The Rise of the Goddess

69 | A WAY OUT

Sethi woke. Beyond the translucence of the ship's fuselage, the sun-soaked, cloudless blue sky of Anki bore down on them, as drenched with the weight of its brilliance as the Egyptian one he had once loved. A fragment of alarm speared his lassitude. The sky. It was too clear. No. It couldn't be. Not so soon.

He lifted himself up onto his elbows. A faint glimmering erupted against the outline of the trees. He eyed it, narrow. There. Another glimmer. He sank back against the divan, the nascent thunder of his heartbeat eased. It was not too late. They still had time. Though—considering what he had seen in his dreams as he slept, not as much time as the gods expected.

Against the might of the jihn's corrosive power, he knew Anki's shield wouldn't be enough. Neither would he stand long against the call of the dark weapon which pulsed within him like the beat of his own heart. Although, for now, despite the malevolence of the past night's dreams saturated with images of his future and of the betrayal he knew he was capable, his will was stronger, the light in him bolstered by the radiant power of the shield.

He eyed the shield's faint gleam at the tree line, the rest eclipsed by the brilliance of the sun. How long would he last before he would do what the jihn commanded? Months? Weeks? No. Days—at most. Already he felt the shift within him, subtle, quiet, the jihn's darkness seeking to extinguish the last of his light.

And when it did—he would revert to what he was, and would not stop until he had fed the light of the gods to the jihn and ushered in the supremacy of the darkness. War, greed, enslavement, fear, lies, violence, oppression . . . He sat up, desperate to distance himself from the evil within him as it slid, insidious, into the cleansed corridors of his mind and infected his thoughts, feeding him subtle lies.

Istara shifted with a quiet sigh, lost to the realm of dreams, contentment seeping from her. Her skin shimmered with starlight, its pulses softened by sleep. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, his heart aching, tight with love, harsh with despair. It would only ever be this for them, a brief respite, and then, he would end her.

A remnant of a dream he had had deep in the night flashed through his mind, dark with longing. He saw himself in the midst of a battlefield, strewn with the dead and dying, Istara's protector incapacitated, and she, alone, on her knees before the god of war, a lamb to the slaughter. His other self rammed the jihn into her breast, just as he had done to Arinna, his consort's obliteration soaking him in an arousal of dominance and power. Shredded of her light, her gown had fluttered to the bloodsoaked ground, depleted of its stars. He licked the blades in an orgy of triumph, his eyes black and haloed in golden fire.

Nausea slammed into him. He stood. No. It was unbearable. He paced to the flight deck, his fists clenched. If only he were not a god. If only he could die. He fell still. Of course. Surru. Thoth and Arinna had lost their god-light when they passed into his world from Elati. If he could just get to Surru, he could strand himself on the other side. Perhaps Thoth could generate a shield around Istara's ship which could last long enough for him to make the trip to the other side without the darkness within him stopping him. He glared at the sky, unseeing, imagining himself leaving Elati. Determination found him. A way out. At last. His nightmare would not be realized. He would not allow the darkness to win. He would remain with Istara as long as he dared, and then he would fly to Surru, from where, he knew, he would never return. Not even for her.

❃

The door of the ship slid open. Humid, mid-afternoon heat surged into the cabin, tinted with the acrid taint of the ship's fumes. Istara hesitated for the barest of beats, allowed herself one last, lingering look at her consort. Sethi returned her look, his, dark, tormented, resigned.