Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  “Perhaps you are correct and it is Castor of the Achillides,” Athena said. “Apollo is gone. The false god possesses his power, though the feeling is strange—I do not understand it. It has no logical explanation.”

  Lore shook her head. Thoughts swirled in her, all those countless doubts and coincidences trying to connect like lightning whipping across the sky.

  “There is a lesson to be had in even this. Take my counsel on this matter: it is acceptable, even preferable, to be alone,” Athena told her, “when those around you would hold you back or deceive you. The exceptional among mortals will always stand alone, for no one in the world was made for their task. Take confidence in that, and let it be a poison to your fear.”

  A small smile curved on the goddess’s face.

  “What?” Lore asked.

  “I had forgotten what it felt like,” Athena said. “To take on the mantle of Mentor.”

  Lore’s heart gave an involuntary kick in her chest when she realized what that meant.

  “No disguise necessary this time,” Lore pointed out, leaning over the edge of the building again. A National Guard patrol was still moving slowly up the street, within eyeshot of the building. She pulled back.

  “Indeed,” Athena said, a note of amusement in the word. “It is tiresome to wear another’s face, but men will so often only listen to other men.”

  Lore raised her eyebrows, but couldn’t argue with that. “Do you still return to your city? The one named for you?”

  “I return to them all,” Athena said. “And I always will, until the last voice calling out to me is vanquished by time.”

  “And then what?” Lore asked.

  “I will continue to strive to return to my father, and my home,” Athena said. “That is all I desire now.”

  Whatever softness had slipped into the goddess’s features disappeared in an instant. Lore felt a touch of ice at the base of her spine at the sight.

  “I must tell you something, Melora,” Athena said, the sparks storming in her gray eyes. “And give a warning. I am becoming less certain I can fight the imposter Ares alone. Unlike the false Apollo, I can be killed. As strong as I am, our foe will whittle that strength away. I will need your help to overcome him. . . . Unless, of course, you wish to claim his power.”

  Lore drew in a sharp breath. “No. I don’t.”

  She never wanted the feeling of being hunted, being trapped, ever again. Ares’s power would drive her mind to the brink.

  And make you invincible, her mind whispered.

  No. Ares’s power was as much a curse as it was a boon, even as it had brought countless hunters kleos as they’d claimed it. Lore had caused enough damage and death in her short lifetime. But there was that girl inside her, hungry still. The last of her name in all the world. Who would remember her?

  Lore shook her head, hugging her arms to her chest. She would fight to restore her family’s honor and glory as herself. She would avenge them as Melora Perseous.

  Go get it. The thought moved through her, warm and powerful. Go claim your inheritance. Use it against him.

  Even with the aegis, Lore would wither beneath Wrath’s power. But if it was in the hands of someone stronger . . . someone who knew how to wield it, and at its full potential . . .

  “You really think you can’t handle him?” Lore asked slowly. It would be a terrifying thing to behold—Athena reunited with the aegis, roaring into battle.

  “Only the Moirai could say with certainty,” Athena said. “It pains me to admit such things. Do not ask me this again.”

  “But if there was something that could level the playing field . . . ?” Lore began, her voice tight.

  The goddess’s gaze slid back toward her. “It would be most welcome.”

  The static in Lore’s ears returned, quickening her pulse.

  But the poem . . . she thought.

  Would it really be that awful if Athena emerged as the victor, if it meant that the Agon would finally end?

  After centuries of being hunted, Athena only wanted to leave this world and return to her own realm. She had said it herself, both to Artemis and just now.

  Giving the shield to Athena wouldn’t change the past, but it might start Lore—and Athena herself—on the path to absolution.

  There was movement at the edge of her vision. The lioness finally emerged from the hotel, clutching a manila envelope. She started north again on Park Avenue, weaving through the partially submerged cars and debris.

  Athena nodded to Lore. They took to the fire escape, climbing down into the cool water. They had to move slowly to avoid alerting the lioness with splashing. The distance between them and the girl grew, but so few people were outside, tracking her wasn’t difficult.

  When they reached Seventy-Eighth Street, the lioness made a sharp right—and stopped Lore in her tracks.

  She had forgotten something. Years ago, she and Castor had made a game of finding all of the bloodlines’ hideouts within the city. Many were open secrets, but even more existed somewhere between rumor and fact. They had only found this place after hearing one of the instructors talking about it, himself guessing where it might be.

  Athena slowed, looking to her. Ahead of them was the East River, and between it and them was a series of impressive prewar ivory apartment buildings.

  “One of the Kadmides’ properties,” Lore explained. “I completely forgot about it. Let’s see if there’s a place we can get a good view of who’s coming and going.”

  That turned out to be a gated window of Public School 158 across the street. After breaking in through a door on York Avenue, they navigated the school’s halls until they found an unobstructed view of the Kadmides’ building.

  Within minutes, three figures in traditional black hunter robes waded down a paved lane between the west side of the building and the one next to it.

  The gate there was open, but the lioness waited for the hunters to meet her on the street. One of the new arrivals opened the manila envelope and pulled out a set of what looked to be keys. He distributed them to the others, including the lioness.

  She was the first to leave, heading back the way she’d come. The others stopped to remove their robes before following. Lore waited until they were well away before speaking.

  “If it’s anything like Thetis House, the entrance isn’t the front door. . . .”

  Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, more hunters appeared. All of them coming down toward the street from that same tight lane, dripping wet. The entrance had to be somewhere along that narrow driveway, she realized, and had to be underground if they were soaked through. A basement maybe?

  They spotted a brass plaque engraved with its building number and name. RIVER HOUSE 111.

  “There is a monster in the river,” Lore said.

  Athena turned to her, eyebrows raised in invitation.

  Lore took it.

  LORE WAS IN THE middle of washing her dinner plate when her mother and father returned from the Agon one day too soon.

  Her father dropped his travel bag beside the door, his face tense as he absorbed the sight of the dimly lit apartment. Her mother gripped his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  Lore couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Her parents had told her that they would stay away for all seven days, sleeping in a hotel in the city, to ensure no harm followed them home.

  Lore had tried her best to keep the apartment tidy and clean in the meantime. She’d put the dishes away, stored Damara and Pia’s bright toys in their assigned drawers, and locked her grandmother’s blades back in their chest after she’d sharpened them. Her sisters were too young to touch them, but she wasn’t. Lore liked to run her fingers over the patterns carved into the hilt, to close her eyes and imagine.

  One more cycle, her mother had told her. You only need to work hard and be patient until then.

  One more cycle, then she could prove herself.

  One more cycle, then she could save Castor. H
e was still alive, and he would keep fighting, she knew that in her soul. If she helped her papa kill a god, they would have enough money to find better doctors and medicine for Castor.

  One more cycle.

  She had kept herself and her sisters in the apartment all week, finding games and activities to occupy them. Tonight should have been no different: she would put her plate away, throw the frozen pizza’s box down the garbage chute, brush her teeth, kiss Damara good night in her crib, and then climb into bed with Pia, wrapping the blanket that smelled like their mother’s orange-blossom perfume around them both.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Both turned at the sound of Lore’s voice.

  “Oh—I didn’t think you’d still be awake,” her mother said, moving toward her.

  Lore jumped down off the stool, backing away from her outstretched arms.

  “What are you doing here?” Lore asked again.

  Her mother and father exchanged a look that Lore did not understand. Her father hadn’t shaved in days, and his face was prickly with a new beard. There was a cut above his left eye, and he seemed to be moving with a slight limp. Lore scanned her mother, only finding a bruise on her cheek and a wrapped wrist. Neither of them had an injury severe enough to force them to leave the hunt early and face the shame of that choice. Not that she could see.

  “I was taking good care of them,” Lore insisted. “I was being a good girl. I did everything you asked me to.”

  “I know you did,” her mother said softly.

  Then why?

  Her father knelt in front of her, trying to gather Lore into his arms. She pulled back until she bumped into the counter. “Won’t you give your papa a kiss?”

  Lore turned her head away, her heart beating hard, her thoughts shooting in a million different directions at once. “You shouldn’t be home. It’s not over.”

  “It is for us,” her father said gently.

  One more cycle.

  She whirled toward him, her breath catching. Lore hated the way her voice quivered. “Until next time?”

  “Until forever, chrysaphenia mou,” her mother said. “Your father and I came to a decision, one we should have made years ago. We will hunt no more.”

  Lore shook her head, covering her ears to try to block the words. Her mother exchanged another look with her father, who rose onto his feet.

  “We have waited as long as we could,” her father said. “The situation has become grave, and we need to use the distraction of the Agon to leave the city. Tonight, we’ll pack what we need and, tomorrow, begin a new life elsewhere.”

  It didn’t make sense. What could have changed?

  “Are you scared of Aristos Kadmou? You told me the Perseides are afraid of nothing,” Lore said. “You told me the House of Perseus was the most noble of them all. You said . . . You said . . .”

  All the other bloodlines spat at them, laughing each time her father had asked to ally. Their line had lost its inheritance; they fought with flawed weapons other lines had discarded. But Lore had never thought they’d lose their pride. Honor was the most important thing—and the only thing—left to them.

  More important than the very breath in your lungs, her instructor had said. You cannot survive without it, and you would not wish to.

  “I know what I told you, Melora,” her father said. “But this can’t continue. We can’t endure this world. Aristos Kadmou has claimed the power of Ares. Do you understand what that means?” Lore resented his careful pause, the assumption that she could not handle the truth.

  She ignored the spike of fear at the thought of a man like Aristos with immortality—with power he didn’t deserve. She did understand what it meant.

  She understood that, in seven years, she would cut him until his mortal blood rained down, and then she would bring him to her father to kill.

  “We’re doing this for you and your sisters,” he continued. “We are leaving the Agon and this city, and we’re going as far as the winds will take us.”

  I will never hunt.

  The words brought a cold, terrible feeling into the pit of Lore’s stomach. She would never be more than what she was now: a girl standing at the threshold of a secret world, without a key to unlock the way.

  “No,” Lore said. Her grandmother’s knives were waiting for her, a promise yet to be kept. “You are cowards. You are cowards, and if you won’t fight, then I will!”

  Her mother looked away, pressing a hand to her mouth in obvious distress.

  “You will not speak to us that way, Melora,” her father said. The anger in his words made her feel sicker.

  “I hate you,” she whispered between clenched teeth.

  “Lore,” her mother said. “Please.”

  “I hate you,” Lore repeated. “And I’ll hate you forever!”

  “Very well.” Her father stared down at her, his face shadowed. “At least you’ll be alive to do so.”

  She pushed past him, storming across the apartment and into the bedroom she shared with her sisters. Her body shook as she stood in the dark, tears streaming down her face. The floorboards creaked on the other side of the door. She heard the soft exchange of her parents’ voices.

  Not wanting to speak to them, not wanting to look at them, she climbed into bed beside Olympia and pulled the blanket over her head.

  “Leave her, Helena,” her father said. “She’s got my temper, and we both know only time can settle it.”

  “She needs to understand,” her mother whispered back.

  “I don’t want the girls to live in fear,” her father said. “I won’t have it haunt them.”

  Her mother persisted. “She needs to know that he’s ascended. We should have left before the week began.”

  “We had to at least try,” her father said. “If one of us had been able to ascend, we could have protected them.”

  “She needs to know the consequences,” her mother said. “That we cannot hide ourselves from him. That he won’t just come for her, but for all of us . . . and for it.”

  Their footsteps receded, taking their voices with them. Lore clenched her fists, squeezing her eyes shut. Her body shook with anger, and she thought she would explode if she didn’t scream.

  Olympia turned and curled up next to her like a sleepy puppy, butting her head of dark curls against Lore’s chest.

  Tears came, hot and stinging. They streamed like a river with no beginning or end, dripping down her cheeks, into the pillow, into the mattress.

  Her parents were taking everything from her, all because they were afraid.

  Lore wasn’t afraid of anything—not the gods, not death, and not Aristos Kadmou and his snakes.

  “Don’t fight, Lolo,” Olympia whispered, clutching at the front of Lore’s night shirt. “Don’t fight. Go to sleep.”

  But fighting was all she could do.

  Her parents had been humiliated and scorned for years; they’d struggled for so long just to bring food to the table. She’d been ridiculed and mocked every day at Thetis House until they finally found a reason to send her away. But Lore had practiced her skills for hours on end while her parents were at work, because she knew what her parents had forgotten.

  They were meant for this life.

  They were meant to attain kleos and live forever.

  They would not be the last Perseides, and she would not let Castor die.

  Her parents only needed to remember. They needed a new reason to believe in the Agon, and in their own power. They needed what was rightfully theirs.

  Lore strained her ears, listening for the sound of her parents and hearing nothing but the soft breath of the AC unit in the kitchen. She slipped out from under Olympia’s grip and changed out of her pajamas. Her heart jumped into her throat as she tied her tennis shoes and stood, giving her sister a kiss on the forehead. She moved toward Damara, leaning over her crib to give her one, too.

  Her father wasn’t allowed to brick over any of their rented apartment’s windows, but
he had reinforced them with extra locks and an alarm system. Lore had figured out months ago that this alarm worked like the one at Thetis House. All she had to do was place a magnet from the refrigerator on the sensor, and it wouldn’t go off. She’d kept one at the bottom of her drawer ever since.

  Lore slid through the opening of the window, looking down into the small courtyard that ran alongside their building. They were on the sixth floor, but the pattern of bricks would give her a good enough grip to climb down without using the fire escape. She would be back before her parents woke up.

  The thought of their faces then, when they saw what she had done, made her grin, and her heart gave another excited leap.

  “Lo?” Olympia rubbed her eyes, but her voice sounded too sleepy for her to be fully awake.

  “You’re dreaming,” Lore whispered. “Go back to sleep, Pia.”

  Soon enough, she did, hugging the pillow tight. Lore slowly closed the window, but left it open, just a crack, for when she returned.

  Then she descended, dropping the last few feet to the ground, and ran into the dark streets.

  THERE WAS NOTHING IN the lane alongside River House.

  Not a dumpster, not a car, not even a door leading into the building or a basement. The driveway cut a straight path to Seventy-Ninth Street, blocked only by gates on either end.

  “Huh.” Lore kept her back to the building’s wall, trying to give herself a wide enough view of the lane to see whatever it was that she was missing.

  Athena stood a few feet away, her gaze sweeping over the filthy water and ground below.

  “Maybe we should go,” Lore said. “Someone could come back—”

  The goddess stopped and stomped her foot, shifted slightly, and then did it again.

  Lore shoved off the wall. “What are you doing?”

  “Come,” the goddess said, kneeling in the water. A moment later, she dragged open a hatch—one covered with a thin layer of cement to help disguise it.

  “Not bad,” Lore told her, fighting the water as it poured past her and down through the doorway. She leaned forward, taking in the sight of the tunnel below.