Free Priestess of the Nile by Veronica Scott Page A

village. I won’t think of him anymore. Thoth held a sharp reed pen upraised in one well-formed hand and clasped a small oblong tablet in the other. His head was in the form of an ibis, with an elegant, long curving beak and fine green iridescent feathers. Merys had often seen such birds in the shallows of the Nile.
    Her attention was drawn to an unexpected fourth participant as he strode forward from the shadows.
    “Sobek!” Her heart raced and tears clouded her eyes. She ran to him and he met her halfway, sweeping her into his arms and hugging her tightly with his great, brawny arms until she couldn’t breathe. “I never thought to see you again,” she whispered. “I hoped maybe I would catch a glimpse of you in the Afterlife someday.”
    He kissed her hungrily. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there in time to protect you. I did save as many of your villagers as I could from the Hykso.”
    “And Tyema?”
    “Rescuing her was the last thing I could do for you.”
    She laid her head on his broad shoulder. “Tell me everything.”
    “You can’t delay the time of judging.” Lady Ma’at’s reminder was delivered in a soft, apologetic voice. She indicated the golden scale with a graceful wave of her hand. “The heart must be weighed promptly. You know this, Lord Sobek.”
    “He shouldn’t be here at all,” Thoth stated, scratching notes on his writing tablet. He whistled a few tuneless, discordant notes. “Most unusual.”
    “I gave my permission.” The voice of Anubis was a husky growl. “Sobek has never requested a favor before and we all owe him much.”
    Merys entwined her fingers with Bek’s and they walked forward to the inlaid table where the scales waited. A scrabbling sound in the corner of the room beyond the table drew her attention to the beast Ammit, busily chewing on a pile of bones. The sheer wrongness of Ammit—heavy crocodile head blending into the neck and chest of a powerful lioness, with the sturdy hindquarters of a hippopotamus—made Merys want to vomit. All the most dangerous and fearsome predators of Egypt embodied in one obscene creature, waiting to devour the unworthy. Ammit paced in the shadows, scuttled a bit closer as if sensing Merys’s fear, the claws on her feline front legs scrabbling on the floor, while the muscles in her stumpy hippopotamus hind legs bunched as she readied herself to spring.
    Merys swayed and closed her eyes.
    Bek braced her with his arm. “Ammit won’t have you, no chance of such a fate,” he whispered in her ear. She tried to smile for him, but her heart pounded with terror.
    “Wait, wait,” Thoth cried shrilly.
    Anubis tilted his sleek black jackal’s head toward the scribe, tufted ears perking. He snarled, showing gleaming teeth and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “What is the new delay?”
    “There is a choice to be made this day, not merely a judging.” Thoth tilted his papyrus toward them so they could read his hieroglyphics, which glowed red on the page. Merys was too frightened to decipher the words. She heard footsteps approaching and turned to see who else was coming.
    Isis emerged from the mists, regal, beautiful, terrible. Merys knew she was in the presence of a queen, one with power over all life and death. Isis wore a black sheath gown, trimmed in red and gold. Her red sash was tied in an elaborate knot below her breasts. In her hand she carried a golden ankh studded with rubies and on her head she wore a crown in the shape of her ebony throne.
    Merys cringed against Bek, then tried to kneel to Isis, but Bek held her tight and shook his head. “You aren’t required to genuflect in the Chamber of Judging, not even to her.”
    “And what if my knees give out on me?” she whispered.
    He tightened his grip on her in silent reassurance.
    “Welcome to the Chamber of Judging, my Queen,” Anubis intoned. He half rose from his chair and bowed to her. “To what do we owe this unusual honor?”
    Isis eyed Merys, her