N J Adel [Adel - Seratis Daughter of the Sun

A sound Id long missed echoed against my ribs. Intensified. Not the slow, faint beat of which Id 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 Id been laid in my tomb, I was still alive.

A madness Id destined myself to for one hundred years.

That was how long I had to wait to be safe and finally live the life Id 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 Queens life inconsequential.

My escort, Redamun. My apprentice, Nur. And my handmaid, Tia.

They wouldnt 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 wasnt my enemy in the Long Sleep. Memories were.

A never ending loop of what had brought me here in the first place; the moment Id 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 hadnt 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 wouldnt open, and my limbs wouldnt 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? Id 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 havent failed you. I havent 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 Id taken in case none of Aris 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 hadnt conspired against my reign. The one Id entrusted with the live mummification formulation along with my future.

Hed 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 wed 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 hadnt anticipated when I put my body in a state of incomplete death. Coming back from it wasnt 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 thats what it takes to be alive again, so be it.