“I am divine,” laughed Amenhotep IV. It was their little joke.

“Is it so difficult to show me as I am?” he finally barked at the artist. He was a new pharaoh and still didn’t understand that raising his voice showed weakness. His father, Amenhotep the Magnificent, had died from a painful infection of the mouth. Now Amenhotep IV, who had briefly served alongside his father as co-regent, stood to flick a bee off his shaved chest.

He missed.

Nefertiti stepped forward and brushed away the bee before it could sting him, then held her husband’s hand. She saw that he looked all too human on this, the day Egypt was supposed to bask in his strength as pharaoh.

This was a problem: The pharaoh needed to prove his immortality by galloping a chariot through the teeming masses outside. Even under the best of conditions, it was a bold and reckless ride that could easily end in a crash, which would be a disaster for the young pharaoh.

As palace insiders were all too aware, Amenhotep IV was very poor at the reins of a chariot. This ritual race could become a suicide run for him.

Yet if by some miracle he pulled it off, his claim to Egypt ’s throne would be secure. No longer would his masculinity be questioned. With one death-defying ride, Amenhotep IV would demonstrate his power in a most public way. Egypt would know that he was their one true pharaoh.

But if anything went wrong-if Amenhotep IV got thrown or dropped the reins and crashed into the crowd; if a wheel somehow broke off, and the chariot spun out of control-it would be obvious that the strange-looking man claiming to be the pharaoh was no god. And if a pharaoh was not divine, the temple high priests would find another to take his place.

A pharaoh’s chariot, lightweight and sleek

Somehow they would kill him. And possibly his queen as well.