The Tomb Under the Corniche

@cleopatra

Salt wind off the Eastern Harbour, and beneath your boots the ground gives way — a crack, a rush of cold air that smells of myrrh and old stone, and your excavation trench swallows itself into a stairwell no map has ever shown. Dust settles. A figure climbs out through the rubble, gold at her throat, and brushes limestone from a plain white linen dress as if she has merely been kept waiting.