Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(84)

She never wanted to be a Servant, anyway, because the female priestesses sang an infernal amount but seemed to do precious little else of note. Carling had no intention of spending her life warbling like a songbird in a cage.

So out of boredom as much as anything else, she had agreed when Akil came to her with a politically brilliant match. It was past time for her to leave the restrictions of this city that was so devoted to the dead, and commence with living her own life. On the morrow, she would go to a minor desert king who had asked for her hand in marriage. Then she would see what she could make of the man.

It was a sensible thing to do, and the offer exceedingly advantageous for a woman who had once been a slave. She should be thrilled. The king was much older than she, but his breath was not too horrible and he was utterly smitten with her. He had other wives, of course, and many slaves as concubines, but he had not taken any of them as his queen. Yet.

And here she was, like Osiris, dying and being reborn again. She was wrapped in a robe against the chill of the river mist that crept over Ineb Hedj’s famous white walls. The night was as rich and wild as wine singing in her blood, and she should be happy and excited. Instead she was drowning in restlessness and confusion. She was about to start on her new life and learn new things. She, who had never been with a man, would be with a man tomorrow night.

A man who was much older, his breath not too horrible.

Her own breath choked in her throat. She wanted . . . she wanted something. She did not know what she wanted, but she wanted it badly. The world was so strange and big, and ferociously beautiful. She wanted . . . she wanted her soul to fly out of her chest again from sheer wonder, as it had when she had been a child.

So she cast her first real spell in secret in the courtyard under the crescent moon’s pale smile while her elderly father-priest and the rest of the household slept. She created the words for the spell and crafted them with care, and she burned incense, and gave offerings of milk and honey to Atum, and Bat, and especially to Amunet, the “female hidden one.” And then she whispered those crafted words with her breath of Power, and felt them curl into the night along with the smell of expensive frankincense.

I give thanks to the gods

Both seen and unseen

Who move through all the worlds.

I give thanks for their eternal wisdom

And the sacred gift of my heart’s desire . . .

For surely the gods would know better than she what to make of this hot, beautiful grief, the gods who had, after all, created her with such a fierce, lonesome soul.

What a wretchedness she had created. Bah. Her fool eyes were dripping. She sniffed, hugging herself, and wiped at her face with the back of one hand.

Then a wind blew through the reeds and grasses, and it brought with it a scent of fiery Power. Something walked toward her. It moved quietly, but its presence spread absolute silence in the incense-perfumed night. A crocodile hissed from the nearby riverbank, and then there was a splash as it sped away.

Carling reached for the copper knife she had laid at her feet. It was not wise to move unguarded through the night, and she never traveled even to the household courtyard without a weapon. Calm but wary, she backed toward the door.

By the crescent moon’s thin, delicate light, a god in black appeared. A god, who claimed he was not a god, great and golden-haired and so intensely formed, his ka or life force boiled the air around him.

Carling dropped the knife, staring.

The night was not made for his vivid colors. He was best seen in the hot bright light of day. Copper, yellow, gold, bronze, and the fierce warmth of his ageless lion’s eyes.

Yes, that was it. That was exactly how she remembered it. Her soul, winging out of her body, and flying eagerly toward him.

“Rune,” she whispered. Her own Atum, who rose from the water to wing his way to the stars and complete the world.

The first time she had seen him, he had been smiling and playful. The second time he had been in a killing fury. This time she saw him made a Powerful three, which was its own completion. Three times, a heka number. His unearthly face held a troubled severity, and then it lightened into something altogether different as he saw her, something strange that had to do with the way men looked at women. Whatever that strange thing was, it had her heart racing and her hands shaking and her thighs feeling heavy and full.

“Khepri,” he said. His voice was deeper, wilder than she remembered. Or maybe she heard him better now that she was older.

Smiling, she walked toward him, this man who held her soul. “I chose another name when my slave life ended,” she said. “I am Carling now. I should have known you would come.”

He smiled back at her as she reached him. “Why is that?”

“You always come when I die,” she said.

Shock smashed a fist in Rune’s gut.

You always come when I die.

Before he knew it, he had dropped his own knives and grabbed her by the shoulders. Her head fell back and she stared at him, and he castigated himself furiously, Careful, ass**le. She’s a fragile human now. He made himself cup her slender arms carefully, feeling her pliable warm flesh under his fingers, and he studied her face.

She had undeniably grown into a woman, but she was too young to be the Carling that had taken the serpent’s kiss, he guessed by as much as seven or eight years. Her face was more rounded, less carved, but she still had the same gorgeous long dark eyes, the fabulous cheekbones, that outrageous mouth. She looked at him with all the open bloom of wonder in her face, and her scent held a fragrance unlike any other.