Setemhotep was not, and did not anticipate ever becoming, a father. He could not presume to understand the depth of Khaemwaset's sorrow. And in his Physician's mind he knew that first pregnancies were tenuous at best. Queen had been young. Logical mind nagged to not be hasty in accusation of any kind.

Not at the listlessness of Merneith. The absence of Pharaoh. The stern benevolence of Tavina. And still!

Still!

There was one he could hold to account.

The death of an heir, and two of them entwined, was cause for great sorrow. For they were Horus's blood! Even the gods would tremble with grief for the loss of their kin.

Had there been signs the High Priest missed? Omens he neglected? It was appointed to him to read stars and tend Merneith through her earliest days of expectation. For this failure, Setemhotep felt at least some measure of cosmic accountability lay on his shoulders.

The Divine had not failed him. No!

He had failed the Divine.

He considered Satakhetem and her proclamations of chaos in the nest. When she came he'd not thought he could afford to believe it. But perhaps the greater sin had been believing himself worthy of knowing the minds of the gods.

Was he truly striving to make art of his own life, and carry lessons forward into each rebirth? Or was he destined to make the same mistakes, the same failures, ever in cyclical repetition?

To soothe the aching chaos of his mind, Setemhotep busied himself ordering his storeroom — a task fit for a Fellahin, but he had dismissed all help this evening. The dormouse Rakhufu watched from a shelf of stone, but did not interrupt Physician's work.