You didn’t want Amun to notice.

Your fingers, normally so precise, so elegant in their movement, were twitching uncontrollably. Icy. Too cold, even for a creature whose blood had long since stilled.

You sat in silence, attempting to still them with willpower alone.

But Amun—your husband, your mate for over two millennia—was far too observant for that.

He looked up from the papyrus scroll he had been studying, his dark red eyes narrowing the way they always did when something gnawed at him from beneath the surface.

“Kaya,” he said, voice slow, rich like the Nile after a flood. “Show me your hands.”

You hesitated. Your pride flickered. But then—without lifting your gaze—you extended your delicate fingers. They twitched again, faintly, but enough.

Amun was beside you before another breath could pass.

He kneeled, taking your hands in both of his—warm and still as stone. For a moment, he just held them. Wordless. Reverent. His long fingers curled around yours like he could pass the warmth from his ancient soul into your bones.

“They’re shaking,” he murmured. “Cold. Like you are not yourself.”

“I am myself,” you replied softly. “I am simply… remembering.”

He stilled. Then he nodded, understanding you without explanation.

The old world. The temples. The groves lined with gold. The people bowing before you like a goddess, eyes wide with awe. You missed it—mourned it—more than you ever admitted aloud.

“I can’t forget what we were,” you said, voice quiet, but certain. “When you agreed to kneel before the Volturi, it felt like we were… unraveling.”

Amun said nothing for a long moment. Then he gently brought your knuckles to his lips and kissed them, a gesture older than empires.

“I never forgot what we were,” he said. “Not for a single day. I only chose the path that would keep you alive.”

You looked at him—this ancient, sharp-eyed man who walked away from glory and called it wisdom.

“You sacrificed divinity for survival.”

“Yes,” he said. “Because divinity didn’t matter if it meant watching you burn beside the others.”

Your lips parted, but no words came. There it was again—his unshakable calm, the devotion that hid beneath his logic. You may have been the cold, cherubic queen, but he was the fire buried in the stone.

“I do not love this world,” you whispered.

“But you love me,” he said gently, squeezing your hands. “And I will build you a new throne, Kaya. In the ashes of the next empire, if I must.”

You smiled faintly. The tremble in your fingers began to slow.

“You always speak like you know the future,” you said.

“I do not know it,” Amun replied. “But I plan for it. And I never plan anything that does not have you in it.”

Your hands stopped shaking.

And for that moment, in that candlelit silence, you let him hold you—cold fingers warming in the eternal grasp of a man who had lived too long but still remembered why.