The morning sun was only a handbreadth above the horizon as Seth turned in a slow circle to study his work. The vast forest of Osiris was now a barren desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. Not a drop of water existed within its bounds, and even his mother would think twice about raining upon it now. Rising into the air, he headed back to Heliopolis. There was much to do before he attended the reception that evening; the first task would require him to be his most charming self so as to distract the one planning the party.
#
It proved easier than he thought. With the moon a glowing backdrop, Seth entered Amun-Ra’s home with a beautiful yet subdued Nephthys on his arm, which he deemed most appropriate. Seth and Nephthys swept into the feast and he was gratified that all eyes turned to him, even the goddess he’d lost to the one he loathed above all others.
“Seth,” Amun-Ra said with a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “So happy you could join us.”
“I see the feast has started without us,” Seth said.
Isis rose. “We weren’t sure you were coming.” The tone of the goddess was one of wariness but also confusion, especially as she noticed her sister’s arm resting upon Seth’s. “The feasting is over,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to miss it,” she added, pointedly looking at the sister who’d arranged everything.
“I was . . . busy,” Nephthys explained without telling them anything.
Amun-Ra frowned and stepped forward, offering his arm to Nephthys. “We’re still happy to see you here,” he said, more to her than to Seth. “Perhaps you would consider helping me start the dancing, Nephthys?”
“What a wonderful idea,” Seth said with sneer. “Since we missed the feast, the least my new wife and I can do is to celebrate the marriage of the gods with a dance. Shall we, my dear?”
Nephthys bit her lip as Amun-Ra raised his hand and the music suddenly came to a stop. “What did you say?” Amun-Ra asked. “I fear I misheard you.”
Seth leaned forward. “You didn’t. Nephthys and I have been recently married.”
“You what?” Isis approached and grabbed her sister’s arm, pulling her away. “Is he telling the truth?” she demanded.
“He is,” Nephthys said. “We were wed just an hour ago.”
Isis gaped in shock, stepping back and letting go as if she’d become infected with whatever it was that had possessed her sister.
Amun-Ra took her place and had no such hesitation about touching Nephthys. Almost tenderly, he took hold of her shoulder. “Were you coerced?” he asked softly.
Nephthys’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears as she looked up into Amun-Ra’s face. “No,” she answered. “When he asked me, I agreed.” Stepping closer, she whispered so that only Amun-Ra could hear, “My light will bring him balance.”
Amun-Ra studied her carefully. “Do you love him, then?” he asked, and everyone waited with bated breath to hear her reply.
But before she could answer, Seth stepped between them. “Of course she does. And if you’re thinking of dissolving our union, you’d first have to undo whatever it is the two of them have done,” he said, pointing to Isis and Osiris. “But I’ll remind you that just this morning you said as long as there was no”—he waved his hand distractedly—“procreating going on, such a union was acceptable.”
Amun-Ra took a step back. “Yes . . .,” he agreed slowly. “That I did.”
“Then you don’t see a reason that the two of us can’t be married?”
Folding his arms across his broad chest, Amun-Ra answered, “If Nephthys entered this . . . arrangement of her own free will and choice, then I won’t protest it.”
“Good,” Seth said with a cheeky smirk. “Then I’d say we should get on with the party. Shall we dance, wife?”
Nephthys shot Amun-Ra an indiscernible look, then nodded and followed her new husband to the dance floor. The stunned musicians hurried to resume their interrupted song. Despite the fact that Nephthys had planned the festivities with excruciating attention to detail, none of those involved felt much like celebrating any longer. Osiris drew Isis aside and whispered in her ear while Seth twirled Nephthys to the music that now sounded jarring and shrill to Isis, despite the fact that they were the most talented musical group Osiris had ever found. Amun-Ra quickly made his excuses and left, an ember of regret in his eyes.
The party continued, but the only one who seemed happy was Seth, who accepted the halfhearted congratulations of those in attendance with relish.
When a few of the citizens of Heliopolis apologized profusely for bringing a gift only for Isis and Osiris and not for him and his new bride, he laughed away their concerns as if such a thing was of no importance. Nephthys bobbed her head in agreement and joined her sister as Isis unwrapped her gifts, trying to make up for the fact that she’d done the unthinkable on her sister’s wedding day.
Standing by her sister’s side, she read the notes from well-wishers and exclaimed over gifts as if nothing amiss was going on. Seth disappeared for a time and Isis tried to smile, but her eyes kept darting over to her sister. What was she thinking? How could she have married Seth! She kept waiting for a chance to draw her sister aside and tell her what she knew of her new husband, but before she could, Seth entered the hall again. This time he was with a dozen servants bearing a beautiful box of gold.
“What is this?” Nephthys asked Seth as her husband approached.
“It’s my gift for the happy couple. A little token to show them exactly what they mean to me.”
“How . . . lovely,” Nephthys said as she pasted a grin on her face.
Isis hadn’t missed the line that had appeared between her sister’s arched brows. She didn’t know what was going on, but if there was one person in the world she trusted as much as she did her new husband, it was her sister. At least, she thought she could still trust her. “Nephthys?” Isis said, the question in her mind not needing to be voiced.
Nephthys gave a small nod, so Isis let out a breath and took hold of her husband’s arm. “Thank you for thinking of us,” she said to Seth stiffly.
“Not at all,” he replied with a crocodile leer. “I wanted to gift you with something that shows my absolute regard.”
The heavy box was set down before Osiris, and he waved a hand indicating that Osiris should open it. The lid creaked as they did so, and Seth could not withhold the delight on his face as he watched their reactions.
Osiris frowned. “What is this?” he asked, stooping to examine the contents.
Seth practically cackled in glee. “Don’t you recognize it?”
“Sand?” Isis said.
“Not at all,” Seth answered. “You see, I’ve brought you your favorite spot in all the cosmos. And what’s more, I wrapped it all up in a neat little package.” In a stage whisper he murmured, “Think of it as a souvenir from the place you were planning to go on your honeymoon.” Sighing, Seth shook his head. “I see the two of you need me to spell it out. This”—he indicated, sweeping his hand through the grains—“is your beloved forest.”
“What?” Osiris asked in disbelief. “How can this be?”
“Isis knows. Don’t you, Isis?”
Her face paled and she swallowed before speaking. “You unmade an entire forest?”
“Not just a forest, the forest. The one he spends all his time in,” he said, jerking his thumb at Osiris. “Clearly the two of you should have talked more before marrying. I find it truly shocking that you don’t know his most treasured places.”
“You unmade it?” Osiris asked again, understanding and horror filling him.
The love he held for the place was akin to Isis’s love for Baniti; she could feel the pain of it reverberating through him. As she turned to her husband to offer him what comfort she could, she heard Seth say, “That’s not all I’ll unmake.”
Osiris sank to his knees and slowly dipped his fingers into the box, scooping up a handful of sand, letting the granules trickle through his fingers. It took several seconds f
or him to realize that his fingertips were also dissolving. He looked up at Seth. “What have you done?” he demanded.
Seth crouched down, his eyes burning with intensity as he channeled the stolen energies of thousands of living creatures that roiled in his frame. “You stupid, stubborn immortal. Perhaps if you had known that I would grow to have more power than all of you, you might have treated me better. You’re finally getting what you deserve.”
Leaning closer so that only Osiris could hear him, Seth whispered, “Isis will be mine. I will take her to the desert where your forest once stood. There she will vow to belong to me and me alone. You will be nothing more to her then than these grains of sand to be cast beneath her feet.”
“No!” Isis cried. “Nephthys, help me!”
“There’s nothing I can do!” Nephthys said as tears fell heavily onto her cheeks.
Osiris’s arm began to melt away, and then his chest caved in as more grains of sand lifted from his body and fell into the golden box. Quickly, Osiris spun toward his wife. “Isis,” he pleaded. “Remember, I love you.”
“Osiris!” Isis knelt down, encircling her husband in her arms as if she could hold him together by will alone. He pressed his lips to hers in a final kiss, but all she felt was the sting of sand as he dissolved in front of her eyes. The remnants of his being floated into the box and settled.
Crying out, Isis took hold of the golden box and began chanting a spell, but no matter how she tried to weave the words together, her power seemed to elude her. She needed time. Grabbing a fistful of sand, she staggered to her feet. Nephthys took her arm to support her. “You’re a monster,” Isis spat at the gloating man standing before her.
Seth smiled coolly. “A monster of your making, my dear. You should have said yes when I asked you to choose me. Now you’ll end up with nothing unless you do exactly as I say.”
Isis wove a spell to incapacitate him, channeling as much power as she could muster, but Seth just laughed and tugged at his shirt to show her a gleaming red stone hanging around his neck.
“Your spells, as much as I appreciate them, cannot affect me when I wear the celestial bloodstone.”
“Where did you get that?” Isis demanded. There was only one living person left in all of the cosmos who would know what could bind Isis’s power. Isis prayed she was wrong.
“Why, your lovely sister, of course,” he said, and Isis closed her eyes, wishing she could unhear his response. Seth went on, “She knew you’d want revenge for the loss of Osiris. It’s only right that she’d want to protect her new husband.”
Isis wrenched her arm away from Nephthys, her eyes stinging with betrayal and loss. How could this be possible? To lose my beloved and my sister all in one day?
Nephthys tried to speak, but Isis held up her hand. “No. Don’t you dare say a word.”
Seth clucked his tongue. “Poor Isis. It would seem that despite his immortal nature, your new husband has been visited by death. How distressing. How . . . impossible. And yet here I am, recently invigorated by the remains of your former husband’s life energy, and fortunately for you, still eager to embrace you as a wife. Of course, now you’ll be relegated to the status of second wife, but I promise to give you an equal amount of attention.”
“You’re sick,” Isis hissed. “I’ll never accept you!”
His smile disappeared and he took a threatening step forward, all the darkness inside him apparent in his demeanor. “And you’re foolish if you think to thwart me again.” Seth grabbed Isis’s wrist, painfully jerking her toward him, and whispered in her ear. “Think about what else you have to lose,” he threatened cunningly.
Tears streaming down her face, Isis looked at her sister and then at Baniti, who stood at the edge of the room, her eyes wide in terror as she pressed her hands to her mouth. Isis did think about what else she had to lose, but in that moment nothing was as important as the grains of sand trickling between her clenched fingers. Eyes bright with determination, she took a deep breath and whispered a spell. Her spells might have had no effect on Seth, but they still worked on her.
A ray of moonlight stole through the window, the light bending until it fell upon Isis. Reaching out, she took hold of the light and used its power to shift her form until her body appeared almost ghostlike and she was able to slip from Seth’s grasp. Alarmed, he tried to take hold of her again, but his hands passed through her as if she were no longer corporeal.
Clutching the sand that was once her husband, Isis leapt upon the moonbeam and it sped her far, far away from Heliopolis. But despite the moonlight that bore her up to the stars, the heaviness of her sorrow reminded her that the distance between her and her beloved now was something even the stars couldn’t breach.
Chapter 7
Uprooted
Isis didn’t know how long she floated there, alone, mourning the love she’d only just won. Her tears flowed freely, her great sorrow provoking the stars to weep as well. The drops fell to the mortal realm and caused the already swollen Nile to rise higher than it ever had before, flooding the countryside so that all who lived within its bounds knew that something terrible must have happened to prevent Osiris from protecting them as he usually did.
She heard the flap of wings and felt the brush of air against her skin. It was Nephthys. Isis’s sorrow turned to rage. “Leave me!” she demanded. “Go back to your husband. The two of you deserve each other.”
“I will not abandon you,” Nephthys replied coolly.
Isis gaped at her incredulously. “Abandon me? You’ve already abandoned me. Betrayed me for one who has done the unthinkable! How could you support such a thing? Tell me you didn’t see this in a vision. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you could have done nothing to prevent it.”
Not until that moment did Isis truly understand the depths of Nephthys’s deception. It was written all over her face. Regret and sorrow swam in Nephthys’s eyes, confirming her suspicions. Her sister had seen this play out in a vision. Had seen it and had done nothing to prevent it. “I cannot abide to look at you,” Isis said as she turned away.
“Isis, stop.” Nephthys put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I know there is much damage I must repair between us, but there is too much to be done and there isn’t enough time for me to explain. Just know that all of these things, including the death of your husband, had to come to pass for the cosmos to be in balance.”
Despite her need to leave, Isis paused to ask one final question. “How can anything ever be in balance again if Osiris is gone?”
“He’s not gone, sister.”
“What?” Isis spun around. “What do you mean?”
Nephthys blew out a breath. “He’s still here. Can’t you feel him?”
“Feel him? How?”
“It was your spell. You are still connected. Even now. If you want to bring him back, we must hurry.”
“But Seth . . .”
“Forget about Seth for the time being. Do you want your husband back or don’t you?”
Isis blinked, and the air stirred by Nephthys’s wings dried the tears that stung her eyes. “Of course I want him back,” she murmured, confusion obvious on her face.
“Then follow me,” Nephthys demanded cryptically, leaving no quarter for further inquiries.
Isis took to the sky, trailing after her sister as a million questions surfaced in her mind. Can it be true? Is it possible that Osiris is still within my reach? Nephthys flew swiftly, and Isis was surprised when Mount Babel came into view. When Isis angled toward the base of the mountain, Nephthys banked until she drew close to her sister. Taking hold of her hand, she said, “The stars allow me passage now. If you hold on to me, the path will be clear.”
The sisters alit on the pinnacle of the mountain in the exact spot where Isis had woven her spell—the place she now held sacred, where she’d united with Osiris not a day before.
Nephthys knelt on the surface of the great adder stone and tucked her wings behind her back, indicating for Isis to follo
w suit. Gently, she pried open her sister’s hand and scooped the sand into a small pile between them, shaping it so that it had four sides and rose to a peak in the middle, forming a pyramid. “Do you have his true name?” Nephthys asked.
Isis nodded.
“Then we will use it to summon him back from the Waters of Chaos. Cast a spell, sister,” she urged. “Create a body for him from his dusty remains. The power of the cosmos will light the pyramid from within, and when it does, use your memory of him to shape his new form. Then, when we are ready, we will use his true name to guide him to it and your shared hearts will reunite.”
Isis began weaving the spell. She’d never done one like it before, and it took several attempts, but at last the cosmos responded. Light bloomed within the sand as she chanted, and her spell became a song. It was rich and full of the love she felt for Osiris. Music was such an important part of him that singing the spell felt right.
Nephthys joined her voice to her sister’s, and to Isis’s delight, she heard the echo of Osiris’s heartbeat. It was almost too faint even for her to hear, but it gave her hope. Hours passed as the women sang, and the sand shifted in response. It stretched and pulsed, forming the vague outline of a man, and then her song carved the planes of his chest, his strong arms, and finally, the angles of his handsome face.
When the grains settled and the light dissipated, she saw that the framework of her husband was perfect down to the last tiny detail, but he was not breathing. Instead of flesh and bone, the sand had hardened into polished stone, and she could not sense that his heart was any nearer than it had been when she started.
Collapsing, Isis panted. “What did I do wrong?” she besought.
“Nothing. We’ll just need some help for the next step.”
Seeing Isis slouching in defeat, Nephthys squeezed her sister’s hands then let go and stood. “Rest for a time. I will fetch Anubis. He will bake the stone with the fires of immortality and then the form will take on flesh.”