Kemet is the black land: a world ringed by ice, with one gate, and that gate is sealed. In the north, the dead remain awake behind glass. In the south, mourners drink Nepenthe until grief can no longer name what it has lost.
Young scribe Menkhef learned his craft copying the rites that make the first mercy possible. During the binding of Nakhtmin, the woman who taught him his letters, the pillar beneath Sekhemhut turns. The wall takes his hand. When it lets him go, a silver splinter lies beneath his skin.
It is climbing toward his Ib.
To learn what he is carrying, Menkhef must leave the only city he knows. Behind him comes a priest who means to preserve him. Ahead waits a warmer oblivion. Every road ends with another hand reaching for what entered his palm.
For readers of The Name of the Wind and Till We Have Faces.
Both civilizations call it mercy.
The Hem Ka bind spirit to body and keep their dead awake behind glass, safe from the dangers of the Duat. They pursue Menkhef because they believe the rite can save him.
Beyond the thaw, hierophants give Nepenthe to the grieving. The drug lifts the burden of sorrow. It leaves the living unable to remember what once hurt.
If the north keeps him, he will stand awake behind glass. If the south receives him, he may forget why he wanted to live.
The silver keeps moving. What entered his hand, and what will remain of him when it reaches his heart?
Read how it begins“The kept are not sleeping.”
The story begins in the deep vaults of Sekhemhut, while Menkhef records the Ka binding of the woman who taught him to write.
Read Chapter One