Two Eyes Cenote A Winged Insect to Your Funeral Pyre

“By your own admission, your presence here endangers us all!” She accuses, face bright with fire, clutching the last of her restraint only so they would not be overheard. Their people; their children! How can she raise a defense for this stranger?

Yet Gods- what a mockery she makes of herself! Was she not also from a cruel nation with stale traditions, surviving on the kindness of strangers? Would she not also choose blood over exploitation, if given the chance? Only in death would she be made to return to slums of Shuyet.

She is inclined to believe him. But it is too much- too much for a serf turned master; for a girl turned overseer.

“I need your honesty, from here on out. There is too much at stake,” her eyes dart his own, demanding quick compliance. “I will relay what’s been said to Khusobek. We will devise a plan to secure the palace.”

It wasn’t a kinship. She could not offer such a thing to this man she barely knows and whose motives are obscured. For long she stares at the marbled stone floor, suspended with indecision. Until finally-

"I will not throw you to the crows."