The first light of dawn spilled across Thebes, washing the city in gold. From the shadowed corner of the training yard, Zylah swung her sword in precise, flowing arcs, the steel slicing the air with a whisper of authority she had learned to wield in secret. The older women of the household muttered among themselves, voices brittle as dried papyrus.
"You will be wed soon, Zylah," one said, her tone sharp. "At nineteen, a girl should not spend her mornings swinging swords as if she were a man."
Zylah did not look up. "I will not be wed to a man who fears a woman who can protect herself."
Another tsked. "Do not speak so boldly, child. Strength must bend, not break."
The women could not understand why a beautiful young girl such as herself would be interested in manly activities. Many of them even secretly admired her beauty and would want her to wed their sons.
Her father's footsteps cut through the morning air. Serkah, once a royal knight of the Pharaoh's guard, now the stern patriarch of their household, came to stand behind her. His shadow stretched across her as he surveyed her movements.
"You show more skill with that sword than your brothers ever have," he said, voice low and deliberate. "Yet you flaunt it, Zylah. You strike without restraint. You will bring shame to this house."
"I temper it with truth," she shot back, spinning to meet his gaze. "Better to strike swiftly than to die hidden in cowardice."
He shook his head, exasperated. "You are reckless! You will bring ruin if you do not learn restraint!"
Her hands tightened around the hilt. "I have learned nothing else my whole life but to master the blade! I will not be caged into the expectations of women who cannot hold a sword!"
Anger flared in his eyes. "You will speak to me with respect, Zylah!"
"And you will listen to me!" she said, her voice echoing across the courtyard. Pride and fury warred between them until, at last, her father turned, rigid, cloak sweeping the ground.
"Then you leave me no choice," he said coldly. "One day, your recklessness will cost more than you realize."
Zylah's chest heaved. "Then I will choose my own path before that day comes!"
Later that evening, after the household had gone quiet, Zylah found herself sitting in the cool shadows of the garden, staring at the moon reflecting in the fountain. Her grandmother appeared quietly beside her, a woman smaller in frame but towering in presence, her hair silvered and eyes sharp, though softened by years of wisdom.
"You fought again," her grandmother said, voice gentle but firm.
"I cannot be what they want me to be," Zylah admitted, lowering her gaze. "I am… too strong. Too dangerous. Too… everything."
Her grandmother studied her in silence for a moment. Then she reached out, brushing Zylah's hair from her face. Her fingers lingered on the braid, running over the golden chain with its emerald stone.
"Zylah," she said softly, "there is nothing wrong with being strong. There is nothing wrong with demanding more from yourself than the world allows. But there is a choice only you can make."
"I don't want to disappoint Father… or the family," Zylah whispered.
Her grandmother smiled faintly, as if holding a secret from the world. "You already disappoint them, whether you try or not. But you do not have to disappoint yourself. The desert, the Nile, the mountains beyond the city—there is a world out there waiting for you, one that will not cage your hands, nor your heart. Go see it, Zylah. Learn its ways. Learn its truths. And when you return… you will be stronger than any of them ever imagined."
Zylah's heart thudded with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. Her grandmother pressed a hand against her chest. "Take this," she said, slipping a small, worn emerald necklace over her head so it rested against Zylah's own. "It has seen more than I ever will, and it will guide you when you are lost."
She spent the next hour quietly gathering her things. Her bundle of clothes was carefully wrapped in linen: a simple tunic, leggings, a spare cloak, and a pair of leather boots laced tightly to her calves. She slung her twin swords across her back, and tucked a bow and quiver into the saddle. A small pouch of coins jingled at her side, alongside roasted grains and dried figs wrapped in cloth, and a flask of water sealed tight. Her horse, loyal and patient, nickered softly as if sensing the change in her resolve.
Zylah dressed simply, unladylike in the eyes of polite society, but her long dark braid fell down her back like a banner, tied neatly with the golden chain threaded with its emerald stone. Her grandmother's necklace rested against her chest, warm and familiar.
Before leaving, she stole a quiet moment to wander through the familiar halls of her family home. She paused at her father's study, where the glow of an oil lamp illuminated the maps of faraway cities and rivers he once conquered in his youth. She had loved him fiercely, but she could not remain under his control—not when her soul screamed for freedom.
The streets of Thebes were nearly empty under the moonlight. The cool air carried the scent of baked barley from the marketplace and the distant whistle of night birds. She navigated the quiet alleys with practiced ease, avoiding the guards stationed near the palace and the temple. She could almost hear her father's voice in every step: a woman who wields a blade will one day have to choose—her freedom or her peace.
Finally, she reached Nefer's chamber. Her younger brother slept deeply, the soft rise and fall of his chest a balm to her racing heart. She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. "Be brave, little one," she whispered. "Tell Father I went to see the world, not to flee it."
She mounted her horse, feeling the familiar weight of leather and steel against her back. The reins were firm in her grip as she nudged the animal forward. The city of Thebes slowly disappeared behind her, its walls and rooftops bathed in silver moonlight. The desert ahead stretched endlessly, silent and daunting, full of promise and danger alike.
The wind whispered through her braid, tugging lightly at the chain and emerald stone. She felt the pulse of the night around her, alive and electric, like the world itself was waiting for her. Every step of the horse over the soft sand carried her farther from her family, farther from the life they expected of her, and closer to the destiny she had chosen for herself.
Zylah rode on, the quiet night stretching before her like an open scroll. Somewhere beyond the dunes, the unknown awaited—the secrets of tombs, the whispers of gods, and the strangers who would shape her fate. With her sword at her side, her grandmother's necklace resting against her chest, and the fire of her own will blazing in her heart, she disappeared into the desert night
The wind picked up, carrying whispers through the dunes—soft, like the murmurs of ancient tongues buried beneath the sand. Zylah tugged her cloak tighter around her shoulders, her eyes scanning the horizon where the moon kissed the edge of the desert.
Each hour stretched into eternity. The stars above seemed sharper out here, glittering like a thousand watching eyes. Somewhere in the distance, the faint howl of a jackal broke the silence. Her horse snorted nervously, its hooves sinking into the soft sand.
"Easy," she murmured, patting its neck. "We'll find shelter soon."
She rode until the horizon blushed with the pale light of dawn once more. Her throat ached from thirst, her lips cracked and dry. The desert was merciless—its beauty, deceptive. Every rise of a dune revealed another stretch of endless gold, no oasis, no life.
By midday, the heat was a living thing. It pressed against her skin, clung to her breath, and turned every exhale into steam. She dismounted, guiding her horse to the shadow of a half-buried ruin—perhaps once a shrine to forgotten gods. She dropped her pack, crouched beside the crumbled stone, and poured the last of her water into her palm, letting the horse drink from it before wetting her lips.
"Some adventure," she muttered dryly. "If I die before sunset, at least the gods can't say I didn't try."
Something glittered faintly among the stones. Zylah squinted, brushing away the sand until her fingers closed around a small, bronze pendant shaped like a falcon's eye. The metal was warm, though it had been buried.
"An offering?" she whispered, brushing it clean. The moment she did, a faint pulse thrummed against her skin—soft, almost like a heartbeat. The emerald stone at her throat glowed faintly in response.
She froze.
The glow faded as quickly as it came, but her heart was racing. The tales her grandmother once whispered came back to her—the old stories of divine relics, objects left behind by the gods themselves.
"Superstitions," she muttered, tucking it into her satchel. Yet her fingers trembled as she did.
By nightfall, exhaustion had settled deep in her bones. The stars reappeared—cold, distant fires scattered across the heavens. She built a small fire beside a cluster of stones, eating quietly from her rations. The flames danced in her eyes, casting long shadows that seemed to move when she wasn't looking.
A sound—soft, deliberate—broke through the stillness.
Zylah stiffened. Her hand went to her sword.
Another sound—sand shifting, a breath of movement. She rose slowly, scanning the darkness beyond the fire's reach.
"Who's there?"
Only silence answered. Then—footsteps.
A figure emerged from the darkness, wrapped in a dark cloak, his face obscured by a scarf. He stopped several paces away, hands raised in cautious peace.
"I mean no harm," he said, his voice low, roughened by the desert air.
Zylah didn't lower her blade. "Then stay where you are."
He inclined his head. "You're far from Thebes, traveler. Few come this way alone."
"Maybe I prefer it that way," she said coolly.
A faint chuckle escaped him. "Either brave or foolish. The desert doesn't care which."
The firelight caught his eyes—gray, steady, and oddly piercing. He carried himself with quiet confidence, though his clothes were travel-worn and his boots caked with sand.
"You're lost," he said finally.
"I'm not."
"You are," he replied simply, walking closer until the glow of the fire revealed more of him. His cloak was torn, his arm bound with a strip of cloth—bloodied. "If you weren't, you wouldn't be camping beside the ruins of Khenti's shrine."
Zylah's brows drew together. "Khenti?"
"The guardian of the dead," he said, lowering himself to the sand with a wince. "And the god of travelers who never return."
She tightened her grip on the hilt. "Comforting."
He gave a half-smile. "Names carry power here. You'd do well to remember them."
"I don't take lessons from strangers."
"Then allow me to make it less strange." He inclined his head again. "Call me Rael."
She hesitated. "That's not your real name."
"Perhaps not," he said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "But it's the one I give."
Silence fell between them, filled only by the soft crackle of the fire and the whisper of the wind.
Zylah studied him carefully. "You're injured."
"It's nothing."
"It's bleeding through the cloth."
He looked down, sighed, and shrugged. "Then it's a little more than nothing."
Despite herself, Zylah sheathed her sword and reached into her pack. "Sit still."
He raised an eyebrow. "You trust easily for someone who threatens strangers with a blade."
"I don't trust you," she said, tearing a strip of linen and kneeling beside him. "I just don't want your corpse stinking up my camp before morning."
That earned her a quiet laugh. "Fair enough."
The wound was deep—a slice across his upper arm, likely from a blade. "Bandits?" she asked.
"Something worse," he murmured. "A grave I shouldn't have entered."
She looked up sharply. "You mean a tomb?"
He met her gaze, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. "You've heard the stories."
"Everyone in Thebes has. Tombs that curse those who disturb them."
He gave a small nod. "Not all curses are carved in stone."
For a moment, neither spoke. The fire crackled softly, casting shadows over his face. There was something about him—an edge of danger, but also something… familiar, as if she had seen him before, perhaps in a dream.
When she finished wrapping his wound, she sat back. "You should rest. I'll keep watch."
"Then we'll both be awake," he said.
Zylah eyed him. "You don't trust me either."
"I've learned to trust very few things," Rael said, leaning back against the sand. "The wind. The stars. And sometimes, the gods—though even they have fickle moods."
She turned her gaze to the fire. "Then we'll add each other to that list—for tonight."
Rael's smile was faint but genuine. "For tonight."
The desert stretched around them, vast and unknowable. As the fire burned lower, Zylah glanced at the necklace against her chest. The emerald shimmered faintly again, like a heartbeat beneath her skin.
Rael noticed. "That stone… where did you get it?"
She hesitated. "It was my grandmother's."
His expression changed subtly, interest sharpening into something closer to recognition. "It's old. Older than your grandmother, I'd wager."
"What do you mean?"
He hesitated, then said quietly, "Some say such stones were gifts of the gods—marks of those chosen to guard what should remain buried."
Zylah frowned. "You talk in riddles."
He looked toward the horizon, where the sand met the starlight. "Sometimes riddles are safer than truth."
The fire sputtered, and the wind carried a low, haunting sound across the dunes—like distant voices chanting in forgotten tongues. Zylah shivered despite the heat.
Rael straightened, his hand going to the dagger at his belt. "They've found us."
"Who?"
He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the darkness beyond the camp. Zylah followed his gaze—and her blood ran cold.
Shapes moved in the sand, their outlines blurred, shifting—human, yet not. Their eyes glowed faintly, pale and hollow.
"Stay behind me," Rael said.
"I don't hide," Zylah replied, drawing her swords. The steel caught the firelight, flashing like silver lightning.
The figures drew closer, sand swirling around them. They were wrapped in burial linens, the scent of decay thick in the air.
Zylah's breath caught. "They're… the dead?"
Rael's voice was grim. "Not anymore."
The first creature lunged—and the desert erupted into chaos.
The dead surged forward with a hiss that tore through the silence of the night. Their bodies, half-buried and bound in linen, moved with jerky precision—guided not by life, but by something far older and darker.
Zylah's blades flashed. Steel met rotted flesh, and the air filled with the sound of tearing cloth and the hiss of sand scattering underfoot. She moved with the grace of someone who had trained her whole life for this—each strike a whisper of defiance against the impossible.
Rael fought beside her, swift and deadly despite his wound. His dagger gleamed in the firelight, striking with almost ritual precision. "Don't let them touch you!" he shouted. "They carry the curse!"
"I gathered as much!" Zylah snapped, ducking under a skeletal arm and driving her sword through the creature's chest. It collapsed into dust, its wrappings falling like withered leaves.
The fire flickered violently, as if the desert itself recoiled from the battle. The sand beneath their feet began to shift, forming ripples that pulsed outward like waves. Zylah's emerald necklace glowed again—stronger this time, a vivid green light that cut through the darkness.
The creatures hesitated, as if sensing its power.
Rael's eyes widened. "The stone—Zylah, whatever you're carrying, it's what they're after!"
"What?" she demanded, parrying another strike. "Why?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back toward the dunes. "We need to move!"
Zylah resisted. "I can fight!"
"Not when the sand itself is waking!"
The ground trembled beneath them. The fire collapsed into ash, swallowed by a sudden gust of wind. The dunes around them began to rise, shifting like something enormous stirred beneath the surface.
Zylah's horse reared in terror, breaking free from its tether and galloping into the dark. Rael cursed under his breath, dragging her up the dune as the creatures followed, their hollow cries echoing through the night.
They ran until the light of the fire had vanished behind them, until their lungs burned and their feet slipped on the shifting sands. Only when the cries faded did they stop, collapsing behind a jagged rock formation.
Zylah leaned against the stone, gasping. Her hands trembled—not from fear, but from the thrill of the fight. "What were those things?"
Rael pressed a hand against his wound, blood seeping through the linen. "Servants of what was buried. Someone—or something—stirred them."
She looked down at the emerald stone resting against her chest. "You said it's what they're after. Why?"
Rael's eyes darkened. "Because that stone… is not just a family heirloom. It's a Seal."
"A Seal?"
He nodded. "An artifact that binds something powerful. Something the priests of old swore would never walk this world again."
Zylah's heart pounded. "You're telling me my grandmother gave me a cursed relic?"
"Not cursed," he said quietly. "Protected."
The wind howled through the rocks, carrying a whisper that seemed to form words. Zylah couldn't make them out, but she felt them—in her bones, in the back of her mind—ancient syllables that hummed with power.
Rael looked toward the horizon, his expression grim. "You've been chosen by something you don't understand, Zylah. And now that you've left Thebes… it's awake."
She swallowed hard. "Then tell me what it is. Tell me what I'm carrying."
He hesitated. "The Heart of Amunet."
The name fell heavy between them. Even Zylah, who had spent her childhood listening to myths, knew it. Amunet—the veiled goddess, the keeper of secrets, the one said to guard the boundary between life and death.
"That's impossible," she said. "Amunet's temple was destroyed centuries ago."
Rael's mouth curved into a faint, humorless smile. "And yet her heart still beats. You just felt it."
She looked down at the glowing stone again, and for the first time, fear slipped through her resolve.
The whisper came again—clearer this time, a voice that wasn't hers, echoing in her mind.
"Find me… before the tomb opens…"
Zylah flinched. The emerald pulsed in time with the words.
Rael saw her expression change. "You heard it, didn't you?"
She nodded slowly. "A voice."
He exhaled sharply. "Then it's begun."
Zylah looked up sharply. "What's begun?"
Rael met her eyes, gray and storm-dark. "The awakening. Someone has opened the wrong tomb."
Before she could reply, a sudden light flared from the horizon—a column of fire rising from the desert floor, far in the distance. The earth trembled again.
Rael stood, his voice low. "That's where we're going."
Zylah rose beside him, tightening the straps on her swords. "You expect me to follow you into whatever that is?"
He gave a grim half-smile. "You're free to turn back. But if you do, the dead won't stop coming."
She met his gaze steadily. "Then I'll ride with you. For now."
He nodded once, approval glinting in his eyes. "Then we head east before dawn."
The two of them stood in silence for a moment, the desert wind swirling between them, carrying the scent of ash and something faintly divine. Zylah looked out at the endless sands—terrifying and beautiful all at once—and for the first time, she felt the pull of destiny pressing against her chest.
Her grandmother's words echoed faintly in her mind: Go see the world, Zylah. Learn its truths.
She tightened her grip on her sword, the emerald stone glowing faintly beneath the moonlight.
Somewhere, far beneath the sands, the gods stirred.
And Zylah—unaware of the full weight of what she carried—stepped into the dawn, toward the fire on the horizon and the story that would change Egypt forever.