Page 41 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

He took another step toward her. “Don’t you see, Nemini?

” he whispered, voice trembling with excitement.

“You’re it . You’re the change we’ve all been waiting for, the change Bex has been waiting for.

You’re how we win back Paradise, how we turn this whole war around, and all you have to do is go back to being what you always were. ”

He could already see it happening. Nemini would put on her horns and take command of all the demons in the Hells.

He’d seen how strong the queens could be, and Nemini’s powers weren’t even ground down by time.

She could save Bex, save Iggs, save the slaves, save everyone!

Adrian didn’t see how anyone could say no to such an obvious and universal good, but even when he spelled it out for her, Nemini refused to look at him.

“You have no idea what you’re asking,” she whispered, curling herself into an even tighter ball on the stairs. “I already gave up my life for this war once. I’m not doing it again. For the last time, the queen you’re talking about is dead. Now leave me alone .”

The final word was no louder than the others, but the way she said it sent a shiver down Adrian’s spine. It was the same shiver he felt when Bex was roaring at the peak of her power, and it made his hands curl into fists around the Crown of Pride’s elegant horns.

“What does it matter if you gave your life?” he demanded, voice shaking with anger this time.

“Bex has given up hers a hundred and ninety-eight times. The Queen of War ripped the horns right off her head only a week ago, but she’s out there fighting right now with no fire, no sword, and only one hand.

If you won’t do this for her sake, what about your people?

What about all the pride demons your death knocked into the void, don’t you care about them? ”

“Again, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nemini said in a cold, flat voice. “Bex fights because that’s who she is. She’s the eternally loyal sword, the ever-burning Queen of Wrath, but not all of Ishtar’s daughters are the same.”

“I know she cares about you,” Adrian snapped. “Bex would give up her life to save yours in a heartbeat. How can you just say ‘no thank you’ and leave her to fight on her own?”

“Because I never wanted her to fight in the first place!” Nemini yelled, her eternal calm shattering before his eyes as she whipped her head up to face him with her snakes rising around her face like a hissing black halo.

“You think this is the life I wanted for her?” she cried. “Dying over and over? Grinding herself down to nothing for a war she’ll never win?”

“But we can win,” Adrian argued. “That’s what I’m trying to—”

“You’re delusional,” Nemini snarled, pointing at the horns in his hands.

“Even if I let you put that thing back on my head, do you really think one queen can defeat the man who killed the gods? Because that’s what I thought.

Back when I was the Queen of Pride, I thought just like you.

There were nine of us when he arrived. Nine sacred queens with all the might of Paradise at our backs.

I thought it was impossible for us to lose, but we did . ”

She rose to her feet, clenching her nails—which had sharpened and lengthened until they looked like claws—into her palms.

“We were wrong,” she said in a shaking voice.

“ I was wrong, but that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part came after my defeat when I was falling into the void.

All of my towering hubris had just shattered with my name.

I had nothing left, no pride to shield me from finally seeing the world as it actually was. ”

She leaned closer, her snakes reaching out toward Adrian with their flicking black tongues. “Do you want to know what I learned that day? The truth I saw when I faced the abyss for the first time?”

Adrian wasn’t sure he did, but he was the one who’d demanded she step up, so he swallowed his fear and nodded for Nemini to continue.

She did so with great ceremony, walking slowly back up the steps one at a time until she was standing over him like the ancient, terrifying queen she claimed to no longer be.

“I saw that it was pointless,” she announced in a cold, heavy voice.

“I’d spent my entire life fighting for the glory of the gods.

I thought their power was my power, but that was never the case.

The worship I reveled in when my demons fawned at my feet, the pride I felt when I knelt before my divine mother, all of it was lies.

I watched my sisters die one after another defending Paradise from the mortals we’d always been taught were inferior, but when I went out to face Gilgamesh at the final threshold, the gods I’d spent my entire life worshiping as all-powerful beings didn’t lift a finger to help me.

They didn’t even come out of their temple. ”

She bared her teeth, which Adrian only now realized were sharp as a viper’s fangs.

“They were afraid ,” she hissed. “Afraid of the humans and the death they brought. Afraid of Gilgamesh’s aggression.

They’d built their entire empire on the idea that mortals were docile sheep to be tended for their worship, but when the flock rose up and proved to be wolves, we were the ones the gods sacrificed. ”

Nemini’s snakes went limp as she dropped her head.

“That was the part that hurt the most. It wasn’t that I lost. It was that Gilgamesh was right.

We were never Ishtar’s daughters. We were her tools.

That’s why queens have so much power over our demons.

It’s not because of our divine blood or inherent superiority.

Ishtar gave us that power so that we could manage her Riverlands while she dallied with mortals.

We were made to toil on her farms and eat humanity’s sins while she and the other gods played in a Paradise designed for them .

Human souls never walked the green fields of the Riverlands, and demons didn’t either.

We worked there. We slaved for the gods the same way we slave for Gilgamesh.

The only difference is that now demons have to bow to warlocks instead of queens. ”

“That’s not true,” Adrian insisted. “It can’t be true. I’ve talked to Iggs. He lived in the Riverlands, and he said it was a Paradise.”

“Of course he’d say that,” Nemini replied bitterly.

“He was one of Rebexa’s demons. Out of all of us, the Queen of Wrath was the only one who actually believed her own propaganda.

When I ruled the Riverlands, I kept my demons busy building ziggurats to my greatness.

War constantly sent her people into losing battles because she couldn’t stand her share of the poison Ishtar made us eat.

It was easier for her to get all her demons killed than to let them do the job they’d been created for, which was why Ishtar threw her in that pit. ”

Nemini’s jaw tightened. “I was there when she did it. We all were. Eight perfect queens smirking as we watched our mother throw our sister into eternal darkness because the labor she’d been created for had driven her mad.

” Her yellow eyes locked onto Adrian’s. “Tell me, Mr. Witch, is that the Paradise you want us to win back?”

Adrian looked down at his boots. “If that’s how you’ve felt all this time,” he said after a long silence, “why are you still fighting?”

“For the same reason you are,” Nemini replied with a sad smile.

“I do it for Bex. She’s always believed we were on the right side, and that if we could just keep going, we’d eventually defeat Gilgamesh and return everyone to Paradise.

You know how much I disagree with that logic, but that doesn’t change the fact that her steadfast faith has brought hope to countless generations of demons.

It brought hope to her . Even though we never achieved any of our goals or made any measurable difference, fighting for her people gave Bex purpose. ”

Nemini’s shoulders sank with a long sigh. “Who was I to tell her she was wrong? If we’re doomed to be slaves no matter what, then it doesn’t matter who wins the war. Why shouldn’t I let her be happy in her delusions? Especially since it made me so happy to fight beside her.”

Her sad smile grew brighter. “I’ve known more love and companionship as part of Bex’s team than I received as a queen worshiped by millions.

I used to think my youngest sister was an idiot, a fool too dazzled by Ishtar’s power to think for herself.

It was only after I was shattered that I realized the truth.

Bex wasn’t foolish. She was good. She truly believed that being a queen and fighting for her people was her divine purpose, and so long as I was with her, I got to believe it too. Why in the world would I give that up?”

“Because this isn’t like those other times,” Adrian told her desperately.

“I get it. Both the gods and Gilgamesh were bad, but that doesn’t mean what’s happening now can’t be worse.

We’re no longer in the same stalemate Bex has been fighting for five thousand years.

Gilgamesh came after me because he’s got a plan.

I don’t know what that is yet or why he needs your horns, but he wouldn’t be pursuing this so recklessly if he didn’t think it was going to make him even more powerful.

That’s why we can’t just leave things the way they are, because if we don’t find a way to defeat Gilgamesh now, we may lose the option entirely. ”

“So what?” Nemini asked, plopping back down on the stairs. “Have you ever stopped to consider that it might not be so bad to let the endless war end? If Gilgamesh wins definitively, maybe Bex will finally stop throwing herself at him.”

“You know that won’t happen. She’ll fight him to her last breath. Her actual last breath because there are no more reincarnations. If she loses this time, it really will be the end.”

“You say that like it’s something dreadful,” Nemini replied in a chillingly calm voice.

“But all things end. That’s the truth the gods could never accept, but they’ll still become the same dust as everything else one day.

Death is the only inescapable force in this world. It’s pointless to fight it.”

“And yet you do,” Adrian said angrily, clutching the queen’s horns in his hands. “If you actually believed in what you’re saying, you wouldn’t be here, but I’ve seen you save Bex more times than I can count. You always come to save her, and I think you’ll come through this time too.”

Nemini’s yellow eyes narrowed, but Adrian had already bent down to place the horns he’d so carefully pieced back together on the step at her feet.

“Part of being a witch is learning to accept things as they are,” he said as he straightened back up.

“But despite everything you just said, I don’t think nihilism is your true nature.

If you truly believed that life was pointless, you wouldn’t fight for Bex so hard, but you do .

You’ve fought by her side for five thousand years because you were telling me the truth earlier when you said how much you loved her.

That’s the Nemini I believe in, so I’m going to leave these here. ”

“There’s no point,” she warned, pulling her feet up to get them farther away from the horns he’d just set down.

“If I put that crown back on, my divine name will be restored. I’ll be dragged out of the emptiness, dragged from my freedom and forced to be the gods’ slave again. Even for Rebexa, I can’t do that.”

“And I can’t force you,” Adrian said. “I won’t force you, but I don’t think it’ll matter.

” His lips curled into a smirk. “Bex has a habit of inspiring people to do the impossible, so I’m making the same gamble I made the first day I saw her waiting in front of the airport.

I’m betting it all on her. I’m betting it all on you , because you’re loyal, too, Nemini.

If you weren’t, Bex wouldn’t trust you so much. ”

Nemini’s eyes narrowed even further. “That’s a lot of bets for a man who’s been fighting with us less than half a year.”

“And yet I’m never wrong,” Adrian said with a cocky grin. “Not about Bex, anyway. She’s the gamble I’ve always won, and I intend to keep throwing all-in with her until I die.”

The tower rumbled as he finished, reminding Adrian that he’d better get a move on if he didn’t want those to be his ironic last words.

“I’ve got to go help Bex win a fight she should never have been forced into,” he said, patting his shoulder to signal Boston to climb back up. “I’m trusting you to do the right thing, Nemini.”

“Right and wrong are subjective,” Nemini reminded him, but Adrian had already stuck out his hand for his broom.

The moment Bran’s broomstick hit his palm, Adrian vaulted on, holding onto his hat and bending his body low so Bran could shoot them through the broken tower window toward the smoky darkness where he’d last seen Bex.

And behind him, alone on the stairs that were the Middle Hells’ only exit, the broken remains of the Queen of Pride stared down at the crown that had once been her entire world.