The Shadow of The Black Lotus

2026 MINOTAURO AWARD

An epic dark fantasy set in a reimagined Egypt, where a disgraced novice of Isis infiltrates a corrupt court to avenge the dead—and defy the gods.

Imet was raised to obey. At sixteen, a novice in the temple of Isis, she serves in silence while her gifted sister prepares for the priesthood—until the Nile yields the body of a young woman poisoned with black lotus, a forbidden substance tied to the gods. Convinced her sister is in danger, Imet interrupts a sacred rite and is publicly disgraced, stripped of her rank, and cast out. She survives only because the royal embalmer takes her in as an apprentice, initiating her into the perilous knowledge of death.

Ten years later, hardened by exile and loss, that knowledge becomes a weapon. Summoned to the palace, the embalmers—including Imet’s mentor—are slaughtered. The Nile begins to disgorge the walking dead. The court descends into paranoia. When the Pharaoh falls in battle only to rise again before the court, the truth is undeniable: he has stolen immortality from the gods through a corrupted ritual—one paid for with the embalmers’ blood.

Driven by vengeance, Imet infiltrates the empire from its lowest kitchens to its most guarded sanctums, adopting shifting identities—servant, healer, traitor—while forging a dangerous alliance with Akil, the Pharaoh’s disgraced commander.

As the kingdom edges toward collapse, Imet must descend into the Underworld itself to destroy the source of the Pharaoh’s power—knowing that defying gods and kings alike may cost her the fragile future she has only just begun to imagine.