Finding Horemheb proved considerably easier than Khaemwaset expected. Speaking with him alone proved considerably harder.
The scribe worked within the Amun complex’s administrative wing now, according to the careful intelligence Meret’s network had gathered over several patient days, handling grain and tribute records for the eastern nomes, a position that kept him almost constantly surrounded by senior priests and fellow scribes whenever Khaemwaset’s careful, occasional visits to the complex’s outer courtyards happened to place him nearby.
New quest available. A Guarded Witness. Horemheb rarely appears alone. Approaching him directly risks drawing unwanted attention from his superiors within the Amun faction.
It took nearly a week of patient, careful observation before the opportunity finally presented itself, delivered, as so much useful information in this palace seemed to be, through Meret’s quiet network of contacts.
"He takes his midday meal alone," she told Khaemwaset, keeping her voice low despite the empty courtyard around them. "Always in the same small garden behind the scribes’ quarters, always at the same hour. The other scribes eat together in the main hall. One of the kitchen girls says he’s been doing this since he transferred, keeping apart from the others."
A Window of Opportunity. Horemheb eats alone daily in a specific location. This represents a rare chance for a private conversation.
"That’s unusual, for someone recently promoted into a more prestigious posting," Khaemwaset said, turning the detail over carefully. "Most people in his position would want to build connections with their new colleagues, not isolate themselves."
"Unless something about the posting troubles him," Meret suggested.
Khaemwaset considered that possibility carefully, weighing it against everything he’d already gathered about the scribe’s sudden, suspicious transfer. A promotion that came immediately following his mentor’s death, into the exact faction implicated in his mother’s murder, might have looked like straightforward opportunity to anyone watching from the outside. But a young scribe deliberately isolating himself from his new colleagues suggested something considerably more complicated underneath that convenient surface.
He found the small garden the following day, tucked behind the scribes’ quarters exactly as Meret had described, shaded by a handful of modest date palms and mercifully quiet compared to the bustling activity of the complex’s main courtyards. Horemheb sat alone on a low stone bench, a simple meal of bread and dried fish untouched beside him, staring at nothing in particular with the distracted, unhappy expression of a man carrying a weight he hadn’t chosen for himself.
The Approach. You have found Horemheb alone. This conversation must be handled with extreme care. His reaction to your questions could go several directions, cooperation, fear, or immediate alarm to his superiors.
Khaemwaset approached slowly, deliberately, making sure his footsteps were audible enough that the young scribe would notice him coming rather than feel ambushed by a sudden appearance. Horemheb looked up at the sound, and something in his expression shifted rapidly through surprise, wariness, and a careful, practiced neutrality that reminded Khaemwaset uncomfortably of his own careful masks.
"Prince Khaemwaset." Horemheb rose quickly, offering the correct formal bow with hands that trembled slightly, a detail Khaemwaset’s borrowed instincts caught immediately. "I wasn’t aware anyone knew to find me here."
"I hope I’m not intruding on your meal," Khaemwaset said, keeping his tone carefully gentle, deliberately unthreatening. "I wonder if I might sit with you a moment. I’d like to ask about your old teacher, if you’re willing."
Passive skill triggered. Read the Room. Horemheb’s physical tension has increased sharply at the mention of his teacher.
Horemheb’s hands went very still, the trembling stopping entirely in a way that felt, to Khaemwaset’s practiced observation, considerably more alarming than the trembling itself had been. "Nakhti," the young scribe said carefully. "I’m surprised anyone in the palace still remembers his name."
"My mother knew him," Khaemwaset said, choosing careful honesty over another thin, easily unraveled fabrication. "Before she died. I’ve been trying to understand more about that friendship, and about what she might have shared with him."
The silence that followed stretched long enough that Khaemwaset began to wonder if he’d misjudged the approach entirely, pushed too directly, too quickly, into territory the young scribe clearly guarded with genuine, visible fear.
"Your mother," Horemheb said finally, very quietly, "was Nefret-Meru."
It wasn’t a question. Khaemwaset felt something cold and certain settle into place, confirmation arriving with a weight that made his pulse quicken despite every careful effort to remain outwardly calm.
Confirmed Connection. Horemheb recognizes your mother’s name immediately, without prompting. He knows considerably more than his careful public silence has suggested.
"Yes," Khaemwaset said simply.
Horemheb’s eyes darted, briefly, unconsciously, toward the garden’s entrance, checking for anyone who might be listening, and Khaemwaset understood, watching that small, involuntary movement, exactly how much fear this young man carried beneath his careful administrative posting.
"I was very young when Nakhti trained me," Horemheb said finally, his voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Fifteen, perhaps sixteen. He kept private records, separate from the temple’s official archives, notes on discrepancies he’d noticed in the tribute accounts over many years. He never fully explained why to me, not directly, but I understood, even then, that he was documenting something he believed mattered."
Passive skill triggered. Double Tongue. No deception detected. Horemheb is speaking with genuine, frightened honesty.
"What happened to those private records?" Khaemwaset asked carefully.
"I don’t know," Horemheb said, and this time Khaemwaset caught something that might have been genuine distress layered beneath the fear. "He died suddenly, in his sleep, or so I was told. I wasn’t permitted to see him in his final days, though we’d worked closely together for nearly six years by then. Within a month, I was informed of my transfer here, to the Amun complex, a promotion I hadn’t sought and certainly hadn’t earned through any merit of my own." His hands twisted together, white knuckled. "I’ve spent every day since wondering whether that promotion was meant as reward, or as a way to keep me somewhere I could be watched."
A Frightened Ally. Horemheb appears to be a victim of the same forces that silenced your mother, not a willing participant. His cooperation, while risky for him, may be genuine.
Khaemwaset felt the shape of the larger pattern sharpening with each careful revelation, pieces that had felt scattered and uncertain suddenly aligning into something considerably more coherent and considerably more dangerous.
"Do you know what those discrepancies were?" he asked. "What Nakhti actually documented?"
Horemheb hesitated for a long, visible moment, weighing something Khaemwaset couldn’t fully read, before finally, quietly, continuing. "Grain shipments, primarily. Tribute recorded as delivered to the royal treasury that never actually reached it, redirected instead through intermediary accounts before disappearing entirely from any official record. Gold as well, though in smaller, more carefully hidden quantities. Nakhti believed someone very senior within the temple hierarchy had been diverting resources for years, funneling wealth away from the crown’s own treasury into channels he never fully traced before his death."
The Scale of Corruption. Confirmed evidence of large-scale resource diversion within the Amun priesthood, spanning years. This directly threatens the crown’s own treasury and stability.
"Do you know who?" Khaemwaset pressed, careful to keep his voice steady despite the racing certainty building beneath his ribs. "The senior figure responsible."
"No," Horemheb admitted, something close to genuine grief crossing his young face. "Nakhti never told me directly, whether to protect me or simply because he hadn’t confirmed it himself before he died, I couldn’t say. He mentioned once, only once, that the trail led toward someone close enough to the High Priest’s own circle that proving it would require evidence considerably stronger than suspicion alone."
The High Priest’s own circle. Not proof, not yet, but close enough to a direction that Khaemwaset felt the whole shape of the investigation shift beneath him, from a personal, private grief into something that touched the very highest levels of the Amun priesthood’s power structure.
Passive skill triggered. Inherited Resolve. Significant Ma’at increase from pursuing justice for a wronged family member against genuinely powerful opposition.
"Thank you," Khaemwaset said quietly, meaning it more fully than he’d expected to when this conversation began. "I know this wasn’t an easy thing to share."
Horemheb’s expression carried a complicated mixture of relief and renewed fear, someone who’d finally unburdened himself of a secret he’d carried alone for two frightened years, and understood immediately the new danger that unburdening created.
"Please," the young scribe said, urgent now, "if you pursue this further, be careful how you use what I’ve told you. If it becomes known that I spoke to you, especially about Nakhti’s private records, I don’t believe my next transfer would prove nearly as survivable as the last one."
Protecting a Source. Horemheb’s safety now depends on discretion. Any future actions taken with this information must account for the risk to him.
"I’ll be careful," Khaemwaset promised, and meant it with a seriousness that surprised him, understanding fully now the weight of responsibility that came with pulling frightened, vulnerable people into danger alongside him, however unintentionally. "You have my word."
He left the garden with his mind racing, cataloguing every detail of the conversation with the same careful precision he’d once brought to organizing a season’s excavation findings, and found, waiting for him near the complex’s outer gate as had become their quiet, unspoken routine, General Sethnakht watching his approach with careful, patient attention.
"You look like a man who’s just uncovered something considerably larger than he expected," she observed, falling into step beside him as they made their way back toward the palace.
"Grain and gold, diverted for years, funneled away from the royal treasury by someone close to the High Priest’s own inner circle," Khaemwaset said quietly, once he’d confirmed they were sufficiently alone. "My mother found evidence of it. Nakhti kept private records documenting it. Both of them are gone now, and the scribe who might know more has been living in quiet, careful terror for two years, watching his own back every single day."
New level reached. Khaemwaset is now Level 7.
New skill unlocked. Pattern Recognition, Advanced. Passive. Significantly improved ability to connect disparate pieces of political and financial information into coherent, actionable patterns.
Sethnakht was quiet for a long moment, processing this new information with the same careful, methodical consideration she brought to everything, and when she finally spoke, her voice carried a weight that suggested she understood, as clearly as Khaemwaset himself did, exactly how dangerous this thread had become.
"If someone within the High Priest’s inner circle has been diverting crown resources for years," she said slowly, "and your mother discovered evidence of it eight years ago, that means whoever silenced her has had eight years to consolidate whatever power that stolen wealth purchased them. Eight years to build alliances, buy loyalty, position themselves precisely where they’d need to be for exactly this moment, a dying Pharaoh, a succession crisis, a regent whose own political survival may depend on factions she doesn’t fully control."
The pieces clicked together with a cold, comprehensive clarity that settled heavily in Khaemwaset’s chest. Not simply corrupt priests skimming resources for personal gain, but something considerably more calculated, a slow, patient consolidation of power specifically timed to reach its full potential exactly when the throne itself hung uncertain.
The Larger Game. The corruption you’ve uncovered may be directly connected to whoever is truly maneuvering behind Queen Tiye-Nakht’s regency, or working against it entirely. The succession crisis and your mother’s murder may share the same architect.
"I need to know who," Khaemwaset said quietly, more to himself than to Sethnakht, though she heard it regardless.
"I know," she said, something protective and unexpectedly fierce threading through her usual careful neutrality. "But Khaemwaset, whoever this is, they’ve already proven willing to kill to protect this secret. Your mother. Possibly Nakhti himself, however peaceful his death appeared. If you move too quickly, too visibly, you won’t simply be risking yourself anymore. You’ll be risking everyone who’s helped you along the way, Meret, Paser, this frightened young scribe who trusted you today with something that could get him killed."
He absorbed that warning with the full, sobering weight it deserved, understanding, not for the first time, exactly how much this investigation had grown beyond a private, personal grief into something that touched considerably more lives than his own.
"Then I’ll move carefully," Khaemwaset said finally. "But I won’t stop."
Sethnakht studied him for a long moment in the fading evening light, something complicated and difficult to fully name settling behind her careful, dark eyes.
"No," she said quietly. "I don’t imagine you will."