Asim glared at the heads perched on the top of the city gates. After 6 years some had turned to white skulls and others were simply mummified.

The lick of the whip stung Asim on the back of his knee. He fell on the dirt and hissed at the overseer. With a mallet in his sweaty hands, he wished he could crush his torturer’s skull.

“Taking a break, Asim?” Gyasi approached, the whip coiled and held in his hands. “Keep working, slave.”

Some day, Asim thought, vengeance will be mine.

Six years ago was the happiest day of his life. He had married his love, Princess Ankhara. One of the few arranged marriages that had worked. They had fallen in love upon their first meeting at age 13.

It seemed not 6 years ago but 60.

Pharaoh had been forced out of power and killed, and the royal family sold into slavery. The new king had taken over the Pharaoh’s tomb and would finish it for himself. Prince Asim was now forced to build a monument to his father’s murderer.

Back their wedding day, a strange woman had approached with a blessing. She had touched the Prince’s lips with her finger. “If your kisses another, you will know. But all will be well.”

The invasion happened during the wedding feast. Hundreds killed. The royal family torn apart. The Prince and Princess, newly married, were carried away.

***

Asim took a few gulps of water from the water skin being passed around.

Then he felt it. The tingle. He touched his lips. The wedding. The strange old woman. Ankhara!

His heart sank. It had been 6 years, he thought. Of course she would find a new lover. Why am I so surprised?

He just wished it didn’t hurt so much.

And his rage toward Gyasi and the new Pharaoh’s empire boiled like the sun that beat on his brow every day.

***

The tingling woke him during the nights. She was with her new partner and it was expected that he would feel this over and over.

But why had the old woman cursed him in this way? What wrong had he committed to her? He strained his mind to think. Soon he drifted off to sleep.

In the dream she appeared to him. He was seated in his old place, rested and clothed and healed of his injuries.

“Why?” Asim asked her. “Why did you give me this knowledge?”

The old woman smiled kindly. “I knew and loved your mother, Asim,” she explained. “I gave you a gift, not a curse.”

“How can that be?”

“The gods foretold to me that the rightful Pharaoh would be betrayed and overthrown on your wedding day. I knew that Ankhara’s devotion might be questioned. I gave you this gift not to punish but so you would know that if she kissed another, it would not be by consent.”

Asim gasped.

“She has finally agreed to marry the Pretender,” she said. “And every night she cries out to the gods in despair. Because he has threatened to kill you if she will not forget you.”

Asim awoke that morning, refreshed and ready to endure what the day would bring. It would not be much longer.

Soon, fresh heads would be perched on the poles at the city gates.