The Goddess Test Boxed Set: Goddess Interrupted\The Goddess Inheritance\The Goddess Legacy (8 page)

There was another girl? “How long ago was that?”

Calliope exchanged a look with Ella, who remained silent. “Twenty years, maybe?”

So apparently Henry had been a toddler last time. Unless he was telling the truth about ruling the dead, but I wasn't quite
ready to accept that. “Why do I need to be here then? Why isn't she here anymore?”

“Because she d—”

Ella slapped her hand over Calliope's mouth so hard that the sound reverberated through the room. “Because she isn't,” said Ella sharply. “It isn't our job to explain this to you, Katherine. If you want to know why you're here, ask Henry. And you…” She glared at Calliope.

“Oh,” I said softly as another thought occurred to me. “He—he said everyone here was dead. Is that true? Are you two…?”

Neither Ella nor Calliope seemed surprised by my question. Instead Ella pulled her hand away, letting Calliope answer.

“Everyone's dead here, yes,” she said, rubbing her cheek and giving Ella a dirty look. “Or like Henry, never alive in the first place.”

“When were you…uh, born?”

Calliope sniffed. “A lady doesn't reveal her age.”

Ella snorted, and Calliope glared at her.

“Ella is so old, she doesn't even know what year she was born,” said Calliope, as if that was something to be ashamed of. I shook my head, speechless, not knowing if I was really supposed to believe all of this or not.

Ella said nothing. Instead she pushed open another door, finally revealing a long room with a table so large it could've easily seated thirty. My head was spinning from Calliope's story, and it took me a moment to realize the room was already filled with people.

“Your court,” said Ella drily. “Servants, tutors, anyone you'll ever have contact with. They all wanted to meet you.”

I stopped dead in the doorway, feeling the blood drain from
my face. There were dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me, and suddenly I was painfully self-conscious.

“Are they going to stay here while I eat?” I whispered. I couldn't think of a better way of making sure I didn't eat a thing.

“I can send them away, if you'd like,” said Calliope, and I nodded. She skipped forward and, with two claps of her hands, most of them began to file out. A few who handled the food remained, along with two men standing off to the side, each accessorized with formidable weapons. The tall blond was so still he might as well have been a statue, and the brunette fidgeted, as if standing still and being silent was something he wasn't very good at. He couldn't have been older than twenty.

“You will always be guarded,” said Ella, and I looked at her, startled. She must have seen me staring. She moved forward with the grace of a deer and gestured to a place at the foot of the table. “Your seat.”

I followed her, trying hard not to trip on the hem of my long dress, and sat down. Now there were only about a dozen people in the room, but they were still all looking at me.

“Your breakfast, Your Highness,” said a man, stepping forward to set a covered plate in front of me. Ella lifted the cover, not giving me the chance to do so myself. She looked as bored as she had in my room.

“Um, thanks,” I said, bewildered.
Your Highness?
I picked up a fork, prepared to spear a piece of fruit and eat it, but a pale hand snatched my wrist before I could do it.

I looked up, surprised to see Calliope standing over me, her blue eyes wide. “I taste first,” she insisted. “It's what I'm supposed to do.”

Shocked, I blurted, “You test my
food?
”

“When you decide to eat, yes,” she said timidly. “I tested your dinner last night, too. But you don't have to eat while you're here, you know. Eventually you'll forget what it feels like. If you want to though, I have to—”

“No,” I said, pushing my chair back so loudly it squealed against the marble floor. The stress of the day before and the confusion of that morning came crashing down on me, shattering every last bit of self-control I had. “No, this isn't going to happen. It's ridiculous—food tasters? Armed guards? Your
Highness?
Why? What am I supposed to be doing here?”

Everyone seemed stunned by my outburst, and it was several moments before anyone spoke. When they did, it was Ella. “You agreed to stay here for six months out of the year, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, frustrated. They didn't understand. “But I didn't agree to food tasters or—or any of this.”

“You did,” she said calmly. “It's part of the deal.”

“Why?”

No one answered me. I clenched my skirt so tightly that I thought it would rip. “Let me see Henry,” I said. “I want to talk to him.”

The silence was deafening, and something inside of me snapped.

“Let me talk to him!”

“I'm here.”

The sound of his voice, low and smooth, startled me. Whirling around, I managed to lose my balance, barely catching myself on the chair. Henry stood in front of me, much closer than I'd expected. His young and flawless face was blank, and my heart skipped a beat. When I managed to regain my voice, it came out as more of a squeak, but I didn't care. I wanted answers.

“Why?” I said. “Why am I here? I'm not your princess, and I didn't sign up for any of this, so why is it happening?”

Henry offered me his hand, and I hesitated, but finally took it. His skin felt surprisingly warm against mine. I don't know what I'd been expecting—ice, maybe. Not heat. Not any evidence of life.

“Close your eyes,” he murmured, and I did. A moment later, I felt a cool breeze against my cheek, and my eyes flew open. We were outside, in the middle of an elaborate and well-tended garden, with quiet fountains scattered throughout the flowers and hedges. A stone path led up from where we stood to the back of the manor, which loomed in the distance, an easy half a mile away. Cerberus, the large dog from the forest, trotted up to greet Henry, and he gave him a good scratch behind the ears.

My stomach dropped to my knees, and any color that was left drained from my cheeks. “How did you—”

“In time,” he said. Numbly I sat down on the edge of the fountain. “You said yesterday that you did not want to do this, and I do not blame you. Now that the deal has been made, however, it cannot be undone. You showed courage the night you saved your friend's life, and I ask that you find it within yourself once more.”

I took a deep breath, trying to find an ounce of that so-called courage he was convinced I had. All I could find was fear. “Back in Eden, you said—you said if I read the myth of Persephone, I'd understand what you wanted,” I said in a shaking voice. “My friend James told me she was the Queen of the Underworld, and I read it in a book when I was—” I shook my head. It wasn't important. “Is that true?”

He nodded. “She was my wife.”

“Was? She existed?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice softer. “She died many years ago.”

“How?”

Henry's expression was blank. “She fell in love with a mortal, and after he died, she chose to join him. I did not stop her.”

There were so many parts of that statement that I didn't understand that I wasn't sure where to begin. “But she's a myth. It isn't possible she really existed.”

“Maybe,” he said, his gaze distant. “But if it is happening, who's to say what's possible and what isn't?”

“Logic,” I said. “The laws of nature. Rationality. Some things just aren't possible.”

“Then tell me, Kate—how did we get outside?”

I looked around again, half expecting it to fade away like some elaborate illusion. “You knocked me out and brought me out here?” I offered weakly.

“Or perhaps there was a trap door that you did not see.” He reached out to take my hand, and I stiffened. Sighing, he brushed his fingers against mine and then pulled away. “There is always a rational explanation, but sometimes things may seem irrational or impossible if you don't know all the rules.”

“So what?” I said. “You're telling me that a Greek god just happened to build a manor in the middle of the woods in a country halfway across the world?”

“When you have eons to live, the world becomes a much smaller place,” he said. “I have homes in many countries, including Greece, but I favor the solitude here. It is peaceful, and I enjoy the seasons and the long winter.”

I sat very still, not knowing what to say to that.

“Could you try to believe me?” said Henry. “Just for now. Even if it means pushing aside everything you've learned, would
you please do me the favor of trying to accept what I am telling you, no matter how improbable it might seem?”

Pressing my lips together, I looked down at my hands. “Is that what you do? Play make-believe?”

“No.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “But you may, if you'd like. If it will make it easier on you.”

This wasn't going to go away. Even if it was all one big trick, if everything was planned out from the beginning to make me look like a fool or whatever his endgame was, then all I could do was wait for the punch line.

But the image of Ava lying in a pool of her own blood with her skull bashed in floated into my mind, as did the feeling of the cool breeze across my cheek when only moments before, we'd been in the heart of the manor. And my mother, alive and well in Central Park—whatever was going on, sooner or later I'd have to face the fact that it wasn't anything I'd ever experienced before.

“All right,” I said. “Let's pretend this is really Paradise and everyone's dead, and Ella and Calliope are a million years old, and you're really who you say you are—”

“I do not claim to be anyone except for me,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

I made a face. “Fine, then let's pretend this is all real, that magic is possible and the tooth fairy exists. And somewhere down the line I didn't hit my head and you aren't certifiably insane. What does your wife dying have to do with me?”

Henry was silent for a long moment. “As I said, she chose to die rather than to stay with me. I was her husband, but she simply loved him more.”

Judging by his pained expression, there was nothing simple about it, but I didn't press him. “You know you look way too
young to have been married, right?” I said in a sorry attempt to lighten the mood. “How old are you anyway?”

The corners of his lips twitched again. “Older than I look.” After a moment he added, “She may have loved me, but it was never her choice. It was my last gift to her, letting her go.”

There was a note of sadness in his voice that I understood all too well. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I am. I just—I still don't understand why I'm here.”

“I have been ruling on my own for nearly a thousand years, but a century ago, I agreed to only a hundred more before my brothers and sisters take my realm from me. I cannot handle it on my own, not anymore. There are simply too many for me to do it alone. I have been searching for a partner ever since, and you are the last one, Kate. This spring, the final decision will be made. If you are accepted, you will rule with me as my queen for six months of the year. If you do not, you will return to your old life with no memory of this time.”

“Is that what happened to the others?” I said, forcing the question past my dry lips.

“The others…” He focused on something in the distance. “I do not mean to scare you, Kate, but I will never lie to you. I need you to trust me, and I need you to understand that you are special. I had given up before you came along.”

I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking. “What happened to them?”

“Some of them went mad. Others were sabotaged. None of them reached the end, let alone passed the tests.”

“Tests?” I stared at him. “Sabotaged?”

“If I knew more, I would tell you, but it is why we have taken such extreme precautions to protect you.” He hesitated. “As for
the tests, there will be seven of them, and they will be the basis on which it will be decided if you are worthy of ruling.”

“I didn't agree to any tests.” I paused. “What happens if I pass?”

He stared at his hands. “You will become one of us.”

“Us? Dead, you mean?”

“No, that is not what I mean. Think—you know the myth, do you not? Who was Persephone? What was she?”

Fear stabbed at me, cutting me from the inside. If what he claimed was true, then he'd kidnapped Persephone and forced her to marry him, and no matter what he said, I couldn't help but wonder if he would try to do the same to me. But the rational part of me couldn't look past the obvious. “You really think you're a god? You know that sounds crazy, right?”

“I am aware of how it must sound to you,” said Henry. “I have done this before, after all. But yes, I am a god—an immortal, if you will. A physical representation of an aspect of this world, and as long as it exists, so will I. If you pass, that is what you will become as well.”

Feeling dizzy, I stood as quickly as I could while still in those damned heels. “Listen, Henry, this all sounds great and everything, but what you're telling me is from a myth that people made up thousands of years ago. Persephone never existed, and even if she did, she wasn't a god, because there's no such thing—”

“How do you wish for me to prove it?” He stood with me.

“I don't know,” I said, faltering. “Do something godlike?”

“I thought I already had.” The fire in his eyes didn't fade. “There may be things I will not—cannot—tell you, but I am not a liar, and I will never mislead you.”

I shrank back from the intensity of his voice. He really did believe what he was saying. “It's impossible,” I said softly. “Isn't it?”

“But it is happening, so maybe it is time for you to reevaluate what is possible and what is not.”