“Why not? I would think you’d be proud. Like a father.”
Turning, Horus took hold of my shoulders and stopped me. “Because, Lily, to know them is to love them. If I love them, then it will cause me pain when I lose them. It is the curse that comes with immortality. Do you understand?”
“I…I think I do,” I answered quietly. He looked like he wanted to say more.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Why do you venture on this course when the inevitable outcome, even should you be successful, is to part with the boy you profess to love once again?”
“He’s worth it,” I said simply. “The physical distance doesn’t matter because the truth of our connection is engraved in my heart. I could no more deny my feelings for him than I could deny the brightness of the sun.”
Horus frowned. “You know, there was a part of you that responded to my kiss, too.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That can’t be right.”
“The spell I cast wouldn’t have worked at all had you been unwilling,” he said. “Your lioness may have been swayed by its lure, but if you had been truly against it, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“I should’ve known you’d play dirty with a spell,” I groused.
Tia tried to appease me. It is not your fault, Lily. I was the weak one. Horus…tempts me. It should not damage your relationship with Amon.
I don’t want to talk about it, I said sulkily.
Perhaps someday I could love Horus, she mused.
It’s not love, I responded dryly in my mind.
I wish for him to hold me in his arms and rain kisses upon my lips and face. I like it when he pets me. This is what you desire from your Amon as well. Is this not love?
No. Yes, I groaned. How was I going to explain the concept of love to a lioness? Those things are lovely, I told her mentally. They feel wonderful. But they are only expressions of love. Only symbols of the emotion behind them.
Then Horus loves me. If he expresses it so deftly, he must.
A man who does not love you can fool you with…physical distractions. True love takes time. It’s not instantaneous. You must get to know the other person. Come to admire them. Find out what they dream of, what they hope for, and see if those things are echoed in your own heart. Only then will love begin. And you will know it’s true when you are asked to give something up in order to protect the one you love. Tell me, if Horus were to meet an untimely end, would you mourn him? Would your heart break over his absence?
She was quiet for a long moment. I would miss his kisses, but I would not feel a piece of my soul rip should he depart our company.
I smiled. Then you know what love really means.
That my soul rips when we are separated?
Exactly.
Horus stopped at a wall so high I couldn’t see the top of it. With a wave of his hand, stones shifted, grinding against the bedrock and on each other with the sound of a thousand millstones that made my bones shake and strain as if they would crumble to powder. Holding my arm to keep me upright, Horus finally let go when a gap appeared in the wall.
“This is where we part, young sphinx.”
Pain crossed his face, and he moved in close as if to kiss me again. He seemed almost unable to help himself, but I stepped back, determined this time to keep him at bay. Fortunately, it became a non-issue, as a screech overhead stopped him in his tracks. He glared at the circling benu bird and satisfied himself with pressing his lips against my palm. “Farewell,” he said as I stepped through the opening. “Follow the bird. He will not lead you astray.”
“Goodbye, Horus. Perhaps we will meet again.”
“Perhaps.” He waved his hand and the stone wall began to seal itself shut behind me. “But it would be better for me if we did not.” His bright, hungry, but worried eyes haunted me as I turned and set off from Heliopolis.
Above me the benu bird came into view. Though it was hard to see him through the trees, he always circled back to find me. If I wandered in the wrong direction, I’d hear his song echo in the forest. Sometimes I’d pass a tall conifer and find him perched