The dream began in darkness.
Not threatening void, but something softer—velvet black, warm and encompassing. I stood alone, aware that I was dreaming, waiting.
"Finally." Seth materialized before me, more solid here than in the waking world.
"Ram's been with me constantly. I haven't been alone—"
"I know." A flicker crossed his face. "But that's not why I couldn't reach you. Your power is creating interference, blocking my connection."
"My power." I laughed bitterly. "The power that's turning me into something inhuman."
"The power that could save your life if you learn to control it." He stepped closer. "The scholars Ram brought are useless. They study gods from the outside. Let me teach you."
"Teach me what?"
"How to contain it. Channel it. Stop the bleeding edges." His hand lifted toward my face. "You're hemorrhaging divine energy. That's why the visions overwhelm you. You have no barriers."
I considered refusing. But my hands had glowed three times today, and last night I'd woken up screaming.
"Show me."
Seth smiled—not his mocking grin, but something genuine. Almost tender.
"Give me your hands."
I extended them. He took them in his, and the contact sent warmth flooding through me. In dreams, his touch was solid, real, achingly present.
"Divine power flows like water," he said. "Right now, yours has no banks. No channels. It floods everywhere, touches everything, spills out at random." His thumbs traced circles on my palms. "Feel it?"
I did. A current beneath my skin, restless and searching, pressing against my boundaries like a river against a dam.
"Now. Imagine the flow narrowing. Not stopping—you can't stop it entirely—but directing. A river becomes a stream, becomes a trickle, becomes a controlled drip."
"How?"
"Breath first. The body anchors the divine, even in dreams." He released one hand to touch my chest, just above my heart. "Breathe in. Feel the power rise. Breathe out. Feel it settle."
I tried. Inhaled slowly, and felt the current surge upward, pressing against my throat, my eyes, my fingertips.
"Now out. Push it down. Not away—down. Into your core. Your center. Where the mark lives."
I exhaled. The power resisted, wanting to expand, wanting to touch everything around me, read every secret, heal every wound. But I pushed, imagining the flood narrowing, banks rising on either side to contain the rush.
Slowly, reluctantly, it retreated.
"Good." Seth's voice was warm with approval. "Again."
We practiced for what felt like hours. Breath and focus, containment and release. He adjusted my posture— "shoulders back, you're not a question mark" —corrected my visualization— "not a wall, walls break, think of it as a channel" —and demonstrated with his own power.
Crimson light flowed from his hands in controlled streams, coiling into shapes, writing words in the air.
"Show-off," I muttered.
"Three thousand years of practice." But he grinned.
He was a good teacher. Patient in ways I hadn't expected. When I failed, he didn't mock—just corrected and had me try again. When I succeeded, his praise was genuine.
"You're holding tension here." His hand pressed against the base of my spine, and I sucked in a breath. "Power gets trapped when the body clenches. Relax."
"Hard to relax when you're touching me like that."
"Like what?" His voice dropped, teasing. His fingers traced upward along my spine, slow and deliberate, leaving trails of warmth that had nothing to do with divine energy. "I'm simply correcting your form."
"You're enjoying this."
"I'm a chaos god. I enjoy everything." But his hand lingered at the nape of my neck, thumb brushing the sensitive skin there. "Though I admit, teaching you has certain... pleasures I didn't anticipate."
I should have stepped away. Should have reminded him this was instruction, nothing more. Instead, I leaned back into his touch, feeling the heat of his dream-body against mine.
"Focus," he murmured against my ear, though his hands said something else entirely. "Breath first. Then control."
"Hard to breathe when you're—"
"When I'm what?" His lips grazed my earlobe. "Distracting you?"
"Yes."
"Good. Power doesn't wait for convenient moments. You need to control it even when you're distracted. Especially then." His arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me flush against his chest. "Now. Contain the surge. Show me what you've learned."
The power was wild inside me—responding not just to divine instruction but to the press of his body, the heat of his breath, the impossible intimacy of being held by a god who wanted me. I struggled to find the channel, the narrowed flow, while every nerve ending screamed for something else entirely.
I managed it. Barely. The power settled into a controlled current just as his teeth grazed my shoulder.
"Better," he said, and the approval in his voice made me shiver. "Much better."
"One more exercise." Seth turned me to face him, hands sliding down my arms to my wrists, grip firm but gentle. "The hardest one. You need to learn to direct the flow intentionally. To choose when power moves and where it goes."
"How?"
"By connecting to something. Someone." His eyes held mine, crimson depths burning with something that went far beyond instruction. "Divine power responds to emotion. To desire. To connection. In the waking world, you touched a flower and wanted it to live—so your power made it live. You passed a grieving servant and felt her pain—so your power read her history."
"I didn't mean to do either of those things."
"Exactly. But what if you did mean to? What if you could choose?" He pulled me closer, our bodies nearly touching, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his dream-form. "Feel my energy. My presence. Now push your awareness toward me intentionally. Not randomly. Not accidentally. Choose to connect."
His hands released my wrists and slid to my hips, holding me in place.
"Choose me," he said, and his voice had dropped to something rough and hungry.
I focused on him. On the warmth radiating from his skin, the crimson glow at the edges of his form, the ancient power coiled behind his human appearance. On the way his fingers pressed into my hips, possessive and wanting.
And I pushed.
The connection snapped into place like a key turning in a lock. Suddenly I felt him—not just his presence, but his essence. His hunger, vast and consuming, centuries of wanting compressed into a single need. His loneliness, the hollow places nothing had filled until me. His fear of losing me. And beneath it all, desire—raw, overwhelming, a want so intense it made my knees weak.
"There." His voice came out rough, strained. "You feel it?"
"Yes." I was breathless, drowning in sensation. "Seth, I feel—"
"Everything. I know." His forehead dropped to rest against mine, his breath ragged. "This is what divine connection feels like. Overwhelming. Intimate." His hips pressed forward, and I gasped. "Dangerous if you're not careful."
Our energies twined together, silver and crimson, braiding into something neither controlled. It felt like falling. Like being consumed and consuming all at once. His hands slid from my hips to my lower back, pulling me closer.
"Is this still teaching?" I managed.
"It's whatever you want it to be." His lips brushed my jaw. "Say stop and I stop. Say more and I—"
"Is this what it was like with Nephthys?" The question broke whatever spell had been building.
Seth went still. "No. With Nephthys it was different. Colder. Divine to divine, power meeting power." His hand cupped my cheek. "This is warmer. Messier. Human heart and divine power tangled together."
"I need to pull back."
"Yes." But his thumb traced my lower lip. "You should definitely pull back."
"Seth..."
"I know." He exhaled slowly. "Same time tomorrow. You've made more progress in one lesson than those scholars made in three days."
Finally, with effort that felt like tearing skin, I withdrew. The silver retreated from the crimson. The intimacy faded, leaving me cold where his warmth had been.
We stood apart, breathing hard. In a dream, where breath shouldn't matter.
"Seth—"
"Don't." His expression was raw. "Don't say anything about what we just felt. Not yet."
He was right. But as the dream dissolved, I carried more than control techniques with me. I carried the ghost of his hands on my hips, his desire flooding through our bond like fire.
Learning control. That's all this was.
Even if my body still thrummed with wanting him hours after I woke.