Mistress ofВ Pharaohs. Daughter of Dawn
Natalie Yacobson
Pharaoh, hungry for victory at any cost, made a pact with a beautiful demon from the desert. Now all the rulers of Egypt are in the power of a mysterious winged beauty named Alais. Every Pharaoh depends on her. Armies of monsters sleeping in the sands await Alais’ commands. She herself is immortal and so alluring that it is impossible not to fall in love with her. But can she love back a Pharaoh or an ordinary man?
Mistress ofВ Pharaohs
Daughter of Dawn
Natalie Yacobson
Translator Natalia Lilienthal
© Natalie Yacobson, 2022
© Natalia Lilienthal, translation, 2022
ISBNВ 978-5-0056-7594-1
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
After theВ fall
Angels have fallen. What had been divine beauty a moment ago had become ashes and decay. The glow of heaven’s fire had long since faded, leaving only the dusky desert. On the sand, black with the blood of angels, creeping monsters crawled. And these are the warriors of her great army?!
White-winged, fair-faced, proud and stately, incredibly strong…
Now the picture was upside down, like a burnt fresco. There was no trace of the recent beauty. The relentless flames from the heavens had destroyed all whiteness, all beauty, all stature… All that was left was power-dark and roaring from deep within, from the very bowels of the earth, where the mightiest of her heavenly warriors had fallen. They cried out for vengeance!
She looked up. Heaven is far away! She had never imagined they would be so far away.
The sands lay everywhere, shaky and prickly. There was none ofВ that inВ the sky. She frowned, running the sand through her fingers. The sand suddenly became aВ handful ofВ gold. Well, she still had her strength. But enough toВ make the monsters beautiful again and send them off toВ battle inВ the heavens?
She watched indifferently as they crawled across the sands and tried toВ flap their burnt wings. And yet just aВ moment ago she was inВ pain at the sight ofВ their former beauty being burned inВ the fire. The pain came from her heart. Now there was nothing but aВ sucking emptiness. Like aВ vortex!
“When you go past the edge of pain, it ceases to exist!” The voice was familiar, but she did not recognize the frightening black creature before her. It appeared in the wilderness, as if a flash of lightning had swept it away. Unlike the other fallen warriors, it did not crawl, but sat majestically on a rock. A moment more, and it approached her closely, like a ghost. Its eyes… sunken into the burned pits, but still so bright… She recognized it. Hardly! The shell had changed completely, only his eyes remained the same: defiant and rebellious.
“Remy!” she said his angelic name with difficulty. It seemed as if only a fraction of the name should remain. “Is it you?”
“Yes, I am, Mistress…”
“Is it Mistress?” Something didn’t add up. She frowned. It used to be addressed as “Mylord.” Something was wrong! She looked at her body. It was still beautiful. It couldn’t be… because her whole army was disfigured.
The body was different. She ran her hand over her skin. AВ density emerged beneathВ it.
“It’s called flesh,” a voice spoke from somewhere deep within her mind.
Is it flesh? She frowned. Their bodies used to be made of ether, and they felt no pain at all until they were first wounded in the war. Under their skin, something red seeped out of the ether – blood. No one knew of its existence either. One can only know about something by seeing it for the first time. Everything that was happening now was a first time. The fall had been painful. And after that, there was a new era, a mere exile to the sands.
“How many are we missing?” She asked Remy.
“Many. But better all! Look upon them all! Is that them?” He nodded at the monsters crawling out of the sand.
“Have you seen yourself?”
Remy was embarrassed.
“And yet they were better off dead than still living like that,” he muttered.
“To die is to lose forever, and we’re still alive, so we can fight again eventually.”
She ran handfuls ofВ sand through her fingers, swirling them into golden dust. Her disfigured army would soon be able toВ fight again. Only the longing for those no longer there is unpleasant. Her most trusted angels have turned toВ nothing. Only from somewhere inВ the depths ofВ the sands did their spirits cryВ out.
She still had her sword, a beautiful thing with a golden hilt and runes on the blade. Strangely, Michael didn’t break it in the fight. He tried to do it by grabbing the blade with his bare hands. Blood came out of his palms, too, thick and bright. What a pleasant sight – the blood of the enemy! The closest friend can become the worst enemy. He did not break the blade. He is only badly wounded. Serves him right!
Only those who have been faithful deserve respect. The most faithful servants were just what she was missing. All her standard – bearers were gone. Their voices echoed through the sand, drowning and fading into the hot desert air. They were only voices. The stately warriors themselves could not be raised from the abyss of non-existence, could not be saved, but she would remember them. The blade of her sword drew their names in the sand. For some reason, the inscriptions went in circles. And beneath each name there was a memorable symbol. The letters, taken from the lettering of heaven, burned through the sand. Such signs are not for the earth. The soil crumbles and burns from them.
Somehow the whole circle did not ignite. The first letters ofВ each name remained. They crawled toward each other, like insects, and formed into one solid inscription. One name emerged:
“Alais!”
“Is that your new name now?” Remy was already looking at the vibrating letters in the sand.
“It’s not good to start a new fight under the same name you’ve already lost.”
The new name should serve as aВ talisman. Fused from the first letters ofВ the names ofВ the dead angels, it would take effect. Such aВ name was needed the first time she went into battle against the Archangel Michael, but then there were no dead warriors whose names could be pieced together.
Now there were. Their power had not gone to nothing. It could be drawn together with the first letter of each name. There’s the amulet!
There is no more Dennitsa. There is Alais.
Along with aВ new name there is aВ new chance toВ win.
Alais looked around the deserts. This is her new kingdom now. It may not be heaven, but it reeks of freedom. The boundless sands go into the distance. You can turn them into gold if you want, or you can leave them as they are. The blood-red sun sets over the horizon and turns them golden all by itself. In heaven you could usually reach out and touch the sun, but now it was suddenly so far away! You couldn’t reach it with your hand! But its glow made the monsters in the desert suffer. They were already too badly burned. The light of the sun only added to the pain. The sun is liquid fire.
“Why did we rise up?” The question should have been asked by them, disfigured and suffering, but it was she who asked it. None of them dared open their burnt mouths.
“So that you could be the first,” Remy answered nonchalantly. He, too, had turned into a living bogeyman of ashes, but he did not show his suffering. His sly gaze showed that he had no regrets, but like hers, he thought it necessary to lay low for a moment to build up his strength.
She remembered that Alais, inВ the ancient celestial dialect, meant the beginning and the top at the same time. The name could be interpreted as first and best. The letters added up well. Because ofВ them, the dead angels will continue toВ live inВ her. The name is the most important thing there is. It is empowering.
“Those shards of sunlight that fell with you…” Remy flew over the desert. “They were frozen on the ground by something solid. I even thought at first that you had dissolved into them, but then I spotted you from high above among your fallen armies.”
“It is gold,” she stated.
“But it’s solid! Not melting when you touch it! Not like heaven!”
“It’s not like heaven here. But I like it here.”
It’s freedom! Alais saw no enemies with swords in the deserts, and no heavenly spies. Has she been left alone? So be it, but she will leave no one alone now. The desire to defeat the enemy is the driving force behind her armies. But so far they have little strength.
From the sands the howling voices ofВ the dead called out, and some new desire, hitherto unknown, awoke inside.
“Crawl over here!” She beckoned a black creature toward her. It hissed and crawled over. Alaïs leaned toward the scarlet wound in its forearm beneath the lacerated wing and clawed at it with her teeth. A red liquid filled her mouth. It had a peppery salty taste, but how sweet to take each sip. Alais broke away from the drink with difficulty and pushed her whimpering legionnaire away with her foot.
“I’m thirsty! There was no such desire before,” Remy confirmed her thoughts.
There used to be no desire at all. Except one! The desire for power! It has partially come true. The plains of sand have been given to her to rule there. It was her new kingdom! To have it was already a victory. Only with it came a lingering thirst that couldn’t be quenched.
“Look for anything alive besides our soldiers,” she commanded Remy.
“What do you mean, mistress?”
“It is anything at all.”
“I have flown over the sands and mountains beyond the deserts. There is nothing there.”
“Are we’re the only ones here? Look for an alternative.”
Remy bowed. His once beautiful head was now crowned with spiraling horns. The spikes, protruding from his spine and forehead, seemed sharp enough toВ cut through sheet iron.
“Remy!” she called out a moment before all that was left was a black vortex where he’d been hovering. “Do you regret following me now?”
The answer was no. Neither did the monsters slumbering inВ the sands. And you should be sorry. Until recently they had been so beautiful that it was painful toВ look at them. Now the sight ofВ them made her sick. Creepy and stripped, they crawled on the dunes and hissed curses at the indifferent and already distant heavens. What had they lost, though? One beauty!
Alais looked around the desert. Everywhere she looked, yellow sand was everywhere. Where Angel’s blood had been spilled, there were brown patches.
Here was the spot where it had fallen, with the inscriptions scorched into the sand. Alais drew the tip ofВ her sword over them. The handle twitched oddly, gripping her fingers. It was because the dragon on the hilt had come toВ life and moved. Before, there was no dragon on it. Now it hissed with aВ copper mouth. Where had it come from?
Where did they come from? Armies of monsters in the desert! With them, the matter was clear. The beautiful white-winged angels had burned, shrunken, and turned into vile creatures. And it’s all her fault!
Do they blame her? Alais looked around at the crawling rabble. They were expressing indignation toward the heavens, but they weren’t hissing at her, on the contrary, they were respectfully crawling away from her.
The whole point was that she remained beautiful and they did not. Does her appearance still command their respect?
It was pleasant to walk across the desert, not fly. You couldn’t do that in heaven, but here you could just tread, moving your feet. The wings rustled behind her, like unnecessary jewelry.
Somewhere deep inside, aВ wild hunger was awakening. There was nothing toВ satisfyВ it.
Remy returned disappointed. He found nothing alive.
“It felt as if everything died here as soon as it touched this surface,” Alais kicked the sand with her foot, and it suddenly seemed like one huge living breathing creature that they were treading on. It was definitely breathing. The desert was breathing! How had she not noticed it before?
“But somehow we survived,” Remy’s sigh was still fiery. His black mouth resembled the mouth of a furnace. The former angel still hadn’t noticed that the desert was alive.
Alais did not enlighten him. Let him see for himself.
“God couldn’t destroy us, or didn’t dare. Or maybe he decided that staying here would be the worst punishment for us. It was worse than destruction. For that is total destruction. To fall! To be left without your own face,” she looked dejectedly at the armies of freaks that swarmed the desert.
“But your face is still there,” Remy nodded at her reflection in the puddle in the sand. It was still there, beautiful and golden. It glowed. Was it an illusion? But her hands were smooth, too, not burnt. Alais stared at them in amazement. The golden lace of the webbing between her fingers was gone. There were only five fingers themselves, which used to be seven. Seven fingers made it easier to grip a sword than five. But she still had her wings.
“We’ll build up our strength, and then we’ll go to Heaven again,” she promised.
That promise was the only thing worth living for. And surviving in this place would be difficult. Every moment of being here is maddening. And most likely centuries would pass before another battle would be fought. How quickly can you build up your strength again if there’s nothing left of you but burnt remains?
Her recent majestic comrades-in-arms looked as if they had just been taken out ofВ the furnace. They are black relics, not warriors! They are embittered inВ aВ way that makes you afraid toВ look at them, but will their embitterment be enough toВ start aВ newВ war.
Most likely they will be crushed again if they rush into battle again. Spontaneous rebellion is not the answer. We need to be smarter from now on. Alais pondered. She needs a different strategy and complete indifference to Michael’s shining appearance.
