Persenet’s POV
I couldn't stop thinking about Ram's proposal.
The words circled my mind as I prepared for bed, as my servants brushed my hair and removed my cosmetics, as I lay in the darkness staring at ceiling paintings I'd memorized months ago. Queen. Great Royal Wife. Protections no rumor could pierce.
He'd offered me everything. And I'd responded like he'd presented a trade agreement.
The memory of his face when I'd left haunted me. That flicker of something—hurt? disappointment?—before he'd smoothed it away. He'd almost said more, I was certain of it. Almost let something slip beyond the careful political framing.
But he'd retreated. And I'd let him.
"You're brooding."
I didn't startle this time. I was learning to expect Seth's appearances, even when I couldn't predict them.
He shimmered into visibility by the window, moonlight streaming through his translucent form. That familiar not-quite-solid presence that made my heart ache with what we'd lost. His crimson eyes held amusement that immediately set me on edge.
"Just thinking," I said flatly.
"About the boy-king's proposal?" Seth drifted closer, his form rippling with each movement. "Yes, I was there. Standing in the corner of his study, watching him stumble through the most awkward marriage offer in Egyptian history."
My cheeks heated despite myself. "You were watching?"
"I'm always watching." He stopped at the foot of my bed, tilting his head with that predatory grace that had never quite left him. "He watches you like a man dying of thirst watches water. Did you notice? The way his hands trembled when you entered? The way his voice cracked when he said 'safety'?"
"He's protective. That's all."
Seth's laugh echoed strangely from his incorporeal form, bouncing off walls in ways sound shouldn't travel. "Protective. Is that what we're calling it?"
"What would you call it?"
"Infatuation." The word dripped with mockery. "Desire. The beginning of something he's too much of a coward to name." Seth's image flickered, resolving into sharper focus as if his amusement gave him strength. "I've shared his mind for eight years, little blessing. I know when Ramesses is developing... attachments."
I sat up against my pillows, pulling the linen sheet higher. "You're imagining things."
"Am I?" He moved to the side of my bed, close enough that I could see the stars through his chest. "He finds excuses to touch your hand during breakfast. Watches the door when you're late to court. Dreams about you—yes, I can still sense his dreams, even separated. They're remarkably vivid."
"Stop it."
"Why?" Seth's smile held edges that could cut. "Does it bother you? Knowing that both a god and a king want you? That two of the most powerful beings in Egypt spend their nights thinking of ways to claim you?"
"Ram isn't trying to claim me. He offered me protection—"
"He offered you a crown." Seth cut me off, his voice sharpening. "The highest position he can give. And you think that's about protection?" He laughed again, the sound bitter now. "Even I wasn't that naive when I was mortal, and that was three thousand years ago."
I threw off the sheet, swinging my legs over the bed's edge to face him directly. "What do you want, Seth? Why are you here?"
"To warn you." The mockery faded, replaced by something harder. "About what he wants. About what he'll expect if you accept."
"And what's that?"
"Everything." Seth's form flickered darker. "Your time, your attention, your body. He'll want you to love him, Enet. Not just tolerate him, not just appreciate his protection—love him. The way you love me."
"I never said I love you."
The words landed between us like a blade.
Seth went very still. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then his lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"No," he said softly. "You haven't. But you do."
"You're arrogant."
"I'm honest." He moved closer, and I felt the ghost of warmth where his body should cast shadow. "You think I don't see it? The way you reach for me even knowing your hand will pass through? The way you say my name when you wake from our dreams? The way your heart races when I appear, even incorporeal, even incomplete?"
I looked away, unable to deny what my body betrayed every time he came near.
"Ram can offer you a crown," Seth continued, his voice dropping to something intimate. "Titles. Political power. A throne beside his, and children who will inherit Egypt after him. But he can't offer you this."
"You can't offer me anything." The words came out harsher than I intended. "You can't even touch me. You're a ghost. A shadow. You haunt my dreams, but in the waking world, you're nothing but smoke."
Something flickered in his expression—pain, quickly buried.
"For now." His voice hardened. "But I'm rebuilding. Every day, I grow stronger. Every night in dreams, I become more solid. Soon—"
"Soon you'll be able to do what? Possess another host?" I rose from the bed, wrapping a robe around myself. "Ram is offering me a real life. A life I can touch, can feel, can live. Not dreams and shadows."
Seth's form solidified slightly, anger giving him definition. "He's mortal. He'll age. He'll die. And you—bearing Nephthys's mark—you may not."
"I haven't chosen anyone."
"Then why does his proposal make your heart race?" Seth's eyes bored into mine. "Why are you angry at me for pointing out what you already know?"
I had no answer. Because he was right—about all of it. Ram's proposal had unsettled me in ways I didn't want to examine. And Seth's presence, even incorporeal, still made my pulse quicken and my thoughts scatter.
"Let him offer whatever he likes," Seth said, his voice softening to something almost tender. "Let him put a crown on your head and call you Queen. It doesn't matter. Because when you close your eyes, when the darkness takes you, when dreams open their doors—you come to me. You'll always come to me."
The possessiveness should have repulsed me. Instead, some treacherous part of my heart responded—to being wanted so fiercely by something as vast as a god.
But I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"Get out."
"Enet—"
"I said get out." I pointed at the window, my hand trembling with anger I only half-felt. "I don't belong to you, Seth. I don't belong to Ram. I don't belong to anyone but myself, and I'll make my own choices without either of you trying to claim me as a territory to be conquered."
Seth stared at me for a long moment. Then his form began to fade.
"You're magnificent when you're angry," he murmured as moonlight began to show through him. "I've always loved that about you."
"I don't care what you love."
"Liar." His voice came from everywhere and nowhere as the last traces dissolved into shadow. "But I'll let you have your anger tonight. It's better than watching you consider his offer with that thoughtful expression that makes me want to burn his palace down."
Then he was gone.
But his laughter lingered in the dark corners of my chamber. I stood shaking in the moonlight, arms wrapped around myself, no closer to knowing what I wanted before either of them had spoken.
Two men. Two impossible choices. And a mark on my collarbone that pulsed with power I still didn't understand.
I crawled back into bed, but sleep wouldn't come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ram's face—that flicker of hurt when I'd responded so coolly. And beneath that image, Seth's crimson eyes watching from shadows, waiting for me to dream.
The worst part was, he was right. I would dream tonight. And in dreams, where he was solid and real, I would forget my anger and let him pull me close.
But that didn't mean I belonged to him.
It didn't mean I belonged to anyone.
The moon tracked slowly across my ceiling, and I lay awake watching it, caught between two impossible futures I couldn't imagine choosing between.