Zeek had harbored some suspicions since his trip to the royal library, especially those regarding Heka and Amon. The eerie resembnce they bore to the ancient King and Queen of Kemet seemed uncanny in terms of their predicament. With that in mind, Zeek id out the possible locations Amon could’ve been taken, and by whom.

  “There exists a sect amongst the common folk of Kemet, suppressed by the royalty, that praise and worship the Shu-Ra. They’ve been exiled to the outskirts of the city, but I seemed to sense several of them within the royal walls watching me as I delved into the history of these nds.”

  “What does this mean for us?” Verris was impatient and boorish, as usual.

  “It means Amon may be being held in the crypt of the old king. It’s a crumbling structure not far from here; it seems tied to Amon, and potentially you, Heka.”

  “Then we go, now.”

  As the group trekked toward the crypt's rumored location, Heka hadn’t tired, her steps had not faltered, but her form shifted with each moment that passed. Her eyes darkened, having lost their warm glow— and turned a gssy, obsidian-bck. Her voice dropped, it almost echoed over itself, like whispers in a cave; a beast y in wait that now hunted its prey. Her smoke grew thicker; it began to fall like a cape as it swept across the sand and left a trail in her wake. Wildlife fled from the trail she walked; small fires sparked in her path where smoke touched dry brush. The party—once companions—now trailed behind Heka, a being akin to something of myth.

  At st, they arrived: the Bck King’s Tomb, its broken pilrs reached skyward like fingers desperate for light. Chants echoed from the depths of the crypt. Heka halted before she entered; for a moment, she stared at the carvings, touched one of the walls. Smoke seeped into the grooves and revealed a radiant figure with outstretched hands.

  Heka gasped softly: “This is not the first time.”

  Her eyes went entirely bck; smoke began to pour from them as her rage began to reach new heights. The smoke erupted from her pores; it billowed into the chamber and flooded the sanctuary like a crushing tide. The cultists faltered, some colpsed as their lungs failed to pull in air. Heka disappeared ahead of her companions; she left naught but a thin trail of smoke and a cautious growl: “Save Amon. These souls are mine.”

  Through the entry hall and the corridors to follow, they found the center. Amon was lying bound to an altar; glowing glyphs formed around him. The cultists were preparing his final rites.

  Amon y upon the stone altar, the cold seeped into his bones. The obsidian glyphs pulsated, drawing smoke out of his lungs, his breath came in ragged pulls. The cultists chanted in the forgotten tongue of Shu-Ra’s worshippers, their cadence rose, their hands lifted in reverence and desperation.

  Then—Darkness.

  A smoke as dark as night filled the central chamber like an eclipse, it snuffed out the fmes and near every sembnce of light.

  Amon opened his eyes to a sun that no longer existed—a sky painted gold and deep violet, cast in twilight. Before him stood a city in marble and sunstone, fnked by distant dunes. It was Kemet, but not the Kemet he known of today; before him stood the Kemet of old. He wore white robes gilded in the insignia of an ancient noble house, a symbol his memory recognized only from forgotten tomes—the house that vanished during the Silent Reign.

  He walked beside a figure cloaked in shifting smoke, whose hand brushed his. A Shu-Ra woman with luminous dark skin, her presence ethereal yet grounded. She spoke with a voice like wind through silk.

  “We could end it here. Let the smoke lift. Let them see us as we are.” Lay said softly.

  He turned to her, love evident in his eyes. She looked so much like Heka. “Then let it be me. I will speak for peace.” This voice was not his own but spoke with the dignity of Kemet royalty; it was the voice of Amir, known as the Bck King of Kemet.

  Before the great temple gates, a crowd gathered. Some shouted threats, others whispered prayers. The radiant noble Amir stepped forward to address them, the Shu-Ra figure of Lay ever-present at his side.

  Then—a cry.

  An arrow flew through the crowd, piercing his chest. He stumbled, blood spilled down his white and gold robes. Panic erupted, a frantic sense spread across the people assembled before the king and his new queen. Lay screamed—the same scream Heka would echo in the far distant future.

  The vision rippled.

  He looked up from the sand where he bled and saw Lay as she writhed and wretched in front of him. Her tears formed bck pools in the sand, her mouth opened into a gaping maw as the chaos around them was broken by a single, ear-splitting wail. A smoke darker than bck flooded the kingdom like a crushing tidal wave. As grief overtook her, her veil turned bck, as did his robes, and she began annihiting every person present, one after the other, like a wraith of devastation, as she melted into nothing more than shadows and bdes; she had become the definition of vengeance and grief.

  As his vision faded, Lay fell to her knees beside him and reached with trembling hands as the sky was finally bckened; the sun blotted out. His final memory was her kiss; smoky lips pressed to his bloodied forehead before he heard one more harrowing wail.

  Amon jolted awake, the pain of memory ced the pain in his limbs. His mouth was gagged, eyes watery. Smoke had filled the sanctuary; it coursed across the floor like a mournful tide. The air was cold, the torches were snuffed out one by one, the sound sharp and final. The chanting that once filled the chamber had stopped.

  All heads turned toward the entrance—now wreathed in churning, oily smoke.

  Heka entered. She didn’t walk, she glided; a silhouette of darkness and fury, her form expanded, otherworldly, rimmed in cinders and smoke so thick it shrouded even the faintest light. Her eyes were bottomless pits of midnight, lips slightly parted as if in prayer—or warning, bckened smoke flowed freely from them.

  Every in forward made the glyphs on the altar fracture, ancient power cracked under the immense weight of her presence. The cult leader screamed a final chant, desperate to complete the rite. Heka’s bckened gaze turned toward him, rage seething from her darkened voice.

  “You do not know what you invoke.”

  Her voice echoed like a cathedral’s colpse.

  As the altar broke and the ritual failed, Amon locked eyes with her—and he saw both lifetimes at once.

  The ancient Lay’s rage.

  The current Heka’s sorrow.

  The same grief, repeated, but this time—he was not dying.

  With blood on his lips and memories that scorched his mind, he reached out—not to stop her, but to call her back to him. “Heka… I’m…still here.”

  For a moment, the smoke paused. Her body flickered, caught between destruction and salvation.

  The air grew thick as the ritual faltered. Heka stood motionless, her form a shifting mass of shadows. Her eyes were completely bck, a deep void that devoured the failing light, and smoke poured from them as if the very essence of her rage was leaking into the world around her. The room shuddered under the weight of her emotions: grief, anger, and loss.

  Without warning, she moved.

  Fshes of smoke sliced through the air like whips, and cultists fell, their necks severed before they even had time to scream. One by one, they colpsed, unable to defend against her silent, unseen strikes. Heka was no longer a woman, but a monster, a storm of bckened smoke and despair. She vanished, only to reappear and strike again, her motion graceful—like a dancer of death. Every swing of her form was a ssh of silent knives, no sound but the faint wail of smoke as it rushed to consume everything in its path.

  Cultists gagged, hands cwed at their throats as the smoke stifled their cries and choked the air from their lungs. Her power was not just in her bdes or cws, but in the very atmosphere. The room was her domain. She was everywhere and nowhere at once.

  Amon stirred, struggling against the bonds that held him. His body was weakened, but his fmes were rising. He watched in horror as the chaos unfolded, his heart torn by the destruction around him. Heka—the woman he loved—was lost, consumed by a primal rage that only amplified with every death.

  As the st of the cultists fell, Heka turned her attention to Amon. Her gaze hardened, and in a blink, she was upon him, her long cws outstretched. Her mouth hung open in a horrible grimace, a twisted, eerie scream emerging from the very air that suffocated him. The wails of the smoke that surrounded her were not cries of malice—they were cries of untamed, limitless sorrow, as if the very foundation of her being was weeping for the death and destruction she’d seen and wrought.

  She struck.

  Amon leapt to his feet; his own instincts guided him as smoke from her attacks began to form into the very first weapon she’d ever granted him: a dagger. He shaped his defense from the very essence of the smoke she’d left to protect him; it glowed faintly with the heat of his own raging fmes. The dagger cshed against her cws as he blocked, sparks flew, but with every strike, he felt himself losing ground, the ruthlessness of her assault drove him back.

  Amon called her name, desperation in his voice, but she was a blur—she disappeared and reappeared, her rage blind to everything but the destruction she’d brought and the grief in her heart.

  Amon shouted, straining, "Heka! Stop! It’s me! I’m still here!"

  Each strike she made was a deadly arc of bckened smog, her body flowed like liquid darkness, a formless predator that attacked without mercy. His blood mingled with the smoke; his boiling rage began to fuel her own.

  But as they cshed again—the smoke around them thickened, Amon's fmes rose—there was a shift. The air hummed with fire and darkest mist. Amon’s blood is boiled, but the more it burned, the more it mingled with Heka’s essence, slowly pulling her back from the brink.

  The warmth of his fmes lifted, her primal rage slowed, her body flickered between the human and monstrous form of her true nature.

  Finally, the moment came. Her form faltered for a split second before she stopped, her breath ragged, smoke still trailed from her skin. The inky trails on Heka’s face were repced by tears that flowed down her cheeks. The chamber, once heavy with the scent of death and burnt ash, had fallen eerily quiet.

  Heka stared at him, her eyes still bck, but now filled with recognition. Shame. Horror.

  “Amon… I… What have I done?” Heka whispered.

  The room was silent except for their heavy breathing, both battered, neither knew how to process what had just transpired. Bodies y broken, throats severed almost entirely.

  The rest of the party watched from the shadows. They’d seen a side of Heka that neither had ever witnessed. They were shocked, overwhelmed by the force of her power, yet grateful that she fought on their side. There was a weighted respect now, but also a fear of the potential destruction she could unleash if ever controlled by such rage again.

  Amon, weakened but resolute, stepped forward and pced a hand on Heka's shoulder in an attempt to reassure her in a moment of vulnerability.

  “You are my queen in this lifetime, as you have been in so many others.”

  Her shoulders slumped, as if a great weight had been lifted, yet she was still shaken by her own power. For the first time, she felt the danger of losing herself completely to her primal side.

  In the days that followed, Heka had become more withdrawn. She stayed close to Amon, slipping into his shadow or hiding beneath his clothes when they stopped to rest. Her fear of what she could become lingered, and she felt the weight of history and the future pressing upon her.

  The weight of the Silent Reign, the ancient conflict, and their roles within it were more than she could bear alone. She clung to Amon—not just for protection, but because he was the only one who saw her for who, and what, she truly was.