CHAPTER 7
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BEX COULD HAVE DIED from embarrassment. She never used to be a crier, but here she was, breaking down in front of Adrian, again.
He would never judge her for that, of course, but Bex was judging the crap out of herself.
She’d finally landed a real hit on Gilgamesh and secured freedom for her people.
Now was the most important time of all her lives to keep it together and be a queen, but she just couldn’t get her stupid body to stop.
I don’t see why you hold yourself to these absurd standards, Drox said inside her head.
As we saw during your battle with the Prince of Sorrow, suppressed emotions are weaknesses easily exploited by a knowledgeable foe.
Expunging them in the company of trusted allies is therefore a sound tactical move that a wise leader should employ.
That was one way to look at it, Bex supposed, but Drox’s military assessment of the value of tears didn’t stop her from grinding her palms into her eyes as Adrian flew them over the now intensely chaotic plaza toward the incongruous new standing stone circle that had suddenly appeared on the main road to Gilgamesh’s palace.
It certainly looked like a witch’s invasion camp.
The trees in this part of the forest were miniatures compared to Adrian’s skyscraper-sized Douglas fir, but they were still as big or bigger than the tallest trees in his forest back on Bainbridge.
They were thick, too, transforming the once blindingly white Heavenly boulevard into a secluded grove.
Moss grew on every paving stone, and water dripped constantly down the fern-covered walls of the massive apartment blocks, which now looked more like crumbling marble cliffs.
It was the complete opposite of the normally bone-dry and colorless Holy City, which meant she should’ve loved it.
Now that she’d defied her mother, however, Bex had a different opinion.
As much as she’d hated Gilgamesh’s monochrome architecture, there had been a point to it.
All that dry white stone had maintained Paradise as a land of death, not the fertile Riverlands that the Anchors still mimicked.
Bex had denied her mother the demons’ fire, but that didn’t mean the old rules didn’t still apply.
If Ishtar—a goddess of life and fertility as well as war and death—got her claws into all this vegetation, she’d be able to pull herself back up no matter what happened with Gilgamesh.
That thought was scary enough to make Bex forget all about a few embarrassing tears.
She had the upper hand right now because Ishtar was weak, but if her mother found the strength to rise again, everything could flip.
They had to beat Gilgamesh before that happened, but Bex wasn’t even sure what the victory conditions were anymore.
How can you think such a thing? Drox demanded as Adrian’s broom set them down in the moss at the circle’s edge.
The goal is what it has always been: destroy Gilgamesh and retake Paradise.
His voice grew smug. We already leveled one tower.
Just keep swinging me and we’ll bring the whole castle down in no time.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Bex whispered, looking down the straight road ahead of them at the fortress that still rose over the city like a white-and-gold mountain.
The dust from her earlier attack had finally settled, revealing movement on the palace’s battlements.
The defensive ramps were so delicate and golden that Bex had assumed they were purely decorative.
Now, though, there were figures lined up on the walkways that spiraled around the bottom of each tower.
Bex cursed under her breath. Even at this distance, she could make out rows of the same golden archer constructs that had shot at her the first time she’d come to the Holy City.
Now that the big shield was out of the way, she could also see dozens of lion cannons positioned on the roof of the main floor all the towers branched out of.
That was the most frightening sight of all.
Bex didn’t know if the cannons were out of range or if Gilgamesh simply hadn’t given the order to fire yet, but there were as many lions facing them now as there’d been when Heaven opened fire on the Seattle Anchor.
Even with the extra firepower from her new horns, Bex wasn’t sure if she could block that many shots.
Her best move would be to charge in and melt the cannons like she’d done before.
There was no way Gilgamesh didn’t know that, though, which meant he’d probably already set up a counter for—
Bex.
Bex froze, causing Adrian, who’d been helping her off the broom, to look up in alarm.
She was alarmed, too. All her life, Drox had always called her Rebexa, but that wasn’t her name anymore.
It couldn’t be, because the ground of Heaven didn’t crack under her feet when she hopped off Bran’s broomgrass wing.
She was the one who’d picked it, but it still hadn’t quite sunk in yet that her name was really and truly just Bex now, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
You can decide how to feel later, her sword said sternly.
But so long as the weapons of the enemy are facing us, we are on the battlefield.
Accurate information is the most important factor here, and the truth is that you are no longer Rebexa.
You are Bex now, and Bex has allies. Whatever Gilgamesh has in store for us, you do not have to face it alone.
The witches of the Blackwood stand with you, as do all the demons of the Nine Hells.
Even the wild Morrigan, who never participated in anything back when Paradise belonged to the gods, has come to lend her aid.
This will not be like all the times you died alone.
This last life has already been your greatest. Let us keep moving forward and see how we can make it greater still.
“Sounds like a plan,” Bex said with a nervous smile. “You’ve gotten a lot better at pep talks.”
Thank you, my queen, Drox replied proudly. I’ve been working to improve.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said, confused. “Are you talking to me?”
“Her sword is back,” Nemini explained before Bex could answer. “I’m sure he has a lot to say.”
“Drox has always been a blade of many opinions,” Bex agreed, striding into the stone circle to get away from this topic since talking about Drox in front of Nemini felt cruel. The former Queen of Pride might have her horns and name back, but her sword was still broken into a thousand pieces.
Bex had thought about asking Adrian to examine it since he was so good at fixing things, but there’d been no time.
She was already running late again. By the time they walked in, the huge circle of gray stones was full of witches.
They were all wearing the same black clothes and pointed hats, so it was hard to tell who was in charge, but Bex recognized several of the women who’d run the festival back in the Blackwood as well as the three Old Wives.
She’d only seen the white-haired old crone once before, but she recognized Adrian’s mother and Muriel, the young-faced Witch of the Future.
All three of them were standing in front of the circle’s biggest stone.
The Morrigan was there as well, watching everything from the top of the rock in her crow form.
The gathering wasn’t only witches, though.
Captain Roga, the war demon in charge of the tower where Bex had defeated the Queen of War, was there, along with three salty-looking war demons in modern clothes that Bex vaguely remembered pulling out of the Lowest Hells.
Desh was nowhere to be seen, which meant Lys probably had him busy helping with the evacuations.
But while the Hells demons were an expected sight, the wrath demon standing next to the witches with her horns respectfully lowered was a total surprise.
“Zargrexa?” Bex said, running to meet her. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“I could be nowhere else, my queen,” the village leader replied, bowing her horns even deeper.
“You stormed the Hells and freed Ishtar’s children from bondage.
Had you not specifically wanted a small team, we all would have gone to fight beside you.
I thought we would have to wait for your return to rejoin the war, but when the witches announced they were coming to Heaven, we knew the moment was upon us. ”
The old demon raised her graying head with a proud smile. “I’ve brought ten thousand demons from those you saved at the Seattle Anchor. They’re coming up the roots as I speak, along with this.”
She handed Bex a small bottle full of something that looked like freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice.
“What is it?” Bex asked, holding the bottle up to the dappled light. “A potion?”
Zargrexa’s smile widened. “The best sort of potion. That is a bottle of liquid wrath.”
“Did you say ‘liquid wrath’?” Adrian asked, suddenly darting over to join them. “You mean someone finally figured out how to bottle emotions?”
Zargrexa shot her queen a nervous look. This confused Bex for a second before she remembered the village leader had never actually met Adrian before.
She was about to start frantically assuring her that he wasn’t a prince despite how he looked when she noticed Adrian’s eyes were back to their usual blue-gray.
The realization went through her like a jolt.
There’d been so much going on she hadn’t even noticed, but Adrian’s creepy mirror prince eyes were gone.
It must have happened when he’d used up all his white blood to grow the tree, because Adrian finally looked like himself again, which in turn made Bex so happy she couldn’t keep the goofy smile off her face.