I wasn’t a goddess, but if Inanna had made it through, I would make it through. Neither Satan nor Ereshkigal, or their idiotic games and rituals, would crush me.
“One Gate left,” Satan said.
I closed my eyes and ignored him. Was Lucifer behind us? Had giving him every last drop of my healing fire worked, or had he bled out during the march?
Then I thanked God, dead though he might be, that I was still early. My pregnancy wouldn’t be obvious to them yet.
Depending on how long it took my men to escape the Between, they might never know, and that was the best I could hope for.
If I could just hold out, I’d find a way to break free. Then I’d go get my Spear and make Satan eat it.
I did this for Lucifer. I’m equal to this.
Minister Neti raised his hands at the last Gate, the seventh. I eyed it far overhead, wondering if there was some connection between seven Gates and my own Seventh Circle, but it was getting harder and harder to keep faith with the universe or the Chain.
Why lead me here? Why put me through this?
There was nothing beyond the final Gate at all, just another endless expanse of desert. My chest was starting to tighten from the anxiety of what was coming next.
“Here we pass the last Gate, into the earth itself to the realms of the dead.” Minister Neti held up his hands reverently. “Blessed be the Queen of the Dead, She Who Drinks the Souls, the Eater of the Damned, and her consort.”
Satan just nodded, his impatience showing in the little lines on his face. He shoved Damuzid aside, sending the demon flying backwards, and gripped my ropes. “Take her last tribute.”
I didn’t speak as the shades appeared once more to take the only things I had left.
When they’d discarded the last of my clothes under the Gate’s shadow, I raised my chin, and realized Satan was looking at me with revulsion.
A smile broke through my bruised lips when I realized what had disgusted him. His eyes were focused on one spot.
“You smile now.” He came close to touching the upside-down cross on my chest, his hand hovering there, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to make contact with it. “But you won’t when I carve these out of your skin.”
I laughed. Nobody could break those connections, no matter how deep they dug. They could go right down to my bones and never break those bonds.
His lip curled, and he gestured to Neti. “Open the doors.”
The Minister scrambled back around and clapped his hands together, each strike loud and deliberate. He waited until the echoes faded before doing it again, three times in all.
The sand behind the seventh gate began to shift, swirling around like a whirlpool had opened on the desert floor.
But something was rising out of it. A dull stone face, as pitch black as ebonite, carved to look like a beautiful woman.
Her mouth slid open, wide enough to swallow us all whole, revealing a set of stairs descending into the earth.
“Into the mouth of the abyss,” Minister Neti intoned. “Where the Queen of the Dead holds dominion over all.”
I walked forward, not wanting to be pushed to the ground while naked. They thought they could humiliate me with this, but I’d go in with my head high.
Every bit of me was on display, but all I could really think about was how much every step hurt, the dank smell rising from the door’s mouth, and how badly I needed Lucifer to be behind me. To still be alive.
Kur enveloped us. The mouth overhead slid shut and the stairs shuddered under my feet as it sank back into the desert.
But the shuddering didn’t quite stop. I realized it was a feeling deep in my bones, almost a drumbeat: a call of power that belonged to something else.
The demons Neti commanded moved ahead of us, lighting oil lanterns to guide the way. We descended a long spiral, needles running up my blistered feet with every step, a cold wind raising goosebumps on my bare skin.
But it grew colder and colder. No one else seemed to notice the frost in the air, or that my breath erupted in steam while no one else’s did.
The staircase finally ended after a terrible eternity, and we were in Kur.
It was an entire underground city, shaped like an inverted pyramid. I was reminded of the upper markets of Dis, demons everywhere, making their homes on any available surface, banners covering the ebonite with an explosion of color, but far below us…
I looked over the bridge we stood on and saw a river, but it wasn’t water. Thousands of souls floated past, eyes closed, peaceful in death.
A pair of demons with a net stood on a ledge just above the river. They threw the net in, and fished out several souls, placing them in an enormous iron stockpot.
Satan strode ahead of me as Minister Neti blew a horn, catching the attention of every demon near us.
“King Nergal has returned!” he cried.
I blocked out the explosion of sound. I closed my eyes, not wanting to feel the demons’ gazes on me, but it was impossible not to hunch forward from how cold I was, my body trying to curl in on itself.
Something prodded my back and I walked forward obediently.
“To the Great Temple,” Neti said exuberantly near my ear. “We must bring our gifts to the Queen!”
My heart pounded against my ribs, a sick, coppery taste rising in the back of my throat. It was mixed with the drumbeat of power emanating from the center of Kur, warning me that a being of great power lived here.
I thought I’d seen the worst in Dis, but here in Kur… this had to be one of the old gods.
Demons hollered as we walked by, eyeing me lasciviously despite my bruises and scrapes and the layer of ashy sand covering me from head to toe.
At one point we passed an enormous mirror. Satan was reflected in, triumphant, practically glowing with the exultation of having stolen the body of a king.
And I was a ghost. My hair was coated white, my skin plastered with dust, lips blue with cold. A walking ghost, down to the hollow look in my eyes, shivering with every step.
I looked away, unwilling to see myself this degraded. I had to be able to keep my head high.
The drumbeat grew stronger, making me nauseous from the ever-present pounding in my bones and lungs. Ereshkigal was close.
We descended into the city, and Minister Neti led us through a large walkway lined with guards. They were heavily armored compared to the Irkallan escort that had come for Satan, shining with emerald green armor from head to toe, each carrying a spear with a deadly curved blade.
I felt their eyes on me as we passed.
Please let Lucifer be alive. Please, please, please.
Please let this all have been for something.
The walkway led to a temple. Handmaidens drew back sheer curtains, bowing as Satan passed, and I couldn’t miss the looks they gave him.
They were practically salivating. I shuddered at the thought.
We passed a courtyard of fountains where souls drifted beneath the water. Altars wreathed with thick incense. Skeletally thin priestesses prostrating themselves before ebonite statues.
And then there was the throne room.
My breath came unevenly as the power crashed over me in a wave. It felt like death, sickening, dark, plucking at me with bony fingers.
I let it happen. As long as the shield around Sarai was intact, I didn’t give a damn what else they did to me.
The throne room was lined with tall columns, ending in a large balcony overlooking Kur. The throne at the very end was made of bones, and there were things hanging on the wall, desiccated bodies and cages with shriveled corpses inside them. Some of the cages hung from the ceiling above us. A skeletal hand draped down like it was calling for help.