Two Eyes Cenote ninety-sixth

there was no shift in the priest's expression save for a hardening in the gemstone eyes. slaves were something with which they all were quite familiar. if he was pressed to assume, he might have thought rashepses himself would not be opposed to such a trade returning, insofar as there was no sorrow in his kingdom.

uncharitable. and truthful. he remembered the wellspring, and his flesh simmered softly with a heated mixture of revulsion and wonder.

the method too in which germanicus had seen fit to pay his officer was familiar, even warranted. objective as he had heard tell of the man to be in those small glimpses. and wicked, so wicked to be so easily turned toward misery for replacement. "it would not be something unpromised before," he quipped.

akavir's bare use of pharaoh's name inspired a taut flick of one crimson ear. it was not a word to be spoken so lightly; it was divine and thus sacred. akavir's dislike of their palaces would not end in his dismissal. disrespect would, and senmut assumed by now that the darkspun man was familiar with how they regarded their ruler.

"there is no question of pharaoh's honesty. her servants adore the very sight of her divinity moving among us. our hebsut, too, named among those who revere our godhead." it was no nobleman's simper which warned akavir, nor princely plot; it was in the sobered, hushed tones of one pious, handmade to be so.

"who struck you?" senmut felt he knew, but wished the man to say it. "and then please tell to me the details of what happened. openly, so i may see it in my mind as you speak."