“Do you accept your role as Queen of the Underworld?” said Henry.
I could do this. I had to do this. For Henry’s sake—for my mother’s sake. For my sake. Because in the end, without Henry, I didn’t know who I was anymore.
As I opened my mouth to say yes, a crash shattered the silence. I twisted around to survey the damage, but before I could get a good look, Ava appeared beside me and took my elbow. “We have to get out of here.” As we scrambled forward, another crash echoed through the hall, and a shimmering fog seeped into the palace. The same fog from my vision.
This was the thing that had nearly killed Henry, and now it was attacking all of us. Without warning, it sliced through the air faster than the members of the council could control it, but it wasn’t aimed at Henry or Walter or Phillip.
It went directly for me.
* * *
Praise for
THE GODDESS TEST
by
Aimée Carter
“This absorbing, contemporary take on
the Greek myth of Persephone features romance, mystery, suspense, and an engaging, fully dimensional protagonist.”
—Booklist
“[A]bsolutely unique, fresh and fascinating.”
—BewitchedBookworms.com
“The narrative is well executed, and Kate is a heroine better equipped than most to confront and cope with the inexplicable.”
—Publishers Weekly
Also by
Aimée Carter from Harlequin TEEN
THE GODDESS TEST
THE GODDESS HUNT (ebook)
A I M É E C A R T E R
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Copyright © 2012 by Aimée Carter
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For Melissa Anelli,
who knows how it feels to climb that long, winding road just to see the dawn.
PROLOGU E
Calliope trudged through the sunny f ield as she ignored the babble of the redhead trailing behind her. Ingrid was the f irst mortal who had tried to pass the test to become Henry’s wife, and maybe if he’d spent more than f ive minutes a day with her, Henry would’ve understood why Calliope had killed her.
“You’re in for a treat,” said Ingrid, scooping up a rabbit from the tall grass and hugging it to her chest. “Everything’s going to bloom at noon.”
“Like it did yesterday?” said Calliope. “And the day before that? And the day before that?”
Ingrid beamed. “Isn’t it beautiful? Did you see the butterf lies?”
“Yes, I saw the butterf lies,” said Calliope. “And the deer.
And every other pointless piece of your afterlife.” A dark cloud passed over Ingrid’s face. “I’m sorry you think it’s stupid, but it’s my afterlife, and I like it this way.” It took a great deal of effort, but Calliope fought off the urge to roll her eyes. Upsetting Ingrid would only make things worse, and at the rate this was going, it would be ages before Calliope got out of here. “You’re right,” she said tightly. “It’s only that I never spend any time in this realm, so the process is unfamiliar to me.”
Ingrid relaxed and ran her f ingers through the rabbit’s fur. “Of course you don’t spend time here,” she said with a giggle that set Calliope’s teeth on edge. “You’re a goddess.
You can’t die. Unlike me,” she added, skipping across a few feet of meadow. “But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.” If that idiot of a girl knew a damn thing, she’d have known that Calliope wasn’t just any goddess. She was one of the original six members of the council, before they’d had children and the council had expanded. Before her husband had decided f idelity was beneath him. Before they’d started handing out immortality like it was candy. She was the daughter of Titans, and she wasn’t merely a goddess.
She was a queen.
And no matter what the council and that bitch Kate had decided, she didn’t deserve to be here.
“Good,” said Calliope. “Death is a stupid thing to fear.”
“Henry makes sure I’m comfortable. He comes by every once in a while and spends the afternoon with me,” said Ingrid, and she added with a catty grin, “You never did tell me who won.”
Calliope opened her mouth to say that it wasn’t a contest, but that wasn’t true. Every part of it had been a competition, and she’d worked for the prize far more than the others. She’d wiped out her opponents masterfully. Even Kate would have died if Henry and Diana hadn’t intervened.
Calliope should’ve won, and the grin on Ingrid’s face felt like salt in the gaping hole where her heart had once been. First she’d lost her husband, and when she thought she’d found someone who could understand her plight and give her the love she so badly desired, that someone—
Henry—had never given her a chance. Because of it, she’d lost everything. Her freedom, her dignity, every ounce of respect she’d fought to gain through the millennia, but most of all, she’d lost Henry.
They’d been together, two of the original six, since before the beginning of humanity. For eons she’d watched him, shrouded in mystery and loneliness no one could break, at least until Persephone had come along. And after what she’d done to him—
If anyone deserved to be punished, it was Persephone.
All Calliope had ever wanted was for Henry to be happy, and one day he would understand that the only way he would ever be was when they were f inally together. No matter how long it took, she would make him see. And in the end, Kate would pay for robbing them of precious time from their future.
“Calliope?” said Ingrid, and Calliope tried to shake the thoughts from her head. The words escaped into the re-cesses of her mind, but her anger and bitterness remained.
“Kate,” said Calliope, spitting out the name as if it were poisonous. “Her name’s Kate. She’s Diana’s daughter.” Ingrid’s eyes widened. “And Persephone’s sister?” Calliope nodded, and behind Ingrid, a strange fog formed in the distance. It seemed to beckon toward her, but she resisted the urge to cut loose from Ingrid and follow it. As long as she was serving her sentence spending time with each girl she’d killed, she couldn’t leave without alerting Henry. If she deliberately disobeyed the council’s orders, she would be permanently banished and her spot on the council f ill
ed by someone else.
She knew exactly who that someone else would be, and she swore to herself that as long as she was still a goddess, Kate would never get anywhere near her throne.
Calliope eyed the fog. “Have you ever been through there?”
“Through where?” said Ingrid. “The trees? Sometimes, but I prefer the meadow. Did you know the f lower petals taste like candy? You should try them.”
“I don’t eat candy,” said Calliope, still distracted by the fog. She hadn’t seen anything else like it while in the Underworld, and it must mean something. Maybe it was Henry’s way of telling her she could move on to the next girl. Perhaps he understood how awful Ingrid was after all.
“How can you not eat candy?” said Ingrid. “Everyone eats candy.”
“I’m not everyone,” said Calliope. “Stay here.”
“So you can walk away?” said Ingrid. “I don’t think so.
You need me to forgive you before you leave, or have you forgotten already?”
Calliope gritted her teeth. Of course she hadn’t forgotten, but as far as she was concerned, Ingrid was never going to forgive her. Even if she did, Calliope doubted every girl she’d killed would, as per Kate’s ruling, which meant she would likely be stuck in the Underworld for eternity. That was longer than Calliope was prepared to wait. “Unless you want me to attach your feet to the ground, you will stay,” she snapped.
“You can do that?”
Calliope didn’t bother answering. Instead she headed toward the fog and away from Ingrid, who at least had the decency not to follow her. The farther from Ingrid she got, the dimmer the meadow became, until Calliope was surrounded by rock—the real face of the Underworld now that there wasn’t a dead soul around to inf luence its appearance.
Now that she was closer, she could see that the fog wasn’t really fog after all. Instead it seemed to shimmer in the air, a thousand tendrils of light reaching for her. Calliope reached back, and the moment her f ingers touched the strange glow, she understood why it had called to her. At last, after decades of waiting, he was awake.
Calliope smiled, and a rush of power so ancient it didn’t have a name spread through her. With Ingrid nothing more than a distant memory, she stepped forward, and the anger she’d harbored for so long f inally found its purpose.
“Hello, Father.”
CH A P T ER ON E
RETUR N TO EDEN
When I was a kid, each fall my teachers had the class write and present one of those horrible “What I Did Last Summer” essays, complete with pictures and funny anecdotes designed to make a classroom full of bored students pay attention.
Each year I sat and listened as my classmates in my New York City preparatory school talked about how they’d spent the summers in the Hamptons or in Florida or in Europe with their rich parents, or au pairs, or as we grew older, boyfriends and girlfriends. By the time we reached high school, I heard the same glitzy stories over and over again: escapades in Paris with supermodels, all-night parties on the beaches in the Bahamas with rock stars—every student vied for attention with exploits that got wilder every year.
But my story was always the same. My mother worked as a f lorist, and because most of her income went to paying for that school, we never left New York City. On her days off we spent our afternoons in Central Park soaking up the sun.
After she got sick, my summers were spent in the hospital with her, holding her hair back as the chemo attacked her system or f lipping through the television channels looking for something to watch.
It wasn’t the Hamptons. It wasn’t Florida. It wasn’t Europe. But they were my summers.
The one after my f irst six months with Henry, however, blew every single summer my classmates ever had out of the water.
“I can’t believe you’d never swum with dolphins before,” said James as I drove down a rough dirt road that didn’t see much use. We were back in the upper peninsula of Michi-gan and surrounded by trees taller than most buildings. The closer we got to Eden Manor, the wider my grin spread.
“It’s not like we had a ton of them in the Hudson River,” I said, nudging the accelerator. We were so far from civi-lization that there weren’t any posted speed limits, and the last time I’d been down this road, my mother had been too ill for me to risk taking advantage of it. But now, after the council had granted me immortality, the only thing I risked was my old beat-up car. So far, I liked the perks. “I’m more impressed with the volcano erupting.”
“No idea why it did that,” said James. “It’s been dormant for longer than some of us have been alive. Might have to ask Henry about that when we get back.”
“What would he have to do with a volcano?” I said, and my heart skipped a beat. We were so close now that I could almost feel him, and I drummed my f ingers nervously against the steering wheel.
“Volcanoes run through Henry’s domain. If an old one’s going off like that, then something’s up.” James bit off a piece of jerky and offered me the rest. I wrinkled my nose.
“Suit yourself. You realize you’re going to have to tell him about everything we did, right?”
I glanced at him. “I hadn’t planned on otherwise. Why?
What’s wrong with that?”
James shrugged. “Nothing. I f igured he wouldn’t be too thrilled with the idea of you spending six months in Greece with some handsome blond stranger, that’s all.” I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the side of the road.
“And who was this handsome blond stranger? I don’t remember him.”
“Exactly what you should say to Henry, and we’ll both be in the clear,” said James cheerfully.
It was a joke, of course. James was my best friend, and we had spent the whole summer together touring ancient ruins, vast cities and breathtaking islands in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Maybe one of the most romantic, too, but James was James, and I was married to Henry.
Married. I still wasn’t used to it. I’d kept my black diamond wedding ring on a chain around my neck, too afraid of losing it to wear it properly, and now that we were only a mile or so away from Eden, it was time to put it back on.
I’d struggled to pass the seven tests the council of gods had given me to see if I was worthy of immortality and becoming Queen of the Underworld, and because I’d won—only barely—Henry and I were now technically husband and wife.
With the silence between us for the past six months, however, it didn’t feel like it. I hadn’t admitted it to James, but I’d spent the summer glancing around in hopes of seeing Henry in the crowd, there even when he wasn’t supposed to be. But no matter how hard I’d looked, I hadn’t seen any sign of him. Granted, half a year was practically a blink of an eye for someone who had existed since before the birth of humanity. But surely a sign that he missed me wasn’t too much to ask for.
During my winter with him though, I’d had to f ight for every small step forward. Every look, every touch, every kiss—what if six months apart brought us back to square one? He’d spent a thousand years mourning his f irst wife, Persephone, and he’d only known me for one. Our wedding hadn’t been the perfect ending to a wonderful love story. It’d been the beginning of eternity, and nothing about our new life together was going to be easy. For either of us.
Especially considering that on top of adjusting to marriage, I’d have to learn how to be Queen of the Underworld, as well.
And no matter how many years I’d spent caring for my dying mother, I had a sinking feeling none of it would help when it came to ruling over the dead.
I pushed my worries from my mind as the black wrought-iron gate of Eden Manor came into view. New York, school, my mother’s illness—that was my past. My mortal life. This was my future. No matter what had or hadn’t happened during the summer, I would have the chance to be with Henry now, and I wasn’t going to waste a moment.
“Home sweet home,” I said as I drove through the gate.
I could do this. Henry would be waiting for me
, and he’d be thrilled to see me. My mother would be there, too, and I wouldn’t have to go another six months without seeing her again. After nearly losing her, spending the summer without my mother had been torture, but she’d insisted—this f irst summer was my own, and she and Henry wouldn’t be involved. But I was back now, and everything would be okay.
James craned his neck to look at the brightly colored trees that lined the road. “All right?” he said to me.
“I should be asking you that,” I said, eyeing the way he drummed his f ingers on the armrest nervously. He stilled, and after a moment I added before I could stop myself,
“He’ll be happy to see me, right?”
James blinked and said coolly, “Who? Henry? Couldn’t say. I’m not him.”
That was the last answer I’d expected, but of course he wasn’t going to be cheerful about it. James would have been the one to replace Henry as the ruler of the Underworld if I’d failed, and even though it hadn’t come up on our trip, James was undoubtedly sore about it.
“Could you at least try to pretend to be happy for me?” I said. “You can’t spend your entire existence mad about that.”
“I’m not mad. I’m worried,” he said. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know. No one would blame you.”
“Do what? Not go back to Eden?” I’d already passed the tests. I’d told Henry I’d be back. We were married, for crying out loud.
“Everyone’s acting like you’re the be-all and end-all for Henry,” said James. “It isn’t fair to put you under that kind of pressure.”
Good lord, he really was talking about not going back.
“Listen, James, I know you liked Greece—so did I—but if you think you can talk me into not going back—”
“I’m not trying to talk you into anything,” said James with surprising f irmness. “I’m trying to make sure no one else does. This is your life. No one’s going to take your mother away from you now if you decide you don’t want to do this after all.”
“That’s not—that’s not why I’m going back at all,” I sputtered.