Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Lost Archaeologist
The desert stretched endlessly before her, golden waves of sand rolling into the horizon. The wind howled through the ruins, carrying whispers of an ancient time long forgotten.
Dr. Sansa Stark exhaled, adjusting her scarf as she shielded her eyes from the sun. The excavation had been grueling, but she could feel it—something important lay beneath these stones.
“This temple predates the New Kingdom,” she murmured, running her fingers over the hieroglyphs. “But these markings… they’re older than anything we’ve seen before.”
Her assistant, Jorah, a seasoned Egyptologist, frowned beside her. “I’ve never seen a cartouche like this. ‘Sa-Ra’… the name of a forgotten queen?”
Sansa’s pulse quickened. The name called to her, stirred something deep in her chest—a familiarity she couldn’t explain.
She traced the inscription, reading aloud, “The lost queen shall return when the dragon rises once more.”
The moment the words left her lips, the ground trembled.
A blinding golden light erupted from the inscription, and the world vanished.
Heat. Noise. War.
Sansa gasped as she awoke on cold stone. The scent of blood and smoke filled her nostrils.
She wasn’t in the desert anymore.
She was in a palace, sprawled on the marble floor of a vast throne room—but it was not abandoned. Men in armor, wielding swords and spears, surrounded her. Their faces were hard, ruthless.
And at the center of it all, standing tall with a bloodstained blade in her hand, was a queen with silver hair and violet eyes.
Daenerys Targaryen.
No—not Targaryen. This woman was Daenerys Nefer-Tari, the Dragon Queen, the Conqueror of Kemet.
And she was looking at Sansa as if she had just found a ghost.
“Bind her,” Daenerys commanded. “She is mine now.”
Sansa
The first thing Sansa Stark felt was heat.
Not the dry warmth of the Egyptian desert she had spent years studying, but something different—thick, suffocating, alive. It clung to her skin, heavy with the scent of smoke and metal. The second thing she felt was pain. A sharp, splitting ache in her skull that pulsed behind her eyes as though something inside her was trying to force its way out.
She forced her lids open, her breath catching at the sight before her.
She wasn’t in the ruins anymore.
Gone were the dust-covered stones, the half-buried walls of the temple she and her team had been excavating. Instead, she found herself sprawled on cold marble, its surface stained red with blood. Massive stone pillars surrounded her, carved with intricate depictions of gods and kings. Torches lined the walls, flickering in the dim light, illuminating the golden thrones at the far end of the hall.
And standing in the center of the chaos, dressed in white and gold, was the most terrifyingly beautiful woman Sansa had ever seen.
Daenerys.
But this wasn’t the Targaryen queen from stories of Westeros. No, this woman stood draped in the robes of a Pharaoh, her violet eyes cold and calculating, her silver hair cascading down her back in intricate braids. Her golden pectoral collar gleamed in the firelight, inlaid with lapis lazuli and red jasper, and at her hip, a curved khopesh sword dripped with fresh blood.
Sansa’s pulse thundered in her ears. What the hell was happening?
“Bind her,” Daenerys commanded, her voice smooth but unyielding. “She is mine now.”
Before Sansa could move, rough hands grabbed her arms, yanking her up from the floor.
“Wait—what—?” Her voice came out hoarse, panic clawing at her throat as two armored soldiers forced her wrists behind her back. Thick ropes wound around them in swift, practiced movements.
No. No, this had to be a dream. A hallucination.
A concussion, maybe. Yes. She must have hit her head in the ruins. There was no other explanation for this.
But the ropes biting into her skin felt real. The warm trickle of sweat down her spine felt real.
And the woman standing before her, staring as though she were something unnatural, something impossible—she felt real too.
Daenerys took a slow step forward, tilting her head as she examined Sansa with those piercing, violet eyes.
“You are not the Queen of Waset,” she murmured.
Sansa stiffened. The Queen of Waset? Waset was the ancient name for Thebes, but—no, that made no sense.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she rasped.
One of the soldiers shoved her forward. She stumbled, barely keeping her balance as she was dragged toward Daenerys.
“You are not her,” Daenerys repeated, softer this time. And yet, there was something in her expression—something wary, something uncertain.
A cold tendril of fear crept up Sansa’s spine.
She thinks I’m someone else.
She needed to think. To wake up from this nightmare.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
That earned a laugh from one of the soldiers.
“You stand before Pharaoh Daenerys Nefer-Tari, ruler of Kemet, Mistress of the Two Lands,” the man sneered. “Show respect, or I’ll carve it into you myself.”
Pharaoh.
Sansa’s breath caught. That was impossible. Pharaohs had ruled thousands of years ago, in a time before Greece, before Rome. And yet—the hieroglyphs. The prophecy she had read in the ruins.
The lost queen shall return when the dragon rises once more.
No. No, it couldn’t be.
She had studied history. She had never once expected to become part of it.
Daenerys
The woman before her was a liar.
Daenerys knew queens. She knew power, she knew war, and she knew what it meant to break someone. This woman—this imposter—was no queen. She did not stand like one. Did not look like one.
And yet…
She looked exactly like her.
Sansa Sa-Ra, Queen of Waset. The last true ruler standing between Daenerys and her conquest of all Kemet.
But that wasn’t possible.
Because the real Queen Sa-Ra had been leading her armies against Daenerys for months. And Daenerys had been prepared to kill her tonight.
Yet here she was, on her knees, looking up at her with fear and confusion, not defiance.
She is pretending.
And yet… there was something off. Something wrong.
She had expected Sa-Ra to spit at her feet, to curse her name, to demand her army’s surrender. Instead, she looked—lost.
And for the first time in a long time, Daenerys hesitated.
Her grip tightened around the hilt of her bloodied sword.
If this was a trick, it was a dangerous one.
But if it wasn’t…
“Take her to the royal chambers,” Daenerys ordered.
The soldier who had bound her faltered. “Pharaoh, should we not—”
“Now.”
A moment’s hesitation, and then they obeyed.
She watched as the woman was dragged from the throne room, her red hair tumbling over her shoulders as she fought against her captors.
Who are you?
And why does my heart know your face?
Sansa
Sansa kicked and struggled, but it was no use. The two guards dragged her through the palace halls, past stone columns adorned with golden carvings of dragons and fire. The architecture was breathtaking—impossibly well-preserved, as though she had stepped back in time.
Because you did, whispered a dark voice in her mind.
No. That wasn’t possible. Time travel didn’t exist. Magic didn’t exist.
She had touched a stone carving, read an ancient prophecy, and now she was—what? A prisoner in a world that shouldn’t exist?
The guards shoved open a door and threw her inside.
She hit the ground hard, groaning as she pushed herself up onto her elbows.
The room was lavish, with tall open windows overlooking the Nile, sheer white curtains swaying in the warm breeze. The walls were lined with gold and ivory, with a massive canopied bed in the center, draped in fine linens and embroidered silk.
She expected stone floors, but instead, she felt soft rugs beneath her fingers, dyed rich blues and purples.
Not a dungeon.
A queen’s chamber.
Her mind raced. Why would a conqueror place her here, rather than throw her in a cell?
Because she thinks I’m someone I’m not.
She barely had time to catch her breath before the door opened again.
Daenerys stepped inside, her silver hair catching the candlelight.
“Tell me who you are,” she said.
Sansa swallowed. The truth sounded insane.
But she had nothing else.
“I’m not the Queen of Waset,” she whispered. “I don’t even belong here. I don’t know how I got here.”
Daenerys studied her, eyes darkening. “You lie.”
“I swear I’m not.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with something unspoken, electric.
And then, Daenerys stepped closer—so close that Sansa could see the flecks of amethyst and fire in her violet irises.
“Then tell me,” Daenerys murmured. “Why do you wear the face of the woman I was about to kill?”