The Goddess Inheritance

His whimpers quieted, and he lifted his arms, as if he were reaching for me. I tried to touch him again, but it still didn’t work. I’d never stop trying, though.

“Think you could do that for me?” I murmured. “Just eat a little bit. You can be as unhappy as you want. I don’t blame you. It won’t last forever though, I promise.” It couldn’t. I wouldn’t let it.

“He has your eyes.”

My heart damn near stopped. Slowly I turned, and despite the dim light, I could see every feature of his face. “Henry?”

He smiled grimly and opened his arms. I didn’t think. I went to him, burying my face in his chest and inhaling, but he smelled like nothing. He wasn’t here either. I could touch him, though. I could feel his silk shirt and the heat radiating from his body.

How?

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured, brushing his lips against my cheek. When I tried to turn my head to kiss him properly, he pulled away, just out of reach. Rejection and doubt washed over me. Was he angry I’d gotten caught? That I couldn’t save him? Did he know about my plans to give myself up to Cronus in exchange for his life?

When I followed his gaze, however, I relaxed. Milo.

I tucked myself underneath his arm, and together we approached the cradle. When the baby saw us, he reached for us. For me. And a piece of my heart melted.

Henry reached for him in return, and before I could warn him that it wouldn’t work, his fingers made contact with Milo’s. Not lingering in the unoccupied space beside him or hovering a millimeter above his skin and pretending.

He was really touching our son.

“Hello, little man,” said Henry solemnly. “I heard you have not been eating.”

Producing a bottle seemingly out of nowhere, Henry let go of me and picked Milo up. I stood back, stunned, as Henry offered him the milk. Several seconds passed, and at last Milo began to eat.

“How—” A wave of dizziness washed over me. This couldn’t be happening, not unless he was dead or—or something I didn’t understand. “How is this possible?”

Sometimes we misjudge what is possible and what is not.

Henry’s voice rang in my head, clear as anything, and I waited for him to say those words again. To insist that just because I didn’t know how it worked didn’t stop it from happening.

Instead he smiled, and Milo ate greedily. “Because it is. What more of an explanation do you need?”

I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know how to save him, how to put our family back together, how to stop Cronus and Calliope from taking over the world. But at that moment, I only needed to hear one thing. “Will you stay with him?”

In his arms, Milo gurgled, and I tried to touch him once more. Nothing. “Of course,” said Henry, and he pressed his lips to my forehead. “Always.”

I opened my eyes, more content and relaxed than I’d been since the winter solstice. Despite the bright blue sky above me, this place—whatever it was, wherever it was—was quiet. My mother hadn’t left me alone since I’d returned from Calliope’s castle, but glancing around, I noticed her empty chair.

Finally, the chance I’d been waiting for.

Swinging my legs out of bed, I tested the sunset floor. It was warmer than I expected, and while my arm burned, my mother had been right; nothing else hurt. Whatever was in that compress had stopped the agony of the dagger wound from spreading.

While I’d been unconscious, someone—hopefully my mother and not James—had dressed me in a white silk nightgown, so smooth it might as well have been water against my skin. I took a few tentative steps, and once I was sure I wasn’t going to collapse, I headed for the door. I had no idea where I was, but I wanted to see Henry. I had to make sure he wasn’t dead. That my vision hadn’t been his last goodbye to me. To our son.

No. He’d promised to stay with Milo, and he would. Gods didn’t turn into corporeal ghosts when they died, or at least I thought they didn’t. Had a god as powerful as Henry ever died before?

I opened the bedroom door to reveal a corridor on the other side, with the same blue ceiling and sunset floor. The colors underneath my feet changed as I walked, and I had to tear my eyes away to check the various doors that stood some twenty feet apart through the hallway.

Empty bedroom after empty bedroom. Some were plain, like mine, but others were decorated—one with light blue accents and white silk that matched my nightgown, and another with deep greens and bright flowers growing everywhere. It looked exactly like the sort of bedroom my mother might have if she’d—

Wait.

I pushed the door open wider. It wasn’t just a bedroom; it was a suite, with several other doors decorating the walls, far more than space allowed with the other rooms surrounding it. I inched forward toward the nightstand, where a picture stood.

No, not a picture—a reflection, like the one Henry had had of Persephone in Eden Manor, one that captured a moment, not a still photograph. With a trembling hand, I picked up the wooden frame and stared at it. My mother and I stared back.

We were laughing in the middle of Central Park. I didn’t need to see the cupcakes or the mess that remained of our picnic to know what it was.

It was the reflection Henry had given me our first and only Christmas together.

“Kate?”

The frame slipped from my hand, and the glass shattered as it hit the ground. I swore and bent to pick it up. “Mom, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right,” she said, kneeling beside me, and she waved my hand away. “What are you doing out of bed?”

I stood as the glass repaired itself under her guidance. How long would it take me to learn how to control my powers that way? I’d tried to figure out what I was capable of while Calliope had held me captive, but without someone to teach me, the best I’d managed was controlling my visions. “I want to see Henry.”

“Fair enough.” My mother straightened and set the newly repaired frame back on her nightstand. And it was her nightstand; I was sure about that now. This was her suite. This was her home.

This was Olympus.

“Do you mind taking a side trip with me before we go see him?” said my mother, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.

“What? Why?” I blurted. “I want to see Henry, Mom. He was in my vision, and he held Milo and got him to eat and everything.”

Her brow furrowed, but instead of telling me I was crazy or that it was my imagination, she said gently, “We can talk about it later, sweetheart. Walter’s called an emergency council meeting, and I was just on my way to fetch you.”

To fetch me? What could I possibly help the council with? I’d only been immortal for a year and a half. That was nothing compared to the rest of the council, some of whom were older than the dawn of humanity. Like my mother. Like Henry. Like each of the original six siblings—five now that Calliope had abandoned them. Four now that Henry was lost in a world between the living and the dead. “What happened?”

My mother hesitated, and taking my good arm, she guided me to the door. “I don’t want to worry you, but...”

“But what?” My insides seized. Had the worst happened? Were Henry or Milo dead? “Mom—but what?”

Her eyes flickered shut. “It’s Cronus,” she said, her voice cracking. “He’s declared war.”

Chapter 4

The Council Divided

Only half the council showed.

Irene, my tutor during my time in Eden, wept while Sofia, my mother’s home care nurse and another of the original six, tried to comfort her. On the opposite side of the circle, Walter and Phillip, Henry’s brothers, sat with their heads bent together, and they spoke quietly. James and Dylan, Ava’s boyfriend from Eden High, remained silent on their respective thrones.

No one else showed.

“Where is everyone?” I whispered to my mother, though in the endless room, my voice carried.