Chapter 91
Inheritance
LYRA
Smoke and fire.
Thick, curling smoke seems to writhe like the bodies of a thousand twisting snakes entwining one another.
Only it’s not just smoke. It’s more like the smoke is a casing around in an inner body of brilliant blue fire.
Those flames flash and sizzle between cracks in the outer sheath of smoke.
It is all I can see outside the gates of Tartarus.
I bow my head, my chin hitting my chest, unable to stand looking at it. To fathom passing through those doors now. Not after Cronos…
He knew.
He knew he would never leave this place. He knew he would never see his children again. Based on the now-quiet sobs coming from behind me… Was he the only one who knew? Did he not even tell his wife?
Of course he didn’t. He would spare Rhea all the pain in the world if he could.
Hands are suddenly on my shoulders, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
Boone.
“He pushed you,” he says quietly. “And held me back until he could jump in after you.”
“Why?” The question breaks in my throat.
Why didn’t he let Boone die in his place? Or at least try? This is the first time Boone has been down here. Cronos said he’d tried all the options, but he hasn’t tried that one. Why didn’t he…
The answer is so clear.
Because of me.
Because the choice would have been impossible for me. That choice would have broken me. Is that why?
“It should have been me,” Boone whispers.
I shake my head. “Don’t… Don’t take the choice away from him. He knew what he was doing—”
Light hits me.
Like a physical thing, it slams into my body, and I feel myself propelled up into the air, flipping and spinning with the force of an explosion.
Only to come to a dead halt in midair, my body stretched out, hands and legs wide.
Another explosion of light, coming from gods know where, makes it impossible to see and slams into me again. Into my chest.
My mouth opens wide on a silent scream, because it feels as though that light is drilling through my bones, through my sternum and ribs, to crack me wide open.
Red light, brilliant and bloody, even.
Vaguely, I’m aware of Boone shouting below me. The other Titans yelling. Someone tries to tug on my feet, like they are trying to get me down, but the light won’t let me go.
Then a crack in the fabric of time appears in front of me, crimson, jagged, gaping. A whimper manages to escape my throat. How can Cronos in the future be controlling the broken shards he created if he’s dead?
Another crack of time appears before me.
Then another, and another, until hundreds of them fill the line of my vision.
I’m unable to turn my head, but I think they must be circling me.
Are they going to rip me apart? Is time vindictive?
I’m the reason Cronos is gone. Is time going wild without its ruler?
The shards start to glow.
Faint at first, but brighter and brighter, new colors join the red, coming out to play in the form of rainbows that seem to shimmer and leap and play between the ragged breaks.
Brighter and brighter still, and I would close my eyes against the brilliance except that, just as I think to, one of the breaks is absorbed into the one directly before me.
What in the name of Hades?
Another joins those two. Then another. And with each one, the crack itself doesn’t grow. It gets…smaller.
Like broken time is…
It’s repairing.
The speed with which time is mending itself, blending and shrinking, appears to speed up, going too fast for even my goddess eyes to track, until there is a single, tiny ray of light left.
I stare at it. Fear and awe thunder away in the beat of my heart.
It comes closer and closer, glittering and glowing in pulses that seem to have no rhythm or meaning. Not slamming into me like the light that holds me still, though. Instead, it stops just in front of my chest.
And my heart…calms.
No more fear.
It’s like I know this light. Like we are friends.
This time, when it pulses, it stays lit, and the light that is holding me lets go. I don’t drop, remaining suspended in the air, but I’m no longer bound, either.
I float there, watching as the light that was holding me is absorbed into the tiny orb before me.
It turns impossibly brighter and yet doesn’t hurt. I don’t turn away.
The awe now is soft, is reverent, as it absorbs every ray, every drop of the light coming from outside this place, and then it moves into me.
As soft as butterfly wings and as warm as a gentle sun on my skin.
And I absorb it.
I become it.
It is my light now. To wield however I see fit.
I don’t even realize I’m lowering until my toes touch the ground, and the glow recedes to show me Boone and Persephone and all the Titans gathered before me, staring in jaw-dropped wonder.
Rhea, her cheeks still wet with tears, moves forward to frame my face with her hands, looking deep into my eyes.
“There you are,” she whispers.
Then she smiles, and the endless sadness in the weight of it makes my heart ache.
“Behold,” she announces to the others without turning away from me. “The new goddess of time.”