Goddess Interrupted (Goddess Test #2)(20)
Author: Aimee Carter

I didn’t look back as we started down the path that led away from the palace, between the columns of black rock.

The cavern was huge, and by the time we reached the wall, my leg ached so badly that every step felt like I was walking on knives.

“What now?” I said. There was nowhere to go, and as far as I could tell, there were no hidden caves or tunnels.

“Remember that trip we took down here?” said James, taking my hand. His warm palm dwarfed mine, and I glanced at Ava to see if she’d noticed, but she was busy staring at the cavern wall.

I didn’t have time to worry about the ground dropping out from underneath me again. Without warning, James walked into the rock, pulling me with him. Instinctively I shut my eyes and braced for impact, expecting sharp pain as my forehead hit the jagged edge, but all I felt was a faint breeze in my hair.

“What the—” I opened my eyes, and my mouth fell open. We weren’t in the Underworld anymore. Instead we stood in a lush garden with trees as tall as the bright blue sky, and exotic f lowers surrounded us, turning toward us as we appeared.

“Welcome to the Underworld,” said James. “Or at least the part of it where the souls stay. Come on.” He led me down a dirt path with Ava trailing behind us, strangely quiet for all of the wonder that surrounded us. I stared at the giant f lora as we walked by, unable to hide my awe. It was as if I’d stepped into a fairy tale. Or fell down the rabbit hole.

“What is this place?” I said. “Is the entire Underworld like this?”

“No,” said James. “Look.”

He pointed through the trees at a girl swinging back and forth on a rope made of vines, her long hair swaying with her movements and her skin darkened from the sun. The same sun that had been replaced by crystal in the cavern before.

“Who’s that?” I whispered. “Is that Persephone?” Ava snorted softly, and I gave her a dirty look.

“If only it were that easy,” said James with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Only the six siblings and Henry’s queen can travel like that down here, and since you haven’t learned how yet, we’ve got a hike ahead of us. That girl’s the reason we see all of this. Henry took you down into the Underworld once, right?”

I nodded. He’d done it to comfort me, to show me that my mother would be all right after the cancer won and she died. I hadn’t known at the time that my mother was actually immortal. That would’ve helped a little more.

“Central Park,” I said. “That was what it looked like to me. It’s where my mother and I used to go on summer afternoons.”

“That’s so sweet,” said Ava, looping her arm in mine.

“Mine would be Paris, I bet. I could spend a millennium there and never get bored.”

We both waited for James’s answer, but instead he looked back at the girl in the distance. “This is her Eden. Because we’re immortal, the Underworld adapts to the closest mortal soul—her. Anywhere she goes, this is what she’ll see, and as soon as we get close enough to someone else, it’ll change.” I watched her swing back and forth, her face tilted toward the sun and a smile dancing on her lips. She looked happy.

The kind of happy I wished I could be. “She’s alone? Are they all alone?”

James gestured for us to follow. “Didn’t Henry—” He stopped and grimaced, and I bit back a retort. No, Henry hadn’t f illed me in. “It depends. It’s part of what you’re going to be doing. Some people are reunited with loved ones, others aren’t. Sometimes people spend half their time alone and half of it with loved ones. There’s no hard and fast set of rules. The person has the kind of afterlife they expect, or at least the one they think they deserve.” Oh. That. And if there were any questions or discrepan-cies, that was where Henry and I came in. “He explained that part,” I said. “Some people really spend the rest of forever alone?”

Ava’s grip on my arm tightened, and I squeezed back.

That didn’t sound like heaven to me.

“You need to forget your expectations,” said James as we picked our way around an enormous weeping willow the color of cotton candy. “Everyone’s different. Sometimes religion plays a part, sometimes it doesn’t. Henry will explain all of this to you.”

Only if we all returned in one piece.

I knew what happened to mortals after they died, but if it came to it—if killing me was enough to convince Calliope to help subdue Cronus before he escaped—what would happen to me now that I was immortal? I would fade, I knew that much, but what did that mean? I’d always believed in some sort of afterlife even before I’d met Henry and discovered the truth. That belief had kept me sane during the years I’d spent watching my mother die, knowing I would see her again when it was over for me, too. I had no such certainty now.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice when the sky grew dark again. The sun was gone, replaced with the cavern walls from before, but this time the light didn’t come from crystal.

We stood on the banks of a lake of f ire. Flames f lickered toward my feet, and as I took a startled step back on the black sand, James and Ava began to walk around it as if it were nothing more than an annoyance.

And then I heard the screams.

They echoed through the cavern, f illed with so much agony that I could feel it in my bones. A man cried out in a language I didn’t understand, and horrif ied, I squinted into the f ire.

He hung from chains that faded into nothingness before they reached the ceiling. The lower half of his body was immersed in the lake, and his expression was twisted with pain I couldn’t imagine. His skin melted from the bone, dripping down into the f ire, but as soon as it disappeared, new f lesh replaced it.

He was being burned alive again and again without relief.

His screams reverberated through the cavern and imbed-ded themselves in my memory, too tormented for me to ever forget them. I couldn’t look away, and the urge to do something—anything—rose within me, too strong to be ignored.

“We have to help him,” I said, but Ava held me back. I struggled against her, and James hurried toward us, taking my other arm.

“And how do you intend to do that?” he said. “By walking in there and burning up, as well?”

“I can’t die,” I said through gritted teeth as I tugged against them. “Remember?”

“That’s no reason to put yourself through that kind of pain,” said James. “You might not feel it on the f irst step, but you were mortal six months ago, and your body hasn’t forgotten that. You wouldn’t make it f ive feet, let alone there and back. Whatever he did, he believes he deserves it.”