Free Goddess Interrupted by Aimée Carter

alive, but I saw nothing. No rise and fall of the chest, no telltale flutter of a pulse in their necks—except those were mortal ways of judging if someone was still living. Henry and his brothers weren’t mortal and never had been.
    And finally, finally I saw Henry’s eyes crack open. Unlike Calliope, he seemed to focus directly on me, but whether or not he could really see me, I couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t seen me the first time. Then again, he’d been in the middle of a fight then, too.
    “It’s okay,” I whispered as I tried to take his hand, but my fingers slipped through his. “Everything will be all right. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, I promise.”
    He sighed inaudibly and closed his eyes, and something inside of me flickered. Had he heard me after all? I reached out to stroke his cheek, stopping a fraction of an inch above his skin. At least this way I could pretend I was touching him.
    “Father,” called Calliope from behind me, and I tore myself away from Henry to watch her. “Are you prepared to subdue the others?”
    A low rumble echoed through the cavern, no language I could understand, and the smaller rocks on the ground skidded a few inches away from the gate.
    “Pardon me,” said Calliope, sarcasm dripping from her sugary voice. “I thought I’d woken the most powerful being in the universe. My mistake.”
    In the time it took to blink, a tendril of fog slipped between the bars and lashed toward her. Calliope fell backward, and it narrowly missed, though I suspected that had nothing to do with her ability to defend herself.
    “Stop!” she cried, panicked, and satisfaction surged through me. “You need me and you know it.”
    The rumbling continued, and Calliope scrambled to her feet, every trace of dignity gone. “You do,” she said, and the uncertainty in her voice was glorious. “No one else is trying to free you, and without me, you’ll be trapped for the rest of eternity by that stupid gate. So you can either do things my way, or you can stay right where you are. It doesn’t matter to me.”
    Of course it mattered to her, and Cronus must have known it as well, because his rumblings sounded suspiciously like laughter. Another tendril of fog crept toward Calliope until it was only inches away from her smooth skin. Trembling, she stood her ground as Cronus caressed her cheek.
    As quickly as he’d appeared, the fog vanished. Calliope paled, and for a moment I almost felt bad for her. Then I remembered Henry and his brothers tied up in a cave a few feet away, and any drop of sympathy I’d ever had for her evaporated.
    Pogo’s warm tongue against my ear brought me crashing back into reality. The rocks melted away, replaced by the red walls of the bedroom, and my stomach turned inside out as the full impact of my vision hit me.
    “Mom!” I shrieked, kicking off my blankets and rolling off the bed. I landed with a thud on my hands and knees, and every inch of my body screamed in protest, but I forced myself to stand. Pogo trotted after me, his ears alert, and every step felt like knives as I ran out the door, nearly tripping on the hem of my silver dress.
    I was halfway to the throne room when I rounded a corner and smacked into her, and for the second time in as many minutes, I sprawled on the ground.
    “Kate?” My mother knelt beside me, her hands hovering as if she wasn’t sure it was safe to touch me.
    “I’m fine,” I gasped. “Mom, Henry and the others—Calliope, she has them, and Cronus—”
    “What about him?” My mother paled. “Did you see something?”
    I nodded. Everything she’d told me about the Titans ran through my mind, making me dizzy. “Calliope has them, and I think—” My voice caught in my throat, and no matter how hard I blinked, I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering.
    This was really it. They couldn’t defeat Calliope and Cronus on their own, and it was only a matter of time before Calliope killed Henry. It was a miracle he was