I stroked the long ears of my donkey. They were white and soft like velvet. The animal was calm and surprisingly fast. The city’s chaos faded behind us and ahead stood the massive outlines of the pyramids.
Emrys shrugged. “It’s less conspicuous than flying. And taking the Dusk Roads is a risk, as you don’t know what who’d we run into there.”
“I find it deeply humbling,” Orren said, his feet dragging in the dirt and stirring up dust. He was too tall for his animal. Before he climbed into the saddle, he had whispered words in the ear of his donkey, and the animal strutted proudly, its head held high. “The three most powerful immortals who once walked with gods ride donkeys to their last battle.”
The sun was setting, and the purple night bled into the desert. Even veiled in heat and dust, the pyramids were impossible to look away from—colossal geometries carved from the bones of the world. In the last rays of the setting sun,the limestone casing stones at the top of Khufu’s pyramid gleamed, a remnant of its once dazzling white mantle. The rest was a sun-scorched skeleton, worn by time, stripped bare by centuries of looters and wind.
Below, at the edge of the plateau, wooden scaffolding and tents flapped in the dry wind. Archeologists in crumpled linen leaned over journals. Porters dozed beside crates. Camels snorted in the lengthening shadows.
The Great Sphinx, half-buried in sand, loomed ahead of us—its lion’s body coiled in eternal vigil. Its eyes, though eroded, still watched.
Maerya stood at its massive stone paws, listening to something. The ochre of her robes blended with the dunes, save for the flicker of copper charms and bone jewelry that caught the dying light. Her braids lifted in the wind.
“Well,” Camille said, squinting beneath her silk parasol, “she certainly knows how to make an impression.”
Orren patted his donkey. “I’m surprised she didn’t arrive riding a sandstorm,” he said.
Maerya didn’t wave. She didn’t smile. She simply turned and vanished between the stone paws of the Sphinx, her silhouette swallowed by the opening of a forgotten entrance.
Emrys dismounted first.
Orren squeezed Camille’s hand without saying a word. Emrys looked back at me, the desert wind tugging at his shirt. “Stay close,” he said. I didn’t trust my voice enough to reply.
The air felt thicker now, charged with something ancient and watching. The silence that settled just before the pages of history turned.
Emrys
The Watchers of the Dead
Far below the sands, beneath the bones of kings, Maerya guided us through the shadows.
She needed no light. She had been walking these hallways since she was born.
The air was different here—dry and heavy. Every heartbeat seemed to echo.
Three tunnels. Three fronts. Maerya would take the main passage. Camille, the northern mouth. Orren, the southern shaft. And Daphne and I—we had the Salt Womb chamber.
Daphne walked beside me, her fingers brushing the murals, still gleaming in colors. She tilted her head, silent, but I saw the awe written on her face. Not fear. Wonder. Once again, I felt the need to touch her to make sure that she was real. To hold her hand and protect her.
The echo of our steps stirred something in the corners. A faint magic pulsed somewhere deep below. Goosebumps covered my arms. The ley lines were close.
Maerya knelt at the threshold of the first corridor. It opened like a broken throat, its sandstone walls carved with claw marks from a beast I couldn’t imagine.
She murmured something in Old Khametic and scattered crushed lapis in a circle. Ward magic. Subtle but cruel. Anyone entering without permission would be lost—wandering in loops until they starved. Or something else found them.
“Stand watch,” she whispered, touching the stone.
The floor groaned; I felt the tremor deep in my boots.
Bones shifted in the sand.
And then they rose—figures in rusted bronze and rotted linen, jawbones clicking into place. Guardians of a kingdom long buried.
Daphne inhaled sharply beside me. I turned slightly—her eyes were wide. I found her hand and squeezed. “They won’t hurt us. But they’d tear apart any Hollowborn who enters this corridor,” I whispered.
“Good to know the bony guys are on our side,” she muttered. I didn’t hide my smile. She was becoming reckless. Did she know that she was changing? Growing into something terrifying and luminous, a butterfly powerful enough to bring death.
Whose death would that be? I wondered.
