He smiled softly. “Almost more than I can bear.”
I took his hand in mine. “You’re still planning to leave me, aren’t you?” I asked quietly, not really wanting an answer.
“I do not have a choice.”
“Are you sure?”
“Lily, if there were a way for us to be together, I would do anything to make it happen. Do you not know this?”
“I do now.” I ran my hand up his face and through his hair. He closed his eyes and I could actually feel how much he longed to be close to me. “How much time do we have?” I whispered.
“Anubis will give us only a few moments,” said Amon, reluctantly leaving me to pace toward the end of the chamber. I followed him but stopped when I noticed an open shaft.
“Will I have to climb out through there?” I asked.
“No. The heat channeled through the pyramids during the ceremony has melted the rock along the shaft. You would suffer terribly if you tried to enter it.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to do or say. I’d never lost anyone before. Not even a pet. I could sense his determination to do the right thing and yet the right thing felt wrong.
Amon ran a hand through his hair and seemed to come to a decision. Circling the altar, he approached me. “You do not need to worry about going home now. I have enough power to bend time and return you to the moment you left in New York City.”
“So…it will be as if all this had never happened?” I said weakly.
Amon took a step closer and cupped my neck, my back now pressed against the pyramid wall. “You will forget all about me, in time,” he said, looking deeply into my eyes.
“No.” I shook my head. “I could never forget you.”
“Perhaps not.” Amon smiled forlornly, playing with the loose hair on my shoulder. “You know, Anubis was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
Pressing his hands against the stone wall on either side of my head, he murmured, “Eternity is a long time to exist without something to remember.”
Then his lips were on mine.
I’d waited so long for his kiss, and it was so much more, so much better than I had dared imagine. Golden sunshine burst behind my closed eyelids as I became a being entwined with the sun.
His hands pulled me against his body and I melted into him, my limbs tingling and warm. Amon’s mouth moved over mine, slowly, like he could make the kiss last forever.
Heat filled my body and I flourished like a rare flower that could blossom only for a day before being consumed by the fire of the sun. A rosy flush unfurled on my cheeks as his lips grazed slow trails over each of them. Warm pulses of energy lapped my spine as he ran his fingertips down the length of it, finally stopping at my lower back.
Amon.
I wasn’t sure if I spoke his name or merely thought it, but the idea of using my mouth for more than kissing him suddenly seemed impossible. My entire body was all at once both sun-drowsed and sun-scorched.
An inferno ran through my veins and my world was molten, combustible, burning. The passionate heat smoldering between us could energize a dozen cities. I wanted to drown in his light. Amon was like the quicksand that had nearly consumed me—liquid, hot, powerful quicksand—and I was lost.
When he finally pulled away, we were both winded. My lips were swollen and hot, my limbs trembled. My skin was luminous in the aftermath. Amon found a loose strand of hair and ran his fingers down its length, smiling as the golden light made it even brighter. “Beautiful,” he said. “You are perfectly, magnificently beautiful. The suffering of every bitter trial I will face for millennia will mellow as long as I can remember the taste of your sweet lips.”
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I buried my face in his chest and asked, “Do you have to go?”
As he cradled me against him, I felt him kiss my hair. Instead of answering, he said, “I want to give you something.”
He stepped away and twirled his fingers. Sand rose and formed a mound in his palm. He cupped his other hand over it, whispering a short incantation as light gleamed from between his fingers. When it diminished, he beckoned me closer.
Lying on his palm was a jeweled scarab. Its carapace was made of green emeralds the same shade as Amon’s eyes when they glowed in the dark. Small flecks of gold and tiny diamonds outlined the wings and head.
He pressed it into my hand. “It’s heavy,” I said.
“It is…Amset,” he whispered. “It is my heart.”
“What do you mean it’s your heart?”
“What do you know about mummification?”
“Um, not too much. I know your body is preserved and wrapped and your organs are placed in canopic jars.”
“That is true, in most cases. But not all organs are taken from the body. The heart is left behind.”
“Really? Why?”
Amon murmured, “ ‘The heart is the seat of intellect and the tongue speaks to make it real.’ When we enter the afterlife, our hearts are weighed on the scales of judgment, and if we are deemed worthy we are wrapped in robes of glory. If our hearts fail, we are fed to a demon.”
“Well, won’t you need it?”
“I have never seen the scales of judgment in all the time I have spent in the afterlife. I do not think I ever will. Not unless I truly die.” Amon brushed his thumbs across my eyebrows and kissed me softly on the side of my mouth. “Anyway, how can I keep it? It no longer belongs to me.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “Perhaps it is wrong for me to ask, but in giving you this token, I hoped that you might look upon it once in a while and think of me.”
“How could you begin to imagine that your request is a presumption? Of course I will. I’ll hold your memory close to my heart forever.” My eyes brimmed with tears, but I would not allow them to fall. I didn’t want to waste our last precious minutes with him trying to comfort me. If he had to leave, then I wanted to put on as brave a face as possible.
He smiled. “When our bond is broken, you might feel differently. You might wish to forget. Even so, I am grateful to have had this time together.”
“Wait.” I drew back. “You said when our bond is broken?”
“Yes. It must be dissolved before I depart this life.”
“What do you mean dissolved? I don’t want to break our bond. You know how I feel about you.”
“If we do not end our connection you will never find a moment of happiness. As long as you live you will not love another. Your mind will journey with me in the afterlife as you dream. It will lead to madness, Lily. It would destroy you.”
I folded my arms. “Is this what Anubis was talking about? The pain he mentioned?”
“Yes. It is the reason I kept my distance from you.”
“It’s why you wouldn’t kiss me before, isn’t it?”
Amon nodded. “If I had kissed you, it would have sealed the bond. The longer the connection is allowed to continue, the harder it is to break. Even now, having been formally bonded with you only this short time, there will still be echoes, times when we will call to one another across dimensions, but the sooner we break it, the better it will be for you.”
“So, assuming I agreed to this, how would we go about breaking it?”
“You must kill me.”
He stood there, arms at his sides, fists clenched, his beautiful eyes staring at me, willing me to look at him. I turned away and crumpled to the ground.
“This is a sick joke, right? You’re not seriously asking me to sacrifice you?” I gasped.
“It is the only way to break the bond,” he said softly. “Once a connection between one of us and a mortal is sealed, the only way to sever it—”
“Is to literally cut you out of my life.”
Crouching down next to me, Amon squeezed my shoulder. “You must slay the one who cast the spell. I wanted to spare you this, but it was the only way to heal your body.”
What he’d said made me look up. “Anubis said something about the spell just b
eing a formality. What did he mean by that?”
“He meant…” Amon paused. “He meant that my heart had made the choice long before I was willing to acknowledge it.”
“Well, I can’t. I can’t do this. I won’t kill you, Amon. If Anubis wants it done, he’s going to have to do it himself. I can’t be here for it, and I certainly can’t do it myself.”
“You must, Lily. The consequences, should we fail, would be disastrous for you.”
“No.” I shook my head, tears finally spilling over and blinding me. “No!” I said, more loudly.
Sighing and running a hand through his hair, Amon sat down next to me, pulling me onto his lap. I sobbed, wetting his neck with my tears. “Hush, Nehabet,” he soothed as he stroked my back, filling my frame with warmth that I wanted to reject but instead lapped up like I’d never feel it again. In the pit of my stomach, coldness stayed with me no matter how much liquid sunshine he shared.
Quietly, he murmured, “You know that my death is inevitable, regardless.”
I nodded against his chest.
“Even though our bond will be broken, I will think of you,” he promised gently. “My love for you will not diminish. During each night that passes I will bring your image to mind. You are mine—my Nehabet—a rare desert flower that blooms in the waters of the oasis.
“As the days and the years of your life go by, I will keep watch over you, and when your blossom closes its petals, finally surrendering to the night, I will meet you at the dawn of your new existence and I will be your guide in the afterlife.”
Sniffling, I said, “I’m not sure your afterlife and mine are the same.”
Gritting his teeth, he said, “It does not matter. I will find you. Do you believe this?”
“I believe you,” I said quietly.
He kissed me again, softly, his lips lingering on mine, and I tasted the salt of my tears. We were interrupted by the whine of a dog.
Amon lifted his head. “Anubis.”
“I apologize for not making my entrance more timely, but I have already seen to your brothers and I cannot delay any longer.” He glanced at us and furrowed his brow. “Have you explained to her what must be done?”
“I have,” Amon answered. “But it is a hard thing to ask.”
Anubis waved his hand. “I will be here to assist her.”
“When it is complete she must be returned to the time and place she first met me.”
“Yes, yes. I will arrange it. Now come, Amon, it is time.”
Amon helped me to my feet, giving me a final hug as he slid the jeweled scarab into the pocket of my cargo pants. When he pulled back, he shook his head briefly, indicating it was a secret between us, then he took my hand, guiding me to the stone altar.
After giving me an unashamedly electrifying last kiss despite our audience, Amon stroked my cheek, obviously reluctant to let go. Finally, he lay down upon the altar. My breath stopped and my heart started racing. I just can’t do this.
Anubis waved his hands and four canopic jars appeared on a nearby dais. “Amon,” he asked authoritatively, “do you willingly cede the powers gifted to you by the great god Amun-Ra?”
“I do,” Amon answered.
I bit my lip and wrung my hands, expecting Anubis to now bring out the rusty tools and scoop out Amon’s organs. Instead, Anubis opened his hands and a ball of golden light lifted from Amon’s chest and shot toward the handsome god. Quickly, Anubis thrust the light away from him and it flew into an open jar. A lid materialized from the sand in the shape of the Sphinx’s head, then slammed onto the opening and sealed it with a beam of light.
This was done three more times. One lid became the head of a baboon. Another formed into the face of a jackal. The final light did not emerge from Amon’s body as a ball but as an ethereal winged creature. It was his golden falcon. The bird circled above us, gazing at me with a golden eye, the tips of his wings grazing my cheek as he flew past. He glided toward the row of canopic jars and then hovered over the last one. In a stream of light he flew into it, and the final lid—a falcon-headed one—sealed the jar shut.
“What about the Eye power?” I asked. “Will you take that, too?”
“The Eye of Horus will stay with him during his sojourn,” Anubis answered patiently. “Now”—he produced a beautiful jeweled knife out of thin air, its wickedly curved blade gleaming sharp and deadly— “the rest is up to you.”
He pressed the hateful weapon into my hand and I reluctantly took it, gripping it numbly in my fist. “I can’t,” I sobbed. “Please don’t make me do this.”
Anubis sighed. “This was a mistake. She does not have the fortitude to see beyond herself.”
“She will do it,” Amon replied. “She is stronger than you think.” Amon took the hand that didn’t hold the knife and pulled me closer. His skin no longer gleamed now that his powers had been taken. “Lily,” he began, “do not think about what will be lost. Think instead on what has been won.”
“Nothing’s been won,” I said, leaning over him. Fat tears dripped off my cheeks and onto his chest.
“We defeated Sebak. We kept Seth at bay. Is that not a triumph?”
“It doesn’t feel like one.”
“Then know that you have won my heart.” Gently, he brought my hand to his chest, spreading my fingers over it. He took the hand holding the knife and brought it next to my other hand, the tip of the blade touching the skin directly over his heart. When my shaking hands were in place, he reached up and ran his fingertips down my jaw. He smiled—a beautiful, heartbreaking sunshine smile. “I love you.”
A whimper of protest came from my throat as he rose to kiss me, but the kiss was brief. Amon lay back down, eyes wide, as a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Panicked, I backed away a few inches and, to my horror, saw that the sharp blade was embedded in Amon’s chest up to the hilt.
“No,” I whispered. “Amon? No!” I screamed, pulling the knife from his chest. Blood pooled up from the deep gash and flowed down the side of his body. “What just happened?” I cried.
Anubis came over to check Amon. “I gave you a little nudge to get things moving.”
“You did…what?”
Anubis glanced at Amon and then turned and looked right at me. “I helped. I told him I would. Hmm…better say your goodbyes now. He has only a few seconds.”
“Amon?” I leaned over him. “I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t see him through my tears. I angrily brushed them away, pressing kisses on his brow, his cheeks, his lips. Vainly, I tried to staunch the blood that seemed to be pumping in an endless supply from his chest. “This isn’t what I wanted,” I whispered.
Amon sucked in a breath, fluid gurgling in his lungs, and then his body convulsed and his beautiful hazel eyes, which had been looking at me, froze, unblinking. Slowly, the air he’d just drawn in leaked from his mouth and then he was gone.
I cupped his face in my hands, stroking the hair from his brow. With my eyes full of tears, hands trembling, I whispered in a quavering voice, “I love you, too.”
I said a silent prayer that wherever he was, he would hear me and know the depth of my feelings.
Anubis grunted in satisfaction. Angrily, I whipped around and jabbed my finger at him, absolutely not caring that he was a powerful god. “We weren’t ready!” I accused.
He smiled. “I am pleased to see you have more fire in your heart than I previously believed, but let us be honest. You never would have been.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I would have you know, young woman, that I am an excellent judge of character. In fact, judging characters is my forte, if you will.”
“I don’t care what you do in your day job. You could have been more patient. More sympathetic.”
“What difference does it make? You will have a broken heart. He will have a broken heart, though in his case, both literally and figuratively. Prolonging your time together would not diminish the pain. It only serves to make the separation mo
re difficult to bear.”
Gritting my teeth, fiery indignation filling me, I spat, “You know what? You don’t deserve him as your servant. You…you’re unworthy of his sacrifice.”
Anubis lost his smile, his eyes narrowing as he took a step closer. “Because I am a very forgiving all-powerful deity, and because I know that your emotions are not in control right now, I will attempt to forget your disrespect. I will warn you, however, to give your words a bit more regard in the future before you choose to utter them.
“Now, if you will remain quiet, I will allow you to watch as I prepare your beloved incarnation of the sun god for the afterlife.”
Anubis generated a thick pad of wrappings with a flick of his wrist and wiped the blood from Amon’s chest. As he did so, he spoke to me. “Do you know the true purpose of a pyramid?”
My eyes darted up to the god, knowing he was trying to distract me from what was happening. Anubis’s dog nudged my hand and looked at me with mournful eyes as his master repeated the question. “What? No. I guess not,” I said.
“It is a place of ascension. It is also called a house of nature, a house of energy, and a house of the soul.” Anubis raised his hands and Amon’s body lifted off the stone slab. He had crossed Amon’s hands over his chest, in the style most common for mummies. As I watched, Anubis rotated his wrist in a circle and sand rose from the floor, creating long strips of cloth that wound around Amon’s feet and started enveloping his entire body.
Anubis continued, “You see, a body is much like a pyramid. It can channel vast amounts of energy. It can house a soul, and yet it is made of natural materials that eventually return to the dust from whence it came. But, to fashion a mummy is to create an everlasting body—one that will be fit enough so that the ka, or the soul, that leaves it, may take it up once again.
“To accomplish this, there are certain things that must be done when a person dies. The first is to preserve the body, as I am doing now.” The wrappings had now reached Amon’s neck and I could no longer hold back my tears as the linen cloths completed the process and covered his head. Anubis peered at me underneath Amon’s floating body, and said, “I am attempting to comfort you. Please pay attention.”
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