The Goddess Test Boxed Set: Goddess Interrupted\The Goddess Inheritance\The Goddess Legacy (24 page)

Walter eyed me, and there was something so intimidating about it that I wondered if he was going to smite me or whatever it was gods did to people they didn't like. “You have failed, Katherine. There is nothing you can say that will change that fact.”

I blinked rapidly, struggling to pull myself together. I didn't want Henry's last memories of me to be this. Turning in my seat as much as I dared in order to face him, I managed to force out a small, “I'm sorry.”

He didn't meet my eye, and I couldn't blame him. I'd failed, and now he had to suffer for it.

Caught between anger and despair as the room seemed to press down around me, delivering blow after crushing blow, I wished more than anything that I could turn back the clock to that night in order to stop it from happening. Henry deserved so much more than this, and I wasn't able to give it to him, no matter how badly I wanted to.

The silence seemed to echo in the ballroom as no one said or did anything. Only seconds passed, but it felt like an hour. As bitter disappointment settled in the pit of my stomach, one rational thought came to mind:

What now?

A noise from behind me caught my attention, and I tried to turn around to see what it was, but any movement now made my chest feel as if it were on fire. I heard the thud of a door closing, and the soft click of heels against marble echoed through the ballroom.

“Sister,” said Henry, his voice full of rich golden warmth that made my pain ebb away. As I looked into the faces of the other council members, I realized they all seemed happy and relieved. And smug, I noticed, glancing at Ava. Even James seemed happy to see her.

“Hello, Henry.”

All the air whooshed out of my lungs as her voice filled my head, chasing away my thoughts until there was nothing left but her. Forgetting the pain, I strained my neck to see her, watching as she greeted all but Calliope with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. Making her way around the circle, when she reached Henry, she stepped into his open arms.

In the back of my mind I realized I was gawking, but I couldn't stop. She separated herself from Henry and took a seat in the throne next to him, the one made of branches and vines
that had previously been empty, and something inside of me fell into place.

“Hello, Kate,” she said, and I opened and shut my mouth several times, but nothing came out. Finally I forced myself to swallow, and when I managed to speak, it came out more like a croak.

“Hi, Mom.”

My mother looked exactly as
she had in my dreams. Healthy and whole, as if she'd never been sick a day
in her life. But there was something about her, some indeterminable quality that
made her seem as if she were glowing from the inside, like light straining to be
released.

“What are you doing here?” As I
asked it, I knew it was obvious. The only thing that kept me from seething was
my joy at seeing her again, but even that was rapidly being replaced by
confusion.

“I'm sorry,” she said
with the same sympathetic smile I'd seen on her face a thousand times
before. Every time I scraped my knee, every time I dragged home hours of
homework and barely had time for dinner, every time a doctor had told us she
only had months to live. In so many ways she was a stranger, but with that
smile, she was still my mother. “Deception was the only way you could be
properly tested. I never meant to hurt you, sweetheart. Everything I've
ever done was to protect you and to keep you as happy as I possibly
could.”

I knew she was telling the truth, but I
couldn't help but feel the humiliation of being duped. Even if it had been
for my own good, that didn't make me feel like any less of an idiot for
not realizing who she was.

My own mother was a goddess. It
wasn't something I could simply shrug and accept.

“Diana,” said Walter, and she
stepped toward me, the white silk robe she wore moving with her as if she were
submerged in water. She wasn't close enough for me to touch, but close
enough for me to see that her eyes were shining. Whether it was from tears or
pride or power, like Henry and his eyes made of moonlight, I couldn't
tell.

“For the seventh and final test,
pride and humility.” My mother paused and smiled. “Kate
passes.”

I didn't understand. The ruling was
over, wasn't it? Hadn't their decision already been made? I
couldn't fail any of the tests. Walter himself had said it. I waited for
some kind of explanation, but it didn't come.

“Those who agree?” said
Walter.

Wildly I turned from face to face, but none
of them gave any hint. Ava, Ella, even Henry gave no sign of what was happening.
One after the other they murmured their agreement. To my surprise, Calliope, who
looked so pale and miserable that I couldn't help but feel a stab of
sympathy for her, also nodded.

They were saying yes, I realized. They were
voting. Even though I'd slept with Henry, by some miracle I hadn't
failed completely. But when the vote reached James, my breath caught in my
throat, and I was sure he would shake his head.

Without meeting my eye, he, too, nodded.
The others continued to vote, but I stared at him, and when at last he looked
up, I mouthed a simple
thank you
.

“So it has been decided,” said
Walter when the vote reached him. “Katherine Winters will be granted
immortality, and she will be wed to our brother, to rule the Underworld with him
as long as she so chooses.” And then he smiled, his ancient eyes
twinkling. “Welcome to the family. This session of the council is
adjourned.”

The finality in his voice confused me, and
dumbfounded, I waited as the council stood and headed toward the door.
Some—Ella, Nicholas, Irene, Sofia, even Xander—squeezed my shoulder
or gave me a word of encouragement as they passed. Ava grinned widely. Others,
particularly Calliope, said nothing as they left. James, too, passed by without
a word, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. Remembering his nod and
thinking of what it must have cost him to give it, I wanted to reach out to him,
but I was frozen on my stool, unable to move in fear all of this would shatter
and reveal itself to be nothing but a dream.

Soon only three of us remained. Me, Henry
and my mother. She stood once the others had left, and without a word she
enveloped me in her arms, hugging me gently. I rested my chin on her shoulder
and buried my nose in her hair. Apples and freesia. It was really her.

I don't know how long she held me,
but by the time we let go of one another, my chest ached and I'd slid
halfway off the stool. She helped me right myself, but it was Henry standing a
few feet away from us who caught my eye.

“Was—” I paused and
cleared my throat, hating how small my voice sounded. “Was that a good
thing or a bad thing?”

Henry stepped beside me, and both he and my
mother gently helped me stand. “You passed,” he said. “I hope
you are pleased.”

Pleased
wasn't exactly the word for it. Confused, yes. Reeling, sure. And I
wasn't going to be pleased until I understood what had happened. “He
said I failed,” I said, wobbling on my feet. “How could I pass after
I failed?”

“It was the seventh test,
sweetheart,” said my mother. “You did not fail lust. Even if you
hadn't loved him, Henry made sure we were all aware of what happened. This
was the only way the council had to test you on your pride. In accepting your
failure despite wanting to stay, and in respecting the council's decision,
you showed humility.”

“And by showing humility, you passed
the final test,” said Henry.

“So—” I stopped, hating
that I felt so slow and stupid, but it felt too good to be true. “What
does that mean? What's going to happen now?”

Henry cleared his throat. “It means,
if you agree, we will be married at sunset.”

Married at sunset. What had felt like a
far-fetched fantasy hours ago now pressed against me, an impending reality that
was hurtling toward me faster than I could run away.

Not that I was running. This was what
I'd wanted, wasn't it? Not to be anyone's wife, but to give
Henry a chance. To give him the same hope I'd wanted for myself, and now
with my mother here, even if she wasn't exactly the same, we'd both
won, hadn't we?

No…not all of us. Calliope
hadn't won, and neither had James. In order for Henry to be alive and
happy, in order for me to have my mother back, they had to lose. Calliope had
brought it on herself, but James—what had he given up for me to have
this?

With a start, I realized both Henry and my
mother were staring at me. We'd somehow made it across the ballroom, and
now we were stopped between the heavy double doors that were opened wide enough
for the three of us to exit.

“Yes, of course,” I said, my
face reddening. “I'm sorry, I wasn't hesitating, I was
just—thinking, and—of course I still want to do this.”

It wasn't until Henry relaxed that I
noticed how tense he'd grown. “I am glad to hear that,” he
said, his relief plain in his voice. “May I ask what it was you were
thinking of?”

I didn't want to tell him that I was
worried about James, in case it was still a sore spot for him, so instead I
asked the question that had been burning in my mind ever since Ava had walked
through those doors. “Was it all a setup?”

There was an awkward silence, and this time
I saw Henry and my mother exchanging looks, as if all they needed to communicate
was a glance. It wasn't so impossible, really, and I bit the inside of my
cheek, irritated they weren't sharing.

“Yes and no,” said my mother.
We continued slowly down the hallway, each step more painful than the last, but
my injuries were the least of my concerns. “After the decades Henry spent
searching for a new queen, when it became apparent his search wasn't
yielding the results we needed—”

“I was going to give up,” said
Henry. “Each girl failed before they'd begun, or if they showed any
promise at all, they turned up dead. We know what was happening now, but I
cannot tell you how heart-wrenching it was to watch those young women die,
knowing it was my fault. I could not bring myself to put anyone else in such
danger, and I was determined it would end.”

“And I was just as determined that he
try until we had no
more time left,” said my mother.
“So we compromised. Persephone…” Something in her expression
changed, and for the briefest of moments I saw shame. “Persephone was my
daughter. Your sister. It's my fault she was never happy, and because of
that, Henry was never happy either.”

“It wasn't your fault,”
said Henry with quiet fierceness. “It was no one's fault but my own.
I am the one who could not make her happy—”

“And I'm the one who pushed you
together to begin with,” said my mother. “Don't argue with me,
Henry. I mean it.”

He fell silent, though I thought I saw the
barest hint of a smile.

“As I was saying before I was so
rudely interrupted.” She ran her fingers through my hair, and I knew she
didn't mean any of the sharpness in her voice. “You always had a
choice, sweetheart. If you didn't want to do this, we would have all
accepted it and proceeded without you. You have always been in control of your
life—all we did was offer you the opportunity.”

My throat tightened as I imagined what
might have happened if I hadn't. “Why didn't you tell me
before?”

“It would have given you an unfair
advantage,” said my mother. “It needed to be your decision, not one
I influenced you to make or one that you automatically rejected because you knew
what you were getting into. Besides,” she added gently, “even if
I'd told you, would you really have believed me?”

Of course not. And when I left for the real
world, who would possibly believe me if I told them how I spent my winters?
Nobody sane, I was sure of it. “Does Eden even exist? Everyone there, even
Ava and Dylan—was that part of giving me a choice?”

“Eden does not exist outside of the
few weeks you occupied it,” said Henry. “If you decide to go back to
where the town stood, you will see nothing but trees and fields. I am sorry for
the deception.”

So was I. I pursed my lips, trying to come
up with something to say that didn't make me sound like I was twelve.
“Just—don't do it again, all right?” I looked between
him and my mother. “No more lies, and no more holding out on
me.”

To my surprise, my mother laughed, but it
wasn't the laugh I was used to. It was a strange combination of
sounds—a gurgling brook, the chirping of crickets and somehow the first
day of spring. It was incredible.

“Of course,” she said, her
voice filled with affection that spilled through me and made it easier to walk
the next few feet. “Now, before we get to your wedding, is there anything
else you'd like to know?”

My wedding. A lump formed in my throat, and
it was all I could do to speak around it. “Yeah,” I said hoarsely.
“What kind of name is Diana for a goddess, anyway?”

She laughed again, and the knot in my
throat loosened. “Ella was rather put out I took her Roman name, but she
did not want it, and I've always been quite fond of it. We all choose new
ones throughout the years.”

“Ones that match where and when we
are,” said Henry. “We are most famous within Greek mythology, and
that is why we are known throughout by our Greek names.”

“But we have no real names,”
said my mother. “We were created before names.”

“And we will survive long after names
are needed,” said Henry.

My mother glanced at him. “Some of
us, anyhow.”

Her words brought an image of James
crashing into my thoughts, and I tried to push it away, but he remained
stubbornly in the forefront of my mind. “You're really the Olympians
then?”

“All thirteen,” said my mother.
“Plus Henry, on a good day.”

He grunted, and my frown deepened as I
struggled to put the pieces together. “Then—who's who? I mean,
I know who you two are, Hades and Demeter, but everyone else?”

“You mean to tell me you
haven't figured it out already?” said Henry. I gave him a dirty
look.

“Not all of us are omniscient,
y'know.”

“Neither are we,” he said, his
eyes sparkling with amusement.

I chewed on my lower lip as I thought about
it. “I could probably guess if I had to. Not all of you though.” I
shook my head. “Olympians. That's—” Incredible.
Unspeakable. “A warning would've been nice.”

I must've sounded bitterer than
I'd intended, because my mother hugged me tighter and buried her nose in
my hair. “No matter what I'm called or who I am, I'm still
your mother, and I love you very, very much.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. She
was my mother, but my mother didn't have laughter that felt like sunshine.
My mother gave up her life for me, and what was left of her was cold and stiff.
Not this warm, bubbly being who was so much stronger than I would ever be.

“Come,” said Henry, apparently
sensing my change in mood. We stopped in front of a pair of richly decorated
doors depicting the earth and the world below, and my breath caught in my
throat. Persephone's bedroom.

“Henry?” I said, but he shook
his head and offered me nothing but a smile in return. I tugged self-consciously
on the white lace of my dress, making sure my bandages hadn't leaked.

The doors open, and instead of the shrine
it had been only months before, it was empty except for a small white arch
decorated with a rainbow of daisies. Standing off to the side were nine of the
other council members, all but Calliope and James, and Walter stood underneath
the arch, waiting for us.

“I hope it will do,” said
Henry. “I was not sure if you wanted something more elaborate.”

“No,” I said breathlessly.
“This is perfect.”

My mother took my hand, her eyes shining
with tears. “That's my girl,” she said, and even though I
never wanted her to leave again, I knew it was time. This was my life now, and
while she would always be part of it, she would no longer be the center. It was
a shift I hadn't been expecting, but somehow these past six months had
prepared me for it.