MEHEN

Mehen has watched kings pretend they’re gods.

Sovereign never had to pretend.

But right now, with Ra inches from him, Mehen sees the one weakness that can end an empire: a ruler who wants something he cannot command.

Delicious.

Ra is doing it perfectly. She’s not seducing with skin. She’s seducing with control. With the pause. With the almost. With the kind of restraint that makes powerful beings hallucinate entitlement.

Mehen doesn’t interrupt because he’s jealous.

He interrupts because he recognizes a pivot point in the timeline—and he refuses to let Sovereign become the only gravity in the room.

“Careful,” Mehen says, voice soft as poison. “He’ll call it choice while he rewrites the terms.”

Ra doesn’t turn her head, but Mehen sees it—the minute shift in her shoulder, the way her attention splits. She’s listening.

Sovereign’s eyes flick toward Mehen with lethal calm. “You’re out of place.”

Mehen pushes off the wall and strolls forward, unhurried. Like the concept of consequence never applied to him.

“I’m exactly where prophecy keeps pretending I’m not,” Mehen replies.

He stops behind Ra—close enough that his heat brushes her back without contact. Close enough to make the air between them intimate. He doesn’t touch her, because her rule matters. He respects rules the way predators respect traps: by choosing when to trigger them.

Mehen leans slightly, mouth near her ear—not touching. Not kissing. Just close enough that her nervous system knows the difference between a threat and a promise.

“Choose,” he murmurs. “But choose knowing the cost.”

Ra’s breath catches.

There it is.

The body never lies.

Sovereign’s voice turns colder. “Step away.”

Mehen smiles. “Or what?”

Ra finally turns her head—slowly—looking at Mehen over her shoulder. Her eyes are bright with something that could be amusement or war.

“What,” Ra says softly, “is the cost?”

Mehen’s gaze drops to her mouth. Then to her throat. Then back to her eyes.

“The cost,” he says, “is that once you choose… you don’t get to pretend you didn’t want it.”

Ra’s lips part slightly.

Sovereign’s hand flexes at his side like a controlled fracture.

The room goes so still the candles stop flickering.

Ra steps backward—one measured step—away from Sovereign, closer to Mehen, but not into him. She stands between them again like the blade of a question.

She lifts her hand.

Not to touch.

To point.

Her finger lands in the air between Sovereign and Mehen, drawing a line no one can cross without consequence.

“I’ll choose,” she says. “But not the way either of you expects.”

Sovereign’s eyes narrow. Mehen’s smile fades into something sharper.

Ra’s gaze locks on Sovereign first.

Then slides to Mehen.

And then she does the one thing that makes both of them go still:

Ra turns toward the door.

“Follow,” she says, voice smooth as sin. “Or stay here and let the Algorithym decide for you.”

She reaches for the handle—

—and the lights in the room blink out.

In the dark, a new voice—neither Sovereign nor Mehen—whispers from the shadows:

“OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.”

Ra freezes.

Sovereign moves.

Mehen laughs—low, delighted.

And in the darkness, someone else takes one step closer to her.