his last great victory over Pharaoh’s enemies. What would be firmer, sturdier armor on a battlefield, was light and pliable, decoratively studded with bronze and gold like the ornaments in Nakht’s hair.
I wore no such baubles in my buoyant curls, for they were a shorter thatch, but among them was a headband woven with blue lotuses in perfect bloom. Ribbons were tied to it, swaying along with me, as I spun upon the stone floor, turning so I faced Nakht. I fastened onto his gaze as I lowered myself nearly to the general’s lap, only to lift up again.
Paser’s hands gripped my hips, tugging me back down, though not forcefully. He liked the tease and wanted more, so I followed his pull just enough to feel the spring of his cock against my backside before I rolled up again. We wore nothing beneath our draping fabrics, and the general was well aware.
He grunted lower, hands squeezing possessively around my hips. Nakht, witness to it all, mimicked my movements, but more than I could manage with how Paser held me, rolling torso, neck, and arms as much as his lower half. He danced closer to us, a silent message to me that he enjoyed the show.
I batted my eyes to say I did too.
Paser latched onto the sinew of my neck like he might take a bite. He did a little, enough to make indents and elicit a gasp from me. Then he licked and kissed up to my ear, urging me to drop my head back, baring my neck to him and nearly resting my head on his shoulder.
He tugged me down again, so I repeated the tease, the dip, the brush of his cock between my cheeks, the denial as I swiveled upright. His grunting was more a growl now as he ran his hands up my stomach, beneath the line of my azure top. He squeezed my chest and thumbed my nipples with equal possessiveness as he had grasped my hips.
Dancing closer, Nakht mimicked the general more than me now, at first grasping his own hips, and then slithering his hands up his stomach and further beneath his crimson top. The pertness of his nipples after he brushed them made little tents of the fabric.
Just as my cock tented the fabric over it.
I wanted to squeeze it, stroke it, or better, have Nakht do so, but he hadn’t been invited to join us, and I dared not do so myself without permission. I shifted instead so that my next grind down and brush against Paser’s cock also brushed my cock against his knee.
He husked rougher than before, “Such an amorous beauty. I like that.” He moved his hand back, lower, slowly down my stomach, and found the spring of my arousal. He stroked it like I needed, and as the motion moved aside the fabric covering it and Nakht’s eyes drifted down to watch, the front of his lower fabric tented too.
Nakht slowed the motion of his body even further, and I matched his tempo, thrusting into the general’s hand at Nakht’s speed, as though he were the one touching me. It was always Nakht in my mind. Him and me. Dawn and dusk. Because of that, I had never thought of us as slaves, even though we had both been born into our chains.
“Also amorous, I see.” The general peered at Nakht over my shoulder. “You may touch yourself, but do not stop dancing.”
We had practiced that often, as well as dancing while also touching each other.
Watching Nakht slip a hand beneath the fall of red fabric, but only seeing his strokes as shadow and motion, plumped me harder in the general’s grasp.
I lowered myself again, thighs quaking from how many times I had. I could do so for hours, but that didn’t mean I never ached. I ached for so much. To be fondled. To be filled. The sight of my beloved touching himself while dancing nourished me to my core, but I needed more.
Nakht slowed again—his dance, his hand—so I did the same, gliding along the general’s length so it bounced up between my cheeks more insistently. I hovered like that, teasing him, thighs trembling, and feeling just how wet I had become in his palm.
He pushed me up and forward so suddenly, I feared I would pitch toward the floor, but he held firm to my hips as he tore my belt from me and plunged his tongue inside my entrance.
I moaned, loud enough to echo, but I was not the only one adding to the music. The great hall had been sectioned into many alcoves, for larger or smaller dalliances like ours. Moans and gasps and pleasured cries were the chorus amid the songs. Some might have stolen away to bedrooms, perhaps even Pharaoh was with one of his wives by now, or more likely a concubine or dancer of his own.
We had been in Pharaoh’s bed, but tonight, we were Paser’s.
He licked inside me, and I quaked more from desire than muscle strain. My cock throbbed, hanging thick and heavy for Nakht’s eyes to devour. He licked his lips, and in the measured pace of his dance, he undid his own belt and let it fall to the floor like a shimmer of spilled wine.
He was so beautiful, as swollen as I was and growing harder from his caresses.
“Wait,” Paser growled, and I obediently peered back at him to watch him lie flat without moving up the bed. “To me. I will continue to wet you, while the one in red wets me to enter you.”
Yes. I was grateful Nakht wasn’t doomed to only spectate.
I moved so that I straddled the daybed up by Paser’s face, lowering myself within reach of his tongue. My thighs would begin burning again quickly, but now, I had a better view to distract me.
Nakht swept toward us, dropping to his knees between the general’s thighs, and began to swallow him and hum around his length as only those of us trained in pleasure could. I loved leisurely playing with myself while watching Nakht deep-throat another, just as much as he enjoyed watching the general wet my entrance.
We could look but not touch each other.
We could feel but only imagine it was us committing and receiving the acts.
There was an odd intensity to it, even a certain intimacy, knowing this was an act for our masters, a defiant performance, and when alone, we were each other’s only.
Paser moaned from Nakht’s talented tonguing, stuttering the thrusts of his own probing tongue. My thighs quaked worse than ever, and I was soaking my own palm, needing to slow and squeeze almost too tightly to stave off my end.
“Enough,” the general rasped. “Sit upon me and suck the red one’s cock while I have you.”
Gladly. It was the greatest blessing when ordered to perform as we would in private.
My legs shook so much when I pushed upright that Nakht offered a hand to steady my return to the front of the bed. He released me once I joined him but watched heatedly as I first pushed aside the fall of the general’s tunic and then sat upon his ready prick. It was my turn to take what my beloved had swallowed, but I would get the pleasure of swallowing him.
The general swelled within me as I took him deeper, sitting up behind me, and feeling beneath my dancer’s top like before. In tandem, Nakht came closer, holding his cock in preparation for me to take it. The final seating upon the general burst another moan from my lips, and he wasted no time before bouncing me on his lap, thrusting deeper and deeper inside me. It caused moan after plaintive moan to leave me, until our rhythm was stable enough for me to tip forward.
Nakht brought his cock to my lips, and I licked it delicately at first, like some shy virgin, who had never once dropped to their knees. Oh, how many times I had dropped to my knees for this cock, but I played my role of chaste plaything to the confident smoldering of Nakht above me.
He was more beautiful than I imagined the gods must be, my dawn, my everything, like bronze perfection in the shadowed firelight. Had he been wearing a crown like Pharaoh’s, I would have thought he was a god incarnate come to claim me for the skies, and I treated his divine cock as the treasure it was.
His prerelease tasted like honey, as I ran my tongue along his pulsing vein and swallowed him deeply with hollowed cheeks. I hummed loudly to voice my pleasure so the general would assume I meant it for him.
Paser claimed me well, firm and deep without excessive roughness, which not all of Pharaoh’s elite abided, but it was Nakht’s cock I envisioned in me as I drank his down more hungrily than any wine I had tasted tonight.
All the general knew was the splendid view we made, watching us over my shoulder as he fucked me.
I was glad I made use of my hands on Nakht’s sac and stem because it meant less temptation to touch myself and come too soon. The general touched me some, but he enjoyed thumbing my nipples more. I wanted Nakht to come first. I wanted my beloved to reach bliss first, so I swallowed him deeper, sucked him harder, all while twisting one hand along his thick base. I rolled his tender sac in the palm of my other hand, focused so solely on him that I nearly forgot the general was with us.
Nakht’s breath quickened, the familiar sound that he was close. But it was only after he tilted my chin up and our eyes met that he spurted down my throat with his heat.
I coughed, more startled from the distraction of his golden gaze than his release, and a bit of him spilled from the corner of my mouth.
The general thrust into me harder, encouraged by Nakht’s completion, but it was Nakht pulling his cock from my lips and using his thumb to swipe up his spillage and feed it back to me that caused my own pleasure to erupt.
“Ah!” I unleashed upon Nakht’s retreating cock and immediately wanted to lick it clean again. I would if I could and then kiss him deep enough to share our mingling.
“An amorous beauty indeed,” Paser said beside my ear. He ran his hand through my remaining emissions and offered it to Nakht.
Nakht swallowed Paser’s fingers as giftedly as he had the general’s cock, and as Paser came with a stutter inside me, Nakht’s eyes met mine while he lapped up the last of my release. Paser fucked into me with his aftershocks, driving his release deeper and making me shudder—though more than anything, I did so from the sight of Nakht having been allowed to taste me as I had him and holding his gaze.
“Just the depth of me inside you made you come,” the general rumbled.
“Yes, my lord,” I answered, but the lord I looked up at was the only man I would ever mean these words for, “and only you.”
***
“Fuck.” Nakht cried as I speared inside him, needing no preamble, no warning words, for the leadup had been our dance and all that came after it. “How do you have more in you?”
We had been permitted to leave the general as he grew drowsy, and still floating on the pleasure cloud of our performance, I was not yet satiated.
I needed to come again, and I needed it to be inside my dawn.
“Me?” I fucked my beloved hard and deep but slowly now that I was in him. We had wiped ourselves clean but were still damp from exertion. “You are the one who has more in you at the moment.”
Nakht laughed, nuzzling my hand that held his cheek, while I lifted his hips with the other. The sweat from his brow caused the kohl around his eyes to smear, so meticulously applied earlier. I liked him best this way—imperfect from the dolls they made of us and entirely mine for the few hours we had alone.
“Besides, I always did have the better stamina between us.”
“Says you.”
“I do. And how could I not want to fuck you after you teased me like that?”
“Me?” Nakht imitated my earlier mocking. “You’re the one who had my cock between your lips.”
“Yet you still made me come with nothing but a look.”
“Ngnnn…” Nakht nuzzled my hand again, smearing so much more of the liner around his eye that he looked like he’d cried it off—while never looking more content to be folded in half.
I ran my other hand up the back of his thigh. Further inward between his thighs were the matching divots of old scars that we painted gold with a mixture of yellow ochre and various other compounds to add shimmer. Pharaoh's dancers were meant to be perfect, and so we had declared the scars the claiming thumbprints of the gods, and no one who ever noticed them minded them after that.
I dug my thumb into one of those divots, tilting Nakht’s hips back until his ankles reached his ears, and he moaned at how much deeper he took me.
He would come again first, guaranteed.
“Well… if this is my punishment… I’ll have to tease you like that again soon.” He dragged me down by the collar attached to my dancer’s top and kissed me like he could suck my tongue down his throat. He very nearly could, and his zeal, his passion, his need for me made me need him more too.
I hastened my pace.
Some of our bangles and other adornments clinked to the floor. We had put our belts with their covering fabrics back on for the walk to our room, and without undergarments, they need only be pushed out of the way. Besides, I liked Nakht in his shimmering red.
We were indeed dusk and dawn, both beautiful in our own rights, but where we collided came the blinding glory of the day, and the bejeweled stillness of the night.
I preferred the night sky, like a glimpse into the hereafter of all the other dancers before us, glittering on forever, innumerable and majestic for both mortals and the gods to marvel at. I could stare at the stars and never grow bored, never need any other view, not even Amun-Ra’s rays again…
Save the echo of it in my lover’s eyes.
Our kiss pushed my hand from Nakht’s face, so I moved it to seek his hand, lacing our fingers once I found it. Nakht's left hand bore a ring of braided light and dark leather scraps, one of two he had made, the other for me. They were simple, worth nothing to anyone else, but to us they were more precious than the gold bands we wore as Pharaoh’s head dancers.
Our status was not the only reason we had a private room. All of the dancer slaves were treated well, prized property to be kept beautiful and better shown off to others to prove Pharaoh’s wealth. But none of that mattered when Nakht and I were alone.
We had been presented as a pair for our first sensual dance years ago, already in love by then and not wanting to be separated. We knew we had to play our parts perfectly for that to remain true. We had to dance flawlessly, every time, so our watchers preferred keeping us together, even if they only took one of us while the other bore witness. Even as Pharaoh's current favorites, we didn’t dare fail to satisfy him or others. We were still slaves and had to always, always please our masters first.
If we could continue to do that until our beauty faded, we would be rewarded as trainers for the next generation, allowed to live out our days together in peace. That was all we wanted. All we were allowed to want, but it was something. It was ours. All we had to do was survive until that future came.
“Mer!” Nakht’s lips tore from mine. He was close, and as I had sworn, he was going to come first.
I curved my spine in such a way as to lick the length of him without dislodging from inside him and flicked my tongue up over his weeping slit.
“Meryt!” Nakht came, and I caught as much of his nectar on my tongue as I could.
I rutted faster, relishing in his continued moans.
“H-ow… do you do that?” Nakht croaked.
One more thrust, two, thr—
I released, and as I sank down against my beloved, I whispered, “Talent.”
He laughed.
If I was being honest, it was these moments directly after being together, with heartbeats and breaths slowing, feeling tingly and content to simply hold one another while still connected, that I loved most.
“You must be blessed by Osiris to contort yourself like that.”
Now I had to laugh and took Nakht’s teasing as my cue to disentangle us.
We had some spare linen I used to wipe us down, but we were hardly clean. We’d slip off to the baths soon enough before succumbing to sleep. The bathing chamber was private for us dancers too, since we were expected to always be pristine when called upon.
“Perhaps I am blessed by Osiris.” I tucked myself beside Nakht on our small bed. “He does have the best love story.”
“I could do without the dismembering part.”
I laughed again. What I liked about that story wasn’t Osiris being slain by his brother Seth, but that his wife, his consort, his beloved Isis could not bear a world in which he did not exist and brought him back from the dead.
Nakht kissed the side of my face. “Whether you are blessed or not, just like our great goddess Isis, I will love you, Meryt, even beyond death.”
I faced Nakht and kissed him on the lips. Once. Twice. Then a third time more deeply before saying, “Beyond death and anything and everything that might separate us, I—”
An unexpected weight by our feet startled me into silence.
“Pasht!” Nakht laughed at the arrival of one of the palace’s resident cats, this one being particularly fond of the dancers’ quarters, especially when we rehearsed, and especially me and Nakht. We had found her when she was a kitten, trapped beneath a chest, and she had endeared herself to us ever since. She was our near-constant shadow, whether day or night, often ending up in places we might be other than the dancers’ quarters, but always appearing at some point once we retired to our room, as if it was hers as much as ours, and her claim on it—and us—couldn't be questioned.
She was the most beautiful of Pharaoh's cats, in my opinion. A perfect pure white, flecked with black markings, with black lining her eyes as though she had used the same kohl as we did. Her eyes themselves were so green, they may as well have been made from jasper.
“Mrrow?” Pasht chirped, and when I reached for her, she bucked into my hand.
Nakht’s continued chuckling littered his words. “While we appreciate you blessing our union, oh sacred emissary, now is not the best—”
Pasht jerked from my pets suddenly, spinning toward the door with hackles raised and an uncharacteristic hiss, prompting Nakht and I to lurch upright.
One of the dancers who had been with us in the hall stumbled into our room as if pushed. She clung to the archway, trembling. It seemed as though a dozen men were storming down the corridor, but all of Pharaoh’s elite were in the hall or off in bedrooms by now, with only a handful of guards keeping watch in the direction those men were headed.
Rana, the other dancer, looked at us in terror, and I bolted off the bed.
“Meryt!” Nakht hissed, grasping my wrist to stop me. “What are you doing?”
“We can’t sit idly by and hide!” I yanked free of him to join Rana at the door, first to check that she was unharmed, then to peer out into the corridor.
Others were also glancing out of bedrooms. A few had clearly been thrown around like Rana and were sprawled on the floor. I could still see the men rushing down the corridor to my right, wearing dark clothing with heads and faces covered. All had khopesh swords, daggers, or spears.
A coup? They must have chosen this night knowing the people most suited to protect Pharaoh would be distracted, their numbers reduced.
“Meryt.” Nakht grabbed me by the shoulders, pulling me back inside the room. Rana, in her fear, had fled into the corner, and Pasht was backing into the other, still atop the bed. “Are you mad? We have to leave this to the guards.”
“You mean the guards who are asleep, drunk, or outnumbered?” I argued. “There has to be something we can do.”
“What? Those raiders will kill anyone who gets in their way.”
“I’m not saying we fight them, but we need to warn someone at least, or it’ll be a bloodbath before they’re stopped.” I peeked back outside, weighing our options. We knew every corner of the palace that was open to us, and there were many entrances to the great hall, which made up the center of Pharaoh’s stronghold. That had to be where the raiders were headed, and they were taking the most direct route, but it wasn’t the fastest. “We could circle around the other way, out of harm’s reach, and warn some of the guards before they’re attacked.”
Nakht opened his mouth to protest further, but looking at the frightened Rana and Pasht, and then out into the corridor as I had at so many others who didn’t know what to do other than wait it out and hope, he worried his lip. He knew I was right.
If it was a coup and the raiders were successful, a former master’s slaves were rarely treated kinder by usurpers.
“Fine,” Nakht spat like it was a curse he didn’t want lingering on his tongue. “But you do not leave my side.”
Taking hold of my hand to drag me along after him, Nakht raced out of our room in the opposite direction from the raiders. He might be the quieter, gentler one between us behind closed doors, but he was far braver than he would ever admit to himself, and in the end, he always did what was right. It was part of why I loved him.
The way we ran had more winding corridors and bedrooms for household slaves, but nearer to the great hall were also some of the rooms housing guards. We wouldn’t need to reach the hall itself if we could find someone awake and not amorously involved.
The first detour in that direction was a sharp turn past one of the palace entranc—
Nakht slipped, nearly dragging us both to the ground in his attempt to steady himself, only for me to start slipping too. Quick handholds of the walls were all that kept us from falling. Whatever we had slid through was so much slicker than spilled wine, but I was not prepared for what it actually was when I looked down and saw red.
And the body of a guard with his throat slit.
I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. The men had gone the other way. They had clearly entered near here and taken out the guard, but they were far away now. We were safe. We had to keep going.
“I’ve got you.” Nakht squeezed my hand, guiding me slowly out of the blood spill. “I’ve got you,” he said again. “Always.”
“And I you,” I answered.
We continued, quickening our pace toward the guard rooms and the rear entrance into the hall. As we passed empty room after empty room, however, I feared there was no one we could turn to in time—just as two patrolling guards came from left and right of the great hall doors and turned about face to begin patrolling the other way.
“Wait!” Nakht and I cried.
The guards spun to face us, instantly on alert.
“There were armed men!”
“Heading past the dancers’ quarters to the other side of the hall!”
“You have to hurry!”
“Pharaoh and the guests are in danger!”
Nakht and I were well-liked by the guards, for we had performed for many of them, and even those who preferred a female slave in their bed respected our status. The pair turned without question, weapons ready to enter the hall.
We had made it. We had done all we could.
“Now can we go back and sit idly by?” Nakht asked, teasing but anxious.
“Yes. I just needed to—”
The doors burst open before the guards could reach them, and pandemonium ensued with an eruption of bodies. The raiders had beaten us and were already attacking, meaning everyone from the hall was either fighting or fleeing—and they were headed right toward us.
Nakht and I tried to flee too, but we were engulfed by a cavalcade of dancers, nobles, soldiers, and raiders.
And Pharaoh. Our lord Pharaoh was in the midst of the escapees, his personal guards and other attendants trying to protect him, but the raiders pushing through the crowd were clearly set on reaching him, consequences be damned.
The first sight of one of the khopesh swords slicing into someone, a spear into another, and daggers plunged into backs had me certain I was going to be sick. They all wielded their weapons so callously. Even the guards, defending the rest of us, used their weapons without hesitance or fear. How?
How was it so easy to take a life?
I still held Nakht’s hand, squeezing tighter to be certain I didn’t lose him as we ran. But there were too many people, too much chaos, and I didn’t realize we had reentered the hall with the downed guard we had found until the first escapee slipped on the blood and toppled.
I saw the coming disaster before it happened, but there was no way to stop it. Figure upon figure slipped and fell over each other. Pharaoh and his protectors fell too, a helpless heap we were equally helpless against when it was our turn to collide with it.
Nakht and I went down beside Pharaoh, and though Nakht was quick to right us, turning us to try scrambling up again and avoid being trampled or worse, the raiders… there were still several alive, and one of them was sprinting toward us, spear raised and ready to be flung.
At Nakht.
He was practically on top of Pharaoh and too much in the way. The spear would skewer them both!
“No!” Nakht cried as I released his hand and leapt up from the pile of bodies to catch the spear with my own. “Meryt!”
Strange. It didn’t even hurt.
The world tilted, and everything felt immediately cold as the morn before daybreak. I thought, distantly, that I saw the raider who had flung the spear get tackled to the ground, but the world upended further, and all I could see was the stone above me.
“Meryt!”
“He saved Pharaoh! Did you see it?”
“The slave sacrificed himself!”
“He saved Pharaoh!”
“Meryt!”
Someone was screaming too close to me. Was that Nakht? He looked like he was screaming, hovering over me to replace the stone ceiling, but I was so tired, I couldn’t focus anymore. There was screaming, but for some reason, I… I couldn’t hear it anymore.
Meryt!
Nakht was screaming though… wasn’t he? Screaming my name.
Why…?
Meryt, please…
His eyes were so beautiful. More precious than gold. More captivating than the coil of a lasso. More full of warmth and brilliance than Amun-Ra’s gaze at its utmost peak.
Why then…
…did the sun look so dim?
***
NAKHT
We call our homeland Kemet, the Black Land, for its rich, dark soil. But when I think of home, I imagine the depth of obsidian in Meryt’s eyes. He said he loved how mine were golden bronze, but I loved how dark his were, like a warm embrace halfway before waking.
Oh Meryt. Why were you so brave and so bold that you went on to the Field of Reeds without me?
“Rise, dancer. You have lost your partner, your companion leader of all who serve this court in beautiful motion, but in his absence, you will reap the reward for his sacrifice.”
I wanted no reward, only Meryt.
My beloved.
The dusk to my dawn.
But I couldn’t say that, for not even our divine Pharaoh could give it, so what I said as I knelt before his throne the morning after the raiders attacked was, “All I ask of a reward is to mourn Meryt however I see fit. I ask to be left alone and allowed to sit with his body until its funeral preparations are complete.”
“You want nothing else?” Pharaoh pressed. He was a good leader, fair and even tempered. I could have asked for anything on Meryt’s behalf, in honor of Meryt’s service to him, but I knew the truth no one else realized.
Meryt had not thrown himself in front of that spear for anyone but me.
I rose from my kneeling and met Pharaoh’s gaze.
“He would ask for nothing else if our fates were reversed. I want only that, my lord. Only to be with him for as long as I can be.”
“As you say.” Pharaoh nodded. “He is to have the honor of mummification and will join the most prestigious of those entombed in my personal chamber. There will be a place for you reserved beside him.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“You may go then, to grieve as you please. No one will stop you, wherever you go or whatever you choose to do, until his body has been laid to rest.”
I bowed again in thanks and left Pharaoh’s presence as I had been permitted.
To say I was numb as I left the throne room implied I had any real sense of how I felt. I was adrift. Tired yes, for I had not yet slept and doubted I ever could again, at least not restfully. But I had no desire to go on living. I had no purpose, no brightness. All that was bright and beautiful in my world had been snuffed out with that spear. All because Meryt had wanted to do what was right, whatever he could to help, and I hadn’t refused him.
I couldn’t even be angry with him over that because it was so unfairly selfless, like he always was. He might have sung my praises, but he was the best of us. He was the one who should still be here.
Pharaoh couldn’t raise the dead. Only the gods in the skies could do that, for it was Pharaoh’s duty to maintain balance between the realms, and if all who had perished could be brought back, what then? If I truly could have asked for anything, however, that was all I would want. My beloved, back beside me.
I bathed finally and dressed in a simple white loincloth to express my mourning. Others tried to speak to me, to offer words of comfort or praise for Meryt’s act. General Paser who we’d performed for last night even offered words of vengeance, the promise that the man who had thrown the spear, still alive but imprisoned, would suffer for his vile acts, and that whoever was responsible for sending the raiders would be caught and made to suffer too.
It was kind of him to spare me such words, but none of it soothed me. Because none of it changed that Meryt was gone.
Even the palace cats tried to console me. It was no doubt they were the gods’ nurturing nature made manifest, Bastet’s emissaries of both playful chaos and dutiful protection. They always knew when something was amiss. They tried warning us when evil was afoot. They lay with the ill and dying. And as I roamed the palace halls, they followed me, nuzzling my legs and chirping up at me in sympathetic tones different from their usual mewing.
When all others had given up, Pasht stuck with me. She was insistent, enough that I paused to lift and cradle her, for I knew Meryt would do the same. She purred, a brief balm of comfort, like the touch of her silken fur. But where I was headed, she could not follow.
I passed her into the arms of another, for I knew that if I merely set her down, she would continue shadowing me.
All I wanted was to see Meryt, and so I went to the royal funerary chamber where his body was being prepared. There were many steps to mummification. All that had been done so far was his body cleaned and lightly wrapped in a linen loincloth not so different from mine. Before I had to ask, the priests and attendants left to allow me time with him.
I had no baubles in my hair today, no adornments, no kohl lining my eyes. I was as bare and as plain as I could be—just like Meryt, lying on the preparation table like he was no more than asleep.
All of his ornaments had been removed for the cleaning, but I had retrieved one item, which I slid onto his left ring finger just as I wore mine. They had cleaned Meryt’s wound well, so it appeared as unimportant as a thin slice across his skin.
The table, with its lion head carvings to protect and guide the recently dead, elevated his shoulders slightly, making it look even more like he might open his eyes any moment and get up.
I took Meryt’s hand. His body had stiffened earlier, but it was pliable again. And cold. So cold. So lifeless.
“I will love you beyond death, beyond anything and everything that might separate us,” I repeated our promise to each other. It was Meryt who had first said it to me, but it had become our mantra, our vows. “But how…” I asked aloud, “am I to go on living when you have passed into the afterlife without me? We were supposed to go together. I cannot bear this. I know you would want me to live, but how? How can I when what made life beautiful was having you in it?
“I know I am being selfish, as selfish as I always am, even if you would deny that. But I am. Did you know it was I who stole your figs those first several meal times I had with you and the other dancers? I blamed Ramose, and he had to write two dozen lines in punishment. You were just so beautiful that I wanted to hate you for also being kind. Then, when I started to like you, I stole Ramose’s figs and passed them off as mine to give to you, so I could still have my own while making you smile.”
I laughed through my tears at the foolish childhood memory that I hadn’t thought about in years. That was over half my lifetime ago, but it was a nice reprieve to laugh at all, until I had to look down at the cold hand in my grasp and Meryt’s stony face unable to laugh with me.
“See, I’m being selfish, because you would be so much stronger right now. You already were. I know how deeply it wounded you when your mother died, yet you pressed on. But you had me. I have no one. Friends, yes, our peers, but you were family and consort to me both, closer to me than anyone. Your mother was mine too since I never knew my own. It would be torture to return to any part of that life without you. Can’t you understand that? Every motion in dance that I ever made, every noise of pleasure, every heated glance, you know it was all only for you. How could you leave me like this?”
A stir of anger made me want to pound upon his chest to force an answer, fruitless and even more selfish though it may be. But how dare he? How dare he save me and expect me to go on living without him?
Even so, my anger was short-lived compared to my sorrow, and I brought Meryt’s hand to my lips to kiss it.
“Please then, my love, forgive me for one more selfish act.”
I knelt upon the floor, bringing my head even with the table, and took out the small hidden dagger from within the folds of my loincloth. It would be an added mess for the priests and attendants to clean, but I doubted anyone would be surprised when they found me. Not even Pharaoh would be angry with me, for it was the boon he had granted me, to mourn however I chose.
I tilted my head back and raised the dagger above my throat.
“Now that, young mortal, would be a waste of a life.”
I gasped at the unexpected voice. More startling, however, was that, although I had not closed my eyes, a mere blink of them proved I was somewhere else entirely.
I scrambled to my feet, and as I tried to close my fist tighter around the dagger to protect myself, I found that it was no longer there. My hand was empty, and I stood in some black void, yet was somehow still standing, as the shadows of unseen figures surrounded me.
“Do not fear,” one of them said, different from the voice before.
“At least not yet,” said another.
They were all resonant and powerful sounding. Some of their silhouettes were difficult to decipher, but others…
One could not mistake the shape of a man with the head of a jackal.
I fell back to my knees, lowering my eyes to the blackness of the floor. “My gods.”
“Yes, we are,” said one of them. I could faintly tell which direction each came from, but not for certain which god spoke.
They were shadows only—eight of them.
“As your gods,” the most recent voice continued, “we decree it is not yet your time to die.”
“You would deny me entrance into the afterlife?” I dared glance up.
“We would offer you an alternative.”
“A-alternative?”
“A chance,” said another, “a set of trials that if you prevail against them will mean reunion with your beloved without the loss of your life.”
I snapped fully upright, ready to leap to my feet at such an opportunity.
“You shall make the journey through the afterlife and face each of us.”
“Through the Duat?” Traversing the land of the dead, a perilous realm of night, filled with dangers that all souls must face before reaching their final rest, could be made easier if the living followed proper funerary practices and mourned dutifully, but in the end, only the soul itself, on its own merits, could reach the Field of Reeds.
To face that while alive would mean no help from the living at all.
“Not quite the Duat,” said another of the gods, “for you are not yet dead yourself. We have different trials for you.”
That was some relief, but trials from the gods, whichever ones surrounded me, would be no easy feat. The more I looked at the shadows, the more I began to recognize some of them. All were male, and I thought I counted Seth among them, which was terrifying on its own.
Was he not an enemy of the gods, a villain in most stories?
More surprising was being offered this at all. I was no one special to have been gifted such an audience.
“May I ask, my lords… why am I being given this chance?”
“You mean despite how you would have thrown your life away?” The direction of that voice and the unfettered vitriol in it made me certain it was Seth speaking.
“Yes,” I answered, lowering my gaze again.
“Because Meryt’s heart was pure enough to bypass the Duat entirely,” a kinder of the voices said. “It is a rare honor to skip straight to one’s weighing, but his heart proved lighter and worthier than most.”
That brought my eyes up again, because of course it was.
“We would see if the love he has for you is just as well-earned,” said another.
“Then Meryt is already in paradise?” I asked.
“He waits within the moment his heart was weighed, reliving his life in reverse. When he reaches the beginning, you will reach your end. Whether that means a reunion or not will be up to you.”
“If you can resist the temptations offered to you along your journey,” spoke the kinder voice again, “you will prove as worthy of Meryt’s love as he is of ours.”
“But if your love does not prove true,” spat Seth, “your heart will be weighed wanting.”
Then I would die but with my soul eradicated by Ammit, the Devourer, to never be with Meryt again. But to have him back, to risk myself for him as he risked himself for me, I could imagine no greater gift.
“Do you accept?” asked one of the others. “You have two options if you do not. You can have the death you wished for and traverse the Duat, as others do. Or you can return to your life and live out your days as you would have, without Meryt.”
“If it means seeing my beloved sooner, there is only one answer.” I stood, holding firm and tall before my gods. “I accept.”
“Without even asking what your trials entail?” Seth laughed. “I doubt you will even last long enough to reach me.”
“Hush,” said the kinder voice, and Seth grunted as if cowed by him.
Then another, I thought perhaps Anubis, who had yet to speak, finally did. “You have accepted. Your trials begin now. Resist us, prove your love for Meryt…” Red eyes glowed from within Anubis’s shadow. “Or perish.”
The blackness gave way beneath my feet, and what had felt like solid ground, imperceptible though it had seemed, was gone now, plummeting me into the unknown ahead.