Reignited (Reawakened 0.5)
Colleen Houck
Prologue
Ripening
Seth crouched down to peer at the face of the mortal woman trembling at his feet. It had been an accident—a wonderful, terrible, incredible accident. Euphoria and horror twisted together inside him, until he was almost physically sick from the emotional turmoil of what he’d done. From what he . . . was.
Centuries had passed with no sign that Seth was ever going to come into his powers. Osiris—tall and handsome with his chiseled jaw and quick smile, everyone’s favorite hero—had been flaunting his abilities since he was a strapping boy. Isis—Seth’s beautiful, glorious, and chilling sister—was every inch the untouchable and perfect goddess. If he’d had even a fraction of her ability to cast spells and manipulate magic, he’d thank the stars and be happy with his lot.
Even Nephthys, as unassuming as her gifts were, had developed a talent as a seer and an ability to discern the messages of the stars long before he had come into his own.
It wasn’t fair.
Seth stood and clenched his fists as he thought of it, ignoring the writhing woman prostrating herself before him.
He was the last born. The youngest. It wasn’t his fault that the Waters of Chaos had been nearly emptied by the time he was born, and yet he was the one who had paid the price. While his siblings learned to hone their burgeoning skills and spent their evenings showing off to one another, all he could do was watch them enviously, chest tight and jaw clenched, wondering when, or even if, he would ever find his place in the universe.
During his awkward adolescence—which lasted aeons longer for gods than for mortals, since the spans of their lives were more consistent with those of stars—he’d practice fixedly for days and weeks at a time, never taking sustenance or resting until he’d crumple with exhaustion and fall into the valley of his father’s chest looking for respite. He’d hoped that his father would at least acknowledge his efforts, perhaps take note of the prickly sweat that ran down the back of his neck and his overheated red face. But the god of the earth cared not for such things and, in fact, viewed his youngest son’s painful lack of progress as less than godlike.
When Seth complained and begged audience, his father, Geb, answered with merely a rumble of the ground, if he bothered to answer at all. Gradually, Seth stopped seeking out his guiding hand.
He next turned his eyes to the sky and cried out to his mother who looked down upon him, the clouds of her hair stirring. There was nothing she could do to comfort him except offer her tears. Salty drops would fall and soon he’d be sitting in a pool of her sorrow. No. Geb and Nut would not help him.
Once, he’d turned to his grandfather for advice. But Shu, the god of the wind, just told him to quit his whining and get on with being the god he was. If he couldn’t manage that, then he should try to act more like his older brother, Osiris. And to top off his remarks, Shu sent a stiff gale to dry young Seth’s tears but the hot wind buffeted him, driving him halfway across the Earth before he managed to muster enough strength to resist the powerful push of his elder.
It wasn’t long before he stopped seeking their aid altogether. Over time Seth withdrew from associating with his elders and his siblings and ignored their summons to participate in the drawn-out meetings of the newly organized Ennead.
What did he care for the plight of mortals or of the governing of the cosmos? What had the cosmos ever done for him? Besides, he couldn’t stand to see the pitying looks from his sisters, or, worse, see their giddy expressions of delight whenever Osiris graced the halls of Heliopolis with his presence.
In fact, the only reason he’d visited Heliopolis at all in the last century was to watch Isis. Seth had spent many long nights reclining in the leafy branches of the tree that brushed against her window. Often, she was away, attending to one duty or another that the ruler of all the gods, Amun-Ra, assigned her. He’d leave the tree disappointed, with an uncomfortable crick in his neck that a god of any reputation shouldn’t be at all bothered by. But, every once in a while, his patience was rewarded and he would get an unobstructed view of the ice princess as she prepared to retire for the evening.
At first, he’d spied on her to try to learn her secrets, memorize the spells she’d create and practice before bed. But he soon found that no matter how meticulous he was, or how precise he’d been in copying the spell, he just could not wield magic the same way she did. Even so, he was still drawn to her and found himself outside her window more often than not.
Isis was cold, lovely, and formidable. Seth considered her the most gifted of the siblings. As he sat uncomfortably, night after night, he imagined that he could snatch away her abilities and take them into himself. He would twist her magic and use it to suit his own purposes. Then no one would look at him with sympathy or wince at seeing his bumbling attempts with manipulating matter. Not if he had the gifts of Isis at his disposal.
In the beginning, Seth envisioned taking her power. Then, as time went on and he grew into manhood, his fantasies twisted. He fed his admittedly unwholesome and unnatural obsession with Isis to the point of ignoring his own physical needs. Starving was painful but it wouldn’t kill him and the others either didn’t care about or didn’t notice the dark smudges beneath his eyes and the lankness of his hair. And no one paid him any attention at all whenever Osiris was around anyway.
As he perched in the shadows of his tree, watching her brush her hair, he’d summon a tiny wind—something so unnoticeable as to be considered a non-talent and yet it still took a great deal of his energy—to lift the perfume from her delicate neck. It raced toward his hand where he’d capture it, holding it close to his face until it dissipated hours later.
Then, giving in to the object he kept hidden during the day, Seth would pull out the feather he’d taken from her bath and stroke it, his thumb running over the soft plume in a slow loop as he thought of the one it belonged to. When Isis finally slept, he’d make himself as comfortable as he could and keep silent vigil, allowing his secret, dark thoughts to take shape and embed their vacillating roots in his mind.
If he’d been more confident, he would have done something about his feelings years ago. He would have confronted Isis. Shown her that Osiris was not worth the attention she gave him. That true desire was much more than a winning smile and broad shoulders.