The corner of Seth’s mouth turned down and he lowered his head in a mock bow. “As you wish,” he replied faintly.
“And you will not bother these two this night. Let them say goodbye. They will remain in Heliopolis, where they will spend their remaining hours together, and you will spend the evening on Earth and consider the things you have wrought.” Amun-Ra narrowed his gaze on Seth. “I will know if you breach the boundary between our realms.”
“Of course, mighty one,” Seth said. He gave Nephthys a thoughtful glance, but she shook her head, indicating she was not going to accompany him. Truthfully, he preferred to be on his own for the time being anyway. Tucking his hands behind his back, he made his way to the barrier separating the realms.
As he disappeared through with a pop, he smiled. Let them have their one night together. He’d have the next day and the day after. Isis would forget Osiris before the year was out. After that it would be only a matter of time until he could sway Isis to his side. With her ability to create spells, he could have anything he wanted. He could even depose Amun-Ra himself. Rubbing his hands as he emerged from the barrier, he lifted his nose to the wind and wondered what fearsome creature he could next unmake.
#
An hour later, Nephthys knocked on Amun-Ra’s door.
“Come in,” he called.
When he saw it was her, he rose and took her hand, settling her into the soft chair next to his, the ones where they often took tea together. “How is she?” he asked.
“As can be expected. Osiris has whisked her away.”
“Did you tell her about Cherty?”
Nephthys nodded. “I gave her a bag full of your stamped coins. Then I told her Cherty could be bribed to take her to see her husband and that as long as she took care of her responsibilities, no one would be the wiser.”
“Good,” he said.
“She asked about the true names. She wants me to tell her Seth’s.”
“What did you say?”
“I said that only you had access to that.”
“That’s smart. It means she’ll come after me. She doesn’t need to know that even I don’t know his true name.”
“She thinks I love him,” Nephthys said.
“Did you tell her the truth?”
“I merely replied, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’”
Amun-Ra picked up her hand and traced his fingertips across the back of it. “Do you believe that?” he asked, feeling as if everything in him hung upon her answer.
Nephthys eyes gleamed as they looked at each other. “No,” she answered simply. “Love, once found, is never lost.”
KEEP READING FOR BONUS CHAPTER OF THE NEXT BOOK IN THE REAWAKENED SERIES
Reunited
BY COLLEEN HOUCK
The Snare Of Love
With snare in hand I hide me, I wait and will not stir; The beauteous birds of Araby Are perfumed all with myrrh Oh all the birds of Araby, That down to Egypt come,
Have wings that waft the fragrance Of sweetly smelling gum!
I would that, when I snare them, Together we could be,
I would that when I hear them Alone I were with thee.
If thou wilt come, my dear one, When birds are snared above, I’ll take thee and I’ll keep thee Within the snare of love.
*From Egyptian Myths And Legend
By Donald Mackenzie
Prologue
Entombed
“It begins.”
“Yes, Master. The chains that bind you are weakening.”
“It was foolish of them to think that this prison would hold me indefinitely.”
The darkness that surrounded Seth sat upon his shoulders like a burial shroud weighted with lead. What remained of his grandmother, Tefnut, who once controlled the waters of the earth and sky, swirled around his form—trapping, immobilizing, suffocating.
When he’d first been imprisoned, Tefnut’s etheric waters lapped against his consciousness and dragged him down to the depths of the blackest holes in the universe, where he was swallowed up. Seth couldn’t imagine any kind of punishment that would have been worse. Admittedly, he’d caused the painful deaths of countless beings, but their lives were insignificant. They were flies. No. They were the tiny microscopic organisms that lived on the backs of flies.
And, yes, he’d unmade the golden, all-too-perfect Osiris. But Isis had brought him back, hadn’t she?
Isis.
Just thinking about her made his blood boil.
And Nephthys? His estranged wife who had supported the gods when they’d decided to trap him in the obelisk of eternity?
His fingers itched to wrap around her throat. Thinking of the two goddesses and what he’d do to them once he was free was the only thing that brought him pleasure in his black dungeon. Even Nut, his own mother, had abandoned him.
As he hung suspended beneath Tefnut’s dark waves, he almost forgot who he was.
What he was.
Almost.
Still, it might have been a peaceful incarceration if it hadn’t been for Shu. The god of the wind had decided he no longer wanted to exist without his wife, Tefnut, so Shu caught hold of her life force as it lifted away. Speeding through the cosmos, he joined his soul with hers in a sleep of death, fully knowing there’d be no turning back. Together they ensnared him in a net so powerful, there was no escape. Or so they believed.
What a waste of godly powers.
Seth had puzzled over the years why his grandparents had done it.
Oh, he knew why they’d done it.
His immortal family all believed that nothing short of a god’s sacrifice would be able to hold him. In that they were right.
The part that Seth didn’t understand was why Shu couldn’t live without his wife.
Tefnut was a cranky old bat. Her moods were as changeable as the weather. Of course, Shu was a hot bag of wind himself—constantly preaching to anyone who would listen about right and wrong. And Shu definitely believed there were all kinds of wrong that needed to be fixed where Seth was concerned.
Still, to give up. To relinquish all that Shu was. For a woman. The concept baffled him.
As he considered the idea, the wind that comprised the remains of what was once his grandfather Shu, buffeted against him and then all too quickly, faded away—a pathetic showing when compared to what had trapped him for so long. Its force had screamed in his mind for millennia—hurtling a cyclone of accusations and censure. Now the winds were so weak, he could no longer hear Shu’s voice in the gale.
Seth was almost sad that what they’d once been, two of the most powerful gods in the cosmos, had diminished to the point of disappearing. They’d willingly sacrificed their immortality just because Amun-Ra convinced them that his plan for the cosmos was right and Seth’s was wrong.