The Goddess Test Boxed Set by Aimee Carter
“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.”
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.
“T
“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 head
No one else showed.
“Where is everyone?” I whispered to my mother, though in the endless room, my voice carried.
“Some have chosen not to join us. We will not begrudge them that.” She sat down and gestured for me to take a seat beside her, in the throne made of white diamond straight from the Underworld. Persephone’s.
I hesitated. I’d sat there a few times in Henry’s palace, but I’d assumed it was there because it was his realm. Was it simply a place for me to sit, or did this mean I was a member of the council now? Despite the honor, the thought of having that kind of responsibility—that kind of control over the lives of others made me sick to my stomach. But if they trusted me enough to make me one of them, then I would do everything I could to help.
“We’re waiting for you, dear,” said my mother, and I forced myself to snap out of it. Perching on the edge of the chair, I cradled my arm to my chest and waited. I knew why Nicholas wasn’t there, of course, since Calliope was holding him hostage. Ava was helping her—to save Nicholas, I realized, but that didn’t make it easier to stomach her betrayal. And Henry...
They all had excuses for not being there, and after Ella had lost her arm the day Cronus escaped from the Underworld, I didn’t blame her for not wanting to be part of it either. But what about Theo? What about Xander? The council without Calliope had argued and been at odds, but no one had flat-out abandoned their position.
Walter stood and cleared his throat. He looked older somehow, despite his agelessness. His shoulders slumped underneath the burden of everything that had happened, and beside him, Phillip, usually so gruff and impermeable, didn’t look much better. “Brother and sisters, sons and daughters...”
Daughters? Only Irene was his daughter. Sofia and my mother were his sisters. Unless he meant me, too.