Persenet’s POV
I woke up alone.
The sheets beside me were cold, undisturbed, holding no impression of the divine body that had pressed me into hours before. Morning light streamed through the latticed windows, painting golden patterns across silk that still smelled faintly of myrrh and something older—something that made my birthmark pulse with remembered heat.
"Seth?"
My voice echoed through empty chambers. The balcony where he'd first appeared stood vacant, stone warming in the early sun. The corner where he'd pulled me close, where he'd kissed me until I forgot my own name—nothing but shadows retreating from Ra's first light and the fading scent of incense from the temple below.
I pressed my palm against my collarbone, feeling the mark throb beneath my skin. Last night was real. I hadn't dreamed of him. The soreness between my thighs, the faint bruises on my hips where divine hands had gripped too hard, the delicious ache in muscles I'd forgotten I possessed—all of it testified to his presence. To his return.
So where was he now?
I rose from the bed, wrapping myself in linen that felt rough against skin still sensitive from his touch. The chamber stretched around me, magnificent and empty—ebony furniture catching the light, painted walls depicting the Field of Reeds where the blessed dead wandered in eternal peace. Last night, this room felt alive with his presence. Now it was just another beautiful cage.
"Missing me already?"
I whirled toward the voice, heart slamming against my ribs.
He stood by the window, crimson hair catching the morning light, that familiar smirk playing across lips I'd tasted mere hours ago. Relief crashed through me so hard my knees nearly buckled. I was moving before I could think, crossing the space between us with arms already reaching—
"Seth, thank the gods, I thought you'd—"
My arms closed around nothing.
I stumbled forward, momentum carrying me through the space where his body should have been. Through him. Like embracing smoke, like trying to hold morning mist before it dissolved. I caught myself on the window frame, limestone biting into my palms, and spun around to face him.
He hadn't moved. Still standing there, still smirking, still looking so real I could count the individual strands of crimson hair falling past his shoulders. But the light passed through him now. Faint, barely perceptible, but there—I could see the painted hieroglyphs on the wall behind him bleeding through his form.
"What—" My voice cracked. "What's wrong? What happened to you?"
The smirk faltered. Something raw flickered across his features before he buried it beneath familiar arrogance.
"Nothing's wrong." He said it too quickly, too lightly. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"But I can't—" I reached for him again, slower this time, watching my fingers pass through his chest like he was made of colored air. "Last night you were solid. You touched me. You held me down and—"
"Last night I burned through three weeks of accumulated energy in a single evening." The arrogance cracked further, revealing something that sounded almost like pain beneath. "Apparently, even gods have limits when it comes to maintaining physical form in the mortal realm."
The words hit me like a fist to the stomach. I staggered back, pressing against the window frame for support.
"You can't touch me anymore?"
"Not at the moment." He moved closer—or seemed to. Hard to tell when his feet didn't quite touch the floor, when his edges shimmered with each step. "The reformation left me incomplete. I can appear anywhere now. I can watch over you, talk to you, be with you in every way that doesn't involve—"
"Skin." The word came out hollow. "Warmth. Actually holding each other."
"Temporary." His jaw tightened. "This is temporary."
"How long?" The tears were already building, burning behind my eyes. "How long until you can touch me again?"
Silence. The kind that answered questions without words.
"Seth." I heard the desperation in my own voice and hated it. "How long?"
"I don't know." The admission seemed to cost him something vital. He turned away, pacing toward the balcony, and I watched light stream through his form like he was made of stained glass. "I've never been separated from a vessel before. Never been unmade and remade. There's no precedent."
I sank onto the edge of my bed, legs refusing to hold me. Last night I had him—solid and real and overwhelming, his hands in my hair, his body covering mine. And now this. The cruelest punishment. Having him back but not having him at all.
"You could have warned me." My voice broke on the accusation. "Last night, before we—you could have told me it wouldn't last."
He turned back to face me, and the raw anguish in his expression stole my breath. "And what? Watched you hold back? Spent our one night of solidity talking instead of touching?"
"At least I would have known—"
"You deserved to feel me, Enet." He moved toward me, stopping just short of where I sat, close enough that I should have felt his warmth but felt only the faint hum of divine energy. "Properly. Completely. Even if it cost everything I'd gathered."
"You burned through all your power for one night with me?"
"I'd burn through eternity for one night with you." The words hung between us, raw and devastating. "Every particle of energy I'd accumulated. Every scrap of divine essence I'd pulled together. I'd spend it all again just to feel you come apart in my arms."
The tears spilled over then, tracking down cheeks that still held the ghost-impression of his fingers. I'd grieved him for three weeks—believing him destroyed, waking to absence, falling asleep to despair.
Then last night. And now this.
"I'm still here." His voice dropped, all the arrogance stripped away. He crouched before me, and the gesture would have been intimate if his knees could actually bend properly, if his form didn't waver at the edges. "I'm not leaving you. I'm not disappearing into the divine realm. I just... can't touch you. Not yet."
I reached for his face anyway, needing to try even knowing it was useless. My fingers passed through his cheek, meeting nothing but faint warmth and the smell of myrrh.
"I can feel you here," I whispered, pressing my other hand against my birthmark. The skin burned beneath my palm. "When you're near. The mark knows."
"Because you're mine." No arrogance now—just truth, simple and absolute. "Whatever form I take, whatever boundaries separate us. And I will find a way back to solidity. If I have to tear apart the boundaries between realms—"
"Pretty words." I managed something approaching a smile through the tears. "You always did have pretty words."
"They're not words. They're promises." He leaned closer, and I could almost feel the heat of his gaze, almost taste the myrrh on his breath. "And gods don't break promises to the things they love."
The word landed between us, heavy and terrifying and perfect.
"Love?" I breathed.
But he was already fading, edges dissolving as morning light strengthened through my windows. His form grew thinner, more translucent, until I could see the entire room through him.
"Seth, wait—"
"Dream of me tonight, little blessing." His voice came from everywhere and nowhere, wrapping around me one last time as his image scattered into shafts of sunlight. "I'll be watching. I'm always watching."
Then nothing. Just my chamber, the warming sun, and the lingering scent of myrrh on sheets that should have held his impression but didn't.
I pressed both hands against my birthmark, feeling it pulse with warmth that had nothing to do with morning light. He was here. Somewhere between solid and shadow, between presence and absence, between the god he'd become and the lover I needed him to be.
The mark burned brighter, and somewhere in the golden light streaming through my window, I could have sworn I heard him laugh—low and dark and full of promises I was desperate enough to believe.