Two Eyes Cenote sand & lapis

The hebsut feels the skim of his eyes. She had never fully known the true nature of how she’d felt for him. But if a part of her had ever believed they belonged to each other, she knew it was not right.

Khusobek stands before her a different man. She sees his contentment, his happiness. This version of him, he was scarcely the restless mazoi that she knew from before. The memory of him was still there, how they’d once lain entangled on the floor of this chamber. But he was a husband and a father who had found peace, and who was deserving of it. And Eset would never be compelled to rob him of it, no matter how red the old kindling.

So when the ice of his eyes stole up and away from the curve of her shoulder, so too did her’s shift.

“The fellahin Machiavelli is a fugitive,” she reveals, a fraction of herself grateful to be pulled elsewhere. “He is being pursued by a man called Herod and his bounty hunters. He is under the impression they will eventually find him here, in Muat-riya. We need a way to secure the palace.” The revelation is blunt, her tail lashing in indignation, but she pauses.

She was not a soldier, she had not the mind for military tactics. She needed Khusobek.