The Goddess Inheritance

White-hot pain ripped through me, burning everything in its path, infinitely worse than the brush of fog against my leg during my botched coronation ceremony nearly a year before. This was inside me, fusing together with my very being, choking it until only a few pitiful gasps remained.

I was dying. Two more seconds, and I’d be—

A black blur slammed into her. As the weight of Calliope’s body disappeared, the choke hold vanished. Agony burned inside me, leaving me breathless, and fire replaced the ice of the blade as I bled freely. What was happening?

I opened my eyes, half expecting to see wherever gods went when they died, but instead all I saw was Calliope’s maniacal grin as she lay on the floor beside me.

No, that wasn’t all. Henry hovered above her, pressed oddly against her body at an angle I didn’t understand. His eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and his hands clutched something against his ribs.

“I win,” whispered Calliope. And as she pulled the bloody dagger from Henry’s chest, I finally understood.

Chapter 3

The Darkest Hour

For four years, I’d stayed by my mother’s bedside and watched her fade away. Her once strong and healthy body had withered into a poor imitation of the woman I remembered, and not an hour had passed without me imagining what it would be like the day death claimed her.

I’d lived in constant fear of waking up and finding her gone, a shell where my mother had once been. I would watch the clock flip over to midnight and wonder if that was the date I would mourn each year for the rest of my life.

I knew what it was like to lose. I knew what it was like to fight the inevitable.

But none of that had prepared me for watching Henry die.

Blood spurted from the wound in his chest. He fell to his knees, one hand clutching his rib cage, the other reaching for me. I’d never seen such real terror in his eyes. Gods weren’t supposed to die. Not unless they wanted to.

I reached for him with my good arm as the life drained from him. Was the blade strong enough to kill me, too? Once it was over, would we be together on the other side, wherever that might lead?

Was there even another side for the Lord of the Dead?

The moment our fingers met, my body lurched. It was a familiar feeling—much more jolting than I’d ever experienced before, but the instant it happened, I knew. We were going home.

One second, I was only feet away from Milo as he cried. The next I lay in a heap with Henry, and silence surrounded us. We weren’t in Calliope’s palace anymore. We weren’t even on the island. But we weren’t in the Underworld either, or at least any part of it I’d ever seen.

Instead we were in the middle of a massive room devoid of anything but a sky-blue ceiling and sunset floor. The golden walls seemed to stretch out forever, and with the sun in the middle of the ceiling as if it were a real sky, everything glittered with light. It should’ve taken my breath away.

But Milo was gone. Wherever we were, I knew instinctively he wouldn’t be joining us, and unspeakable pain spread like acid inside me. I would have gladly been stabbed a thousand times over rather than feel this for even a moment.

There was nothing I could do, though. My mother was on the island with him, along with James and the rest of the council, and that would have to be enough. The only person I had a prayer of helping now had me pinned to the sunset floor.

“Henry.” Even though the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, I had no choice but to roll him gently off me. Blood soaked through his shirt, and I pressed my hands against his chest in an attempt to stop the flow, but it was useless. After everything we’d gone through together, after everything he’d done to protect me, I couldn’t do a damn thing to save him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

“Kate?” His voice was thick and hoarse, as if he were ill, but he wasn’t. He was dying. “Are you—are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I lied, and my voice broke. “Don’t sit up. You’re losing too much blood.” How much did gods have in them? The same as mortals? How much could they live without?

“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I thought— Ava said—”

“It’s not your fault.” I shakily brushed my mouth against his. He tasted like rain. “None of this is your fault. I should’ve never trusted her. I should’ve never left you. I’m sorry.”

He kissed me back weakly. “Was that—was that baby...”

A lump formed in my throat. “Yeah. He’s your son.” I managed a watery smile. At least Henry knew. “I named him Milo. We can call him something different if you’d like.”

“No.” He coughed, and a few droplets of blood stained his lips. “It’s perfect. So are you.”

I leaned against his chest, putting as much weight on the wound as possible. I refused to say goodbye like this. Not to Henry, not to our life together, none of it. I wasn’t ready, and Milo deserved to have a father. I hadn’t had one growing up, and like hell would I let him experience that same emptiness and uncertainty. He deserved more than that. He deserved to have a family.

My arm bled freely, and within moments the room began to spin. Henry’s moonlit eyes remained open, and he smiled. “Never thought I’d have a son.” His voice trembled. “Never thought I’d have you.”

I gritted my teeth against the dizziness, my body growing weaker by the second. “You’re going to have me for a hell of a lot longer than this.” My vision blurred, and I struggled to look around us. Where was everyone? Why couldn’t they feel the life drain from Henry the way I could?

Because it wasn’t his life I felt draining away. It was mine.

“Kate? Henry?”

My mother’s voice washed over me, and I let out an exhausted sob. “Mom?”

She knelt beside me, radiating warmth and the scent of apples and freesia. “Let go, sweetheart,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.”

I couldn’t force my hands from Henry, though. He was cold now, his eyes wide and unblinking, and his chest was still. Gods didn’t need to breathe, but Henry always had. His heart had always beaten, but now I saw no hint of a pulse.

He was dead.

I didn’t remember the others appearing. One moment my mother held me against her chest, her hand wrapped around my bleeding arm as I screamed and cried and disappeared into myself. The next, Walter hovered over us, and Theo knelt beside Henry’s body, his lips moving at a furious pace.

“Get her out of here,” said Walter, his booming voice distant as I cowered in a dark corner in the recesses of my mind. Gentle hands lifted me, and I thought I heard James’s voice murmuring words of comfort I didn’t understand, but outwardly I thrashed and shrieked. I couldn’t leave Henry. If I left him, I would never see him again, and then he really would be gone.

He couldn’t be, though. He just couldn’t be.

Another pair of hands joined us, but I was so completely submerged into myself that I might as well have closed my eyes and disappeared in the dark. In here, nothing could touch me. In here, Henry was everywhere. In here, it was winter again, and we curled up together underneath the down comforter in the Underworld as the hours passed by. His chest was warm under my palm, and his heart beat against my fingers, steady and eternal. In here, no one died.

A whimper caught my attention, and I opened my eyes again. The golden room was gone, replaced by the sunset nursery in Calliope’s palace, and my heart sank. There, lying in the cradle, was Milo. My mother hadn’t saved him, after all.

I stood beside him, pretending I could touch him and rock him to sleep. Pretending that it wasn’t just a matter of time before the Titan fire in my veins consumed me and Milo would be orphaned. I had never known my father, but I treasured the time I’d spent with my mother. Milo would never have that either. The only time we would have together were those few seconds before Calliope had killed his father, and he would never remember them.

No, we had now. Even if he didn’t know I was with him, I could be there. I would be. Settling in beside his cradle, I watched him unblinkingly, soaking in every second.

And I waited for the inevitable to come.

* * *

Kate.

James’s voice floated toward me and wound its way through what was left of my heart. I blinked. How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? No, Calliope might have been a monster, but she wouldn’t have left Milo alone for that long. He slept soundly in the cradle, his little chest rising and falling. I took comfort in each breath.

Come back, Kate.

His words were a whisper against my ear, but I stayed put. There was nothing left for me in reality. My mother had lived for eons before I’d been born; she could do without me once more. She would have to.