The Goddess Inheritance

by Aimee Carter

This time when I faded from Nicholas’s torture chamber, I didn’t reappear in Olympus. Instead, when I opened my eyes, I was in Milo’s nursery again.

  Cronus stood in a dark corner, as if he were waiting for me. If I hadn’t been sure of some sort of connection between us before, I was now. He was keeping tabs on me. Watching me the way only a Titan could.

  “You bastard.” I shoved him as hard as I could, but of course it didn’t do any good.

  He peered down at me, his chin raised and eyes narrowed. “What have I done to deserve such harsh words? Have I not offered you everything, yet endured your lies again and again?”

  I gritted my teeth. “You’re going after my home.”

  “Your home is in the Underworld, and I assure you I have no intention of removing you from my path the way I will with the rest of the council. You will have eternity to remain there with the billions of souls who will die at my hand. Perhaps if you behave, I will allow you to join me on the surface for a time. Much like the arrangement you currently have with your very much alive husband.”

  Cold horror settled over me. “Why are you doing this? I came to you. I was going to hold up my end of the bargain. I didn’t know—”

  “You didn’t know what?” said Cronus with that dangerous neutrality that was infinitely more frightening than anger. “That your dear Henry was alive?”

  “I didn’t know he followed me,” I said. “I didn’t know he had a plan. I’m sorry.”

  Cronus tilted his head. “No, you are not. You are sorry you have lost that which you thought you could keep hidden. You are sorry you were not the one who was allowed to sacrifice yourself for your loved ones. You are sorry you will be forced to remain alive after I have torn apart everyone you have ever cared about. You are sorry that you have lost your son. But you are not sorry you lied.”

  An invisible weight rested on my chest. “You’re right,” I said shakily. “I’m not sorry about lying. But I am sorry all of those people are going to die. And if you hadn’t pushed it to this point, I would’ve been sorry for hurting you, too.”

  Cronus touched my cheek with the ghost of affection. “I thought you were different, Kate Winters. I thought you understood.”

  “I do. More than you’ve ever understood me.” A lump formed in my throat, but no tears came. Begging and pleading wouldn’t do me any good, but there had to be a way to fix this somehow. To make him understand. “You don’t deserve this kind of pain, but then again, neither do I. Neither does the council. And neither do the billions of lives you’re going to destroy. The only difference between us and humans is death. Even now, with you here, there is no difference. Can you imagine it? An ending? A moment when you cease to exist? And the people who love you, what they would go through—”

  “Enough,” he said. I searched his face for some flicker of emotion, but I found none. “I have made my decision. I will not show you mercy when you have shown me none. The war will continue, and I will not surrender or agree to a truce. I have tried to extend the hand of peace to the council, and they spit in my face. I confided in the one person I believed understood me, and you turned out to be the greatest liar of them all. We have nothing more to discuss.”

  Before I could protest, Cronus disappeared, and my hands touched nothing but air. He was gone, along with any hope I had of preserving my family.

  I stared blankly into the empty space. As soon as Cronus escaped on the solstice, this would cease to be a war. It would be a bloodbath.

  There had to be something I wasn’t seeing, something I could do to get him to change his mind. But what could I give him now that he didn’t trust me? What words could I possibly say to fix this?

  A soft gurgle caught my attention, and I turned in time to see Henry wander into the nursery with Milo in his arms. He’d certainly taken his time getting up here. Had he detoured? He must have. I silently prayed it wasn’t to see Calliope.

  “Here we go,” said Henry gently. “You’re safe here.”

  He walked past me so slowly that he seemed to be moving through molasses. No wonder he’d taken so long. A turtle could have outpaced him. Upon spotting me, Milo waved his arms, and I managed a tearful grin.

  “Hi, baby. Having fun with your daddy?”

  He gurgled, and Henry smiled. “I wish I could stay here, too, but I will be back before the moon disappears from your window. In the meantime, I am sure your aunt Ava will be here soon to keep you company.”

  With a wave of his hand, the cradle moved a few inches, presumably into a position where Milo could see the moon. A sob caught in my throat.

  Henry pressed his lips to the baby’s forehead for a long moment before straightening. “Be good,” he murmured, and he looked straight at me. “Your mother and I love you.”

  I froze. Did he know? Was it a coincidence? Another trick of Cronus’s?

  And I love you. Though his lips hadn’t moved, his voice whispered through my mind, and I held my breath. Just like Milo, he knew I was there. Ava hadn’t lied; she hadn’t taken that love away from him.

  I know what you’re doing. I pushed the words toward him, and he turned away to stare into Milo’s cradle. And I hope you can fight what Ava’s making you feel, because once this is over, I’m never letting you go again.

  It might’ve been my imagination, but I could’ve sworn he smiled.

  This will end, and we will be together again. My thoughts were firm and unyielding now. Just stay with me. Don’t let Calliope convince you that you’re someone you’re not, and everything will be okay. I’ll make sure of it.

  Without so much as a glance my way, Henry walked toward the nursery door. But as he moved by me, his hand passed through mine, and this time I knew it was no accident. So will I.

  * * *

  When I returned to Olympus, the council was waiting for me. Everyone looked exhausted and well past their breaking points, with dark smudges under their eyes and pale skin that seemed to stretch too tightly over their faces.

  “Kate,” said Walter. Even he looked spent. “Do you have news?”

  Now they wanted to hear what I had to say? I bit back a sharp reply. They’d gone through enough that evening without having to deal with my inflated sense of injustice, as well. “Calliope really is torturing Nicholas to keep Ava in line. She has a room full of weapons I think he made—some of them look like test weapons before she finally settled on the dagger, and enough of them are infused with Cronus’s powers that if we can get close enough, maybe there’s a chance we could use them and—”

  Walter raised a weary hand, and for once I fell silent. “If we are fortunate enough to get that far past Cronus’s defenses, it means we will have already won.” The note of inevitability he’d always used whenever he spoke of winning the war had disappeared.

  “What happened during the battle today?” I said, and half a dozen of them looked away.

  “Cronus was more...focused than usual,” said my mother. “We were lucky no one was injured.”

  “He’s fighting harder because of me,” I said, and across the circle, Dylan scoffed.

  “Always because of you, isn’t it? Couldn’t possibly be because he’s getting stronger the closer we get to the winter solstice, could it?”

  “Maybe,” I allowed. “But I don’t think it’s a coincidence this happened the day after he found out I’ve been lying to him about Henry.”

  Dylan scowled, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “How is Henry?” said Sofia. “Did you see him?”

  I nodded. What would they do if they knew Calliope had somehow convinced Henry to fight for her? Would they treat him like the enemy, too? He might still love me, but love wasn’t enough to convince the council that he wouldn’t fight against them if Calliope ordered him to.

  “He’s fighting her,” I said. A half truth at best and a full-out lie at worst. “There’s only so much he can do without giving himself away, but he’s still in there.”

  “Good,” said Sofia, settling back i
n her throne. “She doesn’t know him like she knows the rest of us. Gives her less of a chance to exploit his weaknesses and use them against him.”

  That was exactly what she was doing, though. She knew his weaknesses—she knew he would do anything to protect me and Milo. Maybe she’d even asked Ava not to take his love for me away from him so he would remember why he was doing this. Or maybe she’d done it just so he could feel that heartbreak when he kissed her and remembered who he was really supposed to love.

  Sadistic bitch.

  “What did Ava want to discuss?” said Walter.

  “She wanted to apologize again and try to explain.” It was the truth, for the most part. “She told me that Cronus is going to attack New York City once he’s escaped.”

  A murmur rippled through the remaining members of the council, and James said to Dylan, “Need any more proof that he’s doing this because of Kate?”

  “Shut it,” muttered Dylan, and James gave him a satisfied smirk. He might’ve liked rubbing his brother’s nose in it, but I would’ve given damn near anything for Dylan to be right.

  “Very well, we will prepare for that outcome then,” said Walter, and I blinked.

  “What if Ava was lying to me?” I said, and Walter shrugged tiredly.

  “Then we are doomed.” He stood on trembling legs. “Go rest and recuperate. We will not attack tomorrow or any other day until the winter solstice.”

  Dylan rose with what he must’ve intended to be indignation, but he looked more like an old man rising from an armchair that was too short for his legs. “We’re giving up?”

  “We are saving our energy and strategizing,” corrected Walter. “We have exhausted our means as they are, with Cronus using the shields on the island against us. Now we must plan a different approach.” He nodded to me. “Kate, I would like you to join us.”

  “Me?” I said, stunned, and my mother patted my hand. “I don’t know the first thing about planning a war.”

  “But you have spent the most time in Cronus’s presence since his escape, and we can no longer ignore the validity of your claims,” he said. “You will collect what information you can during the day, and the council will gather each evening to receive it. Unless anyone has any other ideas,” he said, looking squarely at Dylan.

  Dylan shrugged and said nothing.

  “Very well. Council dismissed,” said Walter, and with enormous effort that showed in every step he took, he headed toward a corridor I’d never been down.

  The other members of the council filtered out of the throne room until only James, my mother and I remained. Despite looking half a second away from passing out, James crossed the circle toward us, wearing an exhausted smile.

  “Seems you finally got your in,” he said, slinging his arm around my shoulders. “Now’s your chance to prove yourself.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

  My mother stroked my knuckles with her thumb. “You’ll figure it out. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you’ll come up with something.”

  As comforting as her reassurance should’ve been, she was forgetting one thing. Cronus could see me, and now that he didn’t trust me, I didn’t stand a chance in hell at getting any more information out of him.

  * * *

  Every day for the last three weeks of October, I dove into my visions with the hope of finding even the smallest of clues that could help with the council’s defense. My efforts were mostly wasted, though. Calliope spent most of her time alone, staring at a holographic image of the island, and whatever strategizing she and Cronus did was a mystery to me. They were rarely in the same room together, and whenever Cronus did appear somewhere near Calliope, she was quick to find an excuse to leave.

  At first I thought she was angry, with the short way she spoke to him. The more I saw them together, however, the more I noticed other things. The way her posture slipped when he was near. The way her voice and focus wavered. She wasn’t angry. She was terrified of him.

  I didn’t blame her. Without anyone to curb his ambition and determination, Cronus grew more powerful every day until not even his human form seemed able to hold it. He crackled around the edges, and everywhere he stepped, he left black footprints in his wake. Though he saw me, he never acknowledged me. I preferred it that way.

  I reported back to the council every evening until finally Dylan said exactly what I’d feared. “He’s growing more powerful than we ever expected. Our barriers won’t hold until the solstice.”

  No one in the council questioned him. They all knew we were running out of time, and without more information, they were stumbling around blind. They’d guessed the routes Cronus would take to New York, the ways he might hammer destruction onto the city that had raised me. They had a plan for each.

  They were woefully outnumbered though, and nothing Ella and Theo said to the minor gods they chased across the world brought reinforcements. James often joined them, helping them find the ones hiding from Walter’s wrath, leaving me alone with my mother and a handful of gods stretched to the limit. I kept to myself, and soon my visions weren’t just spy missions. They were another way to avoid the council, as well.

  No matter how often I saw Henry in Calliope’s palace, he never again revealed he knew I was there. The more time that passed, the more I doubted that moment in the nursery; and the more time Henry spent with Calliope, the more he seemed to sink into her spell. Any hint of his defiance was gone. He did whatever she said, but Milo was always with him, and I clung to that with everything I had. He was in there somewhere, and though it would be a battle for him to break free when the time came, he stood a chance.

  In the beginning of November, as Henry rocked Milo to sleep for an afternoon nap, Calliope hurried into the nursery. “Something’s wrong with Cronus.”

  Instead of putting Milo in the cradle, Henry gathered him up and followed Calliope. I hurried after them, and through the windows I saw a storm brewing over the island. Black clouds swirled amid the warm ocean air, blotting out the blue sky, and thunder rolled across the sea, a warning of the danger to come.

  Calliope ran up the steps and through a weathered door that opened onto the roof. Henry held Milo close against the strong winds, but despite Milo’s cries, he didn’t go back inside.

  The moment I spotted Cronus in the middle of the roof, I understood. This storm wasn’t natural. His form could no longer hold him, and Cronus was now nothing more than a glowing orb of power.

  Crackling with more lightning than anything natural could ever produce, Cronus’s opaque fog swirled in the eye of the storm, with a black funnel expanding upward into the sky. A warning. A message. A command.

  Come and fight.

  I instinctively reached for Henry. Instead of mirroring the fear Calliope wore so openly, his mouth was set in a grim line, and determination furrowed his brow. Whatever was coming, he was ready for it.

  “Go,” he said, and he turned to look me straight in the eye. I love you. Warn the others it has begun.

  I opened and shut my mouth twice. What about you and Milo?

  I’ll make sure he’s safe. Just go.

  Through the howling wind, I reached for him, my fingertips half an inch from his cheek. I love you, too. Don’t forget who you are.

  Despite the swirling black mass of death not twenty feet away, Henry managed a smile. I should say the same to you. Be brave and do what you must.

  My eyes burned in the wind, but as I faded from the rooftop, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him. Please don’t do anything stupid.

  Before he could answer, the brewing storm melted away, replaced by my bedroom in Olympus.

  I ran down the hallway, momentarily forgetting my ability to be wherever I had to be whenever I needed to be there. I needed to run. I needed to scream, but I had no voice left for anything other than the words I’d been dreading.

  Bursting into the throne room, I dashed into the center of the circle, ignoring the silence of broken co
nversation. Whatever the council had been discussing, it didn’t matter now.

  “It’s Cronus,” I said breathlessly. “He’s escaping. There’s a storm around the island and—”

  “We already know,” said Dylan, and I shook my head. He didn’t understand.

  “The final battle—it’s begun.”

  Chapter 16

  The Last Hour

  Walter had to shout four times and crack a bolt of lightning before the council came to order. Everyone was on their feet, including my mother, and the energy in the room jolted between nervous and aggressive.

  “We have been preparing for this moment for a year,” said Walter once the din faded. “We may no longer have the allies we relied upon, but we have each other, and together we are strong.”

  No one said a word. Even Dylan couldn’t muster up a battle cry. This would either be the day they finally sent Cronus back to Tartarus, or it would be the day the council fell. By this time tomorrow, I would either have a family or I’d be alone, subject to Cronus’s whims and darkest pleasures.

  I would’ve rather slit my throat with that damn dagger myself.

  “We are prepared. We are together. And we will fight until we win or are no more,” continued Walter. “Take an hour to do whatever you must, and we will meet back here then.”

  One by one, the council filtered out, some in pairs, others by themselves. At a loss, I stayed put. What was I supposed to do? It’d been hard enough watching them all go off to war the last winter solstice, but this time...

  This time, it’d be the greatest battle the world had seen since the first Titan war, and my entire family would be front and center.

  “I want to fight,” I said once the room had emptied of everyone except my mother and James. “You said I could.”

  “Oh, honey.” She pulled me from my seat and into a hug. “You have fought, in ways the rest of us couldn’t. Fighting doesn’t always mean going to battle with a sword and a shield. You’ve done more than enough, and now is the time for you to stay safe. For Milo’s sake.”

  “Milo’s exactly the reason I need to fight. I know I’m not strong enough to give you any real support, but maybe I could distract Cronus or Calliope or—or something. Anything.”