Lion Head Mesa hollyhock

it felt as thought a canyon now cut along the room, either one of them across from the other.

an open expanse laid between them. he had become the grand marble pharaoh and she hardened like steel.

"would you make a peasant your consort? would you muddy the blood of our long and unchanged line for your desires?"

she felt marked all at once. as if he might think she would ever do such things. did siptah ever have to speak such words allowed? or had they all just assumed he would do as bid? was she only being asked the obvious because she had not been born crowned prince?

her features hardened further.

far too serious for such a still growing girl, but the look was not one new to her or her features. not in the last few weeks certainly.

i would do no such thing to you, to akashingo. a weaving of hurt beyond her own cold tone. for him to ever even consider she might.

perhaps it was too terrible a thing for her to be such a carbon copy of her father and mother.