“Band of a Thousand Irons.”
The sorcery had barely left his lips before the princess toppled over with a band of metal the size of a telephone pole wrapped around her body. Because she was still the Princess of Envy, the same iron band clapped around Leander as well, slamming him to the floor. He took the fall gladly, grinning the whole way down, because it no longer made a difference. No matter how helpless he’d just made himself, the Prince of Envy was choking too hard to follow through.
Adrian was choking too. He wasn’t sure if the karma wasp was even more potent than he’d initially realized or if the Prince of Envy’s power was reflecting the full poison back at him, but he’d never been stung this badly in his life. If he hadn’t spent thirteen years training to resist poisons, he’d have died in the first thirty seconds. Hewastrained, though, so he was able to hang on, but every blood vessel still felt like it was filled with acid. It burned worse than anything he could remember, but at least all that gasping in pain meant he could still breathe, which was more than Adrian could say for his enemy.
The Prince of Envy’s entire face was black with poison now. His eyes had been reduced to two puffy slits, and his neck was so swollen that his own armor was choking him even with the unlatched collar. The karma wasp was still darting around stinging any bit of exposed flesh it could find, but the prince was no longer trying to swat it away. All of his attention was focused on sucking air through his swollen throat, but every breath he managed was shorter than the last until, finally, he couldn’t get one in at all.
That was when it truly ended. The prince had already fallen to his knees, but the moment his breathing stopped, he toppled like a felled tree. His princess screamed when she saw it. She still couldn’t walk thanks to the metal bar Leander’s sorcery had used to bind her, so she wiggled on her belly like a worm,dragging her iron-wrapped body across the floor until she lay beside her dying prince. She was begging him not to die when the Prince of Envy’s bloated body finally went still.
“No!” she screamed when she saw it. “You can’t leave me! I can’t be the only one without a prince! I—"
“Silence.”
The command was so sharp and cold that even Adrian stopped gasping long enough to watch Leander sit up, despite the weight of the iron manacle that was still wrapped around his body, and fix the sobbing princess with a look of pure disdain.
“Your beloved is dead,” he told her. “That makes you a masterless sword, the lowest of the low. As a son of Gilgamesh, I now rank above you. By that authority, I command you by your sacred name: Kesra, Princess of Envy, release all mirrored sorcery and return to your sword.”
The princess had kept screaming the entire time Leander was speaking, but as soon as he said her name, her cries stopped like a flipped switch. The metal bindings holding Leander vanished a second later, setting him free as the white Blade of Envy, a needle-sharp sword once more, toppled to the ground.
“That was a lot of fuss,” Leander said, wiping the sweat from his brow as he turned to Adrian. “Are you going to live?”
“He’ll make it,” Boston answered when it was clear Adrian was still too busy going into toxic shock to do so on his own. “My witch is second to none when it comes to poison, but why did you order her back into her sword? Iggs told me you smashed the Princess of Hate.”
“Because the Princess of Hate is an unstable menace in any form,” Leander explained while he slowly pushed back to his feet. “Honestly, the same could be said for the Princess of Envy, but unlike Hate, we still need her.”
“For what?” Boston asked as he wiggled his body under Adrian’s legs and elevated them to improve blood flow.
“She’s the key,” Leander said. “I assume you want your queens back, yes?”
“Yes,” Adrian wheezed, reaching out to his forest for help, since his body wasn’t clearing the poison quickly enough.
He should’ve done it that way from the start. The moment he opened himself to the Blackwood, the venom drained out of him like water down a cliff. He’d been worried about dumping such a large dose of poison into the ecosystem, but this forest was much bigger than his grove back on Bainbridge, and it was eager to help. He could almost feel the tree roots pushing him back to his feet as he groggily climbed off the floor.
“Okay,” he said when the room had slowed to an acceptable level of spinning. “How do we get Bex back?”
“The same way Hector sent her off,” Leander replied, pointing at the sword lying on the ground. “Without her prince, the Blade of Envy can no longer use sophisticated abilities like attack reflection, but wanting to be somewhere else is part of Envy’s base nature. That means she should still be connected to all the secret places Gilgamesh allows his sons to access. Also, thanks to the loyalty verses carved into her core, she’s currently unable to refuse the command of any son of Gilgamesh, including traitors like us. All you have to do is tell her what you’re looking for, and the sword should do the rest.”
“If that’s all there is to it, can you do it instead?” Adrian asked tiredly. “I want to rescue Bex as fast as possible, but I’m still pretty dizzy from the poison. You seem to know a lot about this, so why don’t you go ahead and—”
“Absolutely not,” Leander said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I already told you: Mara is the only sword I’ll ever use. If you can’t pick up a weapon yet, we’ll wait until you can, but I’m not being unfaithful to my one true beloved just so you can save a little time.”
That was simultaneously the dumbest and sweetest thing Adrian had ever heard. He didn’t even bother trying to argue with his brother. He just took a deep breath and stumbled forward, trusting his forest to flush the last traces of the poison out of his system as he leaned down to shakily pick up the Blade of Envy.
The sword bit him the second he touched it. In hindsight, Adrian supposed he should have seen that coming. Between Drox and the princess version of Bex, he’d never met a Blade of Ishtar or Gilgamesh that wasn’t stabby. If he’d been thinking ahead, he would’ve put on a glove. He hadn’t been, though, so he was forced to endure the bloody fingers as he gripped Envy’s hilt hard.
“Bring back the Queens of Wrath and Pride,” he commanded. “Anddon’tdrop anyone else in this time.”
That probably wasn’t the right wording, but Adrian didn’t know where the prince had sent them, so it would have to do. Thankfully, the sword still seemed to get the message. She fought and gnawed and dragged her point along the stone, but eventually she did as Adrian ordered, opening a much smaller section of the floor to reveal the same sandstone cavern and empty city he’d glimpsed before Leander had teleported them out.
Thedestroyedcity. Adrian hadn’t gotten a good look at the buildings the first time, but he was certain they hadn’t been leveled when he’d left. He took the destruction as a good sign since wrecking Gilgamesh’s property was Bex’s signature, but he didn’t see the burning light of her bonfire anywhere. He was still searching for it when something jumped at him from the ground below.
Adrian leaped away from the hole with a yelp, and not a second too soon. The moment he got out of the way, a giant bull exploded through the opening Envy’s sword had made in thefloor. It was the size of a house with horns as long as railroad ties and eyes that gleamed like black glass, and riding on its broad back were Bex and Nemini.
“Adrian!” Bex cried, leaping off the bull, who couldn’t seem to get her off its back fast enough. “I knew you’d find us!”
“I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner,” he said, catching her in a hug. “Are you okay?”
He should’ve started checking for wounds the moment she came into reach, but Bex looked so bright and happy, and she felt sogoodin his arms. He’d already locked himself around her, dropping his face to her shoulder so he could breathe her in, when Leander cleared his throat.
