That was my son.
That was my son, and Calliope was going to kill him.
She didn’t need any tools to cut the cord or finish the rest of the messy birth; in the blink of an eye, everything was clean, and the baby was wrapped in a white blanket. As if she’d done it a thousand times before, she cradled him and stood, leaving me alone on the bed.
“Wait,” I said in a choked voice. I was exhausted and drenched in sweat, and despite the pain, I struggled to get up. “You can’t—please, I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt my son.”
His wails, so tiny and helpless, filled the room, and my heart crumbled. Every bone in my body demanded that I stand, that I go to him and save him from the pain that awaited him, but I couldn’t move. The harder I struggled, the more I froze, and the more my body ached.
Calliope looked at me, her eyes bright and full of malice. She was enjoying this. She was reveling in my pain. “That’s not for you to decide, dear Kate.”
At the edge of my vision, I saw Cronus shift. “You will not hurt the child,” he said, his voice low and full of thunder. “That is not a request.”
Her eyes narrowed. She was going to challenge him. Use my son to prove her dominance—that she was the one in control. But she wasn’t, and she knew it. And for the first time since I’d heard of the King of the Titans, I was grateful for him.
“Fine,” she said in an annoyed voice, as if she were only letting him win because she wanted to. We both knew the truth. “I won’t kill him.”
Relief swept through me like a drug, and I released the breath I’d been holding. Because of Cronus, he would live. “Please, can I—can I hold my son?”
“Your son?” Her arms tightened around the baby, and a mockery of a smile curled across her lips. “You must be mistaken. The only child in this room belongs to me.”
Without another word, she walked through the door in a cloud of victory, leaving me empty and utterly alone.
She wouldn’t take his life—that meant there was still time. But how long would it take before she got tired of obeying Cronus and killed the baby just to watch me bleed?
I had to get to him. I had to save him. Even if Calliope didn’t touch a hair on his head, the thought of him being raised by that monster, twisted into something black and beyond recognition—if my time in the Underworld had taught me anything, that kind of life was infinitely worse than the peace of death.
Desperation clawed at me, tearing me up from the inside out, and I slowly turned toward Cronus.
His queen. My life, my choices, my freedom for my son’s.
“Please,” I said, hiccupping. “I’ll do anything.”
He brushed his cold fingers against my tearstained cheek, and this time I didn’t move away. “Anything?”
The words were like knives on my tongue, but I said them anyway. “Anything,” I whispered. “Save him and—and I’m yours.”
Cronus leaned toward me, stopping when his lips were only inches from mine. “As you wish, my queen.”
Fire spread through my body, burning heat replacing the aches of giving birth as Cronus healed me. It was worth it. Henry would understand, and somehow, someway, I would unite him with the baby.
Dizzy with hope, I sat up and touched my flat stomach. Somehow Cronus had returned my body to the way it had been before I’d become pregnant, and the missing swell of my belly and chest was disorienting. Why not leave me with the ability to feed the baby? Because he knew it wouldn’t matter? But before I could say a word, the world began to shake.
“What—” I began, gripping the edge of the mattress, but something in the corner caught my attention. The sky through my window was bathed in an unnatural golden light, and around us the entire island quaked violently.
“I will return, my dear, and then we shall be together,” said Cronus. He pressed his cold lips to my cheek, and in an instant he was gone, but I didn’t care.
In the distance, a black cloud approached, sizzling with lightning. Though Cronus himself couldn’t escape the island, it passed through the barrier the council had created as if it were nothing, and I spotted the silhouette of a man on top of it. Hope swelled within me, and I didn’t have to see his face to know who the dark figure was.
Henry.
Chapter 2
Blood and Stone
For nine months, I’d dreamed of this moment. In my visions I’d watched Henry go about his day-to-day duties, oblivious to what was happening as he waited for me to come home, and I’d wished with every fiber of my being for him to realize something was wrong and come storming through the doors of my prison. I’d wanted it so badly that I’d ached with the need to leave the island, to leave Calliope and Cronus and all of my greatest fears behind.
Now I might finally have the chance, and I couldn’t go. No matter what was waiting out there for me—Henry, my mother, a family, a war to win—I couldn’t leave my son.
Henry flew toward the palace, and I searched the skies behind him for the other members of the council. Nothing but that unnatural gold. My chest tightened. He couldn’t be alone. He wasn’t that careless. He didn’t have the power to hold off Cronus in the Underworld, let alone outside his realm.
Where was my mother? Even if the others had no interest in helping me, surely she would have come to protect Henry. Had he insisted she not, that it was too dangerous?
When he was close enough for me to see the rage on his face, it hit me. He was alone.
We were alone.
I expected him to turn the outside wall to rubble, but instead he flew over my room toward another part of the castle, as if he didn’t know I was there. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Calliope was trying to lure him away and—
The weapon.
Oh, god.
“Henry!” I screamed. “Henry!”
“Kate,” said a voice from the hallway. “Kate, it’s me.”
I hurried to the door, crouching down beside it to peer through the keyhole. “Henry? Is that—”
A blue eye with long lashes stared back at me, and my heart sank. Ava.
“Move away from the door,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. What was she so afraid of? Henry storming down the hall and blasting her to pieces? If only I were so lucky.
“Why should I trust you?” I said. “You knew Calliope was going to kill my son, and you did everything you could to make that happen.”
She blinked rapidly, and her eyes turned red and watery. Once upon a time I’d thought Ava had been one of the few who looked pretty when she cried, but now all I could see was the ugliness underneath.