"The people of the lands around us claim control of what was once Egypt. But I have walked its length. There is great chaos there, and wars between its people. There is an opportunity for us, Bektaten. An opportunity among their confusion to remake what we have lost."
"There is no remaking what we have lost."
"Then something new. Something greater."
"To what end, Saqnos?"
"To bring order."
"Order? This is a concept that possesses you even now? You have eternal life and you speak of something greater? This is madness. The same madness that turned you against me. To see it unchanged after centuries...I have no words for it. No words for you."
"This city, this Jericho, is but a pile of sand compared to what we once had. A great empire, an empire ruled by immortals, people of our vast knowledge and experience, it could bring about a new age."
"And so it is not order you seek but control."
"You were a queen. You know there cannot be one without the other."
"How can you be so unchanged, Saqnos?"
"I do not seek to change!" he said.
"I see. And so your remorse over what you did to me, it was a display, as I suspected."
He did not bow his head now. He did not look away. Anger burned in his blue eyes. The anger of one confronted by an unwanted truth.
"Leave me out of your dreams of a new kingdom. I shall never be your queen again."
"Bektaten--"
"Do not grovel, Saqnos. It demeans you. If you wish to create an immortal army to claim Egypt as your own, you have everything you need. Don't seek to enlist me so that you can be free of your regrets. You betrayed me. This is history now. It is our history and it shall never change."
"I do not," he said, seizing her wrist in his powerful grip. "I do not have everything I need." Rage now, rage that flared his nostrils and exposed the whites of his eyes. "The formula...it is corrupted. These men, they will not last. Not as long as we have. They are fracti. At most I have given them two hundred years of life. Then they will decay and I will be forced to make others. I need the pure elixir. I need it as you made it."
And so this is why he had sought to separate her not just from her men, but from his own, so that they would not hear this secret. So that they would not know that somewhere on this earth was an elixir more powerful and potent than the one Saqnos had given them.
"And so, after thousands of years, you seek exactly what you sought in the final hours of our kingdom," she answered. "You seek what I shall never give."
He withdrew from her suddenly and let out a high, piercing cry.
They came from both ends of the tunnel, men just like the two who had followed them into the city. Six in all, daggers drawn. In an instant, Enamon and Aktamu were surrounded. Saqnos had fallen back entirely, leaving his men to do his bidding.
They were focused on wresting the leather satchel from Enamon's body. But two grabbed Bektaten's arms from behind to restrain her. She had already unscrewed the jewel on her ring, revealing the tiny bronze pin within. It didn't take much movement. She simply drove the knuckles on her confined hand upwards towards the forearm of the man attempting to hold her in place.
The ring pricked his skin and he let out an anguished cry. If the strangle lily worked as it always did, the man would not have much time for screams.
He stumbled away from her. Extended one accusing finger in her direction, and then the finger turned to ash. His wide, terrified eyes blackened in the same moment his jaw withered into dust. All around them, the fighting came to a halt. Suddenly, the man she'd poisoned was nothing more than a pile of robes laced with ash.
The remaining men, these fracti, as Saqnos had called them, fled in desperate terror
.
And when she turned to face Saqnos, it appeared as if he too wanted to flee.
There was something of this earth that could end him in an instant. This knowledge had paralyzed him. He was breathless and wide eyed.
Carefully, Bektaten picked up the ring's jewel from where she had discarded it and screwed it back into place.
"You shall dwell in the shadows of kingdoms and never again in their royal palaces," she said quietly. "Should you refuse this command, should you ever seek to raise an army of immortals, I will find you, Saqnos, and I will end you. Let this be the last command you ever hear from your queen."