I can remember how quickly the humor evaporated from our great hall because it haunts me even now. All the mirth and drunkenness left in the night, like smoke from a snuffed candle, and by the time I realized what had happened, grief had overtaken me. Accepting his death was like trying to breathe in a vacuum, like reaching out for something you know is no longer there but which you desperately need anyway.
We'd been feasting, celebrating my husband's return from the other side of the world. Osiris had insisted on going abroad to teach wisdom to all people. I was less certain. I protected him, kept him safe in all circumstances. He swore to me he would return, with that beautiful crooked smile and the familiar glint in his eye. I remember laughing, relenting, and telling him to come to bed. The next day he announced, casually to the entire court, that he was taking a journey and that I was to rule in his absence. His advisors sputtered and coughed in confusion, but my Osiris just laughed and handed over his scepter. He never worried about me like I worried about him.
The only threat to my reign was already well-known: Set, Osiris's brother. Jealousy and evil permeate every facet of his being, but Osiris and I both knew that I superseded him in strength and courage. Which is why, to steal my husband's throne, he resorted to wicked trickery.
When Osiris returned from the ends of the earth on his royal barge, I was waiting at the dock. My husband waved at me from the bow, then abandoned his crown and cloak and dove down into the Nile to swim to shore. When he reached me and my attendants he swept me into his arms, and I laughed, ignoring the fact that he was soaking my linen sheath dress. He suggested a royal feast, and in his good cheer, he even invited his duplicitous brother.
At the feast, Set brought a chest and the appearance of good cheer. It was a beautiful chest, decorated with rubies, lapis and gold. It was the most magnificent gift of any that had been brought to glorify my husband. Looking back on it, I should have realized that Set could never pay his respects without an ulterior motive. But even I never thought that he would go as far as fratricide.
He'd made the chest to Osiris's exact measurements. Every curve and angle of my husband's body had been taken into account in its construction. Set had offered the chest to any of our guests who could fit perfectly within its gilded walls, and I laughed along with our guests when Osiris drunkenly crawled inside. Suddenly, like the snap of a crocodile's jaws, Set closed the lid, sealed it shut, and cackled madly as my love thundered in vain against the confines of his tomb.
I watched our guests' eyes and mouths open in shock and fear. Perhaps they were screaming, maybe shouting for help or calling each other to their king's defense. My husband's men rushed the golden box, and were slain by Set's minions while their wives tried to shield their children from the carnage. The sharp smell of spilled blood filled my nostrils and will forever be associated with the deaths of loyal friends. My own blood ran hot and fast in my ears and I deafly watched the unimaginable unfold. I am certain that moment was a blaring pandemonium, but I found that I was apart from it. For me, the grand hall was as silent as the echo of his final breath.
Our guests fled in terror as Set ascended the dais and started toward the throne, where only moments ago my beloved Osiris had been sitting next to me, joking and gossiping and saying that he loved me. Tears ran unbidden and unnoticed down my cheeks as great, blinding pillars of fire leapt from the burners and chaos began seeping in through every window. Set continued to chuckle at his ill-gotten success and my husband's misfortune, seeming more insane with every step he took toward me. I, restrained by my brother-in-law's conspirators, screamed until my voice left me. This, my own agony, was the only sound I can remember clearly from that accursed night. The courtiers who had betrayed Osiris took up his sarcophagus and carried it into the dark and out of sight. While I wept, Set came upon me. He pursed his twisted lips and hissed like a serpent against my ear:
"Run."