Mistress of Pharaohs. Daughter of Dawn. Natalie Yacobson

picking up what mortals whisper behind the deserts. “Djinns are my warriors who have no bodies left-just a blob of darkness instead of a shell.”

      There were also djinns of fire, but it was the pillar of darkness that hovered before her.

      “Which of my warriors were you before you died? What was your name?”

      “I have no name,” the darkness clung to her. “I am you! We have the same name! “Dennitsa.”

      “Dennitsa means dawn! And you are all dark! How can you be called Dennitsa?”

      “Do you want to give me a new name like you gave yourself?” The darkness’s voice became soulful.

      Alais closed her eyelids, feeling a strange pleasure in the intimacy of darkness. The darkness enveloped her entire body, caressed her wings, sought to penetrate her skin.

      After the battle, Michael shouted insults-the devil, Satan. This meant an opposing angel, an apostate. These were probably her new names.

      How absurd it all came out! Michael loved her to pieces, but the first argument over power ended in tragedy. The admirer had become the enemy. Alais remembered the way Mikhail’s blond hair had fluttered in the firestorm. She longed to cut off his head with her sword, to grasp it by his beautiful hair and hold it in her hands like a trophy. His head would remain alive even after it was cut off. It can be spoken to, it can be rebuked.

      This naive angel wants her to go back to heaven. And she wants his head.

      The darkness caressed her like a lover.

      “I am you,” he repeated.

      “Then your name is the devil,” Alais recalled Michael calling her.

      The gloom fell silent for a moment.

      “What can I do to make you believe that you and I are one?” After a pause, he asked softly.

      “Destroy the heavens!”

      “I am not strong enough yet.”

      “Then don’t bother! We’ll speak when you are strong enough.”

      “I could gather strength. There’s a lot of potential in this land. It needs people. Lure more people into the wilderness. I’ll take their lives and make me stronger.”

      “If you have anything in common with me, you must deal with everything on your own, as I do after a defeat.”

      Surviving was difficult. Alais was torn by a longing for the celestial sphere. The desert full of gold in front of her, though it looked fabulous, couldn’t take away the nostalgia. The sandy plain seemed like the back of a huge giant. It seemed as if it was about to rise from the sands. The darkness seemed like a giant, too. He hovered around Alais, fawning over her, and then suddenly disappeared. With him gone, Alais sighed more freely.

      Seven

      Alais woke up as if jolted. They were leaning over her. There were her former standard – bearers. Mastem, Noreus, Doriel, Setius, Novelin, Ramiel, and Amadeo. Their faces and bodies were as beautiful as ever. It was idyllic, like heaven! It was one exception. The angels had become marbleized.

      “I remember when you were petrified,” Alais rose from the dune on which she had lain and grinned vindictively. “It’s good to know that all traitors have been given a fair trial. Are you comfortable being marbled? Don’t you feel a certain stiffness of movement?”

      Beautiful curly heads drooped shamefully. Even the curls snaking down their shoulders turned to marble. Pale marble faces phosphoresced beneath the starry desert skies. The slender figures of the angels looked bulky because of the heavy marble wings. Was it difficult to fly with such wings? The celestial company did not seem to have any discomfort. The marble bodies were hovering over the sand, not treading on it.

      “All are in their entirety!” Alais counted. “It was like being in heaven! Only one angel was missing. Ciel has shown more loyalty than you, and has not become marbleized.”

      “We’ve been thinking of bringing him back,” Cetius answered for all. He was the boldest of the Seven Angels and always took the initiative. She was sure he’s the one who’s put everyone up to this treachery. “Our strength would seem to be growing weaker without Ciel.”

      “Serves you right!” Alais glared vindictively at Amadeo. The seventh angel was as if he were superfluous in the company. Would his cunning and poise, in time, compensate for the loss of the most powerful of standard – bearers?

      “We carried your standards and assembled the disparate parts of the legion into coherent units,” Setius began to pity them. “We were your standard-bearers and commanders of your armies. All your orders we faithfully obeyed. You know all our secret talents. Can you do without us from now on? Take us back.”

      That’s it! They came to serve. And she remembered the moment they turned their backs on her.

      “It was from him! Not from you!” Setius had read her mind. “It was from that ugly creature that burned in the fire.”

      “Are we not the same?” She was just trying to tease them? Alais frowned. She wasn’t sure of anything, but their presence around her made her uncomfortable. One look at them brought to mind the moment they had turned away from their fallen warlord in disgust. From her!

      “I can’t forgive you,” Alais spoke for the two of them. It was for the first time. The darkness was spoken from her mouth besides herself.

      “Why is it not? We’ve always been together.”

      Setius’s marble finger slipped to adjust her unruly curl, and it burned. Steam ran from the marble hand.

      “It is like the sun! Still! Oh, yes!” He exclaimed.

      Alais was pleased. So to this day she still burns anyone whose touch displeases her. Cetius had a nip in the bud. The marble toe crumbled to ash before his eyes.

      Beneath the angels’ marble feet the sand crunched, teeming with deposits of hard gems. The desert had become a treasure trove. Alais had long ago realized that the commonplace gold and diamonds, to her, were valued above all else on earth.

      But with the burnt creature that had been mistaken for her, the matter was unclear. She herself remembered the moment she had burned. Her skin was blackening and shriveling, and then suddenly it was gone. She rose from the sand as if the fire had not touched her body.

      “Let us stay with you!” Setius flew after her. Though his body had become marble, he could still fly.

      “You wanted to be alone,” Alaïs was reminded again of that moment when they had turned away from her in horror.

      “We thought you were disfigured,” Setius said shamelessly. “If you remember, when we followed you into battle, we were only attracted to your beauty. The angels said the world should be ruled by one who is like the sun. And suddenly you were ash instead of sun. Naturally, we were disappointed.”

      “Well, then maybe I should be disappointed that you’ve become marble?”

      “It’s healthier to be marbleized on earth. We’ve become stronger. Our touches kill people. Once a man enters our ring, he is destroyed.”

      “I don’t care about people,” Alais shook her golden curls.

      “And they care about you and your secrets. You know that some renegade from your armies has begun to teach humans speech and angelic skills. These creatures would have remained as unintelligent as animals if he had not put in them the ability to cut fire, to make iron, to make weapons, even to speak. Because of him, people have become enemies to us.”

      “And who is this renegade?” Alais thought feverishly. Indeed, from the beginning, humans were like cattle. They wore no clothes, couldn’t cook food. They didn’t know about intelligent speech and weapons. Then suddenly these creatures became intelligent. They went from savages to civilized