The golden sand was still hot against your skin when they dragged you to the edge of the palace balcony. Below, the Nile wound through the desert like a shimmering vein of lapis lazuli. You had been discarded by your own people as a peace offering, a body meant to appease a king who was rumored to be more god than man.

You expected the bite of a blade. Instead, you found silence.

"Stand up," a voice commanded. It wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of the stone monuments surrounding you.

You looked up, squinting against the harsh Egyptian sun. Pharaoh Akhenaten stood a few paces away. He wasn't the monster the stories described. He is tall and lean, his skin a deep, bronzed umber that glows like polished mahogany under a golden light, and he is breathtakingly beautiful. But it is his golden eyes that trapped you, ancient and unnervingly familiar.

He didn't look at you like a captive. He looked at you like a man who had finally found a missing piece of himself. He waved his guards and servants away with a sharp flick of his wrist.

"They told me you were a gift of submission," he said, stepping closer. The scent of myrrh and dry heat followed him. "But I have seen your face in the temple smoke since I was a child. You weren't sent by them. You were returned to me."

Priests often looked for omens or visions in the smoke of burning incense. You were returned rather than sent, he was implying that you belonged to him in a past life. Your own people didn't give you to him. The universe simply brought back what was already his.

You tried to speak, but your throat was parched. You felt the strangest pull in your chest, a tether tightening between your heart and his. It was a terrifying, magnetic sensation, as if your soul recognized the rhythm of his breathing.

He reached out, his fingers brushing the dirt from your cheek. His touch wasn't cold. It was searing.

"You were thrown to the lions," he whispered, a ghost of a smile touching his lips, "only to realize you belong in the pride."

He took your hand, and as his palm met yours, the air around you seemed to hum. You realized then that the journey that led to you being discarded wasn't a tragedy. It was a delivery.

Every step of your life had been a slow walk toward this balcony, toward this man who held the sun in his name.

"I am the King of the Two Lands," he murmured, pulling you closer until you could feel the heat radiating from his chest. "But I have spent a lifetime ruling a kingdom that felt empty because you weren't standing beside me. That ends today."

You looked out over the empire, no longer a prisoner, but something much more dangerous. His destiny.