Sarinina finds Helena and they return to Troy with a few surprises.

The Caliphates guards led Serinina into his meeting chambers where he sat on his throne with his wife Fatimahe. She still didnt see Helena anywhere.

He spoke in a tone that was long accustomed to power. Umar was an old man by now, but it had been over fifty years since he campaigned with his holy prophet peace be upon him. “I think that I know why you are here empress Serinina, but I want to hear it from your mouth.”

“I assure you that I mean no harm. The danger to her life is over. I make no demands I only want Helena of Troy returned. Her sister misses her so much, Umar.”

“She is free to leave any time she wishes,” Replied Umar with an undertone of steel. “We aren't holding her here. What she does is her decision. She fled for our protecting when a violent conqueror won her hand in marriage on a bet with his brothers. We protect her and she can leave any time she wants.”

“Those people are no longer among the living.” Serinina said. “She can safely return if she wishes. But I cant imagine why she wouldn't want to return to her family.”

“Her family that used her life try to make peace,” Umar rose his eyebrow. “That family.”

“NO,” Replied Serinina. “Those people no longer have anything to say about her life. Her sister does miss her but it is her choice, we cant and wouldnt ever consider forcing her to return against her will. But there is nothing to fear now. And I know all about using of a life to make progress or affect safety. My life was violently changed against my wishes. My lifes path was altered. I hated it and fled but I will return.”

Umars eyes narrowed. “Yes I know about you, crown prince Serren.” He watched as Serinina gasp in alarm. “Helena can return if she wishes to, she always could return. You will have to ask her and I will bring you to her. Follow Fatimahe and she will show you where Helena is staying.”

His wife stood up and led them out the doors of the throne room and down the hall. They went up the steps and into a massive tower room on top where Helena was staying. This was her bedroom on the fifth floor on top of a massive tower. She sat on her bed waiting for Serinina and smiled, “greetings Serinina. I had expected my sisters mother Penthesilia to come.”

“Hectors betrayed her, and he got his, they all did. The war is over and the greeks are defeated. Those who wanted to take you are gone, or learned their lesson like Ajax. Cassandra misses you so much.”

“Why isnt she here,” Helena inquired.

“She has her duties as the queen of Trojans now. She sent me.” Serinina said. “It is all up to you Helena and im sorry about Penthesilia.”

“I will return, can I bring my family?” Helena asked.

“Your family,” Serinina repeated having a feeling about where this was going.

And it was. “Yes, my husband Ali and our son. They would like to see Troy if it is safe.”

Serinina took it in stride and replied, “Sure, Cassandra would love to see your family. She had newphews to spoil.” They laughed.

“Good,” Helena said letting out a breath she was holding. “Let us get pack and We will return for a time. But our life is here now. This is where I belong.” Helena stated as they began to pack. “And Fatima wants to talk to you, She thinks she can help you with your own issues, Serinina. Fatimahe is a very smart woman, please trust her.”

Serinina was led out of the bedroom and into a small drawing room of the palace where Fatimahe was waiting with a soft compassionate smile.

“Serinina, I have seen you have adapted to life very well as a female. Much better than any other guy could have.”

“Whats that supposed to mean?” Serinina spat venomously.

“It means,” Fatimahe responded with no anger at all, “That a male life may not have been what you were meant for. Changing you was what you needed. The will of Allah and all of his wisdom and compassionate. YOu should not be angry at them, or hold it against them. Change any male here and he would rather die. They probably would choose death but you adapted and persevered. Do you understand?”

Serinina took in a deep exasperated breath. “I understood that for a long time and I keep finding myself explaining this point to people who ask. My sisters, the gods themsevles. I am not angry at being made into a woman. I am glad. That is not the source of my anger. The source is how they treated me once they turned me. The entire motive for my change was corrupt and defeated the very reason they did it in the first place. It was to make me weak, so I could be controlled and abused. Had their plan worked then I would have chosen death. I couldn't have fought them. I am happy to be female but I dont want to be abused.

“Helena dealt with that bull all of her life from her brothers and father in their culture before the Amazons came around and even then, she faced their sexism. She harbor no anger at them.” Fatimeah pointed out.

“They are men who knew no better. We can forgive men who know no better. I faced them myself. BUt my sister and those witches knew better. They lived that life and wanted to impose it on me while saying they were fighting to liberate women. I understand to a point not being able to trust my motives after my change but that should have passed. I grew, but they don't care and then I was raped. I got pregnant and they still tried to force me into a marriage to cover their shame. Just like a man would have. My sister is no better than Hector.

“I understand,” said Fatimahe,” But what of the people there?”

Serinina laughed. “They will be fine. I never intended to harm November Charlie's. Not at all. I just want them to think I will. But I defended civilians at risk of my own life. I wouldn't hurt them. Except for those stupid nobles, they are dead men walking. They betrayed me. But, not the common people. Only the nobles.

“But still, do you really need to make them suffer?”

“Yes,” replied Serinina in a tone that broke no argument. “The nobility must feel the loss that I was forced to experience. They must suffer as I have. They must watch helplessly as everything they love in life is taken from them as it was taken from me. They must all experience that, then perhaps next time it happens they won't stand by and watch as a boy loses everything he holds dear in life.”

It was clear that there was no argument here. Serinina was going to take her revenge on the nobles and there was no detouring her in this. She was totally committed to it. Serinina smiled a vicious and cruel smile that sent shivers down the other woman's spine and she said, “There's nothing to fear my dear. This is what is needed to be done. It has to happen. They were looking forward to their boy princess. It's their prophesy they have been looking forward to for generations. Let's see how they like him when he returns. Or, the Boy Queen, their boy goddess.” She smiled that smile again and turned to head back. The discussion was over and she learned a little more about Serinina. At least she wasn't a complete monster that Fatimahe had feared

Serinina returned to Helena to see her with a larger man packing for a long trip to Troy, and there was a small boy around seven years old helping his parents pack the things that they needed. Then at around noon, they all stopped and placed rugs on the floor. Then they knelt on it and bowed their heads down and began chanting in one voice. Everyone around them did the same thing, the entire city as far as she knew, everyone in the entire region did the same thing. Serinina felt the strength and conviction toward this new religion and the new God that they were devoted to.

It was over as quickly as it began and the family continued packing for their long trip. Helena and her husband Ali showed some affection for eachother, and it was clear that they loved eachother very much. Serinina briefly wondered about Ares. It was about that time that a guard summoned Serinina back, saying that Fatimahe wanted to see her again. She resented being summoned like a common noble when she was an empress that summoned others when she needed them. But she wasn't the Empress here, and their leaders summoned who they needed to speak to, just like she did so that was her status here. She respected it and acquiesced to the caliphates wife's wishes and went to see her in her private chambers to see what she wanted.

Serinina figured it was her plan for the nobles of her homeland, and she had no intention of budging on that matter. Fatimahe was going to be greatly disappointed there.

“I know you are convinced about your course here, Serinina but I must strongly question if it is right. I must ask what makes you so sure, and what exactly you intend to do to the nobility of your homeland?”

“I intend to make them suffer as I suffered,” Serinina replied with her voice trembling with the emotion she felt. “They must watch the destruction of their entire lives. First, they will bury their children, watch as their handling's and their entire lives are destroyed. Then they will be buried with their children. I don't care what you say, this is what I intend and what I will do.”

“Why do you need to be so brutal to them?” Fatimahe asked sincerely.

“They are cowards who deserve it. They are supposed to be so strong, they said they supported me and loved me. But none of them lifted a finger to help me. They all watched the destruction of my entire life as my entire future and my life was taken from me. I was helpless, and betrayed and none of them stood by me. They need to experience what that is like.”

“Why,” Fatimahe asked again.

“Because they need to experience it, they inflicted it on me. They deserve to experience that suffering themselves. It’s only right.”

“Are you sure,” Fatimahe asked, looking into Serinina’s eyes that had begun filling with frightening darkness that threatened to entrap anyone who looked into them too long. “What would you have done if you were there that day, as a noble watching it happen to another boy up there? Would you had dared defied that kind of power they saw that day?”

Serinina thought about it and said with conviction, “Absolutely. If we fail to confront evil, then we become part of it and deserve to suffer from it. I would have stood by Sarin that day and dared anyone else to stand with me.”

“Sarinina, are you sure of this?” Fatimahe asked.

“Yes,” Replied Sarinina.

“Let's see if you are right,” Fatimahe said warningly and then touched Sarinina, and she suddenly felt herself transformed and sent somewhere else.

Suddenly she saw herself, or himself now sitting in the seats by his parents. Fatimahe said, “These are your parents. You know nothing of what will happen now. You are not a prince, you are just a noble boy watching Edwyn's coronation as King after his father's assassination a week ago.” Then she vanished

He watched as the women gathered around the prince Edwyn. His sister Patinea stood beside her brother and smiled warmly, but she also had a look of fear in her eyes. Sarin didn't really understand this. Shouldn't she be happy for her brother's coronation at the King?

Then all of the 12 women assembled there rose their hands and pointed a finger up at the sky. Then they began chanting in one ominous voice, it was a very quiet chant, but he heard it. Then Patinea placed a hand on Edwyn's shoulder. Edwyn thought it was comfort or support, but fear clutched Sarin as he watched it. The hard look in Patinea’s eyes spoke of something else, and then she chanted a spell, and her brother began shrinking. He tried to speak, but only a high pitched squeak came out of his mouth as he transformed in front of everyone. His body shrank, his chest expanded into two massive soft mounds. His face shrank and developed soft feminine facial lines. He screamed and clutched his crotch as he felt pain in his groin area as it transformed and shrank inside of his body.

Then he was a girl looking up in fear. Patinea rose her fist in the area and declared proudly, emotion filling her voice as she was now victorious, “Bear witness there is no longer a male heir to the throne. That makes me the rightful heir now.”

The women gathered around her to protect her. Falconette dared, “Let anyone who disagrees, join Edwyinina here.”

And then a great earthquake occurred. The windows to the temple shattered. A great opening appeared under the giant statue of Maxis, and it was swallowed up in a massive hole.

She dared everyone again. Sarin had enough and stood up and walked to stand beside Edwyn and thundered, “I can't believe you people. We stood by this boy, we played with him, we fought with him, and now you are abandoning him. I know what you just witnessed, and we know some horrible things happen to women, but it isn't this boy's fault. Don't blame him for it or make him a sacrifice. I question any god that would inflict this on an innocent and kind boy like Edwyn. Just because this corruption happened doesn't make him unworthy. It doesn't even make him not a boy anymore. He's still the Edwyn we always knew. Stand by him now or be declared a coward! Let's fight this together with Edwyn. Fight the priests who burn women and fight these women who want to lay it all on his shoulders.”

Then the vision vanished, and Fatimahe looked surprised. “So you aren't all talk, you would have stood by him and confronted them. You probably would have ruined their entire plan that day.”

“How did you do that,” Asked Sarinina, and she wasn't entirely sure what was happening now, but she caught a glimpse of Fatimeh’s image being distorted, and she whispered, “Danis?”

She looked out and saw the witch moon in the skies and got very angry,” Danis?”

In an instant, she felt reality shift all around her at once. The witch moon's appearance changed everything. She was indeed still a goddess in her own right. Having Lilith's crown and ruling her realm of hell gave her supreme power over the planet that even Zeus and Athena couldn't begin to match. But she felt reality shift to the one she knew. She was in the original time where she was transformed on the even of her own coronation, and Patinea stole the throne from him. It was Patinea’s throne now. She escaped and went to the Amazons and trained as a female warrior. These adventures were still here's and she rescued troy. She formed a relationship with Ajax and restored him. She was still the Empress of the Greeks and her army had overrun Vienna. They have stationed their troops on the borders of Frankish territory and preparing to march on Paris.

“No,” Fatimahe replied. “But, we love her.”

Suddenly Sarinina felt the electrical energy flowing through her hands, and a long electrified spear appeared in her hand. The doors to the chamber slammed shut on their own and a field appeared over them, preventing anyone from forcing their way in. Sarinina had pushed Fatimahe down and had the spear pointed toward her throat.

“Your plan to show me a coward failed. I would have acted that day, and I proved it. I would have defended Sarin, but I won't defend Edwyn. He is the Son of the Goddess you love. I will destroy him.”

Fatimahe didn't say anything else. She was so afraid now and Sarinina spoke again. Her tone took on a cruel, harsh, unforgiving tone now as she spoke. “And, Danis, You probably think I have been fearing this day, but no. I have been looking forward to the day you regained your power. Oh yeah, I have. Seeing your moon appear, then disappear, will be so demoralizing. I will destroy you, your followers will be hunted down. I will find each and every witch and kill them. Starting with you Fatimahe. I will inform your husband, Umar, you are a Jinn. And you are not to be trusted with the safety of your son Ali. Ali will be a great Caliphate for the Empire. He will destroy the prophet's rebellious wife, Aisha.”

And Serinina did precisely what she intended and informed on the wife before they began their long trip to Troy. Fatima was arrested and tried as a Jin. She executed as they were leaving the palace. There was no defending Fatimehe after such an accusation of being a jinn. It was common knowledge that Serinina was a Jinn and she was too powerful to fight. She had taken the spirit of man's first rebellious wife that defied her own husband and defied Allah himself. She was cast out of paradise and had married the rebellious angel of light. The most powerful of the angels who thought his power was equal to Allah himself. He was wrong

But Lilith does not want to do evil with her power. She is just angry at having been so badly mistreated. Serinina tends to agree with that assessment, and she won't release her husband. She doesn’t agree with the Honor and Obey. She didn't want to obey. She didn’t want to obey evil men, especially.

She saw her husband Abul riding alone with a distraught expression on his face. Her son Samir was riding beside his mother, Helena, and he seemed okay. But her husband was very unhappy, and she reached out. She realized that his trouble had to do with her. She had deliberately exposed the Caliphates wife Fatimeh, knowing it would result in her execution. Many of them knew about her, and even the Caliphate himself was okay with it. She meant well and used her abilities for Good but publicly exposing her as she did. No one could be seen publicly defending her from charges of witchcraft. The Imams had to act. That was a vicious thing to do. Many people have a very different view of the Goddess than she has. But she was the Victim. She was nothing but a sacrifice and suffered at the hands of the Goddess. She has a very different view of the Goddess than many other people do. The Goddess may have good intentions, but so does her ex-husband, Lucifer. It makes no difference in the end. Evil is Evil. What she suffered was Evil

She rode up alongside Umar and said casually, “I guess you don't like me, don’t you?”

He tried to defend himself but found such a thing would be weak. “I don’t not like you, your Majesty. I don’t have any personal feelings either way about you. I don’t like what you did to our Caliphates wife. We all knew about her, and we loved her. What you did was wrong!”

Serinina looked sharply into the man's eyes. “I am astonished at this Umar,” She said down to the man wearing a turban. “As pious as you are to your new faith. What it says about the Tawheed and the Oneness of God himself. How it is a sin to associate any partners to him. How can you in your faith believe, or even tolerate a belief in a goddess like this?”

“Who said anything about a goddess, we don’t worship her or anything like that?” Replied Abu. “Its much like the other messengers and prophets, Issa, Jesus, Abraham, Issac, Elijah, Muhammad, All of them, and then there are a host of other angels like Gabriel that gives us messages from God. We aren’t those hekatin who worship her. We respect and follow her will, at times. And Fatimahe didn’t worship her. Her faith was only to one. She used the powers of Danis to enhance and do good things for people. That's all and you exposed her as a witch and had her executed. She wasn’t an evil woman.”

“Abul, you simply do not understand, do you,” Said Serinina taking a breath of frustration and letting it out. “This is no angel. Danis has immense power and she won't wield it on behalf of any religion other than her own. When she is released, she will create a great conflict within your people and your religion for those who follow her. It may destroy your religion once and for all.”

He shook his head. “No, maybe only to those imams who want to execute people like her. Much like it did in your homeland. And perhaps that is as it needed to be. Those killings need to stop Serinina and I know how you feel. I know how you have suffered at their hands. YOu feel your life was nothing more than a blood sacrifice on her altar. And you feel they are evil. But they just want to stop these killings and be free. Everyone wants freedom and what they are fighting is a great evil. Even you agree to that.”

“Any goddess that requires a child to sacrifice his life or sex on her behalf is evil and cruel. I'd think you especially would agree with that, Abu.” She raised her eyebrow and then quoted one of the Ayat's about Issa and the belief of a blood sacrifice for sin. “Don't you all belief that is corrupt. God needs no sacrifice for his sins, does he?”

“No,” Abu replied. “But it's not about that. It was about stopping evil men from killing people and persecuting the women. We also want to defeat them. Now, we know some of those followers also believe in evil things. Especially in your land but not all of them. That's where you were supposed to come in. You were supposed to do it.”

“I will do it, but I could have done it as a happy boy rather than a victimized girl. How can I serve a god that persecuted me and destroyed my entire life? I cant. I must not let her defeat me.”

“In making this a competition between you two, and defeating her? You may find yourself condemning more generations of girls to male brutality and subjugation. Like under those Spartans you love, and your marriage to Ares. You put him in charge of Themyscira, didn't you?”

“Yes,” Serinina confirmed. “I put him in charge of enforcing my will and protecting the former male captives that they held and insured their protection and training in the spartan way of combat, unless they wanted to join the Amazons which a number have. It's great.”

He shook his head in sadness. “Enforcing male equality and freeing the male captives and having them trained. Allowing a large spartan contingent to make a military camp on their island may have, in the end, destroyed the Amazons entire civilization. They only existed because they kept their island hidden and refused to expose themselves. Males who landed found themselves subjugated and a number of them like your boy Jason understood the necessity of keeping their society a secret. You exposed them, and forced them to accept males being freed in their civilization and militarized. You have doomed them, and the Amazons are too honor bounded to refuse your demand. They will follow their queen, but they should refuse you. Unlike the Spartans, the Amazons won't survive this. Their female warrior culture they formed around strong women will vanish from history, thanks to you Serinina. All hail the queen.” Abu snorted sarcastically.

That was an issue that had been bugging Serinina since she did it. She knew that the Spartan society was strong enough to handle having a large number of their former subjugated people being free and working for the good of the society as a whole. They were enslaved before and forced to work the land for Sparta so the warrior cast could continue to train. It was a life of bleak subjugation and humiliation that would not last. At the slightest sign of weakness, they would rise up and the society could only handle a number of those before they were overwhelmed. It was an earthquake at first that showed the weakness of their society. Then the Helots revolted, and the rest of the Greek states that had tired of Spartan brutality and supremacy invaded and it was the end of Sparta.

Serinina’s arrival changed everything, and it was going to happen a lot sooner this time. Their defeat at Troy was going to be the sign of Spartan Weakness. Serinina took care of that and found that the false God Maxis was trying to get in on Spartan's weakness to spread his religion to them, and that was almost laughable. Some of the Spartans were falling for it, but not many. Maxis’s faith was too harsh and too strange for them. If he was given time, it might have worked, but Serinina's arrival put a stop to that nonsense. But Spartan society would endure this upheaval and end up stronger because of it. They have a whole new merchant class to strengthen their entire society and still allow the military caste to train full time.

But she doubted the Amazons would survive the freeing of the men on their land. And not only freeing them but allowing them to be trained as part of the military. This would like end up with the women being subjugated within a generation. Their isolation was their strength and what allowed the women to maintain their strength as warriors. But if that was the future, then it was the future. The Amazon's had relied on brutality and terror to maintain their female supremacy against an entire sex they terrorized and brutalized into submission, and that only existed because there was a very limited number of men allowed. Once that safety net was removed, their society was now living on borrowed time.

Along their way out, Serinina realized they had been followed and surrounded by a massive number of soldiers. Abu calmed her, saying it was nothing to be alarmed about. This was their army escorting him, their lord and his wife Helena and their family. They were going to escort and protect them all the way to the gates of Troy. There was no need, and they realized Serinina herself was very capable, but the image of them being escorted and protected by thousands of troops was necessary. There was nothing to be done about it. The Caliphate’s army was ordered to provide escort, and that is what they were going to do.

They went through the desert, and Serinina wondered how they were going to keep their army alive through the desert. There wasn’t much water, and her small force was only allowed to survive because they had enough animals to hold their water cans and blankets; they kept soaked and shaded to retain its moisture. They had learned how desert nomads stayed alive. this was impracticable for an entire army. There was no way to carry enough water for thousands of men. The critical thing about transporting an army across a desert was to follow the water holes quickly. They had to stay around the water or know where it was. And there wasn't enough water on their way through the hot stand. Luckily, they had Serinina, and she was caring and led the army to the nearest water hole, or she summoned it from the depths, and they went on. It went a lot slower transporting an entire army of soldiers and commanders. What took a week took three weeks this time.

But she wasn’t out of surprises. The army was surprised and alarmed when they reached the Trojans border and saw another vast army of battle-hardened female warriors. Their escort of Amazons led by Helena’s sister Cassandra was there waiting. She smiled, and the two sisters embraced eachother. Then she asked with a frown, “Who is this?” Cassandra gestured to the man smiling at them, and his small boy.

“That's my husband, Abu, and my son.”

“What!” Cassandra demanded in anger. “You got married, and didn’t invite me, and had a son long enough for him to be this old and never bothered to tell me?”

“You had enough of your own problems with Troy, the War, the siege, fighting your father and brother to maintain your claim to the throne. You couldn’t had left, and had I told you then they would have come after me.”

Abu snorted, “What are you complaining about. You had all of the fun and left nothing for these men. They would have loved to fight some arrogant Spartans, but you kept them all to yourself.” But she saw a smirk and a mischievous twinkle in his eye

“We will try to leave some enemies for you to deal with in our next war, Abu. We are sorry for keeping all of the fun.” Cassandra said, laughing and then looked at Helena and got serious, “I understand why you couldn’t invite us to your wedding. We will discuss this more when we arrive. Are these men going to escort us all the way?”

“Yes,” Abu said, seeing how it was so silly now, but orders were orders.

“Okay,” Cassandra shrugged.

Abu realized that much to his sadness that he had been wrong about Serinina. She did good things, but she still saw herself in competition against her sister. She saw this as a win or lose situation, and she intended on winning it. That meant defeating her sister and making her sister suffer. If she did not suffer, if she got away with what she did, then she would win, and Serinina could consider that Patinea defeating her. That is something she could not allow to happen. This meant a total war. Serinina was going to destroy the Golden Isles. She was going to destroy their temples and their goddess. She was going to destroy their entire religion and everything that they loved. IN many ways, Serinina was still pretty much a child. But, that can also be forgiven. The boy was destroyed, the boy was never allowed to become a mature man. His growth was stopped, and he was subjected to a devastating life-altering change that stopped his maturity. Just as any boy who is abused or mistreated, they stop growing. This is Patinea's doing, and for all of her claims of being more mature and the rightful heir, she was not. She proved herself to be as petty and childlike as Serin. But she was older, she should have known better. Sarin could be forgiven for being childlike. He was sixteen and then destroyed. Now this child was a God and was going to raise hell on earth. He tried to reason with her, but he should have known he was doomed. There was no reasoning with Iblis.

They had finally reached the City of Troy, and Abu watched in total amazement. Female guards opened the two enormous bronze gates, and they marched, though. The army, except for a selected number of personal guards were allowed in. More of the female warrior army marched through in ridged parade formation carrying their bronze spears high.

The crowds cheered for Helena of Troy. They were happy to see their princess return finally, and she was holding a dark man's hand as they entered. She raised her hand in the air for silence and said, “I am glad to be here if even for a short time. I must return to my home with my husband Abu and my son Samir. A lot has happened since I left. I see the remains of a burnt horse in the center, and I am guessing those bones are the dead Greeks who tried to sneak their way in.” She gave a cruel sneer.

Everyone laughed.