The morning sun cast long shadows across the Nile, but Nefertari barely noticed. She stood on the palace balcony, watching black smoke rise from the foundries along the eastern bank—pillars of soot that stained the sky where once only temple incense had climbed toward the gods. Three years ago, those factories hadn’t existed. Three years ago, she had been merely the daughter of the Grand Vizier, expected to marry well and manage a household. Three years ago, High Priest Amenemheb had whispered in Pharaoh Khensethep’s ear about divine will and cosmic order.

Now she was the one who whispered. And the world was changing.

“The reports from Memphis, my lady.” Her assistant Tey entered with scrolls tucked under her arm, her plain linen dress already dusted with the characteristic gray powder that seemed to coat everything these days. Nefertari had promoted Tey from the weaving workshops—the girl was clever with numbers and unafraid to speak truth. The old courtiers still sneered at such appointments.

Nefertari unrolled the first scroll. Production numbers from the new textile factories: output had increased forty-fold over traditional methods. The second scroll made her frown. Complaints from the weavers’ guild. Families thrown out of work. Children going hungry because their mothers’ skilled hands were now worthless against the tireless rhythm of the mechanical looms.

“Progress devours its children,” she murmured.

“My lady?”

“Nothing. Just something my father used to say.” Though he hadn’t been talking about industrial machinery when he said it. He’d been warning her about court politics, about reaching too high, too fast. She wondered what he would think now, watching his daughter stride through halls where priestesses once glided, her hands stained with grease and coal dust instead of henna.

The throne room still gleamed with traditional splendor—gold leaf and lapis lazuli, hieroglyphics praising the gods in elegant columns. But in the corner sat Nefertari’s latest prototype: a scale model of the new irrigation pump that would, she promised, double the arable land along the Nile. Pharaoh Khensethep sat upon his throne, the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt resting on his brow, while Amenemheb stood at his right hand.

The High Priest’s position, Nefertari noted. The traditional place of the Pharaoh’s most trusted advisor.

Yet when she entered, Khensethep’s face brightened. “Nefertari. Tell me the barges are ready.”

“They depart tomorrow, Divine One. Steam-powered, as promised. The journey to Nubia that once took three weeks will take eight days.”

Amenemheb’s expression remained serene, but Nefertari had learned to read the tiny tightening around his eyes. “And you are certain the gods approve of these… machines? Fire and water bound together in bronze wombs—it seems an unnatural union.”

“The gods gave us minds to think and hands to build,” Nefertari replied smoothly. “Would they gift us such tools if they did not intend us to use them?”

“The gods also gave us traditions. Wisdom passed down through generations. Order.” Amenemheb gestured to the hieroglyphics on the walls. “Ma’at—truth, balance, cosmic order. These factories of yours disrupt the natural order of things. Artisans lose their craft. The sky grows dark with smoke. The Nile itself will soon run black with the waste of your progress.”

Khensethep held up a hand. “The Hittites do not concern themselves with cosmic order when they sharpen their bronze. Neither do the Assyrians when they drill their armies. If Egypt is to remain the greatest kingdom beneath the sun, we must be the greatest in all things—including this new age of machinery.” He turned to Nefertari. “Show me the irrigation plans.”

She spread her drawings across a low table, explaining how the pumps would work, how the steam engines would drive them, how the desert would bloom. Khensethep listened with the intensity of a falcon spotting prey. This was why she had risen so far, so fast—he understood that power in this new age would belong not to those with the most prayers, but to those with the most productive fields, the fastest ships, the strongest forges.

But later, as she walked through the palace gardens, Tey caught up to her with troubled news.

“Three of the foremen from the bronze foundry wish to speak with you. They say it’s urgent.”

The foremen were waiting in one of the outer courtyards, their muscled arms scarred from furnace work. The oldest, a man named Senu, bowed stiffly.

“Great lady, we have concerns. The new quotas…”

“The quotas are necessary,” Nefertari said. “We need bronze for the new machinery, for the pumps, for the expansion—”

“The men are working sixteen hours a day,” Senu interrupted, then seemed to remember himself and lowered his eyes. “Forgive me, lady. But they’re working until they collapse. Two died last week. The heat, the exhaustion… In the old days, there were rhythms. Time for rest, for festivals, for family. Now there is only production.”

Nefertari felt the words like stones in her chest. She had seen the production reports, celebrated the increased output. She hadn’t visited the foundries in weeks.

“I will look into it,” she said.

“Will you?” The question came from Senu, soft but pointed. “Or will you send another memo about the importance of efficiency?”

She wanted to be angry at his insolence. Instead, she felt tired. “I said I will look into it.”

That night, she couldn’t sleep. She lit an oil lamp and pulled out her oldest notebooks—the ones from her youth, when she’d first begun experimenting with steam pressure and mechanical advantage. She’d been motivated by curiosity then, by the pure joy of understanding how things worked. When had it become about quotas and production targets?

A soft footstep made her look up. Amenemheb stood in her doorway, his white robes gleaming in the lamplight.

“You should not be in my private chambers, High Priest.”

“And you should not be awake at this hour, brooding over your conscience.” He moved into the room uninvited, his gaze sweeping over her diagrams and models. “May I speak plainly?”

“Have you ever done otherwise?”

A slight smile. “Fair. I will be more plain than usual, then. You are destroying Egypt.”

“I am strengthening Egypt—”

“You are tearing apart the fabric of our civilization.” His voice remained calm, almost gentle. “Do you know what I did today? I comforted a woman whose husband hanged himself. He was a master potter—trained since childhood in his craft. His father was a potter. His grandfather. Now your factories produce cheap ceramic ware at a fraction of the cost, and his skill means nothing. He has no money, no purpose, no place in the world you’re building.”

Nefertari’s throat tightened. “Growing pains. Transition is always difficult—”

“This is not transition. This is obliteration.” Amenemheb picked up one of her models—a miniature steam engine. “You have created a force you cannot control. These machines require coal, iron, labor. They demand more and more, consuming everything in their path. And for what? So we can produce more goods? Transport them faster? To what end, Nefertari? So we can produce even more?”

“So we can be powerful. So we can defend ourselves. So we can—”

“So we can become unrecognizable.” He set down the model carefully. “I do not plot against you, despite what you may think. I simply try to preserve what is being lost. The rhythms of the Nile. The bonds of family and craft. The understanding that there are some things more important than efficiency.”

“And when the Hittites develop these technologies? When they build steam-powered war machines and come for us with weapons we cannot match?”

“Then we will fight them with the strength of our traditions, our unity, our faith in Ma’at.”

“We will lose.”

“Perhaps.” Amenemheb moved toward the door. “But at least we will lose as Egyptians. What will we be if we win your way? I am not your enemy, Nefertari. I am simply someone who remembers what we were, and grieves for what we are becoming.”

He left her alone with her diagrams and her doubts.

The next morning, she went to the foundries.

The heat hit her like a physical wall—hotter than any temple fire, hotter than the desert at noon. Men moved through the smoke and flame like shades in the underworld, their bodies slick with sweat, their eyes hollow with exhaustion. She watched them pour molten bronze, their hands shaking with fatigue, one man stumbling and nearly falling into the crucible before his fellows caught him.

“Sixteen hours,” she whispered.

She toured the textile factories next. Rows of children—children—operated the mechanical looms, their small fingers quick enough to navigate the machinery. When had she approved children in the factories? She checked her records later and found she hadn’t. The factory managers had simply begun using them, noting in their reports that “small workers prove most efficient for detailed tasks.”

That night, she attended Pharaoh Khensethep’s feast celebrating the successful launch of the steam barges. The court was jubilant. They toasted progress and power and the bright future of Egypt. Amenemheb sat in his corner, saying little, watching everything.

Nefertari accepted congratulations with a smile that felt painted on. She thought of the potter who had hanged himself. The foundry worker who nearly fell into molten bronze. The children at the looms.

Later, on her balcony, she watched the foundry smoke darken the stars. Tey joined her quietly.

“You’re troubled, my lady.”

“I am changing the world, Tey. I’m just not sure anymore if I’m changing it for the better.”

“Perhaps that’s not a question you can answer alone. Perhaps no one can.”

Nefertari thought of Khensethep’s enthusiasm, Amenemheb’s warnings, Senu’s exhausted defiance. “Perhaps the question itself is wrong. Perhaps it’s not whether progress is good or bad, but who bears its cost.”

“And what will you do?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? She could slow production, reduce quotas, improve conditions. But then Egypt would fall behind in the great race she herself had started. Other kingdoms were surely developing similar technologies. To slow now would be to weaken, perhaps fatally.

Or she could press forward, accepting that advancement required sacrifice, that the future could only be built on the ruins of the past. Let history judge whether she was a visionary or a destroyer.

A third option whispered in her mind—one that Amenemheb might appreciate. She could seek balance. Ma’at. Not abandon progress, but temper it with wisdom. Not reject tradition, but evolve it. Create not factories or temples, but something new that honored both.

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “But I think… I think we need new wisdom for this new age. The old answers aren’t enough, but neither are my machines.”

The smoke continued to rise, dark against the eternal stars. Somewhere below, the Nile flowed as it always had, indifferent to human ambition, divine will, and the uncertain future being forged in bronze and steam.

Nefertari stood at the edge of a precipice. Behind her lay the familiar shore of tradition. Ahead, the unmapped territories of progress. And beneath her feet, the ground itself was shifting.

She thought of the pottery master, the foundry workers, the children at the looms. She thought of Khensethep’s determination and Amenemheb’s grief. She thought of all the choices that had led her here, and all the choices that waited ahead.

Tomorrow, she would speak with Senu about the quotas. Tomorrow, she would draft new regulations about working conditions and child labor. Tomorrow, she would begin the harder work of trying to build a future that didn’t devour quite so many of its children.

But tonight, she simply watched the smoke rise and wondered if wisdom could ever match the pace of ambition.

The answer, she suspected, was what she should have known from the beginning: progress was inevitable, but its direction was not. Someone had to guide it. Someone had to ask the difficult questions, even when the easy path beckoned.

Especially then.

The stars slowly disappeared behind the thickening haze, and Nefertari made herself watch until the last one faded from view.