Free Crucible of Fate by Mary Calmes Page A

stare. “An ex-lover.”
    “Which accounts for his complete and utter lack of respect for your station. Did he have your permission to walk away?”
    “No, he did not.”
    “I should have him flogged.”
    “No, come take a walk with me through the market instead.”
    “Let me alert your khatyu.”
    “No,” I said. “Let’s just go, me and you.”
    He shook his head like he always did because I was just so trying. “My lord,” he began, so long-suffering. “Let me explain to you what—”
    “Just come with me,” I pleaded, bumping his shoulder and then walking away.
    He called after me to wait.

Chapter 4

     
    I ENJOYED strolling through the marketplace at dusk and even more at night. The tents, the lantern light and braziers, small groups of people milling about, the smell of meat cooking over wood stoves, the tang of incense, the scent of desert flowers and lingering spices: all served to soothe and delight me. It wasn’t busy, but I still got the feeling of movement before it went from night to early morning.
    The people who greeted me, who waved, who came forward to touch me or hug me as I walked with five of my guards, all had the same awe on their faces. They were glad to see me, and I knew why. I was not, as played out, the rich man’s leader. I was instead more about improving the quality of life for my entire tribe. I was not interested just in the elite; I was interested in the everyman.
    I had opened the main floor of the villa to everyone. Guards stood at the bottom of the stairs inside, not at the front gates. The library, the countless reading rooms, the stacks, all of it was available to whoever wanted to do research or learn more about werepanther history. I had all the texts moved from the priest’s temple at Satis to the villa. When I had made the journey out to see the new priest, Asdiel Kovo, he was horrified that I was there to take what he considered sacred tomes from vaults that had not been opened in years. But Mikhail had come with me, and armed with his own knowledge as well as that of his new mentors—the former council of Ennead—it became clear that there was nothing Kovo could do about it. The library itself could be anywhere; there was no law that said it had to reside in the priest’s residence at Satis. So Kovo had to watch helplessly as I removed it all from the rooms beneath his home. 
    As I walked with Kabore, I thought about the last time I had been to Satis before that. It had been two months before the day I put Kovo in his place. I had gone to see Hamid Shamon, the former priest of Chae Rophon. He had called me to his deathbed, and no one had been more surprised than me. I’d taken a seat in the chair beside him, and I had been pleased when he reached for my hand.
    “The road to change is perilous,” he advised. “Cleave to your path. To keep traditions alive, they must be that which people can use in their daily lives, accept and take in.”
    I realized then that I would miss his disapproving scowls as well as his gentle words and the pats on my shoulder whenever he saw me.
    “You are trying to make change for the better; you must realize that the man after me will want power. Be ready.”
    I’d had no idea how right he was at the time.
    Asdiel Kovo was Hamid Shamon’s successor, and he hated me with a passion born of a fanaticism with the law. It was beyond me. He was the one who labeled me as kadish —impure. He was the one who said that Elham El Masry should be semel-aten and not me.
    I was not from the tribe of Rahotep. I was not Egyptian. I didn’t speak Farsi or Arabic. I didn’t wear the traditional dress, and my views on education, the homeless, the role of women, and same-sex unions were all heretical. He considered me a threat to the tribe and a liability to the entire werepanther world. I was unholy, unclean, simply an abomination. There was an understanding between us from the day he assumed his new role. We were enemies.
    Over time, it