Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  Lore closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of the heat and energy pouring through her. She felt herself sinking deeper and deeper as her power incinerated the stone beneath her. There was no way to escape it. She would be carried down into the darkness below and extinguished with the flames. Alone. She was alone. . . .

  “Stay with me.” Lore let out a choked cry, sobbing for breath and relief at the crush of it all. Don’t leave me. . . .

  They didn’t.

  She felt her family around her—the soothing touch of them, brushing her cheeks, wrapping around her center. And beyond them, the presence of unseen eyes.

  Power raged in her body, as pure as the fiery heart of the world. As old as Chaos and the worlds born from it.

  “Lore!” Castor’s voice carried across the station. “Lore!”

  She looked up, searching for him through the smoke and finding him in the elevator.

  “Get out of here!” she choked out.

  The smell of burnt hair and skin rose around her and she realized it was her. Sweat poured from her face as Lore beat the ground, overturning the hard rock, pulverizing it. The burning water rushed down through the growing cracks. It was working. This was working.

  At the edge of her vision, she saw Castor rush forward, shielding his face from the fires.

  “Don’t do it!” he called. “We need to get out! There’s nothing else you can do!”

  There was always something she could do.

  Sparks of her power flew around her, catching in her hair and turning her skin into a glowing cosmos. Her arms quivered with the effort of trying to keep that last grip on herself. Her hands blazed gold as she slammed them down one last time and finally broke the world open beneath her.

  The sea fire poured into the deep crevice, draining out of the station. She punched the tunnel again, pulverizing more stone in order to bury the fire. The tunnel shook with the force of each hit, as if it might cave.

  Only one thought made sense to her. She needed to bury the fire. . . . But she hurt. . . . Every part of her burned. . . .

  The glow at her hands intensified, spreading up her arms, washing over her, until Lore couldn’t tell if the light radiating around her was coming from her or the fires.

  “Stop!” Castor’s terrified voice reached her. “Lore, stop!”

  He fought through the heat, bold and shining as her vision started to fade to darkness.

  “It’s enough!” he said. “If the street caves in, it’ll take the hotel with it!”

  “The fires—” she rasped.

  “They’re out!” he told her, gripping her arms, trying to force her to look at him. The walls and ground stopped shaking, and the remaining water hissed as it poured into the crevice she had created.

  But Lore was beyond hearing; the same deep pull of power she had felt before returned, threatening to tear her body apart as she ascended. Her veins glowed gold beneath her skin as the last of her mortal blood burned away. She felt as insubstantial as smoke.

  Castor pressed her to him, hard.

  “No—stay,” he begged. “Stay here!”

  Her power left brands on his skin. It stirred a thought in her, pulling her out from the fathomless light she was dissolving into. Hurting him.

  Castor kissed her—kissed her until that blazing power lost its grip on her mind and body. The feel of him became a tether to the world, and she held it with everything she had in her.

  The blazing power extinguished around them. Nothing felt real but him.

  “Stay,” Castor said again, as he pulled his lips away from hers. “Don’t go without me. . . .”

  There was nothing left in her mind. There was nothing left of her in this body. And when the darkness finally came for Lore, it didn’t feel like an ending, but a beginning.

  TO HER SURPRISE, LORE woke to the world she thought she’d left behind.

  The city sang its old song for her, weak but growing in volume and tempo. Dozens of car engines hummed through the streets, the start of what might come in the days ahead. Construction equipment clanged and boomed with the effort of hauling debris. People walked the nearby streets, laughing—and that was the sound that Lore held on to, the one that embedded itself in her heart as she opened her eyes.

  Miles’s anxious face stared back at her. His hand tightened around hers as he bit his lip and tried not to cry. It looked like he’d somehow had a shower, or had at least a good scrub and shave.

  “Your eyes,” he whispered.

  Lore tried to think of what to say to him. Now that she was awake, that disconcerting feeling was back. Power moved inside her, restless in its confinement. Her body, which had served her so well for so many years, the one she had strengthened and loved and scarred, felt too insubstantial for her now. Instead, she looked around.

  They were in her bedroom in the town house.

  She was surprised at how close to tears she was at the thought. Lore cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  He gave her a watery smile. “That’s why it’s probably okay that it did.”

  Miles had opened the curtains in her room, inviting the golden afternoon sunlight in. Lore felt its warmth pass through her as vividly as she felt the slide of the blanket against her skin.

  Lore sat up suddenly. “What day is it?”

  “Saturday,” he said. “You’ve been asleep since Castor healed you.”

  Saturday. The thought filled her with a surge of panic. There were only hours left until the end of the Agon.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked, her pulse quickening as she looked around the empty space. “Are they okay?” Lore had a sudden, vivid memory of what had happened in the subway station. “Is Castor—?”

  “He’s okay. Everyone is fine. I mean—fine in that vaguely traumatized way that comes with not fully processing everything that’s happened, but fine.” Miles rubbed the back of his neck. “They went up to the roof a few minutes ago to get some air.”

  A comfortable silence settled between them. Lore breathed in, and out, and in, and out, relishing the feel of it. How easy it came. She realized she was still holding Miles’s hand, but didn’t let go.

  “What’s going to happen to you when today ends?” he whispered. “Are you going to disappear? Will you be hunted like the others in seven years?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. But . . . I hope it’s over. All of it.”

  Lore suddenly felt desperate for the sight of her city. She stood slowly from the bed, releasing Miles’s hand to make her way over to the window. As she moved, the power moved with her, flowing through her muscles and winding around every joint and sinew.

  Miles came to stand beside her. “What if the Agon takes you with it and you can’t come back? Athena said that the gods live in a world beyond ours—is that where you’d go?”

  “This is my home,” Lore said. “Even if I lose this form, I’ll find a way to come back. I’m determined, and you know what that means.”

  “You get a very intense look on your face and punch someone in the kidney?” Miles said.

  “Maybe a little of that, too.” Lore let out a true laugh, but saw that he needed more reassurance. “I might need to be gone awhile, but I would never leave you forever. Not if I can help it.”

  “Okay, but counterpoint,” Miles said. “I don’t want you to go at all.”

  Lore turned her gaze back out onto the street below, watching as the first colors of sunset held her sweet neighborhood in a moment of perfect light. A couple walked with their dog and stroller, the men laughing together as the baby tossed a small star-shaped toy into the street.

  He glanced at her again, leaning his temple against the warm glass. “You do seem a little different, but also not. I can’t explain it.”

  “Me neither,” Lore said. “I just feel . . . light.”

  She draped an arm around Miles’s shoulder. He did the same.

  “You know, this city is a lot of bullshit,” Lore said after a w
hile. “But it’s some beautiful bullshit.”

  Lore and Miles joined the others on the roof. The sunset had begun in earnest, putting on a spectacular show of rosy gold and violet.

  Castor stood to take the plastic bags of snack food Miles carried up. As he saw her, she caught a flash of concern in his eyes that he did his best to disguise.

  Iro and Van were sitting on the blanket that they’d stretched over the rough surface. Lore’s heart was full at the sight of them, her joy so bright that she was almost startled by it. The two of them shared a glance, an unspoken nudge to each other to say something.

  She suddenly felt shy then—as if what had happened, and what she’d become, was a ghost they all could see, but no one wanted to acknowledge.

  Lore really hated feeling shy.

  “Man, we really need to put a pool or garden up here,” Lore said, pretending to look around. “What the hell is the point of having rooftop access if you can’t lord it over your neighbors?”

  “I’m guessing the point is to not violate city building codes,” Miles said lightly. “So we don’t have to pay an exorbitant fine.”

  “Don’t you have an in with the city government?” Lore asked. “I mean, picture it—some nice lights, a few little plants here and there—”

  “You have killed every single plant I’ve brought home for you,” Miles said. “And then I went home to Florida for spring break and you killed my plants because you didn’t water them.”

  “I was busy,” Lore protested. “They seemed fine.”

  “How did we get on this subject?” Castor asked, digging out a small package of pretzels and tossing it to Van.

  “How did you know I had a hankering for the mini twists?” Van asked, plucking one from the bag.

  “Because we’ve been eating like subway rats for the last two days and you had the cheese puffs for breakfast this morning,” Castor said.

  “Subway rats at least get the occasional slice of dropped pizza,” Lore said.

  “Can we please stop talking about rats?” Van asked, pained.

  Lore and the others circled up around the bags, stretching out across the warm roof as the sun finally dipped beneath the horizon.

  As Miles went on about the updates he’d gotten laying out Columbia’s delayed start of the school year, Iro caught Lore’s eye.

  Okay? Lore mouthed.

  Iro nodded. There wasn’t a bruise or scratch on her that Lore could see, and that didn’t seem possible, given the fight she’d likely had in the hotel. Castor must have healed all of them after caring for Lore.

  She leaned back and turned her gaze upward, toward the heavens. Without the city’s usual glow, it was easy to make out the stars.

  Castor, Miles, and Van went to the edge of the roof, and the new god pointed out all the same constellations Lore had quietly noted to herself.

  Her father had taught them to her and Castor, telling them the myths behind each. Like the heroes of old and so many others, she had believed that the only greater honor than kleos was for the gods to place you among the stars.

  Sometimes Lore caught herself searching for her family in those lights. When the heaviness of that grief visited her, when she missed them with the kind of pain that made sleep impossible, she had made up her own constellations for each of them.

  Lore pressed a hand to her chest, rubbing it. In time, she knew she would see them again, but not now. She’d outrun death so many times she’d stopped counting, but it wasn’t lost on her that the one being who had destroyed her life had also given her a second one.

  Iro came and lay beside her, taking in the dark sky. Lore turned to look at her.

  “Is everything all right with your line?” Lore asked. “What happened in the hotel?”

  “The Odysseides are wounded, but mending,” Iro said. “We lost only one hunter in the fight. Once the Kadmides discovered the tank of sea fire, and that they had been locked in with us, the fighting stopped and they were willing to show us how to smother the flames. It was all so strange, in a way.”

  “The Odysseides were lucky to have you there to lead them,” Lore said.

  Iro shook her head. “If only it were that simple. I want them to listen to me, but there’s still a small part of me that feels like . . . I am not meant to lead.”

  “You are,” Lore told her.

  Iro breathed in deeply. “I don’t know how to convince the elders that we have to find a new role to play in this world, but I’m hoping my mother can help. She’s meeting us at the estate in the Loire Valley. We’ll fight for the soul of the Odysseides together.”

  “Good,” Lore said. “That’s good, Iro. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to help you, but I’ll try.”

  Iro scoffed. “What can’t you do?”

  “Beat you in sparring?” Lore offered.

  “Do not ever forget that,” Iro said. “No matter how many eternities you see.”

  “If I’m lucky enough to have that long,” Lore said quietly.

  “Do you . . .” Iro seemed uncertain of how to ask her question. “Do you want this for yourself?”

  “I don’t know what I want, or what I really feel. Mostly sad, I think,” Lore said. “Maybe that’s not even the right word. It’s like I’m missing everything, and all of you, and I’m still here. I can’t shake this feeling that having Athena’s power will only create more problems. That, no matter how hard I try, I’ll lose touch with my humanity and find myself in the same destructive patterns the old gods fell into.”

  Lore didn’t want ages to feel like moments, or for time to lose its meaning for her. She didn’t want to decide how and when to use her power and know she would inevitably make mistakes.

  She didn’t want to be alive after all her friends were gone.

  “We don’t know what will happen until the hour comes,” Iro said as the others made their way back over to them. “But until then, we’ll stay here together as long as the night will have us.”

  Lore nodded, but both of them knew exactly how long that would be. The day would turn at midnight.

  They ate and drank as night fell. Finally, Lore told them what had happened in the tunnel, and what Athena had done. She answered what questions she could, even as she had more of her own.

  As the hours passed, the night felt dreamlike to her. The flow of conversation and laughter, the faces lit by candlelight. Lore watched, too afraid to look away in case she missed a second of the life she loved.

  LORE FELT THE MOMENT the moon neared the summit of its arc through the sky.

  Extracting herself from the comfortable warmth of Castor’s arms, she sat up. The others slept around her, sprawled out beneath the stars. Van and Miles with their hands intertwined, Iro with the soft look of dreaming.

  She reached for her phone, checking the time. 11:50 p.m.

  Lore had promised Miles and the others that she and Castor would wake them up before midnight. Yet as her hand hovered over his shoulder, she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it. She had already faced so many good-byes in her life, all painful, and none of them on her own terms.

  Instead, she picked up Miles’s phone where he had left it beside him, made a face, took a photo, and set it as his background. Then, in a draft email, she left him instructions on how to access the untouched bank account Gil—Hermes—had left to her and where to find the keys to the safety-deposit box that held the brownstone’s deed.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  Castor had been dozing for the last hour, but he must have felt the shift in the world, too. He stood and stretched now, rolling his shoulders back and swinging his arms, as if to remember the feeling of it.

  Lore put her finger to her lips, quieting him as she set the phone down beside Miles’s sleeping form. She reached up to take the hand Castor offered to her. They walked, their fingers interlaced, to the other side of the roof.

  He looked out over the dark city, still without its dazzling lights. “I remembered.”
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  She looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

  “I dreamed it, just now,” Castor said. “Apollo let me kill him, but he didn’t die. He ascended.”

  Exactly as Athena had.

  “Was that it all along?” Lore asked. “They had to willingly give their lives to a human?”

  “I think it’s more than that. Do you remember what the Reveler said?” Castor asked. “That even Apollo knew that it would never end, and all of this—the Agon, the killing, it was all just pointless? I saw that in him. The realization was destroying him. He told me that he could feel the disease in me, and he got angry. He tore around the room, destroying whatever he touched. I thought it was because he was enraged that I had dared to meet his gaze, or that he’d been found, but that wasn’t it.”

  Castor drew in another steadying breath. “He went still. All that fury, and then . . . silence. Thought. He pulled the blade from the sheath at his side and came toward me.”

  “Were you frightened?” Lore whispered.

  Castor shook his head. “No. There was something different about his expression—there was this focus. He asked me if I wanted to live. I told him I wasn’t afraid to die. Not anymore. And he said, If a mere boy is unafraid, I will match his courage. He put the dagger in my hand and closed his around mine. I couldn’t pull back. I couldn’t break his hold. He said, I am not without power, or purpose, and he pulled the blade in my hand into his heart.”

  Lore couldn’t speak for a moment. “Why didn’t he just heal you? He had the ability, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know,” Castor said. “The Agon was nearly over. He’d have his full power back within moments. But I think he wanted to be released from it—he wanted to escape the endless pain and violence and loss as much as we did.”

  “And he left it the only way he knew how,” Lore said. “By letting you kill him.”

  He nodded, rubbing his face. “I don’t know that it was a true sacrifice, because it served him in a way. I think they had to remember their true purpose, and they could only do that by giving up the power they had desperately tried to hold on to.”