Perspiration gleamed on his near naked body, touching and stinging the wounds inflicted only hours before by Cawdor. The pain was sharp, almost exquisite, and allowed him to pull his mind back. He deliberately averted his gaze from the bulge stretching the fabric of his loincloth.
Penetrating Krysty Wroth’s sleeping consciousness and directing it in the channels he wanted it to go had been more strenuous than he had anticipated. Though her natural empathic powers provided him with egress, her loyalty and love for Cawdor and the rest of her people formed a very strong barrier. Rather than try to batter it down, he had searched for ways around it.
The primal force of her sexuality was one route, but even that led only so far. It was deeply entangled with the higher emotions, not a separate thing easily isolated and manipulated as it had been with the others—O’Brien and Harrier.
O’Brien’s intellect was so regimented that most of her emotions had been compartmentalized, locked away in a drawer in the dark recesses of her mind. It hadn’t been difficult to unlock and use the contents of that drawer. In fact, she had been pathetically grateful to him for opening it.
His eyes grew wet when he thought of O’Brien. She had loved him madly, unconditionally. He had loved her as his mother, his mate, but never as his queen. He would have made her so if only she had lived.
Harrier had been quite different. Her emotions lurked very close to the surface and were rather shallow, at least compared to O’Brien’s. She had loved him, too, though she really hadn’t had much of a choice.
Akhnaton sat up and walked across the room to the window. He transmitted a tentative probe, seeking out Nefron’s mind. Without much surprise, she detected his presence and deflected it. He smiled slightly. She possessed none of her mother’s compliance of spirit.
He looked to the west and saw his pyramid thrusting up toward the deep, blue-black sky, gleaming white and ghostly in the starlight. It lacked only a few more casing blocks and the capstone. Then it would stand whole, a beacon of hope lighting a path of his glory over the barren face of the world.
Once it was complete, so would he be, able to shape and forge the planet into a paradise. He would know what it was like to be Osiris, the father of a new civilization.
And he would know again, at long last, what it was like to love.
Chapter Twenty
After Mildred returned to the hall of women after the indoctrination session, Grandmother sent her off to another part of the palace, to report to Mimses. The rambling building was divided into quarters, and one quarter was the domain of Pharaoh’s chief counselor. As she padded along the corridors, she kept an eye out for either Kela or Nefron.
When the corridor branched to the right and to the left, she impulsively turned left, in the opposite direction of where Grandmother had instructed her to go.
Rich tapestries hung on the polished paneled walls, the lofty ceiling adorned with ornate and intricate carvings and silver-chased scrollwork. The concept she was walking through an old movie set was almost as hard to accept as the idea she had been transported back to ancient Egypt.
As she turned a corner, she nearly trod on Nefron’s toes. The girl almost dropped the bowl of fruit in her hands and she regarded Mildred with wide, fearful eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded in an accusatory whisper.
“I work here, thanks in part to you.”
Nefron shook her head vehemently, her glossy black hair gleaming in the lights. “You are in Pharaoh’s quarter. You have been assigned to Mimses. Go.”
Nefron made a move to step around her, but Mildred restrained her with a firm hand. “You can spare a sec for Scheherazade. A girl came to me this morning. She told me you had sent her and that Jak Lauren was safe.”
“Kela, my maid. She spoke the truth. She also visited your friends in the cell blocks.”
“What’s being done about Krysty?”
“I am on my way to her now,” Nefron answered hesitantly. “Pharaoh wishes to see her this morning.”