The presentation hall thrummed with the nervous heartbeats of thirteen girls, and I couldn't silence the whispered rumors that circled my mind like carrion birds.
My hands trembled despite my efforts to still them, fingers clutching the transparent silk that offered no protection from the hundred eyes I felt but couldn't see.
For the love of gods, what have I been sold to..?
The music began—a slow, undulating rhythm designed to make us flow like the Nile itself. The drums seemed to pulse through my bones as we moved in practiced formation.
Each gesture is deliberately sensual, each arch of the spine calculated to display what the silk barely concealed. The choreography was ancient, sacred they'd told us, though it felt more like sacrifice than worship.
I forced my body through the motions, keeping my eyes properly lowered even as the weight of the court's attention pressed against my skin.
"The Greek mongrel," someone whispered from behind a painted fan.
"At least she's exotic," another voice replied with the casual cruelty of those discussing livestock. "The Pharaoh has a soft spot for oddities, they say."
"Better her than a proper Egyptian daughter."
Each word landed like a lash, but I pushed through the movements, one flowing into the next. My hips swayed, my arms traced patterns in the air, my hair swung loose down my back because the Harem Mistress had forbidden any covering.
I prayed to any deity who might be listening.
Let me disappear, blend into this line of bodies and silk. Let him choose another.
The dance ended with us arranged in a perfect line, chests heaving, sweat making the silk cling even more obscenely to our forms. My legs burned from holding the final position, thighs trembling with the effort of stillness.
Beside me, a girl's breathing hitched, threatening to become a sob. Another's tears fell silently onto the marble.
The silence that followed was worse than any sound. No footsteps from the throne, no voice of command. Just the terrible weight of an invisible gaze moving over us like the shadow of a hawk over mice.
The Harem Mistress stepped forward, her voice ringing with practiced authority. "His Majesty has made his choice."
She paused, letting tension build until I thought I might shatter from it. My heart was pounding so loudly I was certain everyone could hear it.
"The blonde one."
Every eye in the hall turned to me—the only one whose foreign blood announced itself in streams of gold.
The very feature that had earned me years of suffering had now marked me for a different kind of shame. I felt their gazes like hands on my skin, some pitying, some relieved. All grateful it wasn't them.
"You are commanded to attend the Pharaoh in his private chambers tonight."
My knees nearly betrayed me, but training took over where strength failed. I dropped into the required prostration, forehead touching marble so cold it burned.
Around me, I felt the other girls' relief washing over me in waves—relief mixed with pity for the mongrel chosen for the monster's attention.
"Rise," the Harem Mistress commanded. "You will be prepared."
***
Night fell across the palace like a burial shroud, and I found myself surrounded by the same elderly women who'd stripped me hours before.
They bathed me again, as if the first cleansing hadn't been thorough enough for royal touch. Their hands were efficient but not unkind as they worked precious oils into my skin until I gleamed like polished amber.
Is it possible that they tried to wash out the color of my foreign hair?
I bet that's what my mother dreamed of achieving every time she scrubbed me in the bathhouse when I was a child.
"Hold still, child," one woman murmured as she painted my lips deeper red, the color of pomegranate seeds, of spilled wine, of blood. "It will be over quickly if you don't resist."
Another wound golden thread through my hair, weaving it into patterns that left most of the length free to cascade down my back. The silk they dressed me in was so fine it felt like wearing moonlight—or nothing at all.
"Remember your training," the eldest instructed as guards arrived to escort me, their faces as expressionless as temple statues. "Eyes down, speak only when commanded, obey without hesitation, and it will be finished soon enough."
The walk through the palace corridors stretched like a journey through the underworld.
My bare feet whispered against marble floors while my mind sought refuge in memory—not of Khenti's betrayals or my family's cruelty, but of him.
Ram. My mysterious stranger who'd pulled me from the Nile's embrace, who'd kissed me like I was something precious rather than damaged goods.
I'll hide inside those memories, I told myself as massive cedar doors loomed before me. Lock myself away in the moment with him. Whatever the Pharaoh does to my body, my mind will be elsewhere.
The guards pushed open the doors, and I entered on legs that threatened to buckle with each step. The chamber was vast, lit by oil lamps that cast dancing shadows on painted walls.
A figure sat on a low couch, facing away from me, and I immediately dropped my gaze to the floor as trained.
"Your Majesty," I whispered, the words barely sound.
I heard him rise, the whisper of fine linen, bare feet moving across marble with deliberate slowness. Each step brought him closer, and I forced myself to remain still even as every instinct screamed to flee.
He stopped before me, close enough that I could smell myrrh and something else—something achingly familiar that made my heart stutter.
A hand rose to my hair, and I braced for roughness, for the possessive grip of ownership. Instead, his touch was reverent, fingers sliding through the golden strands as if he were touching spun sunlight itself.
As if he had already done this to me once before…
"Look at me," he said softly.
That voice. Gods help me, I knew that voice, but it is impossible. It couldn't be—
His fingers moved to my chin, tilting my face up with gentle insistence when I didn’t move.
I had no choice but to obey, my eyes traveling up past the open robe and a well-toned body. Past the strong throat, to finally meet… Amber eyes.
Warm as honey in sunlight. That face I'd memorized in dreams and darkness.
The world tilted off its axis.
It was him. My stranger. My savior. My Ram.
Wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Pharaoh Ramses.
"Hello, little blessing," he whispered, his lips curving in a smile that was charming and triumphant all at once.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't process how the man who'd saved me from drowning, who'd kissed me with such desperate tenderness, was the same monster the girls whispered about in terror.
"Missed me?"