The palace guard's hand on my elbow is polite, which somehow makes it worse.

I've been manhandled before—roughly, without pretense—and I knew exactly where I stood in those moments. This gentleness is a lie wrapped in silk, and my survival instincts, honed sharp as a scribe's blade over twenty-three years, recognize it immediately. The guard isn't rough because I'm not a threat. I'm not a threat because I'm already trapped.

"This way," he says, his voice carefully neutral.

The palace corridors stretch before me like the throat of some massive beast, all soaring columns and painted walls depicting gods I've never been important enough to pray to. My sandals—old, worn, but clean because I have standards even if I have nothing else—whisper against limestone floors that cost more than my entire life's earnings. The irony isn't lost on me. I've walked these halls exactly once before, when I was eight years old and didn't understand yet that some doors only open to swallow you whole.

This time, I understand perfectly.

The summons came three days ago, delivered by a man in fine linen who found me in the scribal quarter, hunched over a merchant's inventory like I'd been born to catalog grain shipments. Which, technically, I had been. My owner—and yes, despite the legal fiction that freed me five years ago, I still think of him that way in the dark hours—had trained me since childhood to be useful. Inventory, contracts, letters, the occasional bit of creative accounting that would make the tax collectors weep if they knew how thoroughly they were being robbed.

But this summons was different.

"The Pharaoh requests your particular talents," the man had said, his eyes careful not to meet mine. "Discreetly."

I'd laughed. Actually laughed, right there in the middle of the scribal quarter, loud enough that people looked. Because of course I had. The Pharaoh doesn't request things from women like me. Women like me are requested by men who want something written quickly and are willing to pay in copper instead of silver. We're useful, temporary, forgettable.

"What kind of talents?" I'd asked, already knowing the answer would be either flattering or dangerous, possibly both.

"The kind that produce beautiful words," he'd said. "Words that move the heart."

Ah.

So that's what this is.

The guard deposits me in a small chamber off the main administrative corridor, all pale stone and high windows that let in the kind of light that makes you feel exposed. There's a table, a chair, writing materials arranged with the kind of precision that suggests someone took this seriously. Someone who understood that a scribe's tools are sacred, or should be.

I sit. My hands are steady, which is either a testament to my control or proof that I've stopped feeling fear the way normal people do. Probably both.

The wait is calculated. Long enough to make me anxious, short enough that I can't quite convince myself to leave. A power play, though a subtle one. I appreciate the subtlety. It suggests whoever orchestrated this knows what they're doing.

When the man enters, I recognize him immediately, though I've never seen him before in my life.

High Priest Theron. Of course it's Theron.

He moves like temple incense smells—heavy, cloying, filling the room until you can't breathe without tasting myrrh and lotus on your tongue. His linen is so white it hurts to look at, and the symbols of his office hang around his neck like promises he's kept to gods I don't believe in.

"Amara of Memphis," he says, and doesn't sit. Doesn't offer me water. Doesn't offer me anything except his time, which he clearly resents spending. "You come highly recommended."

"I come cheap," I correct, because if I'm going to be here, I might as well be honest about the transaction. "That's usually why people recommend me."

Something flickers across his face. Annoyance, maybe. Or respect. Hard to tell with priests—they've spent so long talking to gods that they've forgotten how to show their actual feelings.

"Your discretion is what comes at a premium," he says. "What I'm about to tell you cannot leave this room. Cannot be discussed with anyone. Cannot even be thought about in the presence of witnesses. Do you understand?"

I understand perfectly. I also understand that he's about to ask me to do something that could get me killed if I do it wrong, or if I do it right, depending on who finds out.

"I understand," I say.

He takes a breath, and for just a moment, I see the weight of whatever he's about to say settle on his shoulders like a cloak made of stones. It's almost enough to make me sympathetic. Almost.

"The Pharaoh requires poetry," he says finally. "Love poetry. Beautiful, moving, the kind of words that will convince a woman that she is desired, cherished, singular in a man's heart."

I wait for the rest. There's always a rest.

"The woman in question is Princess Nefertari of Nubia. The marriage alliance is politically essential. The Pharaoh is... reluctant. Your task is to provide him with the words to overcome that reluctance. On her part, not his."

Oh.

Oh, that's good. That's actually a beautiful piece of misdirection. They're not asking me to make him love her. They're asking me to make her believe he does. They're asking me to lie so convincingly that a princess will marry a man who doesn't want her, so that Egypt gets whatever it needs from Nubia. Trade routes, probably. Military alliance. Gold.

They're asking me to be a weapon.

"How much?" I ask, because if I'm going to be a weapon, I might as well be well-compensated.

"Fifty deben of silver," Theron says. "Upon completion and delivery of the poetry. An additional fifty if it proves... effective."

I do the math in my head. One hundred deben of silver would buy me a small house in Memphis. Would buy me freedom so complete that I'd never have to write another inventory in my life. Would buy me the kind of independence that women like me don't get to have.

It's too much. Which means it's exactly right.

"I need to know what he looks like," I say. "The Pharaoh. If I'm going to write about him, I need to know what she'll be looking at."

Theron's expression suggests he's not used to being questioned by scribes, but he gestures toward the window. "He's in the courtyard. Below. You have one moment."

One moment is all I need.

I stand and move to the window, and the world tilts slightly in a way I don't appreciate.

He's standing in the central courtyard, surrounded by advisors and priests and the usual collection of important men who follow power like dogs follow meat. But he's the only one I can see, which is problematic because it means my survival instincts have officially malfunctioned.

The Pharaoh of Egypt is beautiful in the way that ancient things are beautiful—not because they're young or soft, but because they've been shaped by time and weight and the understanding that they matter. His skin is that golden-bronze that marks the royal bloodline, and even from this distance, I can see the way he stands, economical and purposeful, like every movement has been calculated to waste nothing.

His eyes are lapis lazuli. Actual lapis, polished and perfect and holding the weight of a nation.

He's speaking to one of his advisors, his mouth moving in words I can't hear, and I notice—and I immediately hate myself for noticing—that he doesn't smile. The advisor says something that should be funny, probably, and the Pharaoh's expression doesn't change at all. Just a slight tilt of his head, a shift in his shoulders, the kind of movement that suggests he's already moved on to the next problem.

He looks lonely.

The thought arrives unbidden and unwelcome, and I push it down immediately because it's dangerous. I cannot afford to see him as a person. I cannot afford to see his loneliness and feel sympathy, because sympathy is a door that opens onto love, and love is the thing that destroys people like me.

"Well?" Theron's voice pulls me back.

"I'll do it," I say, turning away from the window. Turning away from him. "I'll write your poetry."

"Excellent." Theron moves toward the door, already done with me. "You'll have access to the palace library, a private chamber for your work, and a guard to escort you. You are not to speak to anyone about this commission. You are not to approach the Pharaoh or the princess. You are not to—"

"I know how to keep a secret," I interrupt. "I've been keeping them my whole life."

He pauses at the door, and for a moment, his eyes are sharp enough to cut. "See that you continue. There are people who would prefer this marriage happen without complications. People who would prefer that the Pharaoh be... guided... toward his duty."

It takes me a second to parse what he's actually saying.

He's telling me that if I fuck this up, or if I cause problems, or if I somehow interfere with the marriage, there are people who will kill me. He's being polite about it, but that's what he's saying.

"Understood," I say.

He leaves, and I'm alone in the chamber with the weight of what I've just agreed to.

I've written love letters before. Plenty of them. Wealthy merchants hiring me to woo women they'd never met, soldiers trying to convince wives they hadn't touched in two years that they still mattered, boys trying to impress girls who'd never look twice at them. I'm good at it—good at finding the words that make people believe in things that might not be real.

But this is different.

This is writing lies so beautiful that a princess will bind herself to a man who doesn't want her. This is using words as a weapon, which I've always known they were, but I've never been quite so honest about the violence involved.

The guard appears to escort me to my chamber, and I follow him through corridors that all look the same. Gold leaf and painted walls and the weight of history pressing down from every direction. My new chamber is small but luxurious—a bed I don't need, a writing desk that's actually well-made, and a window that overlooks the gardens.

I sit at the desk and pull out fresh papyrus.

My hands know what to do. They always do.

I write about longing. About the way a man's eyes can hold entire worlds. About the ache of desire and the sweetness of being chosen. I write about strength and gentleness, about power tempered with care. I write about a man who is impossible and distant and absolutely singular in the way he moves through the world.

I write about the Pharaoh, except I don't. I write about a man who doesn't exist, who is made of words and longing and the careful construction of fantasy.

Except.

Except the words are too easy. They flow like they've been waiting my entire life to be written. Every metaphor feels true in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable. Every description of desire feels like I'm excavating something from inside my own chest, something I've been keeping locked away because it's dangerous.

I write for hours. The sun moves across the sky, and I don't notice. The light changes from gold to amber to the kind of purple that comes right before darkness, and I write through it all, filling page after page with beautiful lies.

By the time my hand cramps and my eyes blur, I have enough poetry to convince a princess that she's loved.

I have enough poetry to convince myself that I might be capable of love, which is infinitely more dangerous.

I set down my stylus and flex my fingers, trying to work out the tension. The ink stains on my hands are dark, almost black in the fading light. Permanent. A reminder that everything I touch, I mark. Everything I write, I change.

There's a knock at the door.

"Come," I call, expecting the guard, expecting dinner, expecting anything except what actually happens.

The door opens, and the Pharaoh of Egypt walks into my chamber like he has every right to be here, which, technically, he does. It's his palace. It's all his palace. Every stone and every servant and every scribe hunched over papyrus in the dark.

Every me.

My survival instincts scream at me to stand, to bow, to make myself smaller. Instead, I stay seated, my hands flat on the desk, my heart doing something complicated and dangerous in my chest.

"You're the new scribe," he says. Not a question.

"I'm a scribe," I correct, because if I'm going to be here, I might as well be honest about my status. "Whether I'm new depends on your definition of time."

Something moves across his face. Amusement, maybe. Or the ghost of it.

He's closer now than he was in the courtyard, and I can smell him—sandalwood and frankincense and something warm and spiced like honey with an undertone of desert sand and power. It's a scent that makes my mouth dry and my hands want to shake, so I keep them very still.

"What are you writing?" he asks, moving closer to the desk.

My papers are right there. My poetry. My beautiful, dangerous lies about a man who looks like him and moves like him and probably doesn't feel anything at all.

"Inventory," I lie. "Administrative notes. Nothing important."

He looks at me for a long moment, and his lapis eyes are sharp enough to cut through stone. Sharp enough to cut through me.

"Nothing important," he repeats, and there's something in his voice that suggests he knows I'm lying. "In the palace, everything is important. Every word, every gesture, every moment is weighted with consequence."

"Then I'm writing important inventory," I say.

He smiles. Just barely, just at the corners of his mouth, but it's there. It's real.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Amara."

"Amara," he repeats, and the way he says it makes it sound like something sacred. "What brings a scribe named Amara to the palace?"

"Opportunity," I say, which is true enough. "And desperation. Mostly desperation."

He nods like this is the most honest thing he's heard in weeks, which, given that he's surrounded by priests and politicians and people whose entire job is to lie to him, might actually be true.

"Desperation," he repeats. "At least you're honest about it."

He reaches toward the papyrus on my desk, and every muscle in my body tenses. He's going to see the poetry. He's going to know what I've been writing. He's going to understand that Theron sent me here to—

But he doesn't touch the papers.

Instead, his hand brushes against mine, and the world goes very still.

His skin is warm. Warmer than it should be, like he's running a fever or like he carries the heat of the desert inside himself. The touch lasts less than a second, but my entire body is suddenly aware of him in a way that's dangerous and consuming and absolutely catastrophic.

"Theron sent you," he says. Not a question.

"Yes."

"To do something for him."

"Yes."

"Something you can't tell me about."

I don't answer, which is answer enough.

He nods slowly, and his hand withdraws, but I can still feel the warmth of him, the ghost of contact burning against my skin like a brand.

"Good," he says. "I'm tired of people telling me what I already know. It's refreshing to meet someone who understands how to keep secrets."

He moves toward the door, and I realize I'm holding my breath. When did I start holding my breath?

"Amara," he says, pausing in the doorway. "Be careful with your words. They're sharper than you think."

Then he's gone, and I'm alone again, except I'm not. He's still here in the scent of sandalwood and honey, in the warmth that lingers on my hand, in the knowledge that I've just made the biggest mistake of my life.

I've just fallen in love with a man I'm supposed to convince to marry someone else.

And worse—so much worse—I think he might have just seen it.