“You see.” Lilith stood and gestured to all of the others. “Finally, someone who understands. The Gods created this world solely to destroy any who exercise free will. We may as well burn it first, for burn it must. At least when we ascend to the immortal throne it will all mean something.” A dozen voices cheered and scores of owls screeched in a deafening cacophony. “Take us to Eden, Namir,” Lilith commanded. “Take us to fulfill Eden’s doom and our destiny.” She and all of the others looked to me. I knew the way. I had done it. I could get them to Eden. There were many who deserved to be consumed by Lilith. Lamech and his clan of beasts to name a few, but my family was there. My real family.

Eve had told me to make a record not because the future was hopeless but because hope would survive. Because we still had a choice and our fate was not yet written.

“No,” I said, my resolve strengthening as I said the words. “I will not. Even if we all die here together.” I could feel Lamya charging the air around us. It was time. I found the tone of her lightning and suddenly it all disappeared. Uburtu chanted a binding tone and clasped an iron shackle to Lamya’s wrist. I hadn’t noticed him get close. The shackle was attached to a chain that dove beneath the floor and walls in several places. Lamya cried out as the iron burned her. Her power was all drained into the earth. I summoned a sonic blade to slice Uburtu in half but it dissolved on a protective wall of sound around him. Lamya tried to create a charge again, but the iron shackle sapped it into the ground as fast as she could conjure it. The air constricted around me once more so tight I could barely breathe and the twelve, along with Lilith closed in around us.

“You should not have turned on us, Lamya,” Lilith said, her voice growing dark and terrible. “We offered you, both of you, a place with us, but you would prefer to die. Allow us to facilitate your choice but first you will lead us to Eden.” Behind the circle of malicious chanting figures I saw shadowy forms lining the walls that flickered like flames. One of them approached. A woman I had met nearly two years before.

“And if I refuse?” I said through what shallow breaths I could manage. Lamya had blisters on her wrists from the iron and I tried to tear my eyes away. The harpy woman drew close and a wind gusted from her that choked me with the smell of rotten flesh. The air grew crisp and she touched my shoulder. My whole body spasmed with pain. My muscles constricted and threatened to tear themselves apart then it ended. I was light headed as I gasped the scant air I was allowed.

“I ask again,” Lilith growled. “Will you take us there?”

“Killing me will only doom you,” I spat back.

“You’re right,” Lilith conceded and smiled wickedly. Uburtu whipped a sonic blade across Lamya’s face leaving a red line of blood on her cheek and splitting her lip. She screamed and my blood froze. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Formione, the marid, stepped up beside Lilith and regarded Lamya and I dispassionately. “These have been claimed by Iblis,” she said.

“Who is Iblis to me?” Lilith cried out in anger. “I have grown beyond him. I will not be commanded like some petty mortal!” She was afraid. I could hear it in her desperation.

“There is something Lamya taught me about music,” I muttered. “When unison is truly achieved it is more than the sum of its parts.” My voice faltered and its weakness drew the miscreants closer to hear. “In a pure tone it multiplies into the first, third, and fifths together in endless octaves. Sing Lamya!”

She pushed power through her chain into the earth and I called the earth and air to make channels for it. My pitch matched hers and our power grew. The shackles glowed with heat but she continued to push more power through them. I could smell her burning skin and muscle. She and I continued to weave our powers together until I broke through the shield placed on me and lightning erupted from the ground. In a ring of blazing light and searing heat everyone around us was consumed until only smoke, ashes, and chunks of cooked meat remained. All of them perished in that explosive blast, save one.

Lilith’s skin was cracked and blackened but her flame was not so easily extinguished. Lamya fell and moaned in agony; her hands were blackened stumps. I tried to kneel beside her and felt my skin crack. I had been able to direct the lightning at Lilith and her minions but hadn’t been able to deflect the heat. The pain crept on me slowly until I fell into my own heap of misery.

“Insignificant sílat,” Lilith growled. “I am immortal. I shall devour your flame and every other until I ascend to the throne of God himself.” She reached down and pulled Lamya up by the hair. She kissed Lamya with her scorched hideous lips and I heard Lamya’s tone fade into Lilith and vanish.

“No,” I croaked, but couldn’t move past the burning.

Formione still stood beside Lilith as a being of fire and air. Unharmed and impassive. Behind them another figure rose and came forward, a tall man that shifted and flickered with his own intense light. Lilith dropped Lamya and exhaled long and slow, looking healthier than before. She turned to me with utter malice in her gaze.

“Now you see, boy? You can’t stop me. Your sacrifice is merely a small delay. I will take Eden.” She kneeled down and caressed my face. Her light touch made me cry in pain. “Your flame burns bright,” she whispered. “I will savor it.” She lifted me toward her and I could do nothing to stop it. Everything hurt so much.

“Lilith,” a deep voice echoed in the chamber. Lilith hesitated then turned away from me with amusement flickering in her eyes.

“Ah, Iblis,” she crooned. “How sweet of you to come. It’s been a long time, my love.”

“I will not allow you to destroy my seed utterly,” he said.

“What do you care?” Lilith hissed. “You took what you wanted from me then left, just like the others. These are my children to do with as I wish. The bright man flared and sparked. A pulse of power washed over me that would have knocked me flat had I been standing on my own feet. “Your anger holds no fear for me now,” Lilith said. “You can not slay me.”

When Iblis answered there was a note of sadness in his voice. “You may be immortal but you are not all powerful. Flame you desire and flame you shall receive.”

Lilith dropped me as Iblis grabbed her and turned her to face him. Their lips met. Light and fire surged from Iblis to Lilith, healing her wounds instantly and making her being waver dance as it turned to flame. Still the power flowed. Like a river being funneled into a cup the light and fire overflowed, stretching her to her limit and still the torrent of Iblis’s fire continued. Lilith shuddered and struggled, but Iblis held her tight. She began to shrink and shrivel in her own heat, collapsing in on herself until the flow stopped and only a ruined shell remained.

“Your wish is granted,” Iblis said through labored breath. The djinn still glowed brightly as he looked at me and stepped over what was left of Lilith. “Child of two worlds,” he said. “I will not kneel to you, but neither do I bear you ill will.” He reached down and grasped my hand. As he raised me to my feet all of my pain vanished. I stood in shock, feeling weak and exhausted, but whole. I marveled at my hands and arms healed of all the burns I had suffered. My clothes hung around me in singed rags, but my body was untouched.

“Leave here,” Iblis said with more care than I could then understand. “Go now and do not come back. The next time we meet I will kill you.”

I nodded once and hesitated as I stared at Lamya’s blackened dead form.

“We will care for our own,” Formione said from where she still stood as a witness.

I was able to turn on my unsteady feet and walk away. Lilith groaned and writhed on the ground and called after me, “Bastard child, curse you.” Her voice was cracked, hollow, and empty like her body and soul.

Alone I made my way across the island of Ardjanna back to the empty city on the bay and wept for Lamya in her own home. It was weeks before I had found some semblance of resolution to my grief and my preparations were complete to set sail for home. I had never felt so isolated and lonely than I did in the weeks after losing Lamya. A loss like that changes you. It never goes away. The hole inside is never filled but eventually you find paths around it. Long and arduous paths, but life forces you to get by. I think she knew she was going to die. I think she assumed we both would. She chose death rather than to go along with Liliths’s plan to destroy the world. She chose me over them.

The hardest part for me to reconcile, and I still have a hard time believing, was that I was worth dying for. Her story was done but mine went on. What choice did I have but to keep going?

I sailed out of the bay and away from Ardjanna and the next day was surprised to find that someone had been waiting for me. Asherah called to me from the waves, “Namir, you made it!”

“I did,” I answered. The journey home was not so bad as it might have been.