The pretext, when Khaemwaset finally settled on one, turned out to be simpler than he expected.
Every prince gathered in the eastern wing, Paser informed him over a quiet breakfast, was expected at some point during their stay to make a formal offering at whichever temple their household traditionally favored, a small gesture of piety that carried enough political weight that no official would question the timing too closely. Khaemwaset’s own household, thin and neglected as it was, had never bothered establishing a favored temple during his exile. That absence itself, he realized, gave him exactly the opening he needed.
New quest available. A Reasonable Pretext. Request permission to make a memorial offering for your late mother at the Temple of Osiris. This request should attract minimal suspicion.
He submitted the request through the proper channels the following morning, framing it in the careful, dutiful language court protocol demanded, and received approval within a day, delivered by a steward who seemed entirely uninterested in why an exiled prince might suddenly wish to honor a mother eight years dead.
Sethnakht, predictably, was considerably more interested.
"A memorial offering," the general said, falling into step beside him as he crossed the palace’s outer courtyard toward the waiting escort. "After eight years."
"Grief doesn’t always announce itself on a convenient schedule, General."
"No," Sethnakht agreed, something careful and considering in her voice. "It doesn’t. Though it’s curious that yours announced itself so specifically toward the Temple of Osiris, rather than any of the half dozen other temples where a minor household might make such an offering."
Passive skill triggered. Double Tongue. Sethnakht’s observation registers no deception, purely genuine curiosity layered with suspicion.
Khaemwaset kept his expression carefully neutral, weighing, as he had a dozen times over the last several days, exactly how much of the truth this particular ally could be trusted with. Sethnakht had proven, repeatedly, that she noticed everything and reported considerably less than she noticed. That pattern alone didn’t guarantee her loyalty, but it had, slowly, begun to earn something closer to his trust than caution alone would explain.
"My mother’s ashes were sent there," he said finally, choosing partial honesty over another thin, easily unraveled lie. "I’d like to see where."
Something in Sethnakht’s expression shifted, softened fractionally in a way he hadn’t seen from her before. "I didn’t realize that detail was part of your history."
"There’s quite a lot about my history nobody bothered recording carefully," Khaemwaset said, and found, uncomfortably, that the bitterness in his voice wasn’t performance this time.
Sethnakht didn’t respond immediately, walking beside him in a silence that felt, for the first time, less like professional surveillance and more like something approaching companionship. "I’ll accompany you," she said finally. "Officially, for your security. Unofficially, because I find I’d like to understand more of that history myself."
New quest available. Shared Ground. General Sethnakht has offered personal, unprompted interest in your past. This represents a significant shift in your relationship.
He wasn’t entirely certain how to answer that, so he simply nodded, and let the walk to the temple pass in a silence that felt considerably less guarded than any silence he’d shared with anyone else in this entire palace.
The Temple of Osiris rose from the city’s eastern district in pale limestone, older and less ostentatiously grand than the massive Amun complex he’d glimpsed from a distance during his arrival, but carrying its own quiet, weighted gravity. Priests moved through the outer courtyard in simple linen robes, and the air carried a heavier note of incense than the palace corridors, sweeter and darker at once.
A priest met them at the entrance, an older man with careful, measuring eyes who introduced himself as Merneptah, senior custodian of the temple’s memorial records, and led them through a series of increasingly quiet inner courtyards with the unhurried patience of someone who had spent decades among the dead and found no reason to rush on their behalf.
"You wish to make an offering for your mother’s memory," Merneptah said, once they’d reached a small chamber lined with carved memorial stelae, each one bearing names Khaemwaset didn’t recognize. "May I ask her name?"
"Nefret-Meru," Khaemwaset said, the name arriving from his borrowed memory with an ache that still, after everything, caught him slightly off guard.
Merneptah’s expression flickered, brief and controlled, before he moved to a shelf of carefully organized scrolls and began searching with practiced efficiency. "Nefret-Meru. Yes. I recall the arrangements, though it was some years before I took on this particular role. Her ashes were interred in the eastern memorial garden, section reserved for minor royal household."
New quest available. The Memorial Garden. Locate your mother’s memorial. A physical connection to her death may reveal information the letter did not.
The garden, when Merneptah led them to it, was smaller and quieter than Khaemwaset expected, rows of modest stone markers arranged beneath the shade of sycamore trees, sunlight filtering green and gold through the leaves overhead. He found her marker near the garden’s far edge, half shadowed, her name carved in careful hieroglyphs above a simple offering niche that looked, he noted with a distant, academic part of his mind even now, largely untouched by regular ritual maintenance.
He knelt before it, and found, to his own quiet surprise, that the grief waiting there wasn’t entirely borrowed. Whatever remained of the original Khaemwaset’s consciousness, however deeply buried beneath the sharper, more calculating presence that had displaced it, still ached at the sight of that carved name in a way that felt entirely, uncomfortably genuine.
Sethnakht stood a respectful distance back, watching, and said nothing.
New skill unlocked. Genuine Grief. Passive. A small permanent increase to Ma’at from acknowledging inherited emotional truth rather than suppressing it for strategic advantage.
Once the formal offering had been made, incense and a small measure of beer poured carefully into the niche according to ritual, Khaemwaset turned his attention, carefully, to the actual purpose of the visit.
"I understand a scribe named Nakhti once served at this temple," he said, keeping his tone carefully casual, addressed to Merneptah rather than to Sethnakht, though he felt the general’s attention sharpen beside him regardless. "My mother mentioned him once, years ago. I’d hoped to thank him for whatever kindness he showed her, if he still serves here."
Passive skill triggered. Double Tongue. Statement registers as moderately deceptive, though plausible enough to avoid immediate suspicion.
Merneptah’s expression shifted again, something more guarded settling behind his careful eyes this time. "Nakhti passed from this world nearly two years ago now. A peaceful death, in his sleep, well past his eightieth year."
Quest updated. The Mother’s Secret. Nakhti is confirmed deceased. Investigation must proceed through alternate channels.
Two years dead. A dead end that had, Khaemwaset thought grimly, arrived precisely on schedule with everything else in this world’s apparent determination to make answers difficult.
"That’s unfortunate to hear," Khaemwaset said. "Did he leave any apprentices? Someone who might have continued his particular duties within the temple?"
Something flickered across Merneptah’s face this time, quick enough that Khaemwaset might have missed it entirely if Read the Room hadn’t sharpened, unbidden, at the edge of his awareness.
New notification. Merneptah’s reaction to this question registers unusually high tension. Possible connection to your investigation.
"Nakhti trained a young scribe named Horemheb, in his final years," Merneptah said carefully, each word measured with the precision of someone choosing his answer as deliberately as Khaemwaset chose his own questions. "Though I’m afraid Horemheb no longer serves this temple. He transferred to administrative duties within the Amun complex some months ago. A promotion, I’m told, though an unusual one for someone so junior."
The pieces clicked together with a cold, familiar clarity that Khaemwaset had learned, over the last month, to trust implicitly.
A junior scribe, trained by the man who’d once helped his mother, conveniently promoted away from Osiris’s temple and into the very faction his mother’s hidden letter had implicated in her death. That wasn’t coincidence. That was someone recognizing a loose thread and carefully, quietly removing it from easy reach.
New quest available. A Careful Removal. The scribe Horemheb was moved into Amun faction territory shortly after Nakhti’s death. This transfer appears deliberate, not routine advancement.
"That does seem unusual," Khaemwaset said carefully, watching Merneptah’s expression for any further reaction. "Do you happen to know why?"
"I’m afraid that isn’t something I’m in a position to discuss, Prince Khaemwaset." Merneptah’s voice had gone carefully, formally neutral, the tone of a man closing a door he’d already decided, somewhere in the last several exchanges, had opened further than he was comfortable with. "Temple administrative matters fall outside my particular duties."
It was, Khaemwaset understood immediately, a lie dressed carefully enough in bureaucratic language to pass most casual scrutiny.
Passive skill triggered. Double Tongue. Merneptah’s statement registers as seventy-four percent deceptive.
Seventy-four percent. Higher than anything he’d caught from the man in their entire conversation, a clear, unmistakable signal that he’d finally pressed against something the priest genuinely didn’t want examined further.
He decided, weighing the risk carefully, that pressing harder here, in a temple courtyard with a priest already visibly uncomfortable and General Sethnakht standing close enough to hear every word, wasn’t worth whatever small additional information he might extract. Better to let this thread rest for now, quietly, and find another way to reach it.
"Of course," Khaemwaset said smoothly, letting the topic drop with the easy, unbothered grace of someone who hadn’t noticed anything significant at all. "Thank you for your time, and for showing me my mother’s memorial. It means more than I can properly express."
Merneptah’s relief at the subject’s change was subtle but unmistakable, and Khaemwaset filed the entire exchange away with careful precision as they made their way back through the temple’s quiet courtyards toward the outer gate.
Sethnakht waited until they were well clear of the temple grounds, walking back through the city’s busy afternoon streets, before finally speaking.
"You’re not actually here for grief," she said quietly, not quite a question.
Khaemwaset considered, for a long moment, exactly how much further he was willing to let this particular thread of trust extend. "I’m here for grief," he said finally. "And also for answers. They’re not mutually exclusive, General."
"Answers about what, exactly?"
He weighed the risk one final time, watching the general’s careful, steady expression, and decided, with a certainty that surprised him, that whatever else was uncertain about Sethnakht’s ultimate loyalties, she had earned, through weeks of consistent, careful discretion, at least this much honesty.
"My mother didn’t die of a wasting fever," he said quietly. "She found something in the temple accounts before she died. Something someone wanted badly enough to bury along with her. I have a letter she left behind, and a single scribe’s name as a lead, and that scribe just conveniently died two years ago, and his apprentice was just as conveniently transferred into the exact faction implicated in whatever she found."
Sethnakht was quiet for a long moment, processing this with the same careful, unhurried consideration she brought to everything, and when she finally spoke, her voice carried a weight he hadn’t heard from her before.
"The Amun priesthood has been quietly consolidating influence and resources for longer than either of us has likely realized, Prince Khaemwaset," she said. "If your mother uncovered evidence of that consolidation eight years ago, and someone silenced her for it, you’re not investigating a private family tragedy anymore. You’re pulling at a thread that connects directly to the same faction currently maneuvering around the Pharaoh’s succession."
New quest available. The Larger Pattern. Your mother’s death may be directly connected to the Amun priesthood’s political ambitions, not an isolated act of court cruelty. The stakes of this investigation have expanded significantly.
"I suspected as much," Khaemwaset admitted. "I didn’t expect confirmation this quickly."
"Be careful how quickly you continue pulling at it," Sethnakht said, something protective threading unexpectedly through her usual careful neutrality. "A thread connected to something this large doesn’t unravel quietly, Prince Khaemwaset. Whoever silenced your mother once will not hesitate to silence you the same way, if they believe you’re close to finding what she found."
He looked at her for a long moment, standing together in the busy afternoon street with the temple’s pale walls receding behind them, and felt, underneath the fear that particular warning carried, something steady and grateful settle into place.
"Thank you for the warning," he said quietly. "And for coming with me today."
Something that might have been the ghost of a genuine smile crossed Sethnakht’s face before it was carefully tucked away again. "Someone has to keep you alive long enough to actually find your answers, Prince Khaemwaset. It may as well be me."