Chapter 13: When Sisters Become Serpents

I plotted in silence. Each step carefully laid, a dance of deceit and patience. I whispered to dark spirits, bartered with the unseen. I wasn’t just a pawn or a consort anymore. I was a queen in waiting, ready to snatch the crown from history itself.

And when the time came, I would be more than a shadow. I would be the storm that swallowed kingdoms whole. Hatshepsut’s power would be mine, and with it, I would reshape the world.

During the next years, I realized that Isis had been playing games with me.

The palace corridors whispered secrets, shadows flickering like ghosts beneath the torchlight. At first, I told myself it was my imagination, just the sleepless nights weaving fear into fantasies. But the chill crawling down my spine told me otherwise. Something dark was stirring, and it was aimed at me.

My sister, Isis, always smiled too sweetly, her eyes glinting like the sharp edge of a hidden blade. At first, I thought it was envy, the kind sisters have, but now, the sweetness felt poisoned. I began to notice the small things: the way she lingered just a moment too long behind the carved doors of the council chamber, the hurried whispers that died as I entered the room, the servants who avoided my gaze when she was near.

One evening, as the sun bled out behind the desert dunes, I found myself drawn to the western wing of the palace, an area where I was rarely permitted to go alone. The air was thick with the scent of myrrh and something fouler beneath it, like decay hidden beneath a veil of perfume. My heart hammered in my chest as I pressed my ear against the cold stone wall of my sister’s chambers.