Crescent Moon

  Crescent Moon

  Crescent Moon

  by

  Delilah Devlin

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2013 by Delilah Devlin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  eISBN: 9781477859612

  Table of Contents

  Episode One

  Part I - The God’s Wife

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part II - Juste in Time

  Chapter Five

  Episode Two

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Episode Three

  Part III - Bite of the Scorpion

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Episode Four

  Part IV - What the Heart Wants

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Episode Five

  Part V - Message in the Dark

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Episode Six

  Part VI - Hearts Draw Ever Closer

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Episode Seven

  Part VII – Last Prayer

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Episode Eight

  Part VIII – Final Judgment

  Chapter Twenty-Eighty

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  About the Author

  Kindle Serials

  Episode One

  Part I – The God’s Wife

  Chapter One

  One last time, her mind drifted, peacefully content … no shadows or disquiet to disturb her … allowing her to separate the parts of herself, first body from spirit … and then the mournful, dying part of her soul to dwell forever in the pit, while what remained, the part that would be born again, floated upward on golden wings.

  Her sprit ba left her mortal shell and spread its wings, flying through the small bright hole in the ceiling, leaving behind her swaddled human form, which lay on a bare wooden bench.

  One, two, three strong surges of her fluttering wings and she flew toward the sun, free at last and feeling grateful to her husband for his generous gift. Her wings caught an updraft and she held them still, floating on the wind, the glorious waning sun warming her back.

  Her spirit flew above white limestone cliffs and past a deep quarry littered with enormous blocks of carved stone. A sudden gust riffled through her feathers, forcing her to fly west, high above a barren valley.

  But at last, her ba tired, circling downward, searching for the great river to lead her home. But no familiar white-washed city dwellings, no temple walls lay below. No fields of cotton and wheat.

  Confused, she made her way back to the dismal pit. Not wanting to enter, she flitted around the opening, feeling weary and afraid. Something dark awaited her. Some horror in the shadows.

  And then she spotted the man with the dark, watchful gaze standing beneath the opening, his arms outspread to catch her …

  Her heart pounded against her chest, the sound intruding on the vision. Khepri’s eyes slammed open.

  Freedom was only a dream, a memory. How long had she been sleeping?

  Slowly, Khepri grew more aware of her surroundings. Pressure enveloped her from head to toes. Frayed edges of linen strips surrounded her eyes. An ache centered in her head made her want to gasp, but when she tried to draw a deep breath, the constriction around her chest made the movement impossible. She couldn’t feel her fingers or toes. Her body, other than her head and chest, was numb.

  Something was terribly wrong. Short, panicked breaths huffed in the silence.

  She blinked, bright sunlight streaming through a hole in the rock ceiling above, blinding her, making her eyes tear. Unable to turn her head, she peered beneath the fringe of her dark lashes, through the openings left in the fabric, gazing upward. Her sight cleared slowly, but was filtered as though looking through the gauzy curtains that surrounded her bed in her tiny house inside the temple walls. But the haze obstructing her sight wasn’t merely physical. It was a thin curtain pulled over her mind. One placed there, purposely, to confuse.

  Her head reeled, not understanding, not recognizing where she lay. The sickly sweet scent of frankincense tickled her nose.

  “Precious little warrior, you are awake.”

  If she could have drawn a deep breath, she would have spit. Sudden fury trembled through her body. She didn’t understand what was happening, but knew he was the one to blame. She wanted to rage against him, ask how he dared abduct her. She was Amun’s wife, his mortal consort. But the only sound that scratched from her throat was a tiny whimper.

  “You have questions,” he crooned from beside her. “We have little time. Pharaoh’s army marches. They will find us soon. We must bury the nameless one, hide him before they can entomb him. No one must ever find his body. He will not sleep in a sarcophagus. No texts will be written to reawaken him, no mask placed over his head so that he may recognize himself in the afterlife. He must not rise.”

  Her lashes drifted downward. She remembered the moment the handsome, lying vizier stepped off the plank lowered from the side of the barge.

  “Pharaoh is dead,” he’d said, his voice uninflected.

  Her heart had grown still. The news was devastating to be sure, but why had he traveled so far from Luxor to tell her?

  And then snippets of memories bombarded her mind.

  Khepri moaned, spreading her lips and baring her teeth to catch the edges of the strips surrounding her mouth, but they were stiffened and wouldn’t give. Her eyes rounded in fear as she realized how dire was her predicament.

  He bent closer, his dark eyes alight with sympathy. But then he moved away. Taking with him his masculine scent, musk she’d once found attractive. The odor mocked her now.

  Although she feared him, she wanted to cling to the sight of him, didn’t want to feel so alone, so trapped and helpless. Perhaps she could reason with him. But he was insane. Would no one stop him?

  Deep in her throat, she gurgled, nearly choking on the tears that leaked from her eyes and burned the back of her throat. “Please,” she whispered. From a distance, she heard his footsteps. He drew nearer, holding in one hand a slender reed with one end frayed and trimmed to form a brush and dripping red paint, and in the other a palette, red pigment swirled. He leaned over her and made strokes on the coverings enclosing her chest, down her belly, splitting over her thighs and moving down to her toes.

  “What are you doing?” she rasped, as some of the cool liquid seeped through to touch her skin.

  “Painting spells, Khepri, Amun’s wife. Introducing you to Anubis, the protector of souls, entreating him to keep you close until you are needed. To hide you from Osiris so your soul will not be judged. Not yet.”

  “Until I am needed? I am needed at the temple.”

  He
tsked and continued to paint, accompanied by the soft chuffing sounds of bristles rasping on resin-hardened fabric.

  Her tears quickened, soaking her skin beneath the wrappings and leaking into her hair. “I am The God’s Wife. You have no right.”

  He sighed and strode back into view. When he leaned over her, sympathy no longer shone in his eyes. A deep furrow dug between his sharp dark brows. “I need quiet to think,” he said, his words peppering her like hard pellets. He placed a hand over her nose and mouth, cutting off her air.

  Panic made her gurgle, but she was unable to fight. She stared upward at his gleaming eyes until darkness closed over her vision.

  Chapter Two

  That morning, Khepri had washed her hands in a clay bowl held by a servant at the darkened doorway of the sanctuary. One last ablution before she entered the small marble surrounds, a purity ritual she persisted in performing despite the high priest’s laxity. Akil was lazy, undeserving of the honor bestowed upon him.

  Khepri dried her hands on the towel the servant provided, gave her a nod that she might leave, and then reached for a candle in the basket sitting on the table next to the door.

  In the distance, the dulcet sound of the temple singer’s voice echoed in the hypostyle as the girl danced among the tall columns. The sound was soothing to Khepri who, of late, needed daily reminding of the privilege the gods had extended to her—a common farmer’s daughter.

  That she needed reminding should have shamed her. She had so much, and so little was required in return. Her duties weren’t all that time-consuming—prayers four times daily, oversight of workers inside the walls—but perhaps that was the problem. During her idle hours, she dreamed of things she had no right to even imagine, of faraway places and exciting adventures … of handsome nobles and wicked bandits. The men entering her dreams being the most shocking, the most sinful secret she kept, because she was already wed. All her passion and loyalty belonged to her husband.

  Dreams were not a haven, but a place where demons frolicked, waiting to seduce a woman from her righteous path with impure thoughts.

  Or so she’d been taught. A sentiment she repeated to herself often, but to no avail.

  Lately, she had doubts about her suitability for the role she’d been thrust into. She was irritable, easily distracted, and at night she felt yearnings for another sort of life, one where she wasn’t exalted or adored from afar, but loved in a much more intimate way.

  Today, she was glad of the niggling annoyance that followed her here. For once, her irritation came from a source outside herself. She schooled her features into a neutral mask, hoping her thoughts would follow and assume a similar calm. Just conjuring the high priest’s name made her back stiffen and her stomach boil. Akil saw to his duties only one month in three at Karnak and didn’t make use of the quarters she kept for him inside the temple walls. Instead, he stayed in Thebes, preferring beer and debauchery to daily offerings and prayer.

  Usually, his casual devotion suited her, because when he entered the temple grounds dark spirits surrounded him like a noxious cloud. His lecherous nature made her uncomfortable. And although her exalted station permitted her to refuse his overtures, she had no such power to save the other women who lived inside the walls from his advances.

  Just this morning, her handmaiden hadn’t met her gaze while she’d assisted at her morning bath.

  “Aliyah, what is wrong?” she’d asked, expecting to hear about yet another argument between her servant and the temple singer. The two women shared interest in the same handsome ferryman, whose flat-bottomed boat crossed the great river several times a day, ferrying worshippers and workers. So far, they’d kept their rivalry friendly, but Khepri didn’t need to be an oracle to know trouble lay ahead.

  “The high priest,” Aliyah said hesitantly, “he asked me to attend his bath in the sacred lake upon his return.”

  Khepri had sucked in a deep breath. Aliyah was pretty and round, her dark eyes shaped like golden almonds but tilting downward. Of course she’d drawn Akil’s roving eye. “You’ll be far too busy,” Khepri had snapped. “I have errands for you to run in Thebes. You’ll be gone at least two days.”

  Aliyah’s gratitude had shown in her gleaming eyes and watery smile. Her problem had been easy to fix. Besides, the chances Akil might actually awaken from his drunken stupor to make the journey to the temple this day were slim.

  If he did return, his irritation at Aliyah’s absence would spill over on Khepri. He’d likely demand her services at his bath in the pool inside the temple walls. But she would simply sniff and turn her back, even though what she really wished was to fly at him and use some of the warrior’s moves she’d been practicing with her tutor, skills Akil had no clue she possessed. In her exalted role, all that was expected was that she study the papyri, make her offerings to Amun throughout the day, and see to the workers inside the temple walls. The training she received by a wrinkled slave from the East was just another secret the people inside the temple walls kept.

  No, Akil didn’t know about the training, and would have been appalled, no doubt, by her unseemly practice. For she was to keep her body soft, and her mind even softer, for the pleasure of her husband. A husband who could never enjoy the feast of beauty and sacrifice she embodied in life.

  As “The God’s Wife,” Khepri was untouchable by any man, save the living god, Pharaoh—not an event she concerned herself with since Re’s current incarnation had yet to journey this far south. Inviolate and virgin, she devoted herself to her role as the living consort to Amun, the one chosen to deliver his words.

  Her position was more exalted than Akil’s, something that irritated the odious man to no end. Although why he should feel that way she didn’t understand. Akil was born of privilege, his title gifted by the current king, which made him the recipient of all the temple’s wealth.

  Khepri stood inviolate, but also helpless, while the walls crumbled due to a lack of funds for maintenance and the people in the nearby village grew hungry because Akil demanded more and more grain as tribute.

  Her hand curled tightly around the candle, her fingers leaving greasy impressions in the wax. She twisted the wick, then drew back her fingers as flame sputtered—hotter than needed—but her anger interfered with her control of simple magic.

  Closing her eyes to center herself, she took a deep breath, exhaled her anger, and then entered through the open doorway of the chamber, automatically beginning a chant, one to cleanse her spirit before she cleansed the room of mischievous spirits and offered her prayers.

  O Husband, I call to you.

  All evil which lay upon my skin is gone,

  Washed clean by Anuket’s great river,

  And dried by your gentle winds.

  Then she touched the candle’s flame to the lumps of resin in the copper bowl sitting atop the naos housing the statue of Amun. The sweetly pungent scent of frankincense quickly filled the small, unventilated room. Next, holding the candle and the bowl, she walked in a circle around the room, wafting the incense to chase away the spirits.

  Irritation still stiffened her body, making her movements ungraceful, and she bit her lip. For all that she was beginning to resent her station in life, she did hold respect for the gods. “Husband, please forgive this wife. I bring my troubles into your house.” Sighing, she knelt before the statue, setting the candle upright in the bowl, and then bowed her head, at last clearing her mind, and hoping for a gift—either of vision or of calm.

  Slowly, her breaths regulated, stretched. Her mind drifted. At that moment, her husband gifted her with a vision.

  Her ba peeled away, spreading its golden wings to fly through the narrow doorway of the sanctuary, leaving behind her human form, which knelt before the statue of Amun, expression lax, hands pressed together in prayer.

  Her spirit flew to the hall outside with its soaring ceiling, darting between tall columns, and then out toward the courtyard before lifting high above the temple walls.

 
Three strong surges of her wings lifted her toward the sun, and her heart nearly burst with gratitude for her husband’s generous gift of freedom. Although these moments were brief, the knowledge she led a blessed life was reinforced—a gentle reminder from the gods she ought not to take their favor for granted.

  At long last, her ba tired, circling downward, over the great river, high above green fields filled with cotton and wheat. To the west lay Thebes, just across the river. Looking like small rafts, ferry boats bobbed, pulled by ropes to the opposite banks. The faint echoes of the passengers with their goats and sacks drifted upward, faint echoes of laughter and chatter, though nothing distinct enough for her to understand.

  At the moment her spirit would have turned back toward the temple, something glistened on the water below, coming around the snakelike bend. A barge. One painted red and with gold symbols, long oars chopping the calm surface of the water. Reed panels enclosed the deck. A man strode from beneath the curtain to stand near the prow, his tall figure so still, his dark gaze staring at the walls of the Temple of Amun, just coming into view.

  Khepri gasped and shook herself free of the vision. She recognized the man on the bow. Pharaoh’s vizier, and the one man who’d ever caused her to blush. He traveled on Pharaoh’s barge. Did that mean the king was at last coming to visit? How awkward Akil wouldn’t be here to greet him. He’d only blame her for the lost opportunity to ingratiate himself to their ruler.

  She blew out the candle and strode out of the room, purpose in her step. Her papyrus sandals slapped the cool marble. “Tawaret!” she called to the singer. “Gather the staff. We have visitors coming—royal visitors.”

  She found Bes, the temple’s messenger. The servant was young, slim, and fast. She gave him instructions to find Akil at his house in Thebes and tell him she had seen a vision of the Pharaoh’s barge approaching.