Broken in a single winter. Senedj-Maa took the mantle in the autumn of 2762, wearing a captain's armour and carrying the sword that had made his name, and he went out on his first night to hunt a brood alone. By the end of the winter he was crippled. His wound never closed, his strength never came back, and he held the mantle for ten more years from a chair in Memphis, a Maahes in name more than in deed. He was killed in 2752 when a brood came to his house. The Pride saw in his fall a hard truth: the mantle had chosen a man who trusted his weapon more than his gate. They set a new Test, the Test of the Empty Hand: face the hungry with nothing in your hands, and see whether you stand.
