The Goddess Inheritance

The air grew thick with annoyance. Kate, I swear, if you don’t come back, I will tell Henry you kissed me. And that you said I have a nice ass.

“Henry?” My eyes flew open—my real eyes this time. As it had each time before, the wrench of leaving Milo took my breath away, and fuzzy shapes floated in front of me until I managed to focus.

A sky-blue ceiling and undoubtedly a sunset floor. But unlike the room bathed in golden light, this was different. Smaller, muted, and darker somehow.

Frantically I looked around the room for any sign of Henry, but he wasn’t there. James’s sick idea of a joke then, to pull me away from the only thing that gave me any small measure of comfort now.

“How are you feeling?” My mother hovered beside my bed, applying a compress of something that smelled like honey and tangerines to my arm. Noticing my stare, she smoothed my hair back and offered me a small smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “A compress to stop the pain. You’ll have to wear a sling, but it won’t spread anywhere else for now.”

I shook my head. “Take it off.”

“What?” Her brow knitted. “Sweetheart, this is saving your life—”

“I don’t want it.” I sat up, and my body screamed in protest as I ripped the compress from my arm. It didn’t matter. Henry was dead, and I would never hold my son again. I didn’t want anyone to save my life.

My mother set her hand against my good shoulder, and firmly but gently, she guided me back onto the bed. I didn’t have the strength to fight her. “Too bad. I’m your mother, and whether you like it or not, I’m not going to let you die on my watch.”

I sniffed, staring at the cloudless ceiling. “I can’t do this, Mama.” I hadn’t called her that since the second grade, when the most popular girl in my New York City private school had overheard and proceeded to tease me for the next four years.

“Can’t do what?” She laid the compress on my arm again, and though it hurt like hell, the pain didn’t spread.

“I had a baby,” I whispered. Did she even know she was a grandmother? Did she know about Calliope’s plot? Or did she think I’d run off with Ava for nine months and forgotten about her?

She hesitated, not meeting my eyes. “I know. I’m so sorry, Kate.”

That was it. Simple acknowledgment. No offer to find him. No promise to take him from Calliope the first chance she got. I swallowed thickly, half an inch away from hysteria. “His name’s Milo. Henry—Henry liked that name.”

“I’m sure he still does.” James’s voice filtered through the haze around me.

“Still does?” My voice cracked, and though my mother held me down, I raised my head. James leaned against the open doorway, his blond hair tousled and his cheeks flushed, as if he’d run a marathon. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t seen him in the sunlight for so long.

“He’s in another room. Theo’s tending to him,” he said. Theo, the member of the council with the ability to heal wounds caused by Titans. Or if not heal, at least make them less painful.

Was it possible? The way Henry’s eyes had stared unseeingly, the lack of heartbeat, of any effort at all to keep his body going—it couldn’t be. “Is Henry alive?”

The moment between my question and James’s answer lasted for an eternity. All at once I needed to hear it, yet I didn’t want to know. I could have clung to the delicious hope James gave me for the rest of my endless life. Henry could always be in the next room over, alive and waiting for me.

“Yes,” he said, and I let out a soft sob. My mother touched my cheek, but I looked past her, focusing on my best friend.

“Can I see him? I need to see him.” Forget lying still. I struggled to sit up again, but for a second time, my mother held me down, more insistent than before.

“You can see him as soon as you’re well enough,” she said, but she glanced at James, and they exchanged a look I didn’t understand.

“What?” My neck strained with the effort of keeping my head upright, but I couldn’t look away. “What’s going on?”

James faltered, and that delicate balloon of hope inside me burst. “He’s unconscious, and there’s a chance he might never wake up.”

I gripped the sheets with my good hand. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive either. Caught between, like my mother had been during the time I’d spent at Eden Manor when the council had tested me. Except Henry was immortal, and he would have no release.

I didn’t know what was worse—death or this.

“Theo stopped the spread, but Henry was stabbed in the chest,” said James. He approached the bed and took my hand, grasping it gently. My fingers twitched. “We don’t know how bad the damage is. Or if Henry will ever recover enough to wake up.”

“Is—is there a cure? A way to fix him?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” said James, and on my other side, my mother dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “We just have to wait.”

My throat constricted. There had to be a way. There always was. If Henry could bring me back from the dead, then I could find a way to do the same for him. “What about Cronus? Couldn’t he do something?”

Dead silence. Seconds ticked by, and without warning, my mother and James started talking at once.

“I can’t possibly allow—”

“Even if he could, do you really think—”

They both stopped and stared at each other, and finally my mother went first.

“You are not going back there, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s a miracle Henry got you out in the first place, and he risked everything for you. He wouldn’t want you to walk back into that. You know he wouldn’t.”

If it was just me, then my mother would have been right. However, it wasn’t just about me anymore. It was about Milo, too. I might’ve been powerless to rescue our son, but if Henry could save me, then he could save him, as well. And if there was a way I could help Henry—if there was a way I could give Milo the father he deserved, then I had to try.

“Can Cronus help Henry?” I said again in as steady a voice as I could muster.

James leaned in closer, clasping my hand in his. “Yes,” he admitted. “He could. But even if you did go back to Cronus, he wouldn’t undo the damage he’s already done to Henry. You know he wouldn’t.”

“Right,” I whispered. James was wrong, though. If Cronus had enough incentive, he might. And I wasn’t going to give up just because they insisted there was no point in trying. Even if it meant marching straight up to Cronus and giving him everything, I would really do it if it meant Henry might live.

* * *

While bedridden, I planned.

Every word I’d say, every argument I’d use, everything I’d offer Cronus to make him save Henry. Layer after layer of blueprints that would give Henry his life back and our son a father. Whatever it took.

I spent my hours with Milo, watching him sleep, watching as Ava changed him, watching as Calliope attempted to coax him to eat from a bottle. To my immense satisfaction, he refused.

“You must eat,” said Calliope sternly as she offered yet another warm bottle to my son. He turned his head away, his face scrunched up and bright red from crying, and she narrowed her eyes. “Callum, you must.”

Callum after herself, undoubtedly. He was Milo, not Callum, and no matter how long he stayed with that bitch, he would never be hers.

However, as the hours turned into one day, then two, my worry surpassed my hatred for Calliope. Milo wasn’t eating. He fussed in his sleep, and when he was awake, his eyes constantly leaked with tears. He was miserable.

I didn’t know what to do. Was there anything at all, other than storming the palace and demanding Calliope give him back to me? It wouldn’t work anyway. I could have the entire council backing me up, but without Henry, it would be nothing more than an exercise in defeat. Cronus would keep me, Calliope would hide my son away, and he would only grow weaker.

“Come on, Milo,” I whispered as I leaned over his crib. For the umpteenth time, I tried to touch him, but once again my fingers passed through his cheek. “I’m sorry I’m not here. If I had any choice...” My voice caught in my throat. “I know Calliope’s horrible, but you need to eat. You need to be healthy and strong for when I finally get to be with you again.”

At last he opened his blue eyes, and in that moment, I swore he saw me.

“There you are.” I gave him a watery smile. “You’re beautiful, you know. You put Adonis to shame.”