by Aimee Carter
He grinned, showing off a full set of pearly teeth. Cronus had the smile of an airbrushed movie star, and it only made him more unnerving. “Is that so? Very well. Agree and I will leave humanity alone. My quarrels are not with them, and one must have subjects when one rules.”
“I said anyone,” I countered. “Not just humanity. You can’t kill the council either.”
Cronus eyed me, and I held my breath, hoping against hope I was worth this to him. I had to buy the council more time. “Surely you understand why my children must be contained, but I would be willing to...consider it, depending on the nature of our relationship. On how much you are willing to give.” He ran his fingers through my hair, and I suppressed a shudder. “You and I, together for all eternity. Imagine, my dear, the beauty we would create. And of course your child will know your love, and you will never have to say goodbye.”
I closed my eyes and pictured the moment I finally got to hold him or her. The baby would have dark hair, I was sure of it, and light eyes like me and Henry. Pink cheeks, ten fingers, ten toes, and I would love it instantly. I already did.
“You would be a mother,” he murmured, his voice like a siren’s call. “Forever there to love it, to nurture it, to raise it in your image. And I would be a father.”
The spell he had over me shattered, and my eyes flew open. “You are not this baby’s father,” I said as another wave of pain washed over me. This was too fast. Contractions were supposed to come on slow and last for hours—my mother had been in labor for over a day when I was born.
Cronus leaned in until his lips were an inch from mine. I wrinkled my nose even though his breath smelled like a cool autumn breeze. “No, I am not. I am so much more.”
The door burst open, and Calliope stormed inside. She had aged progressively over the past nine months until the angles on her face had become sharper, and she’d grown several inches to tower over me. As Cronus looked like Henry, with his long dark hair and gray eyes that crackled with lightning and fog, Calliope now looked like my mother. Like an older blond version of me. And I hated her even more for it.
“What’s going on?” she said, and I managed a faint smirk. Apparently she’d overheard something she didn’t like.
“Nothing for you to worry yourself about,” said Cronus as he straightened, though his eyes didn’t leave mine.
“Cronus was making me an interesting offer,” I said, sounding braver than I felt. “Turns out he isn’t going to feed me to the fish like you want.”
Her lips twisted into a snarl, but before she could say a word, Ava hurried past her carrying a large basket full of blankets and other things I couldn’t make out in the candlelight. “I’m sorry,” she said, her face flushed.
“It’s about time,” snapped Calliope, and she focused on me again. “I’d be careful if I were you, Kate. I have a new toy, and I’ve been itching to try it out on you.”
“What new toy?” I said through gritted teeth.
Calliope glided to the side of my bed. “Haven’t I told you? Nicholas generously donated his time and expertise to forge a weapon that will let me kill a god. His timing couldn’t be better.”
My blood ran cold. Nicholas, Ava’s husband, had been kidnapped on the winter solstice during battle. Up until now, no one had said a word to me about him.
“That’s impossible,” I blurted. Nothing but Cronus could kill an immortal.
“Is it?” said Calliope with a wicked smile. “Are you willing to bet your sweet little darling’s life on that?”
My heart dropped. She was going to kill my baby? “Ava?” I said, my tongue heavy in my mouth.
Biting her lip, Ava set her basket down at the foot of the bed. “I’m sorry.”
The room spun around me. This was just another game. Calliope was trying to scare me by using the people I loved most against me, and this time my supposed best friend was playing along.
What if it wasn’t a game, though? Calliope had sworn she would take away the thing I loved the most, and at the time I thought she’d meant Henry and the rest of my family. But she’d meant the baby. She was about to get everything she wanted from me—there was no reason for her to lie. And the way Ava couldn’t so much as look at me...
My throat swelled until I could barely breathe. “Get out.”
Ava blinked. “But someone needs to be with you—”
“I’d rather have Calliope here than you, you traitorous bitch,” I spat. “Get out.”
Her eyes watered, and to my satisfaction, she fled, leaving me alone with Cronus and Calliope. Ava deserved this. She’d known what this would mean, that Calliope had every intention of slaughtering my baby. And if Calliope really had forced Nicholas to forge a weapon—if Ava had distracted the council for the past nine months to give him enough time—
I didn’t care how much danger Nicholas was in. He was Calliope’s son, and no matter how terrible a person she was, I couldn’t imagine her killing her own child. But she was going to kill my baby without a second thought, and Ava had known the entire time.
Even if our positions had been reversed, even if Henry was the one Calliope held hostage, I would have never, ever done this to Ava. I would have never betrayed her and allowed Calliope to kill her child.
“That wasn’t very nice,” said Calliope in a singsong voice, and my stomach churned. She couldn’t kill the baby. I wouldn’t let her.
“I need to pee,” I said, pushing myself up.
Calliope made a vague gesture and busied herself with unpacking the basket. Cronus offered me his hand, but I brushed it off.
“I think I can make it to the bathroom on my own,” I said.
Crossing the room hadn’t been easy since August, and my body strained with each step I took, but I made it. My prison wasn’t exactly plush, although it wasn’t a concrete cell with a thin mattress and grungy toilet either. It was a simple bedroom with a bathroom attached, and it was several stories up, making a window escape impossible. I might’ve been immortal, but I didn’t have a clue whether or not the baby was. And if Calliope really did have a weapon that could kill a god, it didn’t matter anyway.
I’d tried to get away several times when I’d still been mobile enough to have a chance, but between Cronus, Calliope and Ava, someone had always been there to stop me. I’d made it as far as the beach once, but I couldn’t swim and they knew it. The council may have intended this island to be Cronus’s prison, but it was mine now, too.
Closing the door behind me, I eased down onto the edge of the bathtub and cradled my head in my hands. Frustration rose inside me, threatening to spill out in a great sob, but I swallowed it. I needed a moment, and crying would only make Calliope come in after me.
“Henry.” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to picture him. “Please. Help us.”
At last I sank into my vision. After nearly a year in this hellhole, I’d learned how to control them, but I still struggled to make it far enough to see him. Three golden walls formed around me, and the fourth became a long pane of windows much like the room in Henry’s palace. But instead of black rock, I saw endless blue sky through the glass, and sunlight poured in, illuminating everything.
“You did this.” The sound of Henry’s voice caught my attention, and I turned. He had Walter by the lapels, and his eyes burned with anger and power I’d never seen before.
“It had to be done,” said Walter unsteadily. Even he looked afraid. “We need you, brother, and if this is what it takes to get you to see that—”
Henry threw Walter against the wall so hard that it fractured, leaving a web of cracks behind. “I will see you pay for this if it is the last thing I do,” he growled.
“Enough.” My mother’s voice rang out, and both brothers turned toward her. She looked pale, and she folded her hands in front of her the way she did when she was trying to keep herself under control. “We will rescue Kate. There is still time, and the more we waste—”
“We cannot risk our efforts for the life of one,�
�� said Walter.
“Then I will,” snarled Henry.
Walter shook his head. “It is far too dangerous for you to go alone.”
“He won’t be alone,” said my mother. “And if you value your hold over the council—”
The muscles in my back and belly contracted, and the pain pulled me from my vision. Back in the bathroom, I let out a soft sob. My mother was wrong—we were out of time. The baby was coming no matter how hard I tried to wait. Calliope would kill it, and there was no one here to stop her. Whether or not anyone came, there was no way out of this. Even if Henry and my mother did attack the island, there was no guarantee they would break through Cronus’s defenses, and by then it would be too late anyway.
The baby nudged me from the inside, and I forced myself to pull it together. I had to do this. I couldn’t break down. The baby’s life depended on it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, gently pressing against the spot where it had kicked me. “I love you, okay? I’m not going to stop fighting until you’re safe, I promise.”
Someone rapped on the door, and I jumped. “Don’t think you’re going to give birth in the bathtub,” said Calliope. “You’re not having that baby until I say you are.”
“Just a minute,” I called, and I stood long enough to turn on the faucet and drown out my whispers in case she was eavesdropping. It wouldn’t do much good, but the illusion of privacy would have to be enough for now.
Easing back down onto the edge of the bathtub, I rubbed my belly. “Your dad’s really great, and you’ll get to see him soon, okay? He’s not going to let Calliope do this to you either, and he’s way more powerful than me. The whole family is. Today is probably going to be scary, and it’ll hurt—well, it’ll hurt me, I won’t let them hurt you—but in the end, it’ll be okay. I promise.”
It wasn’t an empty promise. Even if I had to die in the process, Calliope would not touch my baby. No matter what it took, I would make sure of it.
* * *
Labor progressed so quickly that I barely made it out of the bathroom. Calliope gave me nothing to help, no medication or words of encouragement, and though Cronus remained by my side, he said nothing as my contractions grew closer and closer together. They had to know the others were coming. There was no other reason to force the baby out like this, and I couldn’t imagine Calliope giving up the chance to make me hurt as long as possible, not unless it was dire.
I refused to scream. Even in the final moments of labor, as the baby ripped through my body, I clenched my jaw and pushed through the pain. Since I’d become immortal, the only thing that had hurt me was Cronus, and apparently giving birth was another exception. My body was doing this to itself, and immortality wasn’t going to stop it.
The moment the baby left me, I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my chest and now rested in Calliope’s arms. She straightened, and a lump formed in my throat as I saw the wrinkled, bloody infant she held. “It’s a boy,” she said, and she smiled. “Perfect.”
Somehow, despite the words I’d whispered to him, the hours I’d spent feeling him kick, and the months I’d carried him, he had never felt completely real. But now—
That was my son.
That was my son, and Calliope was going to kill him.
She didn’t need any tools to cut the cord or finish the rest of the messy birth; in the blink of an eye, everything was clean, and the baby was wrapped in a white blanket. As if she’d done it a thousand times before, she cradled him and stood, leaving me alone on the bed.
“Wait,” I said in a choked voice. I was exhausted and drenched in sweat, and despite the pain, I struggled to get up. “You can’t—please, I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt my son.”
His wails, so tiny and helpless, filled the room, and my heart crumbled. Every bone in my body demanded that I stand, that I go to him and save him from the pain that awaited him, but I couldn’t move. The harder I struggled, the more I froze, and the more my body ached.
Calliope looked at me, her eyes bright and full of malice. She was enjoying this. She was reveling in my pain. “That’s not for you to decide, dear Kate.”
At the edge of my vision, I saw Cronus shift. “You will not hurt the child,” he said, his voice low and full of thunder. “That is not a request.”
Her eyes narrowed. She was going to challenge him. Use my son to prove her dominance—that she was the one in control. But she wasn’t, and she knew it. And for the first time since I’d heard of the King of the Titans, I was grateful for him.
“Fine,” she said in an annoyed voice, as if she were only letting him win because she wanted to. We both knew the truth. “I won’t kill him.”
Relief swept through me like a drug, and I released the breath I’d been holding. Because of Cronus, he would live. “Please, can I—can I hold my son?”
“Your son?” Her arms tightened around the baby, and a mockery of a smile curled across her lips. “You must be mistaken. The only child in this room belongs to me.”
Without another word, she walked through the door in a cloud of victory, leaving me empty and utterly alone.
She wouldn’t take his life—that meant there was still time. But how long would it take before she got tired of obeying Cronus and killed the baby just to watch me bleed?
I had to get to him. I had to save him. Even if Calliope didn’t touch a hair on his head, the thought of him being raised by that monster, twisted into something black and beyond recognition—if my time in the Underworld had taught me anything, that kind of life was infinitely worse than the peace of death.
Desperation clawed at me, tearing me up from the inside out, and I slowly turned toward Cronus.
His queen. My life, my choices, my freedom for my son’s.
“Please,” I said, hiccupping. “I’ll do anything.”
He brushed his cold fingers against my tearstained cheek, and this time I didn’t move away. “Anything?”
The words were like knives on my tongue, but I said them anyway. “Anything,” I whispered. “Save him and—and I’m yours.”
Cronus leaned toward me, stopping when his lips were only inches from mine. “As you wish, my queen.”
Fire spread through my body, burning heat replacing the aches of giving birth as Cronus healed me. It was worth it. Henry would understand, and somehow, someway, I would unite him with the baby.
Dizzy with hope, I sat up and touched my flat stomach. Somehow Cronus had returned my body to the way it had been before I’d become pregnant, and the missing swell of my belly and chest was disorienting. Why not leave me with the ability to feed the baby? Because he knew it wouldn’t matter? But before I could say a word, the world began to shake.
“What—” I began, gripping the edge of the mattress, but something in the corner caught my attention. The sky through my window was bathed in an unnatural golden light, and around us the entire island quaked violently.
“I will return, my dear, and then we shall be together,” said Cronus. He pressed his cold lips to my cheek, and in an instant he was gone, but I didn’t care.
In the distance, a black cloud approached, sizzling with lightning. Though Cronus himself couldn’t escape the island, it passed through the barrier the council had created as if it were nothing, and I spotted the silhouette of a man on top of it. Hope swelled within me, and I didn’t have to see his face to know who the dark figure was.
Henry.
Chapter 2
Blood and Stone
For nine months, I’d dreamed of this moment. In my visions I’d watched Henry go about his day-to-day duties, oblivious to what was happening as he waited for me to come home, and I’d wished with every fiber of my being for him to realize something was wrong and come storming through the doors of my prison. I’d wanted it so badly that I’d ached with the need to leave the island, to leave Calliope and Cronus and all of my greatest fears behind.
Now I might finally have the chance, and I couldn’t go. No matter what was wai
ting out there for me—Henry, my mother, a family, a war to win—I couldn’t leave my son.
Henry flew toward the palace, and I searched the skies behind him for the other members of the council. Nothing but that unnatural gold. My chest tightened. He couldn’t be alone. He wasn’t that careless. He didn’t have the power to hold off Cronus in the Underworld, let alone outside his realm.
Where was my mother? Even if the others had no interest in helping me, surely she would have come to protect Henry. Had he insisted she not, that it was too dangerous?
When he was close enough for me to see the rage on his face, it hit me. He was alone.
We were alone.
I expected him to turn the outside wall to rubble, but instead he flew over my room toward another part of the castle, as if he didn’t know I was there. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Calliope was trying to lure him away and—
The weapon.
Oh, god.
“Henry!” I screamed. “Henry!”
“Kate,” said a voice from the hallway. “Kate, it’s me.”
I hurried to the door, crouching down beside it to peer through the keyhole. “Henry? Is that—”
A blue eye with long lashes stared back at me, and my heart sank. Ava.
“Move away from the door,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. What was she so afraid of? Henry storming down the hall and blasting her to pieces? If only I were so lucky.
“Why should I trust you?” I said. “You knew Calliope was going to kill my son, and you did everything you could to make that happen.”
She blinked rapidly, and her eyes turned red and watery. Once upon a time I’d thought Ava had been one of the few who looked pretty when she cried, but now all I could see was the ugliness underneath.
For months I’d learned about the antics of the Greek gods, the history that was the foundation of their mythology. Not all of it was right—so much of it had been twisted and corrupted throughout history as mortals passed the stories down. And because of that, I’d wanted to believe that the gods were basically good. That they really were looking out for humankind, that their lives hadn’t been full of mischief and betrayal and selfishness.