The Nile embraces me like the loving mother I never truly had. Black waters cool against my fevered skin, accepting what the world above has rejected.
But I welcome it.
I walk deeper, each breath harder to draw when the current tugs at my dress.
"So this is the Greek's bastard."
I still remember my stepfather's first words upon seeing me, four years old and hiding behind my mother's skirts. The disgust in Ptahmose's voice had been palpable.
My mother had laughed, nervous and placating, pushing me forward for inspection like livestock at market.
The water reaches my waist. The current strengthens, promising.
Another memory surfaces: my mother, who once sang me Orphic hymns in secret, slowly forgetting the lullabies as Nefertari grew in her womb. The day my sister was born was the day my mother's eyes began sliding past me as if I were furniture.
My chest disappears beneath the surface.
"Why is Persenet's hair ugly yellow?" Eight-year-old Nefertari's sweet voice rings through time.
Asking the question at a formal dinner with twenty guests from the temple hierarchy. She'd known exactly what she was doing, had practiced the innocent expression in her bronze mirror.
The silence that followed had been deafening, broken only by my mother's stammered explanation about my unfortunate parentage. While I sat frozen, a honey-caked date turning to sand in my mouth.
The water licks at my throat.
Just one more step…
And then there was Khenti, years ago. Holding me in the temple gardens where we'd hidden since we were younger. "Your bloodline means nothing to me, Enet. You could have scales like a river serpent and I would still choose you."
His hands had been so gentle then. Weaving flowers into my wig, kissing promises into my skin. His lies so beautiful.
The current lifts my feet from the riverbed. My body surrenders to the pull.
This is it. This is peace. This is…
I hear a splash and then someone's hands circle my waist like iron bands, yanking me backward against a chest solid. I'm fighting and screaming while being dragged toward shore, my fingernails raking at the arms.
"Let me go!" I sob, thrashing like a caught fish. "Let me die! Nobody wants me! I'm nothing to anyone! Just a mistake that should have been drowned at birth!"
"Stupid girl." The voice, familiar and impossible, cuts through my hysteria. "Stupid, silly, mad girl!"
It's him. The stranger from the alley.
He carries me to the riverbank as if I weigh nothing, though I beat at his chest with my weak fists. When we’re finally on solid ground, I collapse against his chest, all the fight draining from my limbs at once.
"You think drowning solves anything?" His firm anger vibrates through the air between us, but beneath it runs something raw. Like fear. "You think giving them what they want, your absence, is victory? That's not triumph, little one. That's surrender."
The sobs come then—ugly, wretched sounds that scrape my throat raw. Years of swallowed tears finally finding release against this stranger's soaked linen.
His arms shift, pulling me closer instead of pushing away. One hand cradles the back of my head while the other presses firm against my spine. Holding me like I might dissolve into the river if he lets go.
"What happened?" His voice has lost its edge, softened into something almost tender. "Tell me."
"Everything." The word splinters into a thousand pieces. "They took everything."
"Who did?"
I can't answer. Can only cling to him as the memories crash over me worse than any current. He doesn't push. Doesn't demand. Simply holds me as the storm rages, his heartbeat steady against my cheek.
When words finally come, they pour out fractured and desperate.
I pour out every poisonous memory, every small cruelty that cut deeper than any blade. I tell him about finding my mother burning my real father's letters before I could read them.
About Nefertari putting scorpions in my bed and claiming I was trying to hurt her when I screamed. About the servants who wouldn't meet my eyes, the priests who made purification gestures when I passed.
The children who threw stones while chanting "greek dog."
"Khenti was supposed to be different," I whisper. "But he was performing too. Playing the devoted lover while arranging his future with my sister. They've probably been laughing about it for months—the mongrel who thought she could be loved."
The stranger makes a low sound in his throat. When I looked at him, his pupils seemed to flash crimson in the darkness before returning to that impossible amber.
"You saw them," he says. Not a question.
I nod, too hollowed out for more tears. "Kissing like they'd done it a thousand times before. And now I have to become another toy for the Pharaoh’s Golden House."
My fingers curl into the wet fabric of his tunic.
"At least drowning would have been my choice. The only choice they've ever left me."
“So, you think death is better than a place in the Pharaoh's harem.” Another statement, while he looked like he’s mind is too far from here.
I snorted. “You sound like it’s a trifle. I don’t see you being traded like a thing.”
His following silence made me feel ashamed. I sounded too harsh to someone who had agreed to listen to a tirade about my miserable life, even though he didn't have to.
"I'm sorry." I wipe my face uselessly. "You didn't ask for any of this."
"No," he agrees. "But I'm here nonetheless. I'm Ram, by the way. Since you've decided to fall apart in my arms, you should know who's holding you together."
A ghost of a smile tugs at my lips despite everything. "Just Ram? Nothing else?"
He just smiled, shrugging. As if there was nothing more interesting to add.
The hesitation was obvious. "Some traveler, huh? The one who appears wherever I'm in danger? Who knows things about birthmarks and blessings?"
“I’m a very gifted one,” he winks at me and I see it again—the glimpse of crimson in Ram’s pupils.
He changes the topic before I could resist, and I’m too exhausted to fight it.
We talk through the night until dawn approaches. And slowly, impossibly, the crushing weight in my chest begins to ease. He tells me stories of distant lands—Nubia's gold mines, Phoenician ships, the hanging gardens of Babylon.
Then the sun begins painting the Nile gold and pink. And this strange, perfect night of being seen must end.
"Will I ever see you again?" The question escapes before pride can stop it. "I've enjoyed your company more than... more than I should. More than makes sense."
"Probably not," he says, rising to his feet with fluid grace. "I'm not used to staying in one place for too long."
Panic claws at my throat. I grab his hand before he can step away, desperate to hold onto the only person who has ever looked at me like I matter. “And there’s nothing that can make you stay?”
His eyes flashed with fire. “Has anything to offer?”
Before any doubts crawl into me, I'm pulling him down, pressing my mouth to his with all the desperation of someone who has nothing left to lose. For a heartbeat, he's still as stone.
Then something snaps—his control, his composure, his carefully maintained distance. His hands tangle in my wet hair, pulling me against him as he devours my mouth like a man who's been dying of thirst and I'm the only water for miles.
The kiss is fire and flood, consumption and confession. I whimper against his lips, and he swallows the sound like it's sacred. When he finally pulls away, we're both breathing hard.
His eyes are pure crimson now, beautiful and impossible but I’m too overwhelmed to care.
"I’ll find you again, little blessing," he says, and it sounds like both a threat and vow.
He vanishes into the morning mist that rises from the river, leaving me alone with swollen lips and a body that feels forever changed. I stand on shaking legs, turning toward home and the fate that awaits me there.
"Well, well. The harem's newest whore already practicing her trade?"
I freeze. Nefertari emerges from the reeds like a cobra from its basket, her perfect smile sharp enough to draw blood.