Reawakened (The Reawakened Series)
Read Reawakened (The Reawakened Series) Online
Authors: Colleen Houck
The Tiger’s Curse series
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Colleen Houck
Cover art copyright © 2015 by Chris Saunders
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Houck, Colleen.
Reawakened / Colleen Houck. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “A visit to an Egyptian exhibit brings teen Lilliana Young face to face with a recently awakened mummy-turned-handsome-sun-god as she gets caught up in an adventure with more twists and turns than the Nile itself”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-385-37656-3 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-385-37657-0 (glb) — ISBN 978-0-385-37658-7 (ebook)
1. Amon (Egyptian deity)—Juvenile fiction. [1. Amon (Egyptian deity)—Fiction. 2. Gods, Egyptian—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Supernatural—Fiction. 5. Egypt—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H81143Re 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014023498
eBook ISBN 9780385376587
Cover design by Angela Carlino
eBook design based on printed book design by Heather Kelly
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v4.1
ep
For my dad, Bill, who left us all too soon
THE WINE OF LOVE
An Ancient Egyptian Love Poem
Oh! when my lady comes,
And I with love behold her,
I take her into my beating heart
And in my arms enfold her;
My heart is filled with joy divine
For I am hers and she is mine.
Oh! when her soft embraces
Do give my love completeness,
The perfumes of Arabia
Anoint me with their sweetness;
And when her lips are pressed to mine
I am made drunk and need not wine.
In the great city of Itjtawy, the air was thick and heavy, reflecting the mood of the men in the temple, especially the countenance of the king and the terrible burden he carried in his heart. As King Heru stood behind a pillar and looked upon the gathered people, he wondered if the answer his advisers and priests had given was their salvation or instead, their utter destruction.
Even should the offering prove successful, the people would surely suffer a terrible loss, and for him, personally, there was no way to recover from it.
Despite the simmering heat of the day, he shivered in the temple’s shadow, surely a bad omen. Uneasily, he ran a hand over his smoothly shaven head and let the curtain fall. To quiet his nerves, he began to pace the temple’s smooth, polished dais and ponder his choices.
King Heru knew that even should he defy the proposed demands, he needed to do something drastic to appease the fearsome god Seth. If only there was a way out, he thought. Putting the proposal to the people was something no king had ever done before.
A king held his position precisely because it was his right, his duty, to see to the needs of his people, and a king who could not make a wise decision, however difficult, was ripe for deposing. Heru knew that by allowing the people to decide, he proved himself to be a weakling, a coward, and yet there was no other outlet he could see that would allow him to live with the consequences.
Twenty years before King Heru’s time, all the people of Egypt were suffering. Years of terrible drought further complicated by devastating sandstorms and plague had almost destroyed civilization. Marauders and old enemies took advantage of Egypt’s weakness. Several of the oldest settlements had been wiped out completely.
In a desperate act, King Heru invited the surviving leaders of the major cities to come to his home. King Khalfani of Asyut and King Nassor of Waset agreed to a one-week summit, and the three of them, along with their most powerful priests, disappeared behind closed doors.
The results of that meeting had been a decision that tipped the balance in the pantheon of the gods. Each city worshipped a different god—the residents of Asyut, which played host to the most famous magicians, were devoted to Anubis; those of Waset, known for weaving and shipbuilding, to Khonsu; and King Heru’s people, skilled in pottery and stone cutting, worshipped Amun-Ra and his son, Horus. The kings had been convinced by their priests that their patron gods had abandoned them and that they should come together as one to make offerings to appease a new god, namely, the dark god, Seth, in order to secure the safety and well-being of the people.
And so they did. That year the rains came in abundance. The Nile overflowed its banks, creating fertile lands for planting. Livestock flourished, tripling in number. Women gave birth the following year to more healthy babies than had ever been recorded. Even more astonishing was when the queens of each city, who had been the most outspoken against the deity change, were appeased when discovering that they, too, had conceived.
As the three queens each gave their husbands a healthy son, they acknowledged their blessings, especially the wife of Heru, who had never had a child and was well past her bearing years. Though in their hearts, the new mothers still paid homage to the gods of old, they agreed that from that time forward they would never speak ill of the dark one. The people rejoiced.
The people prospered.
The three kings wept with gratitude.
In an age of peace and harmony, the sons of each queen were raised as brothers in the hope that they would someday unite all of Egypt under one ruler. The worship of Seth became commonplace, and the old temples were essentially abandoned.
The sons considered each king a father and each queen a mother. Their kings loved them. Their people loved them. They were the hope of the future, and nothing could keep the three of them apart.
Now, even now, on the darkest day of their fathers’ lives, the three young men stood together, waiting for the kings to make a surprise announcement.
In a moment, the three kings would ask the unthinkable. A favor that no king, no father, should ask of his son. It made King Heru’s blood run cold and left him with vivid nightmarish dreams of his heart being found unworthy when weighed against the feather of truth in the final judgment. The three kings stepped into the glaring sunlight that reflected off the white stone of the temple. King Heru stood in the center while the other two men took their place at his side. King Heru was not only the tallest of the three but also the most skilled speaker. Raising his hands, he began, “My people, and visiting citizens from our dearly loved cities upriver, as you know, we, your kings, have been in conference with our priests to determine why the river, which has lapped our shores so gently for the last twenty years, does not flourish as it should in this most important season. Our chief priest, Runihura, has said that the god Seth, the one we have worshipped wholeheartedly these past years, demands a new sacrifice.”
King Heru’s own son took a step forward. “We will sacrifice whatever you think is necessary, Father,” he said.
The king held up his hand to quiet his son and gave him a sad smile before turning back to the crowd. “The thing that Seth asks this year as a sacrifice is not a prized bull, bushels of grain, fine fabrics, or even the best of our fruits.” Heru paused as he waited for the people to quiet. “No, Runihura has said that Seth has given us much, and for the things we have received we must return that which is most precious.
“The god Seth demands that three young men of royal blood be sacrificed to him and that they serve him indefinitely in the afterlife.” Heru sighed heavily. “If this does not happen, he vows to rain destruction upon all of Egypt.”