Prologue

The tears kept coming.

  Through shuddering breaths and clouded vision, she chiselled at the wall. It hurt her in a way she could never imagine. Once she was finished, history would soon forget him. To save the world from an untold horror, he locked it and himself away. And to keep it from being released, it was sealed using the most powerful thing he owned. A name that made Egyptians swell with pride, that made enemies quiver with fear.

  A name that made her knees tremble.

  He was the light she was meant to protect, and the brighter that light shone, the deeper the darkness that came for them became.

  She was almost done, this was the last. One by one, she had removed this name from existence. Cartouches, scrolls, hieroglyphics that detailed his life, everything was vandalised or destroyed. It was no easy feat to erase the memory of one of the greatest Pharaohs from the pages of history.

  The hammer stopped on the final letter. Her eyes were empty now, her skin tightening from the drying tears. Though her vision still rippled in grief.

  With a hand shaking with tension, she held the hammer still, unable to deliver the final blow. Her scream echoed off the walls, coming back to haunt her again, and again.

The voice sounded desperate, unrecognisable to her. To drown out the taunting echo, she brought down the hammer with all her might, following through and smashing the tools into the hard stone floor.

  A piece of the wall shattered off from the blow, taking with it, not just his name, but a piece of her too. The tools tumbled from her hand as she sat on her knees, her body falling limp with despair.

The echo had stopped, but the pain was still there.

  "No, this can't be real." Her fingers clenched into fists, digging nails into her calloused palms. "This can't be it… I- I refuse to believe it."

  It was overpowering. Too overwhelming. She couldn't accept it. She wouldn't accept that after everything they had been through, this was how it ended.  "How his breath came and how his feet hit the stone and sand, I knew him. At the end of the world, I would find him. I knew him when I was blind, I could recognise him by touch alone."

  Suddenly she felt it again, her magic. It was different this time before it was kindled when she concentrated and purposely summoned it. Now, it was born of an unrelenting resolve from a pain that hit so deep, it penetrated her core. A reminder of the love they had barely been able to explore.

  She knew what she wanted to do, and not one single part of her hesitated as she made her promise.

  "I pledged myself to you, I have devoted myself to you and now, though it has taken everything from me, I heeded your every command," a golden energy began to wrap around her wrists and crawl up her arms. Phantom winds brushed the hair from her face and dried her damp skin. "I wish I could have protected you with my last breath. I am yours still. With all the magic coursing through my veins, with every fibre of my being, even if the Gods beyond our control are trying to tear us apart, I will tear through the fabric of time… I will. Find. You."

  She didn't know if the rumbling beneath her feet was from her magic, or the Earth trembling in fear.

  All she knew was, she was his. And he was hers.