Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

Lore’s blood raced through her body as they ran, coming alive with the flush of heat through her muscles and the familiar rhythm of Castor’s steps, just behind her. Their old, hidden route still waited for them, as if they had never left, and had never lost one another. In that moment, the past became the present, and the present the past, and it was just the two of them in the shadows of their city, the way it had always been. The way it should have been forever.

Oblivious to the monster in their midst.

“It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter. Perhaps there were some in Sparta who embodied those myths. Perhaps. But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned this week, it’s this,” Castor began after a while. “When we can’t change the past, the only thing left is to move forward. I need to do the same. I need to stop questioning a gift that’s let me protect the people I care about most.”

“Lore.” He kept that same soft tone. “I was born knowing how to do three things—how to breathe, how to dream, and how to love you.”