Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

Lore wondered where one might procure a poisoned shirt in this day and age, and how well it would hold up in its gift wrapping when she mailed it directly to Philip Achilleos.

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.

“If there were once heroes, they are all gone now,” her father said, rising. “Only the monsters remain.

“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. Is that not what your own line did for centuries, staring out from behind her mask?”

Athena rolled the dory across her lap. “I have played my part in wicked games, and lived at the mercy of more powerful gods. I have been quick to temper and relished striking at those who wounded my pride or dishonored me.”

Athena’s face became hideous with cold anger. “Know this, Melora: Even the gods are bound by fate. Even the gods serve a master. I have done many things, among them lashing out at a weaker being when I did not have the strength to punish one more powerful than even myself.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked quietly. “I wanted to be worthy of you.” “Worthy of me?” she began. Her words often came out too quick, too clumsy, too sharp, and she didn’t want that. Not this time. “Cas.” “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.”

Castor did not seem to be breathing. “You put Zeus’s shield in a trash bag.” “And hid it in a storm drain,” Lore confirmed.