Qebhet clung onto Hecate's hand a moment, frightened to let go, knowing the moment she did, that steadying tree would vanish and she would again be alone at the mercy of the raging storm. But Hecate could not fetch the things they needed unless she was free to move.
She clenched her eyes shut, tried to drive her will deep into Father Geb's foundations, high into Mother Nut's firmament.
Gather your tools, the sky had whispered. What other tools did she have?
Oh. Oh, foolish, of course.
She held it within her, the one Hecate had helped her reclaim. One of the first that Chaos had tried to take from her – was still fighting her for, contorting her tongue and clogging her throat with slick feathers. It had not occurred to her there might be a reason for that.
Speech was heka. Speech shaped existence, just as Ptah-Tatenen brought the first life with the power of his Word.
Words brought order from confusion, ma'at from isfet.
While she could speak, she could hold on.
Bracing herself, Qebhet released Hecate's hand, and faced the storm.
"My heart is with me." Her voice did not sound quite her own. It was ragged and hoarse, and the words snagged on her quill-scratched throat. It probably wasn't the correct incantation for a time such as this – the spell was one meant for mortal souls, a protection against losing some vital part of themselves in the underworld of Duat. But Qebhet was stranded in a shadow-world of her own, in desperate fear of losing herself entirely, and the words felt right.
"My heart is with me," she repeated, a little stronger, "and it ssssshall not be taken away. F-for I am a possss... possessor of hearts. Who unitesss hearts." It was starting again. Her tongue writhed, lengthened, contracted, now the stubby rudimentary tongue of an ostrich, now the slender forked one of a snake. Qebhet gritted her teeth, breathing heavily through her nose, starlight spilling through the corner of one eye.
"I live, I l-live..." Her throat worked, and for a moment it bubbled and distended hideously, the infection actively fighting her. Qebhet's fingers clawed the floorboards and she coughed, spitting up a gob of something black and oozing. "I live by Ma'at. I live. By. MA'AT."
She doubled over in agony as the thing under her skin writhed, recoiling at the hated word, and it brought the grim edge of a smile to her lips.
"Ma'at," she whispered a third time, fervently, "in which. I exist."