Crucible of Fate

though I was new, I had some great people around me, incorruptible people, and that I knew what I was doing. When he realized he could not shame me or outmaneuver me, the new priest resorted to the old-fashioned way of winning: he tried to kill me.
    Before I had taken them from him, members of the Shu came for me in the night. They should have been able to kill me, but as Taj, who was my sheseru, had been a member of their number, he knew what to watch out for. When we took three of the men alive and reunited them later with their phocal—their leader, Jamal Hassan—he begged me for the lives of his men. That I had them in my possession said all that was needed about their crime.
    I stood with my own guard in the temple of Satis, waiting for the priest, and when Kovo finally appeared before me, I made it known that his phocal had already pleaded with me to spare his men. I simply needed a confession from the priest to keep me from killing them. I was not surprised that he would not, but Jamal was. I watched the phocal realign his loyalty right then and there as I made a point about who would do whatever was needed, even grovel for the lives of those beneath them, and who would not.
    “And would you beg a stranger for my life, my lord?” Jamal had questioned me.
    “I would,” I let him know, locking my eyes on his, before telling his men to rise and go stand by him.
    I allowed them to live even though, if they’d had their way, I would have had my heart torn out. Yuri didn’t have the same compulsion to forgive. He had forbidden Jamal from ever being in my presence alone. For a phocal to be so sanctioned was a grave insult.
    Jamal had rounded on Yuri, grabbed the robe he wore over his clothes, and driven him back into the wall. But before I could even open my mouth, Yuri’s voice boomed out.
    “How dare you put your hands on me? I’m the mate of the semel-aten… I could have you killed for this insult.”
    I saw Jamal shrink down into himself, his stance deflating, shoulders drooping, hands unclenching. Whatever the priest’s thoughts on me and Yuri, I had announced to the entire werepanther world that the man belonged to me, was claimed by me, and was considered sekhem , “arm of the semel” in some texts, and in others, “heart.” I had no idea that such a term existed until I complained to Mikhail that I didn’t want to call Yuri “consort,” which was the expected term.
    It was because of Jin.
    All reahs were required by law to be brought before the semel-aten on their sixteenth birthday to see if first, before anyone else, the leader of the werepanther world was their mate. The thing was—I didn’t want to know. If I had a female mate out there somewhere, and she was brought before me as a child, what was I supposed to do? The lure of a true-mate, I knew from watching Logan go through it, was impossible to resist. I would not take that chance. I didn’t want to ever find my reah. I was perfectly happy to live without the supposed other half of me. I outlawed the practice of the semel-aten seeing a reah first, because even though the first part of the law frightened me, the second part was truly horrifying for the poor reah.
    If the semel-aten decided he wanted to keep the reah in his house, he could. It was his right. Under his roof, she was his to do with as he pleased, and her eventual mate would be thankful that the semel-aten had sheltered her. If the reah never found her mate, she would remain forever in the semel-aten’s household as wosret, or consort.
    At the Feast of the Valley every year, he could parade her out and let her search for her mate in the sea of amazed eyes. Of course, the chances of anyone, much less the semel-aten, ever seeing a reah were a million to one. This was the story we had all been told, about the impossibility, and yet… I had already seen two reahs in my lifetime. One was mated to Logan Church, and the other had been wosret, or consort, to my predecessor Ammon El Masry. She had run from him, and in the end she had been so consumed with never again falling into his clutches that she had fixated on the idea and gone mad. She had lost all reason before he was killed. Even though there was no other choice but for her to die, the decision was regrettable and unneeded. I remembered her as she had last been, unhinged and vengeful. What those of my household remembered was that she, Amirah, had been the last consort in the house. I would not allow Yuri to be