CHAPTER 3 #3
“Men are always weakest in their moment of victory,” Agatha agreed with a smile.
“Gilgamesh was so confident he was about to get everything he wanted that he left Adrian to his own devices, and we all know how dangerous that can be.” Her grin got wider.
“In many ways, the King of Uruk is the cleverest man I’ve ever met, but in this one aspect, he has always been a fool.
Despite centering his life around his hatred of the gods, he constantly repeats their mistakes.
He sincerely believes that if he just gets enough power, he can control the uncontrollable.
That with the right leverage, he could bring a wild thistle into his garden and turn it into a daisy. ”
The witch cackled. “How foolish! How kingly! There are no reins on the Great Cycles, and there is no controlling a witch. My sisters and I have always understood that, which is why we only gave Adrian commands when we wanted him to disobey. We trusted him to follow his own headstrong, rebellious nature, and when my son did what he always does, we made sure we were waiting with an arsenal full of the one weapon Gilgamesh has no defense against.”
“Trees?” Bex guessed.
“Life,” Agatha replied, adding another log to the fire that was burning merrily under Adrian’s cauldron.
“Paradise has always been an artificial construct, because life and death were never meant to be separate things.” She snorted.
“Gilgamesh knows that perfectly well. He’s the one who’s always going on about the illusion of separation, but he only listens to his own wisdom when it suits him.
The moment he has to admit that the same logic means his own goals are flawed, suddenly we’re all ignorant heathens. ”
Bex gave the witch a flat look. “Sounds like you know him well.”
“I have borne him nearly a hundred children,” Agatha reminded her.
“It’s hard not to know a man after that.
” She chuckled for a moment, and then her face fell.
“There was a time once when I thought I could bring him around. He was actually quite open-minded when we first met, but his resolve and frustration hardened as he got older, and eventually there were no paths left but this.”
She waved at the boiling cauldron, but Bex didn’t understand.
“Resolve to do what?” she asked. “What is Gilgamesh working on in there?”
“The same thing he’s been working on since the original Rebexa slew his best friend at Ishtar’s behest,” Agatha replied.
“Complete and total conquest. His tactics have changed, but Gilgamesh is still fighting the same war he’s been waging for five thousand years.
That’s why we had to wait so long to do this.
It wasn’t until the end was in sight that he finally did something reckless enough to give us an opening. ”
“So what do we do with it?” Bex demanded.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy you had a forest ready to save Adrian, but trees aren’t going to break the shield around Gilgamesh’s palace.
I’m assuming this is just the first stage of your plan, so what comes next?
Do you have a big spell or a final curse or something that will take him out? ”
She really hoped it was a curse. Bex could think of nothing more satisfying than Gilgamesh rolling around on the ground in agony from the same magic Adrian had used to finish off the Spider.
It probably wouldn’t be that easy, but she was sure the witches had to have something, which was why she was so confused when Agatha shook her head.
“If the Blackwood had magic that could kill Gilgamesh, we would have used it eons ago. Unfortunately, since we’re his oldest and most respected enemy, the Eternal King has invested a great deal of effort into countering our witchcraft.
He’s immune to even more poisons than Adrian at this point, but there is one weapon he’s always dismissed, and thanks to the excellent planning of the Witch of the Future, she’s standing right in front of me. ”
Agatha finished with a dazzling smile, but Bex dropped her eyes.
“If you’re counting on me to kill Gilgamesh, I’m afraid your sister’s plans didn’t work out so well,” she grumbled.
“I might’ve gotten my bonfire back, but my horns are still locked inside the palace.
I’m pretty sure Drox could cut the barrier—he can cut anything—but I can’t draw him without my name, and Nemini’s sword is broken, so that won’t work, either.
There’s a chance one of my other sisters could do it, but none of them have woken up yet. ”
Her spirits sank lower with every word. Bex had been pushing so hard to keep ahead of the ax that she hadn’t allowed herself to stop and take stock of how much had already been chopped off.
She finally had another queen to help her, but it was Nemini, who didn’t want the job and didn’t have a sword.
She’d finally rescued her sisters, but they were all lost in their own minds and didn’t have swords either.
It felt like every win she’d scored recently came with a loss.
At this point, Bex was ready to settle for getting her people out alive.
She was about to ask Agatha if the refugees from the Hells could use the new forest to escape back to Earth without the chains when the witch said, “There’s another way. ”
Bex’s head shot back up. “Another way to what?”
“There’s another way to break the barrier and attack Gilgamesh without retrieving your crown,” Agatha clarified.
“I’m not the one most fit to explain it, though.
My expertise is witchcraft, the magic of the living world.
But despite the fires of life my son poured into you, you are still a queen of Paradise, Ishtar’s divine creation.
To address your situation, you need a god. ”
“I don’t know,” Bex said skeptically. “The last god I met wasn’t very helpful.”
“This one will be,” Agatha promised as she took Bex’s arm and started pulling her away from Adrian’s cauldron toward the cabin’s front door.
“Despite starting out on different sides, the two of you have been working toward the same goal for a long time now. I think you’ll find you have a lot in common once you start talking.
We even took the liberty of paying for her ticket. ”
Before Bex could ask what in the Hells that meant, the Witch of the Present held out her hand to show Bex the freshly healed stump where her right pinky finger once was.
“Adrian isn’t the only one who paid for this day,” she explained when Bex gaped. “My sisters and I all sacrificed, but it’s up to you to make it count.”
“Make what count?” Bex demanded. “What do you want me to—”
Before she could finish, Agatha used her four-fingered hand to shove Bex out the door.
That shouldn’t have been possible for a human, but the witch was a lot stronger than she looked, and Bex had been caught by surprise.
She still only stumbled a few feet, but before she could yell at Adrian’s mother for pushing her, a giant black talon shot out of the fir tree’s shadows and wrapped around Bex’s waist.
“Well, well, well,” a croaking, inhuman voice chuffed above her. “If it isn’t my son’s remorseless murderess. This should be rich.”
Bex barely had time to cock her head back to see the absolutely gigantic crow perched on the cabin’s roof before the bird flicked its giant claw and threw her off the porch, sending her plummeting down the center of Adrian’s enormous new heart tree.