Ishtar stared down at the broken form of Lugh Macnia Lámfada. Her gaze cold, pitiless and drained of emotion as it swept down his bloody shattered form. She had left him with a spark of life, not a small mercy on her part, but a larger cruelty. To die so easily, so simply, would do nothing to sate her rage at his selfish whims. Ishtar lifted her gaze back to his face.

Even broken it held a handsome beauty with a masculine charm that drew the eyes.

She had fallen for that face. Let herself be seduced by it.

Let herself be deceived!

Turning his face with the end of her lapis lazuli rod, she stared into his one still open emerald summer green eye. Impressive and yet she had still expected it. If he had been unconscious, she would have been disappointed. It would have meant she had been even more mistaken about him than she had originally thought. And there is only be so much disappointment she could tolerate. Even from her enemies.

“You stole my daughter. I waited and searched for over two decades. I admit, it is a tiny and insignificant amount of time to a goddess of my stature certainly. But it might as well have been a hundred lifetimes to a mother waiting to finally hold her child. Especially a daughter who had been STOLEN FROM HER! A mother who then finds out that it had been a waste of time, of living in futile hope. Her daughter’s father had long harvested her essence for another. That at the end he was nothing more than a CHILDKILLING, MURDEROUS, KINSLAYER!!!”

Ishtar lifted her rod and looked as if to use it to crush Lugh’s skull to express her fury.

Her agonised longing for her lost child!

But chilling calm stilled her hand and restrained her impulse.

She wanted to savour his pain. To drink his suffering slowly. Milk it for all it for all she could. Turn it into the finest wine and stare into the depths of it. She had to do it all before she finally snuffed out the last of his spark.

She knew it wouldn’t bring her daughter back.

Ishtar had no illusions of her revenge being an ultimately pointless and unfulfilling endeavour. Whatever tortures he suffered would never be enough to help her heal the aching void.

But it would be a distraction from it.

One sweet enough to hold her attention so she didn’t have to think of her and her daughter’s ultimate fate and empty dreams she had held for them. Of how she would never hold her. How she had been denied her chance to teach her to dress and speak. To groom and pamper herself. How to rule and hold men and women in helpless thrall to her whim. To fight and conquer her enemies, including any fools that refused to worship her as the goddess and daughter of Ishtar she was.

Ishtar had missed her chance to spoil her daughter rotten. To fight and scream at her when it all came back to bite her. To make up and spoil her again. She had missed her chance to show her daughter how much she loved her. To show her how precious she is to her mother.

Ishtar felt tears form and roll out, flowing from her mask and down. A storm appeared over Londinium, the clouds thick and were a ferociously grim grey and black. They blocked out the sun to cast the city into a sorrowful false night. The rain fell from the clouds like knives and arrows, cold and ruthless. Lightning flashed and danced among the clouds as thunder rolled and deafened the city.

Lugh choked out from the mighty branch of the Paths, his voice raw and as broken as his body.

“I would never, NEVER, harm my children . . . I could never do that to them, to myself or to you, their mothers. But I couldn’t leave them like languishing as they were. As mere sparks of essence on the cusp of . . . of being. I admit I had been arrogant, my pride blinding me to the folly of my actions. I did reach too far. I reached for a dream, a hope, beyond my power to sustain. To even grasp properly!”

Tears rolled from his one undamaged eye, joining Ishtar’s and adding to the power of the storm below them.

“I could have chosen to save only one. I could have used my one chance to . . . to save any one of them. Without sacrificing any of them to achieve it. But I only had that one chance. If I choose only one, the other two would have stayed as they were, on the cusp of . . . of becoming. Before they finally faded. Their tiny, soft and fragile spark finally giving up and flicking out.”

He stared up at Ishtar’s silver masked face, his face twisted in a grimace of agony, an expression of pain no mere physical wound could force him to make. He raised his head and let out a savage howl of tormented heartache.

“I COULDN’T CHOOSE TO SAVE ONLY ONE. I HAD TO SAVE THEM ALL. SAVE ALL THAT I COULD!!!”

His head slumped down as he whispered in pained confusion.

“I couldn’t let my little ones die again. I had to save them all. The price didn’t matter . . . they were my children! I had to save them. I had to. It was my fault . . . I had to save them. Had to give them a chance. It had been done before. My girls could do it again!”

Ishtar stood frozen, shock rendering her motionless, a fear should she move the hope she had discovered would sputter and die, holding her still. Slowly, carefully, Ishtar knelt beside Lugh, slipping her hand beneath his head, to cradle it gently. Her lips dry, Ishtar stared into the dying eye of Lugh.

“I give you this one chance. If my daughter yet lives . . . if she still lives, tell me where! Tell me and I can still save you, I will spare you, I will protect you! SO, TELL ME WHERE MY DAUGHTER IS, LUGH!!!”

Lugh stared at her blankly for a moment, her bellowing so close seemingly stunning him. But finally, just as Ishtar became tempted to start shaking him like some ragdoll, he pointed with a twisted arm, like a branch that had been trodden on, toward the wooden door.

Ishtar felt fury, like a flood, drown her. Her hands tightening on his head, Lugh let out a silent gasp of pain as Ishtar’s strength threatened to crush his skull like an egg.

“I KNOW FREYA’S DAUGHTER IS IN THERE LUGH. WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER!!!”

Lugh twitched and spasmed, his shattered legs and arms flailing painful like noodles of meat, helpless to defend himself. He choked out in agony, his voice harsh and raspy as his words were broken up as he struggled to speak.

“Three became one . . . a tri-fold . . . goddess. Only works . . . with sisters or . . . those born . . . at the same . . . time. Works best . . . with . . . triplets born . . . of the same . . . mother. I . . . used a . . . trick. I fooled . . . magic . . . into believing . . . the three were . . . born of the . . . same . . . origin! They . . . the three of them . . . live . . . but . . . can never . . . separate.”

He stared at Ishtar, his gaze accepting of her rage, grateful almost. Still quite painfilled though.

“Only . . . way . . . to make . . . it . . . work! For . . . all . . . of them . . . to live!”

Ishtar stopped crushing Lugh’s skull. Soon her body began to shudder with relief and soft sobs. Her hand stroked Lugh’s face as she swooped down, her face inches from his, her lips parted. A gentle warm light, full of life, creation and authority, breathed from her lips into his. It merged with his dwindling spark, protecting and nurturing it. Slowly but surely it stared to heal the devastating damage done. Ishtar stared into the eye of the male she had brought low, only to offer him a saving grace at the last moment. She whispered and cooed gently to him as she stroked his golden and bloody hair, not minding adding to her already blood drenched hand.

“Good boy.”

Knowing he would live, Ishtar let go of his head, allowing it to drop with a slight thump on to the bark of the branch beneath them. Rising with imperial and divine grace she stood and walked away from his comatose form. Her need of, and interest in, Lugh Macnia Lámfada had reached an end. What happened to him now mattered to her smatteringly little. Ishtar walked toward the door reaching for the handle. As she grasped and began to turn it, she paused halfway.

Ishtar glanced down at her bloody armour as she reached up with her other hand to touch her chillingly cold silver mask.

She looked terrible!

Ishtar let the handle go, allowing it to turn back into place. Ishtar turned and walked to her waiting army. With a mere point of her finger she conveyed her will to her warriors. Like bees skittering and buzzing before their queen, her Jinn warriors quickly and speedily erected a huge and gorgeous tent of silks, cloth and precious metals.

An enormous bronze bath was carried inside and quickly filled with scorching hot water before Ishtar’s Jinn handmaidens and bodyguards quickly took over. While her bodyguards rushed to her side, her handmaidens scattered petals of flowers to blanket the floor already covered with the soft hides. They placed candles and incense around the tent before lighting them as they fanned the area inside the tent to allow the perfumed scent to spread.

And all before Ishtar had taken a dozen steps away from the door.

Her handmaidens were soon by her side and disrobing her, her bodyguards surrounding and hiding them from the sight of others. Ishtar walked to her tent as her maidens striped her bloodied armour from her form and before casting the pieces away, the pieces falling through the branch and down into the clouds below.

The pieces struck the clouds as rays of light, shattering and dispersing them with a supreme might, like heralds of the heavens. The sun, once again free to shine down and warm the Earth below, seemed especially bright and joyous after the clouds dispersed.

Ishtar waved a hand with royal allowance as she entered her tent and her army parted like a black tide, opening a path through their blockade. Freya’s chariot soon thundered through the gap at haste, clearly travelling a breakneck pace and ramming speed. If the army had not parted, Freya had clearly intended to smash her way through.

Soon entering the centre of the army, Freya’s chariot continued on with extreme speed before Athena noticed that the other side of the army wasn’t moving to make way. Athena pointed ahead as she shouted over the rushing wind.

“They are not going to part Freya. We’re in the centre of the army, they have all the advantages. We cannot fight them while we are surrounded. Not with just the two of us!”

Wrenching on the reins, forcing the chariot to a rapid halt, Freya stared at the wall of black armoured Jinn blocking her chariots way forward. Her lynxes were only inches from the closest Jinn warrior. Her eyes travelled to the simple wooden door beyond their backs, the army clearly willing to use their very bodies to bar it from her, behind them.

Leaping from the chariot with Athena fast behind her, Freya marched to the front line of the army, a menacing snarl twisting her expression into something malevolent and terrifying. Switching her stare from the door straight into the gold on black eyes of the Jinn standing front and centre, his rank clear from the gold trim of his armour and cloak.

The Jinn’s eyes stared back at her own from his silver mask fearlessly, perhaps even with a hint of mocking at her sheer arrogance. They served at the pleasure of the Queen of Heaven! Did this vain Divinity think they could be intimidated into moving aside with a mere scowl?

Freya could read the look in his eyes; she had not seen it for some time, but she could still recognise it. Just as always it provoked a response from her as a blistering rage welled up and into her chest. Just as she clenched her fist to knock his head from his shoulders, the sound of Ishtar’s voice drifted to them from within the grandiose tent.

“Don’t bother Freya. Adar-Malik is too persistent in following his duty to step aside and too stubborn to die. The number of beings to have attempted to see to his demise number in the tens of thousands. He refuses to stay dead. Besides, wouldn’t you prefer looking into my eyes?”

Freya gritted her teeth, her body coiling with supressed power as she continued to stare into Adar-Malik’s unconcerned eyes, ignoring Ishtar and her blather. Athena’s hand came to rest on Freya’s shoulder. Her hand didn’t restrain or hinder Freya, it merely served as a call for caution. A simple and calm attempt to advise her not to act in haste.

One which, Freya forced herself to heed.

It is always a fool’s errand to argue with advice from a Goddess of Wisdom. So, Freya swallowed her pride.

Stiffly, Freya turned back toward her chariot, leaping back aboard and seizing the reins. She waited only long enough for Athena to join her, while casting a dangerous look at Adar-Malik, before snapping the reins to set off at a light trot. Spotting the high tent near the centre of the army, Freya pulled on the reins, steering the chariot toward the tent.

In moments they were before the tent’s entrance. Freya stared at it, her jaw clenched in defeat as she contemplated the gruelling task of facing Ishtar and having to confront her of Ishtar’s abandonment of her . . . of them. Freya, grim-faced, took a deep steadying breath before stepping forward. Athena who had stood and waited for Freya to gather herself, followed calmly behind her, acting in a very ‘wait and see’ manner to the situation. Schooling her expression to be blank and reserved, inside however, Athena worried for Freya. Freya and Ishtar had been . . . very close . . . over these past twenty or so years. Athena did not wish to see blood spilled between them.

Ishtar’s bodyguards pulled the entrance open for them and her handmaidens offered refreshments as they stepped inside. Freya grimaced, clear further frustrated at Ishtar’s narcissism and false niceties. They were clearly now on bad terms. Why pretend otherwise? All she wanted, all she cared for, was her daughter. These insipid courtly games of Ishtar, whatever her purpose, were irksome and Freya had had her full of being led about by the nose by Ishtar!

Slapping aside the tray of drinks, Freya stared at Ishtar, lounging within her massive bath, its water the colour of milk from the heat and scented soap. Several of Ishtar’s handmaidens attended Ishtar in the bath with her, using soft hands and cloth to wash Ishtar’s gloriously dusky gold form. The crash of the gold tray and china cups hitting the ground drew Ishtar’s gaze to Freya, a seductive grin playing across her lips. Ishtar bit her lip as she grabbed the hand of one of her handmaidens and pulled it beneath the clouded water, her eyes catching and holding Freya’s.

Freya scowled at the implication. She, however, didn’t comment on it, but rather snarled an accusation of a different sort.

“You used me . . . us. You used us! The moment we had no further use in helping you find Lugh’s location; you threw us aside, like so much trash. Now you are blockading the path to the door, to my daughter. You clearly have a new goal seeing as Lugh is laying askew like some broken toy, so rather than playing these pointless games and false niceties, why don’t you just get to the point?”

Ishtar raised a brow, her seductive grin becoming a lazy smile. Her manner like a lioness basking lazily in the sun, Ishtar responded with a teasing yet knowing tone as her a handmaiden combed her hair.

“First off, you are right. I did use both of you. But if you recall we were all using each other since the start. Pooling our information, what little had been on offer, searching for them together so as to not waste any time going over old leads. An alliance of benefit, where we use each other to find our daughters and the man who stole them from us.

“Did the relationship between us change? Yes. In the end, yes, I like to think it did change. We became closer, we supported each other in our moments of doubt, our moments of . . . loneliness. But I never agreed to playing fair and share the kill with either of you. Not even in my softest moment. I had always intended to get to him first. I always intended to win the race. I couldn’t risk not getting the information I needed to find my baby.”

Ishtar looked into Freya’s eyes; her expression serious and determined.

“I need you to know, Freya, whatever I thought he had done, however far gone into my grief and pain I descended, I never had any intention to harm your daughter. I just . . . I needed to hurt him . . . I needed it. I couldn’t . . . I refused to let go of the opportunity to get my hands around his throat first.”

Switching her gaze to Athena, her eyes full of an unspoken apology.

“Athena, whatever I thought he had done, whether he had sacrificed your daughter or my daughter or both, I would not have forgotten to wring the knowledge of your daughter’s location from him.”

Ishtar regained her ‘at ease air’ as she glanced between the pair, content with the extent of her admission of regret. She wouldn’t beg their forgiveness. If she could do it all over, she wouldn’t change anything she had done. With a seductive smirk playing on her face she added.

“Good news though, for both of us Athena, I . . . jumped to the wrong conclusion in the end. As it turns out I didn’t give Lugh enough credit in assessing his character after his disappearance with our daughters. Our daughters are alive, all of them. They all live on as one. In our daughter. Which is why I thought it best we had a . . . talk, before we meet her.”

Freya, and Athena behind her, stilled at the words ‘our daughter’ their minds quickly attempting to make sense of Ishtar’s meaning in saying them. Ishtar, her eyes hooded in pleasure, whether from their confusing or the care from her handmaiden could be debated, did not keep them in suspense long.

“We all now share a daughter.” Ishtar let out a soft groan as she said the words, staring at Freya and Athena, the pair of them feeling the pleasure in her gaze as it licked their skin. “The three of our daughters have become one. Our one daughter.” Her eyes glowed with a deep purpose and desire.

Ishtar lifted her hand, which had been hidden in the water, out to the two of them. With a lusty gaze she made them a seemingly irresistible offer.

“Care to join me, my sisters-in-motherhood? Do you want our daughter’s first impression of the both of you to be bloodthirsty, sweaty warriors? Wouldn’t you rather have her first sight of you be when you are at your best? We will have centuries to break it to her that we are not perfect. Let us not start on the first day. Pushing something downhill is a lot easier than the alternative don’t you think? Join me, wash the dust and the sweat from your skin. Freshen up. We can meet her together, united, as a family. “

Her expression became serious, calm and collected. Intent and intense.

“Because we have to be a family. We have to learn to share. Because there is only one of her now. Our daughters cannot live apart. Cannot even truly exist separately. So, we need to share her. She is made up of a part of each of our daughters true, but she is also another daughter entirely. She is all of our daughter.”

She suddenly smirked impishly at them as she continued.

“Or do you have a better plan where we don’t end up going to war with each other as we fight over who can monopolise her?”

Freya and Athena turned their heads to look at each other and perhaps surprisingly or not, it was Athena who released her control over her armour, letting the majority of it fade away. Not only that, the rest of her cloths fell away as well. Ishtar’s eyes narrowed and roamed Athena’s body in undisguised appreciation.

Freya could only watch as Athena moved toward the bath, Ishtar’s maidens stepping forward, their eyes down and hooded, to lift her gracefully into the bath. Ishtar broke away from her maiden’s pampering hands, gliding through the water to Athena’s side.

Ishtar circled behind Athena, admiring her battle-forged form, the toned lean muscles of her arms and legs, her defined abs and her pert . . . assets, drawing her eye. Dipping a hand beneath the water, Ishtar slid her hand up Athena’s thigh to her gluteus maximus, which caused Athena to jump and whirl about, her own hand striking out to slap Ishtar in rebuke. Ishtar laughed as she dodged, however, she ran into the strong, tall form of Freya who had entered the bath as well.

Freya wrapped her arms around Ishtar, her pale skin and the firm muscles of her arms contrasting gorgeously with Ishtar’s dusky gold colour tone as Freya’s arms covered Ishtar’s soft full breasts. Ishtar reached up to stroke the noble, sharp features and contours of Freya’s stunningly beautiful face. Freya stared into Ishtar’s molten gold eyes; her own Nordic fjord blue eyes reflected within them as if they were mirrors. Freya traced a finger across Ishtar’s lips, as out of the corner of her eye she watched Athena trying to wash herself while running away from Ishtar’s handmaidens ‘attempts’ to help.

She murmured huskily, her voice rough with an unspoken desire and . . . wariness.

“I don’t trust you. Not now. If you could get away with it without paying a grievous price, you would take her and leave us sucking our thumbs. Whatever else we do together, know that I will not be fooled into lowering my guard again.”

With that said Freya let Ishtar go and swam to Athena, driving the maidens away, before asking for her assistance in washing her back. Ishtar watched on as she returned to her old position, her handmaidens also returning to her side. Ishtar had a mysterious smile on her face as she let her maidens continue cleaning her, all the while watching the other two goddesses.

One of her handmaidens approached Ishtar with an emerald longnecked flask, a suggestive look in her orange on black eyes before inclining her head toward the pair of bathing goddesses. Ishtar lost her smile instantly as a brutally vicious glower replaced it.

She subtly reached out and grabbed the upsetting handmaiden by her throat and dragged her into the water of the bath, using her other handmaidens as cover for the act. Ishtar tightened her grip on the handmaiden’s throat to strangle her even as Ishtar held her under the water.

Just before the handmaiden passed out, Ishtar pulled her head out of the water and released her throat; quickly grabbing her by her hair instead, Ishtar used her other hand to cover the handmaiden’s mouth to smother her gasps for air. No need to alert Ishtar’s skittish guests about a disciplinary issue being dealt with through loud gasping sounds. Staring into her handmaiden’s eyes, Ishtar whispered in a furious hiss.

“You serve at my pleasure, Kalia. You also die at my displeasure.”

Ishtar removed her hand from Kalia’s mouth, brushing her wet obsidian strands of hair away and to the side of Kalia’s face.

“Since when have I ever needed to drug anyone to have them crawl and beg to have my affections. I am Inanna-Ishtar, I rule as the Queen of Heaven, I own the Domains of Love and Beauty, the Aspects of Sexuality, Lust and Desire are desperate for my commands.”

A dusky look flashed through Ishtar’s eyes as her gaze travelled to the pair of bathing goddesses. A possessive wanting burned darkly in their depths.

“And what Love, Lust and Desire fail to woo for me, the Domains of War and Authority will conqueror for me outright. I always, always, get my way in the end.”

Kalia smiled, a dangerous thrill in her eyes as she watched Ishtar pine. She murmured in a voice barely better than a hoarsely muttered insidious whisper.

“And what of making Gilgamesh into your consort?”

Ishtar’s face twitched slightly.

“And of conquering the Underworld and usurping your sister’s, Ereshkigal’s, throne as Queen of the Dead?”

Ishtar turned her face back to stare murderously at Kalia, who smirked in response as she slurred out teasingly.

“Just trying to help point out you do not always get what you desire, oh Glorious Light of the Heavens.”

Ishtar sneered viciously in response, before forcing Kalia’s head beneath the water, her eyes hooded with pleasurable yet also vengefully, cruel intentions. Errant handmaidens needed to be punished!