I’d gleaned these dark dealings from the threads in the Fates’ archive cave. I’d seen the truth written into fate itself.
“I will guide you back to the right path,” Mother promised, her hand tightening on my arm. “I will purge his influence from you, no matter the cost, and we will restore you to who you were meant to be.”
Every word sounded like a threat.
She did not know I had not trusted her for an eon. But I hadn’t believed that she would go that far. That she would sacrifice her only daughter upon the altar of her pride and bitterness.
But she had. And now I was sure.
I was no teenage goddess. I was the battle-hardened Queen of the Underworld. Mate to the God of Death. Now one of the most powerful and terrifying goddesses in any realm, and my enemies had no idea.
Mother was going to learn that reality. She would face the reckoning as well.
“Were you there in every one of my reincarnations?” I asked, my voice deceptively calm and casual. “You weren’t my mortal mothers. But you replaced each of them, didn’t you?” I held her gaze. “Don’t lie to me, Mother. I will know.”
Her face hardened instantly. “Was it so wrong to want time with my own daughter? To guide you toward the truth?”
“You never gave me the truth.”
“The curse bound all tongues. Even mine.” Her tone turned defensive. “No one could speak of it. I could not have told you despite my wish.”
“Did you kill them?” I asked. “The women who actually gave birth to me?”
She gasped, a hand flying to her chest. “I am not a monster! The Fates alerted me when you returned—that was our arrangement. I would find you and send your birth mother away with enough gold to live in comfort.” Her jaw tightened. “Some of those mortal vessels did perish in labor. You were always a difficult child, but I was the only one who raised you each time.”
“Only to let me be slaughtered in the end.”
“I could not stay once you turned nineteen,” she said, her face pained. “I could not interfere with your death. The Fates tricked me as well.”
“In this timeline, you let me believe you were dying of cancer,” I said, the memory acid on my tongue. “I mourned you. Wept at your grave. Grieved for a mother who was never truly gone.”
“Ididhave cancer,” she insisted. “When I came to you, I was stripped of my divinity. I became mortal to stay with you—that was my bargain with the Fates. I suffered alongside you.” Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I tried to shield you. To hide you. Living and suffering and dying as a mortal was the price of being with you, lifetime after lifetime.”
I watched her wearily, letting the silence stretch between us.
“We must not dwell on the past, daughter,” Demeter offered, her voice straining toward brightness. “You’ve endured, but your suffering is over. Let’s leave it behind. You deserve every honor we can bestow.”
Golden sunlight fell across my face. The light here was different from the mortal realm—thick with magic and perfume.There was no night in the city of the gods, only a dreamy twilight when the sun withdrew.
I missed the nights under the Underworld’s starless sky. Missed the sound of the golden-blue sea lapping at the violet beach. I missed watching lava soaring into the darkness like crimson rain.
I missed home. I missed my husband.
“Come,” Mother pressed. “Let’s return to our garden. We can plant new seeds with your restored power. It will be the envy of the entire city. There is a contest at year’s end. We should reclaim the championship. Just as we did in the old days.”
Just like old times.
As if I had not been murdered ninety-nine times.
As if I could simply slip back into the life I’d abandoned and pretend none of it had ever happened.
I looked at my mother. At her hopeful expression. At the resolve in her eyes that promised she would do anything to keep me here, to sculpt me back into the daughter she remembered.
She had no idea what coiled within my mind—the dark plan taking shape, the pieces I had already set in motion. The reckoning that was coming for them all.
“Of course, Mother,” I said, letting my voice soften into the shape she wanted to hear. “A garden sounds lovely. Just like old times.”
Chapter
