“Promise.” His gaze searched mine as he ran his fingertip up my spine.
“I promise.” I closed the minuscule gap between us once more, capturing his lips and trying to show him how much I meant it. “I love you. I love our family. I love our life together, and I can’t wait for the day when we’re back home, just the three of us, and this whole war is over. I swear to you that will happen. That will be our future.”
He cradled the back of my head, his palm searing against my skin. “I have waited an eternity for this love. I’m not going to let anyone, Titan or not, take it from us.”
“Promise?” I said, and this time it was Henry’s turn to kiss me.
“I promise.”
“Then do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
I shifted onto my back, rolling him with me. His body pressed against mine in all the right places, and I lifted my head high enough to rest my forehead against his. “Live this love now,” I whispered. “And never stop.”
* * *
In those seven days, I spent every moment I could with Henry. Walter ruled that despite him being mostly healed, Henry would remain in Olympus until the last possible moment, to give the council the element of surprise. Though Henry had a tendency to pace around mumbling things about his brother that I was all too willing to agree with, it gave us more time together.
When we weren’t playing our new brand of tag throughout the sun-drenched palace, we fought our way through the quicksand of my visions to see Milo. Cronus was always there, a silent reminder of the little time I had left with my family, but now Ava had become a permanent fixture, too.
The happier and healthier Milo became, the thinner and paler Ava grew, as if she was pouring everything she had into him. Maybe she was. Maybe she was the only thing keeping him alive. When I voiced that to Henry after returning to Olympus one day, however, he shook his head. “We are both immortal, and so is Milo.”
“What?” I stopped in the middle of the abandoned throne room, the only place we could go that didn’t feel stuffy. The sun shone a little brighter here, and the sunset at our feet seemed deeper, more real somehow. “But I thought everyone had to take the tests.”
“Members of the council do,” said Henry. “Demigods attempting to earn immortality usually have to prove themselves in some way. And royals take the test, as well. If Walter chooses to take another queen, regardless of her mortality, she will have to pass the same tests you did to earn her position. If Milo ever replaced me as King of the Underworld—”
“Why would he?”
“Just hypothetically,” said Henry, and his fingers danced down the curve of my back. “If he replaced me, he would have to take the test, too.”
It wasn’t just hypothetically, though. Was he planning the same thing I was—to sacrifice himself to get Milo back somehow?
No, he wouldn’t do that to me, not after everything we’d been through, which made doing it to him all the more difficult. I’d find a way back to him though, no matter what it took. I rested my head against his shoulder. The silver scar from Cronus’s first attack poked out from underneath his collar, and I traced it with a featherlight touch.
“Come,” he murmured. “I want to show you something.”
Before I could say a word, the now-familiar feeling of disappearing washed over me, and the throne room faded. However, a similar room replaced it, with sky that stretched out endlessly before us.
There was something different about this, though. Before it had been easy to tell the difference between the ceiling and the floor, but in here they blended together as if it were the real thing. Unless—
I blinked. It was the real thing.
“I am not supposed to bring you here, or even be here myself,” admitted Henry. “This is the balcony outside Walter’s private quarters. It’s the pinnacle of his domain, and he is very protective of it. But there is nothing more beautiful in the world, and I wanted you to see it.”
He led me to a glass railing, and I gazed out across the infinite sky. Caught between day and dusk, the colors swirled as if they were liquid, and flames seemed to dance in the clouds. “This is incredible,” I said, stunned.
We stood there for a long moment, and at last he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer. “You can tell me anything, you know.”
“I know,” I said softly.
“Then tell me what has been bothering you.”
I focused on the horizon. I couldn’t lie to him. I didn’t want to, and even if I tried, he would know. “We’re in the middle of a war, and we’re both being used as pawns in ways we don’t understand.”
“That is not atypical for my brother,” said Henry with a hint of mirth.
“That’s not what I mean. We’re all on one big chessboard, aren’t we? Cronus is on one side and Walter’s on the other, using everyone like chess pieces. Except I’m not so much as a pawn on Walter’s side.”
Henry opened his mouth, but I interrupted him before he had the chance to speak.
“Don’t tell me I’m wrong. We both know I’m not. I’m useless to Walter. I’ve tried to give him information, act as an envoy, learn how to fight so I can help everyone, but he isn’t having it. Cronus though—he’s moving me around like I’m a damn king piece. One step at a time in any direction he wants, but I can never venture too far on my own, because if I do, if he loses me...”
“He will not lose the war if he loses you, if that is what you are thinking.” Henry turned so he was facing me, and he held my stare. There was something earnest and anxious in his eyes, as if he were desperate to make me understand. “You are not a king piece to him. If you are anything at all, you are a pawn. Something small and inoffensive, easily overlooked, nothing more than fodder. If he gets you where he wants you though—so deep into enemy territory that we don’t even know you’re there—then you will become more to him. But only because of the role you play, not who you are. Despite the illusion of whatever he is offering you, you will be nothing more than another piece of the game to him. Do you understand?”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. There was no good solution to any of this. “Cronus wants me. Whatever ungodly reason he has for it, whatever he thinks of me, having me means something to him. I can’t ignore that.”
“I’m not asking you to,” said Henry. “I’m asking you to think of me, to think of Milo, and realize that you’re no good to either of us if he has you. You cannot trust a Titan.”