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.
Eyeless skulls stared back at us as I was pushed down the stairs and led before the throne.
The dark form seated upon it shifted. Clawed feet descended into the light: scaly bird’s feet, with long ebony claws.
Her power was impossible to resist, as cold as the grave. It was her iciness that wrapped around me, making me shake until my teeth chattered to together. I ground them tightly shut, resolved to stay silent.
She leaned forward, exposing her face to the light.
Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead.
The Eater of the Damned.
30
Melisande
I refused to cower.
Ereshkigal rose from her throne, descending the steps on her clawed feet. The nails screeched against the ebonite.
I’d never seen anything like her before.
Her first step into the light revealed a beautiful woman, with a cold, proud face, her eyes as black as midnight against death-pale skin. A silver moon gleamed on her forehead.
She took another step, and suddenly her body was shifting. She became thin, her skin sagging, until a skeleton stood at the bottom of the steps.
A pair of feathered wings dragged behind. As I watched, the graying feathers suddenly became glossy black, and they rose behind her shoulder blades.
The skeleton filled out and she was beautiful again, her onyx gaze fixed on Satan.
This close to her, only steps away, her power was overwhelming. It took all my concentration just to draw breath into my lungs, which felt like they were shriveling in my chest.
“Beloved,” she said, holding out her arms to Satan. “Lover of mine.”
He released my ropes and stepped forward, meeting her in a kiss.
The moment his lips touched her skin, her beauty faded and she became a skeleton again, her wings sagging downwards.
I wanted to fall to my knees in front of all that power, but my legs were locked stiff, holding me upright.
I couldn’t move an inch, shaking in place, as Satan kissed the skeleton.
He released her and she turned to look down at us, her beauty shifting back into place. Watching her continual shift from youth to old age was almost dizzying.
I caught the faintest hint of revulsion on Satan’s face. In another time I would’ve wanted to smile at his disgust, but now it was impossible. Not with the dark goddess right there in front of me, her power vibrating through my chest.
He deserved to be caught in a skeleton’s arms forever, never giving him what he wanted the most.
Several of the Irkallan guards strode down the steps and dropped something on the ground with a heavy thud, bowing to Ereshkigal over the form.
It was Lucifer. My lungs contracted as I turned my head just enough to see him. He was unconscious, but blessedly alive.
Alive, and pale, with red streaks still emanating from the wounds. They’d climbed around his shoulder and were slowly working up his neck and down his torso, almost as sickening to see as the soul-bonds.
“Your son.” Ereshkigal looked down at him with depthless eyes. “How handsome. He’s so close to death I can almost taste it.”
As soon as she finished speaking her tongue flicked the air, like she really could taste the sickness running through Lucifer’s veins.
Every part of me wanted to run to him as she strode closer, her silk skirts swishing around her clawed feet, but I refused to move. If I gave away the slightest sign of weakness, they would have the