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I wasn't the only one who gasped at her words. Had we bothered to have done some simple math, we could have easily figured it out before.
Ishtar continued. "After Behlial discovered the Nayphyllym, another all-out war broke out, and again, neither faction won. TheAsphodelwas the only ship left of the mighty Daemon fleet, while the Nayphyllym's was utterly destroyed. The terms of the peace agreement were that Behlial would take the majority of surviving Nayphyllym back to Tartarus but leave a handful on Adama to breed for Behlial's reaping whenever the time would be right."
"But if their fleet was destroyed, what incentive could they have had for Behlial to follow through?" Seth asked.
Ishtar shrugged. "The Nayphyllym promised that as long as Behlial stuck to his end of the bargain, they would never attack Elysian again."
Lilith objected, "But… Behlial could have just dropped the surviving Nayphyllym off on the moon for all they knew. They wouldn't have survived that and the Nayphyllym on Adama wouldn't have been any the wiser."
Ishtar shrugged. "Like I said, the story is fifteen thousand years old, and I only heard Behlial's side. It could be that the Nayphyllym won and wrangled this concession from him."
"So the Nayphyllym, our ancestors, just gave us up?" one of the other maidens mated to one of Azazel's brothers asked. "They sacrificed our ancestors to return to their planet?"
"This doesn't make any sense," the girl named Dina objected.
Ishtar's eyes were apologetic as she dropped one more bomb. "Behlial's punishment also included that he would only be allowed to spend one year on Elysian every seven hundred years. During the seven hundred years, he had to journey from Elysian to Adama and then to Tartarus while raising seven sons.
"The journey would be called styx because it was a journey of death. During this journey, the sons were to battle each other until only the strongest survived." Her voice broke at that point and Azazel reached out and took her hand, realizing how much the only person he had ever known as mother was hurting.
"What happens once we reach Tartarus?" Marduk demanded.
Ishtar shook her head regretfully. "We don't know."
"What?" Grigori yelled.
"We don't know. Tartarus is covered in complete darkness. Only a few spaceships orbit the planet. We haven't had any contact with the Nayphyllym in thousands of years," Ishtar explained. "Tartarus has a very high mountain, higher than any mountain on Adama, that's where we are allowed to land a small spaceship and where we are supposed to leave the surviving son."
A moment later she added, "We leave after that to spend Behlial's allotted year on Elysian, only to repeat the journey all over."
Everybody stared at each other, at a loss for words, and I reached for Azazel's hand, as he stood ramrod still.
"And this has been going on how long?" Seth finally asked.
"This is my eleventh journey with your father. Before that," Ishtar provided, "My predecessor said she was with him for ten journeys. That's all I know. I don't know if there were more or not."
I tried to wrap my head around all this, but a merciful numbness shrouded me. This was just too much. And apparently not just for me, as Ishtar stepped to Lilith’s side and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't be scared child. All will be well; you just have to trust."
I tuned out their quick exchange as my head spun. All of us, Azazel and his brothers, me and the other Nayphyllym girls, were only pawns in a game played by the Nayphyllym who somehow had turned a defeat into a win.
A sickening idea bloomed inside my chest. I wasn't a history student or well-read in legends, but I had watched a few R-rated movies while trying to stimulate my libido and now I wondered if the Nayphyllym had demanded the strongest son of the quest as some kind of pleasurer for them. I knew it was far fetched, B-rated movie material, but on the other hand, after having experienced what frigid meant and then been given the gift of discovering I wasn't but that I needed a certain Daemon…
Lilith hyperventilating caught my attention. A concerned Seth rushed to her side but Ishtar beath him to her. "Let me."
Gently comforting Lilith until she calmed down, Ishtar took hers and Seth's hand into hers and said, "You two remind me so much of Isis and Osiris, it's…"
And then all hell broke loose.
Lilith rose and bent backward like one of those people in a horror movie as they are about to get possessed or the possessed ghost gets extracted.
Lilith convulsed in Seth's and Ishtar's arms, and I grabbed Azazel's hand for support. Unsure of what to do for her, I sat rooted in one spot until Lilith's body finally relaxed.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed but none of us moved until Lilith opened her eyes, stared at Ishtar, and mumbled, "Anunit."
The name hit me as if a whip had struck me. "Anunit," I cried.
"Anunit? You were Anunit?" Ishtar asked with wide eyes before a grin spread over her beautiful face. "I should have known."
"I think so. And Seth was…"
