The Cursed Pharaoh's Bride

Chapter 15: History Lessons

Carolina

I didn't think I'd ever hear a former pharaoh beg me for anything, much less to stay. My heart aches at the sound of his tone.

"You'll tell me everything?" I ask.

He lets out a deep sigh. "I will. But once I do, you have to listen very carefully to the instructions I'm going to give you afterwards. It's imperative that you do," he begs, his voice hoarse and desperate.

"Okay," I whisper. I let him pull me back into his office. There's a tense silence between us. He moves us to the love seat, which is barely wide enough to fit the both of us. I can feel myself starting to get distracted by the warmth of his thigh, which is pressing against mine. I quickly stand and move to the other couch and sit at the edge closest to him. Luckily, he doesn't follow me.

He continues to anxiously move his hand through his hair before loosening his tie and unbuttoning the first few top buttons of his shirt. "As you already know," he finally starts, "I am El-Hasekrah, the first pharaoh of Egypt. And what is said in most of the myths are true. I am the son of Horus.

"I was born within the era in which the gods still existed in our world. They had the ability to change their physical appearance to suit the needs of their environment. At some point, before the gods left, my parents got together. I don't know much about it except for the fact that it wasn't for love. My mother was a servant in Horus's palace but left when I was born. She struggled to find new work after that so we lived in poverty.

"Despite that, we lived happily. Things started to change as I got a little older. Around the age of 10, I started to develop strong magical abilities that could only be inherited from my father. My mother kept telling me to hide my powers. I couldn't understand why. Until one night I stayed out late running errands for some rich aristocratic family I was working for. There was a demon in the house...one of Set's demons. My mother, she–he was there for me but I...I was 12 at the time, and I–"

He stops mid sentence to keep himself from stumbling over more of his words. He now has his face in his hands, the pain evident in his voice. As if on instinct, I reach my hand out and place it on his knee in comfort. He removes his hands from his face, revealing glossy, tear filled eyes. His large hands envelops mine, the heat radiating off of them making me feel secure. Though, he's the one who needs to be made felt secure right now. He brings my hand up to his lips and presses a soft kiss on it. I can never get used to the tingles that shoot through my body when he does that.

"What happened a-after that?" I stutter. His hold on my hand tightens a bit as he brings it back down to his lap.

"My plan was to go after Set for what he did. I blindly went into the desert looking for his sand fortress. I got lost and almost died. I was saved by Nephthys, Set's wife. She warned me to stay away from him or he will destroy me. After that, I sought out my father. I trained under him until I was 15 years old. From there, I had to prove my worth to Rah by slaying seven different beasts that were plaguing the land at the time. It took a while to get done, but once I did it, Rah finally acknowledge me as my father's son. In doing so, he was also acknowledging the fact that killing my mother, which was an attempt to kill me, was Set's way of trying to start another war with Horus. That gave me the right to defeat Set in the name of my father.

"I didn't kill Set. From what I know so far, it seems that only gods can kill other gods. I brought him damn near close to death though. He was sent to a prison in a world separate from ours. A deal was made after that. Horus and Rah agreed to allow me to be the mortal embodiment of Horus in the mortal world while the gods lived in their own world. They would stay in the Land of the Gods, and influence us from afar while I became pharaoh."