by N J Adel
SERATIS THE GODDESS OF EGYPT SERIES
SERATIS
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
N.J. ADEL
&
NOOR MALEK ZAYN
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
SERATIS DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
Copyright © 2019 N.J. Adel
All rights reserved.
All characters depicted are over the age of 18.
This book features STRONG LANGUAGE, and other material that may offend some audiences. Therefore, is intended for adults only.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the AUTHOR, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at the e-mail address below.
[email protected]
Editor, proofreader, formatter and designer Nessma A. Elssawy
Contents
DEDICATION
Also by N.J. Adel
From The Author
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPETR FORTY
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PLAYLIST
Also by N.J. Adel
Author Bio
DEDICATION
To the land that’s always in my heart
and the family that’s always by my side.
Also by N.J. Adel
Reverse Harem Erotic Romance
Her Royal Harem Series
Her Majesty’s Harem (Free with Newsletter Signup)
Her Majesty and the Virgins
Her Majesty and the Escorts
Her Royal Harem: Complete Box set
Fantasy Reverse Harem
Seratis the Goddess of Egypt
Seratis Daughter of the Sun
Seratis War of the Gods
New Adult Dark MC Romance
The Nine Minutes Trilogy
NINE MINUTE LATER
Nine Minutes Xtra
Nine Minutes Forever
Steamy Contemporary Romance
Love Off Camera Serial
Dirty Beats (Prequel)
Unscripted
Unrevealed
Unrehearsed
Unprepared
Unproposed
Unwritten
Made of Stars
…And Scars
Heroes and Villains
Just Like the Movies
Femdom Erotic Dark Romance
The Mistress Series
Darkness Between Us
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From The Author
Since the book takes place in a fantasy world from 800BC to 300AD and English hasn’t been invented at the time, the degree of historical language used is a happy medium that wouldn’t make the writing stilted, pompous or too obsolete for current readers yet still maintains a voice of ancient times.
As an Egyptian myself, who has a degree in Egyptology from Egypt and has been once a tour guide, I hope you will see that some concepts which the western world and even some Eastern cultures think they are unrelated or inaccurate to the ancient Egyptian culture such as heaven and hell, the growing of sunflowers and existence of some animals, the certain skin color of natives etc…, are in fact authentic to the Ancient Egyptians. I respect everyone’s perspective as I hope you will respect mine. In the end, history is controversial, and to each their own.
I did my best to bring accuracy to the story. However, this book remains a fantasy with elements of alternate history, and the characters are completely fictitious.
CHAPTER ONE
A sound I’d long missed echoed against my ribs. Intensified. Not the slow, faint beat of which I’d become unaware.
Is it time?
My ancestors built formidable tombs where their dead bodies would lie preserved, anticipating their resurrection into another life.
A better one.
For the same reason, I followed their lead. Except when I’d been laid in my tomb, I was still alive.
A madness I’d destined myself to for one hundred years.
That was how long I had to wait to be safe and finally live the life I’d envisioned.
How long we had to wait.
Ankh and the stars had gifted me not one but three companions who were sworn to serve me, their lives to Queen’s life inconsequential.
My escort, Redamun. My apprentice, Nur. And my handmaid, Tia.
They wouldn’t leave their ruler alone in the unknown future that awaited her. Brave enough to venture into a path longer and more daring than the Nile itself. A journey no one risked imagining, let alone making.
Even though we might never wake again.
A troubling question only to be answered after a hundred years.
Yet with being alone, unchanging, confined in a cold, gold box inside a sarcophagus, with nothing but my mind to keep me company, time meant absolutely nothing.
Waiting wasn’t my enemy in the Long Sleep. Memories were.
A never ending loop of what had brought me here in the first place; the moment I’d made the decision to run and hide instead of continuing to fight a lost battle in an endless war, hoping for a second chance of living in peace.
Here on this earth, not in the afterlife.
With different people. At a better time.
A time without Bessen Ra, my half-brother.
If only he hadn’t chosen to…
My thoughts halted as another pulse set in my chest.
Stronger.
I gasped.
Yes. I gasped. A slow, short intake of breath under the linen layers but the most powerful and lively action my body had performed since the day I had been put to sleep.
One hundred years of patience. Of wonder. Of fear. A test of faith.
Had I succeeded?
Was I able to preserve the living as my ancestors mummified the dead?
I gasped again, my heartbeat growing into a consistent rhythm.
Yes. This is happening.
Even though my eyes wouldn’t open, and my limbs wouldn’t move yet, I could feel the very little dry air around me spreading in my lungs, bidding my blood to course through my veins.
I could
hear it run. How magnificent!
How was that even possible? I’d never thought anyone could hear their blood running. Yet again no one had lived in dead silence for a century either.
A little laugh gurgled in my throat, and I wanted to scream.
In elation.
In victory.
Awakening Day has come, my friends. I haven’t failed you. I haven’t wasted your precious lives.
Any moment now, my fingers would come back to life and press the secret hinge that unlocked the sarcophagus from the inside. A precautious measure I’d taken in case none of Ari’s descendants were here on time to open the tomb.
If they came at all.
A hundred years were too long to believe and never lose faith or hope. To bear the burden of our secret. To pass it on to one generation after another, risking everything for one moment that might never have come.
Even for the strongest of believers like Ari, the only priest that hadn’t conspired against my reign. The one I’d entrusted with the live mummification formulation along with my future.
He’d sacrificed the opportunity to accompany me on the legendary path to perform the process on the four of us instead, with a promise to keep things in order for when we’d wake.
To protect my legacy, to keep my history unmaimed. To teach his family the truth about what really happened to me, Queen Meha. To keep my most valuable knowledge safe from the usurper of my throne.
My so-called brother.
A wave of anger washed over me, and I was grateful for the feeling. Any feeling at this moment was a blessing, even if it was the sense of betrayal and the tragedy of losing what was rightfully mine.
My eyes twitched. A tremble ran through my fingers. My stiff bones burned, and I felt as if a hole was being dug in my chest.
Pain.
Heaps of it.
Nothing I hadn’t anticipated when I put my body in a state of incomplete death. Coming back from it wasn’t going to be a breeze.
I welcomed it, though. The heat. The slow, excruciating spasms of my muscles. The dryness of my throat and my skin. The pounding in my skull. The haze in my brain.
If that’s what it takes to be alive again, so be it.
My fingers pulsed one by one, tapping the gold underneath. My arms were wrapped freely from my body and not crossed over my chest like the dead. Thankfully, they were stretched straight on either side of me, which expedited their resurrection. My breaths hitched as I regained sensation in my palms, my eyes beseeching my lids to open.
I should be waiting for my blood to get my organs back in motion at its own natural speed, but I couldn’t. A hundred years in this grave had run me out of patience.
I took a breath as deep as I could. It hurt, but it was necessary to power this body to move. Moaning in pain, yet grateful my hand responded to my adamant attempts to make it function before its time, I dragged it across the box, feeling my way to the hinge.
Find the snake on the right. Three engravings to the left. Go down till you touch the sunflower. Then press the bud.
I reminded myself as though I’d forget the spell to my freedom. I hadn’t forgotten anything at all. My memory, all these years, remained untouched.
Would I say the same about my body? That was yet to be examined and determined.
The slick drawings felt like ice under my fingertips as I found the snake. By the piercing tingling in my hand, I’d say that thing came to life with me and bit me.
I didn’t care. I got used to the pain quickly; it was becoming more bearable by the moment.
My hands stretched three engravings to the left, and when I felt the gold sunflower petals, my heart raced. I circled the bud with a shaking thumb and pressed.
A slow, agonized crack thundered in the tomb and through my bones. Then the granite top lifted the tiniest bit above my head. I could tell by the warm draft sneaking around my wrapped hair and ears.
My too dry eyes wouldn’t open still. But I knew by the time the water clock built in the sarcophagus declared the allocated period to regulate the air inside and outside the box had passed, I’d be able to use my eyes again.
I wasn’t dead or decaying. No toxic fumes would come out when I was freed. The sarcophagus, like its inner design, was unique and flawless, with accurate measurements that allowed perfect temperature regulation and air filtering.
However, the air in the tomb wasn’t the same.
Worried someone would find this secret place and ruin my chances of remaining hidden, I couldn’t have it in any way different from a regular commoner tomb—not even a royal one.
And it worked.
The only problem of coming in instant contact with the air in a sealed place for a hundred years was that it could have caused my body to enter a state of shock. Especially that it’d been preserved this long in a fine line between life and death. Who could anticipate for certain what might happen?
Regardless of how meticulous my calculations were, and that the architects who designed this work of art—Ari himself and one of his sons—couldn’t have been better, there was no absolute way to predict the outcome of this experiment.
The enormous weight of the sarcophagus top screeched on its axis and lifted higher, yet my heart leapt at another sound.
Footsteps.
From outside the burial chamber.
I could hear them clearly over the deafening sound of stone sliding above me, approaching, climbing down one step after another.
My palms braced against the box as the footsteps stopped at the entrance.
The sarcophagus lid moved again, and light from the eternal burning zebaq lamps traveled over my body and my shut eyelids, revealing me to whoever was about to open the door to my tomb.
One of Ari’s descendants?
A raider?
Someone else entirely?
My closed eyes yawed frantically under their lids, willing my dry, stuck lashes to part. Now that I had enough space to move, I reached behind my head to remove the linen wrapping my face.
Then I stopped midway.
Should I be removing it now or play dead until the intentions of that visitor were revealed?
The burial chamber door rumbled open, and the decision had been made for me.
I couldn’t see. I had no time to fully unwrap my body. The wisest choice was to remain dead. Besides, if this was an intruder or a raider, a live mummya would scare them so much that their feces might fall out of their intestines.
I held my breath and listened carefully.
One step.
Two steps.
A gasp.
Manly.
A swallow.
Racing heartbeats.
A faint smell of sweat mixed with a stronger essence of rosewater and lavender oil.
Another step.
Putting the best alive mummya performance I could muster—not that I’d seen a mummified body move before—I tilted my head toward the man’s side as slowly as possible; I was not able to move any faster in the first place.
And the loudest scream I’d ever heard echoed against the forsaken walls.
CHAPTER TWO
“Daughter of the Sun, the burial chamber lies in the darkness till thy light appears. From the Throne of Silence send us comfort. Seratis, beloved, banish all our fears,” the man murmured.
Hearing that name again disturbed me.
Seratis.
The divine lie.
The fable that threw me off the throne.
Was he really praying…to me? Did people still believe I was a goddess?
The angry waves hit again. This time they were so powerful my eyes teared.
One more time, I was grateful for the overwhelming emotions. There was an upside even for fury and pain. The tears moistened my lashes, and I could finally open my eyes. Why hadn’t I thought of crying right from the start?
Through the tight linen, I saw a blur of the man as he stumbled back, almost falling down.
“Mother of Gods! Have
your eyes moved, Goddess? Or is it the delusions of my mind? The curse of entering your sacred tomb?”
He believed the tomb curse was real, too? We engraved horrific warnings on the walls and the sarcophagi only to scare away raiders. There was no real curse. How silly was that man?
A few moments ago, I was hoping this visitor was a member of Ari’s family. Now, I wished for the opposite. An intruder, a raider even. Anything was better than someone I’d thought would be my usher to the new world while he was nothing but an ignorant, uneducated disappointment.
I sighed.
“Huh! You…you’re breathing,” he said.
“Yes, I am, and you’re not mad,” I slurred through the thick fabric, my throat on fire, my tongue dry as a rock. “Would you remove these off of me?”
“Holy…” His breathing accelerated as he scurried toward the sarcophagus.
I heard something hit the ground with a muffled thud, and then his shaking fingers touched my face.
He reached behind my head, lifting it with gentleness. The rhythm of his heart quickened while he undid the linen, slowly, carefully unwrapping it. He might be a scared, simple-headed man, but he wasn’t clumsy.
The last piece of cloth on my face hit my chin, and I opened my eyes to the light, savoring it after what seemed to be an eternity of darkness. It didn’t matter how dim and blurry the light inside the tomb was. To me, in this moment, it felt like the brightest of suns.
“You must be thirsty,” he said. Then I felt glass and cold water droplets on my lips. I fought the urge to gulp on it as I had no perception of how my body would react.
And after years of desiccation, it did taste so good. Miraculous. Like nothing I’d ever tasted before.
“Thank you.” I blinked for a better vision and took in the face before me.
Black hair. Short but thick. Wide forehead. Furrowed brows and arched up at the same time. Big blue eyes. Blue? That was strange. I blinked again for confirmation. Yes. Blue with shades of green. The color of a turquoise sea. They shone against his young olive skin with an astonishing contrast.
Eccentric. Beautiful.