The wind had changed.
Naiya could feel it, as clearly as the tug of her linen veil each time she stood by the upper terrace of the palace. The Nile shimmered beneath the sun, placid and eternal, but everything else felt on the verge of shifting—like a dream beginning to stir into something more real, more dangerous, more… meaningful.
She hadn't returned to the gardens by the river since that night. The night when her world had tilted.
It was foolish, she told herself. That encounter, though magical, was fleeting. Just a chance meeting under the stars. But her heart refused to obey reason. She remembered his voice as though it had been carved into her very soul.
He hadn't told her who he was. No name. No title. Only presence.
Every day since, she found herself looking over her shoulder, scanning courtyards, markets, temple halls—even the faces of soldiers returning from the latest campaign. None of them bore that same gravity, that same quiet strength. That ache in her chest hadn't lessened—it had only sharpened into something more unbearable.
Ramose noticed, of course.
He always did.
"You've been elsewhere lately," he said gently one afternoon as they walked along the papyrus-lined corridor near the palace library. "Did something happen the night of the moon festival?"
Naiya paused, unsure how to respond. She had not told anyone—not even Ramose—what had happened. It felt too sacred, too personal to be reduced to words.
"Nothing," she said too quickly. "Only... a strange feeling. As if something is about to change."
Ramose gave her a knowing look but didn't press. "Perhaps the gods have set a path for you that you cannot yet see."
She forced a smile, appreciating his wisdom but feeling as though he were speaking of someone else's story.
Later that evening, she retreated to the palace roof—a place she rarely visited. From there, the whole of Thebes sprawled before her. The towers, the columns, the sacred pools—all humming with life. The capital was preparing for something. Celebrations, murmurs of a victorious return. Whispers about a royal warrior finally back in the city.
She clutched the edge of the sandstone wall, heart skipping.
Could it be… him?
No. She pushed the thought away. She was not foolish enough to believe in fate. But something had changed—she could feel it as clearly as the Nile's tides.
That night, sleep evaded her again.
Instead, she wandered the halls barefoot, like a ghost adrift in silk. She ended up in the scribe's room, her fingers trailing across old scrolls and half-finished paintings. Her reflection in the polished bronze caught her by surprise—she looked older than she remembered. Wiser. Wounded.
"I am not the girl I once was," she whispered to the room.
Something in her had awakened. A part of her that didn't belong entirely to this world, nor the one she came from.
And somewhere out there, he was walking the same earth, breathing the same air.
Unbeknownst to her, he had already returned. Hidden beneath the folds of silence and shadow. Watching. Waiting.
The wind carried a whisper to her ear as she stood near the open archway to the courtyard.
A voice—faint, deep, familiar.
Her heart stilled.
She turned swiftly, but no one was there.
Only the wind.
Only the stars.
But something in her chest bloomed like a lotus drawn to sunlight.
She didn't know when or how—but she knew one truth now with bone-deep certainty.
She would see him again.
And when she did, everything would change.