The sun didn't rise over the Gedrosian sands; it surrendered to them.
I stood atop the dunes, the wind whipping my cloak against my scarred thighs. Behind me, the breathing of thirty thousand men sounded like the tide of a restless ocean. They were tired. They were thirsty. They were human.
I, however, had forgotten how to be merely human somewhere between the Granicus and the edge of the world.
"The maps end here, Sire," Ptolemy said, his voice raspy with dust. He didn't look at the parchment; he looked at me, searching for the madness or the godhood—whichever was currently winning.
"Maps are just confessions of limited imagination, Ptolemy," I replied. I could feel the gaze of Ammon-Zeus burning in the marrow of my bones. "The Earth does not end because a scribe ran out of ink. It ends where my shadow ceases to fall."The sun didn't just rise over the Gedrosian sands; it surrendered to them.
I stood atop the dunes, the wind whipping my chlamys against my scarred thighs. Behind me, the breathing of thirty thousand men sounded like the tide of a restless ocean. They were tired. They were thirsty. They were human