Someone like Mother? Or someone like me?
Ares manages to chastise my inner thoughts with a single look.
I glower back. I can think what I want. If he doesn’t like it, he can stop listening in.
Griffin grunts and then draws in a sharp breath when Persephone lays her hands on his stomach. She releases more magic, and he tenses so much his back bows. I grimace along with him. Healing is a painful process, often much more so than the original wound.
Hating his pain and knowing it’s my fault since he was protecting me, I drop down behind him and put my hands on his shoulders, helping to brace his weight and steady him against the onslaught of magic. He leans in to me, throwing his head back and looking up at the sky in silent agony.
Persephone draws her hands back, flexing her fingers discreetly. Griffin breathes deeply and then more shallowly again when she goes back to healing him. She works quickly, sinking huge amounts of magic into him. I feel her power pricking hard at my skin as it smooths out Griffin’s, knitting his flesh, erasing bruises, and mending bones. The accelerated process must hurt like a hundred burning knife wounds, but it’ll be over fast. Griffin clenches his jaw, his face bone-white.
Then it’s done, and Persephone lifts her hands from him. The tense, tightly bunched muscles in Griffin’s shoulders relax. Still holding on to him, I lean forward and kiss the slope of his neck, breathing him in.
“Thank you for jumping in front of a knife for me,” I murmur.
A grunt is his only answer, but he reaches up and grabs one of my hands. He pulls it to his mouth and kisses my palm, then holds on, keeping me curved around him.
Persephone stands. After a deep inhale, Griffin rises as well, pulling me up with him. I look him over. He’s still a sooty, bloody mess, but those stains are only war paint now.
“You’ll be sore.” Persephone inspects her healing work with a slight frown. “Eat well and rest.”
Griffin and I look around, and I can tell we’re both skeptical. The house is a burned-out ruin. We have only light traveling food.
The Goddess shrugs. “Sleep in the barn. Kill a goat. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble making a fire.”
I glance at the collapsed house. There’ll be smoldering embers for days.
Griffin nods to her. “Thank you.”
She waves a dismissive hand. Healing Griffin probably took very little out of her, but I’m still grateful and say so as well.
Persephone reaches out to me, and her hands begin to feather over my skin, light and careful. I’m covered in lacerations, puncture wounds, burns, and scrapes, and no matter how gentle she is, healing stillhurts. Everywhere she touches, I ache and sting even worse than I did before, and every time I wince, hiss, or gasp, the groove between her bright-blue eyes deepens into a harder frown.
I see Selena in her as she works—the thick blonde braid, the graceful way she moves, the fathomless eyes and perfect features. Physically, Persephone is only a little different from the woman I’ve known and loved. She’s taller, more powerful, and more otherworldly in a way I never imagined, but those differences seem huge and daunting now that I know who—andwhat—she really is.
A pang hits me square in the chest. I miss her.
I’m still her.
The words arrive directly in my head, and I scowl.What does it take to have a private thought around here?
And you’re definitely still Cat.
There’s more wry humor than real scolding in her silent words as she steps back from me, her movements almost liquid in their shimmering fluidity. I follow her with my eyes, still somehow surprised by her innate power and light. She’s mesmerizing.
Nearly entranced, I absently whisper the fear that’s been festering under my now-healed wounds. “What if I can’t do this?” Mother tried to kill me. Ididn’tkill her. I’d thought we were finally going to settle this, but the pattern just repeats itself. I can’t seem to break it.
Before Persephone can even begin to answer, Ares bursts out with an aggravated sound. His eyebrows slam down.
“I thought I raised a fighter.” His tone is sharp. It certainly cutsme.
Persephone snorts. “Raised?”
“No one else was doing it!” he snaps.
“If anyone raised her, it was her sister,” Persephone snaps back. “And then me.”
Anger seems to gather around Ares, weighing down the air. “Where were you? Where were any of you for the firstfifteenyears?”
