Everything around them had turned into a facade of darkness. Addaya said another line, and a brilliant flash flickered and died, blanketing everything at once, he said another line, and thunder rumbled.

Addaya didn’t close his eyes; he was staring with a terrified expression as another flash burned incandescent blinding lights into his dilated pupils.

The ground shook up and down as if the entire area had fallen from the sky and landed with a powerful impact. Addaya said the final line of the spell; one bolt of white lightning pierced the utter darkness. He closed his eyes from the intense pain he felt, while Donggun remained completely unaffected.

Addaya released Donggun’s grip on his hand and both opened their eyes to see where they were; they were at the entrance to the great hypostyle hall, behind one of the pillars. Addaya moved his head to see if the hall was empty but instead found the elder priest Hori talking to the enraged queen.

Addaya returned his gaze to Donggun and cast a quick invisibility spell for them. “Let’s go,” Addaya said, and they both walked over to Hori, who was standing nearby, to listen in on their conversation. “Get rid of her and the child,” the queen said quietly.

“Calm down, your Majesty,” Hori said, “we’ll fix it.”

“I am not going to let her take my throne! He wanted her to be a royal wife, and now she’s pregnant with his child! I want them both to perish!”

“Your Majesty, we cannot kill the child because he is of royal blood.”

“I don’t care! If that bastard comes to our world, we’re all doomed,” the queen said as she moved closer to Hori’s face. “It’s an order from your queen to get rid of Kiya, do you understand?”

“I do, your Majesty,” Hori smirked. Addaya walked over to a shadow behind one of the pillars and discovered Nebuaui peeking and eavesdropping on their conversation.

When the queen left, Hori turned around and said, “Come out of the shadows, son, why did you hide? It’s unusual for you to spy.”

“Are you planning to murder her?” Nebuaui yelled angrily in a muffled voice, staring at his father’s smiling face. “Are you?” he exclaimed harshly as he stepped completely out of the shadows.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with you,” Hori stated calmly.

“I won’t let you hurt her, she’s innocent and the child is royal blood,” Nebuaui said.

“I won’t harm the child, but that’s not associated with Kiya,” Hori shrugged. “The queen is enraged; I can’t let her rage dictate what happens; I swore an oath to protect the throne and having a bastard child will jeopardize the stability of our kingdom.”

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“The pharaoh will make Kiya his royal wife; the child will not be a bastard,” Nebuaui declared emphatically.

“The queen will not allow it; besides, she is beloved throughout the kingdom, and Kiya would never be accepted.”

Nebuaui appeared agitated. “I can’t believe you went along with the queen’s nonsense.” Nebuaui clenched his fists tightly, trying to contain his rage.

“Doesn’t your heart belong to her?” Hori questioned calmly.

“It has nothing to do with my heart; she is innocent, and as a mother of royal blood, she has the right to be protected,” Nebuaui said firmly.

“There is only one way to keep her safe,” Hori said as he motioned for Nebuaui to follow him, “the book of the dead.” They moved to a quieter corner, where Hori removed a blue stone ring from his right index finger and drew a medium-sized circle with a line tangent to it with the ring.

Hori and Nebuaui entered the place first, followed by Addaya and Donggun, as the circle glowed and the wall faded, revealing the whiteness of empty space. Hori squatted and touched the floor, and the room gradually transformed into a halo room.

Hori did exactly what Addaya did earlier to get to the Book of the Dead. When he saw the book, he chose a specific papyrus and gave it to Nebuaui. “This spell will fix everything, alter hearts, and save Kiya and the child,” Hori said.

Moments later.

Hori squatted down across from the Nile and took one of the blue lotuses floating above the Nile’s surface. “Make sure she gets to the astral world before the darkness of the night,” Hori instructed Nebuaui before beginning to cast the spell. While the lotus flew above inside a ball of water from the Nile, he made seven moves with both hands.

He said the spell loudly and quickly, and the lotus flew toward the surface of the Nile, which was covered in bright blue strings. With its enchanting touch, the bright blue strings completely capped the Nile's surface. Hori snapped his fingers, and gentle blue wisps merged with silver-colored ones derived from thousands of lotuses, curling and dancing in the wind.

All the wisps merged and formed a cloud-like shape; Hori clenched his right fist and whispered the final part of the spell before snapping his fingers again.

The wisps separated and began to fly in different directions. Nebuaui’s gaze was drawn to one of the wisps, which flew straight to one of the guards standing at the entrance to the great hypostyle hall and stopped above his face, slowly penetrating his body through his nose. The guard blinked several times before coughing loudly for a few seconds and then returning to his previous state.

“After the next sunrise, no one in the kingdom will remember her name,” Hori said, looking at Nebuaui, who was surprised.

Addaya and Donggun stood there quietly watching. “What if the consequences were deadly?” Nebuaui inquired, having overcome his obvious nervousness.

“She must be in the astral world to avoid any disastrous consequences.” Nebuaui took a deep breath; he came to the realization of what the spell would do to everyone; it would erase Kiya from everyone’s memory, including her family in the Kingdom of Mitanni.

“I don’t want to forget her,” Nebuaui said softly.

“We are immune to the spell,” Hori said, looking at the other guard who had also been affected by the spell, “but we messed with someone’s destiny; the obvious consequences are not forgetting what we did. Let’s hope it doesn’t get worse.”

Hori was one of the greatest sorcerers of all time, and he knew how powerful the book of the dead was and how every spell had consequences, but no one could ever predict how dangerous it could become.