She was the daughter of a great house of the 9th dynasty of the two united kingdoms, born in a season when the Red and White Mbo rose high and the granaries were full. In the court, she moved like a quiet certainty. Not loud, not reckless. But those who watched her understood that she saw more than she said.
Her father loved her greatly, the youngest of his children by his first queen. And so she learned early what power was. Not the loud kind that shouted orders, but the softer kind that listened, remembered, and waited. She rarely used this power and only for good reason, but still, she was feared as well as loved
When her father died, and her half brother by another mother took the throne, the court shifted. Allies became rivals. Words once spoken in confidence became weapons. The new ruler feared what lingered from the old court, and the princess, with her memory and her lineage, was not something easily controlled.
They say she spoke once, in private, against a decision that would have cost lives along the river. Not loudly. Not foolishly. Just clearly enough that others listened.
That was enough.
Her death was announced as sudden. A sickness. A passing fever. The rites were performed with all proper honors, as if nothing were amiss. She was given a great tomb in Unknown, richly painted with images of her and her attendants, surrounded by the sacred spells, her journey into the afterlife carefully prepared.
But ling after the priests had finished and the procession had departed, others came.
Not mourners.
Workers, carrying tools.
They began with the attendants. Each painted face was carefully removed, the sacred spells erased, all names removed. Not smashed, not defiled in anger, but erased with precision. Eyes, noses, mouths. Gone. One by one, the court that would have followed her into eternity was unmade.
Then they turned to her.
There was hesitation, it is said. Even among those sent to do it. To erase a royal face was no small thing. It was not merely punishment. It was annihilation.
But the order had been given.
And so her face too was taken.
In the language of the priests, this was a severing beyond death. Without a face, without a name that could be spoken and recognized, the soul could not find its place. It would wander. It would fade.
That was the intention.
What they did not understand was this:
They had erased her witnesses, her companions, her identity.
But they had not erased her memory of them.
In the Duat, the dead are sustained by remembrance. By names spoken, by forms known. She had lost hers.
So she took what remained.
The story says that she began to gather the fragments. Not of stone or paint, but of memories. The idea of a face. The echo of a name. The shape of recognition.
And from these, she began to rebuild her court.
Not as they had been. As they were remembered.
Those who disturb the tomb now speak of a strange unease. Of figures at the edge of sight that seem unfinished, as though they are still deciding what they are. Of a presence that does not rage, does not cry out, but watches.
Carefully, Measuring.
It is said that if you stand long enough before the wall where she was painted, you will feel something settle over you. A stillness, like the pause before a name is spoken.
And then, very gently, something will be taken.
Not your breath. Not your life. Something subtler.
A memory. The certainty of your own face.
Because the princess was not erased.
She was made empty. And empty things, given time, learn how to be filled.
After a long age, the priests of Anubis came. The Guardian of the Ways. Anubis did not judge, but he held the gates. And this gate was propped open. Since her name was gone and her face was gone, they knew not how to send her to her judgement,. Instead, the priests sealed her temple so that no more harm could come to the innocent. And with prayers to Anubis the locked her away.