“It’s blinding,” Bex complained, putting her hand over her glowing eyes to shield them. “There’s so many reflections in there that I can’t even see where the light’s coming from.”
“Never mind the décor,” Leander said as he teleported in beside them. “What’s important is why did we come outhere? I thought you were going through the ceiling?”
“It was too tough,” Bex said with a shrug. “This was right next to it, though, so we should still be very close.”
“Close doesn’t cut it in Heaven,” Leander scolded. “This is the throne room at the top of the main tower, but other than the fact that Gilgamesh carved all the wall art himself, it’s not actually special. I thought we’d come out in the king’s private chambers or, better still, his treasure vault, but this is useless.”
“I wouldn’t call it useless,” Adrian said quickly, coming to Bex’s defense before she lost her temper and told the former Prince of Sorrow exactly where he could shove his opinions. “Is there more to this place? A room above us, perhaps?”
“No,” Leander said. “This is Gilgamesh’s personal tower where he keeps his private quarters and treasury along with the Sanitorium where the princes are reconstructed, but those are all below us. The throne room is at the tippy-top because Gilgamesh considered it thematically appropriate for the Eternal King to sit at the literal pinnacle of Heaven, but he never actually uses this room anymore now that there’s no one left that he needs to impress.” Leander frowned in thought. “Why would the chains go up here?”
“Well, we’re not going to find out by standing around,” Bex said, reaching back to help Nemini, who was looking positively ill.
“Whoa,” she said, gripping the other queen hard. “Are you okay? Did the sin iron get to you?”
“It’s not the sin iron,” her normally stoic sister whispered as her fingers clamped down on Bex’s. “There’s something terrible here. Can’t you feel it?”
Bex didn’t. Other than the eye-searing brightness, the throne room actually felt much better than the chains had. Butwhile Bex was delighted to be somewhere open, bright, and non-toxic again, Drox was also trembling on her finger.
The Queen of Pride is right,he whispered.Be on your guard, my queen.
“I’m going to need a better hint than that,” Bex told her sword irritably. “What am I supposed to be on guard against?”
When Drox failed to reply, she glanced back at Nemini, but her sister wasn’t even looking at her anymore. She was staring across the circular room at the golden throne on the opposite side. A throne that, Bex realized with a start, someone was sitting on.
She didn’t feel bad that she hadn’t spotted him earlier. The man’s golden armor was the same color as everything else in this gaudy place, causing his body to blend into the throne like a chameleon’s. Considering where he was sitting, her first guess should’ve been Gilgamesh himself, but although Bex had never seen the king in anything other than his propaganda art—hardly a reliable source—she already knew it wasn’t him. The man on the throne looked too haggard and impatient to be the Eternal King, and there was no crown on his dark, curling hair. He also had only one eye, which Bex could never imagine Gilgamesh enduring. Her best guess was that this was yet another prince, but while there was a sword at his hip, it wasn’t white. She was still trying to figure it out when Leander suddenly stepped forward.
“Brother.”
Ah,Bex thought, moving her feet into an attack stance. So thiswasanother prince, and not one Leander liked, given the way he’d spat that word like a curse. Bex was starting to get the feeling that none of Gilgamesh’s sons liked each other, but while Leander looked ready to throw down right then and there, the prince sitting on the throne just looked sad.
“Leander,” he replied, “I’m relieved you made it out of the Hells.”
“No thanks to you,” Leander snarled back, pulling himself to his full, lanky height. “What are you doing, sitting in that chair? Has Father finally given up?”
“I’m sitting because I’m tired,” the new prince said, turning his single silver eye toward Bex. “Thanks tosomeone’srefusal to die, I haven’t gotten more than four hours of sleep together in two months.”
“You could’ve died instead,” Bex offered, stepping up to stand beside Leander. “Which prince are you? I never was able to keep all you golden bastards straight.”
“Thatis Crown Prince Alexander,” Leander informed her before the prince on the dais could even open his mouth, “Gilgamesh’s most reliable paper pusher and the Prince of War.”
“That explains why he doesn’t have a princess,” Bex said as she lifted her own sword.
“The loss of my partner was unfortunate,” Crown Prince Alexander agreed, settling deeper into his golden seat. “But also inevitable. Father has always despised war in all its forms. Even if my princess had survived, there was never going to be a place for her in Gilgamesh’s new kingdom.”
“Then you already know what he’s doing,” Adrian said, clutching Boston in his arms as he stepped forward to join Bex and Leander. “Alexander,brother, please listen. I know how good Gilgamesh is at making bad ideas sound noble, but you have to believe me when I say this isn’t a good path for any of us. We believe that Gilgamesh is going to use the power of the gods to reset the world and establish himself as the new divinity. You have to help us stop him!”
“Why would I do that?” Alexander asked, turning his head slightly to the side so that he could stare directly at them with his good eye. “Even if your ignorant accusations had merit,what part of our current world deserves saving? The death? The suffering? The destruction and exploitation of every natural wonder? The witches who dabble in black magic and sell their children for power?”
“And you think Gilgamesh’s world would be better?” Bex demanded. “He’s a murderer, a tyrant, and a slaver! Any future he makes will be just as twisted and self-centered as he is. Just look at the disaster he calls Heaven.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Coward Queen,” Alexander snarled. “Your creators were the ones who pushed us to this point! Yes, my father is cruel, but he is also brilliant. He alone was able to defeat the gods and return this world to humanity. But even after the gods were slain, they were too selfish to die. The Heaven you criticize is indeed a flawed compromise that none of us wanted, but my father was only doing what needed to be done. For five thousand years, he has been our bulwark againstyourgods. You say he enslaved your people, but from our perspective, he has kept millions of enemy soldiers from overrunning the world.”
He stabbed his finger at her. “Youare the demon here, daughter of Ishtar! You lead an army of parasites who feed off the very people Gilgamesh fought to save. You’re not even organic lifeforms. Ishtar’s demons are tools crafted for the convenience of a delusional regime that sought to remake humanity in the gods’ own image. What Gilgamesh did to your kind was not slavery but containment. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the one who built you to be used in the first place.”
“Ihavetaken it up with her,” Bex growled, clutching her sword. “I’m not here to fight for Ishtar or any of the gods. I’m here to win freedom formypeople, who never asked for any of this! The gods may have built them, but you’re the bastards making them sufferright now.”
“If that’s what you’re here for, you’re too late,” Alexander informed her with a sneer. “The war is over. Father already has everything he needs. I’m only keeping watch to make sure his victory is not disturbed.”
