The Goddess Inheritance (30 page)

I hiccupped. “I hated her so much. I thought—I blamed her for everything, and all she was trying to do was help me or—look after Milo or—or save Nicholas’s life. And Walter—”

“Walter did what he had to do in order to win the war.” My mother tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “He has his own demons to face now.”

My chin trembled. “I should’ve done something. I should’ve listened or—or fought for her or forgiven her or—anything.”

“You did,” said James. “You did all of those things. Your mother’s right. It isn’t your fault, it isn’t her fault, it isn’t—it isn’t Ava’s fault. It’s Calliope’s. And she’s gone now. There’s nothing more we can do but remember Ava and keep on loving her.”

I nodded tightly. I could give her that, and I would. We all would.

In the cradle, Milo let out a soft cry. “It seems like someone’s eager to see you again,” said my mother. Despite her red-rimmed eyes, she managed a smile as she scooped him up. “Do you want to hold him?”

More than anything in the world. As I reached for him, however, I hesitated. A few more inches, and I would feel him. He was really there. An invisible barrier full of questions and doubts held me back, and I lowered my hands into my lap. “What if I can’t do this? What if I can’t be his mother?”

“You already are,” she said, and I shook my head.

“I’m not as good at this or—or as strong as you are.”

She rested her head against mine again, and her hair tickled my neck. “Yes, you are. In so many ways, you’re stronger than I’ve ever been. Sadness doesn’t equal weakness, sweetheart. If anything, it shows the love you have inside you, and nothing stronger in this world exists. Ava knew that better than all of us.”

A shadow moved in the doorway. “Your mother’s right, you know,” said Henry. “The best way we can honor Ava is by loving the people in our lives as much as we can. That’s all she would have wanted.” Sitting on the mattress beside me, he gave my mother a smile. “I see you’ve met my son.”

“He’s beautiful,” said my mother, and Milo let out another soft wail. “He wants you, Kate.”

Wiping my cheeks with my bloody sleeves, I nodded. My mother placed Milo in my arms, and he settled against me, a perfect fit. He was warmer than I’d expected, and heavier, as well. Turning his head toward me, he nuzzled my chest, and my heart nearly burst.

“Just like this,” murmured my mother, adjusting my elbow so I was supporting his head. “There you go.”

“Look at that,” said James. “You’re a natural.”

As Milo calmed, he stared up at me with his big blue eyes. Whatever connection we’d managed to forge before intensified, and in that moment, my world shifted. He was so beautiful and innocent, and I would spend eternity making sure he had the chance to stay that way. He would never know war or hatred or the agony of loss. He would never spend his days counting down to a loved one’s last. He would never feel alone or unworthy or unloved. He would know happiness. He would know peace. He would know family. And he would always have me and Henry.

A tear dripped down my chin, falling and hitting Milo on the nose. He made a face, and Henry chuckled.

My mother stood. “I’ll leave you three be,” she said, and though she was smiling, the grief hadn’t left her voice. I wasn’t sure it ever would completely. Together she and James exited the room, closing the door behind them.

“He looks so much like you,” murmured Henry. “Every time I held him, all I could see was your face. I missed you, Kate.”

I brushed my knuckles gently against Milo’s cheek. He may have had my eyes, but he had Henry’s dark hair. And his ears. “Whatever happened on the island between you and Calliope...”

He tensed. “Kate, I—”

“It doesn’t matter.” I looked at him. “You did what you had to do to protect Milo. I know that.”

His hand slid up my back, and he squeezed my shoulder. “Nothing happened. Ava never used her powers on me. I was pretending the entire time.”

I leaned forward and kissed him. His lips were sweet against mine, and I didn’t let him go until Milo whimpered between us. We both knew pretending meant he’d somehow had to convince her he loved her. Part of me burned with the need to hear everything, but none of it mattered, and I wasn’t about to let Calliope hurt us from the grave. Whatever Henry had endured, we would get through it together. One day, if he wanted to talk about it, I would listen. But until then, I would pretend I believed him. To protect and love him the way he protected and loved me.

We were a family, and no one, not Calliope, not Cronus, not even death itself, could take that from us.

Chapter 20

Eternal

Sometime during the night, I untangled myself from Henry and slipped out of bed. He slept soundly, clearly exhausted after the battle, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep.

Reaching into the cradle, I touched Milo’s forehead to make sure he was still there. Reassured by the rise and fall of his chest, I padded out of the room, closing the door behind me. Even in the dead of night, the ceiling glowed brilliant blue, and the magnificent sunset swirled underneath me.

I didn’t consciously decide where to go. One minute I stood in the hallway, and the next my feet carried me into the throne room in search of someone else. After the evening we’d all had, chances were slim anyone else would be awake, but it was worth a shot.

In the entranceway, I stopped cold. The sky wasn’t blue here; instead the ceiling was dark as night, and the stars twinkled above us. The thrones were gone, and in their place a glass coffin rested on a raised platform. Inside, dressed in a white gown with roses in her hair, lay Ava.

Without thinking, I crossed the room and pressed my palm against the glass. Her lips were the color of cherries, and in the dim light, I could almost see her smile.

A lump formed in my throat. I opened my mouth to say something—to apologize, to promise I’d never forget her, to forgive her again and again until the universe had no choice but to believe me—but I couldn’t force out the words. She couldn’t hear them anyway, and I’d said it all in her last moments. She already knew.

“She isn’t really there.”

I scowled. “Leave me alone.”

A rustle of fabric, soft footsteps, and Walter stood by my side, looking every bit as aged as he had on the rooftop. “It’s a reflection of sorts, but more realistic than a simple picture.”

I pulled my hand from the glass and shifted half a step away from him. “Where’s her body?”

“Gone,” he said. “Back into the universe.”

“Then why is this—this hologram here?” The empty throne, the empty bedroom, the empty hole in our lives where she’d once been—as if all of that wasn’t enough to remind us she was gone.

Walter inhaled deeply, and as he exhaled, faint thunder rumbled through the throne room. “She lived a very long time, and her life touched many others. Those who wish to say their goodbyes will have the opportunity to do so.”

“Yet you aren’t doing the same for Calliope.”

He winced. “My wife chose her path. She chose to separate herself from the council. Ava did not.”

“No, she didn’t,” I said. “You chose it for her. You’re the reason she died.”

Walter stared into the coffin. “I have made many mistakes—”

“Mistakes?” My snarl echoed from one end of the room to the other. “Ava’s dead, and all you can say is that you made some
mistakes?
”

Walter faltered. Though he tried to draw himself up to his full height, tears spilled down his face, defeating any intention he had of intimidating me. “It is not your place to say—you could not possibly know the circumstances—”

“I know Ava’s dead. I know she only joined Calliope because you told her to.”

“For Nicholas,” he said. “For the greater good.”

“Is this worth the greater good?” I gestured to the coffin. “Is this worth knowing that if it hadn’t been for you, Ava would still be alive?”

“She would not be alive,” he said hoarsely. “None of us would be. Henry would have never joined the fight, and Cronus would have won. It is as simple as that.”

“Rhea won the war, not Henry. He wasn’t even fighting on our side for most of the battle.”

“Yes, he was,” said Walter. “On the rooftop, he was countering Calliope’s abilities. A difficult thing for any of us to do, even more difficult without being discovered, but he managed. When he came to us with your plans to surrender to Cronus, we knew what he intended to do, and with Ava aware that Calliope wanted to take Henry as well, we set up the ruse. All along, he was feeding us information about her and Cronus’s tactics. We would have never stood a fighting chance without his help. Or without Ava’s help. She is the reason—
you
are the reason he agreed to fight at all.”

“There had to be another way to keep Ava out of it. There’s
always
another way.”

“If there was, do you think I would have risked her?” said Walter. “Do you truly believe if there had been any feasible alternative to draw Henry into the war without her—”

“You could have asked. You could have given him time. You didn’t have to play Calliope’s games and risk everyone’s lives.” At last I faced him. “We’re not pieces on a chessboard, but that’s how you treated us, and now you’re paying for it. We all are. So I hope whatever lies you’ve told yourself keep you warm at night, because no one in their right mind is going to bother with you once everyone knows what you did.”

He touched the casket, and all the fight drained out of him, leaving a husk of a man where the King of the Gods had stood only moments before. “I know what I deserve. I do not need anyone, you or the Fates or the universe itself, to detail the mistakes I have made. I am paying for it now, and I will pay for it throughout the rest of my eternal existence. If that is not the hell you wish for me, then I do not know how much more I could possibly hurt to satisfy your desire for vengeance, daughter.”

“I am
not
your daughter.”

Walter bowed his head. Every instinct I had screamed for me to leave before he retaliated somehow—emotionally, physically, it didn’t matter—but my feet refused to move. This was the longest conversation I’d ever had with the man who was supposedly my father, and this was what it’d come to.

“You are my daughter, as surely as Ava was,” he said quietly. “She was the only one of my children who ever bothered to see me for who I really am. The others only ever saw power. Calliope only ever saw a philanderer. But Ava understood the love I have for you all. She understood that a man can feel things he does not express, and that lack of expression does not deplete that love.”

“I know that.” She’d been the one to insist Henry loved me no matter what. “You realize if you’d never cheated, none of this would’ve ever happened?”

“If I’d never cheated, you would have never been born.” He looked at me with lightning in his eyes, and I held his stare. “James would have never been born. Ella and Theo, Irene, Persephone—I loved my wife. My misdeeds are not her fault. But I will not apologize, to her or to any other, for bringing my children into this world. Including you.”

“Then you’re no better than she is. Love doesn’t give you a free pass to hurt your family. You do remember what family is, right?”

He tilted his head. “And what do you mean by that?”

“You never came to see me.” I dug my nails into my palms. If I could draw blood, then maybe the fury trying to claw its way out of me would have some release. “You knew what I was going through after Mom was diagnosed, but you didn’t care.”

“I have many mortal children,” he said slowly. “There was no guarantee you would pass the test, and I did not want to risk forging a connection with you in case you did not.”

“Why, because you were worried about your precious secret being revealed?”

“Because after everything your mother told me about you, I knew that if I came to see you, I would love you instantly. The pain of losing children I have never known is hard enough. But to lose one I love...” He stroked the edge of the glass coffin.

My shoulders shook with silent sobs. “I needed you. I needed someone to tell me it would be okay. I needed to know I wasn’t alone, and you couldn’t bother with me because you were too afraid to love me?”

“The council has watched over you from the beginning, playing bit parts in your life. Loving and protecting you as we did in Eden. You were never alone, Kate, even in your darkest of days.”

“But I didn’t
know,
” I burst. “It doesn’t make any difference if I never knew.”

“I am sorry.” His voice broke. “I am sorry for never being the father you needed. I am sorry for not being the king my people deserve. And I am so sorry for letting my daughter make the ultimate sacrifice. I do not expect you or anyone else in this world to forgive me now that she is gone, but I hope one day, for Ava’s sake, you will allow me to be your family. To be your father, as I should have been when you were growing up. It is what Ava would have wanted for us both.”

I wanted to spit in his face, to tell him to go screw himself and find another daughter who was willing to love such a manipulative creep, but the truth of what he was saying froze me in place. He was right. This was what Ava would have wanted. Not only because I needed a father, but because Walter needed a daughter who loved him despite his flaws, who understood him and gave him a chance. I’d done my best to show everyone, even Calliope and Cronus, that compassion and understanding. Ava would’ve wanted me to do the same for him. To not fail Walter like I’d failed her.

“You’re asking for more than I know how to give,” I said quietly, and all of the fight drained out of me. I focused on the image of Ava’s face again. “You hurt me. You hurt my mother, and you hurt our family.”

He set a tentative hand on my shoulder. “I know. And I will spend eternity doing what I can to make it up to you. I cannot promise much, but I do promise that you will always have me—you will always have all of us. As it should have been from the beginning.”

Pressing my swollen lips together, I nodded. After all the pain he’d caused, I couldn’t forgive him as we stood there side by side, but someday I would try. For Ava.