The guard releases my elbow once we reach my assigned chamber, a small room in the scribal quarters that smells like old papyrus and broken dreams. I say this without irony. Broken dreams have a scent—stale and faintly acrid, like ink left too long in the sun.

"The Pharaoh's scribe will provide you with materials," he says, as if I haven't spent the last decade knowing exactly where to find materials. As if I didn't spend my childhood stealing them. "You'll begin immediately."

I nod without looking at him. The politeness has worn thin already, and I've learned that the best way to disappear is to become unremarkable. Invisible. A tool, not a person.

He leaves. The door closes with a soft click that sounds like a lock, though technically it isn't. Technically, I'm free to walk out whenever I want.

We both know that's a lie.

The chamber is sparse—a low writing desk, cushions, oil lamps, and shelves lined with papyrus rolls and ink pots in various shades of black and red. Someone has prepared this space with care, which is somehow worse than if they'd been careless. Care implies intention. Intention implies I'm trapped in something deliberate.

I run my fingers along the papyrus, feeling the familiar texture under my calloused fingertips. The ink stains on my hands have faded over the years—I'm no longer a child scraping out temple records in workshops that smelled of sweat and desperation—but they never quite disappear. Permanent reminders. Like scars, but on the outside where everyone can see them.

I should start writing.

Instead, I sit on the edge of the desk and laugh—a sharp, bitter sound that echoes off the stone walls. Somewhere in this palace, a Pharaoh is waiting for poetry. Seduction wrapped in verse. Words designed to make a foreign princess fall into his arms like she has no choice in the matter, which, let's be honest, she probably doesn't.

The irony isn't lost on me.

I've spent my entire life fighting against exactly this—being used, being positioned, being bent toward someone else's purpose like clay in a potter's hands. And now I'm here by choice, doing exactly that, except this time I'm the one holding the knife.

Except that's not quite true either.

The papyrus is waiting. I pull out a fresh roll and uncap the ink pot. The scent rises up—cedar and carbon, sharp and clean and familiar enough to be almost comforting. Almost. I've learned to be suspicious of comfort. Comfort is where you drop your guard. Comfort is where people leave you.

But the words are already forming in my mind, and I've never been good at ignoring them.

I write: Your eyes hold the weight of a nation.

Then I cross it out. Too obvious. Too much like something written by someone who's never actually looked at a person and seen them. I've written enough courtly flattery to know what it sounds like—hollow, recycled, a performance of emotion rather than emotion itself.

The irony of that is also not lost on me.

I start again: I wonder what you see when you look at something you're not supposed to want.

Better. Still not right, but closer. There's something underneath that line—something true, something that tastes like my own vulnerability, which is exactly why I should burn it and start over.

I don't burn it.

Instead, I keep writing. The words pour out like they've been waiting for permission, like they've been trapped behind my teeth for years, desperate to escape. I write about the way power sits on a man's shoulders like a weight, the way it must feel to be trapped by expectation, to be a tool for a nation instead of a person. I write about the hunger for something real in a world of performance and lies, and I write it so honestly that it feels like I'm bleeding onto the papyrus.

It's dangerous. It's reckless. It's exactly what I promised myself I wouldn't do.

I keep writing anyway.

By the time the oil lamps begin to burn low, I have seven poems. Seven pieces of my own guarded heart, dressed up in pretty language and addressed to a man I've never properly met. Seven ways of saying: I see you. I understand the weight you carry. I know what it's like to want something you're not supposed to have.

It's humiliating, really.

I roll up the papyrus carefully, my hands steady despite the tremor in my chest. The poems are beautiful—I can admit that much without ego, simply as fact. They're the most honest things I've ever written, which means they're also the most dangerous.

I leave them on the desk, arranged in order like an offering.

---

The next morning, they're gone.

I tell myself I don't care. I tell myself it's better this way—let him read them, let him be moved or unmoved, let the whole thing play out and be done with it. I tell myself a lot of things that are variations on the same lie: that my heart isn't racing, that my hands aren't shaking slightly as I prepare fresh papyrus, that I'm not imagining what his face looked like when he read them.

I've never seen his face, actually. Not properly. I've caught glimpses in the palace corridors—a flash of golden skin, the weight of authority in the set of his shoulders, that impossible blue of his eyes from a distance that felt safe. But I've never been close enough to really see him, and I've been careful to keep it that way.

Now I'm imagining his face, which is stupid. Now I'm imagining what his hands looked like holding the papyrus, what his voice sounded like as he read my words, what expression crossed his features when he reached the lines about wanting something forbidden.

This is what happens when you let people close. This is what happens when you write truth instead of performance. You start to care, and caring is the fastest way to get destroyed.

I sit down and write seven more poems.

They're even more honest than the first set, which is its own special kind of torture. I write about scars—the visible ones and the ones that hide under skin where no one can see them. I write about the weight of being someone's tool, someone's possession, someone's solution to a problem. I write about the terror of being known, really known, because what happens when someone sees all of you and decides you're not worth keeping?

I write about that, and I write it like I'm the one being addressed, like these poems are for me, like I'm trying to convince myself that maybe, possibly, someone could see all the broken pieces and not run.

It's pathetic. It's also the most beautiful work I've ever done.

When I finish, the sun is setting. The light coming through the narrow window turns everything the color of old blood—rust and gold and something that looks almost like warmth. I gather the poems carefully, my hands moving with the precision of ritual, and I set them on the desk just like before.

And then I wait.

---

I'm not supposed to leave the scribal quarters. No one's explicitly told me this, but the boundaries are clear in the way that matters—in the guard's careful positioning, in the way the other scribes avoid speaking to me, in the absolute silence that follows me through corridors like I'm carrying something contagious.

I leave anyway.

It's stupid. It's also inevitable, the way that most of my worst decisions are. I tell myself I'm just stretching my legs, getting familiar with the palace layout, doing something other than sit in my chamber and wonder if he's read the poems. I tell myself a lot of things, and I believe approximately none of them.

The palace at dusk is different than it is during the day. Softer somehow, though that might just be the way the light falls. The shadows are longer, the air cooler, and the scent of frankincense from the temple district drifts through the open courtyards like something alive.

I'm moving through one of these courtyards—a beautiful space with a reflecting pool and date palms, the kind of place that makes you understand why people worship here—when I hear footsteps behind me.

My body recognizes danger before my mind catches up. My pulse spikes. My hands clench into fists. I don't turn around because turning around would be an acknowledgment, and acknowledgment is the first step toward being trapped.

"You walk like someone who doesn't want to be followed."

The voice is low, warm, and it carries the weight of command even when it's phrased as an observation. Even when it's not a command at all.

Shit.

I keep walking, my pace deliberately unhurried. The reflection pool is to my left, and I can see him in it without turning my head—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing the golden collar of office. The Pharaoh. Of course it's the Pharaoh. Of course I've managed to stumble directly into the one person I'm supposed to be avoiding while simultaneously trying to seduce him through poetry.

This is what happens when you stop thinking clearly. This is what happens when you let words matter more than survival.

"I'm just returning to my quarters," I say, keeping my voice level and unremarkable. The voice of a tool, not a person. "I apologize for the intrusion."

"You're not intruding."

There's something in the way he says it—something that sounds like he means it, which is infinitely more dangerous than if he were being polite. Politeness I understand. Politeness is a performance. But this sounds like he's actually inviting me to stay, and I'm not equipped to handle that kind of directness.

I take another step toward the corridor that leads back to the scribal quarters.

"Wait."

I stop. I hate that I stop. I hate that the word—just one word, just a command wrapped in a voice like warm spiced honey—is enough to make me freeze like I'm a bird and he's just clapped his hands.

"The poems," he says. "Did you read them before you delivered them?"

My heart has relocated to my throat, which is inconvenient because it makes it difficult to breathe and also makes lying harder. I turn around slowly, keeping my eyes fixed on a point just past his shoulder. Don't look at his face. Don't let him see you. Don't—

"I'm just a scribe," I say. "I deliver what I'm asked to deliver."

"That's not what I asked."

The voice is gentle, which is somehow worse than if he'd been sharp about it. Gentleness is a weapon I don't know how to defend against. I spent my childhood learning to dodge blows, not kindness.

I risk a glance at his face, just a quick one, just enough to—

Oh.

The poems didn't prepare me for his eyes. Nothing could have prepared me for his eyes. They're blue like lapis lazuli, like the night sky over the desert, like something that should be impossible in a human face. And they're looking at me like I'm the most interesting thing he's seen in years, which is flattering and terrifying in equal measure.

"I read them," I admit, because lying to those eyes feels like it would be immediately obvious. "I had to know if they were worth delivering."

"And were they?"

"Yes." The word escapes before I can stop it. "They're exceptional work."

He smiles, and it's like the sun breaking through clouds. It's like every poem I've ever written suddenly makes sense. It's like I've just made a catastrophic mistake, and I'm only now realizing it.

"They are," he agrees. "Which is why I wanted to meet the poet who wrote them."

My blood goes cold. "I didn't write them."

"You're lying." He steps closer, and I can smell him now—sandalwood and frankincense, but underneath that something else, something uniquely his own. Warm spiced honey with an undertone of desert sand and power. It smells like the worst decision I've ever made, and I want to inhale it forever. "You have ink stains on your hands. Your fingers are calloused from writing. And when you speak about the poems, something in your voice changes—like you're talking about something that matters."

I take a step back, and he lets me, which is its own kind of cruelty because it means he's not trying to trap me. It means he's giving me a choice, and choices are so much harder to live with than force.

"It doesn't matter who wrote them," I say, my voice carefully flat. "They're yours now. They're for the Princess Nefertari. That's the arrangement."

"I know what the arrangement is." He's still smiling, and it's breaking something in my chest. "I'm asking what you want."

It's such a simple question. It's also the most dangerous thing anyone has ever asked me.

"I want to go back to my quarters," I say, and I'm proud of how steady my voice sounds. "I want to finish my work. I want to never have this conversation."

"Liar," he says, but there's no malice in it. There's something worse—there's affection. "You want the same thing I want. You want to be seen. You want to be known. You want—"

"Stop." I hold up a hand, and miraculously, he stops. "You don't know me. You've read some words I wrote, and you think that means you know me, but you don't. Words are just words. They're tools. They're—"

"They're you," he interrupts. "Every line of them. I've spent my entire life reading flattery and performance, and I know the difference. These poems are real. You're real. And I want—"

He reaches out like he's going to touch my face, and I move before I can think about it. I step back, I spin, I walk away fast enough that it's almost running but not quite, because running would be an admission of fear.

The scent of him lingers though—sandalwood and honey and desert sand—and I carry it with me all the way back to my chamber, where I lock the door and press my back against it like I can keep the rest of the world out through sheer force of will.

My hands are shaking.

My heart is racing.

And somewhere in the palace, the Pharaoh of Egypt is probably still standing in that courtyard, probably still holding the memory of my face, probably already planning the next time he'll try to corner me.

I should leave. I should pack my things and disappear into the city and figure out how to survive on my own again. I should do a lot of things that would be infinitely smarter than what I'm actually doing.

What I'm actually doing is sitting down at my desk and pulling out fresh papyrus.

What I'm actually doing is writing: I'm terrified of what happens if you really see me.

And I'm leaving it where he can find it, which is the most honest and most reckless thing I've ever done.

It's also the most necessary.