3. Sett
Sett
" A re you planning to spend eternity here, Father?" Anubis asked me.
I turned to look at my son, standing by the gates of my chambers and took a deep breath.
"Why do you care, Ani?" I asked.
Anubis sighed and approached my recliner, taking the chalice of wine from my hands.
"Because I love you, Father, and I don't want to see you waste your immortality grieving."
I snatched the wine back from him and huffed.
"I've already spent five thousand years. What do you think is going to change in the next five?"
"You're impossible." He groaned. "I know you loved Father, I loved him too, but that doesn't mean you have to stop living. We've been over this. Father wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your days mourning his loss."
I hid behind the rim of my chalice, the full-bodied red nectar feeling almost like blood against my lips, but its magic was in its effect. It made me forget.
"Ani, shouldn't you be judging some poor old dead souls? Let me fester in peace."
His hands turned to fists and I almost laughed. He always got so angry at me when I refused to listen to him. But it wasn't my fault. I couldn't find it in me to leave these halls, to do anything in fact, without him.
It didn't matter if it was five thousand years or five million years. My love for him would never perish. And the pain of losing would never subside. My life had ended the moment he’d been killed.
"You're a stubborn old man. And Father would be ashamed of what you've become," Ani said.
It wasn't anything I hadn't heard before. It wasn't anything new. It used to hurt. Time may not have eased the anguish of his loss, but it hadn't definitely rendered words immaterial.
"Perhaps. I guess we'll never know," I answered.
Ani brought his fists up to his mouth and stopped himself from shouting.
"You're never going to change, are you? You're determined to stay locked up in here like a prisoner and waste away, aren't you?"
"As long as this world goes round and the sands of time pass through in storms, I'll always be here. I'll never leave and there's nothing you can do?—"
Before I could make my proclamation my body, my soul, even my mind, were yanked back, dragged into darkness. An abyss that swallowed me whole and when it spat me out it split me into two, only keeping the eternal part of me.
I opened my eyes gasping for air but even when I sat up and attempted to fill my lungs with oxygen, they still burned as if the air was toxic.
I was fighting for my life and then…
Then his gaze met mine and all was well with the world again. My mind, body and soul were at peace.
"Hi," he said and my heart skipped a beat.
"Hello," I answered, smiling at him. My beautiful husband. My soulmate. My godmate.
Was I dead? What on Duat had happened to me? I couldn't be. If I had, Ani would be standing before me ready to weigh my heart before he ushered me to whatever afterlife awaited me. But even then, my husband wouldn’t be waiting for me on the other side. If he did, I would have taken my life eons ago.
No, this was something else.
A dream, perhaps?
"My king," I tried to sit up, my fingers searching for him, needing him to find my touch so I could pull him onto me and taste him after millennia without him.
Instead of reaching out for me, he took a step back.
"What?" he asked.
I caught my breath at the sight of him, his eyes bright and beautiful despite their darkness, illuminating the very depths of my soul. But the more I watched him the more reality came crashing around me until…
"You're not my Ra," I said, barely realizing what I was uttering until it was already spoken.
It was the truth. He wasn't my husband. He wasn't my soulmate. He was a stranger. A handsome stranger with a striking resemblance to my godmate, but he wasn't him.
"Wh-who are you?" I asked him, unable to take my eyes off him even after the realization.
"I'm Drew. Drew Matsoukas," he said. "Erm…nice…nice to meet you."
"Drew?" I whispered, his name alien yet soothing rolling off my tongue.
He nodded.
"Where am I, Drew? What is this place?" I only managed to look around me when he glanced away.
I craned my neck, taking in my surroundings, every passing moment making me feel stranger and stranger in my own body.
Until I caught my reflection in the steel door to my side. It wasn't clear. It wasn't even smooth, but I could tell it wasn't me. This wasn't my body.
"You're on Earth, my king. The House of Geb," someone whispered behind me with reverence, and a cloaked figure stepped forward, kneeling before me.
"The House of…what? What am I doing here? What did you do to me?" I jumped off the steel bed I'd been sitting on but my legs gave way before I could show both of them my wrath. "You yanked my soul away from home to bring me to the House of Geb? To your Earth? For what? My kind hasn't been in this plane for millenia."
"Perhaps, your majesty, but a few have stepped through to our world and are causing havoc. I believe you are familiar with this young man's…problem?" the red-haired woman said and turned to the young man, Drew.
"Problem? What problem?" I asked him.
He jumped, his shoulders hunching and his eyes flinching at my words, as if he were scared of me. A part of me hated I'd caused him such fear, but the other part, the sane part, wanted to dig deeper, make this man give up his life to appease my divine soul.
"H-Horus," was all he said.
The bile rose in my throat in a mere instant. "My nemesis."
"Your brother," he said, as if in retaliation and there was a hint of something in his expression and tone. It wasn't sarcasm. It was…anger.
"I wouldn't ever call him that again if I were you," I growled.
Horus had stopped being my brother the first time he’d laid his hand on me. From that moment on he became the person I hated the most in this and every other world.
"Sor—apologies." The man dipped his head in shame or respect—or both—and took a visible big breath and I noticed his marking. A big black tattoo that took up most the right side of his neck and even reached part of his shoulder. It was a circle with three interlinked arcs that symbolized the power of three. A triquetra.
Interesting .
"I didn't mean to insult you, your majesty."
He was…an intriguing young man.
Then again, it wasn't as if I'd encountered many young men in the last few millennia. I had no inclination to. I hadn't even wanted to leave my bedroom. And after such a long time I'd finally been forced to not only step out, but to go to an entirely different world. A world we'd all left behind thousands of years ago.
"It’s impossible. I killed him with my own hands. There isn’t a shred of that monster left to make up my little finger let alone a whole human. What do you really want with me?”
I could tell the young man was uncomfortable but I didn’t budge. I couldn’t show any weakness. Not where Horus was concerned.
“I don’t know what to tell you. All I know is a man who calls himself Horus is controlling every aspect of my life and has been for three years now.”
That couldn’t be.
I still remembered the day I took my brother’s life. It was etched in my brain like it was yesterday. The day I lost my soulmate and exacted my revenge.
I walked up to him and with a steady, firm hand I grabbed him by the chin and made him look into my eyes.
It was astounding, his resemblance to my Ra. The square jawline, the thick eyebrows, the luscious pink lips. The dark hair and smooth skin.
And yet as much as he resembled him I could tell he wasn't. If it were, my soul would recognize him. But my Ra was dead. There was no afterlife, nor reincarnation for him. He'd been stolen from me, his soul consumed by devourers into a million pieces, his light extinguished for good, never to be seen again.
It was truly a fate worse than death. I should know. I was the Father of the god of the dead.
“Tell me. What's Horus up to?"
The man, Drew, trembled under my touch, the horrors of what he'd suffered under my brother's rule as clear as day. It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t. But the truth was written in Drew’s eyes and was undeniable.
It made my insides rumble with pure, raw fury. It was a strange sensation although not entirely surprising. My brother had that effect on me, I'd just…I'd never felt so angry for someone else. I'd never wanted to immediately tear the world apart to kill Horus and make him pay for the pain he'd caused this young man. And considering all the things he'd done to me and my family that said a lot.
"He…he's got my brother. He's just eighteen. He's the most innocent soul there is. I have to save him. I have to…"
"Shhh." Before I knew what I was doing I took him into my arms and caressed his head, the act both blasphemous and addictive at the same time. "It's going to be okay. Hush now, boy. I'm here now. I'm here and I'll destroy him for you."
This protective rush was dangerous. Dangerous and foreign and yet so invigorating. I'd spent so long locked away in grief barely alive and all of a sudden…I was looking forward to living again.
I didn't like it.
I didn't like it one bit and yet…
I cherished it more than anything in the past five thousand years.