Nefertiti

stand for eternity.”

When it was clear that Pharaoh would not take Amunhotep’s hand, my father moved forward to save the prince from embarrassment.

“Let your brother be buried,” he suggested quietly.

The look Amunhotep gave his father would have turned Anubis cold.

It was only when we returned on barges across the Nile, with the waves to drown our voices, that anyone dared to speak.

“He is unstable,” my father declared on our way back to Akhmim. “For three generations, our family has given women to the Pharaohs of Egypt. But I will not give one of my daughters to that man.”

I wrapped my wool cloak around my shoulders. It wasn’t me he was talking about. It was my sister, Nefertiti.

“If Amunhotep is to be made coregent with his father, he will need a Chief Wife,” my mother said. “It will be Nefertiti or Kiya. And if it is Kiya…”

She left the words unspoken, but we all knew what she had meant to say. If it was Kiya, then Vizier Panahesi would have sway in Egypt. It would be easy and logical to make his daughter queen: Kiya was already married to Amunhotep and nearly three months pregnant with his child. But if she became Chief Wife, our family would bow to Panahesi’s, and that would be an unthinkable thing.

My father shifted his weight on his cushion, brooding while the servants rowed north.

“Nefertiti has been told she will be a royal wife,” my mother added. “You told her that.”

“When Tuthmosis was alive! When there was stability and it looked as if Egypt would be ruled by…” My father closed his eyes.

I watched as the moon rose over the barge, and when enough time had passed, I thought it safe to ask, “Father, what is Aten?”

He opened his eyes. “The sun,” he replied, staring at my mother. There were thoughts passing between them, but no words.

“But Amun-Ra is god of the sun.”

“And Aten is the sun itself,” he said.

I didn’t understand. “But why would Amunhotep want to build temples to a sun god that no one has heard of?”

“Because if he builds temples to Aten, there will be no need for the priests of Amun.”

I was shocked. “He wants to be rid of them?”

“Yes.” My father nodded. “And go against all the laws of Ma’at.”

I sucked in my breath. No one went against the goddess of truth. “But why?”

“Because the crown prince is weak,” my father explained. “Because he is weak and shallow, and you should learn to recognize men who are afraid of others with power, Mutnodjmet.”

My mother threw a sharp glance at him. It was treason, what my father just said, but there was no one to hear it above the splash of the oars.

Nefertiti was waiting for us. She was recovering from fever, but even so she was sitting in the garden, reclining by the lotus pool, the moonlight reflecting off her slender arms. She stood up as soon as she saw us, and I felt a sort of triumph that I had seen the prince’s funeral and she’d been too sick to go. Guilt swept this feeling away, however, when I saw the longing in her face.

“Well, how was it?”

I’d planned on having the information drawn out of me, but I couldn’t be cruel the way she could be. “Absolutely magnificent,” I gushed. “And the sarcophagus—”

“What are you doing out of bed?” my mother scolded. She was not Nefertiti’s mother. She was only mine. Nefertiti’s mother had died when her daughter was two; she’d been a princess from Mitanni and my father’s first wife. She was the one who gave Nefertiti her name, which meant the Beautiful One Has Come. And though we were related, there was no comparing us: Nefertiti was small and bronze, with black hair, dark eyes, and cheekbones you could cup in the palm of your hand, whereas I am dark, with a narrow face that would never be picked out of a crowd. At birth, my mother didn’t name me for beauty. She called me Mutnodjmet, meaning Sweet Child of Goddess Mut.

“Nefertiti should be in bed,” my father said. “She’s not feeling well.” And although it was my sister he should have been reprimanding, it was me to whom he spoke.

“I’ll be fine,” Nefertiti promised. “See, I’m better already.” She smiled for him, and I turned to see my father’s reaction. Like always, he had a soft look for her.

“Nevertheless,” my mother cut in, “you were hot with fever and you will go back to bed.”

We let ourselves be herded inside, and when we lay on our reed mats, Nefertiti rolled over, her profile sharp in the light of the moon. “So, what was it like?”

“Frightening,” I admitted. “The tomb was huge. And dark.”

“And the people? How many people were there?”

“Oh, hundreds. Maybe even thousands.”

She sighed. She had missed a chance to be seen. “And the new crown prince?”

I hesitated. “He…”

She sat up on her pallet, nodding for me to go on.

“He is strange,” I whispered.

In the moonlight, Nefertiti’s dark eyes glittered. “How do you mean?”

“He is obsessed with Aten.”

“With what?”

“With an image of the sun,” I explained. “How can you honor an image of the sun and not Amun-Ra, who controls it?”

She was quiet. “That’s it?”

“He’s also tall.”

“Well, he can’t be that much taller than you.”

I ignored her criticism. “He’s much taller. Two heads over Father.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees and replied, “This should be interesting, then.”

I frowned. “What?”

She didn’t explain.

“What should be interesting, then?” I repeated.

“Marriage,” she said lightly, lying back down and pulling the linen cover over her chest. “With a coronation so close, Amunhotep will need to pick a Chief Wife, and why not me?”

Why not her? She was beautiful, educated, the daughter of a Mitanni princess. I felt a sharp stab of jealousy, but also fear. I had never known a time without Nefertiti.

“Of course, you’ll come with me,” she said, yawning. “Until you’re old enough to be married, you’ll be my Chief Lady.”

“Mother wouldn’t allow me to go to the palace alone.”

“You wouldn’t be alone. She’d come, too.”

“To the palace!” I exclaimed.

“Mutny, when you’re Chief Wife, your family comes with you. Our father is the greatest vizier in the land. Our aunt is the queen. Who would dare to say no?”

In the middle of the night, a long shadow lingered outside our room, then a servant entered, holding an oil