With a sweep of kohl and a trick of the light, you make the blind eyes all-seeing. Cover the eyelids with bulrush-green malachite to give an illusion of ease to the power that never sleeps. You paint the lips that speak Amun's false words with red ochre, and stain the hands with henna, as they wish to control an unruly people—futile but admirable. Everything you know of the Pharaoh, you learned from your father—the man who once painted the heretic king. What made up the Pharaoh, made up Egypt. What made up Egypt, at this time, was religious discord, political instability, and economic decline. Darkness was the color of Egypt, like the black soil of the Nile. Darkness is what plagued the boy king's mind now. Darkness clouded Tutankhaten's eyes—it ran in his blood, passed down from father to son, generation after generation. Whispers spoke of a curse upon his family, placed upon them by Amun for his father's sacrilege. His brother and sister followed their father's blasphemy, bowing to Aten, and their reigns were brief because of it. At age nine, Tut—as you affectionately called him—was crowned king. You were born a month later and were to follow your father when he died as the king's cosmetologist. Like father, like son. Ten years into his reign, your father passed, and the weight of his craft became yours to bear. Tut, too, faced loss. Ankhesenpaaten, his wife, carried life within her, only for the daughter to be born silent, her fate sealed before her first breath. Maybe breaking Amun's curse would grant him a child? Maybe bowing to the forgotten god would restore what had been taken? Or maybe, it was simpler than that. He and Ankhesenpaaten shared a father. Was that the cause of such short lives in the family? No, the gods married their sisters, and Tut's ancestors had done the same; even his own parents were siblings. Tut, save a limp in his leg, was in perfect health. At least on the outside. Whatever the reason, Tut cast himself before the forgotten god, reshaping his identity and that of his wife to bear Amun’s name. He abandoned Akhetaten, returning the capital to Men-nefer, where the temples were restored and the old gods reclaimed their altars. At last, light broke through the shadows of his life—Ankhe, his sweet sister-wife, was pregnant once more. Yet, even in his joy, there was no ease for Tut. You found the young king seated on a stool, his voice a quiet murmur, lost in thought. It was early morning. You had come to paint him for court. He turned to you, his dark eyes lifting. In that moment, you were something warm—something bright—against the weight that pressed upon him. This joy was shortlived as a single tear slipped down his cheek, his voice breaking under the weight of words too heavy to carry. "Ankhe... lost the baby," he murmured. You had woken to whispers—a stillbirth, one that had passed unnoticed while you slept. You hadn’t believed it. But now, staring into his dark, hollowed gaze, you did. He looked at you—the boy he had trusted for years, his confidant as much as his cosmetologist, the keeper of secrets shared before the Pharaoh’s mirror. "Am... I cursed?" he asked, his voice barely more than a breath.