He pressed his head even harder against the floor. “Please, Queen of Wrath. I’ll do anything you say. Just please don’t cut the chains. Don’t bring the cruel gods back to trample everything humanity has built.”
“Anything, huh?” Bex said, pulling Drox into her hand and tapping his black blade against her shoulder as she made a show of thinking the prince’s words over. “All right. I’ll spare the chains, but in return, you have to call off the attack on the Blackwood.”
The bowing prince shook his head. “I cannot. Only the king himself can end an operation that’s already underway.”
“Then take me to Gilgamesh and I’ll tell him myself,” Bex offered with a smile. “Do it quick, or I’m chopping this whole place apart.”
It took every bit of Adrian’s self-control not to gape at her in wonder. That was the most bald-faced lie he’d ever heard Bex tell, but it wasn’t a half-bad one. If this prince really was the true-blue Gilgamesh believer he appeared to be, then he’d haveno doubt that his king could easily defeat the Coward Queen, which meant he might actually do as she said.
Sure enough, the Prince of Envy nodded immediately and pushed up from his bow. “My father is a wise and civilized king,” he said with a relieved smile. “He despises war in all its wasteful forms, so I’m certain he’d be willing to negotiate if you came to him in good faith. Call off the demons who are ransacking his palace and send the witches back to their tree, and I’ll take you to King Gilgamesh.”
Bex shook her head. “That wasn’t part of the deal. You take me to Gilgamesh now—theactualGilgamesh, not his throne room or his study or his Crown Prince stand-in, but the man himself—or I chop everything you just bowed your head to protect.”
The prince heaved a long sigh. “Very well,” he said, wiping the black grime from his gloved hands. “I’ll take you straight to him. Just put away your—”
“Don’t listen to him.”
The dirty prince stopped with a jolt, his grimy face—which had just been the picture of defeated resignation—twisting into a hateful scowl as Leander marched down the stairs.
“He’s lying to you,” Leander said as he stomped into the room. “That is Hector, Prince of Envy, and the chains aren’t the only realm he looks after. He’s the custodian of all of Gilgamesh’s sacred spaces. If you follow where he leads, he’ll strand you in an endless labyrinth between worlds until you die of starvation.”
“I see you’ve turned full traitor, Leander,” the Prince of Envy spat, snatching his arm down to grab his sword, only to come up empty. The white blade that had been lying on the floor beside him was now clutched in Nemini’s hands where she stood behind Bex, who no longer looked like she was bluffing about chopping everything apart.
“Gotta admit, you almost had me for a moment,” Bex said, pulling Drox off her shoulder to point his black blade at the scowling prince. “Was all that stuff about protecting the chains a lie as well?”
“Absolutely not,” the Prince of Envy insisted, pulling himself up straight and proud even though his hands were still empty. “The chains that hold the Wheel of Reincarnation are the greatest creation of Heaven and the only thing that protects humanity from being the playthings of the gods. Not that my demon-loving brother cares about that. Leander would sacrifice every human on the planet if his precious Mara asked him to, and he’ll do the same to you if you get in his way.”
“Big words from a liar,” Bex said as she stalked closer to the dirty prince. “But I don’t care about cutting chains anymore. I’m here to kill Gilgamesh, and while I’m sure he’s very hidden, I also know that the chains are how I get to him. You’re just the person standing in my way, so either you get out of it or…”
Her voice trailed off as she slammed Drox’s point into the floor. It didn’t look like she’d hit the marble that hard to Adrian, but either the stone was weak here or those six horns had boosted her strength even more than he’d realized, because the entire circular chamber cracked when her sword came down. She was about to hit it again when the Prince of Envy threw out his hands.
“Stop!” he cried. “Please, Queen of Wrath, you don’t know the calamity you’re courting! The Wheel has already been strengthened by the water and life the witches brought with them into Heaven. The chains are at their limit. If you jostle them now, the bound Cycle of Reincarnation could break free completely and all the gods will return, butnotas your saviors. They hate what humanity has become and will use their power to reset the world and everyone in it. You, me, the Blackwoods, your demons—everyone will die if you let them rise!”
“I’m already aware,” Bex said, moving her sword back to her shoulder. “But whatyoudon’t understand yet is that Gilgamesh is planning to do the same thing.”
For the first time since they’d arrived, the Prince of Envy looked genuinely surprised. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Gilgamesh is the Eternal King, humanity’s champion. More importantly, he already has all the power he could ever want. He would never throw away his throne.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Adrian said, stepping forward to stand beside Bex. “I’ve spent a lot of time with our father lately, and he’s anything but satisfied. You accuse Leander of being a slave to his princess, but Gilgamesh is the one who’dactuallysacrifice the world to get what he wants, and you’re standing here fighting to let him.”
“Shut up,” the Prince of Envy snarled. “What do you know? You’re not even a real prince. You’re just the tool Father used to repair the Queen of Pride’s horns, which you thenstoleand put back on her head!”
He pointed at Nemini, who shrugged.
“You’ve always been in the demons’ pocket,” the prince went on. “You even became their queen’s lover! You’re no better than our harlot of a mother, but unlike the rest of you degenerates,Iknow what has to be done. You think I’m unaware of our father’s true nature? I’ve known he was a lying, despotic king from the day he first brought me here, but I still follow him because, for all his faults, Gilgamesh is the only one who can protect us from the gods. He’s the strongest human that’s ever lived, and unlikeher”—he stabbed his finger at Bex—“he’s actually on our side. He dreams of ruling humanity, not destroying it. I’d bet our future on his greed any day, and I’llneverlet you reach him!”
He yanked his arm back as he finished, and the white sword in Nemini’s hands exploded into a white-carved woman.She was the dirtiest princess Adrian had ever seen, with lines of black sin-iron dust caked into all the carved folds of her dress. Her body was cracked and battered like she’d been rolled down a mountain, but her golden eyes were calm and deadly as she kicked her way out of Nemini’s grasp and ran to her prince. She turned back into a sword the second he touched her, and the Prince of Envy lurched down to plunge his blade—which was long, thin, and tapered like a giant needle—into the stone Bex had already cracked.
The moment the Blade of Envy struck it, the floor beneath their feet vanished. Not broke, not gave out,vanished, leaving Adrian frantically waving his arms as he began to fall. The Prince of Envy smirked at his distress from his perch on the one remaining spot of solid ground, which looked like a circle of stone floating in the air. The rest of the giant arrival hall was gone, leaving everybody but the enemy prince falling into what appeared to be an enormous sandstone cavern with an ancient city nestled far, far at the bottom.
The change was so unexpected, it actually shocked Adrian out of his panic. He had no idea what had just happened, but the Prince of Envy was now high above them, left behind as Adrian, Bex, Nemini, and Leander plummeted down the cavern toward the city like coins tossed into a well. Adrian was kicking himself for leaving Bran behind with Boston when Leander grabbed him by his coat sleeve and yelled,“Fifty Steps of the Pilgrim!”
Adrian’s stomach lurched with the familiar swinging feeling of teleportation. Unlike all the times he’d moved himself, though, there was no ringing bell. This was simply a blip, like he’d been inside the eye of the world when it blinked, and then suddenly he and Leander were falling through the airabovethe Prince of Envy.
The filthy prince had just enough time to look up in surprise before they landed on top of him. The giant sandstonecavern vanished a second later, returning the arrivals room to its previous state as the three sons of Gilgamesh fell sprawling onto the cracked floor.
“You,” Envy snarled, shoving Leander off him as he raised his long, needle-sharp white sword again. “Sorcery won’t save you this—”
“Binding of Deepest Bedrock,” Leander replied, looking at his brother with a superior smile.
