Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

“Do that again when you mean it, Golden,” he rasped. “When it’s not to distract me.”

She carefully avoided looking at Castor as they ran, too confused, too flushed with stinging embarrassment and longing at what she—they—had done. It felt like she had broken a bone and it hadn’t been reset in the right way. For a moment, she was terrified that it would feel that way between them forever. That she had done something that could never be taken back.

Lore jumped in front of Castor. The blast slammed into her and she was flying, falling, down into the raging light.

“Cas?” she choked out. Castor stood hunched over her, his arms up, his palms outstretched. Above him, trying to drive down through the new god’s barrier, was a massive slab of concrete. It bobbed in the air, riding the blasting heat and light. It was the source of the sound she had heard before, not rushing sand. The concrete was being incinerated to a fine dust. It poured down along the edges of the barrier and piled up around it.

Lore stared up at him, her thoughts in chaos. He met her gaze for a second, the embers of his power brighter than she’d ever seen them, then squeezed them shut, turning his face away. “Stay. Close.”

Lore turned so she faced him and drew close enough to rest her cheek against his shoulder and wrap her arms around him.

The light quivered around them again, sweeping in closer. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you hurt?” “Fine,” he promised, turning to rest his cheek against the top of her head. Lore forced herself to breathe in and out, hoping to steady her heart. Or was it his she felt now, beating hard and steady for the both of them?

Castor slumped forward, his arms wrapping around her, burying his face in her hair. Lore swayed, absorbing the enormous weight of him.

“Don’t make me drag you, big guy,” she said hoarsely.

Monsters lived in the shadows. To hunt them, you couldn’t be afraid to follow. And the only way to destroy them was to have the sharper teeth and the darker heart.

There was a warm weight resting lightly on her shoulder. Castor’s hand had slipped down from the bed, as if needing reassurance, even locked in a deep sleep, that she was still there. Lore gripped it, pressing it against her forehead as she tried to clear the lingering sleep from her mind.

Castor, though—Castor had always been different. It felt as if he had been given to her by the gods, and she to him.

Whether he died or won the Agon, the outcome would be no different. He would never be with her like this again. She would never feel the pulse at his wrist, or press her ear to his heart and hear it echo her own. Her grip on him tightened. Castor let out a soft, reassuring noise in his sleep, and she thought her heart might shatter as he turned to her, lashes dark against his cheeks. Lore forced herself to stand then, to gently drape his arm to rest against his chest, because the only other option was to give in to the need to sob like a child and beg the gods for a mercy she knew she didn’t deserve.

“Can I help you?” Miles said, moving it away. “Are you . . . are you searching Greek mythology on Wikipedia?” Van asked in disbelief. “What?” Miles said defensively. “I’m a little behind the curve in this group. The last mythology unit I had was in sixth grade.”

I couldn’t convince him to stop going to training when we spoke on the phone, even though it was exhausting him.” “Why did he stay in training if it was that bad?” “Because of Lore,” Van said. “He didn’t want to let her down, because she would have lost her training partner and had to leave the program. But more than that, he always wanted to see her. He always wanted to follow her, even if it was right into trouble.”

I had to dig little by little, and it was worth it, because I love the soft heart I found under the somewhat surly surface. That part was never a lie. It’s really rare to find someone who accepts you completely, and I try to give that back to her.”

“I thought you might like it. Everything is life and death and epic stakes with you people. I need to get on your level.”

“There is more than one way to kill a king,” Athena said. “You can bleed the life from him, or you can sap his men’s confidence in him.”

“We’re doing this for those little girls,” Lore insisted. Castor leveled her with a piercing look. “Which ones?” Lore’s body went cold. She drew in a deep breath, holding it until her chest began to ache.

“If clever Miles believes he will be successful,” Athena said, “there is no reason for you to stand in his path and deny him.”

“You let men use your name and image to reinforce their rules—you represented what they alone could strive to be,” Lore said. “But what about the rest of us? Those of us called women, and everyone who isn’t so easily sorted?” “I did not realize my gift of artful craft belonged solely to men,” Athena said. “Or that I did not acknowledge those women who displayed excellence in their home and the care of their family.”

“You know, what almost makes it worse is that you actually see yourself as the myth men created for you. Just now you claimed you were born from your father’s mind—but you had a mother, didn’t you? Metis. Wisdom herself. That was her gift, not Zeus’s, and he devoured you both to save himself, and claimed it. Denying her is denying who you are. It’s denying what men are capable of.”

“You ask me why I did not see fit to use my power the way you might have, and yet, you hold yourself back from your own potential. I would not have thought you to be such a coward.”

“He’s trying to protect me,” Lore said. It was what Castor had always done, as much as she’d tried, in her own way, to protect him.

“You are no monster. You are a warrior,”

Why would the men of the Agon treat their women and girls any differently? They make us believe our lives are our own, even as they slip the collars around our necks.

“He put his hands on me. . . . He forced his mouth on mine and pinned me to the desk. He was bigger. Heavier. And I thought, I am not special, or chosen. That was the shield I’d used against the truth for years—the certainty that I was meant for something more. But that moment, with him over me, that’s when I understood what that world was. There would always be a man deciding my fate, whether it was my father, an archon, or a husband.”

I. HATE. MEN.

She touched the long scar on her face, the last cut he’d made as she’d slipped out from under him. Sweat broke out across her body, and she was shaking, scarcely able to draw a breath.

“That’s . . .” Lore began. “That’s what’s so— It kills me to know that I was wrong about Gil. I knew better. I did. I let my guard down, even after what happened with the archon, because I thought I was the one making choices. That he wouldn’t be able to hurt me or control me like the men in the Agon had tried to do.”

“Just as we act out of necessity now. You fear the judgment of others in our pursuit of the imposter Ares, but you will not regret your choices once he is dead—only the opportunities you will lose if you allow others’ fears to keep you prisoner to your doubt.”

“And now history remembers her as a villain who deserved to die.” “No. That is what men have portrayed her as, through art, through tales,” Athena said. “They imagined her hideous because they feared to meet the true gaze of a woman, to witness the powerful storm that lives inside, waiting. She was not defeated by my uncle’s assault. She was merely reborn as a being who could gaze back at the world, unafraid.

“Your ancestors carried the shield that bore her head,” Athena said. “They wielded her power until they lost her. If the shield should be carried by anyone, it should be you—you, the one who knows the darkness of men yet refuses to be afraid.”

“Know this, Melora: Even the gods are bound by fate. Even the gods serve a master.

“The only thing I’ve ever been afraid of is being powerless. Of not being able to protect the people I love. But I don’t know what will happen to me if I give in to it,” Lore said. “Everything I feel. Everything I want to do.”

Artemis leaped away just as Van threw himself over Miles to shield him, disappearing into the trees.

“Lore—” Castor’s expression was pained and frightened. She watched, her hand still outstretched, as blood blossomed on his drenched shirt, pouring from a single gaping wound on the left side of his chest. Through his heart. Lore screamed, surging forward to catch his arm, but she was too slow. His lips formed a last, silent word. Lore. The life left his eyes, extinguishing the sparks of power. Castor slid back over the edge of the outcrop, into the water below.

As Castor righted himself, Lore feigned a wrestling hold, leaning forward until their foreheads touched and she had a hand on the back of his neck. It was the only way she’d figured out how to talk to him between breaks.

“Give it up, Cassie,” came a snide voice. “You can’t even keep up with a girl anymore.” “Jealous, Orestes?” Castor shot back, still breathing hard. “As the instructors say, we’re only as good as our partners. Poor Sabas has no chance, does he?”

“No one refuses the Kadmides archon,” Orestes told her smugly. “Maybe he’ll smother you while he ruts over you like—” Castor slammed his fist into the side of Orestes’s head, knocking him sideways. The others were brimming with glee as Orestes tackled Castor.

“What did you do?” she demanded again. Orestes backed away as she lunged at him, beating her fists into Orestes’s stomach. It was the last thing she remembered before her mind blacked out. The next she knew, her instructor had his arms locked around her center and had lifted her off Orestes. The boy’s face was a bloody, pulpy mess. Her hands were covered in it. “I’ll kill you,” she swore. Orestes coughed, spitting up snot and blood. His own hetaîros knelt beside him, wide-eyed as he stared at Lore.

“There is always hope.” “Hope has abandoned us,”

“I won’t let you go,” she told him, her voice low with promise. She wouldn’t. He was her friend and hetaîros, her companion and partner in all things. She would defend him if he fell, cut at anything or anyone who threatened him; her blade was his, and his hers.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Did you hear the one about the dancing dogs?” Lore’s brow furrowed as her spiraling thoughts suddenly stopped. “What?” His smile was weak, but still there. “No one wanted to partner with them because they all had two left feet.” Lore shook her head. Even Chiron seemed to groan. “Castor Achilleos, that is the worst joke you have ever told.”

When she didn’t, he gripped her by the back of the neck, bringing their foreheads together. His hand shook from the effort it took, but Lore pretended not to notice. “Swear it,” he whispered.

And they had repaid her by doing this. By taking Castor from her.

“Hold on to what you feel for your home,” Athena told her. “It will never abandon you if you serve it well. It is not so fickle as mortals.”

How far does this go? she wondered. All the way to the East River?

Ha ha east river

Lore started to throw her knife toward his heart, but Castor’s face flashed in her mind. At the last second, her hand shifted and she struck his shoulder instead.

That which refuses to grow destroys itself.”

Lore stared up at her through the strands of her dark hair. “The choice is mine.”