That was the one thing she’d never do, so Nemini clutched her sisters’ horns against her chest and did as her chosen queen had said, walking down the cuneiform-covered hallway toward the magical door that was still open at the end. She’d just stepped back into the throne room when she noticed something was different.
It was hard to make out through the glare of all that gold, but Nemini’s eyes were sharp, and she’d seen this phenomenon before. Neither of the downed princes had moved since the fight ended, but there was a familiar shimmer in the air above Leander. Sure enough, a man’s scarred hand reached through the distortion a second later to wrench Mara’s severed hand from Leander’s unconscious grasp. He’d almost gotten it loose when Nemini dropped her armful of horns and leaped forward.
She’d never make it in time with her slow speed, so she dove for the places where no one was looking only to discover she couldn’t. He’d put just a single hand into the room, but when Nemini tried to find a place where Gilgamesh’s eyes didn’t touch, she found nothing. Nemini swore she could feel his eyes peering inside her when a second hand appeared in the air in front of her and smacked her away.
She flew straight back like a shot, streaking across the bloody throne room to crash into the golden artwork on the other side. She was still sliding down the carved wall when the hand Gilgamesh hadn’t just used to swat her finished prying the Queen of Sorrow’s severed hand from her prince’s grasp. All three hands vanished after that, as did the door Adrian had opened in the wall, leaving Nemini sitting in what was now truly a golden dead end with the scattered horns of Ishtar’s queens, two unconscious princes, and no way to go back and warn her sister.
CHAPTER 17
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ADRIAN THOUGHT HE WASbraced for anything at this point, but the top of the stairs still took him by surprise. Given the beautifully carved cavern they’d just climbed out of, he’d expected a golden ziggurat or a long-lost temple of the gods. Maybe they’d step out into the ancient fields of Uruk or a palace floating in the sky. All kinds of wild imaginings had flitted through his mind’s eye as he climbed the narrow steps behind Bex, but when he finally stepped into the blinding light, what Adrian actually saw was desert.
He recoiled so fast that he almost slipped back down the stairs. The cavern let out into the center of a very black, veryfamiliardesert. Black dunes of sin-iron dust rolled away in every direction like waves on the sea, making him instantly afraid for Boston. If touching the sin-iron chains had made him sick, a whole desert full of powderized particles might kill him in minutes.
For once, though, Gilgamesh’s dedication to artificiality seemed to be working in their favor. Despite the sea of sin iron that stretched out around them in all directions, the platform where the stairs came up was spotlessly clean. The black dunes came right up to the stone’s edge, but with no wind to push them around, the dust seemed to be staying in place. Boston certainly didn’t appear to be in distress. He’d already gone up on his hind legs, nearly falling off Adrian’s shoulder in his efforts to see more of what was hanging above them in the sky.
That part of the black desert was exactly as Adrian remembered. The sky overhead was as sunless and cloudless as ever, its pale-blue dome interrupted only by the crisscrossing lines of thousands of black chains that bound the gigantic wheel that spanned from horizon to horizon. If Adrian looked hard enough, he could actually see it straining against its shackles. No matter how hard it tried to turn, though, the wheel did not move.
Nothing here did. Bex had come out swords first, but as far as Adrian could see, there was no one to fight. The stone platform where the stairs came up—which was also the top of the cavern they’d just walked through—was quiet and still. There were no chains or golden war constructs or piles of quintessence. In fact, the only thing Adrian saw that wasn’t black dust or clean-swept stone was a large golden structure filled with corpses.
He knew that made no sense even as he thought it, but those were the only words that came to Adrian’s mind. Directly across the stone platform from where they’d come up was a wall fifty feet tall and at least a hundred feet wide made of gold-and-glass tanks. The tanks were stacked on top of each other in a neat grid, and each one was big enough to hold a fully-grown man. Adrian knew that last part for a fact, because that was what was inside them.
Through the tanks’ glass fronts, he could see rows and rows of young men floating in what appeared to be the glowing blue deathly water that Bex drank. They were all dressed in the same white-silk pajama-looking tunic and trousers that Adrian’s princess had always badgered him to wear. But while the men’s eyes were closed in what appeared to be merely sleep, not death, every one of them was injured.Seriouslyinjured, as in missing limbs or sporting fist-sized holes through various important parts of their bodies. A disturbing number were even missing their heads, but what really creeped Adrian out was how much they looked like him.
Not exactly the same. He wasn’t looking at an army of clones, but the resemblance was still striking. Every one of the sleeping men had the same dark hair and olive skin that he did. Several also had his nose, shoulders, or feet. The genetics were all right there in front of him, but it still took Adrian an embarrassingly long time to reach the conclusion Bex had apparently figured out the moment she came up the stairs.
“Check out all the princes,” she said, carrying her swords over to the wall of tanks for a closer look. “I’ve never been good at telling them apart, but Drox is pretty sure those are all sons of Gilgamesh that I’ve killed in my past lives.”
“But why are theyhere?” Adrian asked as he ran nervously to join her. “I’d heard that Gilgamesh puts his damaged princes in something called the Sleep, but why’s he got them on display in the middle of a sin-iron desert?”
“And why are there so many?” Boston added, hooking his claws into Adrian’s shoulder as he leaned back to get a count. “Seven tanks tall by forty tanks wide is two hundred and eighty princes! I had no idea Gilgamesh had so many sons.”
“I’m more concerned that he’s displaying them in jars,” Adrian said with a shudder. “Even by Gilgamesh standards, that’s weird.”
“Super creepy,” Bex agreed, flexing her hand around the hilt of Ishtar’s sword. She did this a few more times, wiggling each finger individually like holding the weapon pained them, before finally giving up and sliding the divine blade back into the sheath on her hip.
“Let’s keep looking around,” she suggested, pulling Drox back into his ring as well as she turned away from the wall of bottled princes. “This is the top of Heaven and the place where all the chains connect, so Gilgamesh has got to be around here some—”
Her voice cut off. When Adrian’s head snapped over to see why, Bex was standing perfectly still with her foot raised like she was a video that had been paused midstep. He’d just grabbed her frozen shoulder to see what was wrong when a weight fell over his body.
It felt like he’d been trapped inside an invisible block of iron. He could still breathe, but no other part of him could move. He couldn’t even slide his eyes over to see if Boston was in the same predicament, though from the perfect silence on his shoulder, that seemed to be the case. He was wondering if they’d triggered some kind of automatic trap when Adrian heard the soft tap of a man’s footsteps walking over clean-swept stone.
“I was wondering when you’d show up.”
The voice was the exact one they’d come here to find, but Adrian still felt unaccountably surprised when Gilgamesh stepped around the wall of preserved princes and into his frozen line of sight.
He was dressed like Malik again. No golden armor or Crown of Anu on his brow, just a breezy natural linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, perfectly fitted blue jeans, a leather blacksmith’s apron, and comfortable-looking calfskin loafers. His scarred hands were decorated with ancient golden rings, but the rest of him looked like a wealthy retiree on vacation, and the more Adrian thought about that, the angrier he got.
“Don’t give me that look,” his father scolded, even though Adrian’s face was frozen and thus couldn’t look like anything. “I’m sure this isn’t the reunion you were hoping for, but I’m actually glad you’re here. Alexander was as loyal and competent a son as any father could ask, but between you and me, he could get a bit dull.”
He walked over to clap Adrian on the shoulder that wasn’t currently supporting a cat. “No one could ever say that aboutyou, though! You’re always a surprise, Adrian Blackwood. A man my age needs those, so why don’t you come along and let me show you what I’ve been working on? I’d appreciate your unique perspective, and I’m sure the fabled Queen of Wrath won’t want to miss this.”
He reached out to pat Bex on the shoulder as well, and though she was still frozen, Adrian swore he saw her twitch. He half expected her to rip through whatever magic was holding them and bite Gilgamesh’s smirking head off. But whatever magic was holding them in place must have been a sort even the new Queen of All Demons couldn’t fight, because Bex didn’t even move her eyes to follow the king when he stepped away.
“I’ve prepared refreshments,” he announced as he walked back the way he’d come. “It’s a joyous day, after all, so come. Let me be your host one last time before the end.”
Gilgamesh flicked his scarred hand as he finished. There was no sorcery spoken, no flux of magic. He simply twitched his fingers, and Bex and Adrian with Boston still on his shoulder floated into the air, trailing behind the Eternal King like balloons as he led them around the glowing wall filled with his preserved sons to the other side of the stone platform.
