TheEvilDrSushi asked:


OK, truthfully, its like 16pages, you could just read an excerpt tho, if you start from the begining, please bear with me, it is not that well written

Chapter One

Chione looked up from the silken shentis she was washing. It was a beautiful day. Ra’s blinding light shone down from the clear blue sky onto the Pharaoh’s garden, reflecting off the clear, blue pond. The newly watered roses glistened and the grape vines gracefully twined around the towering palm trees. Occasionally a date or two would fall down, and if Chione was lucky enough, she’d catch one. Tall, brick walls surrounded the entire garden, and the only way you could see into it was to look through the just as tall, just as magnificent golden gate.

A few paces away, she saw some young boys laughing and playing with the youngest of all seventeen of the Pharaoh’s sons, Chisika. Freedom, something she had wanted ever since her first day as a slave, at two inundations old. Both her parents had died, leaving her as an orphan. It was the Pharaoh’s tenth anniversary as being a pharaoh, and the orphanage’s head woman gave Chione to him as her gift. Chione sometimes remembered little things about her past life, her mother’s hair, her father’s voice, and most of all the overflowing affection they gave her.

Life as a slave was dull. It was hard; if work wasn’t done right, you would get whipped quite often. Others yelled at you. You were nothing. A beetle under a sandal, waiting to get squashed. Same routine, every day. Wake up, eat breakfast scraps, wash whatever clothes that needed to be washed, eat evening meal scraps, wait outside the queen’s room until clapped for, eat dinner scraps, then go to bed at the servants’ quarters.

She had naught but one friend, Reshed, the palace kitchen boy. A boy of fourteen inundations with dark brown hair and hazel eyes that reflected kindness. He was rarely seen without a smile and he could cheer any miserable soul. They spent as much time together as they could. They told one another everything, they snuck through the secret passages together they, played mischievous pranks on Wati together, they-

“STOP DAYDREAMING GIRL!”

Chione snapped to attention and tensed when she saw that it was Wati. Nonchalant Wati, arms crossed, leaning on the doorway’s frame, with a bored expression on her face and a superior air to her. She had long, lustrous black hair and heavily painted eyes. Her leather sandals were neatly strapped. Her new, clean dress was tied off onto one side. Being a servant had many advantages, and one of them was having better clothes and sandals to protect their feet from the hot ground.

“Go away, Wati!” and Chione flung a nearby rotten fig at her. She knew that she shouldn’t, especially at the head servant, but she couldn’t help it.

Wati screamed, a guard looked up, a whip came out, it all happened too fast, and next thing she knew, there was a lash across her back. Two seconds later she felt the searing pain, as if someone had drove a hot knife down her back.

“Oh, Sature, thank you but it really wasn’t necessary” Wati said in a honeyed voice that fooled everyone but Chione.

“I am doing but a guard’s job”

Chione hated those words as much as she hated Wati, for they always meant that she was in trouble. Daughter of a jackal she thought flirting with one just to use as a tool later, while she only has eyes for Pharaoh, she scowled, the swine.

After a half hour of washing and scowling and bearing the pain, she got up and walked over to the palace, basket full of shentis balanced on her hip. Her bare feet crunched on the hot gravel, and a cold breeze passed through her short, sleek, brown hair. After a few minutes, her feet touched the hard, cold, marble floor of the palace and she turned toward the stairs to the palace rooftop- Clothes dried much faster there. She glanced back at the gardens, and thought of how much she wished to be free. She looked forward and suddenly bumped into a figure. Wet shentis and honey cakes flew everywhere, and two youths fell to the ground.

“Watch where you’re going you-” but she stopped in mid-sentence, for she had bumped into Reshed.

“Ast!” he exclaimed” Chione look at what you’ve done, Nekonkh will kill me!”

“Ai! Reshed I am so sorry!” Chione bent down to pick the honey cakes up.

“No use now, Pharoah’s desert is ruined”

Chione gasped, she assumed they would be put away until the inundation feast. Forget Nekonkh, what would Pharaoh do? He was not in a very gracious mood; he was having a hard time of finding a wife for his eldest son, Ramses.

“Well maybe you can bake new ones” Chione desperately groped for an idea.

“Chione there is no time” just as Reshed finished his sentence, they saw that there, standing before them was Pharaoh. They had not heard approaching footsteps over their quarrel. Their foreheads automatically pressed against the hard, cold floor, bowing out of respect.

One look at the honey cakes made his