Aziza read the scroll again. Eighteenth birthday…when is Atem's birthday? She looked up at the walls covered in hieroglyphics. Where is the section about Pharaoh Ahknamkanen? She scanned the walls looking for the string of symbols that detailed the current king's name. There! She hurried over to the other side of the library and leaned back so she could see the whole script from top to bottom. Atem's birthday was surely written here. The birth of the heir was a huge event and would have been recorded. She found his name near the middle of the existing script, followed by a date. Something clenched inside her. His birthday was only a month and a half away!

She unrolled the scroll still clenched in her hand and looked at another of the details. The First Princess of the House of Life, Tea, was the intended bride. Aziza walked to the histories of the temples, looking for the most recent additions. The symbol for the House of Life was The Egyptian hieroglyph for "life" with Hathor's sky symbol over it, so she looked for a new scroll with that on its label. When she found it, Aziza unrolled the first foot and skimmed it for the name Tea. When she found the announcement of her birth, she groaned. The girl was almost five years older than Atem! Still, she thought, sometimes age doesn't matter. In fact, sometimes it's better to have a big gap like that. All the same, she kept reading.

What she found was not encouraging. "Does her tasks exactly as she is told." That meant the girl either had no imagination or did not think for herself, or perhaps was simply too lazy to do more. "Fair of face with beautiful brown hair." Hah! As if brown hair was anything extraordinary. Aziza had brown hair herself. Now Yugi's hair would have been something to brag about. "Displays maidenly caution and a dislike for the courser matters of common life." Oh, so she was a coward who lived in luxury and turned her nose up at anything else! Calm down Aziza, she told herself. It might not be as bad as I think. She could simply be a very beautiful girl who delights in doing things perfectly and is a bit more shy and ignorant than an average girl. And why am I so critical of her, anyway? It's not as if I… Aziza shied away from that train of thought, but some part of her plowed on. It's not as if I think I would be a better candidate.

Or did she?

She slowly rolled the scroll back up and put it back on the shelf. Was she really so presumptuous to think she would make a good match for the Crown Prince of Egypt? This girl Tea had probably been groomed for the position of queen since she could speak, taught the manners and proper behavior for a queen and given every advantage for her physical attributes and education. But then she remembered the scroll and what it had said between the lines. Aziza straightened up. She wouldn't decide anything until she knew more.

Yugi popped her head through the doorway and shouted, "Aziza, are you here?"

"Yes, I'm here," the older girl answered as she walked back towards the door. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

"What do you mean?" the spiky-headed girl asked.

Aziza shrugged. "I'm just wondering what could possibly have dragged you away from your beloved to visit a poor little librarian such as myself," she commented.

Yugi's face fell and she mumbled, "I'm sorry, it's just that, well, I'm not really supposed to leave him and he's always so busy that I…what's so funny?"

For indeed her sister was chuckling. "I was only joking, Yugi. I know you just want to spend time with him," she said as she ruffled her sister's spiky hair. "Besides, watching me sort scrolls all day can't be much fun." Yugi knocked away her hand with a smile. "But why were you looking for me?"

She grabbed Aziza's hand and started pulling her out of the library and down the hallway. "Yami and his family invited us to dinner tonight," she explained. "We have to go get ready!"

The older girl groaned. "Isn't this fine enough," she asked as she gestured down at her sheath dress and gold collar with the hieroglyphs for "keeper of the scrolls" on it.

Yugi shrugged. "It might be normally, but the Pharaoh is inviting one of his high priests and a few other members of the court to eat with us," she explained. "Yami and I picked out something for you." Of course, Atem had helped too, fussing over which jewels would look best in her hair or on her neck, but her sister didn't need to know that. Yugi almost giggled at the thought.

Her sister, on the other hand, groaned. She wished Yugi and her prince would stop treating her like a dress-up doll! Still, with the more prestigious company she might have gone to them for help anyway, especially since she didn't want to ruin Yugi's chances of being accepted by the court. The intended of a prince could not have disgraceful family. So she let Yugi pull her back to their quarters so they could prepare for tonight's dinner.

Once they had washed and dressed in their finery, Yugi brought out the jewelry she and the princes had picked for the night. She took out hers, a gold bracelet with hieroglyphics detailing her position and a bead necklace with a pendant that looked like a coiled cobra, one of the goddess Hathor's symbols. Besides the sun pendant she'd received from her father, it was Yugi's favorite necklace.

She heard a gasp behind her and turned. Aziza was holding out her necklace as if it might bite her. "I picked it out," Yugi commented and her sister's stricken expression eased.

She laid the beautiful sparrow-shaped necklace over her collarbone and brushed her hair over her shoulder so she could tie it together behind her neck. "I was afraid they suspected something," Aziza said.

"Don't worry, they don't even know about Dad," Yugi said. She bit her lip and asked, "Would it be alright to tell Yami someday? If we do end up getting married, I don't…"

Aziza pulled her into a hug. "Of course you can tell him. Husbands and wives shouldn't have secrets between them, especially not something like this." Then she pulled away and grinned at Yugi. "Besides, I want to see the look on his face when he realizes just whose daughter he sent from the palace crying."

She laughed as Yugi gently elbowed her and scolded, "That wasn't his fault and you know it."

"I do, I do," the older girl said, still chuckling. "Come on, we have to get going or we'll be late!"

This story may grind to a halt, even though it wasn't moving particularly fast to begin with, as I now have a wedding to plan. My boyfriend proposed to me on the first morning of 2016! So I hope you enjoyed an intelligent Aziza figuring out all about Atem's current marriage predicament.

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