The Goddess Inheritance. Aimee Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ