The sand of the royal arena was burning hot against my bare feet, but the cold bronze of General Haremhab’s spearpoint pressing into my back was much worse.
I was just an orphan from the dusty streets along the Nile River, a nobody who had tried to find a scrap of leftover bread near the palace kitchens.
But to General Haremhab, I was nothing more than entertainment for the wealthy nobles sitting in the high, shaded balconies.
He spat directly onto my face, the crowd laughing loudly as I wiped my eyes with my trembling, dirt-stained hands.
“Let us see how fast this little street rat can run when the Great Beast of the South smells his fear!” Haremhab shouted, his voice echoing across the massive sandstone walls.
I looked toward the heavy iron gates across the arena, hearing the deep, terrifying growl of the creature waiting in the dark.
I raised my eyes to the high golden throne, where the Great Pharaoh sat, surrounded by his royal guards and his beautiful queen.
I begged for mercy, crying out into the harsh desert heat, but my voice was small against the roaring crowd.
Haremhab laughed, raising his spear to shove me completely into the open killing floor.
But as my torn linen shirt ripped further away from my shoulder, the bright sunlight hit my skin.
High up on the throne, the Pharaoh suddenly froze.
His eyes locked onto my exposed shoulder, tracking a deeply burned, sacred geometric scar that I had carried since I was a baby.
The golden scepter trembled in the Pharaoh’s hand, his face turning pale as death.
“Halt!” the Pharaoh’s voice suddenly thundered across the entire arena, filled with an agony so deep it made the entire guard instantly freeze.
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CHAPTER 1
The dust in the royal arena always tasted like copper and death. I lay there on my stomach, the sharp, jagged edges of crushed limestone digging into my chest as the roaring of ten thousand wealthy Egyptian nobles filled my ears. They hadn’t come to see a fair fight. They had come to watch a piece of garbage from the slums of Thebes get erased from the earth.
“Stand up, you miserable little rat,” a voice hissed above me.
Before I could even draw a breath of the hot desert air, a heavy, leather-bound sandal slammed into my ribs. The force of the kick rolled me over onto my back, knocking the remaining air right out of my lungs. I gasped, clutching my chest, my eyes watering as I looked up into the cruel, sun-bronzed face of General Haremhab.
He was a massive man, built like the stone monuments he forced the slaves to build along the Nile River. His chest was covered in a gleaming bronze breastplate, etched with the images of dead enemies, and his long linen kilt was spotless, bordered with pure gold thread. To the people of Egypt, he was a war hero. To me, he was the monster who had spent the last hour systematically destroying my dignity.
Haremhab looked down at me with absolute disgust, as if I were a venomous insect that had crawled out from beneath a rock. He raised his massive bronze spear, the polished tip catching the blinding glare of the midday sun, and pressed the cold, sharp point directly against the hollow of my throat.
“Look at it,” Haremhab sneered, his voice carrying easily across the front rows of the royal court. “This is what crawls into our palace. A filthy, starving orphan who thinks he can breathe the same air as the gods. He steals from the royal kitchens, and then he dares to beg for mercy when he is caught.”
“I didn’t steal,” I choked out, the spearpoint pressing hard enough into my skin to draw a tiny drop of blood. My voice was hoarse from crying, cracked and weak. “The bread was in the mud. It was dropped by the supply carts. It was rotting. I was only hungry… my mother is sick…”
Haremhab let out a loud, booming laugh that cut right through my words. He leaned down closer, his breath smelling of rich wine and roasted meat, things my family hadn’t tasted in generations.
“Your mother is a beggar, and you are a thief,” he spat.
He didn’t just say it. He actually gathered his saliva and spat directly onto my face. The warm, thick fluid hit my cheek, running down toward my neck. The nobles up on the shaded balconies broke into loud, mocking laughter. Women covered their mouths with fine linen fans, whispering to their wealthy husbands, pointing at my dirt-caked face and my ribs that stuck out like the cage of a starving animal.
I wanted to curl up into a ball and let the earth swallow me whole. I was only sixteen years old. My father had died in the Pharaoh’s quarries when I was a child, and my mother was dying of the wasting sickness in a mud-brick hovel down by the river docks. I had only come to the palace gates hoping to find some discarded grain or a piece of spoiled fruit to keep her alive for one more day. Instead, Haremhab’s guards had seized me, dragged me through the mud, and brought me here to the Grand Arena to be used as low-class entertainment before the royal court.
“Please, Lord Haremhab,” I whispered, the hot tears finally spilling over my eyelids, mixing with the dirt and the spit on my face. “Let me go back to her. She will die alone if I do not return. I will never come near the palace walls again. I swear it by the light of Ra.”
“Oh, you will never come near the walls again, boy. That much is true,” Haremhab laughed, stepping back and lifting his spear from my throat.
But there was no mercy in his eyes. He turned his back to me, raising his thick arms toward the highest platform in the arena, where the grand canopy of purple silk shielded the most powerful man in the world from the brutal sun.
“Great Pharaoh!” Haremhab shouted, his voice ringing with forced humility and immense arrogance. “This street rat has violated the sanctity of your home. He has stolen from the bounty of your tables. To let him live would be an insult to the laws of Ma’at! I request permission to let the Great Beast of the South purge his filth from your sight!”
The crowd went wild. They began stomping their feet against the stone bleachers, a rhythmic, terrifying sound that shook the very ground beneath me. Boom. Boom. Boom.
I looked up toward the royal canopy. Sitting on a massive throne carved from a single block of dark obsidian was the Pharaoh himself. He wore the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, his face hidden behind a golden ceremonial mask that showed no emotion whatsoever. Next to him sat the High Priest, his head shaved bald, whispering into the ruler’s ear.
To the Pharaoh, I wasn’t even a human being. I was just a tiny speck of dust down in the dirt, a minor distraction on a long, hot afternoon. He didn’t move. He didn’t nod. He simply raised one hand, his long fingers adorned with heavy turquoise rings, and made a small, downward motion.
The judgment was passed. Death.
Haremhab turned back to me, a predatory grin spreading across his face. He walked over to the side of the arena where a massive iron gate was built into the sandstone wall. Behind that gate, something heavy was shifting in the darkness. I could hear a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the stones, a sound so primal and terrifying that my stomach instantly knotted into a hard ball of pure panic.
It was the Great Beast of the South—a massive, starved crocodile-headed monster, a creature captured from the deepest swamps of the southern Nile, trained to consume human flesh for the amusement of the court. They hadn’t fed it in a week. I could smell the stench of rotting meat and stagnant swamp water drifting out from the dark tunnel.
“Get up,” Haremhab barked, grabbing me by the collar of my torn, threadbare linen shirt.
He didn’t just pull me up; he violently jerked me forward, dragging me toward the iron gate. My knees scraped against the sharp stones of the arena floor, leaving a trail of red blood behind me. I screamed, clawing at his thick, bronze-armored wrists, but it was like trying to move a mountain. His grip was iron.
“Let the beast have its meal!” Haremhab shouted, signaling the gatekeepers.
The heavy iron chains began to clank and rattle as the gate slowly started to rise. From the darkness, two glowing, yellow eyes locked onto me. A massive, scaly snout emerged, its jaws lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth, dripping with thick, hungry saliva. The creature let out a deafening hiss, a sound that promised nothing but agonizing pain and a violent end.
“Go on, rat,” Haremhab hissed, using the blunt end of his spear to violently shove me directly toward the opening gate.
The force of the blow ripped my rotten linen shirt completely down the middle, tearing it away from my left shoulder and chest. I tumbled forward into the dust, right in front of the creature’s path, completely exposed, trembling and waiting for the teeth to tear me apart.
But as I fell, the blazing midday sun hit my bare shoulder, illuminating a strange, raised pattern on my skin.
High up on the royal platform, the Pharaoh suddenly leaned forward so fast that his golden necklace clashed loudly against his breastplate. The golden mask couldn’t hide the sudden, violent jerk of his head. He froze completely, his entire body rigid as stone, his eyes locking onto my exposed skin.
CHAPTER 2
For a long, agonizing moment, the world seemed to slow down. The massive beast took another step out of the dark tunnel, its heavy claws sinking into the arena sand, its breath hot and foul against my face. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact, praying that my mother wouldn’t suffer too much when I didn’t come home.
But the strike never came.
“HALT!”
The voice didn’t just ring through the arena; it shattered the air like thunder. It wasn’t the voice of a soldier or a commander. It was a voice that held the absolute power of life and death over every living soul in Egypt.
The Pharaoh had stood up from his obsidian throne.
The entire crowd of ten thousand nobles instantly fell dead silent. The foot-stomping stopped so fast it left a ringing in my ears. General Haremhab froze, his spear still raised in the air, his mouth slightly open in utter confusion. He looked up at the royal platform, his confident smile instantly vanishing.
“Great Pharaoh?” Haremhab called out, his voice faltering slightly. “The execution has already been sanctioned. The beast is ready to cleanse your kingdom of this—”
“Silence!” the Pharaoh roared, his voice trembling with an emotion that nobody in that arena had ever heard from him before. It wasn’t anger. It was a raw, bleeding agony.
The Pharaoh stepped away from his throne, moving past his royal guards, past the High Priest, and walked right to the very edge of the stone balcony. He gripped the gilded railing so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His golden mask was looking directly down at me—or rather, directly at my left shoulder.
I looked down at myself, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. There, on the pale skin of my shoulder, was a deeply set, raised scar. It wasn’t a normal injury from a knife or a whip. It was a perfectly shaped, five-pointed star surrounded by a circle of sacred geometric lines.
I had carried it for as long as I could remember. My mother had always told me it was a mark of a childhood accident, a burn from a fallen oil lamp when I was a mere baby. She had always told me to keep it covered with my shirt, warning me that the people in the city would think I was cursed if they saw it. I had never questioned her. I was just a poor boy trying to survive.
“Bring him closer,” the Pharaoh commanded, his voice shaking. He pointed a trembling, ring-covered finger directly at me. “Bring the boy to the foot of the throne. Now.”
General Haremhab’s face darkened with a mixture of confusion and intense frustration. He prided himself on his military precision, and having a public execution interrupted by a dirty street rat was clearly insulting to him. He stepped toward me, his heavy hand reaching out to grab my hair to drag me forward.
“Do not touch him!” the Pharaoh screamed, his voice reaching a pitch of pure desperation. “If you lay one finger on his skin, Haremhab, I will have your hands severed and thrown to the crows before the sun sets!”
Haremhab violently yanked his hand back as if he had just touched a hot iron. He staggered back a step, his eyes wide with shock. The surrounding royal guards immediately rushed down the arena steps, their bronze swords drawn, pushing Haremhab away from me. They didn’t treat me like a criminal anymore. Two high-ranking officers gently knelt in the dirt beside me, their faces pale with a sudden, deep reverence.
“Rise, boy,” one of them whispered, his voice trembling as he carefully helped me stand. He didn’t look at my face; his eyes were glued to the scar on my shoulder.
They guided me out of the dusty arena floor, away from the hissing beast which was quickly being forced back into its tunnel by terrified gatekeepers. I was led up the grand, sweeping sandstone stairs that led to the high royal court, my bare feet leaving bloody smudges on the pristine, polished white steps.
Every single noble in the court leaned forward as I passed. The whispers were like the rustling of dry leaves in a desert wind.
“Look at his shoulder…”
“The sacred mark…”
“Is it possible? After twenty years?”
I was brought into the grand shade of the royal canopy, forced to my knees on a lush, woven Persian rug right before the obsidian throne. The smell of expensive frankincense and cold water hit my senses, making me feel dizzy. I kept my head bowed, staring at the polished stone floor, my body shaking uncontrollably from fear and confusion.
The Pharaoh stepped down from his platform. The heavy gold chains around his neck clinked with each step. He stopped right in front of me. I could see his golden sandals, encrusted with lapis lazuli, just inches from my face.
Slowly, deliberately, the Pharaoh reached up and removed his heavy golden ceremonial mask.
A collective gasp echoed through the court. The Pharaoh never showed his face to the public. He was supposed to be a living god, distant and perfect. But as the mask came away, I saw the face of an old man, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with tears that were spilling down his wrinkled cheeks.
He dropped to his knees right there in the dirt, completely ignoring his royal status, and reached out a trembling hand toward my shoulder. His fingers gently traced the edges of my scar, his touch so light it felt like a brush of wind.
“The Star of Anubis,” the Pharaoh whispered, his voice breaking into a sob. “The sacred brand of the first-born. Only one child in all of Egypt was marked with this iron before the Great Temple burned…”
He looked up from my shoulder, his tear-filled eyes locking onto my face. He stared at my nose, my jawline, my eyes, searching for something.
General Haremhab had followed us up the steps, his face twisting with a dangerous, desperate energy. He stepped forward, bowing low, his voice tight. “Great Pharaoh, please, do not let your grief blind you. This is a trick. A street rat from the slums cannot be what you think. He is a thief! He likely burned himself to mimic the lost lineage! Let me execute him before he defiles your court any further!”
The Pharaoh didn’t look at Haremhab. He kept his eyes locked on mine, his breathing shallow.
“Boy,” the Pharaoh whispered, his hands gripping my trembling shoulders. “Tell me your name. Tell me who your mother is, and tell me where you got this mark. Speak the truth, and no one in this kingdom can harm you.”
I swallowed hard, looking at the powerful man weeping before me, and then at the furious, murderous glare of General Haremhab standing just a few feet away. I knew that whatever I said next would either save my life or seal my death warrant.
