Lion Head Mesa blood-gift

It was a waterless land as far as his eye could see. The plains shifted to sagebrush and cracked in the gentle breeze.

As different from Ta-senet as Amani was from the royal he'd been sent to attend.

A soft exhale; he roamed past his longings and considered stealing into Akashingo without the welcome of the multitude, eyes rimmed with caution, indifference, fear. Perhaps @Rashepses would admire his tenacity. Perhaps he would send his guards to kill him. Or perhaps he would simply laugh and send him back to Ta-senet and call for one of more noble blood.

He slid into the kingdom's ruddy palace as he had done many times for lesser princes, and sought the quarters of the king.

The fellahin are sent to bathe, the mazoi down to supper. In the privacy of the vacated bedchamber, Rashepses closed his eyes and prayed.

O assembled gods of the Nile,
Who rejoice at Heqet’s coming,
Who love to see her beauty exalted;
I say at her side that I rejoice at seeing her!
My arms gesture ‘Come to me.’
I am the worshipper who wakens the sistrum for Heqet
Every day and at every hour she wishes.
Together with Horus, whom you love,
Who eats with you from your offerings,
Who feeds with you from your provisions.
I receive thee into my soul,
Pharaoh receives thee into her soul.
Shineth upon her body,
When she liest on our bed in the form of Isis,
So that she may may infuse light within.

Floral scents would mask his own as he traveled through the well-worn labrynh. Red hewn walls rose on either side, detailed with colours wrought from dust and berry pulp.

Water splashed in chambers he passed along the way. No doubt leading to bathing ground. It was the highest hour, that spent retiring to private quarters. A dying breath between watches.

A prayer lifted through the fragranced air. Dust motes drifted in lazy lines through the shafts of sunlight creeping through the skylights overhead.

A dark figure bowed over ochre, his sides rising steady with every whispered breath.

Amani slipped along the inner wall and positioned himself as a statue against the wall of the prince's inner chamber. There, he waited, wine eyes slits like clefts in mudbrick.

Another moment passed and the king sat silent at his altar; water when it stills like glass beneath the face of a calm moon, sealing a prayer with unspoken oaths. But in the next he had risen, eyes opening to the low glow of evening and the scarcely discernible figure who’d fused so finely with the vermilion filigree of his room.

He did not fear— not truly, when his guards were a call away. Yet Sermer-wati did not lift his voice. This infiltrator had demonstrated a grave flaw in the security of his palace, one that jeopardized his own wife.

Rashepses passed forward, paws hard on the coolness of the stone, but his bearing slick and guileful as black silk. He stopped a length from the man, a gilded look joining their eyes. “Explain yourself.”

He saw him. Black frame stole towards him like an adder. Poised. Practiced. Proud. As if Amani could not strike him now. As if he was not the viper.

Not much had changed.

You know, he said, nuanced, quiet, as of the desert, as though hewn from coarse sand. He had killed bigger kings in moments like these; but he would not say it, and most who knew were already dead.

He shifted his gaze away from surveying the trophies, the altars, the trinkets, to settle on Rashepses.

Most.

The king had braced an arm to the wall on the side of the red man’s face, leaning in closely with a pierce, probing gaze.

“Amani,” was whispered with doubt, as if the realization could not truly be trusted. The king held his stance.

“What would take you away from my brother’s kingdom?” He crossed. Akashingo had called for soldiers. This Tanutamani was not, for he was regaled for a much more refined set of skills; an occupation which made him distinctly difficult to part with.