Under the watchful eyes of two dozen guards and servants, Nephew and I sat on opposite sides of the semicircular table while more food than ten people could eat streamed from the kitchen.

"You are not eating, do you dislike this food," Nephew asked me.

I picked a peach and bit it. Couldn't talk with food in my mouth, could I? I was avoiding to make eye contact with Nephew at all costs. One reason was to avoid making faces at the condition of his body but another was to avoid derailing this forced date into something more serious. Like proposing to take my virginity upon the altar in his freakish Mesopotamian ritual. My fanny felt like it would sew itself shut from the fear I was feeling.

"Is the drink not to your liking?" He insisted. "Bring the lady something else to drink."

Their alcohol sucked. And I couldn't afford to get drunk. Or could I? He wouldn't rape me because he needed me for his ritual. I summoned a PET soda bottle with water.

"I'll make my own drink," I broke radio silence.

I poured some water from the bottle into a cup, took a sip and passed it to the servant that gave it to Nephew. He downed the water without a second thought.

"I never tasted better water," he commented, staring at the cup.

I filled another two cups until the bottle was half empty. Then I shaped a funnel with silicon and started to use my power on the fruit. Peaches, grapes, plums, tamarinds, and sour tangerines. The latter proved that Nephew was spying on me as the only reason this fruit would be here was the fact I bought tons of them to extract essences. From the fruit, I drew the essential oils and the starch, then I poured it down the funnel, mixing it with the water. Once the bottle was full with a slurry sugary solution, I screwed the cap on and shook it.

Then I used Decompose again focusing on breaking the glucose. Each would become two ethylic alcohol and two carbonic dioxide molecules. I moved my hands up and down the bottle, taking care to not decompose all the starch so the liquor would stay a little sweet. The plastic bottle became stiff with the pressure but the cap held. I gently set it aside.

"It needs to sit for a few minutes," I said. "So, Enshi, why did you invite me for dinner?"

"To praise your achievements, of course!" He said with a smile. It was hard to look at him so I pretended to blush and look away. "I heard that a bricklayer suggested you could make solid bricks out of the dirt. Ishtar told me I should seek your help to build the ziggurat."

There was the pitch. Not only he wanted to screw me on the altar, but he also wanted me to build the blasted thing. Bile rose in my mouth.

"If you helped build the ziggurat, we could cancel the recruitment of the foreign soldiers. Less work growing food, less time for the women in the temple," He suggested.

I ate a ripe plum to avoid having to reply.

"Glad you found your appetite," He commented. "You don't have to be on the defensive, Sandra. Can I call you Sandra? I have a report to share with you. Our troops, led by Captain Al-Amir, have already recruited two thousand from Marduk's army. They are being trained and sorted outside, that's what held the good Captain away from the city all these days."

I almost choke on the plum. Was he telling me he was holding Brandon away from me as some sort of hostage? I wished it was just my imagination and paranoia but I couldn't shake the feeling off.

"So I make that ziggurat, Brandon comes back... What happens to Marduk's soldiers?"

He smiled, glad that the conversation was happening. "They become slaves as is the fate of every captured enemy. It would be ours if they won the siege. Some of them I could use as officers since so many of them are being decommissioned nowadays," he made a morbid joke. I winced.

"How big that ziggurat has to be? And where are you building it? I'm making no promises though. I just need to know so I can plan accordingly."

He summoned a servant. "Get me a map of the city," He ordered. "I'm glad you decided to cooperate, Sandra," he cooed. "You and I, together, we could take over the world."

I looked into his eyes for the first time tonight. "Funny you said that. Those were the same words Prince Marduk told me before I drove a dagger through his kidneys."

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He guffawed but some guards brought their hands to their weapons.

"That was a good joke. By Ishtar's tits!" He slapped his knees.

"It wasn't a joke though," I deadpanned. "I did murder Marduk with a dagger through his back. Not proud of it though."

And not loathing it as much as to not speak about it anymore. I was changing and I was afraid of what I'd become.

"You did that, didn't you? Oh, the face Marduk made when you stabbed him, must've been priceless!" He laughed manically. "He had you, in his arms, whispering sweet words, sure of his victory, and then.... chuck!"

I felt terrible. It was as if each of his laughs were a splinter digging into my flesh.

"You should be proud," He added, thoughtful. "So that's why he is limping," Nephew concluded.

It was the last drop. "Why should I be proud? I killed the prince, I killed a thousand soldiers. I'll have to live with that... wait," Something he added last wasn't right. "How do you know he was embracing me, and what is this about limping?"

His mirth was toxic. He just smiled and savored my distress.

"You have no idea, do you? Tarhun is an idiot for not explaining it to you. Well, let the Enshi pick up where the god failed," He told me with a predatory smile.

"Marduk is alive, Sandra. You may have killed the soldiers and officers, but the prince endures."

He let his statement sink. I gasped in disbelief. The whole day was too stressful and I was surely hallucinating. Marduk was alive? How? How? HOW? I massaged my temples. This was too much.

"How?" the question escaped my terrified lips.

"Easy. The same way I am here before you now. Ereshkigal and Nergal pooled their power and rescued the prince from the explosion. He made an oath to bring you to the main temple of Nergal in exchange, just as I vowed to Ishtar to consecrate the city of Es-Kina to her on the great ziggurat.

"There is a game the gods are playing as we speak, with you in the center, Sandra. The fate of the world rests on the choices you make. But the gods won't just let you choose at idle. They are scheming, goading, enticing you to take this path or another. Using whatever tools they can."

I held the table to avoid collapsing. I was sitting on a cushion but it felt as if I would fall behind forever as my head spun. The bile came back with a vengeance and I grabbed the first bucket I saw in front of me. It had some lobster-like cooked critter inside and I threw up in it.

Glad I didn't feast as Nephew wanted. Just some fruit and drink. A terrible day became even worse. On one side, I hadn't committed regicide, on the other, Marduk was up and around and driven to vengeance.

"I'm glad you understand. This is the reason I want you to build the ziggurat. We don't have to literally invite the enemy inside our walls."

I shuddered. "Is Marduk coming here?"

He slapped his knee and laughed harder. "Only if he wants to die for good this time! I'd have him executed, quartered, and shipped back home in pickled pieces," He kept laughing. "Oh, Sandra, you are too much.

"Now, seriously. Help me achieve my goals and I would do anything for you, Sandra. I'd even let you live your life however you want. I'd protect you from afar. I will grant you every single wish. Anything, you just have to ask."

I wiped my mouth, took a swig of water from one of the cups I poured earlier, washed it back and Decomposed anything in my teeth, then I spat on the ruined lobster bucket. I bet that shit was expensive as heck. Not even in Abil-Kisu's banquets had lobster been served.

After I downed the rest of the water to calm my body and mind down, I stared Nephew hard.

"Anything?" I asked with a businesslike tone.

"Anything!" He replied enthusiastically.

Anyone had a price, and mine while it was expensive, was not infinite. I knew exactly what I wanted.

"Find a way to send me back to my home-world a hundred years in the past and I'll be your wife, your bitch, build you a snowman, paint the sky blood red, or anything. I want to go home, to my own time. Live the life I left back there. Can you do that? Can Ishtar do that?"

Nephew closed his eyes and it felt like he was meditating. Or communing as next an energy poured from him. Then he opened his eyes and they seemed old, eldritch.

"No. Ishtar said that there is no way back to your world, unfortunately. And no way to go back in time either."

I opened the soda bottle and the familiar hiss of the gas escaping was refreshing. Bubbles rose in the liquid. I poured some in the water cup and tasted it. Tasted like a fruity sweet bubble wine. Strong as Russian vodka or Brazilian cachaça.

"Bottom's up!" I downed it like a pro, it burned down my throat. The liquor hit an empty stomach.

But I was rewarded with the spike of dizziness that came with sudden alcohol poisoning. Exactly what I needed right now.

"You should taste it. In fact, everyone here should taste it," I said, feeling my lips and tongue numb.

"Serve the liquor Lady Rinaldi created around. Half the guards only, I want them sober. Get me a cup!" Nephew barked.

We drank. The booze should be over forty percent alcohol and hit like Penny's kicks. But we drank. Some less than others and none more than me. And if you thought one nephew was ugly, try with two of them. Good things came in pairs my arse. I drank another cup of fruit bubbly wine and they became four. It was getting worse, I needed more booze.

The bottle went around and soon it was empty. I retrieved it and stored it separated from the cap. The leftover liquid splashed in the cushion.

"And we are done. You come up with good payment for that ziggurat, and I'll build that shit," I then pointed a finger. "But you are so not getting in my pants, Nephew," I told him as I tried to stand up. I didn't.

"Matron, get some guards and take the lady home safely. Thank you for your company and the entertainment, Sandra. We'll see each other soon," Nephew commanded.

Some ladies-in-waiting, probably part of Nephew's harem, came and lifted me. I threw up on one of them.

I don't remember much after that but I woke up the next day in my bed at Abil-Kisu's estate. I was clean and dressed in one of Cloe's dresses.

What woke me up was a bloody and grime-caked Dime that crowed victoriously over my windowsill. What had he murdered today, by all that was holy?

I shook my head. How would I find it out?

But I had no hangover, if anything was a silver lining.