Page 49 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)
That determination didn’t belong to Ishtar or Gilgamesh.
The Blackwood had poured its fire into her .
Filled her with its rage at what Gilgamesh had done to its beloved witches.
It was just like Drox had said. The Bonfire of Wrath had always been fueled by the anger of her people, and that same anger hit her now like sparks to dry kindling.
The rush caught her completely by surprise, though it really shouldn’t have.
As the familiar flames spread over her body, all Bex could think was what a fool she’d been, what an idiot.
She’d been so devastated by the magnitude of everything she’d lost, she’d completely missed the things she hadn’t.
Even when a tiny bit of it had come back in the Lowest Hells, she’d assumed it was just a forgotten ember, a scrap that her defeat had left behind.
What a stupid thing to think. One ember was all it took to start a forest fire, and wasn’t that what she was?
How many times had Drox told her that the flames weren’t something that she called?
They were what she was . Bex was the Bonfire, and unlike her sword and horns and all the other powers Ishtar had given her, that could never be taken away.
It could only be lost, but Bex was done losing.
The wrath of her people—the wrath of all the demons whose lives had been stolen in the Hells—was pouring over her like gasoline, and the moment Bex embraced it, she lit up like the sun.
The explosion of her restored fire shook the Hells to their foundations.
The chained slaves jumped when the roaring pillar of her fire enveloped them, but the Bonfire of Wrath only burned what she raged at, and Bex’s anger wasn’t for them.
Her heat melted the sin-iron chains and boiled away the stagnant river, but it didn’t touch a hair on her peoples’ heads.
The princess, on the other hand, received no such mercy.
If Bex had still had doubts that Gilgamesh’s ivory dolls weren’t really her sisters, the sight of that headless body flailing blindingly for an enemy would have put them to rest. It didn’t even look like a princess anymore.
It was just another abomination, another crime to lay at Gilgamesh’s feet, and the Bonfire of Wrath was happy to burn it.
She didn’t even have to stretch to engulf the headless figure in flames. There was more wrath here than Bex had ever felt. It was caked onto the walls of the Hells like soot, five thousand years of anger left behind by all the demons who’d lived and died in this darkness.
With so much fuel at her fingertips, Bex’s bonfire leaped high enough to light the entire cavern of the Middle Hells.
Her flames were so hot, the princess’s headless body was incinerated in seconds.
Not even blackened scraps were left, just a fine white ash that blew away in the howling, superheated wind coming off the tornado of fire Bex had become.
That should’ve made her happy, but the fire raging through her head was making it hard to think.
She couldn’t even see the demons who’d sparked her anymore.
Maybe they’d run away when she’d melted their chains, or maybe she just couldn’t see anything through the glare of her flames.
Either way, the Bonfire of Wrath’s fury had already moved on to the next target, engulfing one of the elevated metal platforms the overseers used to keep their feet dry while they watched Ishtar’s children slave.
She’d burn it all, the Bonfire decided. Burn this entire cursed place to ash so that no demon could ever be sent here again.
She’d burn until the whole rotten system collapsed under its own weight.
Burn until Gilgamesh himself came down to stop her, and then she’d burn him too.
She’d burn and burn and burn until all their anger—the fury of generations—was avenged.
Burn until she burned out as well, her duty finally finished.
These were the Bonfire’s thoughts, if a fire could even be said to have thoughts.
Her flickering attention had already jumped from the melted overseer tower to the stockpile of slave chains beside it.
The Bonfire was gleefully watching the cursed black metal melt into bubbling tar when she heard a familiar voice.
“Bex!” it shouted. “ Bex! ”
Deep in the roar of the bonfire, the tiny spark that still remembered that name lifted her head.
The next memory that flickered through was Drox.
Her steadfast sword was always the one who called her back when she got like this.
That must be his voice, the tongue of flame that had once been called Bex reasoned, but wasn’t Drox gone?
Wasn’t that part of why she was so angry?
The fire wasn’t sure. There were so many reasons to rage that it was hard to keep track, but they’d all be burned soon. The Bonfire was about to return to that important work when the voice yelled again.
“ Bex! ” it screamed. “ Come back! ”
The Bonfire of Wrath seethed. No one gave her orders. But when she looked down to see what soon-to-be-ash fool would dare, it wasn’t her sword or a demon or even one of her fellow daughters of Ishtar.
It was a human. A handsome, mirror-eyed man with curling black hair and a witch’s broad-brimmed hat flapping in the wind that roared off her inferno.
He was standing dangerously close to the bonfire’s base, holding something up in his hands like an offering.
The object was pale and small and even more familiar than the man’s voice.
It wasn’t until he lifted it over his head, though, that the flicker of fire that had once been Bex realized it was a hand.
A queen’s severed hand with Drox’s black ring still gleaming on its pale finger.
“Bex!” Adrian yelled, using the arm that wasn’t holding up her hand to shield his face from her raging flames. “It’s over! You won! You can come back now!”
The Bonfire scoffed. This was nowhere near over.
The was still so much left to burn, so many left to punish.
She’d stop when the endless anger of her people was sated.
But when the raging Bonfire lifted one of its thousand tendrils to destroy the mortal who presumed to give orders to the Wrath of Ishtar, Bex yanked it back down.
“ No! ” she shouted, shoving back against the flames. “We burn our enemies. We do not burn Adrian!”
But he wanted them to stop, and they were still so angry.
“And how is this helping?” Bex demanded, pointing at the random piles of chains they’d just been so righteously melting into slag.
“The Wrath of Ishtar shouldn’t be wasted on useless temper tantrums. I need this fire for burning Gilgamesh, not trashing the Hells while my people are still trapped inside!
The witch is right. It’s over. Now give me back my body! ”
The Bonfire roared and tried to pull away, but Bex didn’t let it.
Just as Drox had taught her in Limbo, she wrestled the flames into submission.
Her own magic fought her for every inch, but Bex had already learned this lesson.
She knew that wrath was not rage. Rage was the inferno that destroyed everything, but wrath was directed.
Wrath had purpose. She had purpose. The same dedication that had allowed her to walk out of the void of her lost name strengthened her hands now, giving Bex the edge as she wrestled the Bonfire lower and lower, smaller and smaller until it was just her again, one body burning like a candle in the black cavern of Gilgamesh’s Hells.
She snuffed the last lick of fire herself, closing her one remaining good hand over it in a fist to save the flames for later, because there would be a later.
The Bonfire of Wrath was hers again. Always had been, really, but Bex was no longer too deep in her own misery to feel it.
She might not have her horns back yet, but Bex’s fire was once again hers to call whenever she needed it.
That felt like a miracle, but it was one she understood.
The miracle in front of her, however, was almost more than Bex could process.
He was already running up to meet her. She’d known that Adrian was in the Hells, but it still felt impossible that he could just be…
just be here , smiling in front of her. She’d expected to have to pry him free of Gilgamesh with her teeth, but he didn’t seem to have any chains or slave marks, not even a chaperone.
Other than his new mirrored eyes—which were creepy, but still close enough to his usual blue-gray that Bex could square the difference in her mind—Adrian looked just like he had the morning she’d picked him up from the airport.
He was really here, whole and safe and alive right in front of her, and she… she…
“Adrian,” Bex whispered, stumbling forward. “ Adrian! ”
She fell into him with a sob. She didn’t know when she’d started crying, but her face was suddenly soaked with ashy tears, which was ridiculous because she wasn’t sad.
She was happy. So, so damn happy that after everything they’d been through, everything they’d lost, he was finally here with her.
Even Lys hadn’t made it over yet, but Adrian must’ve run straight to her, and that made Bex so happy she could burst. She knew they were still in enemy territory and she needed to get a grip, but she couldn’t make her arms let go.
It just felt so right to finally be next to him again, which was why it felt so wrong when Adrian took her by her shoulders and shoved her away.
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