Sethi came to a halt a little distance away, the hate in his eyes virulent, devastating. Her consort, the god of war, was no more. He had become another, a vessel of absolute darkness. He slid his gaze over Istara, arrogant, disdainful. She held her ground, barricaded the walls of her heart against him, allowed it no weakness.

His eyes hard, Urhi-Teshub stepped before her, the blades of his ax blistering with the load of his fury. Starlight limned his body, ran along his shoulders. The sickly blue-white wash of the jihn's hunger slid over him, pale, pestilent.

Sethi eyed Urhi-Teshub, unimpressed. His gaze moved to the storm god's ax. His mouth lost its hard edge, slid into a sneer, laden with contempt.

"How pitiful." He stepped closer, the whites of his eyes and his irises gone, glazed by the depths of the darkness. The fractals on his chest rotated in the opposite direction to his golden ones, soaked in obsidian despair. "You think to stop me? Istara is mine." His words cut through the haze of smoke, hate-smeared and cold as death. "Your fate has ever been to watch me take her from you—again, and again, and again." He gestured at Urhi-Teshub with the jihn. It's blades seethed, harsh with anticipation. "I will not use this on you, yet. I want you to see her fall."

A quiver of rage rippled through Urhi-Teshub. Cerulean bolts scythed down his arms and into his weapon. He flexed his grip against the haft of his ax, sparks splintering from his fingertips.

Sethi set the jihn onto the ground. Its blades keened, hungry, the song of saws against bone. He rose. "And now—" he shot a scathing look at Urhi-Teshub as he rolled his shoulders, the muscles in his arms proud over his clenched fists, "—it will be a fair fight."

Within a nimbus of cerulean lightning, Urhi-Teshub waited, a warrior, a god. The rage of a thousand storms sheathed him. Sethi circled her protector. Scorn seeped from him, as though the storm god's devastating power were no more than a quaint diversion.

Urhi-Teshub slid the length of his storm-laden ax through his fingers. The butt of his weapon smacked the ground. Lightning erupted from its blades and surrounded him, a shield of brutal, elemental power. Sethi rammed his fist into it. Cerulean bolts clawed into his arm and over his torso, staining him in veins of blue fire.

He hauled himself from its talons, his flesh and kilt smoking as he paced before the barrier, black with fury, seeking a way past. Urhi-Teshub lifted his ax and struck the ground again, harder this time. A deep thundering rose from the depths. An ashlar exploded from the plaza, shattered into a thousand pieces and rained its storm on the god of war. From within its brutal onslaught, he lifted his cold eyes to Urhi-Teshub. Scores of deep gashes laced his torso, arms, and face. Blood, black as a starless night, inked his flesh.

He strode back, clad in darkness, his bearing promising a world of suffering. The jihn lay under a pile of debris. He shoved the sharp rocks away, blood coating his hands, soaking the weapon's blades. The jihn's noxious blue-white light licked over him, gorging itself on the essence of its wielder. He hauled the vile thing up, his features harsh in the cerulean light, and drove its blade against the barrier of lightning, his lips twisting into a savage, sadistic grin. Cerulean fire swarmed into the weapon. A scream of anguish came from it. No. Thousands of screams—a wail of unimaginable suffering from beyond the walls of the living, of souls tormented beyond comprehension.

He dragged the jihn against the barrier, first one blade, then the other, alternating them, until both blades blazed with the brutality of the storm god's fury, aware of the tyranny of his act—the cruelty of his method. Urhi-Teshub held his ground, his profile hard, his eyes no longer golden, but cerulean fire, drenched with his power—his rage.

The cries escalated until they drowned out the screams of the ships and the thunder of explosions. The misery of thousands washed over Istara, delving into her until they saturated her soul. Still, Urhi-Teshub held his ground. Stubbornness sheathed him. Her protector glared at Sethi, hate penetrating him, feeding him. He ground the metal-sheathed butt of his ax against the ground, and a renewed surge of his storm's fury erupted from his blades. The cries hollowed, despairing. They tore into Istara. Anguish clogged her heart, filled her soul.

"Urhi-Teshub," she cried. "Cease! Innocents are suffering."

Her protector said nothing. His attention remained fixed on Sethi, laden with vengeance, patient as a crocodile. Istara called to him again, urgent. A command. He did not respond. Sethi cut a look at her, then back at Urhi-Teshub. The storm god remained unmoved. Sethi yanked the jihn away. He came to her, bloodsoaked and malicious, the jihn's decimating lament clawing at her ears.

Istara met his eyes. Her light gathered, surrounded her, a glittering nimbus, pouring with stars. It swarmed over him, swept against the taint of his fractals, glinted against the darkness of his eyes, penetrated his burns and gouges. Within the space of a heartbeat he stood before her, whole again. He glanced at himself, then back at her. A flicker of recognition, a mere heartbeat, lost in a breath.

Darkness sluiced through him, leaving her entombed in loss. Movement behind him, hot with trails of cerulean flames. Sethi saw nothing but her, her stars reflected in the abyssal depths of his eyes. His hatred and contempt bore into her, eviscerated her. He lifted the jihn, the muscles of his arm taut against the weight of its tormented souls. Triumph, cold and malignant, stained the planes of his jaw, tainted the curve of his lips. He smiled, dark. His final gift to her.

Istara faced him, wreathed in power, in life, a goddess. Her light stormed around her. It was not over. So long as she bore the Creator's light, it would never be over. She clenched her fists, gathered the force of her light, braced herself for its release.

"You shall not have her!"

Blue fire erupted from Sethi's chest. The once-god of war staggered, roaring in agony. Urhi-Teshub's ax erupted from Sethi's chest, splattering Istara in the stain of her consort's black blood. Her protector twisted his weapon, savage, brutality stamped on the cut of his jaw. Razor-sharp bolts of lightning surged out of the blades into Sethi's torso, clawed into his limbs, sparked against his teeth. Sethi juddered. The jihn slipped from his fingers and slammed against the stained, broken ashlars.

Urhi-Teshub's yanked his ax free, the shorn remains of Sethi's black heart trailing in its grisly wake. Her protector glared at him, his eyes hard as blue ice. "You underestimate my love for her."

Sethi turned, awash in ragged bolts of cerulean fire. "And you, my hate." He drove his fist, fast, sharp, into Urhi-Teshub's skull. Once, twice, three times his blows fell. Istara called to her light as Urhi-Teshub stumbled, bloodied, blinded, his temple crushed. His ax clattered to the ashlars. Another blow and Istara's protector staggered to his knees and slumped onto his side. Her light found him, poured into him.

Sethi rammed his fist into the savage gap in his chest and sank to his knee, his god-light flickered, weak, suppressed by his darkness. Her consort cut a look at Urhi-Teshub, surrounded by the cocoon of her light, healing fast, then up at her from under his brow. Hate lapped over him, slammed into her. Its undertow hauled at her, threatened to pull her under.

"Go on," he taunted as Horus's golden ship sliced over them, seething with acrid heat. "Try to finish me." Poisoned blood dripped from his mouth and nose.

Istara eased toward him. "Your injuries are grievous."

He glared at her and pushed his fist deeper into the gaping hole where his heart had been, grimacing with pain. Blood, dark as ink, smeared his fingers, ran down his forearm, stained his chest, obliterated his fractals.

Istara knelt and caught his face in her hands. He flinched but held still. He glared at her, defiant, proud.

"I can heal you," she said, even as the unutterable distance yawned between them. "I can cleanse you. I can make this stop."

"It is not I who needs cleansing," he grunted as he shifted his weight. A fresh gout of his bleak essence slid over his knuckles. He shot a look at his jihn, then back at her. "It is you."

A thick groan came from behind. The scrape of metal against stone. Istara did not take her eyes from Sethi, waited as Urhi-Teshub dragged his ax back to him. Another groan as her protector pulled himself to his feet. A scorching silence as he took in the scene.

"Istara," he said, harsh. "Whatever you seek to do, do not do it. It will be a mistake."

A savage boom of thunder swallowed her response. It tore through the heated air, eons deep, an epochal death gasp, its resonance escalating until the entire complex reverberated, taut as a skin on a drum. A deafening judder rolled from the largest pyramid. She looked up. The capstones of the largest pyramids kissed. They resisted for a heartbeat, then succumbed to the impossible pull of the other, their thundering oppressive, maddening. A dozen bone-shattering cracks splintered through the capstones, whip-sharp. They sliced through the smoke and fire of the plaza's basin, uncaring of the misery below, their mutual destruction impassive, rank with destiny.

Massive sections of the capstones calved and slid away. They tumbled up the dark pyramid and down the golden one, decimating everything in their paths. A shorn section of the golden capstone hurtled end over end through the far lines of the battle, gouging a bloody path through the warriors of Elati. Horns blared across the length of the plaza. As one, allies and enemies bolted, their enmity forgotten.

Within the pillar's heart, where the darkness met the light, a sphere of utter darkness burst to life, surrounded by a thin sheathe of light. The sphere began to rotate, its size and speed increasing as the pillar shortened. A beacon of harsh white light cut away from the sphere and rotated through the shadows of the darkened city. In the opposite direction, a spear of utter darkness turned against it.

Istara caught Sethi watching her, narrow, his jaw tight, harsh with pain. The pyramids rammed deeper into each other, brutal, sensual, the grind of their obliteration dense with the promise of her own annihilation. She dared a look at the other pyramids. Their golden capstones flickered in the light of the pillar, resigned to the imminent onslaught of their dark counterparts. Soon, they too would be obliterated. Soon, she, Sethi, Urhi-Teshub, the gods, and their warriors would be crushed. It was the end. The end of all things, of time, of worlds, of gods, of life. Sorrow slammed into her. The frigid grip of failure clobbered her. The relic. If only—No. She would not regret her choice. It was too late for that. It was gone. All she had left was the light of the Creator, and her love. There was still something she could do. There was still one she could try to save, before it was too late.

Her heart aching, she turned her gaze back to her consort. He hunched into himself, bloody, suffering. Erratic remnants of his light guttered within his sundered chest, useless against the darkness slithering within him.

A fresh thundering slammed into the plaza. The ashlars shuddered, ragged with defeat. She turned just as the second largest pyramid collided with its counterpart. Cracks splintered the capstones, streaked down the sides of the pyramid. A jagged section of the capstone slid down the pyramid's side.

Urhi-Teshub's hand came to her shoulder. He hauled her back, away from Sethi. Her hands slid from her consort's face. Sethi slumped forward, lost to his agonies.

"Leave him." Urhi-Teshub jerked his head toward the sundered capstone cutting a vicious path across the plaza toward them. "It is over. I will return to finish what is left of him."

"No," Istara pulled free of her protector's grip. "You swore to protect me," she tilted her head at the tumbling capstone racing toward them, as vast as a palace. "Do so."

"Have you lost your senses?" Urhi-Teshub bellowed, fury sparking against his eyes. "He is the darkness. He must be destroyed."

"Sethi is not the darkness!" Istara cried. Her light erupted, fierce, defiant. "Protect me," she cried over the thunder of the capstone, "or cease to be my protector."

With a roar of fury, his body crackling with lightning, Urhi-Teshub pointed his ax at the massive shard, its golden skin shorn by obsidian teeth. A storm of blue lightning burst from his blades and slammed into it. Ice-blue bolts streaked over it, living things. It continued to hurtle toward them, trailing cerulean fire. A heartbeat later, a brilliant explosion of blue seared Istara's eyes. She lifted her hand, blinking back tears. The capstone was gone, a fine mist of white, speckled with flickers of cerulean sparks hung in the air. It drifted down, harmless, coating the ground and her protector's shoulders in dusty skeins of gold and white.

His features coated in rage, Urhi-Teshub glared at the empty space, the haft of his ax clenched in his grip. He turned to her, cold. "Your refusal to see what Sethi has become will cost us everything!" He thrust his weapon toward Sethi, its lightning-soaked blades a mere heartbeat from Sethi's neck. "He is gone. He will never come back. He made his choice when he betrayed you." His eyes fell to the jihn, its light sliding toward Sethi, seeking to feed. His face hardened. "When he betrayed Thoth."

He met her look. Revenge bled from him, hot, rank with age. "Let me finish this. Let me end him."

Istara pushed the ax away. "The only way to finish this is to overcome the darkness."

"None can overcome the darkness," Urhi-Teshub thundered, violence bleeding from him. He cut a look at the pillar, the blistering white halo of the sphere reflecting in his eyes. "I understand now why the Creator bade me protect you at all costs. The light you carry is the key. You must survive for the rest of us to survive whatever that is doing." He stepped closer to her. "Do not grant him your light. He will return to what he is and destroy you. Istara!" He caught her arm as she turned back to Sethi, her protector's grip harsh, raw with the ferocity of his power. "You will not do this thing," he bellowed, enraged. "I will not let you."

"Then you leave me no choice," she cried. Hundreds of tendrils of her light swept out from her and captured him in their hold, wrapping him in a sheath of healing light, an unbreakable cocoon.

"Istara!" He rammed his fists against the walls of his confinement. Bursts of light blossomed where he struck. "He will betray you. He will betray all of us. Please," he panted, wild, desperation bleeding from him. "No! I beg you. Istara—

Istara turned her back to him, from the one she had once loved, to the one she still loved, who eyed her from under his brow, raw with malevolence. Amid the thunder of the dying pyramids, the scream of ships overhead, the smoke and fire of Anki's final breaths, she endured the heat of Sethi's malignance and the ragged protests of her protector. At her silent call, her light gathered into a single, blistering stream, enough to raise an army of thousands, millions. Stars swarmed around her, intense, overwhelming, blinding.

"I cannot abandon you to the darkness," she whispered as she reached out to catch his face in her star-clad hands. He resisted for a heartbeat, then relented. An unreadable look slid over the anguish etched into the planes of his jaw. A beat later, it was gone, replaced by contempt.

"Your protector is right," Sethi rasped, bloody, "I will betray you."

"I will not let you," Istara said. "No matter what it costs me."

She closed her eyes and let the light of the Creator pour into him, a flood, a tsunami, soaking him with the purest light of all, closing his wounds, mending his severed heart, scouring the darkness, soaking into the stain of evil. Deep within his soul, her light found the source, lunged after it. Joy skirted the edges of her heart as her light coursed through her into him. It was enough, it would be enough. Soon he would be—

He shoved her away. She opened her eyes, startled, her light streaming back into her—what remained of it. He rose over her, gripping the jihn, whole again, triumphant, his lips curved into a malicious grin. He raised the jihn, its bone-aching hum crescendoing, hot with anticipation. Darkness slayed his eyes.

Deafened by the silence of her consort's hate, she hauled at her protector's prison—sought to undo her mistake. It unraveled, far too slow. She turned back to Sethi, faced her enemy, alone, and unprotected.

She called to her light, sought its defense, pulled it around her. It was not enough. She had given Sethi too much. Just as Urhi-Teshub had warned, her once-consort had soaked up her light, had used her heart against her. A tear slipped free, hot with shame. She met Sethi's eyes, her heart aching, drowning in failure. His eyes flicked over her shoulder. He looked at her again, ragged with brutality. A pair of ships screamed over them, outlined his darkness in fire.

"I love you," she breathed, refusing to let go of who he once was, the one who had sacrificed all for her—who had once loved her beyond reason. He glared at her, lost to her, his hatred tangible, a feast for her soul. The jihn fell, its tormented souls wailing in anguish, soiled with horror.

Wreathed in the starlit remains of the Creator's light, she closed her eyes to what her consort had become and remembered the one had had been. Sethi. Commander of Egypt—his body bloody and ruined, fighting her through that long, cold night at Kadesh. His lips against hers, fierce, as he took her on his bed before facing his execution, their bodies drenched in sunlight. His arrival at the Etemen'anki, having walked across the desert in search of her. The weight of the pillar as it claimed his life. His return as the god of war. His last words before Marduk stole him from her: I am the one who loves you. The one who will find you again. Sethi. My love. Another tear slipped free.

The pounding of footsteps. A cry of denial. The dull thump of a blade against flesh. A strangled cry.

Liquid heat splattered Istara, harsh, acrid, metallic. An explosion of light streamed through the backs of her eyes. Silence fell, brutal, immutable. Istara blinked, frantic, desperate to understand, to see. The warmth of blood streaked her arms and chest. Hers? Another's? Whose? Confusion tore a path through her, amplified by the tomb of white light surrounding her, dense as a cocoon. Faint with distance, a low shudder, ragged with sorrow and pain. A single word pierced the silence, a breath.

"Horus."

Aching with dread, Istara felt her way forward. Against the rough surface of the blood-soaked ashlars, the soft material of a silken gown. Her fingers came back, drenched in blood the color of ink. She edged closer, her breaths thin, shallow. Please. Let it not be her. The light thinned, just enough for Istara to make out the shape of a dark-haired woman, slumped on her side, a dark pool of blood beneath her torso.

Her heart taut, Istara turned her onto her back. Baalat's empty eyes met Istara's. Clutched within her hand, a brilliant blister of light. Its starlit tendrils trailed over the once-goddess's sundered torso, her blackened heart, lungs, and organs severed from their lacings—the blow meant for Istara.

Baalat's sacrifice impaled her, devastated her. The one who had granted Istara a second chance to live, and who had sacrificed the last of her light so Istara could become a goddess and pass through Surru had made her final, ultimate sacrifice—had imprisoned her soul in the jihn and forever separated herself from Horus.

Hollow with shame, Istara pulled the relic from Baalat's fingers. At her touch, its light streamed away from her, an awakened star. She rose. No more mistakes. No more would she let her love blind her. Too many had died. Urhi-Teshub had been right all along. Sethi was gone. She had to let him go.

Further away, Sethi's form shimmered and morphed, as though trapped in the heated waves of the desert. In his hand, the jihn's bleak outline stained itself against their cocoon of light. He turned. Saw her. Strode toward her. His cold gaze fell to the relic. The jihn's light recoiled from it. Its symbols hissed, defensive, wary. Within its heart, its stolen souls fell silent. She sensed their presence, a single, shared breath, held. Within its bleak, hopeless walls: Baalat. Thoth. Arinna. Resolve slammed through her. She would not fail them.

She waited for him to meet her eyes. The darkness in his churned, endless, an abyss. Its evil reached for her, sought to control her, to possess her. She forced herself to hold his gaze, the loathsome sight of tendrils slithering along the surface of his blighted eyes making her flesh crawl.

"I thought I could save you," she said, her words muted in the silence of their isolation. "I thought my love would be enough."

Sethi lifted his brow, reeking disdain. A mocking, derisive smirk tainted the darkness of his mouth. "Whoever you think you love is gone." He shifted the jihn in his grip, though he did not raise it. "I could never love you. You are everything I hate."

His words, said from the mouth which only the night before had possessed hers in a passionate kiss, cut her deep. She let the pain slide through her, let the tide of her broken heart wash it away. She tightened her grip on the relic.

"I was wrong," she continued in the face of his contempt, "you are beyond the redemption of love."

Sardonic amusement touched the curve of his lips. "It must be humiliating to realize the limits of your power." He tilted the jihn, the obsidian depths of his eyes drinking in its aura of malignance. "Unlike you, I face no boundaries. The darkness offers unlimited reach." He cut a heavy look up at her from under his brow. "I tire of your words of love."

"And I, of your hate." She lay the relic against her breast and faced her consort, the sole remaining star in a void of dark.

Sethi hefted the jihn, the muscles of his arm proud against its burden of the dead. She waited for him to hurl a final insult, to spew another barrage of hate. He gave her one last scathing look before he sliced the jihn down, fast, efficient, a clean strike, aimed at her heart.

Calm flooded Istara. She stood before his onslaught, resolute, laced within the billowing halo of the Creator's light, the relic afire. At last, she understood she could not do both—save Sethi and defeat the darkness. To stop the darkness she must destroy the one she loved, a choice she had resisted until this final, anguished heartbeat. Clarity carved a path through her. There could be no greater loss than hers, no greater gain than his. Within the depths of her being, a conduit burst open, drew from the sequestered depths of the Creator's light. It flowed through her, a torrent, breaching her boundaries. Its fire scoured her soul, rendered her mute against its might, magnitudes greater than the power granted from the pillar. Pain screamed. She held on, resisting, as the light shattered her and remade her into an ephemeral being, a living embodiment of the light.

Through her light-laden eyes, the passage of time stalled. The jihn's keening, streaming edge approached the billowing barrier of her light with painstaking slowness. Sethi's eyes followed the fall of it, his features twisted, vicious, brutal, his lips pulled back in a grimace of triumphant, bloodthirsty savagery. The blade cleaved her barrier and smashed into the relic. A blinding, soul-crushing explosion of agony seared Istara's being. Darkness poured into her, poisoned with hate. Locked in her suffering, she met Sethi's eyes as the full brunt of the jihn's evil swarmed through her, sought to consume her.

Her consort clung to the jihn with both hands, his teeth clenched, his look no longer triumphant, but desperate. He hauled at the weapon which hung frozen in place between them, locked in the implacable grip of the relic.

A surge of her starlight roared away from her and swept over the jihn, down his arms and into his torso. It stormed into him, violent, thousands of blades of white fire. They sliced through him and penetrated the darkness in his eyes. He staggered, panting, as her light ripped through him. The fractals on his chest stuttered and flickered, black then gold, then black again.

Inky, dense tendrils of obsidian streamed from his torso, down his arms and into the jihn, where the darkness sought refuge from the relentless pursuit of her light.. A million stars erupted from within her breast, a supernova. It streamed into the jihn, eclipsed its malignance, hauled the darkness to her. Against her breast, at the point of crossing between her light and his darkness, a sphere burst into existence, brilliant as a dying star. In its center, utter, impenetrable darkness. Around it, a halo of the purest light. Through the depths of her onslaught, and the unbearable weight of the evil boring into her, she comprehended the totality of her sacrifice. Through the collision between the jihn and the relic, her light and Sethi's darkness were no longer separate, but one.

Together, they suffered. Together, they would be extinguished. Together, they would make right what had become wrong. From the depths of her suffering, she met his eyes. His found hers, no longer black as the darkness fled from him and poured into the sphere. His lips moved. Her name. It bled from him, sacred, beloved, anguished, ravaged with grief.

The sphere spun faster, hauling her light and Sethi's darkness into it, draining them, the jihn, and the relic. From the jihn's heart a stream of souls fled, freed, a silent river of life. They surged into the sphere, slid into its light, sparks against its skin, until it became a glittering, brilliant thing, a world of stars.

The jihn tumbled to the ground, empty, vanquished, a shell. The relic tumbled after it, emptied of its purpose. Only the sphere remained between them, a verdant, perfect, beautiful thing, shimmering with the joy of its liberated souls.

Her consort moved around the sphere and faced her, the darkness within him gone. He remained, nothing more than an ephemeral shell, outlined in gray, his features ragged with remorse for his crimes.

"My love," he breathed, anguished, from within the barricade of his fading existence, "there is almost nothing left of your light."

Istara nodded, mute with grief. Sethi. Her love. Her only love. She drank in the sight of him, whole again, good. A god. Her god. There was so much she longed to say, to share with him. But there would be nothing. Only this brief, dying, shared heartbeat.

The light enclosing them vanished. Time ground to a stop. From within the faint whisper of her remaining light, Istara glimpsed their dying world. One third of the largest pyramid's base still remained, a crumbled ruin, its counterpart pressed against it, locked in their dying embrace. The roof of the dark city hung over them, close enough to see its people cowering and weeping among its shadows. Men, women, and children, riven with horror and fear. Beside one of the children, a dog looked down at them wild-eyed, its mouth open, in the midst of a frantic bark. The ships of the gods hung suspended in the thin space between, one of them on its side, about to curve around what remained of the pillar, collapsed into a massive globe of darkness and light.

Her consort reached out to her, his existence so faint she feared a breath might take him from her. She lifted her hand to his, her own nothing more than a thin outline of light against her near-lightless transparency. It was over. It was done. After all they had suffered, endured, lost, this was all there was left to them, a heartbeat of a reunion. She met his eyes—clear, honest, broken. To save him she had destroyed him—had destroyed herself. She held still, willing just a beat more time. She gazed at him. Memorized him. Soon they would be no more.

He touched her hand. The memory of him shattered the remnants of her soul. His love, eternal, profound, aching with loss, blistered into her.

The sphere shot away and slammed into the globe at the center of the pillar. A scathing wall of light washed over him. His eyes harsh with sorrow, Sethi disintegrated. For a heartbeat he remained, his image cast in ash.

The pillar's sphere spun on, relentless, its revolving beam of light tore through him. His ashes scattered, hurtled away, slaughtered by the light. The dark line of the sphere sliced through her. She exploded into a million stars, vanquished by the darkness. Lost in the chaos of her own destruction, his words found her, his voice intimate, yearning, a promise. She clutched them to her as she plummeted into the abyss of her dying love.

I am the one who loves you. The one who will find you again.