A God's Bargain (EgyptianGod!Brothers and Reader)

Chapter 11

I startled from the stone I sat on, knocking over the water jug as I staggered to regain my footing. Cold water greeted my bare feet while I took deep breaths, slowly looking over towards I had last seen Khnum.

The Nile deity was still present, his emotionless expression meeting mine with a hooded stare.

"Did...you know?"

"I'm not all-knowing, Ahti," The tone Khnum used was dismissive, barely moving from his position when he leaned back a little, "I don't know what you saw."

"I saw Nephthys slain on the Nile riverbank," My breathing steadied while I took delicate steps back towards Khnum, "I heard Set...I think he's obsessed with me because I'm the last lifetime she has as a mortal. When I die, he'll take her back as his wife."

"Then why not die and get this over with?"

"I don't want to die, Khnum!" I took another step towards the impassive deity, shock and anger registering on my face, "I want to go back to my home."

"Yet, you're not bartering with those who could possibly ensure that to happen," He merely lifted an eyebrow, his pale yellow eyes meeting mine in a challenge, "Your son and his father."

"Anubis...and Osiris?" I mentally reeled from the suggestion, unsure about either option laid before me, "But...they don't have temples in the area, from what I know. Plus, they're both dead realm gods that I wouldn't really be able to meet without almost dying again."

Of the two, Osiris was the harder to communicate with. He was the lord of the dead, the one that weighed hearts against a feather of Ma'at to see if the heart's owner was able to pass on to paradise or be fed to the monster Ammit. He was said to escort the souls of pharaohs to paradise himself should they pass the weighing.

He was also the same deity that Nephthys had lain with to produce Anubis, the very act causing all of this to happen to me.

I didn't really feel like drawing more ire to me from a deity that may feel slighted of being tricked into sleeping with someone who wasn't his partner, not to mention the possible wrath of Isis, Osiris' wife and Nephthys' sister.

"If I can't communicate with them, who would I turn to then?" I pried Khnum for some wisdom, knowing the answer yet not wanting to hear it.

"Set."

I closed my eyes in resignation, angered that once more I found myself in a position where I may have to make another bargain with the very deity that had dragged me here. While I had asked Atum to leave me here, Khnum had made it clear that he didn't want this little town in Set's sights...and since Set was always pursuing Nephthys within me, I was the one that had to leave before he arrived. While it would be easier to keep hiding from the chaotic deity, I knew that I would eventually tire from fleeing.

Set was a certainty; I was temporary.

"Khnum, I will ask you for one thing," My eyes met his pale yellow hues in a neutral gaze, "I want your protection while I use your Nile to traverse away from Djedet."

The only response was a slight recoil of his head, as if he hadn't expected me to ask that from him.

I picked up the empty clay vase of water, dipping it into the Nile once more before walking towards the embankment, "I have Atum's protection until the poison within me has been bled, so I know that I am moderately safe from mortal danger. This town had been kind to me while I recovered from the assassination and I wish to repay their kindness with an unseen action. Djedet will not fall to Set's anger."

"You understand that what you're setting out to do may result in your death, right?" The river deity followed me along the Nile's shoreline, his feet hovering just above the mud and clay while my feet sank into it, "I thought you were wanting to remain free."