Chapter 8: My Sister Isis

Isis was the bright star in my shadow, a year younger, with eyes like black kohl shining in the lantern light, and a laugh that could chase away the heaviest heat of the noon. From the moment she took her first steps, she followed mine, barefoot on the cool tiles, her tiny hand reaching for mine.

Isis was the gentle one, while I was bold. I remember how she would tend to birds with broken wings, coaxing them to sip water from her cupped palms. I, the elder, learned to read the royal accounts and stand before the court, but Isis read people’s hearts. She could soothe even our mother’s bitter moods, and she had a gift for comforting our little brothers in the night when they woke crying.

We were best friends because we complemented one another. I was the storm, and she was the calm after it. I taught her how to climb the palace walls, to sneak sweet dates from the kitchens, and she taught me how to sit still, how to listen to the wind in the reeds.

Sometimes, after the sun had set and the palace had gone to sleep, we would slip out together to the lotus pools, toes trailing the cool water, sharing secrets no one else could hear. I told her my fears of one day being given in marriage to a prince I did not love; she whispered to me her dreams of traveling beyond the desert, to the sea she had only heard stories of.

Isis had a gentleness that made people trust her, and made me trust her above anyone. Even when palace politics grew sharp as knives around us, I knew Isis would never betray me. We had pinky-swear oaths of sisterhood, sworn under the moon, promising to guard each other’s hearts.