“Help me choose what to unmake. With you by my side we’ll be in perfect balance. Opposites but equals, my chaos and your creation. Your wisdom and goodness will keep me in check. I will be the fiery god of vengeance while you will be my icy counterpart—the goddess who banks the flames and offers relief and healing.”
When she just stared at him, her eyes full of doubt and questions, he pressed, “Isis, I know you dislike the rules as much as I do. Think about what we could do. Together. I can give you what you long for. The mortals and creations you decide to save, I will pass over. Those you love can live for eternity. Surely that’s worth the price of a few trees and flowers.” He deliberately misled her. It would take much more than trees and flowers to make someone immortal, especially if he was absorbing a share of their life energy. But she wasn’t ready to know that. Not yet.
Isis sucked in a breath, struck by an idea. She could save Baniti. It could be done. If she took Seth’s side, he would allow her to do it.
“What is it you want from me, exactly?” Isis asked.
Seth cocked his head and gave her a small sneer. She was coming around to his way of seeing things. He knew it. Watching her had paid off. She was his. Not even the great Isis could deny his power.
“I want you,” he stated simply.
“Me?”
“Yes. Is it really so shocking? You are a beautiful woman. Not only that, but you have the gift of spells and healing. My wish is that we join ourselves together, create a bond between us.”
“But bonds between the gods are forbidden. Besides, even if they were not, I do not love you.”
Seth shrugged as if it was of no concern to him, but in truth he seethed at the idea of her entertaining feelings for someone else. “We will change the rules. And . . . love will come in time,” he said.
“And if it does not?”
He turned away from Isis, not wanting her to see how her words angered him. “If it does not, we will deal with it together, privately,” he said out loud, while inwardly, he wondered at the possibility of unmaking a person’s feelings. Would it damage the mind or the heart? It would be a risk to attempt such a thing on his bride. He’d test it out on others before working his power on her. He’d need her mind to be fully intact so she could write spells.
When Seth stepped away, Isis gripped the rail of the enclosure. She stared at the animal, which came up and rubbed its head against her hand. It was out of oats and was likely nudging her for more. Absentmindedly, she stroked it as she considered Seth’s proposal. The ability to save Baniti and to have her own children was the dearest wish of her heart. But could she sacrifice other creations so that they would live? It came back to Amun-Ra’s answer from before. Who or what would give up their lives to save the ones she loved?
Then there was the fact that Seth wanted her in the way a man desires a woman. Osiris had been right about that. Osiris. Isis couldn’t deny that she’d given great thought to binding herself to another god, despite the edict that forbade it, but she’d never thought it would be with Seth.
Could she walk away from her feelings for Osiris and dedicate herself to Seth? She felt no love for him. Isis had no desire to be near him. She never missed him when he was gone. Truthfully, she rarely gave him any thought when he wasn’t in her presence.
But when Osiris was not at her side, she ached for him. She wanted to be held by him. Longed to be kissed by him again the way he had kissed her the night before. Isis couldn’t imagine an eternity without him.
A cold thought entered her heart: if Seth found out, would he unmake Osiris so that her love would have no other outlet? She could not allow such a thing to happen. As much as she wanted a child, as important as saving Baniti was, she knew that what Seth proposed was wrong.
Isis turned to Seth and gave him a pitying sort of sisterly smirk.
His whole body tightened in response. Seth knew what her answer would be before she even spoke.
“Seth, I want you to know that I’ve given your offer serious thought,” she began, “but I’m afraid —”
Seth seized her arm. Any softness in his face had been replaced with steel. How dare she pity him? “Do not think to refuse me, Isis,” he hissed. “I know this will come as a surprise, but I’ll give you some time to consider my proposal. And be warned, it is my desire that you belong to me, body and soul. I will accept nothing less. I deserve nothing less,” he spat. “And just so you understand the nature of my power . . .”
Wrenching her toward the wooden rail, Seth forced her to watch as he unmade the creature she’d become so recently enamored with. “No. Please!” she cried, and stretched out her hand just as it disappeared.
When she collapsed in a heap at his feet, sobbing, a surge of pleasure ran through him. Seth crouched down next to her and lifted a fingertip to her wet cheek. He rubbed a tear between his fingers and the corner of his mouth lifted. He enjoyed seeing the glorious goddess reduced to a weeping supplicant.
“Perhaps you need just a bit more convincing,” he said. Closing his eyes, he stretched his power further than he ever had before, testing the boundaries of his ability and unmade every single one of the strange little creatures that Isis adored. They winked out of existence in every dark corner of the cosmos.
Then something interesting happened. The life energy of hundreds of thousands of creatures entered his being at once. The feeling was so overwhelming, so utterly shocking, that he couldn’t absorb it immediately. In his mind the screams of countless innocent creatures railed upon him as he stole their life essence. His head throbbed worse than it ever had before.
The unmaking he’d done in the past had been disturbing, but the suffering was usually so brief he could easily ignore the twinge of guilt that came with it. This time he had to look at what he’d done with an all-seeing eye, and what he saw made him tremble. He clutched his hair and pulled.
Then, though it felt like an eternity, the pangs of death passed through him. The pain subsided, and he realized the effects had lasted just a few seconds. When it was gone, the power of all the lives he’d ripped away filled him, effectively snuffing out the waves of guilt that threatened to bring him to his knees. The raw power was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
Seth was stronger. Bigger. His eyesight had improved a hundredfold. And he was hungry. His body shook with new energy, and then he began to transform. One moment he was himself, and the next his body had become one of the very creatures he’d blinked out of existence.