He removed his mask, revealing very human reddish-brown eyes and a stunning visage. The crimson god was somehow more beautiful to me than all of those before him, maybe because of his fierceness, his obvious anger when the others had all been benevolent, even Geb, who had frightened me at first, and Ra, who had proven mischievous.
“I am whatever form I choose to be, when I choose it, and no other,” he said, and threw the headdress at me.
I caught it on instinct, and in my hands, the hollows of its eyes glowed red, startling me into dropping it. But, before it could hit the ground, it flew over to the wall to hang itself above the armor. “O-of course, my lord. My apologies,” I stammered with a bow.
Seth stomped into the room past me, tall and lithe and absolutely holding my attention so there was nothing I could do but turn with him and follow where he went.
He tossed himself upon his daybed, spreading out like a lounging cat.
“Welcome to a part of the Duat no mortal ever sees,” he said, gesturing with one arm to encompass the room. “Pitiful, isn't it?”
Already, he was baiting me. This would not be the same as my time with the others.
I moved toward him, stopping just in front of the bed. I didn’t dare join him until bidden, and there weren’t many other places to sit. The table and chairs—no,chair, for what need did he have of two—felt too far away from where the daybed rested.
“I actually find it quite lovely here. Not your solitude, but what you have crafted and built around yourself, while not a substitute for company, is beautiful.”
Seth huffed, sounding very similar to the snuffle from his jackal-like form. “Even a brute can have an artistic eye.”
“You are no brute.”
“No?”
“Brutes aren’t clever.”
Seth huffed again, but this time, I caught the tease of a smile on his lips. “Go on,” he said.
“My lord?”
“Ask me already. Ask about my interestingly dressed salad.”
Oh. That was one of the odder parts to his story with Horus.
“Isn’t it what all you mortals wonder about?” Seth pressed. “Whether that story rings true?”
It felt awkward standing there, but he was taking up the entire bed, seemingly on purpose, leaving me no place to go. “Stories can become corrupted over the years, my lord, and it has been well over a thousand since the first accounts of yours.”
“Tell me whatyouknow of it, Nakht.”
Not even Anubis’s voice had made my knees feel quite as weak as Seth saying my name. The pounding of my heart had yet to slow either.
With the request, Seth gestured not for me to sit or lie beside him but to the floor beneath where he lounged.
So be it. I was not yet certain how to navigate this trial, but I knelt like a humble servant before my master and recounted the story I knew. “During your contendings with your nephew, Horus, between challenges, you sought to seduce him to claim victory. You brought yourself to hardness and pierced between his thighs, but he caught you and you came in his hand instead of inside him. He showed his mother the shame of your seed, who threw it away, and then Horus released his seed upon a bundle of lettuce that was later fed to you as a trick, proving the one who had been bested and claimed was you.”
Seth remained impassive through the retelling, watching me with a sharpness in his ruddy eyes that matched that of his spear’s blade. Then he waited, and waited, but there was no more to tell.
Was there?
Eventually, Seth grabbed my chin and tilted it higher, as if studying my face.
“M-my lord?”
“You haven’t asked yet.”
I had to be careful with this god of chaos. “Is it true?”
Seth leaned down closer to me, so very close, enough that I felt the heat from his breath when he whispered, “No. Not even that Horus is my nephew.”
