Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

“The Gray-Eyed One is the wisest of all beings,” Wrath said, preening at her words. Believing every one of them, the way only a man who saw no faults in himself could.

No, she thought back. I’ll need your help, but not for that. Lore had her own fury, her own strength, and she wanted them to fear her, to know that she had been the one to defeat them.

Bring it to me, he was saying. For all his paint and costume, for how imposing the shadows had made him seem, she still only saw the old man he had once been, sitting on a meaningless throne. Give me the aegis.

Lore jammed the flashlight’s switch up to its brightest beam and watched both gods turn their faces away. He was never going to touch her again.

Lore brought the razor edge of her sword down hard, and, in one clean stroke, severed his entire right forearm from his body. Wrath staggered back as blood sprayed from his open wound. “This good girl,” Lore spat out, “is waiting for you to come and get it.”

“By the gods—sea, fire, and women are the three evils.”

Even if Lore could force him back into regular combat . . . She stilled. Regular combat. As if she needed to fight on his terms, as a hunter would.

“I’ve got another ancient proverb for you,” Lore said, sliding her arm out from the interior straps of the aegis. “Go fuck yourself.”

“You may be a god,” she told him, relishing the sight of his struggle. “But I’m the Perseides.”

“Actually . . .” Lore thumbed the lid off the canister and sprayed a torrent of mace in his eyes. “Just one more trick.” She dragged herself out from beneath him, kicking him onto his back as she stood. Lore clutched Mákhomai, raising it over his exposed throat. Years of anger, fear, and pain purified her mind until a single thought remained. End him.

Revenge created the Agon, but it wouldn’t be what ended it. Killing either of them would only continue the hunt for another cycle. For her, and for Castor.

“Just as I am sure that I did not give you my consent to kill this mortal.”

Lore shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut. She wanted to claw at the small, throbbing hope in her, the one she’d carried like a torch against impossible darkness. She wanted the life she’d fought so hard to create, and was as desperate for it as her next breath. She wanted to cry in a way she hadn’t since she was a child. She wanted her parents. She wanted everything, but never this. Never this.

But the city had to be defended, and it was hers to protect. She met Athena’s gaze and nodded. The look the goddess gave Lore was sharp, ever-commanding. “Through the heart.” Together, they plunged the dagger forward, the blow striking hard and true. The goddess shook, her eyes open, flashing silver as she saw something, felt something, beyond knowing. It was a warrior’s kill. A god’s final reckoning.

Not free. The thought pierced her. Never free. But the others would be.

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.

“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.

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.

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

“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.”

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.

Lore watched, too afraid to look away in case she missed a second of the life she loved.

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.

Her hands closed around one of Castor’s, needing his touch.

Lore rolled up onto her toes, capturing his face between her hands and pulling him down for a kiss before it was too late.

“If you could choose,” Lore began. “With everything you know . . . would you keep your power?” He considered the question, stroking along her jaw. “No. I never wanted forever. When I was sick, I just wanted a moment more. An hour more. A day more. I wanted to wrestle with my dad, continue my training to be a healer, and to run through the city with you. . . .”

Grateful for good days, when I feel strong in my body. Grateful for any time I have with you.”

He opened his own. For a moment she could only stare at him in quiet wonder. His eyes were dark again without the sparks of power in his irises. They were the eyes she had seen every day as a child. They were the eyes she loved. His mortal body was warm next to hers. She felt his heart begin to drum madly in his chest. Pure elation spread through her.

Castor let out a soft, joyful laugh, his hands touching her arms, her hair, her face, as if needing to be sure it wasn’t a dream. As the eighth day began, Lore smiled and kissed him.