Chapter 10
Anubis
The underworld had never felt emptier.
I stood in the Hall of Two Truths, watching the endless procession of souls waiting for judgment, and felt nothing.
For the first time in my long existence, I got no satisfaction in my duty.
I felt no connection to the work that had defined my existence for millennia.
Instead, all I felt was a hollow ache where something vital had been torn away.
Three weeks had passed since Jessica left Cairo.
Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours. Thirty thousand, two hundred and forty minutes. Not that I was counting.
“You’re brooding again,” Thoth said from behind me. The ibis-headed god materialized in his usual fashion. He appeared as if he’d always been there, because in a sense, he had. Time moved differently for us. “This behavior of yours, it’s becoming tedious.”
“Then leave.”
“Can’t. Someone has to maintain the cosmic balance while you mope.” He settled beside me, watching the souls with more interest than I could muster. “She’s mortal, you know. This infatuation will fade.”
I turned and glared at him, my eyes narrowing into slits. “It is not infatuation.”
“Love, then. Semantics.” He waved a hand dismissively. “The point remains. She will die fifty years from now, perhaps sixty if she’s lucky, and you will still be here, eternal and unchanging. Better to forget her now.”
I turned to look at him, and whatever he saw in my expression made him take a step back.
“I have existed for five thousand years,” I hissed.
“I have judged millions of souls, witnessed the rise and fall of empires, and watched humanity evolve from bronze to silicon. In all that time, I have never felt less alone than I did with her. So no, Thoth. I will not forget her. Not in sixty years, not in six thousand.”
“You’re being irrational.”
“I am being honest.”
He studied me for a long moment, his ancient eyes seeing more than I wanted to reveal. “You truly love her.”
“Yes.”
“Even knowing a relationship with her is doomed?”
“Maybe because of it.” I returned my attention to the souls, though I barely saw them. “Mortals understand something we have forgotten. Jessica taught me that the true meaning comes not from duration, but from intensity. Love matters more when it is finite.”
“Poetic, but absurd.” Thoth’s tone softened. “What will you do?”
“My duty.” I shrugged. “What else is there?”
“You could go to her.” His suggestion hung in the air between us, tempting me.
“She left. It was her choice,” I said. “She chose her daughter, her life, and her world over me. I will not dishonor that choice by appearing uninvited.”
“Even if she wants you to? What if she hadn’t said it?”
“She has not called. The ankh would tell me if she had.” I touched my chest, where I could feel the connection to the pendant I’d given her. It was a thin thread of gold stretching across continents, pulsing with her heartbeat. “She lives. She is safe. That must be enough.”
“Must it?”
I did not answer because I didn’t have one.
Thoth left eventually, and I continued my work of weighing hearts against the feather of Ma’at, sending the worthy to the Field of Reeds and the unworthy to Ammit’s jaws.
It was the same task I had performed for millennia, now rendered meaningless by the absence of one mortal woman who had touched a stone she should not have touched.
The souls noticed. They always noticed when gods’ attention wavered.
“Lord Anubis?” A middle-aged man stood before me, his heart trembling on the scales. “Is something wrong?”
I forced my attention back to him. His heart was good, not perfect, but good enough. He had lived a life of honest work, honest love, and lived it with more kindness than cruelty. He would pass.
“Nothing is wrong,” I lied. “You may proceed to the Field of Reeds.”
“Thank you, my lord.” The man hesitated before crossing. “If I may say, you seem sad. Can gods be sad?”
His question startled me. In five thousand years, no soul had ever asked that. No one had ever dared, lest they face my wrath.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Gods can be sad.”
“Then I hope whatever troubles you finds a resolution.” He bowed and moved on, leaving me staring after him.
Even the dead pitied me now.
How far I had fallen.
I tried to distract myself by visiting the other gods, the few who remained active.
Set was fighting some territorial dispute in the outer reaches of the Duat.
I avoided him, having no patience for his schemes.
Hathor was hosting another celebration, music and wine and laughter that grated against my mood.
I tried to attend one, on the off chance imbibing would take the edge off my sourness, but left after mere moments.
Osiris eventually found me. My father - or one of my fathers, depending on which version of our convoluted mythology one believed - appeared in the garden I maintained at the edge of the underworld.
It was my sanctuary, a small space of living things in the realm of death, filled with lotus flowers and date palms and the sound of water that Jessica had loved when I showed it to her.
“You are suffering,” Osiris said, making a statement instead of phrasing it as a question.
“I am fine.”
“You are a terrible liar. Always have been.” He settled on the bench beside the reflecting pool, his green skin luminous in the eternal twilight. “Tell me about her.”
“There is nothing to tell.” I bristled, wanting to keep the memories of Jessica’s time with me private.
“My son, there is everything to tell. I can feel your anguish from my throne, Anubis. It permeates the entire underworld. Even the souls grow restless with it.”
I was quiet for a long time debating about what I wanted to share with him. Then, finally, I spoke. “Her name is Jessica. She is mortal. She touched the Binding Stone by accident, summoned me without meaning to, and proceeded to argue with me about replica miniature pyramids made outside of Egypt.”
Osiris smiled. “She sounds formidable.”
“She is. Divorce, loss, and the cruel invisibility that mortals inflict on their elders have hurt her. But she survived it all with her spirit intact. With her capacity for joy still present, buried but not destroyed.” I stared at the lotus flowers floating on the water.
“She made me remember what it felt like to exist for a purpose beyond duty. She made me feel alive.”
“And you love her.”
“Yes.”
“Does she love you?”
“She said she did. Before she left.” The memory of her tears, her broken voice in the car outside the hotel, was a fresh wound every time I revisited it.
“But she left anyway. Humans lie, but I do not believe she did. Her daughter needed her, and she chose duty over desire. I cannot fault her for that. It is exactly what I would do, what I have done, for millennia.”
"But it hurts nonetheless."
“No. It does not hurt. It destroys me.” The admission came out raw and unguarded.
Damn my father for pulling on my emotions.
“Every moment she is gone, I feel her absence like a severed limb, or a piece of my essence torn away. I have existed for thousands of years, and I have never felt such pain. Not even when Merit died.”
Osiris was quiet for a moment. “Merit was different. She was a priestess, yes, and you loved her. But that was in the early days, when gods still walked freely among mortals. The boundaries were less rigid. The pain was less severe because you knew others would come.”
“And now?”
“Now the world has moved on. Mortals no longer believe, or they believe so differently that we barely recognize ourselves in their stories. We are fading, Anubis. We are becoming myths, legends, stories told to children. In another thousand years, we may cease to exist entirely.” He looked at me with ancient eyes.
“This mortal woman saw you. Truly saw you, not as a story but as a person. That is rarer than you know.”
“I am aware.”
“Are you?” He stood, moving to the edge of the pool.
“Because I think you are so focused on the pain of losing her that you have forgotten the gift she gave you. She reminded you what it means to be more than your duty. She showed you that even gods can change and grow, and can feel things they thought long dead.”
“What am I supposed to do with that gift? Treasure it while I spend eternity alone?”
“Or pursue it.”
I looked at him, eyes narrowed over my snout. “She made her choice.”
“She made a choice in the heat of the moment, under pressure, for her daughter. That does not mean it is her ultimate choice. That does not mean she does not regret it every day.” He turned to face me. “The ankh you gave her…you can feel her through it, can you not?”
“Yes.” I did not like where my father was leading this conversation. Prick. He’s going to make me do something I’ve avoided since Jessica left.
“What do you feel?”
I closed my eyes, focusing on the thin golden thread connecting us across the distance. I found Jessica’s heartbeat steady and strong. Her life force burned bright. And underneath it all, a powerful undercurrent of something I knew all too well.
“Sadness,” I admitted. “Loneliness. She performs her duties, cares for her daughter, and maintains her life. But there is an emptiness in her that mirrors my own.”
“Perhaps you should do something about that.”
“I will not interfere in her life uninvited. I will not be the god who stalks a mortal woman who has rejected him. Unlike some of the other gods, I do not toy with mortal lives.”
“I am not suggesting you stalk her.” Osiris smiled. “I am suggesting you give her a choice, not one made in haste at an airport with her daughter crying and her life in crisis. Ask her again, Anubis. Ask her if she truly wants to live without you. And this time, accept whatever answer she gives.”
“And if she says no?”