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.
In the afterglow of a morning spent in their love, as he cherished her, caressed her, and traced the outlines of her flesh with his fingers, he had told her of his desperate plan to finish what had been begun in him. She had listened, numb, as he detailed his hope Thoth might be able to aid him in the pursuit of his own destruction. When he asked for her aid, the rawness of his request slaying her, she had nodded, had accepted his plan was their best hope to protect the world from what he had become. What she didn't tell him was her intention to go through the barrier with him, where she would also die with him on that bleak, cold shore.
She descended the steps onto the central complex. Urhi-Teshub stood with Thoth, Horus, and Sekhmet in the shade of the yawning entrance to the largest pyramid. Her protector surveyed her as she and Sethi approached, his mien cold, implacable.
They reached the pyramid. No one spoke, though looks laden with the weight of mountains slammed into her from across the damning chasm of silence. Even Thoth, the one she had hoped would stand by her, looked into the depths of the pyramid, his longing to escape the impending altercation tangible.
Sethi glanced into the pyramid, his look unreadable, though a shiver of uncertainty whispered through Istara. An oblique message from Horus's ship had come during the early hours of the morning, while she and Sethi still slept, lost in each other's arms. It is done. Find me. I have something of yours. Horus.
And yet, even with the jihn safe inside the tower, and the shield intact, uneasiness circled Istara. Sethi possessed great darkness, could not be trusted. Peril traced a single, scathing talon against her spine. A warning.
She caught Urhi-Teshub eyeing her, distant. Her betrayal hung between them, rank, a festering wound. He waited, tense, coiled, gripping his ax, its lightning bolts jagged, hot with suppressed rage.
"I will not ask for your forgiveness for I am not sorry," Istara said, meeting his look. "However, you are right. Sethi cannot remain in Anki. It is too dangerous."
Urhi-Teshub uncoiled just a fraction. He met Sethi's eyes and tilted his head at his ship, his look hard, iced with vengeance. "Shall we?"
Sethi returned Urhi-Teshub's look, shrouded in a faint aura of hostility.
"Thoth," he said though his gaze remained on the storm god. "I wish to travel to Surru."
Thoth had eased a little way from the group. He cut a look at Sethi, his discomfort acute.
"Surru? I don't under—" He blinked. His gaze dropped to the stone ashlars, his eyes moved back and forth along a seam, unseeing. Sethi waited, let him work it out.
Thoth looked back up, abrupt. A shimmer of approval rippled through him. "Ah. Of course." He cut a look up at the shield, then back at Sethi, narrow, wary. "No. It won't work. You won't make it."
Sethi jutted his chin toward Istara's ship. "I will if you can you do to her ship what you did to Anki. The shield only needs to work long enough for me to reach the other side of Surru—until what happened to you, happens to me."
Thoth's look turned inward. "Without my power to create anything new, I only have the cores. Although, if I were to—" he rubbed his hand over his chin, "—no, I would need a conduit . . ." He paced away, lost to his thoughts, continuing, to himself, "But then, Anki's ships are far more enhanced than our own were." He looked up, sharp, at Istara's ship. "Perhaps if your ship has something similar to an ion drive, I might be able to partition it off and repurpose it as a conduit. So long as it isn't used in flight, it might work." He cut a look at Sekhmet. "I would need your help with the technical aspects."
Sekhmet avoided Urhi-Teshub's heavy look. "Anything you need."
"Then," Thoth continued, warming to the subject, "I would need to siphon off a little of the cores energy into . . ." he looked around the barren complex, as though the item he needed might manifest out of the air, "what . . ?"
Horus pulled the pendant out from within a fold of his kilt. "This?"
Thoth brightened. "Maybe. Yes. It might just work." He cut an oblique look at Istara. "With your permission, of course."
Everyone looked at her, Thoth with hope, Sekhmet with a hint of pity. Horus, veiled, expressionless. Urhi-Teshub shook his head, tilted his head toward Thoth's palace to where the mirror awaited—to where he wished Sethi to go.
Sethi met her eyes. A flicker of darkness whispered within his, clawed at its imprisonment. Peril pressed another scorching talon against Istara's spine, harder this time. There was no choice. If she refused, the evil within him would be unleashed and unstoppable. Her consort would bring about the end of all things—the end of her. She would not bequeath him such a fate.
She nodded. Urhi-Teshub paced away, bolts of cerulean fury striking the ground in his wake. Thoth took her pendant from Horus, reverence bleeding from him. Without another word, he departed to examine Istara's ship. Sekhmet followed after him.
"How long until it's ready?" Sethi called.
Thoth paused. He half-turned, his lips pursed in consideration. "If all goes as it should? A week." He hurried away, eager to begin, the dust-stained hem of his kilt flapping against his thin calves.
Encased in silence, Istara watched them go. As the once-god of wisdom and the goddess of war worked their way along the exterior of her ship, examining it, locked deep in discussion, a bleak scythe carved a path through Istara's soul and harvested the last of her hope. It was over. This was the end.
Sethi took her hand in his and met her eyes. The magnitude of his intended sacrifice threatened to undo her.
She caught Horus's gaze on them, laden with the eternity of his existence, of his own losses. No. It wasn't the end. It was the beginning of their end. But for the rest—the chance to start again.