CHAPTER 5 #2
I let you dream, the goddess replied, brushing Bex’s ashy hair behind her ear.
There was no harm to it, especially since I got to dream with you.
The Paradise you kept for me inside your heart was beautiful.
I almost didn’t want to let the witches burn it down, but you were practically dust by that point, so I thought, why not?
You were going to snuff out soon no matter what, so why not let you go out with a bang?
I thought it would make you happy and put one last little thorn in Gilgamesh’s boot. I never dreamed you’d take it this far.
“I didn’t ‘take it’ this far,” Bex snarled, yanking out of her mother’s reach.
“We made it. Adrian, Lys, Iggs, Nemini, Kirok, Desh, all of us—we fought tooth and nail to get to where we are today, and we’re not stopping.
I don’t care if you say winning is impossible.
We still have to try, because if we quit, it really will have all been for nothing.
If we don’t defeat Gilgamesh, he’ll rebuild the Hells and recapture us one by one.
Considering he’s locked in his palace, working on some giant move, it might be even worse.
I’m not standing around waiting for that to happen. ”
Bex looked down at the flames burning all over her body. Flames that no longer hurt, because she was no longer fighting them. She was mad at Ishtar too now, and she wasn’t backing down.
“If this is the fire we’ve got, then this is the fire we’ll use,” Bex said, offering her flaming hand to the ghost of her mother one last time.
“If you want to keep being worshiped as our goddess, take it and save us. If you’re too afraid to even try, then give me a new name and I’ll fight Gilgamesh for you.
I’ll do whatever it takes, but fighting for my people’s right to exist without some warlock’s boot on their necks isn’t a ‘thorn in Gilgamesh’s boot’.
It’s the promise I’ve been living and dying five thousand years to achieve.
There’s no way I’m giving up now when we’re so close to the finish line, so either you take the power your people have offered, or I’ll take it for you. ”
That’s enough, Rebexa, Ishtar warned. I know you’re upset, but the plan you’re proposing is ridiculous.
We already fought Gilgamesh with everything we had and failed.
The idea that we can beat him now when he’s stronger than ever and we’re little more than echoes is insane.
The only thing we can do at this point is bide our time and wait for his mortality to run its course.
Once he dies as all humans eventually must, everything will go back to the way it was.
That was the same logic Enki had used, and now as then, it sent Bex into a rage.
“And what about the rest of us?” she roared. “What are we supposed to do while you wait for Gilgamesh to die? Suffer for another five thousand years?”
It’s not ideal, her mother admitted. But it’s the best we’re going to get, and it’s not as if you have to endure with the common rabble.
Despite how you’re acting at the moment, you’re still my favorite daughter, and you’ve brought enough magic in with you to make our afterlives quite comfortable.
We could restore this phantom desolation back into a proper Paradise and wait out the remaining years in peace.
That way, when Gilgamesh does finally succumb, we’ll be in a prime position to rebuild.
She flashed Bex a winning smile. You said you wanted to stop suffering, right? In that case, all you have to do is put the fire down. Let your anger go, and I’ll grow you a fresh bank of grass to sleep on like I did when you were a little girl. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
Her smile was so sweet by the end that it made Bex’s heart ache.
For the first time since she’d arrived in this place, Ishtar looked like the mother Bex remembered, but it was all a lie.
This wasn’t just a ghost of the brave, loving goddess she’d thought she known.
Bex was starting to think that Ishtar had never existed in the first place, because the actual Merciful Mother of the Riverlands would never invite her daughter to sleep on the grass while their people suffered and died.
I can see you’re going to be foolish, Ishtar said with a sigh as Bex clutched the fire tighter against her chest. This is why I made you to be a sword and not an advisor. You never could see the bigger picture.
“I don’t want to see your bigger picture,” Bex spat. “In fact, I don’t understand why Gilgamesh is so terrified of all of you rising again. With the exception of the Morrigan, every god I’ve ever met has been a coward. I don’t think any of you would fight him if you did come back.”
Don’t be stupid, Ishtar scolded. I already explained to you what folly that would be.
Only idiots fight battles they can’t win, but our plan was never to fight Gilgamesh when the wheel turned.
That would just be repeating the mistakes of the past, which we’re all far too wise to do.
Our plan is much cleverer. When the Great Wheel turns again—as it must, since no chain lasts forever—we’re going to reset the world.
Bex went still. “What?”
We’re going to reset the world, Ishtar repeated with the look of someone who’s just played their final card.
Why bother fighting when we can just start the whole thing over again from scratch?
We would have done it before we lost the first time, but clever Gilgamesh started his coup by killing Anu, and the way Paradise is built, I couldn’t turn the wheel without him.
That’s a design flaw I’ll be correcting in the next version, by the way, but what do you think now?
Still want to throw yourself at a losing battle?
“Yes!” Bex cried, staring at her mother in horror. “I’m doing this to save people, remember? If you reset the world, doesn’t that mean everyone who’s alive right now will die?”
Technically, Ishtar admitted. But their souls will be reborn again with no memories, so they won’t care, and it will take care of so many problems. We can destroy all knowledge of Gilgamesh’s heretical sorcery, remove the pagan worship of the Great Cycles, and set humanity back to the Bronze Age, when they were more manageable.
It’ll be so much better than things are now, and you’ll get to return to Paradise with a fresh population of demons who have no memory of the traumas of slavery or the war.
This way gets you everything you want, so you really should reconsider my offer.
“There’s nothing to consider,” Bex snarled. “If your idea of victory is killing everyone, then I’ve got nothing left to say to you.”
That’s too bad, Ishtar said, her ghostly face truly disappointed. I wanted to avoid this if I could. As I said, you’ve always been my favorite, but I’m afraid you’ve gone too far this time.
Bex gave her a scathing look, but Ishtar just raised her horns. Rebexa the Bonfire, she announced in a ringing voice that shook the ash, I command you by your name: Surrender the magic you’ve collected and leave this place, never to return.
She held out her hand as she finished, fingers ready to receive, but Bex just glared at her.
“No.”
Her mother’s jaw fell open. You don’t get to say no! she cried. I commanded you by your name!
“I don’t have a name,” Bex said with a smirk. “That’s the whole reason I’m here, remember?”
That shouldn’t matter, Ishtar insisted, stomping her transparent feet. I’m the one who gave you that name in the first place! Every spark that lives inside you came from my body. So long as you walk, burn, and breathe, you are my creation. Now, give me the magic, Rebexa!
“No,” Bex said again as her eyes widened in recognition.
“And my fire doesn’t come from you. It was given to me by the Blackwood, and it burns because of all the people who haven’t given up.
I control the Bonfire now. Not you, not Queen Rebexa, not Gilgamesh, me.
I decide who and what I burn for, and I’m nowhere near finished. ”
Then you are dead, Ishtar said, baring her teeth. Get out!
The moment she spoke the order, the same hand that had dragged Bex into this place smashed hard against her back.
It felt like being slammed into a wall, but Bex held her ground.
She didn’t actually want to stay in this burned-out tomb another second, but she refused to let Ishtar shove her around.
She locked her feet in place for a solid minute, staring her mother in the eye to make sure Ishtar knew she was no longer the one in charge.
Only when the dead goddess was looking truly terrified did Bex finally let go and leave, jumping out of the ashes the same way she’d jumped out of Adrian’s bonfire.
The flames were the same as well. The conversation with her mother felt like it had taken ages, but Bex must’ve actually only been gone a few seconds, because the fire she came back to was the same raging inferno that had nearly killed her earlier.
It was still hot enough to burn her to a crisp, but Bex welcomed the pain this time, because she knew what that heat meant now.
It was just like the Morrigan had said. This fire didn’t belong to the ghost of Ishtar or any of the gods.
It was theirs—hers and her demons’. It was their wrath, their righteous fury to see Gilgamesh’s wrongs made right, but even more than that, it was their hope for the future.
The Morrigan had stirred them up with old anger, but the reason the demons were so mad in the first place was because they wanted a better world.
One where they weren’t slaves or tools or anything that belonged to someone else.
A world where they were their own masters and could live how they wanted.