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The ritual had become intolerable: the priests droning outside the solar chapel, the sweltering braziers piled with flame, the incense coating the inside of her mouth as she gasped through the sacred movements again, again her limbs heavy, mind thick with exhaustion, thick with the sound of the ritual chants, thick with so much consecrated wine ceremonially swallowed. Again, again. At the end of each repetition she was empty, hollowed out by the long night, the endless choreography, the liturgy she’d intoned so many times that it too was empty; as meaningless as the constant murmuring of the Nile against its banks. Then there came another beginning, and she continued. Again. Again. Until all that remained was the ritual and her aching desire to see her father once more, growing to desperation with each repetition of the dance.