Read Online Daughter of the Gods by Stephanie Thornton - Free Book Online

wait long to witness the pharaoh’s passage to the next world. His breathing grew more labored, each inhale and exhale a struggle against his imminent fate. Tutmose’s final breath rattled in his lungs as Re broke through the black line of the horizon, ushering the pharaoh to Ma’at’s scales in a haze of golden light. Hatshepsut waited an eternity for the next inhale, but it never came.
    He was gone.
    “May the soles of his feet be firm. May he rest forever in Amenti.” Thut recited the common death prayer, his wide eyes shining.
    An ear-splitting keening shattered the peace, an animal wail from the hallway that made the hair on Hatshepsut’s arms stand on end. A harried
medjay
burst into the room, the guard’s stately demeanor replaced with something akin to panic.
    “It’s Mutnofret,” the guard choked out. “She heard of the pharaoh’s illness.” The
medjay
saw the death mask on Tutmose’s face and bowed his head before speaking again. He recited a death prayer and then added hopefully, “Perhaps someone else could tell her the news?”
    Thut spared a glance at Hatshepsut, but she waved him away. He would benefit from having something to do right now, and she needed time to think. “I’ll see to Mother,” he said, the relief plain on his face.
    Hatshepsut laid her forehead upon her father’s feather mattress as soon as Thut closed the door. She had still hoped to persuade the pharaoh to train her, but now that dream would be entombed with her father’s mummy. Her fingers clutched the bed linens. “What am I going to do?”
    A hand on her shoulder made her flinch. She had forgotten Senenmut. She brushed his hand away.
    “You’ll do what you’ve always done,” he said. “Fight for what you want, one day at a time.”
    Hatshepsut stared at him. She hadn’t realized her desires were so transparent. Senenmut had risen from the mud of Iuny—no mean feat—but she didn’t want his insight. The man’s ambition was too obvious. She stood, her elbows cradled in her hands. “There are plans to be made, his body—” She choked on the word; one of her white-knuckled fists pushed against her lips as she squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t cry, not in front of him.
    Senenmut took a step toward her, but she held her hands up like a shield. “I need to make arrangements for the funeral. There are ambassadors and governors to inform—”
    “Go to your mother,” Senenmut said. “I’ll see to the priests, and when you’re ready you can take over the arrangements. The ambassadors and governors can wait.” He hesitated, then sighed. “What about Nubia?”
    “What do you mean?” Her mind seemed lost in a fog, too dense to think.
    “They’ll see this change of leadership as a chance to rebel.”
    Of course they would. She knew the pattern from the histories she’d studied with Neferubity, lessons learned in what seemed an eternity ago. As if she didn’t have enough to think about right now.
    But Senenmut shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll discuss the matter with Thutmosis later.”
    “Thut and I will be married immediately after the funeral.” Hatshepsut rubbed her temples. The room felt empty, as if the gods had abandoned them now that Anubis had claimed his prize.
    “An extra boon for your brother,” Senenmut said.
    Hatshepsut looked back at her father’s still face, silently cursing him for leaving her too soon. “There’s so much I—
we
—needed to learn from him.”
    “You know more than you think.” Senenmut’s gaze was hooded. She wasn’t sure if he meant her alone or Thut as well. “You will help guide Thutmosis. You were born for it.”
    But she hadn’t been born for it. Neferubity had.
    •   •   •
    Egypt mourned for seventy days. The country was silent, the Great Double Gate locked. Within the Walls of the Prince, no banquets or festivals that might distract the nobles from their dutiful grieving were allowed. The royal wedding had also been postponed until