Suetekh
The sand of Deshret [the Red Land] did not merely warm the flesh; it drank weakness and exhaled fire.
I lay stretched across the ridge of a towering, crimson dune, my bare chest pressed flat against the sun-baked, coarse dust. Above me, suspended in an unmoving sky of bruised purple and burnished bronze, the massive Red Sun of my realm roared like an unblinking eye of liquid flame. It poured its ancient, violent light directly into my skin, sinking through muscle, sinew, and bone to burn out the dark, foul sludge the Zagros priests had left in my veins.
My breath came in deep, shuddering lungfuls, bringing with it the familiar, crisp taste of dry heat, ozone, baking stone, and raw power.
Traitorous insects.
