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She came from a rich lineage of magic—ancestors traced so far back they were rumoured to be related to Merlin himself. And for her gift, there was a prize to be paid.
When she first displayed signs of foresight, her mother had cried - many interpreted it to be tears of joy, but it was a mother's tears for her child—a child she knew soon to be separated from her, for with a gift so powerful, who wouldn't covet it?
In Chinese families, the boy is prized, but magic has no boundaries, and all children were celebrated equally in their big community. Cassandra knew a happy childhood, but on her 12th birthday, an ambassador from a foreign land arrived. She was no stranger to royalty, for many a times their community had hosted those eager to consult their gifts, but from the way her parents wept bitterly as the elders entered into harsh arguments and negotiations with this man, she knew that the day had come. She had seen this, after all.
"You will be safe, child. We have done all we can to protect you," were the last words her parents bestowed on her, and although she had prepared herself for this day, no amount of consolation could stop her tears. She had to be physically wrenched from the clutches of her family's embrace, and into the midst of strangers from a foreign land.
They spoke a strange, difficult language, but with a bright mind and a quick intuition, Cassandra had picked it up in no time. They travelled for months, endured bitter cold and boiling heat, all to reach a flat landscape devoid of anything but golden brown sand, far as the eye could see.
It was nothing to boast about, but at night, the universe laid its treasures before her eyes as the skies lit up with the fires of a gazillion stars. Never before had she seen anything like it, and she thought to herself—if she could see this magnificent sight every night, there was nothing to fear.
When they finally reached the palace, she was presented to the boy-King her minders had whispered so much about, unaware that she could already understand them very early on.
"I am Memnon," he had introduced himself, looking at her from head to toe with a sneer, before he announced, "and I will one day be the Scorpion King."
She had snorted at that, uncaring of court etiquette, and she had revelled in the way his eyes lit with anger and mortification.
--
He tested her—again and again until she complained loudly, unafraid of whatever wrath this young tyrant in the making might unleash upon her. She knew she had nothing to fear, after all. Snakes in jars, tigers behind locked doors, anything he could come up with to test her gift, he put her through.
Her gift never failed her.
--
It was when she turned into a woman that he started to look upon her in a different light. She saw his gaze turn to lust, and only the word of legend and her blessed ancestors kept him from forcing her to his bed.
When she was younger, she had kept company with the ladies of the harem, who offered her comfort and solace in the fact that many of them too, were only young girls when they were taken from their families. They taught her the ways of seeking self-pleasure, and she had long broken her virginal barrier herself by the time Memnon had started to make subtle advances towards her.
The higher-ranked ladies had giggled over his supposed sexual prowess, had gossiped endlessly over size and technique and practice. They spoke of many things, and Cassandra had smiled wistfully even as she listened, for they never once spoke of love.
She was determined to find love one day, determined never to let Memnon, once-boy King and now-feared conqueror, subsume her life under his rule.
--
The years of war were busy. Strategy meetings, training, planning, feasts.....she was sick of the cycle.
The year she entered the third decade of her life—18 years under his oppression—she started dreaming about a mysterious man.
Heavyset, broad-shouldered, golden skin. Piercing gaze and strength not just in his physique but in his character. A good man, an honourable man. A man who loved her the way she had always yearned for.
She never saw his face, but it gave her renewed hope.
--
An Akkadian. She had heard about them. The most fearsome assassins in the desert, in all of greater Egypt. Their knowledge of the land was unparalleled, but they were apparently extinct.
As she took in the man before her—and there was a lot to take in—she couldn't help but think wryly, if only the ladies in the harem had seen this one, the Akkadians wouldn't be a dying breed any time soon.
Her intuition told her this man would give her freedom.
"How shall this one die?" Memnon's sardonic tone snapped her out of the grief she felt for this man— Mathayus—who had to watch the last of his kin and kind fall to the hands of a dishonourable overlord who only knew to rule by fear and vile threats.
"He shall not die," she snapped at once, and Memnon only granted her a smirk, like the challenge in her voice amused him further.
"We shall see -"
"Nor shall he die by your hand," she spoke, her voice calmed, "or any hand you command," and she kept the triumph to herself, for having pushed him into a corner.
"You have seen this in a vision?" He questioned, his flint-black gaze boring into hers, and in his voice she heard the paranoia she had grown used to.
He had become over-reliant on her power. Her gift enslaved him to her visions, and in this she knew she had complete control.
"To ignore this would bring great misfortune. The gods show him favour tonight," she added, just for good measure.
But Memnon is not a stupid man, and although there is little of his venom in it, he hates being stopped, and so hisses, "just the gods?"
It is closer to the truth than she likes, and she keeps silent; she had done her part, now the Akkadian would have to use his own cunning to be rid of whatever method Memnon would come up with to dispose of him. Something told her he would fare just fine.
--
"And when I become the King of legend, then you shall take your place beside me; on the throne, and in my bed."
Cassandra supposes he fancies himself in love with her, and she supposes she should be flattered. that even without her gift, he was generous enough to share the spoils of war with her.
18 years of being chained to him like his tigers to the walls of his castle had bred attraction on his part to a mouthy sorceress unafraid to stand up to him where others cowered, but it had only fuelled her simmering hatred for this man who fancied himself a god.
--
Mathayus does not look at her with the same lust she had seen in the eyes of other men—lust so hungry that she had felt chills running down her spine and completely vulnerable in the flimsy cloths that Memnon insists she be draped in.
Mathayus does not even spare her figure a lingering glance after he had crashed into her bath and she had given him a sharp cut to his elbow for it.
Mathayus does, however, listen intently to her stories—stories of her childhood, of growing up as a prisoner in Memnon's castle, despite all the luxuries she had been plied with. He had listened raptly as his beautiful white camel steadily plodded through the desert, had chuckled at appropriate places and stayed silent and sombre where he should. In turn, he had shared some of his own adventures, joked with Arpid as the horse thief complained incessantly about heat and exhaustion, and Cassandra, who had never felt emotionally attracted to a man in her life, found herself falling hard and fast for the Akkadian.
She wondered if he was the man in her dreams. She wanted it to be no one else but him.
--
Cassandra has never been a healer. It is not exactly part of her gift, but magic has no boundaries, and for the first time in her life she finds herself in a position to heal another.
She saves him. Of course she saves him. She didn't think much about the cost to herself, but the answer she had given him was only part of it.
She believes he can save the people, and she believes he is the King of Legends. She doesn't tell him that she also believes he is the man in her dreams.
--
She winces at every blow Balthazar lands on Mathayus. Her heart is in her mouth watching him take every hard hit, but at a baser level the sight of him fighting incites a thrill in her.
This primal attraction turns into something else completely, when Balthazar taunts him. "And will you stand alone before the fury of Memnon's armies?"
Cassandra's heart clenches painfully. She has faith in this good man.
"Yes."
And she's smiling. She's smiling so hard her jaw aches. She knows now without a doubt that he is the man in her dreams, and her heart is full for this King-to-be.
He will be the people's ruler—he will be their champion, and he will be hers.
--
Her joy does not last long. The visions she has destroy what hope she held completely, and she tells him so.
"Memnon will die by my hand," Mathayus replies, a gentle smile on his face, as though she hadn't just prophesied the destruction of thousands of lives in this sanctuary they seek temporary refuge in.
She doesn't want to see this, but she has to know, and so she stretches her hand out, and touches his.
What she sees squeezes the breath out of her, and choked, she looks away from this man she had thought she could finally be free with, and tells him of his impending death.
She doesn't expect him to turn her face towards his, strong fingers so soft on her cheek, and where Memnon had blind faith in her abilities, Mathayus isn't deterred for a second.
"I make my own destiny."
Cassandra thinks they are beautiful but foolish words.
Even as her heart hurts, his lips soothe her worries away, a soft but insistent pressure, and she opens for him.
--
Before morning light, Cassandra makes up her mind. Pressing a soft kiss to his temple, she leaves the warm haven of his arms.
“I need your help,” she whispers to his camel, and with a soft grunt, the camel kneels.
She smiles.
Her gift has never failed her before, but there is a first for everything.
Mathayus believes he can make his own destiny, and so she believes in him.