Cold and alone, Meiri begins to suffer terrifying visions of Nephthys' seduction of Osiris.  There is little she can do, as she doesn't even know when Ardeth will next visit.  She has been moved away from her home, and her young son in an attempt to keep her safe from threats leveled against her in the Medjai's home.  Her only companion is her infant daughter, who is becoming affected by her mother's sadness and fearful of the visions that haunt Meiri more and more frequently.

When her request to be able to study and write an academic paper on the Medjai is turned down by Ardeth because he believe the Museum are merely using it as an excuse to cut their ties with the warrior society, Doctor Jennifer Hamlyn has to turn to more underhanded methods of achieving her goal.  While she is visiting the museum she overhears a telegram from the O'Connells to the Medjai leader in which she learns that they are coming to Egypt.  Setting out to befriend them and thus use them to get to see the Medjai, she bites of rather more than she can chew when she happens upon Jonathan as he is about to do something very stupid.

Ashna al-Tahrani, niece of the commander of the twelfth tribe of the Medjai has been summoned to Al-Kharga to be married to Ardeth.  The Elders have made it very clear to Ardeth that they will not accept Meiri as his legal wife, and that the commanders of the Medjai are becoming increasingly unsettled and doubtful of his ability as the leader of the Medjai people.  Backed into a corner, when even Meiri tells him that he has no choice, Ardeth is forced to capitulate to the Elder's blackmail and try to build a home and a life with his new young wife.  Meanwhile, out in the desert, the warriors he had selected to guard the seven bells from the Sistrum of Usert are being systematically murdered, strangely without signs of a struggle.

Rashid travels to Cairo to fetch the O'Connells back to the Medjai oasis, his conscience niggles at him to  try and see Aria while he is in the city.  Several years before, when his first wife was accused of, and subsequently executed for a crime she did not commit, emotional trauma drove him into the arms of the healer that saved his life.  As his second wife unfolds the story to an ailing Meiri, Rashid suffers another shock and is not quite sure how he can tell his wife.  The right thing to do would be to bring Aria home, but she does not wish to come.

Miranda has been tricked.  She realises now that, even at the head of a ninefold priestesshood, she is little more than a temple concubine for Annaniah and the cult of Nebkhat; a serving wench; plaything for whomever he wishes to reward - as he does the filthy treasure hunters that bring them the desert's ultimate blasphemy.  Mirranda struggles with her conscience to do right in the face of infinite evil that is manifest in the infant Nebkhat and her unholy resurrected husband. When it comes to the end; when battle is joined between the Medjai and the cult of Nebkhat; between Osiris and Seth; when faced with all the raw might of Nebkhat herself, which side will she choose...?

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