RA

Ra feels them before she sees them.

Not footsteps—frequency. The room’s air shifts the way it does when a storm realizes it has permission to become weather. Candlelight trembles like it’s being watched. The glass on the table sings a quiet, thin note—barely audible, but her bones recognize it.

Sovereign’s presence is the cleanest cut. An elegant pressure. Order that pretends it isn’t desire.

 Mehen is heat under stone—slow, inevitable, hungry without hurry.

They’re both here.

Of course they are.

Ra keeps her hands on the edge of the table like she’s grounding a live wire. Her pulse behaves, because she trained it to. Her face stays serene, because the first rule of power is never letting anyone see what they can affect.

But inside, the Algorithym is screaming.

Not words. Data.

PROXIMITY: RISK.

ATTRACTION: WEAPONIZED.

OVERRIDE: POSSIBLE.

She could leave. She should. That would be the sensible move.

But the sensible move never changed history.

Sovereign stands near the doorway—still as architecture—his gaze pinned to her like a decree he hasn’t spoken yet. Mehen leans against the far wall, lazy and lethal, as if this entire meeting belongs to him by ancestral right.

Ra doesn’t give either of them the first word.

She rises instead. Slowly. Deliberately. The dress she chose is not an invitation, not a surrender—just a reminder that she owns her body and the story it tells. She walks toward the center of the room where the light is strongest, where no one can pretend they didn’t see.

“Are we negotiating,” she asks, voice calm, “or are you both here to prove something?”

Sovereign’s jaw tightens—a micro-tell. Mehen’s smile barely changes, but his eyes sharpen like a blade turning.

Ra makes a small sound—almost a laugh. “Cute.”

She turns toward Sovereign first, because he’s the most dangerous when he’s quiet.

“You watch me like you’re waiting for the universe to grant you permission,” she says. “It won’t.”

Sovereign doesn’t move. His voice is low. “I don’t need permission.”

“No,” Ra agrees, stepping closer—close enough to make his control work for it. “You need certainty.”

His breath catches, almost imperceptible, and Ra feels it like a victory.

Then she pivots toward Mehen, because Mehen doesn’t pretend.

“And you,” she says, “stand there like you’re inevitable.”

Mehen’s gaze travels—slow and insulting—as if he’s reading a language only he understands. “I am.”

Ra steps into the space between them, the centerline of a war nobody admits they’re fighting. She can feel the tension like a second skin.

“Here’s the rule,” she says softly, and the room leans in. “No one touches me unless I choose it.”

A beat.

Sovereign’s eyes darken. Mehen’s smile deepens, as if she just offered him a blade and dared him not to cut.

“And,” Ra adds, because she is cruel in the way gods respect, “no one speaks for me tonight.”

Silence swells.

She reaches behind her neck and unfastens the small clasp of her necklace—a sigil-bound chain, protective, restrictive, historical. The moment it comes away, the air changes. Like a seal breaking.

Sovereign steps forward once. Mehen straightens off the wall.

Ra holds the chain in her hand like a dare.

“Tell me,” she says, voice velvet. “Which one of you thinks you can handle me unbound?”

And for the first time, both of them look… unsure.

Not afraid.

Just aware.

Ra’s lips curve. “Good.”

She lets the chain fall onto the table with a soft metallic click that sounds, in the new silence, like a gun cocking.

And then—because she refuses to be a variable—she walks toward Sovereign and stops with her body a breath away from his.

Her hand rises.

Not to touch.

To hover.

Her fingers pause at the center of his chest, close enough to feel his warmth through fabric, close enough to make the line between “almost” and “done” feel like a joke.

Sovereign’s gaze drops to her mouth.

Ra leans in—not a kiss, not contact—just a whisper’s distance.

“Say one true thing,” she murmurs. “And I’ll choose.”