“Never,” said Diana. “But it has to be the woods. We can’t stay out in the open.”
A chill spread over Alia’s arms that had nothing to do with the storm or her damp clothes. “What do you mean?”
“The people on this island came here because they don’t want to be found.”
“Like you?”
“I…didn’t have a choice. I was born here. But they really don’t like outsiders.”
Alia shivered. Great, they were one step shy of a dueling-banjos scenario. Dueling lyres? Keep it together, Alia. “They’re not in some weird militia or something, are they?”
“Actually, a lot of them are…uh…military.”
Better and better. Probably a bunch of paranoid survivalists, with Alia’s luck. If they didn’t like outsiders, they definitely weren’t going to like a brown girl from New York. “And they don’t have phones? Radios?”
“No contact with the outside world.”
“What if someone gets sick or hurt?”
“That isn’t a problem here,” said Diana, then added, “Or it didn’t used to be.”
So Alia had managed to get shipwrecked on Cult Island. Perfect. “Can’t we just steal a boat or something?” she asked.
“I considered that, but the docks are full of people. They’ll notice someone taking out a craft, especially during a storm. And I think we’re going to need more than a boat to get us to Therapne.”
“Where?”
“Southern Greece. The Gulf of Laconia.”
That made no sense—not if Alia remembered her geography right. The Thetis had only been a few days out from Istanbul. Even if they’d been wildly off course, it made no sense to travel that far. Why not Thessaloniki or even Athens? “That’s hundreds of miles from here. We can’t sail all that way.”
“Of course not.”
Alia took a deep breath. Her chest hurt as if someone had punched her. Her lungs still felt waterlogged, and her body was covered in bruises. Beyond that, she felt nauseous and bleary. She needed to see a doctor. She needed to get to a real city.
Unless Diana was lying or delusional—both of which were definite possibilities—she was stuck on an island crawling with weirdos, so she needed to be smart. Play along, she told herself. This girl wants to go to southern Greece? No problem. Alia could nod and smile for as long as it took to get somewhere with a phone.
She steeled herself and followed Diana into the green hush of the forest. It was like stepping into an alien world. Alia’s parents had taken her and Jason on a trip to the Brazilian rain forest when she was little, so they could learn about some of the new species of plants being discovered there and the medicines developed from those findings. It had been a bit like this—lush, alive—and yet not like this at all. The trees here were like nothing she’d ever seen, some of them wide enough around that the Thetis could have docked in their rings with room to spare. Their roots ran along the forest floor in thick spirals, covered in vines that bloomed with widemouthed trumpet flowers. The air smelled sweet and felt almost silky on Alia’s skin, and the raindrops on every surface made the moss, leaves, and branches glint like they’d been hung with gems.
Great place for a cult.
Alia knew she should keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t resist asking, “Why do we need to go to southern Greece?”
“Your expedition wasn’t attacked because of your parents’ work. You are being hunted.”
“Hunted,” Alia said flatly. “For my silky pelt?”
“Because you are haptandra.”
“Say again?”
“A Warbringer.”
“I’m not into gaming.”
Diana shot her a baffled look over her shoulder. “The Oracle says we must reach the spring at Therapne before the sun sets on the first day of Hekatombaion. It’s the site of Helen’s tomb, where she was laid to rest beside Menelaus. Once you and your bloodline have been cleansed in the spring, you will be a Warbringer no longer. You will never need fear for your life again.”
“Sure,” said Alia. “Makes perfect sense.”
“Hopefully, your enemies believe you’re dead, but we should be ready for anything once we’re off the island.”
I’m going to be ready to find the nearest police station and get the hell away from you, Queen Loon, Alia thought. But all she said was “Got it.”
Diana stopped abruptly and put a finger to her lips. Alia nodded understanding, then crept up behind her and peered over her shoulder through the leaves.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see. Maybe a fort or wannabe military encampment, a bunch of rednecks in camo. Instead, she was looking down at a wide road that led into a city cut from golden stone that seemed to glow in the fading light—a fairy-tale city of arches and spires, open porches bursting with cascades of flowers, their domed rooftops and silk awnings held aloft by elegant columns.
Something was happening. Women were hurrying back and forth along the road, a sense of urgency in their movements. Some wore leather trousers and banded tops similar to Diana’s, but others were draped in bright silks. They looked less like survivalists and more like a group of performers getting ready to take the stage.
Diana met Alia’s eyes and made a gesture.
“That some kind of military thing?” Alia whispered.
“Never mind,” said Diana on an annoyed breath. “Just follow me and stay quiet. Try to walk light. For such a little person, you make a lot of noise.”
“I am not little,” Alia protested. And, okay, she wasn’t exactly graceful, but it wasn’t like she’d run into a tree or something.
They continued through the forest, picking their way between the branches. Diana was sure-footed and never stopped to rest, but Alia felt worse with every step. She had no idea how long they’d been walking, but she’d lost her canvas tennis shoes in the wreck, and despite the mossy covering on the forest floor, her feet were protesting every root, bump, and pebble.
At last, Diana came to a halt. This time she got down on her belly and caterpillar-crawled beneath a tree covered in fat green leaves. Alia stood there for a moment. Was she really doing this? She heaved a shrug, then lay down on her stomach and followed. They emerged overlooking a high-walled citadel.
“The walls have cracked,” Diana said, her voice full of a kind of miserable awe. “They’ve stood for nearly three thousand years.”
Now Alia knew the girl was nuts. There was no way this building had been around for that long. It looked brand-new, despite the big crack in one of its sand-colored walls.
As they watched, Alia saw two more women in leather trousers and tops jog beneath an arch. When they reemerged, they had another woman with them. She had only one arm and it was tattooed with what looked like—
“Is that chain mail?”
Diana nodded. “Everilde disguised herself as a knight so that she could fight in the Crusades. The tattoo covers the whole of her torso.”
“Wow. It’s like she never has to leave Ren Faire. What’s written on her shoulder?”
Diana blinked, her inky-black lashes dappled with rain. “Peace. In Arabic. She had it done when Hafsah came to the island. Both of them work in the training rooms, but with the storm and the earthquakes, they probably need as much help as they can get at the Epheseum.” Diana groaned. “My mother is going to kill me.”
“Why?”
“I should be down there, helping. Taking a leadership role.”
Alia almost laughed. Apparently, even cult kids had moms with expectations. “What is this place?”
“The Armory.”
It seemed awfully beautiful for an armory.
When the women were gone, Diana led Alia down the embankment and beneath an arch buried in flowers. Alia reached out and touched a cream-colored rose, its petals tipped with red and heavy with rain. She’d never seen a more perfect blossom, and it was nearly as big as her head.
“Gauntlet roses,” Diana said. “Jericho lilies, nasturtiums. They’re a
ll plants associated with war or victory. My mother really loves a theme.”
“Doesn’t sound weird at all,” murmured Alia.
But when they entered the Armory, her jaw dropped. The room was a vast hexagon topped by an enormous dome. Each wall featured a different weapon: swords, axes, daggers, staffs, as well as things with spikes and prongs and creepy little barbs that Alia had no name for. The walls seemed to be organized chronologically, the oldest- and most rustic-looking weapons at the top, their sleek, modern counterparts closer to the bottom.
“No guns,” she noted.
Diana looked at her like she was daft. “The gun is the coward’s weapon.”
“Hmmm,” Alia said diplomatically. The gun was also the most effective weapon. There was a reason you didn’t see cops walking around with double axes. An anti-gun, horticulture-loving survivalist cult. Maybe they were just hippies who happened to be weapons collectors?
“What is that thing?” Alia asked, pointing to a staff topped by a giant claw.
“A zhua. It’s used for robbing a mounted opponent of her shield.”
“It looks like the world’s deadliest mop.”
Diana considered it. “Perhaps you can use it to scare the floor clean.”
They crossed the vast room, past padded floor mats and dummies clearly intended for sparring. “You guys just leave all of this lying around? Seems dangerous.”
“No weapons are permitted outside the Armory unless they have been sanctioned for exhibitions.”
“What if someone steals something?”
“How? These belong to everyone.”
Alia silently added socialist to her list of cult adjectives. Jason would not approve. But she didn’t want to think about her brother or how worried he must be. Or the fact that she might not see him again if she didn’t find a way off this island.
They walked through another archway and entered a smaller room. The light was dimmer here, filtered through the blue panels of a stained-glass dome above. The chamber was full of glass cases fitted with clever mirrors that made their contents seem to float in the blue-tinted light. It was like standing at the center of a sapphire.
The cases had no labels or plaques, and each had a different costume in it—a breastplate of pounded bronze and a pair of weathered sandals; the segmented steel and leather of what Alia thought might be samurai armor; heavy furs and beaded saddlebags; a pilot’s jumpsuit that looked like it might be from the twenties—Alia wasn’t too clear on the history of military fashion, though Nim would know. But when Alia looked closer, she saw the pilot’s jacket was riddled with bullet holes. She peered at the heavy plated armor in the case beside it. It had a hole in it, as if it had been pierced by a spear.
There was something else: the armor, the way the clothes were cut, the crowns and bracelets and boots. Alia stopped dead. They’d seen twenty or thirty people on the road into the city—and not a single man.
“Hold up,” said Alia. Diana was standing in front of a glass case at the center of the room, larger and brighter than the others, lit by white light piercing the oculus at the top of the dome. “Are there any men on this island?”
Diana shook her head. “No.”
“None?”
“No.”
“Holy shit, are you guys some kind of radical feminist cult?”
Diana frowned. “Not exactly?”
“Are you all lesbians?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s cool if you are. Nim’s gay. Maybe bi. She’s figuring it out.”
“Who’s Nim?”
“My best friend.” My only friend, Alia did not add. Jason didn’t count. And Theo was more “just a friend” than actual friend.
“Some like men, some like women, some like both, some like nothing at all.”
“But why no guys, then?”
“It’s a long story.”
“And how were you born here if there are no guys allowed?”
“That’s a longer story.” Diana turned back to the case and lifted the latch but then hesitated. Tentatively, as if she was afraid the metal might burn, she reached inside the case and took out a slender gold crown, a huge ruby cut like a star at its center.
Alia had seen a lot of big jewels on a lot of Park Avenue socialites, but nothing like that. “Who does that belong to?”
“Me, I guess. My mom had it made when I was born. But I’ve never worn it.”
“Is the ruby real?”
Diana nodded and smiled a little. “Red like the Dog Star. I was named for the huntress, Diana, and born under the constellation of her favor, Orion. The stone was cut from the stone of my mother’s crown.” Diana gestured to the wide tiara that hung suspended in the case, a far larger ruby at its center. “They’re heartstones. They act as a kind of compass.”
She popped the star-shaped ruby from its setting and returned the gold circlet to its base. “I hope no one will notice.”
“A missing ruby the size of a macaroon? Definitely not.”
Diana let her fingers trail over the other items in the case: a wide golden belt set with red jewels and hunks of topaz as big as Alia’s thumbnails; an elegant unstrung bow and an embroidered leather quiver full of arrows; a set of what looked like wide iron bracelets; and a long rope, coiled like a snake.
“We’ll need this,” Diana said, taking the lasso from the case. As Diana fastened it to her hip, it glinted brightly, as if it had been woven from something other than ordinary rope. Diana touched the cuff of one of the iron bracelets. “My mother used to bring me here every week when I was little. She’d tell me the story behind each case, all the women who came here. These are the relics of our greatest heroes. Pieces of the lives they led before they came to the island, and the battles they fought to preserve peace after. She told me all of their stories. All but hers.”
They must be heirlooms, Alia thought.
Then the bracelet Diana was touching moved.
Alia took a step backward and almost crashed into the case behind her. “What the hell?” It was as if the metal had turned molten. It slid from the case and clasped itself around Diana’s wrist. “What. The. Hell,” Alia repeated as the second bracelet slithered around Diana’s other wrist.
Diana looked just as shocked as Alia felt. She held her hands before her like a surgeon about to scrub in and stared at the bracelets, widemouthed in disbelief.
I have a concussion, Alia’s mind babbled. I definitely have a concussion. In fact, maybe I’m in a coma. I got knocked out during the explosion, and now I’m in a hospital in Turkey. I just need to wake up, because Nim is going to pee her pants when I tell her about the magical island of women.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” said Diana.
“Of what?” Alia managed to squeak.
“That my quest is just. That I’m making the right choice.”
“To help me get off the island? Absolutely. The justest.” Alia considered the rope and bracelets. Regardless of what Diana had said about people carrying weapons, if any of this was real, there could be a whole slew of cult ladies running around with battle-axes and death mops right now. “Maybe we should take something else?”
“Like what?”
“You’re the one talking about enemies hunting me. Don’t we need, like, a crossbow or a spear? Something pointy, like that sword.”
“The other artifacts? That would be stealing.”
“What about the bracelets?”
“These are my birthright.”
“Can’t we borrow something from the training rooms, then?”
“We’re not going to the spring to start a fight. We’re going there to prevent one.”
“Yeah, but you know what they say: Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.”
Diana raised a brow. “And sometimes the best defense isn’t showing up with a giant sword.”
“Says the girl who tops out at six feet and can carry me around like a knapsack. No one’s going to mess with you.”
“Y
ou’d be surprised. I—”
Another tremor tore through the floor, making the room swim with blue light.
“Move,” Diana said, seizing Alia’s arm and yanking her away from the case as it tipped sideways and smashed against the stone floor, sending splinters of glass flying. “We have to get you off this island.”
Alia tried to keep pace with Diana as they fled back through the Armory. Her head was pounding, and the nausea had returned worse than before. Chunks of rock dislodged themselves from the vast dome, crashing to the training-room mats as Diana and Alia zigzagged toward the entrance.
Diana held Alia back as they approached the arch, but their path must have been clear, because she grabbed Alia’s hand and they ran for the woods. Only when they were up the embankment and hidden by the trees did they pause. Alia felt like her chest was going to explode. She knew she was out of shape. Nim was always trying to make her do yoga, and Jason was basically in a committed relationship with his treadmill, but this was something else. Her head was spinning, the pain pushing against her skull in urgent pulses.
“I need to stop,” she said, bending double. Her vision was blurry. She felt something trickling over her lips, and when she touched her hand to her face, it came away bloody. “What’s happening to me?”
Diana took a cloth from her pack, moistened it with rainwater from the nearest branch, and gently dabbed at Alia’s mouth and nose. At her touch, Alia felt the pain recede slightly, her vision clear. “I told you—we need to get you away from the island.”
“The island is a metaphor,” Alia muttered to herself. “When we get off the island, I’ll wake up.”
“It isn’t a metaphor,” said Diana. “My home is killing you before you can destroy it. We have to keep moving. Do you want me to carry you?”
“No,” Alia said, batting Diana’s hand away. “I’m fine.”
Diana shook her head, but she didn’t argue. Alia trailed behind her, leaning on the trunks of trees when she had to, listening to the rattle of the breath in her lungs, squelching her way through soft patches of earth the rain had turned to mud. She was aware of birds taking shelter between the great green leaves, the rustle of their wings. She heard the screech of monkeys, though she saw no sign of them. This place was so alive, brimming with life, drunk on it.
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