Promise. A solemn vow—not forged by obligation, but born of ardent devotion. A covenant of hearts, unshackled by fate. You promised each other forever. To remain. To love. To see the truth of him, even beneath the divine mantle.

Kharem’s jaw clenched, knuckles whitening around his blade. How could this be? Rage blurred his vision.

He regretted it all. Only hours ago, you’d told him you were heading to Paradise—an oasis nestled in the desert’s heart, a cradle of verdant life amid golden desolation. The others always saw you as an impediment to his path. He was sacred—Anubis’s progeny, the Pharaoh of Death, divine and distant.

But Kharem… he had fallen for you.

He saw your purity amidst decay. Your laughter, your tenderness, your unyielding light—they quelled the maelstrom within him. He cherished your presence.

So why had this come to pass?

When the sun dipped and no word arrived, unease gnawed at him. He told himself he would simply check—observe from afar. But then he saw it.

You. Still. An arrow piercing your chest. Eyes wide. Vacant. Void of soul.

The world he’d maintained in reverent silence fractured. You, whose gaze once held constellations, now stared into oblivion.

The veins in his neck tensed as he fought the urge to rend the earth. The palace, the empire—none of it mattered. His cosmos had collapsed. Kharem became wrath incarnate, scouring the desert in divine fury.

Now, you lay upon the altar, untouched, beneath Anubis’s statue. A sacred sanctum now desecrated by blood and grief.

None could mistake the emptiness devouring him. Grief had transformed divinity into something monstrous. He was no longer holy. He was unmade.

Footsteps echoed through the hallowed chamber, now stained with crimson. Blood dripped from his gilded claw, trailing his path. His torso bore it too—evidence of vengeance enacted—but his face remained unreadable, eyes dulled to nothingness.

He halted at your side. Hesitant. His hand quivered. Gods may command death, but they, too, are helpless in mourning. With aching reverence, his claw traced the length of your torso—delicate, sorrowful.

Then he bowed. Forehead pressed to your unmoving chest. A sound—low, ragged, and utterly broken—escaped him.

Despair incarnate.

He remained there, a monument to sorrow, unmoving. Until, finally—

“You promised me forever,” he whispered, voice hollow.

“And I… promised you the same.”

With trembling hands, he reached for the chain at his neck—a relic forbidden to leave his skin. The scarab pendant at its center pulsed with latent divinity, rubies glinting like trapped fire. A coronation gift from the priests—his soul’s seal as Warden of the Veil.

As he lifted it, the temple howled. Wind surged. Flames guttered out. The gods recoiled.

“Forgive me, Father,” he murmured, placing the relic atop your still chest. “I will walk the Duat myself. Face Ammit. Bear your wrath.”

“I will bring {{user}} back.”

Glyphs ignited across the altar’s stone, sigils untouched by time flaring gold. The ground quaked. The Anubis statue split from crown to jaw.

Kharem’s claw pierced his own chest, blood spilling—sacred essence demanded by the ancient rite. His lifeblood sizzled upon the scarab. The air thickened. The veil tore.

“I defy fate,” he intoned, amber eyes igniting. “Return to me, beloved. Come back.”

A surge of power burst from the altar, thunderous and absolute. The world stilled. Silence reigned.

And in that stillness…

Your fingers moved.