Dawn came grey and quiet over a palace that didn’t feel like a palace anymore, just a battlefield with better architecture.
Khaemwaset walked the courtyard slowly, helping where he could, watching healers move between wounded soldiers with the same tired, mechanical focus he remembered from every emergency room he’d ever passed through in his old life. The numbers were bad. Twelve palace guards dead. Nearly thirty wounded. Meryre’s own losses had been heavier, bodies scattered near the broken gate, but heavier losses didn’t feel like much comfort standing among this many of his own dead.
The Morning After. Assess the cost of last night’s battle. Meryre’s forces failed, but the price was steep on both sides.
Sethnakht found him near the gate itself, her wound freshly bandaged, moving slower than usual but upright and alert. "Amenmose is secured," she said. "Under heavy guard, awaiting formal judgment once Ramose is crowned. He hasn’t said a word since he woke."
"And Meryre?"
Her expression darkened. "Gone. No sign of him at the temple, no sign of him anywhere in the city that my scouts have found yet. He sent his army to die and stayed safely away from the fighting himself."
The Hunt for Meryre. Second Prophet Meryre has vanished. Finding him before he regroups is critical.
"Cowardly," Khaemwaset said, "but smart. He’s not finished. A man who plans this carefully doesn’t just disappear after one failed attack."
"No," Sethnakht agreed. "He doesn’t."
They found Tiye-Nakht in a smaller side chamber, exhausted but composed, already dictating orders to a circle of scribes and officials. She looked up as they entered, something in her expression shifting toward genuine, weary gratitude.
"Prince Khaemwaset. General." She dismissed the scribes with a small gesture, waiting until the chamber emptied before speaking further. "You saved my son’s life last night. Both of you. I won’t forget that."
The Regent’s Gratitude. Tiye-Nakht’s trust in you has significantly increased following the battle.
"Meryre is still out there," Khaemwaset said. "That’s the more urgent problem."
"I know." Something hard settled into her expression. "I’ve ordered every gate in the city watched, every temple searched. He won’t move openly again, not after last night’s failure, but he still has resources, still has loyal men scattered through the priesthood who haven’t shown their hand yet."
"Then we finish this properly," Khaemwaset said. "Before he has time to plan something worse."
Tiye-Nakht studied him for a long moment, something calculating and newly respectful in her gaze. "You’ve become considerably more than the sickly, forgotten prince I remember hearing about eight years ago."
"People believe what’s convenient, Your Majesty," he said quietly, echoing words that felt, after everything, like they belonged to a different person entirely.
New level reached. Khaemwaset is now Level 11.
New skill unlocked. Recognized Threat. Passive. Your reputation now precedes you among the palace’s senior officials, increasing baseline respect and reducing the effectiveness of future attempts to dismiss you as harmless.
He left the meeting with Sethnakht at his side, the weight of the coming hunt for Meryre settling heavy over both of them, and it was crossing the quiet, torchlit corridor back toward his own quarters that Hunted Instinct flared, sharp and sudden, unlike anything he’d felt before.
Final Strike. A threat of unusual severity has been detected. This is not a random attack.
"Someone’s here," Khaemwaset said, already reaching for his sword, and the words had barely left his mouth when the corridor’s shadows seemed to peel apart, a single figure stepping into the torchlight with a stillness that spoke of considerable, deliberate skill.
Meryre himself. Older than Khaemwaset expected, thin and unassuming in plain priest’s robes, nothing about his appearance suggesting the architect of years of theft and murder. But his eyes carried something cold and utterly without fear, the eyes of a man who had already calculated every possible outcome and found himself, somehow, still confident in this one.
"Prince Khaemwaset," Meryre said, his voice soft, almost gentle. "I find myself curious. Did your mother tell you, before she died, how much she begged for her life?"
Face to Face. You are finally confronting the man who murdered your mother directly. Control your rage. This is likely a trap.
Something cold and furious rose up in Khaemwaset’s chest, eight years of buried grief and a month of careful, patient investigation crystallizing into a single, burning need to make this man answer for everything. He felt Sethnakht’s hand close briefly on his arm, a warning, a reminder to stay careful even now.
"You’re alone," Khaemwaset said, forcing his voice level despite the fury burning underneath it. "That’s either very brave or very stupid, after last night."
Meryre’s smile carried nothing warm in it at all. "I’m never truly alone, Prince Khaemwaset."
The attack came from behind, not from Meryre himself, but from the shadows Khaemwaset hadn’t fully cleared, a second figure moving with lethal, trained precision, and this time there was no half second of warning, no comfortable margin for a careful, calculated response.
Ambush Within an Ambush. A hidden second attacker has struck. Damage assessment critical.
Pain exploded through his side, hot and immediate, a blade finding the gap between armor plates with terrible precision. He heard Sethnakht scream his name, heard steel clash as she threw herself at the attacker, and felt his own legs give way beneath him as the strength suddenly, violently drained out of his body.
HP: 14/85 — CRITICAL
He hit the stone floor hard, vision already swimming, warm blood spreading fast beneath him, and through the roaring in his ears he heard Meryre’s voice, distant and satisfied, already retreating back into the shadows he’d emerged from.
"Tell your mother," Meryre said, "that I’m sorry it took this long to finish what I started."
The Vessel’s Limit. HP critical. Immediate action required or death is imminent.
Sethnakht was beside him in an instant, pressing desperate hands against the wound, her face pale with a fear he’d never seen from her before, not even in the middle of the worst fighting the night before.
"Stay with me," she said, voice cracking. "Khaemwaset, stay with me."
He tried to answer and found only blood in his throat instead, the world narrowing, torchlight blurring into smeared streaks of orange against the darkening edges of his vision. Somewhere, distant and strange, the system’s familiar panel flickered, dimmer than he’d ever seen it, words forming slowly through a haze that felt less like pain now and more like a terrible, creeping cold.
HP: 3/85 — CRITICAL
WARNING. VESSEL APPROACHING TERMINAL FAILURE.
He felt Sethnakht’s hands still pressed hard against his side, heard her voice calling his name from somewhere that felt impossibly far away already, and understood, with a strange, distant clarity that didn’t feel like fear anymore, that he was dying.
Really dying, this time. Not a near miss, not a careful, survivable brush with danger. The real thing, finally, after three months of borrowed time.
HP: 0/85
VESSEL FAILURE DETECTED.
The last thing he heard, fading and strange, was Sethnakht’s voice, breaking completely, screaming his name into a darkness that swallowed everything whole.