The Goddess Test Boxed Set: Goddess Interrupted\The Goddess Inheritance\The Goddess Legacy (69 page)

Chapter 15

Breaking Point

I snapped back to the island so quickly that the room
spun around me. Dizzy, I waited for Ava to finish, but an explanation never
came. She knelt beside Nicholas again, murmuring words meant only for him, and I
turned away.

There was only one reason Cronus would specifically attack New
York City when so many others—London, St. Petersburg, even Beijing—had to be
closer. And that reason was me.

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 in 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.