Recreated (29 page)

“A judgment has been requested and a judgment has been made,” Ma'at said. “I have judged the heart of the deceased, Amon; the wandering spirit, Tia; and the still living, Lily. Their souls stand as witnesses against them. In all sincerity, I decree that…”

I sucked in a breath and bit my lower lip, nibbling on it nervously. Asten looked over at me with a worried expression that made me doubt myself even more, and I shifted on my feet uncomfortably.

“…their deeds are righteous in the balance of life. The misdeeds discovered have been absolved. Their hearts are true and they will be granted passage into paradise.”

The goddess smiled and I felt the sweet trickle of icy relief in my veins, but at the same time, I wondered what her decision meant. Wasn't I supposed to go to the netherworld? How was that going to work? Amon wasn't in paradise. I stood in place wringing my hands, wondering what was supposed to happen next. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long.

“It's a good thing, truly,” Anubis said. “But she will need you to open the path to the netherworld, even so.”

“I cannot do that,” Ma'at said.

“How will she get to the netherworld if you don't send her?” Anubis said.

Ma'at sighed. “I cannot send a good soul to the netherworld, even if they're willing. Amon was able to make the jump because he possesses the Eye of Horus.”

“So we're out of options?” Anubis asked.

“She could latch on to the coattails of one condemned,” Ma'at suggested.

“That could take decades! The most vile hearts worthy of condemnation don't just appear every day,” Asten proclaimed.

“And I suppose you have another idea?” Ma'at replied.

Asten folded his arms. “Yes,” he said. “I've got an idea.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?” Ma'at asked.

“I think you should find my heart evil enough. She can ride on mine.”

“I want my heart to be weighed on the scales of justice!” Asten declared, his countenance as wild as a whirlwind. The spacious hall suddenly felt tight and small, as if the air were full of secrets.

“Asten! What are you saying?” Ahmose hissed in alarm.

Quietly, Asten replied, “You'll know soon enough.” He paused, glancing at Ahmose briefly, regret filling his eyes, and then added, “Brother.”

“Son. Don't do this.” Startled, I watched Anubis pace toward Asten and place his hand on his shoulder. “It isn't the time,” he said. “We'll find another way.”

Asten shrugged and smiled, attempting his trademark cocky smirk, but the gesture was empty and weak, devoid of his usual wit and charm. “It was going to happen eventually, wasn't it? I've played the part long enough. The lies have eaten away at me for millennia. At least this way something good might come of it.”

Ma'at had ordered a drink but before touching it, waved her servant over and hastily placed the goblet on the tray. Red liquid sloshed over the side, drops dribbling to the floor. Though the servant hastily made an effort to clean up the spill, my eyes remained transfixed on the stain. It looked like blood against the white tile. The stone was so porous it soaked up the liquid, and despite the best efforts of the girl, she could not remove the pigment. It felt portentous, an ominous sign, and my heart beat heavily in my chest with the sure knowledge that something horrible, something irreversible, was happening.

Clenching his jaw, Anubis straightened and turned toward Ma'at, pointing a threatening finger in her direction. “There will be no judging!” he announced. “Asten doesn't know what he's doing.”

“I know exactly what I'm doing,” Asten countered boldly. “And I understand the consequences better than anyone. How many doomed souls have I escorted across the Isle of the Dead? How many have I seen burned in the fire or swallowed by the hippos? How many have I dragged here to their judgment, where they collapsed in a heap of weeping and wailing supplication? I am more prepared than most, and I knew a day of reckoning was coming. I've been granted more time than I deserved. That was thanks to you, Anubis. You've helped me keep my secret over the years, even from my brothers. I'm not sure why you did it, but I'm grateful, regardless.”

“Asten, please,” Anubis said. “Won't you reconsider? There are plenty—”

“A judging has been requested and a judging will take place,” Ma'at announced. She waved her arm and all the servants disappeared. “I do not pretend to know what mysterious turpitude the two of you have covered up, but we will soon find out.”

“What is your condition?” the goddess asked softly.

Asten nibbled on his lip before heaving a deep sigh. “My heart is guilty. I am not free of sin.”

Ma'at moved her hand with a flourish and Asten cried out in pain, clutching his chest. White particles of light as soft and yet as piercing as the stars rose from between his fingers and moved purposely forward in an undulating rhythm. They strained toward Ma'at's outstretched hand, gathering together and coalescing as they did so. Asten staggered and breathed heavily as the last of the light left his body.

The delicate material contracted and re-formed itself into what looked like a mound of gleaming clay. Ma'at blew on it almost reverently and the thing she held quivered, then stilled. When she passed me to place it on the scale, I heard the soft beat of Asten's heart, a slightly different rhythm than the one coming from the heart scarab. I glanced at him in alarm but Asten appeared to be fine, though there was a slight catch in his breath.

“Let's start with the easier ones this time, shall we?” Ma'at asked as she returned to stand in front of Asten, her sharp eyes fixed on his face. “Have you broken hearts? Caused others to weep?”

Nodding, Asten said, “There have been a few women who I've left brokenhearted at the end of our earthly hiatus. There was one in particular that Ahmose was interested in and I stole her away.”

“And why were you wasting time on that?” she questioned.

Asten shrugged. “I was lonely. I wanted the companionship of a beautiful woman. But there was nothing I could do to extend my stay, so I just disappeared when the time came. They cried, but in most cases they got over me fairly quickly.”

“And what happened then with Ahmose?”

“Ahmose isn't the type to love and leave a girl. When I saw he was getting serious, I intervened.”

Ahmose's body was tense, his hands tightening into fists. “
Why,
Asten?” he quietly inquired.

Asten looked at his brother with regret. “Because it would have broken you. You would have done what Amon did, but worse. You would have sacrificed everything just like he did.”

“Then why didn't you stop
him
?” Ahmose asked.

“I didn't stop Amon because”—Asten paused and looked at me—“because she loved him back. Tiombe didn't love you,” Asten murmured softly.

“It wasn't your place to judge,” Ahmose said.

“No,” Asten agreed. “It wasn't. I regretted it as soon as it was done, but consoled myself when I saw your anger. If there was a risk that you would kill anyone, it was me, not yourself, and I made peace with that.”

Ahmose folded his arms across his chest. “Glad someone did.”

“Let us move on to the next question,” Ma'at said. “Have you committed violence?”

“I have,” Asten answered quietly. “I've battled the undead. I've fought the minions of Seth. I've dragged the damned to their tribunals and have ignored their pleas. And”—he sucked in a shaky breath—“I've caused the death of an innocent man.”

“Caused?” Ma'at said.

“No. I more than caused it,” he disclosed. Asten's eyes flicked my way and then he turned his head as if he couldn't stand looking at me. “In fact,” Asten continued, “I was the one that took his life.”

I gasped, completely shocked that the young man who carried me on his back when I couldn't walk, who flirted with a glint in his chocolate eyes and a knowing smirk, who showed kindness and understanding to Tia, was a murderer. I couldn't reconcile the man I knew with what he was saying.

“Perhaps you'd better explain,” Ma'at suggested.

“Lily knows the story about our teacher, how we left the school that day to hunt. It had been my idea. Ahmose and Amon were reluctant to break the rules. I was the wild one of the group, always trying to lead them into trouble. They would never have attacked the jackals if I hadn't been the first to run into danger.”

Jackals?
Tia shook and scrambled backward inside my mind.

Asten continued. “And I only did it because I knew they wouldn't let me fight alone. The two of them have a royal sort of moral code that I don't seem to possess.”

“Go on,” Ma'at encouraged.

“Well, that night, after defeating the jackals, we camped and I slunk away, hoping to recover the horns of the ibex.”

“And why did you need them?” Ma'at asked.

“My”—he paused—“mother was yearning for a child, a second child,” he explained. “And I'd taken it upon myself to hunt down a sorceress. She told me that if I ground up the horns of the ibex, mixed it into the fresh milk from a goat that had recently given birth for the first time, and gave it to my mother to drink, that she would then be able to conceive.”

“So you went back for the horns,” Osiris said.

“Yes, and when I did, I found the broken body of our teacher. He was still alive. I collapsed at his side and bid him drink from my skin of water, but it was obvious to me that his chance of survival was extremely unlikely. He'd already lost most of his blood. His lower leg had been removed and dragged off. He'd made a tourniquet from some torn cloth, but there was nothing I could do. Not really.

“Anything I attempted would only prolong his suffering. In the time it would have taken to bring my brothers, he likely would have died anyway. And the idea of leaving him to be devoured alive as I sought them out was unthinkable to me.”

Something broke in Tia's mind.

“Since you cannot lie when your heart is being weighed, you obviously believe this to be true, and yet you still blame yourself for his death. Why?” Ma'at asked.

Asten didn't answer at first. He had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he was replaying the grisly scene in his mind, and I wondered how many times over the centuries he'd done so.

“He tried to speak,” Asten said softly. “But no words escaped his lips. Even so, I knew what he wanted. His eyes pleaded with me, begged me for help. Our teacher needed a miracle. You asked me why I blame myself?” Asten said fervently. “It was
my fault
he was out there.
I
was the one who wanted the ibex.
I
was the one who stirred the blood of the jackals. Not Amon. Not Ahmose.
Me.

“After looking into his piteous eyes, I made a decision. Taking hold of his shoulder, I whispered, ‘I'm sorry,' then placed my hand on his forehead, took my knife, and sliced his throat. What remained of his lifeblood poured over my hands.” Asten lifted his hands and stared at them, tears filling his eyes. Touching his shaking fingers to his trembling lips, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if he was trying to set aside the horror that haunted him.

“It didn't take long for him to die,” he said when he regained control over his voice. “After that, I took my prize, hid the horns in the underbrush, and returned to my brothers. The next morning when we heard the report that our teacher was missing, all I could feel was the fear of being caught, the shame of knowing I was to blame. They'd find his body and see the cut on his neck and know it was made by man. They'd hunt for his murderer.”

Asten's voice shook with emotion. “When they did locate him, the animals had desecrated his body enough that no one was the wiser.” His body heaved with a powerful inhale and then he let out the mighty breath in a half sob, half laugh. “And do you want to know what I felt? I felt relief!” he cried, his expression one of outraged self-loathing.

Tears trickled down my cheeks as I imagined the young man Asten had been. My heart broke for him.

He went on shaking his head. “The sorrow over the loss of our teacher wasn't as important to me as not being caught. It's true. Guilt consumed me, but I was safe. I'd kept my secret. When I went to see the sorceress and told her what had happened, the woman cackled in glee and said the blood of the innocent that stained the horns would make her spell even more powerful.”

“And did you give your mother the potion?” Ma'at asked.

“I did.” Asten swiped his hands over his eyes, his palms digging into the sockets. “It was the only thing I could give her. I owed her that much.”

“I sense there is more to that answer that pertains to another question,” Ma'at said.

“There is,” Asten confessed. “I've memorized your questions, Ma'at. The two remaining are ‘Have I ever taken that which did not belong to me?' and ‘Have I ever committed perjury, hidden the truth, or deceived another?' The answer to both questions is yes.”

If Ma'at was impressed, she didn't show it but waited patiently for Asten to explain.

“When I was ten years of age, the old nursemaid who had taken care of me as a baby was on her deathbed. As was my duty, I went to visit her. When I came to her bedside, she dismissed all of the servants and told me her little secret. She said that when she was called upon to care for the queen's young baby, the prince had been very ill.

“One morning she rose to check the cradle of the young prince and found him dead. She panicked and prayed to the gods to bring back the life of the little one, but it didn't work. Disguised, she wrapped the babe in a cloth and tossed his little body to the crocodiles, then met with a servant woman who had a son the same age and offered her pilfered riches from the king's coffers in exchange for her baby. She did this in order to save her own life, which would have been in jeopardy had it become known that the royal prince had perished under her care. The serving woman agreed.