Aneksi had now been at the palace for two weeks, and she was starting to wonder how much time she had left with Setau. He had always been very vague about the time he was going to stay with them, but she knew it wouldn’t be much longer. He had finished evaluating the advances on the pyramid’s construction; he had visited every prominent family in the city. So, there wasn’t much more for him to do there, and that was starting to worry her. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him.
She had always known whatever there was between them was temporary, but she hadn't given it much thought until now that time seemed to be slipping through her fingers like the hot sand of the desert.
She had been walking through the garden one morning when she received a visit from Nubia and her group of court ladies. The girl looked really furious, and Aneksi took a deep breath before she faced her.
“Good morning, your highness. What a surprise to have you here,” she said as politely as possible.
“I just heard something I needed to confirm with you,” the woman spouted, in an almost hysterical tone.
“Tell me about it, your highness,” she invited, though she had no interest in hearing about gossips.
“Did you know Prince Setau isn’t who he claims to be?” she asked, in a loud tone.
Aneksi frowned, worried about the woman’s words. “What do you mean? Of course, he’s Prince Setau.”
“No, he isn’t. I just heard him talking with my father. He’s actually the God Anubis himself,” she announced in a loud shout.
“You must have misunderstood what you heard,” Aneksi said, shaking her head. That was impossible. The god wouldn’t have wasted his time coming to visit them in person.
“No, I didn’t. My father was calling him God Anubis, and they were discussing the god’s departure in a few days,” the princess assured her.
Aneksi was in shock. She couldn’t believe she had been with one of the gods and she hadn't known it. “I had no idea,” she mumbled, rubbing her forehead, to appease a sudden headache.
“He was telling my father he planned on taking a woman with him, to be his life companion,” the princess continued ignoring Aneksi’s words. “And I’m determined to be that woman,” she added, with a mean expression on her face.
Aneksi looked at her as if she had lost her mind. How was she planning to achieve that? Setau, Anubis hadn't shown any interest in her. “And how exactly do you plan on getting that?” she asked, with a frown.
“Getting you out of my way. I’m sure with you gone, he will look around for someone else, and he’ll see me, a princess, someone much more adequate for the role of a god’s life companion.” There was such evilness in her tone, Aneksi took a step back.
“I’m no threat to you,” she assured the princess.
Nubia made a sign with her head, and four of her ladies surrounded Aneksi and grabbed her.
“Of course, you are.”
Before Aneksi was able to do anything, the princess took out a small bottle and cloth from her kalasiris, and after soaking the cloth in whatever she had in the bottle, she pressed the fabric over Aneksi’s mouth and nose. The smell was so strong, so nauseating, it only took her a few seconds to lose consciousness.
When she came to herself, her head was pounding hard, and she had trouble opening her eyes. Though there wasn’t much light in wherever she was; its brightness was enough to make her cringe and close her eyes.
She tried to move her hands, but she soon realized she was shackled to a rocky wall. Slowly this time, she opened her eyes and looked around. She was in some kind of abandoned tomb, judging by the way it was built, and the empty stone sarcophagus in the middle of the room.
Looking at her hands, she confirmed she had been shackled to the tombs rocky wall, with her body sitting against the wall. Her feet were also bound, but to the ground and after a few tugs and pulls, she was sure she wasn’t going anywhere without help.
She realized the princess had left her there to die, caring very little about her life, and what her absence might mean for her family and even for all her people.
Nubia was playing with fire, and in her arrogance, she wasn’t able to see it.
Letting out a loud cry of frustration she tugged on her iron cuffs but it was no use. She was stuck there.
Time went by very slowly, and she looked at the torches, praying they would stay lit as long as she was conscious. She could imagine the rats and other animals crawling around the place, and her whole body trembled with dread.
She remembered Nubia’s words about Setau being God Anubis himself, and she chuckled, not sure to believe the other woman’s words. Why would he have bothered to come visit them? It didn’t make any sense.
But, if he were really the god, maybe he would listen to her prayers. A bitter laugh came out her lips. She had never believed that the gods actually heard their people’s prayers. There was too much pain, too many unsolved problems in this world for her to believe that, but she guessed it wouldn’t hurt to send out a few prayers to him.
She didn’t want to starve to death, buried in this tomb. So, she prayed; she slumbered then prayed again and time went by, with excruciating slowness, and when the first torch faded out, she let out a loud cry.
While Aneksi was conscious, she kept thinking of him, of all she had lived with him and all she still wanted to live with him. She had fallen in love with him that first night, and she hadn't been able to get him out of her mind and her heart ever since. If he really was a god, it only made him an impossible love for her, and knowing that was very painful, so painful, that in her darkest moments inside that tomb, she wished Seth would take her to the underworld and end her misery.
The minutes and the hours seemed to last centuries, and she was getting too tired to even move. The lack of water was getting to her, and she knew she didn’t have much time. No one was coming for her. She was doomed to die in that dreadful situation.
Her wrists hurt terribly, and she was so tired and so hungry and thirsty she couldn’t think straight. She had lost track of time entirely and she had no idea how long she had been there nor how long she would still be there.
She must have slumbered for a while because next thing she was conscious of, was opening her eyes to sheer darkness. The last torch had faded out, and there wasn’t a single ray of light in the tomb. She guessed there was some opening somewhere since she was still breathing relatively well, but that only prolonged her agony and though she tried to control her panic, it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
With the darkness, the sounds had amplified 1,000 times, and she could hear the sound of the rat’s small paws, walking around her. Chills of dread rushed through her whole body, and her desperation was growing by the second. She thought she was going to lose her mind when she finally heard voices outside the tomb.
She tried to yell, to let them know she was trapped there, but her throat was so dry she wasn’t able to utter a word. Frustrated, she tugged the chains imprisoning her and made as much noise as she could. She had no idea who was out there; she just wanted to be rescued.
Finally, after a few minutes that felt like centuries, the rock closing the tomb was moved, and a small group of people entered the tomb, with torches. Anubis was leading the group, and soon he was kneeling next to her and pulling her into his arms. She let out a loud sob, and he offered her water from the small amphora one of the men was carrying.
“I’ll get you out of here in no time,” he whispered into her ear. Grabbing the iron cuffs with his bare hands, he tore them to pieces. He freed her as quickly as possible, and soon he was carrying her out of the tomb. She had many questions to ask, but she was so weak; she couldn’t speak.
There was a boat outside the tomb waiting for them and only when she looked around, she realized Nubia had arranged everything so that nobody would ever find her.
She was in the middle of nowhere, and the tomb she had been in, was on the top of a small hill, a few yards away from the river Nile.
They sailed down the river back to Giza, and she cuddled up against him, too tired for anything else. She must have fallen asleep because, when she opened her eyes again she was in their room, and he was lying next to her. There were some bandages around her wrists and ankles, and she was feeling much better.
“Hi, how are you feeling?” he asked, with a faint smile on his lips.
“Better,” the word came out more natural, and she assumed he had been giving her water while she had been unconscious.
“Would you like to eat something? They brought you some soup, something easy for you to swallow,” he asked, with a slight frown.
“Yes, that would be good.” He helped her sit against the pillows in bed and handed her the bowl of soup.
“How did you find me?” she asked him after taking a few spoons of the warm, delicious soup.
“It wasn’t easy. Princess Nubia was smart enough to stay out of my sight. She went visiting some family members out of the city, but as I kept hitting dead ends all the time. I started to think whoever was behind your abduction had to have left the city as well, so I started asking and found out she had left only a few hours after you disappeared.” He explained, with a stern expression on his face. “Making her confess was quite easy, and soon I was sailing the river to come rescue you.”
“You never considered I had escaped?” she asked, with a slight frown.
“No. You’re an honest, straight-forward person. You would have confronted me if you weren’t pleased with me or with the way things are between us,” he replied, matter-of-factly and she smiled. He knew her better than she thought.
“Did you warn my parents?”
“I preferred not to worry them. If Nubia had turned out to be another dead end, I would have gone looking for them. They could have had vital information."
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said, nodding. “What have you done with Nubia?” she asked, a bit worried about his expression.
“For now, she’s in one of her father’s dungeons, waiting for me to decide her fate,” he replied, in a cold tone that sent shivers down her spine.
There was so much she didn’t know about him.
“She told me you weren’t Prince Setau,” she finally gathered the courage to tell him; her eyes locked in his face.
He let out a deep sigh, “Yes, I figured she had. It was never meant to keep it a secret from you; I was just looking for the best moment to explain things to you.”
“So, you’re really Anubis?” for some reason, she couldn’t call him a god. Perhaps, because she had been sharing his bed for weeks, she couldn’t think of him as a god.
He was just the man she had fallen in love with.
“Yes, I am,” he confessed.
She inhaled deep. “Why…?” she started asking, but she quickly realized she had no right to question him.
“Why did I hide it? I had a special mission here on your planet, and for it to be a success, my identity needed to remain a secret. Only the Pharaoh was aware of it,” he explained, with a faint smile.
“Oh. I see. And has your mission been a success?” she asked, her frown deeper than ever.
“Yes. I can say it has. I didn’t expect these last events, but I should have been prepared for it,” he said, scowling.
She nodded and stayed in silence for a few moments. “You know, I prayed to you, I figured if you were a god, you should be able to hear my prayers and rescue me from a terrible death,” she said, ironic, with a self-deprecating scowl.
He looked flustered as he heard her words. “We... we’re not that kind of gods. We do all we can to help your people, but your requests must come from the priests we leave behind,” he explained, rubbing his face, as he jumped out of bed and paced the room for a few moments before he returned and kneeled next to her. “They are the only ones able to communicate with us.”
“How were you able to find me, then?” she asked, not very pleased.
“Interrogating every single person in this palace. I can tell when someone is lying; it’s one of my powers. After a while, it was obvious no one here knew anything about you, until I discovered Nubia was missing.” He explained. “It wasn’t hard to break her and make her admit what she had done.”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure how she felt right now. Discovering all her people’s beliefs were quite far from the truth, felt quite bitter.
“I know you’re upset, and I understand. We could tell people the truth, but that wouldn’t help them. People need something to believe in, to pray to, and we try to do our jobs as best as we can,” he added, worried with her frown. “We try to be there for them as much as we can, helping them in the ways we can, but there are things far beyond our power, like bringing people from the dead, or turning back time.”
She shook her head. “This is too much to assimilate,” she said, closing her eyes.
“I know, and this wasn’t the way I had planned on telling you all this,” he assured her.
“Why are you telling me all this?” she asked, intrigued.
“It’s part of my plans for you, Aneksi, but this isn’t the moment to discuss that.” He got up. “You need to get some rest, and we can talk later.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. She fell asleep quite fast, but her sleep was filled with nightmares, with her still in the tomb, and the rats crawling all over her weak body.
Anubis woke her up and cuddled her in his arms until she was able to go back to sleep.