When Isis reached desperately for her sister, taking hold of her arm, Nephthys understood the reason. “I will only bring Anubis, I promise you.”
Isis nodded, now left alone with the burnished replica of her husband. Osiris’s hands were folded across his chest and his eyes were closed. She curved her body over his, brushing away some lingering grains of sand from his cheek and trailing her fingertips over the hard line of his jaw. She longed for him to wake, to wrap her in his arms and assure her that he wouldn’t leave her again.
Isis.
She jerked and realized she must have been sleeping, slumped over his likeness for a time. Had he tried to contact her?
Pressing her hands to the bronzed face, she spoke. “Can you hear me, husband?” she asked, full of bright-eyed, desperate anticipation. “Osiris?” she called. There was no answer.
A lone tear splashed onto his chest, and Isis swiped at her eyes. When she looked down at the spot where it had fallen, she gasped. The wet spots on his chest and bare shoulder had become warm, and the color changed to match Osiris’s own golden bronze tone. But to her disappointment, she watched as the soft spot she stroked with her thumb slowly changed back to polished stone. Try as she might, she could not replicate the miracle.
When Nephthys returned, Anubis just behind her, Isis spoke excitedly of her discovery.
“There is power in your tears, sister. Your connection to Osiris has allowed a teardrop to form from the Waters of Chaos.” Nephthys stepped aside, indicating Anubis should take her place. “Unfortunately, not even you could muster enough tears to give his form flesh.” Nephthys put her hand on Anubis’s shoulder. “You know what to do,” she told him.
“I have never done this before,” he said. “There’s no precedent.”
“Just because it hasn’t been done before does not mean such a thing is impossible,” she replied. “Allow the stars to guide you.” Nephthys remained unwavering even as he gave her a doubt-filled look.
Crouching down, Anubis placed a hand on Isis’s arm. “I’ll do what I can, goddess.”
“Thank you,” Isis whispered, and shifted back to give him room.
Anubis began chanting. His words resonated with power as he rebuked drought and darkness, storms and chaos—all the things Osiris was the antithesis of. While he did so, Isis fidgeted, clamping her hands together, pinching her lips, and fluttering her wings in a rhythmic pattern, as if to soothe the anguish she felt. When the fire took hold of Osiris’s form, she stood back. The heat of a thousand suns blazed, baking him, and through the flames, Isis saw the polished stone melt into soft flesh.
“It worked,” Anubis said with delight. When he lowered his hands, the flames banked and extinguished, but the flesh began to change back to stone in the same manner it had when Isis’s tear dried. Anubis lifted his arms again to bring back the flame. When it dissipated, his arms shook. “You’ll have to hurry,” he said. “Seth’s power continues to unmake him.”
“Only when the breath of life returns and he is in command of his body again can you let go of the immortal flame,” Nephthys explained. Then she urged, “Call him, sister. Now that he is flesh, the path is clear. Bid him return and graft his true self to this new body.”
“Osiris, my love,” Isis cried. “My heart calls to you. Come back to me. I summon you. Traverse the cosmos. Find me!”
Isis knelt, ignoring the heat of his body, and placed her palms on Osiris’s chest. Closing her eyes, she leaned over, relishing the feel of his soft hair against her cheek, and whispered his true name in his ear. Immediately she felt a jolt in her heart, and the piece of him that resided with her responded.
“He comes!” Nephthys shouted.
Isis looked up and saw a tiny pinprick of light zoom toward them. It slowed when it neared, hesitating, and then it finally sank into Osiris’s chest just where his heart would be. The body glowed as if lit from the inside with a celestial light, but unlike Anubis’s flame, this light carried no heat. The skeleton and muscles of the god were outlined clearly through his flesh. Tiny plants sprouted all around the form, a sure sign that the god of growing things had returned.
But then, just as Isis allowed the flame of hope to fill her as well, the light inside Osiris’s body dimmed and retreated from his limbs, first at his fingertips and then his arms. The seedlings shrank and shriveled, turning brown and dying before her eyes.
“Quickly!” Nephthys cried. “Do not let his life essence escape!”
She knelt by Osiris’s head and told Isis to kneel at his feet. Together they raised their wings and prevented the orb of light that had risen from the body from fleeing. It bounced against their soft feathers, trying to return to the Waters of Chaos. “Sing him back into his body again, Isis!”
The goddess lifted her voice and the tiny orb drifted closer to her, hovering near her before entering the inert form again.
“Keep singing and stir the air with your wings. It brings life,” Nephthys instructed, and then she turned to the god standing next to her. “Anubis, I need your help. We must bind his life essence to his new form.”
“What do I need to do?”
“I cannot leave my position. You must use your scythe to take our hair.”
“You want me to cut it off?” His brows knitted in confusion.
“Yes. Then you need to wrap it around him. Every part of him will need to be bound. You’ll have to take it all.”
Anubis hesitated for only a moment. Raising his scythe, he sheared off Isis’s hair, then moved behind Nephthys and did the same. Gathering fistfuls of their long hair, he wrapped Osiris’s body with the soft locks, tying it off in knots as he did so. When every part of Osiris’s new body had been encased, Nephthys instructed, “Now whisper his true name again, sister.”
Isis obeyed. The light spread, filling the newly made form once again, but this time it glowed brighter and brighter until the rays of it burst from between the strands of hair and dissolved it. When the light faded, Nephthys said, “It is done. Come, Anubis, we will leave them alone.”
“But he’s still not breathing!” Isis cried as Anubis helped Nephthys to her feet.
“The rest is up to you,” Nephthys said gently. “When you place your lips on his, the breath of life will enter his new body.”
Nephthys staggered as she moved ahead and leaned heavily on Anubis.
Isis let out a heavy sigh and stared after her sister, resolving to decide what to do about her betrayal later. As they left, Isis’s body shook with spasms of deep fatigue. She felt drained as she never had been before. To have wrought two spells of such power in the span of one day would have killed a lesser being, but Isis was determined. All that remained was a kiss. Surely she could muster enough energy for such a small thing.
Kneeling beside her husband, she stroked his soft hair. Her hands trembled as she drew them down to his face. Tilting his head, she gently pressed her lips to his. She tasted the salt of her tears and felt the residual heat from the fires that had baked him. Then there was a rush of wind. The chest beneath her rose and fell.
A hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer as his lips moved against hers, first tentatively, then hungrily. Osiris sat up, shifting her with him. Taking hold of her shoulders, he eased away so he could look at her. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs and slid his hand into her shorn hair, his expression thoughtful and sad as the short strands fell through his fingers.
Isis couldn’t stop touching him. She caressed his neck and his powerful shoulders and swept the hair from his eyes. Osiris did the same with her, but then he finally took hold of her fingers and brought them to his lips for a quick kiss.
“I’m here, Little One,” he said. “And I won’t leave you again.”
“How do we know?” she demanded with a sob. “How do we stop Seth’s next attempt?”
“Amun-Ra will stop him. We should go now. We’ll need his aid if we want to contain Seth.”
She nodded and he helped her to her feet. Os
iris shifted back and forth, moving his limbs, testing out his new body for the first time. When he was ready to go, Isis said, “Wait.”
“What is it?” he asked.
She waved her hand over his chest and a golden chain with a red gemstone appeared.
“What’s this?” Osiris asked as he examined it.
“It contains my lifeblood. It ties us together. If he unmakes one of us, he unmakes both.” She took a step closer and grasped his hand. “I’ll not be separated from you again,” she said. “Even if it means my death.”
Soberly, he nodded. Then he kissed her and trailed his fingers over her neck. When he lifted his head, she felt the tickle of a chain. He had created a necklace for her as well. Isis lifted it and saw it was an amulet crafted after the fashion of an Egyptian ankh, but the sides turned down instead. When Isis looked up, he explained.
“It’s a tyet—a knot that binds and brings life. These are your arms and your wings when they are wrapped around me,” he said. “This”—he tapped the center—“is the kiss that gave me breath. I am bound to you, my love, my Isis. My life is yours. No matter what the future brings.”
Isis nodded and her eyes closed, causing her to stumble. Osiris caught her, briefly kissed her lips, and said, “Rest now, Little One. It’s my turn to fly.”
Lifting his wife in his arms and cradling her close, Osiris called upon the heart scarabs that bound them, relishing in the flutter of her heart that was locked within his chest. He took to the skies, knowing he’d have to confront the most powerful god he’d ever faced and that it might result in the deaths of both of them.
Chapter 8
Transplanted
“Are you sure you need to do this?” Anubis asked.
“He is my husband,” Nephthys answered simply, as if that were explanation enough. When she saw Anubis’s furrowed forehead and hesitation to leave her side, she placed her hand on his arm. “All will be well, Anubis. Our fates are written in the stars, and my light will not be snuffed out this day.”
Still seeing he would not leave her, Nephthys left him instead. Steeling herself, she looked heavenward for just an instant, silently asking her mother to watch over her, to watch over them all, and then entered the chamber. “Seth?” she called.
There was no reply. She surveyed the room carefully, knowing he was there. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. Finally, she caught sight of a black scorpion tucked beneath a chair. She crouched down. “Ah, there you are.”
The small creature scuttled out, its body transforming into a snapping gray crocodile and then to a bristled boar. It shook its head and bellowed, its dangerous tusks nearly spearing her leg, but Nephthys didn’t move. Didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
When he settled into his own natural form, she asked, “How many other species have you exterminated this day, that you can take their shape so easily?”
Seth folded his arms across his chest while his nostrils flared. “Let’s see,” he answered with a mix of pride and mockery. “A woolly hippo, the desert bull, and the white-tailed oryx, which, incidentally, I unmade just to pass the time, which was entirely your fault. A wife shouldn’t leave her husband on their wedding night.”
“And a husband shouldn’t commit murder on his.”
Seth’s eyes darted to hers. “You knew what I was going to do when you agreed to accompany me to their celebration, didn’t you, my little visionary?”
Nephthys stared at him stonily, her lips pressed into a tight line. Instead of answering him, she asked, “Does it give you pleasure to cause such wanton destruction?”
A small sigh escaped him and he looked away.
Do I see regret there? she wondered.
He spoke softly, but there was an underlying hardness to his tone. “Despite what you might think, no, destruction and chaos bring me no pleasure. They are a means to an end. There is purpose in what I have done. But you know that better than anyone, don’t you, little wife?” Seth seized her arm and drew her toward him to stroke the short hair away from her face roughly. “I don’t like what you’ve done with your hair, by the way.” Pressing his palms against her cheeks, he squeezed. Not tightly enough to hurt her, but there was no escaping his grasp either.
Seth’s gaze drifted to her mouth, and before she could react, he kissed her. His lips moved against hers in a hungry, powerful, and dominating fashion. He seemed surprised when she responded to him. His kiss softened then, and Nephthys trembled with the knowledge of what the two of them could be, would be, if what the stars told her came to pass. But then he abruptly ended it, wrenching himself back as if she was a temptation that he wanted to thrust as far away from himself as possible.
A line appeared between his brows but it vanished with a smirk, twisting his otherwise handsome face into something ugly and cruel. Seth took hold of her chin. “Now. Are you going to share your secrets with me, or am I going to take them? I promise you that I’ll enjoy it either way.”
Nephthys jerked her chin from his grip and stepped back. “How quickly you have discarded your cloak of charm.”
With flashing eyes he said, “You knew what I was. You’ve always known. I think it’s time that both of us stop pretending to be something we are not.”
“Perhaps you are right,” she said with a demure nod.
Seth’s eyes bored into hers as if willing her to spill her secrets. He paced a few steps away and then returned. “Tell me what you have seen.”
“You’re not ready to hear all of what I’ve seen.”
“Do you think to deny me?” Seth took hold of her arms and tugged her close. “We are wed, Nephthys,” he murmured. “Submitting to your husband goes hand in hand with making vows. You and your visions belong to me now. Lest my willful wife forget, marrying was her idea.”
“Yes,” Nephthys admitted. “I wanted to marry you.”
Seth lifted an eyebrow. “That much I know. What escapes me are your motives.”
Nephthys was quiet for a moment, and when Seth seemed content to let her go, she stepped away again. She found it interesting that despite his obvious resistance to being close to her, he kept coming back, as if he couldn’t help it.
After considering a moment, she let out a soft sigh. “You are right that there is not enough energy left in the Waters of Chaos. The gift you wield is an important one, and one not to be dismissed. Your power is necessary to bring balance. It is just as important to the care of the cosmos as is Amun-Ra’s.”
He blinked, astonishment evident on his face.
Quickly, she continued, “But your power, if wielded incorrectly, will destroy us all.” Nephthys nibbled on her bottom lip and then came to a decision. Reaching out, she took his hand. “Seth, I am sorry for the suffering you’ve borne and for the loneliness you’ve felt. I know you are a man of great ability. You are clever and passionate, but as of late your passion has turned into obsession and jealousy.”
Seth’s face went blank and Nephthys shivered.
“You need to know that Osiris lives,” she said bravely. When he didn’t stir, she pressed on. “You have not destroyed him as you intended. Isis has created a new body for him, and their bond has allowed him to return. I know you hate him. His booming laugh feels like mockery. When you see them together it hurts you. You feel diminished when he is near. I also know you think you love Isis, but if you saw them together you’d understand that she can only be happy with him. She will never feel the same way for you.”
“He lives?” Seth demanded her confirmation with feverish eyes.
“Yes, but you’re missing the point.”
“And what point is that, dear wife?”
“That it’s a good thing. You haven’t gone too far that you can’t come back. Amun-Ra will forgive this. What you’ve done has been fixed. I fixed it for you.” The smile she gave him was too forced to be natural.
A muscle twitched in his jaw and she hurried to finish.
“I beg you, Seth, walk away from this path. I know what motivates you. You crave
acceptance. To be respected, valued, and loved. You desire the admiration that has been long denied you and wish to feel as if your opinions matter just as much as everyone else’s. You will get all of those things. I promise you. All you have to do is bide your time.”
“And why should I wait when I have already waited so long? Why should I put faith in your visions? Trust you? Especially when I can see that you do not hold me in the same esteem as you do the others. You look down upon me, too. Don’t deny it.”
Nephthys hesitated, unsure of what to say. Carefully, gently, she proceeded. “You are right,” she confessed. “Though I do not love you as a wife should a husband, the stars have shown me that there will come a time when I do. Someday we will be very happy together, the cosmos will be harmonious, and all the desires of your heart will be yours. Surely with that end in sight, you can find the strength within you to be patient with the others, to give me time to become the wife you need. Let Isis and Osiris have their happiness, husband.”
Nephthys fell silent as she stared into Seth’s hooded gaze. Finally, he spoke. “My earnest bride,” he began, stretching out his fingers to stroke her feathers, “I want to thank you for sharing your feelings. I can tell they come from your heart. But you are wrong. Your visions have misled you. Not about me. All the things I want, will, of course, come to pass, but it won’t happen if I sit back and rest upon my laurels.
“I’m done begging for castoffs, favors, and leftovers. The lesson the cosmos has taught me over and over is that the only way to obtain something I want is to take it. No one is going to be kind enough to simply hand it to me. So, yes, I will rule. The cosmos will be in harmony. And you will become the wife I need. If I have to shape you, fashion you into becoming what I want, then I will.”
Seth ran his fingertips from her ear down to her jaw. “You should know that I don’t blame you at all for being envious of my feelings toward Isis.”
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