The military tent was an oasis of harsh, fluorescent light against the deepening twilight. The air inside was stale, smelling of canvas and brewed tea. A kind-faced officer, a Colonel named Hakam, had been speaking to Amira for the better part of an hour, his voice a low, gentle murmur that barely penetrated the thick fog of her shock. She was wrapped in a coarse wool blanket, a mug of untouched tea growing cold between her hands.
"...we searched the entire area, Dr. Khan," the Colonel was saying, his expression a careful mixture of sympathy and professional duty. "We used ground-penetrating radar, thermal imaging... nothing. There are no tunnels, no tracks leading away from the site. The sand creatures... they simply vanished. As did your father." He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "He has been officially listed as missing. We will, of course, continue the search, but..."
Amira looked up, her eyes focusing on him for the first time. The unspoken words hung in the air: presumed dead.
"He's not dead," she said, her voice a dry rasp. "They took him."
Colonel Hakam sighed softly. "Amira... I can't imagine what you've been through. The trauma..."
"It's not trauma!" she insisted, a spark of her father's fire flashing in her eyes. "I know where he is."
The Colonel's gaze softened with pity. It was a look she had seen doctors give to hysterical patients. It made her feel small, powerless. How could she explain it? How could she describe a map that had no coordinates, a compass that was a feeling in her bones?
She closed her eyes, shutting out the pitying look, and focused inward. The vision was gone, but the knowledge it had imparted remained. It was a searing certainty, a path burned into her memory that felt more real than the tent around her. It wasn't a visual map of lines and symbols; it was a pull, an instinct. A cold, deep certainty of a location buried far beneath the sands.
She thought of the countless geological surveys she and her father had studied, the satellite maps, the seismic charts. This place... it wasn't on any of them. It was a void, a blank spot that all their technology had somehow missed.
Her eyes snapped open. She wouldn't convince him with visions. She would convince him with science. Her science.
She stood, the blanket falling from her shoulders, and strode to the large tactical map of the Giza Plateau pinned to a corkboard. Her finger, though trembling slightly, stabbed at a specific location a few kilometers south of the main pyramid complex.
"Here," she said, her voice clear and steady, all trace of hysteria gone. "The GPR survey from 2023. You see this data shadow? Everyone, my father included, dismissed it as a dense granite formation, a geological anomaly. They were wrong."
Colonel Hakam walked over, peering at the map. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying it's not a rock formation. It's a structure. The materials are too uniform, the edges too defined. It's deep, far deeper than any known burial chamber, which is why the signal was so weak. It's a tomb. An undiscovered one. That's where they took him."
The Colonel stared at the map, then back at her. The pity was gone, replaced by a wary respect, but the skepticism remained. "Dr. Khan, with all due respect, to launch a deep-earth excavation based on a contested interpretation of old data... it's impossible. The resources, the permits..."
Amira finally understood. They wouldn't help her. Not like this. They were soldiers, men of procedure and evidence. They couldn't act on the desperate conviction of a grieving daughter.
But she could.
She remembered the strange, confidential directive issued by the Ministry of Antiquities just after the Crimson Moon, a quiet call for scholars and specialists with "unique perspectives" on historical sites to register for special projects. At the time it seemed bizarre. Now, it was a lifeline.
She turned away from the map and looked out through the tent flap at the impossible golden pillar still ascending from the pyramid. The grief was still a raging fire within her, but it no longer just consumed. It was forging her will into something hard and sharp. The power that had awoken inside her was not a curse. It was a tool.
She was Dr. Amira Khan, daughter of the great Aris Khan. His name still opened doors. His reputation was her inheritance. And she had a map that no one else in the world possessed.
"Thank you for the tea, Colonel," she said, her voice devoid of emotion. "I'll find