Chapter Ten - Ruling the Ruins

CHAPTER TEN

Ruling the Ruins

BY THE TIME most kings are dead, Ramses is just getting started.

He’s past sixty. Then seventy. Then eighty. He’s already outlived enemies, allies, wives, sons, priests, scribes, architects, and generals. Even his own legacy is starting to feel tired. But he’s still there. Still Pharaoh. Still wearing the crown. Still making offerings. Still demanding construction on temples while the rest of the world quietly falls apart around him.

Because Egypt is cracking.

The tombs in the Valley of the Kings are being robbed. Not by foreigners, but by Egyptians. Guards, officials, and insiders who know where the gold is buried and who’s asleep enough not to notice. In one case, workers steal from a tomb and get caught. Not by Pharaoh, but by their boss, who reports them in a written complaint. Ramses is alive while this is happening. The dead don’t even get to rest.

Grain is scarce. The Nile floods are weak. Crops fail. People riot. Laborers strike, the first recorded labor strike in history. And what do they write on the walls when they demand payment?

They blame the Pharaoh.

Not openly. Not directly. But the message is there. The divine cycle is breaking down. The afterlife promises don’t mean much if your family starves before you die. The temples are still grand. The statues are still standing. But the people know something is off.

And Ramses keeps going.

Keeps holding festivals. Keeps commissioning statues. Keeps rewriting history. Keeps acting like nothing has changed, or like he can outlast the change. And in a way, he kinda does.

Because even as Egypt rots beneath him, Ramses refuses to leave the throne.

He’s old. He’s outliving generations. He’s seen twenty or thirty people who should have replaced him die before him. But he doesn’t step down. Doesn’t fade into legend. He just rules.

Until the ruin becomes normal.

And Egypt starts to forget what a young Pharaoh even looks like.