The Chaos of Stars

Chapter 15

Osiris was murdered. Horus was poisoned by a scorpion. Amun-Re was fatally bit by a snake. The gods could die. The gods did die.

But Isis, the Great Lady of Magic, was always around to fix it.

Without Isis, even a god could die forever.

“NO,” I WHISPER, BACKING AWAY FROM RY.

“I’ve wanted to tell you! And now—well, here. I have something to read to you.” He pulls out a thin sheaf of folded paper from his pocket, face flush with excitement. And he’s saying all of this, everything, in ancient Egyptian. The language my mother used to sing me to sleep. The language no one knows how to speak.

Floods. My family aren’t the only gods. The world has shifted, tilting on its axis. This changes everything I thought I knew. And if he can speak in tongues . . .

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Ry is a god. He’s a god. It can’t be possible. There aren’t any others. My mother would have told me. She always said the other mythologies, the other stories . . . she said they were cheap copies. Does she know there are other gods out there?

Not out there. Right here. And he knows who I am.

“How long?” I whisper.

He looks up from his papers. “What?”

“How long have you known? Did you find me on purpose?” I remember with icy clarity what he said to me after I got my hair cut—that he recognized me. He was looking for me.

His smile finally drops off as he notices my expression. “No, I—”

I laugh bitterly. “Gods. Just can’t help yourselves, can’t ever leave me alone. You set me up.” Then I remember what little I know about the Orion from Greek mythology.

He’s known as the Hunter.

My stomach drops and I stumble back, away from him. Every dream I’ve had screams through my head. What if the threat wasn’t in Egypt? What if it was always here? All this time he spent worming his way into my trust, all those times he tried to get me talking about my parents.

All these feelings I was ready to have for him.

No. I stand straight, my spine a steel rod. “I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been alive or how immortal you think you are. I will kill you before I let you hurt my parents.”

His treacherously beautiful face is white with shock. “Please, let me explain, Isadora!”

“Don’t you dare use my name.”

“I’m not Orion! Not the original one, anyway!” He runs his hands through his hair, voice tight with desperation. “He’s long gone. My parents—they named me—my dad knew him and—look, I’m just like you! I’m seventeen! I’m not a god. My parents are.”

The impossibly beautiful woman who specializes in love. The man with the limp who works with metal. No wonder they felt familiar. It was because they reminded me of my own family. “Aphrodite and Hephaestus.”

“Yes! And I didn’t mean to lie to you. I’ve waited so long to finally meet you, and I didn’t know how to say it! How do you tell the girl very literally of your dreams that you’re the son of ancient Greek gods?”

“Yo

u knew what I was.”

He shrugs guiltily. “Not at first, but I figured it out. When you swore at me in Croatian.”

“How do I know? How do I know any of what you’re saying is the truth? Amun-Re, my mother was right. You really can’t trust the Greeks.” I back away from him, putting more space between us.

“Please, wait. Let me explain! I was looking for you. But not for whatever you think I was. I’ve . . . augh, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you. When we talked about dreams, I was serious. I’ve dreamt of you. Every night. For years. I always knew you were out there for me, and every night I’d see you, made of stone, the strongest and most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and I’d speak to you in poetry and breathe life into the stone until it warmed and colored and you were there, and—” He puts his hands over his face. “I’m screwing this all up. The day I saw you with your hair short, I realized who you were. That was the best day of my life because I’d finally found you. And now . . . This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I’d never hurt you. I love you.”

My stone heart crumbles, the dust filling my lungs, choking me and making it impossible to breathe. He’s lied to me this whole time, and now this? “You love me because of stupid dreams? You don’t even know me! I trusted you, Orion.” I spit his name like a curse, and it doesn’t taste like hope and potential on my tongue anymore. “I have no idea who or what you are. But I swear to you I meant what I said. If you or any one of your cheap imitation gods comes near my family, I will feed your heart to Ammit the Devourer myself.”

His eyes are a picture of anguish. I pull the stone pieces tighter around my heart. I will not break, not here, not now.