“You’d better eat,” a soft voice said from behind him.

He turned to find Nefertiti standing with a steaming bowl of porridge. The scent of cinnamon and spice wafted to him in the cool breeze. She was wrapped in a heavy cloak against the cold.

“You should keep up your strength,” she said, passing him the bowl. “Uncle Shaduf taught me that a hunter is only as strong as his belly is full.”

Jake took the porridge and sank to the deck. He ate it with his fingers, as was the custom here. The heat warmed him, pushing back the cold fear in his gut.

Nefertiti sat nearby, her eyes on the sky as she hugged her knees. It looked as if she hadn’t slept much either. She chewed her lower lip, worry etched into every line of her face.

“We’ll rescue them,” he said. “We’ll make it all right.”

She was silent for a long moment. “But how did it get so wrong?” She swallowed and stared down at her knees. “After Father fell into his great slumber, I spent most of my days in the desert, hunting. All the while, Kree was slithering into position. Why didn’t I see it?”

Jake imagined that such desert escapes were her way of coping with the loss of her father. She and her sister had no one, and Kree slipped into that gap with his handsome looks and oily words.

“It weren’t just you,” a craggy voice said from beyond the rail.

Jake and Nefertiti turned and peered overboard. Politor hung there outside a hatch, tightening some cables on the hull. His eyes were on his work, but his words were for them.

“It were all of us. Those wearing the collar”—he tapped the bronze ring around his neck with his wrench—“and those who were not. We turned a blind eye to what was happening just as surely as you.”

Jake remembered how everyone in the city shunned the boarded-up houses sealed with the Blood of Ka’s mark, refusing even to look at them.

“That’s how freedom is lost,” Politor said. “One grain of sand at a time.”

Jake remembered something his father quoted about this very subject. He whispered it aloud. “‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”

“Aye, well-spoken.” Politor nodded to Jake, then turned his sky blue eyes on Nefertiti. “The people of Ka-Tor—all of us—have been sleeping as deeply as your father.”

Nefertiti stood up, fire entering her voice. “Then it’s time we all woke up.”

A shout rose from the stern.

“It begins,” Politor said, and swung back into the hatch and vanished.

Jake gained his feet and spotted Djer standing beside Skymaster Horus. He was bent over the rail, a spyglass fixed to his eye. Jake hurried toward them, leaping up the steps from the middeck. Nefertiti followed just as swiftly.

“The people gather toward the arena,” Djer said. “It will not be long before Ra’s first rays touch the obelisk and start the games.”