Isis's plan for smuggling Kha into the palace involved stowing him away in a cart carrying bundles and bundles of new fabrics for the queen's wardrobe. More specifically, wrapping him up in fresh linen until he became a bolt of fabric himself. Since this was the queen's purchases, the guards could not resort to stabbing their spears through the bolts, so the cart was allowed through the gates after some cursory checks.

The moment he was unrolled and released from his linen prison, Kha gasped and let the air flood back into his lungs.

"Your Highness, are you alright?" Isis asked, looking worried. "I'm so sorry. The guards took longer with the entrance checks than I had anticipated."

He shook his head. "I'm fine," he said.

They had stopped in front of the storehouses within the queen's quarters, and the familiarity of the surroundings brought him a sense of relief.

I'm finally home.

"Her Majesty should be at her inner chambers now," Isis said, leading the way. They had waited until nightfall to return, since much of the palace would be winding down at this hour and there would be fewer servants and guards milling about.

The duo navigated through the corridors and courtyards until they arrived outside the queen's chambers, where Hetepheres would be preparing to retire for the night. Voices could be heard echoing softly from within.

Kha paused, stopping just outside the threshold of the chamber's doorway.

"Is something the matter, Your Highness?" Isis asked.

Kha put a finger to his lips, beckoning for her to be quiet. A slow chill spread within him as his mind registered what it was that he was listening to. The occasional creaking of a wooden bedframe. The soft, satisfied moans coming from a woman's lips. The heaving and panting of a man as he called out the name "Hetepheres", so gently that it was as if he was afraid of breaking a delicate flower.

The king was unconscious.

Isis gasped when she realised what was going on. Her face paled with guilt and shame.

"Your Highness, I—"

"How long?"

"Your Highness..."

"How long has this been going on?" Kha whispered. It was difficult for him to even spit out each word, his throat clenched with anger and fear.

Isis lowered her gaze. She didn't answer his question. Instead, she said, "I know this will be difficult to understand and impossible to accept, but the queen is lonely, Your Highness. She rules over this harem, yet there is so much that is beyond her control."

"Very long then." Kha's fingernails dug into his palms. " Who is it?"

Isis fell to her knees, prostrating on the floor. She remained silent.

"Do you think I won't be able to find out just because you refuse to tell me?"

Kha stepped past Isis and peered into the queen's chamber. At the far end of the room, a light gauze curtain obscured the two entwined bodies on the bed, leaving only a hazy outline for the onlooker. The sounds of passion had died down and he could see his mother's silhouette sit herself upright, her back facing towards the doorway.

"I wasn't expecting you to have the time to stop by," he heard her say. "Should you not be extremely busy with the recent developments?"

"If you want to know what's happening, all you need to do is ask, my queen," the man teased. His voice was mellow and buttery, like a rich summer's wine.

If Kha had a bow and arrow in his hands, he would have put an arrow straight through the adulterer's head.

"Fine. Tell me then. How goes the plan?"

"Most things are progressing within expectations. Kanefer's confidence grows and he's started to replace the king's officials with his own, starting with the royal guard."

"Kanefer has always been foolhardy and overly arrogant. The higher he climbs, the harder he'll fall," Queen Hetepheres scoffed. "What of Nefermaat? Nefermaat is not like Kanefer. He is wily and cunning, and I am still not certain of his true ambitions. If he has his sights set on the throne, he will not be as easy to overcome."

Kha took a step back, tucking himself within the shadowy recesses of the passageway.

Kanefer. Nefermaat.

Just what sort of a hand did his own mother have to play in all of this?

"You're right. Nefermaat is a clever man, but precisely because he's so clever, he will not make a hasty move. It is to his advantage if we help remove Kanefer from the picture, and he knows it. This is why he hasn't done anything yet, despite everything that has happened. It is a pity he is still not willing to come over to our side..." The man laughed lightly. "Perhaps his allegiance to Kha is stronger than we imagined."

"Then we've overestimated his intelligence. Putting his bet on Kha? Only a stupid man would do such a thing."

"That would bring us to the little unexpected complication. From what our spy in Kanefer's camp says, they still haven't found Prince Kha. If he's still alive..."

"This is why Kanefer is not suited to be king. He can't even see through a simple task like assassinating a child! Utterly useless!" the queen spat.

The harshness in his mother's tone of voice took Kha by surprise. He had always known that Hetepheres favoured the young Rahotep over him, but he simply assumed that it was because of his lackadaisical and wayward behaviour. No mother could truly despise her own child, to the extent of wanting him dead—could she?

A pain and sorrow seared through his heart, greater than anything he had ever experienced in his entire life.

"Doesn't matter," Hetepheres continued. "If he's still not back then the chances that he survived are low. Even if he survives by sheer luck, we can deal with him later."

"Certainly." The man sat up, reaching out to stroke Hetepheres's silky hair. "Not to worry, everything will go the way we want it to. I stopped by to check on the king earlier. I must say, I'm impressed. He almost looks like he's only in a deep slumber. It's no wonder the royal physicians haven't been able to detect anything. Ahmose has outdone himself, sourcing for a poison as stealthy as this."

A stifled cry almost escaped Kha's throat.

"Ahmose has outdone himself, sourcing for a poison as stealthy as this."

He had his suspicions before, but hearing these words confirmed it. His father had been poisoned.

The vizier Ahmose. Kanefer.

Tiye.

The pieces of the puzzle were slowly shifting into place.

Was it that night when he had bumped into Tiye leaving the kitchens at Saqqara? The more he thought about that exchange, the more certain he was about his conjecture. Tiye was the one who had slipped the poison to the king, likely under instruction from her lover Kanefer and her grandfather Ahmose. They wanted the king dead so that Kanefer could successfully assume the throne.

And the queen had known about their plot all along, yet she did nothing.

Hetepheres wanted the king dead too.

Kha slowly backed away from the doorway, then he turned on his heels and broke into a sprint, racing away from the queen's chambers.

#

"Your Highness..."

Kha slammed a fist into the stone wall, but the pain and blood trickling from his knuckles still paled in comparison to the hurt that had been dealt to him on the inside. This trip back home had been too costly. Far too costly.

Everything he had ever known, ever believed—unravelled and crushed into pitiful dust in front of his eyes. And to think that his first thought had been to come looking for her—his mother—for help.

He let the truth slowly sink into his head, like a flaming hot brand that would leave a scar so deep it would never be erased.

Taking a deep breath, he turned to face Isis.

"I know I am asking a lot of you, Isis, but on account of the years that we've known each other, tell no one I was here. Especially the queen."

Kha lifted his hood over the top of his head and headed towards the exit.

"But Your Highness, where are you going? What will you do next?" Isis cried out.

Kha didn't reply. He stepped through the archway and turned a corner, leaving the distressed servant girl behind.

I'm sorry, Isis, but this is where our paths diverge.

She had helped him enough as it was, and he could not force her to betray her loyalties even further, else he would be placing her in danger as well. From here onwards, he was on his own—or was he?

An image of a scowling, eye-rolling girl sprung to mind, and all of a sudden he realised how much he missed her.

Mereneith.

If there was one person in the capital he believed he could still trust, it was her.

Kha slipped out of the palace grounds by clinging beneath the cart of the night soil man, and it wasn't long before he found himself back on the other side of the towering palace walls. It was past midnight and there were few people left roaming the streets. The silence of the city and the occasional whistling of the wind was much needed to help him clear his mind.

His father was lying in a critical condition, with little doubt of impending death if things were left to run their course. Kanefer believed he was well-positioned to take over the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt with the king's demise, but if Hetepheres and her lover had any say in it, then the eldest prince's plans were likely to come to naught. But how were they planning to thwart Kanefer's plans? And what of the secret trade of Ak'heka crystals that was supposedly due to take place?

There were still some gaps in the tapestry that needed to be filled in, but right now, the priority was to save the king. If his father died, then all was lost.

For the first time in his life, Kha felt helpless.

He was no longer the all-powerful, ever-confident prince of Egypt that he so proudly paraded as. He was wandering the streets of Memphis in tattered clothes, smelling like something the cows passed out. He was perhaps more useless and pathetic than the street urchins that he used to look down upon.

A child, as the queen had called him.

Someone tugged at his sleeve, pulling him back to reality.

He looked down and saw a familiar smiling face, with new smears of dirt staining her rosy cheeks.

"Hello! Are you lost?"

It was the little girl from this morning.

Kha shook his head, trying his best to squeeze out a smile.

"Are you hungry? Mother just cooked some lentil stew. She cooks the best stew in the whole of Memphis. Would you like some?"

He shook his head again. "Thank you for your kind offer, but I'm not—" A loud growl rumbled from his stomach, as if in protest of what he was about to say. It was then that he remembered he had eaten nothing but a single piece of bread all day because he had been too nervous to stomach the rest of the food Isis had offered.

"Mother says it's not right to lie," the little girl said with a pout. She took hold of Kha's hand and dragged him towards one of the alleys. "Don't worry, you can share my portion!"

Kha reluctantly let the girl lead him to where her family was camped, beneath a makeshift tarp that was littered with tiny holes. There were three others in total—the parents and an older boy who looked about twelve. The boy reminded him of Rahotep, who would now be tucked in his bed chambers within the safe confines of the palace.

They looked wary of him to begin with, but warmed up in no time at all after a buoyant introduction from his new little friend, whom he learnt was named Farida—precious—a reflection of what she meant to her family.

Sitting by the small fire that had been thrown together with scrap pieces of wood and twigs, Kha watched as the family of four engaged in joyous, boisterous conversation over their meagre meal of lentils. He lifted his bowl to his lips and let the hot soup trickle down the back of his throat. It was bland, yet he found himself slurping down every last drop as though it were the tastiest meal he had ever had.

"Would you like some more?" Farida's mother asked, a warm smile on her tired face.

"No, thank you. I have imposed too much as it is," Kha replied apologetically. "I am most grateful for your generosity."

"We have received kindness from others before, so we are merely paying it forward."

"If you don't mind me asking, how is it that your family ended up..."

"It is a long story," Farida's father explained. "We come from Lahun, down south. I am a carpenter, and I was offered a job here in Memphis by a travelling merchant who happened to be passing by our village. Brought the entire family to the capital thinking that life would be better here, but unfortunately the merchant I was supposed to work for died in an attack by Canaan bandits while he was making one of his trips. So here we are, stranded."

"Could you not return to Lahun?"

"If only it were that simple. We've used up all of our savings coming here, and we have no means to return home even if we wanted to. I scrape a living now by selling toys and carvings at the marketplace, but I don't always find good pieces of wood thrown out by the furniture merchants." The man smiled. "Things are looking up. I reckon in a few more weeks I'll have saved enough to rent us a small room, and we'll have a proper roof over our heads."

A small wooden figurine was pushed into Kha's hand.

"Father makes the best toys in the whole of Egypt," Farida declared, pride beaming in her crescent-shaped eyes.

Kha held the figurine to the light, realising from the crown on the figure's head that it was carved in the image of the king.

"Farida, how many times must we remind you to be humble?" her mother chided. "Do not embarrass your father in front of our guest."

The little girl pouted. "But it's true," she said.

"It is a very good likeness," Kha murmured, turning the little wooden figure round and round. "But why the king? Surely this is not the usual type of toy that children play with."

"You are right. I don't carve figurines of the king to sell at the marketplace. This one was made specially for Farida and Femi. To remind them of His Majesty's blessings, without which we would not be here."

It was an irony, Kha thought, for the monarchy had given Farida's family so little. To hear them speak of the king and the royal family with such reverence and respect brought shame to his heart. He ran his fingers down the contours of the wooden figure, wondering what it would take to become worthy of such esteem.

He thought he understood what his father meant now, when he said that governance was not a choice, but a duty. It was a duty befallen upon them, to become the blessing that families like Farida's believed they were. His father was trying his best to do good by their people, but he could not trust Kanefer to do the same—nor whoever the queen had in mind.

Clutching the miniature figurine in his hand, Kha stared into the flickering flames with a renewed determination in his eyes.

I am a prince of Egypt, and it's time I lived up to that name.