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