Page 55 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
I didn’t think any sunfire could be killed so easily, but I didn’t want to find out. I encased Sepdet in pure solar energy, wrapping him up in burning golden flames. Shocked, he turned his head back to me. “I am the last Helios male. I carry Ra’s blood. Only I can sire the Eye of Ra. You need me to take Heliopolis from High Lord Amun.”
His skin started to char inside my flames. He tried to stagger up to his feet, but I tightened my grip around him. My power held him, now. He was helpless against me, as I had been for my entire life. “I don’t want Heliopolis, and Iamthe Eye of Ra.”
Sunfire acid flowed all around him, the eternal, raw energy of the sun.Mysun, the boiling rage of a woman who was not going to be hurt any more. Who wasn’t going to be helpless ever again.
The gravity pull that Sepdet had used for so long was Quasar’s gift. Now I called on that crushing power, wrapping my energy tighter. A supermassive black hole’s force, folding in on itself. Ever smaller, heavier, until I held Sepdet’s spirit in my fist. I didn’t hesitate to crumble his remains into dust that melted away into nothing in the boiling sun.
23
Karmen
With Sepdet crushed and blasted into nothing, I hoped the power blazing in me would ebb. I felt odd, as if my bones had disintegrated too. As if everything that encompassed Karmen had been destroyed and blown away in the solar winds rushing through me.
No person should have this much power. No wonder Ra had gone insane. He had spent eons consolidating every solar house under his rule, absorbing every sun god. Destroying every sun house. Taking the women and girls for himself, desperate to create the perfect feminine destructive force.
Me.
I looked down at myself, trying to see if I still had a body. I screamed, horrified. I stood in a lake of molten gold.
Ra’s gold.
When he wasn’t fucking me, he bathed and swam in a boiling lake of gold. He had even turned some of his captured gods into golden statues with their immortal souls trapped inside. It had amused him to see those objects and know that their power was his. That he owned them, the same as he’d owned me.
I didn’t mind using his sun to destroy creatures like Sepdet. But the molten gold flowing around me—from me—confirmed my worst fears. I had the capacity to be as insane and cruel as Ra. I was his Eye. Everything I touched would turn to gold.
And I hated it. I hated Heliopolis with every fiber of my being.
I sank deeper in the molten gold. I hated Ra so much. I could not be like him. I would rather be dead.
:You are nothing like him,:Sunzi retorted in my head.
My Blood. Blindly, I turned toward him, but I couldn’t see for all the gold.:I’ll die before I go back to Heliopolis.:
Hard skeleton arms wrapped around me, lifting me from the golden lake.:Then you will never, ever go there, my queen.:
He carried me from the liquid gold that had sprung up around me. Unharmed, despite the blazing temperature of my sun power.
:Your power can never harm us, my queen,:Marcus said in his bond.:We are yours. The sunfires are yours to command. This power is not Ra’s. It’s your Sun. It was always yours.:
My Blood surrounded us. I could feel their bonds in my head, grounding me. Pulling me back from the raging sun of destruction, just as Sunzi carried me from the lake of gold.
“Karmen,” Helayna said, her hand gentle on my cheek. “Are you alright?”
I opened my eyes, afraid to see what I had done to her nest. I was on the ground, though cradled against Sunzi. Gold began to harden on my skin, dripping into soft, pliable nuggets on the ground. Power still flowed inside me, too much. Exhausting to manage. But I concentrated on the gold coating me, willing it to melt and drip off my body.
My skin was unharmed beneath the gold. At least I wasn’t turning into a literal being of gold as Ra had been. I lifted my head, trying to regain my footing, at least mentally. I hadn’t bled that much to be so weak. Not weak, exactly—more tired. As if I had run a dozen marathons carrying Ra’s golden pyramid on my back.
“Take your time,” the other woman said, drawing my attention. Long, lush black hair curled around her face and her skin gleamed like a lustrous pearl. She wore power like a second skin, lit from within by a silvery moon. “I died when I came into my power. Your body needs time to catch up.”
Yes. I felt like I had almost died. The blistering sun could have destroyed me as easily as I had destroyed Sepdet. Once unleashed, solar power would always be difficult to control.
I still felt the low, dull roar of solar winds inside me, as if the sun still boiled and hummed with energy, waiting for an excuse to blast free again. Just thinking about trying to wield so much power again made me shudder. “Does it get any easier?”
Her lips curved in a wry smile. “It would be easier to lie and say yes, of course, but honestly, I find the power more difficult each and every day. I was blessed to gain my power incrementally, calling my Blood slowly over time. You have immediately gained ten extremely powerful Blood all at once, as well as inherited a vast amount of power from the solar goddesses. They have all blessed you with gifts, because you are the last, just as I was Isis’ last daughter. It won’t be easy, but watching you from afar, I can say that you are an amazingly courageous queen, and I will gladly stand with you any day.”
“So will I,” Helayna said. “Though I feel that I let you both down today. I wouldn’t have been able to keep the nest without your help, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Thank you for reaching out, and please, don’t feel badly in the slightest. You’re amazingly strong for only having three Blood. Besides, I feel at least partially responsible for the fallout today. I knew sunfires had broken out of Heliopolis when Ra fell, but I didn’t know how to bring them back or what they were looking for.” She smiled at me and pushed to her feet. “They were looking for you all along, Karmen.”
