Page 49 of The Secret Shape of Worship
But as the two shared unbound pleasure, in the back of Mina’s mind, a different seed began to grow. One of doubt and worry.
He knew that this couldn’t last forever.
And he waited for the storm that he could already feel coming. The one that would tear the tender sapling of their love from the earth forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY
JUDGMENT
Mina curled into the arms of his god as Anubis sat with his back against the acacia tree, looking out over the gentle orange of the flaming sea.The lake of fire—the thing pastors always preached as the epitome of hell. And yet Mina had found the happiest moments of his life on its shore.
He had come so close to living a perfect life. Perfect according to standards he didn’t even believe in. Never believed in, if he were honest with himself. And he was being honest with himself, finally. He vowed never again to be anything but honest with himself.
His stomach ached at the memory of when he’d first stepped onto shore. He hadn’t been honest with Anubis. Hadn’t outright lied, but he’d omitted details, and soon the reaper would come.
Anubis squeezed Mina and looked down.
“A sadness has come over you. Some darkness clouds your light. What is it?”
“Climbing around inside my head again?” Mina joked. But it was a facade, and Anubis knew it. The god brushed a wild curl off Mina’s forehead.
“I love you, Anu. I thought I would never see you again, and I wanted to see you again so badly. I hated that you were punished for protecting me. It wasn’t fair.”
“There is no ‘fair’ in the world of gods or men. There is only what is, what happens, and what we do.”
Mina’s eyes burned, and his body trembled. Anubis was going to hate him for what he’d done. But he couldn’t hide it any longer. He needed to come clean.
“Anubis, I…”
Along the shore, the fire began to lap wildly, the edge of the green quilt of palm leaves hissing as wave after wave scorched the fronds. Anubis stood and stepped out from the shade of the tree with Mina still cradled and clutched against his chest.
A darkness grew like a storm cloud on the horizon. A ship. Its shape was like the one Mina had arrived on, except larger than the largest ship he’d ever seen back in the mortal world. Great black sails cut high into the blood red sky. A sickly green cloud hung around it like a veil, and Mina knew in that moment what was coming. Even before Anubis’s body went as rigid as stone. Before he lowered Mina to the ground, pushing him behind his back, hands reaching around and clutching his shoulders, pressing the boy into his back as if he could merge them into one and make him disappear. Possessive. Protective.
Anubis was not going to give Mina up. The thought sated his soul even as it made him sick with dread for what was about to happen.
And then the ship was at the shore. So large and otherworldly that Mina could hardly make out the individual boards of the vessel. Could barely discern its shape from the darkness that it seemed to carry with it.
Anubis stepped back and pressed Mina tighter against his back.
A tremble. But not from Mina. From Anubis.
For the first time since Mina had known him, the god was afraid.
Osiris stood before them,knee deep in the lake of fire, neither consumed nor concerned by the flames lapping up his rotting, cloth-wrapped legs.
Anubis’s grip on Mina was almost painful, and he fought the urge to push away.
“Father.” Anubis’s voice was strong, but Mina felt the tremble in his grip around his arms. Every ounce of his fear focused there. Every fiber of his love.
“Anubis. It is time.”
“For?”
“For the deal to be complete.”
“My deal with you has been fulfilled. My exile here in return for the boy’s continued mortal existence. Surely you can grant us more time together here before he is taken back above.”
“The boy is not going back above.”
