PROLOGUE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE KING OF HEAVENwas disappointed.
Here he was, standing in his full regalia in the Desert of the Chains, surrounded by piles of perfected sin-iron ingots. He had a forge of Enki painstakingly reconstructed from the wreckage of the crafter god’s main facility on the banks of the River Lethe. He had Enki’s golden Hammer of Creation, the only tool the divine forge would accept, as well as the Crown of Anu, which gave him the authority to swing it.
Every element of his great work—possibly thegreatestwork ever attempted by man or god—was finally at his fingertips, but King Gilgamesh was not laboring at his forge. He wasnotfiring the perfected sin iron the war demons had made for him. He wasnotswinging Enki’s golden hammer to craft the solution that would save all mankind. No. He was standing in an otherwise unremarkable corner of the new workshop he’d built beneath the chained Wheel of Rebirth, staring down at the dented bronze disaster that had once been his Princess of War.
Sucha disappointment.
“Please, greatest and most sacred king,” she sobbed, splattering her ugly black blood all over his work floor as she prostrated herself at his feet. “Repair this broken body. Use Enki’s hammer to make me whole again, and IswearI’ll—”
“What’s the point of that?” Gilgamesh interrupted with a cold look down his nose. “You were given a simple task, Dalanea: Kill a crownless, weaponless queen. You didn’t even have to doit alone. You had an entire Hell’s worth of war demons to assist you, and yet, somehow, you still failed.”
The bloody queen began to shake. “I—”
“If you can’t win a battle so heavily weighted in your favor, I don’t see how it makes sense to give you another chance,” Gilgamesh continued. “Wouldyoushow mercy to a subordinate who failed to produce a victory under such grossly advantageous circumstances?”
“No, Great King,” the fallen Queen of War whispered, clenching her three remaining fists. “But, in my defense, this was not my idea. It was Crown Prince Alexander who sent me down there. He said he’d take full responsibility—”
“And what should I hold him responsible for?” Gilgamesh snapped. “Expecting the strongest Blade of Ishtar to triumph over a severely handicapped opponent? Believing that a general backed by her entire army would be capable of defeating a single foe? If I have any criticism of my son’s judgement, it was that he was too cautious. He handed you the Coward Queen on a platter, and youstillmanaged to drop her.” The king shook his head. “This is your failing, Dalanea, and you know it. You were the one who shamelessly cried out for my help, so don’t try to lay this at Alexander’s feet.”
“Forgive me,” the queen whispered, pressing her corroded bronze forehead to the bloody ground. “The Eternal King’s judgement is infallible. If you say it is my fault, then it must be so, but our enemy is not so weak as you describe. Even without her crown, sword, and name, the Bonfire of Wrath’s fire was greater than I have ever seen. It infected my demons and turned them against their queen. That’s the only reason Rebexa was able to best me, but I know the extent of her powers now. If you’d just restore my body one last time, I swear she will not triumph again. I’ll fight to the death to—”
“Fight to the death?” Gilgamesh repeated with a scoff. “What a theatrical waste of time. If you couldn’t achieve victory under the ideal conditions my son arranged for you, it’s obvious you never will.”
“Then make me better,” the queen begged, lurching forward to wrap her bloody arms around the Eternal King’s armored legs. “You’re the one who improves the creations of the gods. If I am weak, use your skill to make me strong. Justplease, my king, my savior, give me another chance! I swear by my name that I will never fail you again. I’ll—”
Her desperate pleading cut off as King Gilgamesh reached down to lay his golden-gloved hand upon her hornless bronze head.
“Foolish Dalanea,” he said sadly, “we both know that’s not true. Ishtar created you perfect, but the trouble with divine perfection is that it can never exceed the static vision of the gods who created it. Perfect creations cannot grow. They cannot evolve or exceed their limitations. Even with all my brilliance, I was never able to do more than cover you up. No matter how beautiful I made you on the outside, your inner truth remained what you have always been: an insufficient bronze statue, howling in pain.”
The Queen of War’s grip loosened in shock as the king stepped out of her hold.
“That is why the gods fell in love with humanity in the first place,” Gilgamesh explained as he walked back to his repaired forge. “Unlike you, we werenottheir creations and thus were able to exceed their stagnant imaginings. Even my betrayal was treated with wonder because it was a surprise. That’s a rare and precious thing to immortals, but you have never possessed such talent, which is why I’m not going to waste my time repairing you again. No matter how many gifts I bestow, you will neverchange, never flourish or excel. I already know that you are incapable of surprising me, so I’m afraid this is as far as we go.”
He finished with a benevolent smile, but the Queen of War’s fists were already clenched. “No,” she snarled, pushing off her knees. “You promised me. Yousworethat if I served you, I would never be cast aside again!”
“And you were not,” Gilgamesh said. “I’ve known all of this since we met, and yet I tolerated your shortcomings for five thousand years. I made you my general, gave you dominion over your sisters. I even assigned my best son to be your prince. I have been infinitely patient, rained favor after favor upon your dented head, and still you let me down on the eve of my greatest victory.” His blue-gray eyes narrowed. “That makes you the one who betrayed me, but unlike the gods, I find no novelty in that. I’m sorry, my dear, but this is the end.”
“No!” she screamed, summoning her sacred sword. “Youpromised! You—”
Her voice cut off like a switch as Gilgamesh waved his hand, and what was left of War’s scarred body dissolved into bronze pellets. They rattled like hail onto the stone platform the king had built to keep his golden boots out of the black desert’s sin-iron dust before rolling into a neat pile around a woman’s bronze-skinned hand with a black ring on its third finger. The king was bending over to pick the hand up when his eldest son finally huffed his way to the top of the steps that connected Gilgamesh’s new workshop to the rest of his palace.
“Oh,” Alexander said when he saw what his father was doing. “Looks like you already know.”
“It was fairly obvious,” Gilgamesh replied, tossing the severed hand to his son. “She doesn’t yell for help when she’s winning.”
“Looks like she won’t be yelling for anything anymore,” Alexander said as he snatched the Queen of War’s severed hand out of the air.
“Is that bitterness I hear?” Gilgamesh asked as he grabbed the forge bellows he would have been working all this time if a whining failure had not interrupted him. “I’m sorry, Alexander. Did I destroy your favorite?”
“Of course not,” the Crown Prince replied. “The Princess of War has always been more burden than help. If I’m upset about anything, it’s that you didn’t save the eye I gave her. I was hoping to get that back someday.”
“I’ll make you a new one,” his father promised. “A proper one crafted from flesh instead of gold. I should have ample time to master such arts now that I’m about to solve our greatest problem.”
“About that,” Alexander said, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the staircase to the lower levels. “What do you want to do about the Coward Queen? I feel it’s accurate to say that we’ve completely lost containment at this point.”
