The Golden Age
On the one night Thebes throws its harvest festival, a granary about to explode, a flood arriving days early, and a royal succession brawl collide — and the covenant must save the whole city without ever being seen to do it.
Somewhere in the long, unbroken peace after Kadesh, Vivek and the Kowan Guardian run the covenant on the ground — a granary on the edge of catastrophe, a Nile flood mistimed, a succession dispute that nearly draws blood in Ramesses' own temple — while three of the eighteen cats quietly turn each crisis the right way and Femi and Babu keep the machinery hidden. A suspicious courtier collects just enough impossible sightings across the day to threaten exposing everything at the festival's climax. The city sings its thanks to gods it half believes in, never knowing eighteen cats are walking through the crowd earning that gratitude in real time. The covenant holds — barely — but a nameless temple scribe has been writing down every irregularity, and his report is already saddled for Alexandria.