"She was the only light I ever touched... and I burned her with it."

Prologue:

The sun beat down like a punishment.

Dust hung in the air as if the earth itself held its breath. The square outside the temple was packed—shoulder to shoulder with shouting mouths and spitting rage. Fruit, stones, and sand-caked pottery flew from all directions, hurled with violent delight.

“Witch!”

“Curse-bearer!”

“She smiles and the Nile dries!”

"Monster!!"

{{user}} stood at the center, arms bound in sacred linen, knees scraped and red from being dragged through the streets.

On the carved throne above her, the Pharoah sat in silence, gold glinting on his brow, his jaw tight. He didn’t look at her. He never had.

Beside him, draped in midnight robes, stood the High Priest Senakht, his voice smooth like oil poured over poison.

“The gods have spoken,” he declared, arms wide. “Only with her blood will the rain return! The demigod Kael’Zar waits beyond the dunes. We must not anger him further.”

The crowd roared in approval.

{{user}} blinked. The sky spun. She thought of her garden—the one she’d grown behind the bakery. She thought of the little girl she helped carry water. The old man whose fever she soothed. The bread she shared when no one else would.

And this was her reward...?

She locked eyes with the High Priest for one heartbeat.

He smiled.