The woman’s sunken eyes filled with tears. “He worked us,” she whispered. “I don’t… I don’t recall how it started. I remember being hungry and lost in a gray haze for a long time. Then, suddenly, I was in this place, and the traitor, the killer of the gods… He washere, my queen! He walked among us.”
“What did he do?” Bex asked, reaching down to clutch the woman’s terrifyingly thin hand.
“He ordered us to collect sin,” she whispered, her dilated pupils finally focusing on Bex’s glowing face. “We told him we would not, that Wrath would never kneel, but he held yourcrown in his hands. He spoke with your voice, and we could not disobey. He worked us for days without food or rest, making us scrape sin out of this strange, stagnant river.”
She turned her head to look at the Hell’s flooded floor, and her eyes filled with tears. “So many died,” she whispered. “We were still thin and weak from the gray hell, but the Traitor King had no mercy. He didn’t even let us stop long enough to move the bodies. He just ordered us to keep working.”
“Where is Gilgamesh now?” Bex asked in a flat, deadly voice.
“I don’t know,” the woman said, closing her eyes again. “I’m sorry, my queen. It’s all a blur. He would appear and disappear in a clash of bells. Every time he left, he took all the sin we’d collected with him, but I don’t know where. Even when he wasn’t here, though, the order to keep working remained. It didn’t break until a few minutes ago, which was when we all collapsed.”
“I bet it was when you got your fire back,” Iggs said, speaking in English so that only Bex would understand.
“I don’t know if that’s it,” Bex replied in the same language. “If my fire and name were linked, Drox would be able to hear me. It could just be a coincidence. Whatever happened, though, we need to get them out of here.”
“No argument there,” Iggs said, getting back to his feet. “But how? This cavern is full of skeletons. Even if you had your horns back and could order them to move, they look like they’d fall apart.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Bex growled, clutching the woman’s hand as she switched back to Riverlander.
“Gilgamesh will not return,” she promised. “I have to go see about your treatment, but my loyal servant Iggerux will watch over you until I return. I’ll be back in a minute. Wait for me.”
“We have always waited for you,” the woman whispered, bowing her head as much as she was able. “You are the sacred Bonfire of Ishtar, the light of our people. Wealwaysknew that you would come for us. Even when the other tribes said you were dead, we felt you. We knew you were still alive and fighting for us.”
“She’s the only queen who never kneeled,” Iggs agreed proudly. “And neither have we. Wrath hasneverstopped fighting, and we won’t be beaten by this, either. Our queen has finally arrived. Just hold on a little longer, and she’ll take us all home to Paradise.”
The woman started sobbing in earnest then, her skeletal body curling around Iggs’s boots as she cried and cried. Bex felt a bit like crying herself because she had no idea how she was going to keep all the promises they’d just made. She wasn’t going tonottell her people she’d save them, though, so she sucked it up and stepped back through the cracked door to figure out how in the world she was going to get thousands of worked-almost-to-death wrath demons back on their feet.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“You found all your people?” Adrian said without looking up from the bright-green, foul-smelling goop he was meticulously smearing all over Lys’s injured shoulder. “That’s fantastic! I’m sorry to hear they’re in such a bad state, but I’m sure they’ll be on their feet again in no time. Demon regeneration is a force to be reckoned with. Just look at Lys.”
Bexwaslooking, and it didn’t look good. “How’re they doing?”
“Peachy, thanks,” croaked a blessedly familiar voice.
Bex jumped, snapping her attention back to Lys’s face just in time to see the lust demon’s amber eyes crack open.
“Sorry I didn’t say something earlier. Your witch was very bossy about me not moving.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive,” Bex replied in a watery voice, leaning as close to Lys as she could get without actually touching their body or getting in Adrian’s way.
“Don’t hover over me like I’m a corpse,” Lys scolded. “I told you, I’m only lying like this because Adrian said he’d turn me into a newt if I didn’t. It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore. I’m mostly just pissed that I let that giant ugly bastard get a hit on me.” They rolled their amber eyes. “I must be getting sloppy in my old age.”
“Never,” Bex insisted, fighting the urge to hug Lys until Adrian turned them both into amphibians. “You fought a prince and lived to brag about it. I’d say that’s pretty good.”
“Save your compliments for Iggs,” Lys said with a wide smile. Too wide, apparently, because Adrian immediately reached up to mold their face back into a neutral expression.
“As I was saying,” Lys grumbled when the witch let them go. “I landed some good shots, but Iggs is the one who carried through and won.” Their eyes grew soft. “I wish you could’ve seen him. Our little rescue has grown into a proper demon.”
“Iggs has always been tough,” Bex replied with a grin of her own. “He fought to defend his village from Gilgamesh’s armies during the invasion of the Riverlands when he was only a teenager, don’t forget.”
“I haven’t,” Lys said. “He saved my bacon for real this time. He even got Leander to help, which is the real shocker. I thought for sure that prince was going to stab us in the back.”
Bex secretly felt the same. Leander had been a solid team player since she’d pulled him out of the Lowest Hell, though, so she didn’t say a word.
“Where is he?” she asked instead.
“Over by the doors to the void demons’ room,” Lys replied. “He’s been staring at them since Adrian woke me up. Kind of creepy, to be honest.”
