Lion Head Mesa twenty-first

"pharaoh," he said before @Makono.

the day was still young. he did not like to bring such things. and yet he must.

"you have heard the rumours. nazli is said to carry ramesses' heirs." and therefore her own rivals.

the bright green of his eyes sought her cheekbone but no further. "such whisperings must be quelled."

remember madness? she remembered it. how it had sunken her father and rattled him. how he had surely imbedded it in every godforsaken thing he had touched in his last days.

it slithered ugly in her gut now.

how she would raise the dead just to strike him once more for these things, if she could. this time without mercy or kindness.

explain. she seethed in an ugly tone, unbecoming of the close nights they shared commonly now. how? she is not even — her teeth clicked shut, pinched the end of her tongue between front ones.

senmut nodded, but spread his paws wide as if in supplication. 

"Ma'at has moved in akashingo before, divine one," the priest said quietly, alluding to her own ascension. 

"she has been beneath the care of the sesh, lady qiao, and the priestess of Hathor. nothing has changed her condition."

it was horrible to speak of nazli thus, but senmut would let no challenge to his ruler's throne go unchecked, even the ones who might be carried by the innocent. "i suggest you adopt them as your own, if it remains to be true to the end."

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and Ma'at sought what? to test a favored one? to see that makono sat rightfully upon the throne? if it had been her own children she might have not seen a discomfort! as if she had been able to suddenly impregnate someone herself! instead it was the last creeping tendrils of a madman come to rattle her again.

makono thought she ought to sooner eat them fresh from the womb. nothing more than tiny bundles of flesh without a proper life. who would miss them? a young mother who suffered and would surely suffer more through birthing them? she thought not.

it would be a favor to snuff out the life as soon as blood touched the floors of akashingo.

an ugly and disturbed sneer settled on the face of the pharaoh. the reasonable option was presented by her vizier, of course. the one did that not brand her as a woman who could commit both infanticide and patricide in the same breath of her first year of life.

they will be lucky if i do not end them first. and she meant this in full! let senmut hear it and understand where her heart would be weighed when the time came. and we are assuming nazli will let them go? or should she see me as a baby thief too?

she knew she could force it with the click of teeth, a single word command.

it was not how she wished to deal with nazli.

no. he had not seen it, and shock drew him downward into another bow.

senmut had not seen this for he had not wished to see how the transition from daughter to heir to kingkiller to pharaoh had hardened makono, aged her. how she held all the glitter of youth but was limned now in the mien of Sobek's own cold scales.

fear and admiration raced ice through his veins, mingling and warming into the fire which propelled his loyalty to her and always had.

"i would have suggested you end her as well, had your love for her not been so great."

let pharaoh see too that senmut carried iron inside him, a steel furnace that burned to do her bidding. a mother to bastard princes might raise them one day against the throne.

"a sleeping draught, when the time comes. she will remember little. and your will shall be done, great one."

now senmut was silent, aching in a sheer agony for nazli, for the pain she bore and must still bear, all by the status of her low birth.

and it was too the teeth of sobek she showed in a momentary flash. a physical flare of her disgusted anger with the whole situation.

her father had told her plenty of things that had turned out to be correct, but she had wished to never believe that pharaoh was truly alone. yet she felt it now in the widening of nazli's sides and how it acted like a bridging between them further.

it would have been easier to kill again, it was not the answer. it could not always be the answer.

toula shall be queen— she looked for protests and hoped she would find none. either way she had more words on her tongue. and perhaps she might impart a gentle touch to them when i cannot. happy family, hm?

had her father felt this way? no, treva's children had seemed truly loved. then again they had not come straight from the loins of a fellahin while he was married. only after her mother had died.

her anger would find no moment to hush when she carried on this way.

she meant for toula to have them.

toula, the new queen regent of akashingo.

senmut shivered but his bow was clear. he was not sure what Ma'at meant to do. that alone was for pharaoh now to know. his role was only to worship.

and nazli; senmut could not find his tongue, racked suddenly with a great pain for the poor fellahin.

i intend to expand akashingo. inside and outside, hemet. to paint a future with my name as the pharaoh.

she turned and allowed herself to drift to the comfort of a sitting place. a throne that it felt she filled more and more every day.

no curses left behind by a madman will stop us. do you understand?

it was an ugly, pinched look that settled on her face now. one of an angered tactician instead of a trained ambassador.

"i understand, divine one."

not madness in pharaoh. determination.

he did not tell her that he had returned to the bound body to cut its joints.

that he had done as he might to keep ramesses' spectre from haunting these lands.

"in autumn you must announce a Divine Consort," the hem reminded her softly. "it will be the future of akashingo."

a divine consort.

somehow a title that many seemed to dread for the way brothers fled lands. was a woman pharaoh truly so insufferable to small growing minds?

and who can be such?

there was a great problem here. bloodline was traced through divinity on both sides.

"iry-pat. it is the title of a prince made through order of pharaoh, made hereditary. it is not the same but if Ma'at approves your choice —" he bowed his head.

"hold a feast. persuade them to send their nobles. choose from among the highest-ranked in the land." a smile. "but remind them they would not join you as king nor pharaoh. that title alone is yours."

fade? <3

it will be done. when the mourning has come and gone, she exhaled softly as if some of it escaped her now. perhaps it was the dread of courting in a feast, meeting faces and hoping that one of them understood she must be bowed to still despite any relations.

i will trust you to test them all when the arrive, hm?

her voice light and far away. yet the youth of the day still clung to her and she knew she must soon attend other matters.

<3

"you still have the fullness of a year to decide, divine one."

his bow was low.

when dismissed he would not linger, but neither would senmut sleep. he would return to prayers.