Dawn's first light filtered through the crude wooden shutters. Yetao lay sleeping, his face peaceful and trusting—utterly unaware that death itself sat beside his bed, trembling with both purpose and terror.
Peanut's hands shook as he clutched the ancient sistrum, its bronze surface cold as a gravestone against his palms. The mystical instrument seemed to pulse with malevolent energy, as if sensing the dark deed about to be performed.
Now. Do it now, before he wakes.
The thought echoed in his mind like a death knell. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest as he drew the ceremonial blade—its surface etched with symbols older than recorded history, runes that seemed to writhe in the dim light like living serpents.
"I don't think... I can take his soul while he's awake," Peanut whispered to the shadows, his voice barely audible over the thunder of his own heartbeat.
The blade kissed the sistrum's surface with surgical precision.
CRACK.
Light exploded from the wound—not the gentle glow of dawn, but something primal and terrible. The knife drank the radiance hungrily, its ancient metal singing with power as it absorbed the mystical energy that had bound Yetao's soul to this world.
You've walked this lonely path for centuries, Peanut's thoughts raged against his hesitation. Will you falter now? Just because he wears a familiar face?
His grip tightened until his knuckles turned white.
Then, with the inevitability of a falling star, the blade plunged toward Yetao's heart.
The knife pierced flesh—but what emerged was not blood.
It was light. Pure, crystalline fragments of soul-stuff that scattered like broken stars across the room. The blade, hungry for spiritual essence, reached out with invisible tendrils to claim its prize.
And rejected it.
"What—what's happening?" Peanut's carefully controlled composure shattered like glass.
The soul fragments hung suspended in the air for one impossible moment, neither fully torn away nor completely intact. Part of Yetao's essence clung to his body like water refusing to leave a beloved shore, while other pieces dissolved into nothingness.
Panic—raw, primal terror—seized Peanut's heart as he realized his mistake. In his haste, his conflicted emotions, his feelings, he had botched the most crucial moment of a ritual he had perfected over countless lifetimes.
With desperate hands, he gathered the scattered soul fragments, forcing them back into Yetao's chest. But it was like trying to hold water—most of it slipped through his fingers, lost forever to the void.
Yetao's breathing became labored, his face contorting in unconscious agony. Sweat beaded on his forehead as his body fought a battle his mind couldn't comprehend.
"No... After everything I've endured, I can't let you leave," Peanut's voice cracked as he pulled Yetao against his chest, holding him as if his embrace alone could anchor the man's fleeting soul. "Not like this. Not because of my failure."
Tears—when had he last shed tears?—fell like rain onto Yetao's peach hair.
In the space between consciousness and oblivion, Yetao drifted.
He could hear a voice—familiar, desperate, breaking with emotion—but the words seemed to come from impossibly far away.
"No, don't go..."
That's Pea's voice, he thought with the strange clarity that comes in dreams. Why does he sound like he's crying?
Warmth surrounded him—arms holding him close, a heartbeat thundering against his ear. But his body felt distant, disconnected, like a marionette with severed strings.
"I'm sorry... Ihy, please... please..."
Ihy? The name struck him like lightning. Who is Ihy? And why... why does it feel like he's talking to me?
But before he could grasp the meaning, darkness swallowed him whole.
"Find Hapi. Bring him here. Now."
Peanut's shadow guards materialized from the darkness like smoke given form, their faces hidden behind masks of ancient design. Without question, they dissolved back into the shadows, leaving their master alone with his dying beloved.
Peanut pressed his palms against Yetao's chest, channeling his own life force into the damaged soul. The energy poured out of him like water from a broken dam—centuries of accumulated power flooding into Yetao's failing essence.
But it wasn't enough. Yetao's body rejected most of the foreign energy, accepting only the barest trickle. Still, Peanut didn't stop.
"I'm not letting you leave just like that, you hear me?" he screamed at the unconscious form, his voice hoarse with desperation.
Finally, Yetao's breathing steadied, his face relaxing into peaceful sleep. But Peanut could see it—the slow, steady leak of soul-light from the wound he'd inflicted. Like watching someone slowly bleed to death from an invisible cut.
There was only one solution. One terrible, necessary sacrifice.
The blade turned in his hands. This time, when it pierced flesh, it was his own heart that welcomed the steel.
Pain beyond description tore through him—the agony of having one's very essence carved away while remaining conscious. Every nerve in his body screamed as the knife harvested a fragment of his own soul, glowing with the accumulated power of millennia.
With shaking hands, he pressed his soul-fragment against Yetao's chest, watching as it merged with the damaged essence, sealing the leak like spiritual solder.
The bleeding stopped. Yetao lived.
And Peanut collapsed, forever changed by what he had given away.
High above, clinging to the rafters like a spider in its web, Bako had witnessed everything.
His eyes glittered with malicious delight as he processed what he'd seen. The great assassin—the one who had killed his dear friend Zababa—brought low by love. The irony was delicious.
"Perfect," he whispered to himself, a cruel smile spreading across his scarred features. "I've found your weakness, you bastard."
He melted away into the pre-dawn darkness, already planning how to use this devastating knowledge. Lord Zababa would be very interested to learn that his enemy's heart was no longer as frozen as his reputation suggested.
Meanwhile, in the realm between realms...
Yetao wandered through a forest that existed outside the laws of nature. Everything was beautiful—and wrong. Flowers bloomed in perfect formations but gave off no scent. Wind rustled through leaves that made no sound. A crystalline pond reflected nothing, its surface unnaturally still.
It was like walking through a painting created by someone who had never experienced life.
The temple appeared before him as if summoned by his need for answers. Ancient stones covered in hieroglyphs that seemed to shift and change when he wasn't looking directly at them.
"My son!"
The voice struck him like a physical force—warm, loving, and impossibly familiar. A woman emerged from the temple's depths, moving with the fluid grace of divinity itself. Her golden hair flowed like liquid sunlight, her emerald eyes held the depth of ancient forests, and her smile...
Her smile contained all the love in the world.
"Who are you?" Yetao asked, every instinct screaming that this was important—that this moment would change everything.
Pain flickered across her perfect features. "You are my son," she said softly, then corrected herself with heartbreaking gentleness. "You were my son."
"Ma'am, I think you're mistaken—"
"I am Hathor," she interrupted, and the very air seemed to bow before her words. "Former Queen of Egypt. And your mother—though not in the way mortals understand family."
Yetao's world tilted. "But that would make Bam your son too—"
"NEVER."
The word exploded from her lips with divine fury. The stagnant pond began to boil, the painted forest shook with supernatural rage. "You are my ONLY child. That cursed name will not pass your lips again."
Her anger was terrible, beautiful, and utterly inhuman. When she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of prophecy:
"He is the reason you had to die."
Time stopped.
"What?" Yetao's voice was barely a whisper. "But I'm alive—"
"Are you?" Hathor's hands cupped his face with infinite tenderness. "Listen carefully, my beloved child. The prophecy remains unchanged: 'Horus and Hathor's seeds will be the poison to one another.' You cannot both exist in the same world."
Her eyes filled with tears that sparkled like liquid diamonds. "If you wish to return safely to your world, to live the life you desire with the one you love... Bam must die."
"Kill?" The word felt like poison on Yetao's tongue. "You want me to kill him?"
"I will defy fate itself to see you happy," Hathor whispered, her divine voice breaking with emotion. "This time, I will not let destiny steal you away from me again."
This time? Before Yetao could ask what she meant, another voice cut through the divine realm—desperate, heartbroken, achingly familiar.
"Ihy... Ihy... wake up, please..."
"He calls for you," Hathor said with a sad smile. "Remember my words, child. Remember, and choose wisely."
The painted world began to blur and fade, pulling Yetao back toward consciousness and the terrible knowledge that would change everything.
Yetao's eyes fluttered open to find Peanut's face hovering above him—pale, drawn, but alive with desperate relief. Behind him stood Hapi, the healer's usually calm features twisted with worry.
"I'm fine, Pea," Yetao managed, forcing a reassuring smile.
The embrace that followed was fierce, desperate—as if Peanut were trying to convince himself that Yetao was truly there. "You had a nightmare," Peanut said, his professional mask sliding back into place with practiced ease. "But you're safe now."
As Hapi departed with troubled glances, Peanut handed Yetao a bowl of medicinal soup. "Drink this. I'll be right back."
Alone, Yetao's mind reeled with the implications of his vision. A nightmare? It had felt more real than reality itself. And those names—Ihy, the prophecy, the terrible choice Hathor had laid before him...
Unable to rest, he stepped outside for air and heard voices drifting from the shadows.
"I thought I was going to lose him again," Peanut was saying, his voice thick with emotion.
Again? Yetao's blood turned to ice.
"Master, I'll search for other sistrums in the region," a shadow guard reported.
"No." Peanut's voice carried finality. "I won't risk it again. We need to find what's truly binding his soul."
Every word hit Yetao like a physical blow. They were talking about him—about his soul, about losing him again. And that name... Ihy...
The pieces began to form a picture too terrible to accept.
Dizzy with revelation and betrayal, Yetao stumbled back to his bed, his mind churning with questions that might destroy everything he thought he knew about the man he'd begun to trust.
Who are you really, Peanut? And who... who am I?
Miles away, in the royal palace...
The full moon hung like a silver coin in the star-drunk sky as Prince Bam approached the sacred pond. The same pond that had been calling to him, haunting his dreams, driving him to the edge of madness with its impossible appearances and disappearances.
"So you do exist," he murmured, staring at the perfectly still water that reflected the cosmos above. "That lying witch tried to convince me otherwise. She'll pay for her deception."
But first, he needed answers.
Sand rose at his command, forming thick ropes that he secured around the ancient statue guarding the pond's edge. The rope would be his lifeline in whatever magical trap awaited below.
"Let's see which spell has been playing games with my mind," Bam said, his voice carrying the dangerous edge of a man pushed beyond his limits.
Without hesitation, he dove into the mirror-dark waters, disappearing beneath the surface as the moon watched like a silent witness to prophecy fulfilled.
The ripples spread outward in perfect circles, carrying whispers of ancient curses and the terrible weight of destiny awakening.
To be continued...