Royal Beauty (Kindle and ePub)

New to the Incense Road Collection? Start here.

Book 3 in the epic quest across the sands of Arabia

In the exotic lands of the east, a secret sect of Persian magicians study the night sky for generations.
When the stars announce a strange royal birth, Misha, a first-level mage, is ready to prove himself by chasing down this new world leader.
But then an ancient document surfaces, whispering of an artifact of immense power.
The temptation to seize power is too great to resist.
And Misha is not alone in his quest.
The king’s general Reza seeks power to fulfill his mysterious destiny, and both he and Misha have their eye set on the Egyptian princess Kamillah, who will do anything to gain the artifact that could break her bondage to the sorcerer Zahir.
The soldier, the mage and the princess each has a secret to protect.
But if they are going to survive the dark forces warring for their prize, they must learn to trust each other—in what will surely be the journey of a lifetime.

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“Wow! This deserves more than five stars! What a power-filled ending to a wonderful, unique trilogy! This is going on my read-again-regularly list!”

“I enjoyed this book because it stayed close to the Bible story with a twist of adventure. I was able to objectively able to read this story and get a new perspective of Jesus story.”

“A beautifully written story to spark the imagination and bring to life the reality of the birth of our Savior, and the sacrifices of real people.”

“I am going to make reading this a new Christmas tradition between me and my girls.”

“Tracy brought a whole new dimension to what I saw and experienced...beyond my imagination.”

“A great finish to a really compelling trilogy. This was my favorite of the series.”

“A powerful story of finding purpose and joy in life.”

 

Enjoy a sample from Royal Beuaty

CHAPTER ONE

 KAMILLAH

The journey to Jerusalem could not go fast enough for me. 

Perched as I was on a horse with Misha, trying to maintain an appropriate distance from his broad chest and encircling arms, the ride would be uncomfortable. Awkward. Wonderful.

No more camels now. We had sent them all back to Nisa with the soldiers and Kasdim. 

We traveled away from the carnage and revelations of Bethel as one party: the ten Chakkiym, Misha and me on a single horse—his mount—so his parents, Lydia and Simon, could share mine. Reza rode alongside the two of them, recounting the battles we had seen in Panais and Bethel to Simon, who was still an old soldier at heart.

In the many days in Nisa that I had watched Misha’s relationship with his parents and with his closest friend Reza, there had never been doubt that he felt a certain jealousy over Simon’s fatherly affection for his friend. But I felt none of that tension in the man sitting so close behind me on this early morning walk up to Jerusalem. In truth, he seemed in jolly spirits and more than once feigned a reason to grip the reins tighter around me or encircle my waist as if he feared my falling from his horse. 

I swatted his arm away, but not before Lydia caught a sidewise glance at us. Her eyes met mine and a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. I could only imagine what she must be thinking.

But this was no trip for pleasure, and there was no time for foolishness. 

With the rising sun warming us across the green sheep-strewn fields on our left, the slow clip-clop of the hooves on the hard-packed road beat a rhythm that could have been sedating, lulling me to a sleep well earned after the night we had spent. But I focused on the swirling puffs of dust at each hoof fall, forcing myself to think on what lay ahead. Birds chirped their morning songs, entreating the world to join their carefree spirits, but I counted each pace and wondered when we would see the city rising above us.

Misha seemed to read my thoughts. “We should arrive well before noon.” 

“And then what? Can we simply ride into the city, asking to be directed to the Messiah?”

I felt him shrug behind me. Could smell the sweat of the night’s battle on him and the smoky-charred scent of the burning Nehushtan.

“Surely if one such as we hope has arrived, others will know of Him. The priests, the rabbis. The teachers of the law. Even Herod.”

He spoke casually, and perhaps he felt nothing but cavalier, now that the days of hunting the Nehushtan were over, his mother was healed, and he had reconciled himself to his father’s faith and the task of delivering the scrolls. 

I, however, felt nothing but tension. For my quest was far from over.

Somewhere ahead of us, perhaps even now awakening from his unconscious state, was the man who I doubted could be kept under Jewish lock and key.

What would happen when Zahir awoke and found himself not on the hillside of Bethel with the three pieces of the Nehushtan almost in his grasp, but in a wagon bound for a Jewish prison? Would we find his captors dead along this road? Would Zahir be waiting around a bend, crouched behind a boulder, hidden within some trees? 

No, I could not relax like Misha. Could not banter and laugh like Reza and Simon. Even the Chakkiym behind us murmured with excitement, approaching the famed city they had studied but never seen. But I must focus on my enemy. Until Zahir was dead, I would not be free.

A scuffling on the road far ahead pulled our attention forward, and we slowed as a group.

My heart thudded against my robes. Was this it, then? Had Zahir escaped already and come for me?

The dust obscured the party coming toward us, but it was too many to be only Zahir. At least a few horses cantered north, riders sitting tall. And others ran alongside.

We were more than a dozen in our traveling party, but we lined up along the side of the road to let them pass. Though I do not think any of us believed they were going to pass.

Soldiers. Romans. 

They pulled up horses and circled, their animals snuffling and pawing at the ground. The foremost of them, a slight man with a hooked nose and narrow black eyes, looked us over as if we were an invading army.

“Who leads this group? Where are you going?”

Interesting question—at least the first of them. It was met with a few moments of silence, as if each in our group was asking himself the question again.

And then it was Misha who spoke. As I knew he would.

“We are scholars from Nisa, traveling to Jerusalem to meet with others, to see what we can learn of the ways and beliefs of the Jews.”

The hooked-nose soldier scowled. “We were told you were traveling merchants, whose party broke apart and began to fight each other after some would have pillaged the town of Bethel.”

Misha’s left arm tightened around me, the hand gripping the reins, and his other hand rested possessively on my knees hanging over the side of our horse. “A mixed group, sir, yes. Scholars, traders, even some soldiers to protect us, though you can see we bear no military intent now.” He nodded backward toward the Chakkiym, every one of them gray-haired and probably quaking atop his horse.

“Even so, Parthians are not typically welcome to travel Judea without reason or escort.”

Misha shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps you and your men would like to take on the task of escorting us, then?”

I could hear the grin in his voice. Not now, Misha. He would have us in a cell alongside Zahir if he did not maintain some respect.

The soldier was finished with friendly conversation. “You are wanted for questioning concerning the matter in Bethel this morning.”

“I don’t know what answers—”

“Enough, Parthian.”

At this insult, Simon leaned forward and opened his mouth. 

Misha’s hand on my knees lifted slightly, palm outward—an unobtrusive signal to his father. It was not the time for them to declare their Jewish blood. Not yet. 

And Misha’s mother—she was the daughter of a Jewish Hasmonean princess, even if the blood of Egypt’s Ptolemies also ran in her veins.

The soldiers were circling behind our party, herding us like sheep toward Jerusalem. “You will come with us to the city. And you will answer questions.”

Misha shrugged again and smiled at his parents and Reza. “Sounds like a hot meal and a free bed to me, friends. Shall we go?”

But if Misha truly had illusions that we were simply being escorted as guests into Jerusalem, they were soon dispelled. The soldiers kept a killing pace, their pikes lowered as if to skewer any of us who would slow them down. 

My only encouragement was that if Zahir lay in wait in the shadows, he would have to break through the band of Romans to reach me.

* * *

The city walls of Jerusalem appeared in the hazy morning above us within the hour, stark and foreboding under a grayish sky. 

What were Lydia and Simon thinking? Feeling? To return after all these years to a place where they had seen both terror and victory, where they had found love? 

Our Roman guards herded us around the massive platform on which the Jews’ famed Temple rested, to the southeastern side where a tower clung to the corner of the platform and rose above the city, nearly equal with the height of the Temple itself.

Lydia called over her shoulder to Misha and me. “Herod’s palace.” 

I could hear the tension in her voice, a tightness that spoke of past horrors.

The centurion at the head of the pack heard her comment and half-turned on his horse. “Not his palace any longer. He has built one much grander.” The Roman’s tone was derisive, almost mocking. “The king cannot pass a latrine without making plans to improve it.”

Simon leaned forward on his horse. “If not his palace, then—”

“The Antonia Fortress is now used only for court proceedings.”

“We are being taken to trial?” Simon’s question had us all listening carefully.

The Roman shrugged. “You are being taken to cells under the fortress. That is all I know.”

Simon tried to question him further, but the centurion clearly had little knowledge and even less interest in easing our minds.

At the arched entrance of the lower levels of the fortress we were relieved of our horses but thankfully allowed to keep our possessions. The Chakkiym, feeble as some of them were, slung pouches of belongings over their shoulders. Misha kept a casual hand on his pouch with the scrolls secreted inside, as if it held nothing more than a change of tunic.

Lydia whispered something about “horse stalls” as we were shoved into a darkened corridor and pushed along by Roman pikes. 

A prison guard responded to the presence of the soldiers and swung open four cells in succession. Misha and Simon were thrust into the first, then Lydia and I into the second. We kept our heads at the iron bars, watching as the Chakkiym along with Reza were divided into two groups and driven into the last two cells like sheep. Reza was wisely remaining as docile as one of the old magi. There was no use in putting up a fight yet. Not until we had a plan.

The centurion gave garbled instructions to the guard, then the soldiers departed and the guard disappeared, leaving us all in the damp chill underground, with very little light.

We talked between us for some minutes, speculating on our fate, but there was little to do but wait and we soon settled into our cells, sitting with our backs against the wall and fighting off rodents that scavenged for any food their new cell mates might have brought.

“So,” Lydia began when all grew quiet, “you and my son.”

I stifled a smile in the dark. “Yes?”

“Do not give me your ‘yes,’ young woman. I have eyes.”

Could she not speak a bit more quietly? Misha’s cell was not so far off. 

I tried to suggest the tone by answering nearly under my breath. “We have—grown to know each other better—”

Lydia followed my lead, and her laugh was gentle. “Hmm. Yes, it would appear so.”

“But I hardly think such things important right now. We need to find a way to get out of here.”

“Perhaps you have some magic you can work? Some tricks you have learned—”

“I should think your influence would be greater than mine in this city.”

Lydia was silent. “I fled this city as an enemy. I have no influence.”

“But you are of Hasmonean blood—a royal line! Surely if we could get word of your identity to the priests here—”

“No.” 

The word was delivered quietly, but it was undergirded with the iron will of a woman who had seen danger.

How could I convince her? I knew some of her history from Misha, but still—could she not do us some good here?

“You speak of identity. It took many years for me to find mine.” Her voice had the softness of reminiscence about it. 

Perhaps if I let her remember, she would gain strength.

“Yes, Misha has told me of how you discovered your parentage, not long before you left Judea.”

“I do not speak of my parentage as my identity. Not really. I had to find myself in someplace other than my genealogy. It was not until I saw myself as a daughter of HaShem that I found peace.”

I bristled at the strange words, so suggestive of my time on the hill in Bethel.

But I let her speak. Let her share her stories of her time in Herod’s palace as maidservant to his wife Mariamme, before they had all discovered her royal blood. She spoke of Salome, Herod’s sister, and the dark powers she seemed to command. Of the unthinkable cruelty of Herod who had executed the wife he loved because of a false rumor. Of the madness his acts had birthed. 

“These are not people to be trifled with, Kamillah. We cannot simply assert ourselves and expect fair treatment.” She shuddered in the cold cell. “If Herod were to learn that Simon and I were here—if Salome knew Misha held the scrolls—I do not want to think of what they would do to destroy us all.”

Two guards interrupted us, one pulling a rickety wagon on misshapen wheels that clunked as it rolled along, jostling its contents that appeared to be food for the prisoners.

Misha was at his cell bars. “What is to be done with us? We have done nothing wrong!”

One of the guards shrugged a shoulder and shoved a cup and a hunk of bread toward Misha. “They don’t tell me nothing. All I know is we got a bunch of Parthian spies locked up, waiting for whatever it is they do to spies.”

My stomach lurched at the word. In any city, in any land, spies were executed with little thought to the ramifications. 

The two proceeded to our cell, and as if they were twins born in the same moment, they each looked us over from head to sandals and back to head, then grinned, half drunk and leering. The first glanced at the second and nodded. “Best-looking spies we’ve seen, eh? Even the old one.”” 

Lydia huffed beside me. “Take your filthy minds and mouths away from us.” 

“Ho, ho!” The second laughed. “And spirit. Maybe we don’t give these two over when they come for the rest, eh, Ithiel? Maybe we ‘lose’ them somewhere in the Antonia, what do you think?”

Lydia was at the cell bars beside me now, knuckles whitening around the metal and jaw set in a hard line. “Just try it.”

I had another idea, however. “You two are ignorant of whom you address.”

I felt Lydia tense.

“I am an Egyptian emissary to Parthia, daughter of Rahim Ptolemy of Alexandria. An ally of Judea and of Herod.” I delivered this information with all the haughtiness I could summon in such a place.

As one, they both shrugged. “Who?”

I deflated and sagged against the side wall of our cell. Part of me had known it was pointless, but still I had hoped.

The guard elbowed his twin. “Got ourselves an Egyptian pretty. I thought she was too pretty to be one of those barbarian Parthians.”

The other nodded. “Wait, wasn’t the sorcerer asking about an Egyptian girl? Isn’t that who he wanted brought to him?”

I was back at the bars in an instant. “Who? Who wanted me brought to him?”

Guard One grinned at my concern. “We got us some interesting story here, Ithiel. A Parthian sorcerer jailed up for trying to steal from villagers, and his Egyptian concubine trying to say she’s some kind of princess.”

Zahir. He was here, in the Antonia. And already with guards in his pocket. My fingers trembled on the bars and I gripped tighter, forcing down the bitterness rising in my throat.

“How much you think he would pay us to bring her?”

“Pay us? I don’t want his gold—I want a spell to get rid of the swelling in my feet. Giving me too much pain these days——”

“I am a sorceress as well.”

That got their attention. They both jerked back toward me, eyes wide.

“And if you think your feet are giving you pain now, wait until I am through with you.”