Read Online Goddess in Time by Tera Lynn Childs - Free Book Online Page A

Maybe the palace is closed for the summer or something.
    By seventy I’m pretty sure this is a lost cause.
    At one hundred, my shoulders slump. What am I going to do? Between the fortress-like doors and the magic force field, getting into this palace is impossible. If no one answers I don’t know what else to try. I start to turn away, defeated. As I do, a swirl of current whips past me and spins me back around.
    I find myself face-to-face with what looks like a palace guard. It’s not an impressive guess since he’s wearing a navy-blue uniform jacket that matches his navy-blue tail fin and is decorated with almost as much silver as the palace itself.
    â€œState your purpose,” he says.
    â€œWhat?” I ask before I can stop myself.
    â€œYour purpose,” he repeats. “Why do you visit the sea god’s home?”
    I’m so overwhelmed by the fact that someone is actually here and the door is open, that at first I can only stare.
    He clears his throat. Loudly.
    â€œOh,” I say, coming back to my senses. Shoot, I hadn’t thought this far ahead. What should I say? I can’t simply ask for a seashell. What would any other hematheos come to this palace for? Why would they make this risky journey?
    Without waiting to think up something tactical, I blurt, “I would like an audience with the sea god.” The guard’s eyes widen, but I nod. “I would like to speak with Poseidon.”
    I expect him to slam the door in my face. Or maybe set the sea dogs after me. Who am I to ask for an audience with a god-king?
    But the guard bows his head and says, “Please wait here.”
    He closes the door and I can only guess he’s going to see if he has to let me in or if he can send me away. I don’t bother counting this time. The palace is huge—it could take him an hour to swim to the back. Instead, I amuse myself by studying the weird sculptures covering the palace. There are a lot of bulls and horses—another one of Poseidon’s sacred symbols—and plenty of half-naked mermaids. Typical.
    But there are also lots of serpents and sea monsters, creatures with mixed-up features like the front half of a horse and the tail of a fish. There are about a million actual seashells inlaid into the palace walls. Not one of them is silver.
    I float over to the statue of a beautiful woman, her mouth open like she’s singing an opera. A siren, one of the evil women who uses song to lure sailors to their deaths.
    The sculpture is so realistic I can almost hear the—
    â€œBe careful.”
    Heart pounding, I spin around at the sound of the guard’s voice.
    â€œYou do not wish to wake the sleeping siren.”
    I glance back at the sculpture—lifelike for a reason, apparently—and kick myself slowly away. I’m not a sailor and at the moment I can’t drown, but I’m not about to tempt fate.
    â€œSorry,” I mutter as I swim back over to the guard.
    â€œThe sea god will see you now,” the guard says, as if I hadn’t almost roused a murderous creature.
    â€œGood,” I say, trying to act like I knew he would.
    Inside, my heart and my mind are racing. Great, I’ve got an audience with Poseidon. Now what?
    â€œI need a silver seashell.”
    Did that just come out of my mouth? Seriously?
    As the guard led me to the throne room, I tried to think of some reasonable way to ask for the seashell without having to explain why. I could pretend I was a jeweler who wanted to make a necklace in his honor. Or that I was trying to win a merman’s love. But never once did I think to blurt out my request without preamble until, well, it blurted out of me without preamble.
    I feel my eyes widen as Poseidon studies me from the other side of his massive desk. It’s at least as big as Zeus’s and covered with as much clutter.
    Sometimes I really need to think twice before speaking. Or at least once. I should try it