Chapter 24: Does He Like My Sister Instead of Me?
The hope that had just sparked inside Ishtar was snuffed out in an instant.
Her beautiful face twisted again, as if every emotion she had never needed in her long divinity decided to riot at once. Anger. Annoyance. Shyness. Indignation. A dozen messy, mortal things, all churning together in a storm that left even her own thoughts wobbling.
For Ishtar, this experience was downright unprecedented.
The Mesopotamian gods were natural manifestations. Planetary phenomena given a thin coat of intellect by human faith. Their smiles and frowns were, at best, a polite disguise. Under that surface, a god remained a god: cold, distant, and largely untouched by joy or sorrow.
That was divinity.
And yet here she was, genuinely rattled.
This feeling…
Too shameful. Too shameful. Too shameful.
Rowe watched the goddess in front of him contort like a living reenactment of a future painting called The Scream. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
Before he could say anything, Ishtar suddenly calmed down, as though she had seized a lifeline.
"No!"
She clenched her right fist and smacked it hard into her left palm, eyes shining with the certainty of someone who had just invented logic on the spot.
"You are deliberately saying the opposite, are you not?"
She leaned forward, triumphant.
"I have heard humans do this. The more they care, the more they act like they dislike it. A reverse psychology thing."
Her lips curled into a smug grin.
"Oh ho. I did not expect you to be this troublesome. Interesting."
Then, to Rowe's intense regret, she covered her mouth and let out a series of ho ho ho laughs that made her look like a villainous grandmother from a cheap stage play.
Rowe stared at her.
…
He had known for a while that Ishtar, once she convinced herself she understood humanity, would never admit defeat. Making an elaborate excuse for failure was, in fact, painfully human.
It also made her lively, in a way that was almost cute.
Almost.
But if she had no intention of killing him, there was no reason to keep entertaining this farce.
Rowe shifted his weight, ready to leave in disappointment.
"Hmph hmph hmph. Nothing to say? I guessed right, did I not?" Ishtar grew even more animated, as if she had already won. "Of course. I am the Goddess of Beauty. And I also have a sister who rules the Underworld, the one who controls death. Inner beauty is nothing before me."
She started listing her glories like a resume.
Rowe's lifted foot froze in midair.
He turned back sharply.
Ishtar was still smiling, but the way he looked at her made her nerves spark. Her expression stiffened, the confident smile shrinking into a twitch.
"What are you staring at, rude mortal?"
A faint blush returned to her cheeks.
"You just said Goddess of the Underworld, right?" Rowe's voice dropped.
"Yes. So what?" Ishtar puffed up louder, clearly trying to bulldoze past her own embarrassment. "You were a priest of the gods. Do not tell me you do not even know that."
Of course he knew.
Ishtar was the daughter of Anu, the youngest and most favored among the Mesopotamian pantheon. And she had a sister of the same origin, Ereshkigal, ruler of Kur, the Underworld.
They were called sisters, but their fates could not have been more different.
Ishtar roamed heaven and earth with capricious freedom. Ereshkigal dwelled beneath the world, presiding over the souls of the dead in an eternal domain of cold and silence.
She could only look upward, yearning for the warmth of the living world she was duty bound to never touch.
Normally, Ereshkigal could not reach the surface.
She had been forgotten even among gods. Even Ishtar, closest to her by blood and origin, rarely uttered her name.
Not from indifference.
From the opposite.
Ishtar cared far too much.
The same root, the same birth, and yet Ereshkigal was chained to loneliness while Ishtar basked in worship. That contrast brewed emotions too complicated to show aloud. So Ishtar stayed silent, and she did not allow others to mention her sister.
Certainly not to offend her.
Rowe felt the corner of his mouth lift.
Opportunity.
"What is with that smile?" Ishtar frowned, unsettled. "It is a bit… disgusting."
Her blush deepened anyway.
Rowe inhaled, then exhaled, and lied with a straight face.
"I finally understand why I cared about you so much."
Care? You cursed me the moment we met, you lunatic.
Ishtar's eyes widened.
Then Rowe's voice slid into something colder, sharper, and very deliberately theatrical.
"Hahaha hahaha…"
Ishtar flinched.
Hey. Hey. That is Gilgamesh's laugh.
Rowe ignored her emotional whiplash. His goal was simple. He wanted to plant a hook in the heart of the goddess in front of him.
And through her, in the heart of her sister.
"I have a sense of longing for your sister, Ereshkigal."
Crack.
The sound of teeth grinding so hard it felt like something broke.
Ishtar's crimson eyes went wide enough to swallow the alley.
It was not a confession to her.
It was a confession to her sister.
Would Ishtar explode?
Even if she did not, it did not matter.
Ishtar and Ereshkigal, as goddesses of the same origin, shared a subtle connection. One that had faded as the Age of Gods declined.
But Rowe had just shaken the boundaries of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld with the combined power of the Wedge of Heaven, the Chains of Heaven, and the Key of Heaven.
Those borders had wavered.
That connection might have been restored.
If Ishtar heard it, Ereshkigal might hear it too.
And for a goddess who had spent countless years hearing only fear and curses in her name, the idea that a living human longed for her could be… novel.
Curiosity could open doors that authority could not.
If Ereshkigal allowed him into the Underworld, that meant death.
It would be effortless for her to kill a living being. Even a Key of Heaven in human skin.
And if Rowe stayed there long enough, he would finally ascend to the Throne of Heroes.
A man who died after confessing to a goddess of the Underworld.
Quite a stylish obituary, if you asked him.
Even if it failed, it was only an attempt.
Rowe's grin widened.
"The one I long for is your sister."
The words echoed through the deepening sunset alley, over red leaves and long shadows.
They struck Ishtar like a divine humiliation.
And somewhere far below, they struck another goddess even harder.
"What… is that sound?"
In the deepest layer of Kur, Ereshkigal looked up.
Her ruby eyes caught the faint, broken trace that had appeared earlier, a sliver of light bleeding down from the world above. From that crack came a voice.
Subtle, yet unmistakably clear.
A sound that stirred a heart long buried in silence.
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