The air was heavy with the scent of lotus and incense, thick enough to choke the faintest sound. The young handmaiden's voice trembled as she broke the silence
"My lady, are you alright?"
Raymun blinked, her gaze refocusing on the reflection before her. She hadn't noticed the girl had finished—her mind had drifted far beyond the palace walls, to places she would never be allowed to see.
The mirror in her hands, silver polished and edged with gold, caught the lamplight. The face staring back looked almost unreal—pale skin, white curls pinned into an elegant bun, and eyes lined in dark kohl that deepened their strange, reddish hue.
Against that ethereal complexion, her lashes glowed nearly silver. Around her brow, a jeweled band shimmered, a single carnelian stone glinting over her forehead like a drop of frozen blood.
Raymun's lips parted slightly. She studied herself, and for a moment, she could not tell whether she was beautiful or, as she was often told, cursed.
She remembered the whispers that followed her since childhood—the Pharaoh's ghost child, the river's changeling, the girl born of no sun.
No one dared touch her without flinching first. Servants averted their eyes. Children ran when she smiled.
Sometimes, late at night, she'd stare into this same mirror and wonder if the gods had made her wrong.
"They'll adore you tonight," the handmaiden whispered now, as if speaking too loudly might anger the gods.
Raymun's lips barely moved. "It's lovely. Thank you."
The girl bowed and hurried away, relief plain in her steps—like one escaping a storm.
Alone again, Raymun set the mirror down. Its reflection quivered with the candlelight, distorting her face into something almost inhuman. She turned away.
The door creaked.
"Well, someone looks absolutely miserable," a familiar voice teased.
Raymun turned to find Thea leaning against the doorframe, green eyes glinting like polished emeralds beneath the torchlight.
"You know how I feel about parties," Raymun sighed.
Thea entered, her sheer linen dress whispering against the stone floor. "Yes, yes. You hate them. You hate noise, people, breathing the same air as mortals—shall I go on?" She smirked and dropped into the chair opposite her. "But even you can't hide from Pharaoh Senefru's summons. Besides…" She leaned forward conspiratorially. "There will be men. Handsome, single men. You could try talking to a couple of them, you know." She winked.
"Or curse them with that face of yours, for all I care."
Raymun gave her a look that might have frozen the Nile itself
"Don't pretend you're not curious. Though," she added softly, "With a frown like that these brave soldiers will be too terrified to talk to you."
And they would be. They always were.
To the people, Raymun was not merely the Pharaoh's niece. She was an omen. A creature marked by divine strangeness—skin pale as salt, hair white as ash, eyes tinged with a color too unnatural for comfort.
Children were told not to stare; men whispered prayers when she passed.
Even Thea, the only one who dared stay close, sometimes looked at her too long, as if searching for the god—or the curse—beneath her skin.
She had long grown used to solitude. But not to the ache that came with it.
Yet even solitude could not silence the stories whispered behind closed doors.
There was a prophecy, as old as the Nile itself:
When the river bleeds dry and the moon gives birth to fire,
The daughter of no color shall awaken the drowned gods.
Through her, the dead shall rise—or the living shall fall.
Raymun had heard it once as a child, recited by an old nurse before being silenced with a slap. She had laughed then. Now, she wondered if the gods had written her name into it.
As the drums of celebration echoed through the palace halls, Raymun lifted her gaze to the moon beyond her window — swollen, red as spilled wine.
Somewhere deep within the Nile's current, something stirred.
And though she could not name it, she felt it watching her.