CHAPTER 3
The grand throne hall of the Great House of Egypt was a cavernous expanse of polished white limestone and towering cedar pillars wrapped in beaten gold. High above, the painted ceiling depicted the starry heavens and the bark of Ra sailing through the night, but down on the floor, the air was thick with the scent of burning myrrh, expensive oils, and a collective, suffocating fear.
I sat upon a pile of soft, embroidered cushions at the right hand of the Pharaoh’s golden throne. They had washed the desert grit from my skin, anointed my hair with sweet almond oils, and wrapped my thin, bruised body in a tunic of the finest white linen. Yet, despite the wealth that now surrounded me, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. My fingers tightly gripped the edge of my silk sash. I looked down at my hands; though they were clean now, the deep, dark grime of the slums was still stained beneath my fingernails, a permanent reminder of the twelve years I had spent begging for scraps on the muddy banks of the Nile.
Beside me sat my brother, the High Pharaoh, his face a stern, unreadable mask of bronze and gold. The royal double crown rested heavily upon his brow, and his long scepter lay across his lap. He had not spoken a word to the gathered court since we entered the hall, but the absolute silence of the room proved that his anger was felt by every noble, priest, and military commander present.
Down in the center of the hall, kneeling in the middle of the wide limestone walkway, was Lord Menna.
The wealthy merchant no longer looked like the proud, untouchable tyrant who had shoved me into the burning sand only hours before. His fine silver-woven robes were torn and stained with sweat, his heavy gold necklaces had been stripped away, and his fat, bare knees trembled violently against the cold stone floor. On either side of him stood two towering Royal Guards, their heavy bronze spears held perfectly still, their tips pointed directly at the back of his neck.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Menna cried out, his voice cracking as he pressed his forehead completely against the polished stone. “I beg for your divine mercy! I am a loyal servant of the throne! I have filled the treasuries of Egypt with gold from the southern lands! I have brought glory to your name through my trade fleets! How could I have known that the ragged boy in the gutter was the lost prince? It was a cruel trick of the gods! A terrible, tragic misunderstanding!”
The Pharaoh did not move. He did not even blink. He simply looked down at the groveling man with eyes colder than the deep desert night.
“A misunderstanding, Menna?” the Pharaoh’s voice echoed off the high limestone walls, deep and terrifying. “You did not merely seek to punish a thief. You commanded a war elephant to crush a starving child to pieces. You did it for your own amusement. You did it to delight a crowd of wealthy fools who have forgotten the meaning of justice. If that boy had been a nameless orphan, his bones would now be splintered into the dust of my courtyard, and you would be celebrating your cruelty with expensive wine.”
“Mercy, High Pharaoh!” Menna wept, his shoulders shaking. “I will give the boy half of my wealth! No, all of it! I will hand over my trade routes, my ships, my storehouses of grain! I will give him everything I own if you will only spare my life!”
“Your wealth is already gone, Menna,” the Pharaoh said coldly, waving his hand slightly. “A squad of my personal guards is at this very moment seizing your estates. Your palaces belong to the crown. Your granaries will be opened to feed the poor of the slums—the very people you treated like scum beneath your sandals. Your ships will now sail under the royal banner. You own nothing. You are nothing.”
A collective murmur passed through the rows of nobles standing along the walls. I watched their faces closely. Many of them had been smiling and laughing when Menna was mocking me in the sand. Now, they stood with their heads bowed, their faces pale, terrified that their own dark secrets would be brought into the light of the Pharaoh’s judgment.
“But your greed is not the reason we are gathered here today,” the Pharaoh continued, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet register that made my skin prickle. “Twelve years ago, my younger brother, Prince Neferu, was stolen from his royal cradle in the middle of the night. The palace guards were murdered. The nursemaids were slaughtered in their beds. We were told that a band of foreign rebels had done the deed, and that the infant prince was thrown into the Nile to be eaten by crocodiles.”
The Pharaoh slowly leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes locking onto Menna’s trembling form.
“But today, my brother returned to me. And the sacred war elephant, an animal that knows the pure blood of the gods, refused to harm him. The beast recognized the royal bloodline when you, a man of Egypt, could only see a target for your cruelty,” the Pharaoh said, his hand tightening around his golden scepter. “A child does not simply crawl out of the Nile and survive in the slums for twelve years without a trace. Someone knew he was alive. Someone made sure he remained hidden in the gutter, praying that the hunger or the sickness of the slums would finish the job that the rebels started.”
Menna gasped, his head snapping up, his eyes wide with pure terror. “Your Majesty, I swear by the light of Ra! I had nothing to do with the rebellion! I am a merchant, not a traitor! I knew nothing of the lost prince!”
“We shall see,” the Pharaoh said. He turned his gaze toward the back of the throne hall. “Bring forward the witness.”
The massive bronze doors at the end of the hall groaned as they were pushed open. The crowd of nobles parted instantly, drawing back into the shadows as a small group of guards marched into the room. In the center of the guards walked an old, frail woman. Her hair was as white as river foam, her back was deeply bent with age, and she wore the simple, faded linen gown of a palace servant.
As she drew closer, my breath caught in my throat. My hands began to shake, and a sudden, overwhelming wave of memory rushed through my mind.
I knew this woman.
She was the one who had lived in a tiny, collapsing mud-brick hut at the very edge of the slums, near the old docks where the fishing boats rotted. When I was a little boy, freezing and crying from hunger during the long winter nights, she was the only person who had ever shown me a shred of kindness. She would call me into her small hut, give me a cup of clean goat’s milk, and rub soothing oils into my sun-blistered skin.
I remembered her voice. I remembered how she would rock me to sleep, singing a strange, beautiful melody—the very same lullaby that had broken the silence of the courtyard when the Pharaoh first held me.
“Heba?” I whispered, the name slipping from my lips before I could stop it.
The old woman stopped in the center of the hall, just a few feet behind the kneeling merchant. She slowly raised her heavily wrinkled face, her cloudy, ancient eyes scanning the throne before they finally landed on me. A soft, trembling smile broke across her weathered face, and tears began to stream down her deeply lined cheeks.
“My little prince,” she whispered, her voice fragile but clear. “The gods have kept you safe. My eyes have lived long enough to see you return to your father’s house.”
“Heba,” the Pharaoh spoke, his voice surprisingly gentle as he addressed the old woman. “Tell the court what you told my guards. Tell them the truth of what happened twelve years ago.”
The old woman sank to her knees, though her movements were slow and painful compared to the frantic, panicked movements of Lord Menna. She pressed her hands against her chest, looking up at the Pharaoh with absolute loyalty.
“Twelve years ago, I was a senior nursemaid in the royal nursery,” Heba began, her voice echoing clearly through the silent hall. “On the night of the Great Rebellion, the palace was filled with smoke and the screams of dying men. A group of masked men broke into the nursery. They wore the armor of foreign mercenaries, but their leader… their leader spoke with the perfect, refined accent of a wealthy noble of Thebes.”
She paused, turning her gaze slowly until she was staring directly at the back of Lord Menna’s head. The merchant looked as if he wanted to vanish through the stone floor.
“I hid beneath the heavy linen chests, clutching the infant Prince Neferu to my breast,” Heba continued, her voice trembling with the memory of that horrific night. “I watched through the shadows as the leader of the assassins searched the room. When he could not find the prince, he grew furious. He removed his mask to wipe the sweat and blood from his face, and the torchlight hit his features perfectly.”
“Who was he, Heba?” the Pharaoh demanded, his voice dropping like a heavy stone.
“It was him,” Heba said, pointing a shaking, withered finger directly at Lord Menna. “It was Lord Menna. He was the one who paid the mercenaries to butcher the royal guards. He was the one who sought to wipe out the Pharaoh’s bloodline so that he could place his own family closer to the throne.”
A collective shout of shock and fury erupted from the gathered nobles. The guards instantly slammed the butts of their spears against the limestone floor, a loud, thunderous CRACK that silenced the room once more.
“She lies!” Menna shrieked, throwing himself wildly toward the steps of the throne, only to be violently yanked back by the heavy chains around his wrists. “She is a crazy, dying old woman from the slums! She is making up stories to save her own skin! Your Majesty, you cannot believe the word of a peasant over your most loyal merchant!”
“I have not finished, you monster,” Heba snapped, her old voice suddenly filled with a fierce, protective strength. She looked back up at the Pharaoh. “He found me, Your Majesty. He dragged me out from beneath the chests and tore the child from my arms. He raised his bronze dagger to plunge it into the infant’s heart. But I begged him. I fell to my knees and kissed his sandals. I told him that if he killed the child, the gods would curse his bloodline forever. I told him to let the child live, to cast him into the slums where the hunger and the disease would kill him naturally, without his blood being on Menna’s hands.”
Tears blurred my vision as I listened to her words. The pieces of my broken childhood were finally crashing together, forming a picture of absolute horror. The old woman hadn’t just been a kind stranger in the slums; she had been my protector, the one who had bargained with a murderer to keep me alive, even if it meant I had to grow up as a starving beggar.
“Menna agreed,” Heba wept, her head bowing. “But he warned me. He said if the child ever learned of his true identity, or if I ever spoke a word of what happened that night, he would hunt down every member of my family and feed them to the jackals. He forced me to live in the slums, to watch over the boy from a distance, ensuring he never discovered the truth. For twelve years, I watched my prince starve. I watched him get beaten by guards. I watched him beg for scraps of rotten fish. My heart broke every single day, but I knew that if I spoke the truth, Menna would kill him instantly.”
The Pharaoh slowly rose from his golden throne. The sheer, overwhelming power radiating from his body was enough to make everyone in the hall instinctively take a step back. He stepped down from the dais, his heavy golden sandals clicking with a slow, deliberate rhythm that sounded like the ticking of a death clock.
He stopped directly in front of Lord Menna. He looked down at the merchant, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
“You did not just try to murder a child today, Menna,” the Pharaoh said, his voice a low, terrifying whisper that vibrated through the entire room. “You have spent the last twelve years torturing the royal house of Egypt. You forced a prince of the blood to live like an animal while you slept on silk and ate from golden plates.”
“Your Majesty… please…” Menna whispered, his face completely gray, his eyes hollowed out by the realization that there was no escape. “Mercy…”
“You shall have the exact same mercy you showed my brother,” the Pharaoh declared, turning his back on the merchant. “Captain of the Guard!”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty!” the captain shouted, stepping forward and saluting with his bronze sword.
“Take Menna to the deep stone quarries of Tura,” the Pharaoh ordered coldly. “Strip him of his name. He is no longer a lord. He is no longer a citizen of Egypt. He will spend the rest of his miserable days chained to the heavy limestone blocks, pulling the great stones under the blazing desert sun. He will eat the same moldy bread and drink the same muddy water that my brother was forced to consume for twelve years. And when he collapses from exhaustion, he will be left in the sand, just as he left my brother.”
“No! No! Kill me instead! I beg you, just give me the blade!” Menna screamed, his voice dissolving into a high-pitched, pathetic wail as the heavy Royal Guards grabbed him by his chains. They dragged him backward out of the throne hall, his bare feet scraping uselessly against the stone floor, his frantic screams echoing down the long corridors until they finally faded into nothingness.
The hall fell into a deep, heavy silence once more. The Pharaoh turned back to the rows of nobles, his sharp eyes scanning their terrified faces.
“Let this be a warning to every man and woman in this court,” the Pharaoh announced, his voice booming with absolute authority. “The eyes of the gods are always watching. The wealth you steal from the poor will become the chains that bind you. The cruelty you inflict upon the weak will return to crush you. My brother has returned, and the true bloodline of Egypt is whole once more.”
He walked back up the steps of the dais, stopping directly in front of me. He reached out, his large, warm hands gently taking hold of my shoulders. He looked down at me, his eyes filled with a deep, profound pride.
“Prince Neferu,” the Pharaoh said softly, so that only I could hear. “Your days of running are over. Your days of hiding are done. Welcome home.”
I looked at him, and for the first time in my twelve years of life, the cold, freezing fear in my chest completely melted away. I looked out at the grand hall, at the nobles bowing low before me, and at old Heba, who was smiling through her tears. I knew that the road ahead would be long, and that there were still many secrets hidden within the golden walls of the palace. But as I stood beside my brother, looking out over the kingdom that was rightfully mine, I knew that justice had finally won.
CHAPTER 4
The echo of Lord Menna’s fading screams left an eerie, weighted silence inside the grand throne hall. The air remained heavy with the thick, sweet scent of burning myrrh, but the atmosphere had shifted entirely. The hundreds of wealthy nobles, high priests, and military commanders who lined the limestone pillars stood entirely motionless, their eyes glued to the polished floor. None of them dared to breathe loudly. They knew that the storm which had just swallowed the most powerful merchant in Egypt could easily turn its violent winds toward them.
My brother, the High Pharaoh, remained standing at the bottom of the throne steps, his hand still resting firmly on my linen-wrapped shoulder. The warmth of his grip was the only thing keeping me anchored to reality. For twelve years, I had been nothing but an invisible shadow in the slums—a nameless beggar boy who learned to flinch at the mere sound of a rich man’s sandals. Now, those very same rich men were bowing so low before me that their heavy golden headpieces brushed the dust.
“Look at them, Neferu,” the Pharaoh whispered to me, his deep voice carrying a strange mixture of grief and absolute authority. “Look at the people who ignored your suffering. A kingdom is only as strong as its justice, and for twelve years, Egypt has been blind. But today, the gods have opened our eyes.”
He turned his gaze back to the court, his face hardening once more into a mask of unyielding stone. He raised his golden scepter, pointing it toward the center of the hall where old Heba still knelt.
“Guards,” the Pharaoh commanded, his voice booming off the painted ceiling. “Help the venerable Heba to her feet. From this day forward, she is no longer a servant of the slums. She is to be given a grand apartment within the royal palace, clothed in the finest linens of the treasury, and fed from the Pharaoh’s own table. She protected the sacred bloodline of Egypt when the rest of this court failed. If any man or woman treats her with less than the highest royal respect, they will answer directly to my blade.”
Two elite Royal Guards immediately moved with perfect synchronization. They gently took hold of Heba’s frail arms, lifting her with a tenderness that was usually reserved only for royalty. The old woman looked up at me, her cloudy eyes sparkling with tears of pure joy, and she gave me a soft, reassuring nod.
But as the guards began to lead Heba toward her new quarters, a sudden, suffocating realization hit me. The terror that had gripped my stomach for twelve years didn’t vanish with Lord Menna’s arrest. It mutated. Menna was a monster, yes, but he was a merchant. He was a man driven by greed and a desire for status. To orchestrate a full-scale royal rebellion—to murder palace guards, slaughter nursemaids, and successfully smuggle an infant prince out of a heavily fortified fortress—required something more than just gold. It required insider knowledge. It required military precision.
I looked at the crowd of nobles, and my eyes locked onto a small group of high-ranking military commanders standing near the eastern pillars. While everyone else looked terrified, their faces were completely blank, their hands resting subtly on the pommels of their heavy bronze khopesh swords.
“Your Majesty,” I said, my voice trembling slightly as I looked up at my brother. “Lord Menna is gone, but… he did not act alone twelve years ago. Heba said the mercenaries wore foreign armor, but their leader had the accent of a Theban noble. Menna was a businessman. He didn’t know how to bypass the palace guard rotations. Someone inside these walls gave him the keys to my cradle.”
The Pharaoh’s eyes narrowed, a dangerous fire igniting deep within his dark pupils. He looked at me, then slowly turned his head toward the court. The silence in the room grew even heavier, stretching until the tension felt like a tight rope ready to snap.
“My brother speaks the truth,” the Pharaoh said, his voice dropping into a register that made the limestone floor feel unstable beneath our feet. “The rot in Egypt does not stop with a single merchant. The rebellion of twelve years ago was a treasonous coup that tore my family apart. Menna paid the gold, but who drew the maps? Who ordered the guards to stand down on the night my brother vanished?”
No one spoke. The nobles shrank further into the shadows of the massive cedar pillars.
Suddenly, a loud, heavy clatter broke the silence.
At the back of the hall, near the massive bronze entrance doors, a tall, heavily built man was trying to quietly slip out of the room. In his haste, his bronze-plated scabbard had struck the stone doorframe, creating a sharp, metallic ring that drew every eye in the palace directly to him.
It was General Kamos, the supreme commander of the Pharaoh’s western armies. He was a veteran of a hundred battles, his chest covered in medals of honor, and his face scarred from decades of war. He was a man who had always stood close to the throne, a trusted advisor to both my brother and our late father.
“General Kamos,” the Pharaoh said, his voice deadly calm. “Where do you go in such a hurry? The royal court has not been dismissed.”
Kamos froze, his back still turned to the throne. For a long, agonizing second, he didn’t move. Then, he slowly spun around, his heavy leather boots clicking loudly on the stone. He didn’t look like a man caught in a lie; he looked like a predator that had been cornered. He drew himself up to his full, towering height, his hand resting openly on his golden sword hilt.
“Your Majesty,” Kamos said, his voice deep and entirely devoid of the fear that the other nobles possessed. “I was merely leaving to ensure that Lord Menna’s arrest does not cause a riot at the city docks. His trade empire is vast, and my soldiers must secure the warehouses before the peasants begin to loot the grain.”
“The city is perfectly secure, General,” I spoke up, the words rushing out of me before I could think to fear him. I remembered Kamos. I remembered seeing his golden chariot ride through the slums of Thebes three years ago during a festival. A starving child had collapsed in front of his horses, and instead of stopping, Kamos had commanded his driver to run the child down, leaving him to die in the dirt. I had watched it from the shadows, helpless and angry. “You aren’t trying to protect the grain, General. You’re trying to protect yourself.”
Kamos glared down at me, his eyes filled with a venomous hatred that verified everything. “Mind your tongue, boy,” he hissed, dropping all royal formalities. “You may have a birthmark on your shoulder, but you have spent twelve years rolling in the mud with pigs. You know nothing of the defense of this empire.”
“He knows enough to recognize a traitor,” the Pharaoh roared, stepping down from the dais, his scepter raised. “Kamos, twelve years ago, you were the captain of the inner palace watch. It was your duty to protect the royal nursery. Yet, on the night my brother was stolen, you were miraculously absent, claiming you were inspecting the city walls. I loved you like a father, Kamos. I trusted you with my life. But Menna’s ledgers will be seized within the hour, and I suspect your name is written in the blood of my guards.”
Kamos looked around the room. He saw the Royal Guards slowly shifting their positions, their heavy spears forming a wall of bronze between him and the exit. He saw the other nobles backing away from him, isolating him in the center of the walkway.
A cold, mocking laugh escaped the general’s throat.
“Ledgers? Documents?” Kamos sneered, his hand tightening on his sword. “You think I care about pieces of papyrus? Look at this court! Look at these weak, soft nobles who tremble at your every word! I fought in the deserts while you sat on your golden throne, boy! Your father was a fool, and you are a fool! I gave Menna the maps because Egypt needed a strong ruler, not a family of soft-hearted idealists who weep for the beggars in the street!”
With a lightning-fast motion, Kamos drew his heavy bronze khopesh sword, the curved blade gleaming under the torchlight. “If I am to fall today, I will take the royal bloodline with me!”
He lunged forward, his heavy boots eating up the distance between the doors and the throne with terrifying speed. He wasn’t running toward the Pharaoh. He was running toward me. He knew that killing the newly found prince would be his final, devastating strike against the dynasty.
The crowd erupted into screams of pure terror. Nobles scrambled over each other to escape the path of the raging general. The Royal Guards rushed forward, but Kamos was a master warrior; with a brutal swing of his heavy blade, he shattered the shafts of the first two spears that crossed his path, sending the guards crashing into the limestone pillars.
I stood frozen, the ghost of my childhood terror paralyzing my legs. The heavy bronze blade was coming straight for my throat.
But the Pharaoh was faster.
With a deafening battle cry that sounded like a roaring lion, my brother threw his golden scepter aside and drew his own personal royal khopesh—a weapon of pure, hardened bronze inlaid with electrum. He leaped from the steps of the throne, his long white cape billowing behind him, and intercepted Kamos just three feet away from where I sat.
CLANG!
The collision of the two massive blades created a deafening ring that echoed through the entire palace. Sparks flew into the air as the two men locked weapons, their muscles straining, their faces just inches apart.
“You dare raise a sword against my brother in my own house?” the Pharaoh hissed, his eyes burning with a divine fury.
“Your house belongs to the strong!” Kamos roared, pushing back with all his might.
The duel that followed was unlike anything I had ever seen. It wasn’t a rehearsed dance of nobles; it was a brutal, bloody clash of titans. Kamos swung his curved blade with terrifying force, each strike capable of cleaving a man in two. But my brother moved with the grace and speed of a desert falcon. He parried every blow, the metallic ring of their swords creating a frantic, rhythmic beat of death inside the throne hall.
Kamos swung low, aiming for the Pharaoh’s legs. My brother leaped over the blade, spinning in the air, and delivered a brutal kick to the general’s chest. The force of the blow sent the massive commander stumbling backward, his heavy leather armor rattling.
Before Kamos could regain his balance, the Pharaoh closed the distance. With a swift, blinding arc of his khopesh, he sliced through the leather straps of Kamos’s shoulder guard. A second strike cut deep across the general’s right forearm, forcing him to drop his weapon.
The heavy bronze sword clattered onto the limestone floor, rolling to a stop right at my feet.
General Kamos fell to his knees, clutching his bleeding arm, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. He looked up, the tip of the Pharaoh’s gleaming blade resting perfectly against the center of his throat, pressing just hard enough to draw a single drop of crimson blood.
The entire throne hall fell into an absolute, breathless silence. The only sound was the heavy breathing of my brother, who stood over the traitor like the living embodiment of the god Horus himself.
“Your rebellion ends today, Kamos,” the Pharaoh said, his voice entirely calm, yet infused with an absolute, terrifying finality.
The general looked up at the Pharaoh, his face twisted in a bitter, bloody smile. “Kill me then. Execute me before your court. I will die a warrior’s death.”
“No,” a voice spoke up.
Everyone turned to look. It was me.
I slowly stood up from the cushions, my long white linen robe brushing the stone. I walked down the steps of the throne, my bare feet moving with a confidence I had never felt before. I stopped right next to my brother, looking down at the man who had ordered my murder when I was just a helpless infant in a cradle.
“A warrior’s death is a privilege for those who have honor,” I said, my voice clear and strong, echoing through the grand hall. “You are not a warrior, Kamos. You are a thief who stole twelve years of my life. You are a coward who hid behind mercenaries and merchants.”
I looked at the captain of the Royal Guards, who was waiting for orders.
“Do not execute him,” I commanded, and for the first time, the guards looked at me with absolute obedience. “Strip him of his armor. Take away his sword, his medals, and his names. Cast him into the deepest, darkest dungeon beneath the city, where the sunlight never reaches. Let him live in the dark, wondering if today is the day he will be forgotten. Let him experience the same hopelessness that the children of the slums feel every single day.”
The Pharaoh looked at me, a proud smile breaking through his stern expression. He lowered his sword, nodding in agreement.
“You heard the prince,” the Pharaoh announced to the court. “Take the traitor away. His name is erased from the history of Egypt. His family’s lands are confiscated and given to the orphanages of Thebes. He does not exist anymore.”
The Royal Guards didn’t hesitate. They slammed Kamos face-first onto the stone floor, pinning his arms behind his back. They brutally ripped the medals of honor from his chest, tearing the fine leather of his tunic, before dragging him out of the hall through the same doors he had tried to escape from. His angry curses echoed through the palace until the heavy bronze doors slammed shut, sealing his fate forever.
The public twist was complete. Within a single afternoon, the two most powerful, feared men in the kingdom—the wealthiest merchant and the supreme military commander—had been stripped of everything and cast into the dirt, all because of a starving boy they had deemed worthless.
The Pharaoh sheathed his royal blade and turned to face the hundreds of nobles who still stood along the walls. They immediately fell to their knees, pressing their faces into the stone, completely terrified of the new power dynamic that had just been established.
“Stand up,” the Pharaoh commanded.
The nobles slowly rose, their bodies trembling.
“Today, Egypt has been reborn,” the Pharaoh said, his voice ringing with a deep, emotional clarity. “The lost prince has returned to his home, not by the strength of an army, but by the undeniable justice of the gods. Let this day be a lesson to every noble, every merchant, and every commander who holds power in this land. If you abuse the weak, if you crush the poor, if you forget that the people of the slums carry the same human dignity as the gods themselves… the sand will rise up and swallow you whole.”
He turned to me, extending his hand once more. “Come, Neferu. Let us show the people of Thebes that their prince has finally come home.”
I took his hand, my fingers wrapping around his with absolute trust. We walked together out of the grand throne hall, stepping out onto the massive palace balcony that overlooked the entire city of Thebes.
Below us, thousands of ordinary citizens—the beggars, the laborers, the fishermen, and the poor families of the slums—had gathered outside the palace gates, having heard rumors of the incredible events that had unfolded inside. When they saw my brother step onto the balcony, they began to cheer. But when they saw me standing beside him, dressed in the royal linen of a prince, yet carrying the same sun-darkened skin and familiar face of the boy who used to beg for scraps at the gates, the crowd went completely wild.
A deafening roar of joy shook the very foundations of the city. People were weeping, dancing in the streets, and throwing palm fronds into the air. For the first time in twelve years, the poor of Egypt felt seen. They felt heard. They realized that one of their own was now sitting at the right hand of the throne.
I looked out over the vast, shimmering waters of the Nile River, the lifeblood of our ancient kingdom, as the golden rays of the setting sun painted the desert sky in shades of deep orange and purple. The burning sand that had almost become my grave was now a vast kingdom that I would help rule with mercy, compassion, and unwavering justice.
The small, starving boy who had been shoved into the dirt for a single bruised fig was dead, buried forever beneath the weight of truth. And from his ashes, a prince had risen, proving to the entire world that even the cruelest tyrants of the earth can be brought to their knees by the silent, unyielding justice of the gods.
