Lore

He’s alive, Lore told herself. He’s alive, and he’ll come.

Another thought occurred to her then, breaking through all others.

Lore had assumed that Athena wanted the shield purely for the poem and what it revealed—but Athena had that information now, and yet she had stayed with Wrath and kept up this act.

She still wants it, Lore thought, brow creasing. She still wants the aegis.

Then why not use her unconquerable strength to rip it from Lore’s hands, the way both she and Lore knew that she could?

Because, a small voice whispered in her mind. She’s become part of his plan.

“Tell me why you want the shield,” Lore said as she backed up—not out of fear, but to bring herself close enough to the train carriage and tank to steal glances at them. There had to be a way to disable whatever motor was attached to the car.

One corner of the goddess’s mouth curled up.

Lore’s heartbeat grew louder in her ears.

“My great lord,” Athena began, a look of clear derision on her face, though the new god couldn’t see, “has discovered the true meaning of the new lines, and my father’s instructions—I did not realize it myself, until he reminded me of the story of Deukalion and Pyrrha. You are familiar with it, I presume?”

The dark air seemed to press in on Lore from all sides as Athena’s words settled in her mind.

Deukalion and Pyrrha had been the only two survivors of the flood Zeus had sent to end the warring mortals of the Bronze Age, having been warned by Deukalion’s father, Prometheus. Deukalion and Pyrrha had been the ones to repopulate the world by throwing the bones of the mother—stones—over their shoulders.

“You understand now,” Athena said. “For so long, I thought this hunt a punishment when it was merely a test. All this time, my father desired us to prove our loyalty by ending the worst age of man. To begin a new race that pays devotion to its gods.”

Lore was shaking her head, fighting the anger that threatened to suffocate her. “You’d need Poseidon’s power over the seas and rivers to pull off something like that.”

“Are they not already rising as this race of men slowly poisons this world?” Athena asked. “Will they not continue to, as the god of war inflames their hearts and spurs them on and on until the air is choked by smoke and the ground bleeds?”

“Her fear,” Wrath said, suddenly behind Lore. “It feels like wine in the blood.”

“It is only a taste of what will come,” Athena said, not bothering to look at him. “When the world realizes its fate.” She took a step toward Lore, her eyes flicking toward the aegis, just for a moment. “But it is not water that will purify the lands. It is not water that will cleanse this world. It is fire.”

Lore spun toward the car, the tank, her sword raised.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Wrath taunted her. “It contains sea fire and will ignite on contact with water.”

Sea fire. Lore sucked in a hard breath through her nose. A legendary weapon of the Eastern Roman Empire. Once ignited, anything the chemicals touched would burn, and rather than stop it, water would help carry and feed the flames. It would boil the streets from below, causing massive destruction as it fed on the raw material it encountered. In a flooded city, it would take days, if not weeks, to be fully smothered. And by then . . .

They weren’t burning Grand Central. They were burning the whole city.

“Yes,” Wrath breathed. “The fires will spread below the streets, through all of its many tunnels, devouring from below.”

“Igniting it now will also take out both of you,” Lore said, drawing back Mákhomai’s tip, ready to try to pierce the tank’s metal shell. “Is that supposed to be some kind of deterrent?”

“Only,” he sneered, “if you want to save your friends from the inferno set to explode above us.”

LORE’S PULSE SURGED AGAIN, her nostrils flaring.

“That’s an empty threat,” she forced herself to say. “They’ll figure out what’s going on as soon as they see that your hunters have left.”

“Child,” he said. “Whoever said all of my hunters have left? I needed but two to trap the rest inside and start the blaze.”

Shock whipped her from all sides.

“You’re—” Lore began. “You’re going to—”

“You’re, you’re, you’re,” he repeated, over and over, mocking. He came to stand near Athena again, using his belt as a tourniquet for his arm. “All of them must die eventually in order for the world to be reborn. They should be honored to know they are the first sacrifices to a new, glorious age.”

Lore turned toward Athena, but the goddess was unmoved.

“You can’t do this,” Lore begged. “You wouldn’t just be killing hunters—if his plan succeeds, you’d be killing innocent people.”

“There are no innocent mortals,” Athena said simply.

“I will enjoy tearing your life apart, to watch the true end of Perseus’s line,” Wrath told her. “Kneel to me, and summon the Cloudbringer with the aegis to bear witness to the blaze.”

“You really think it’ll summon Zeus to come watch you destroy a city?” Lore asked. “It doesn’t work like that, asshole!”

“It works the way I say it does,” Wrath said through gritted teeth.

Lore lowered herself into a defensive stance as both gods came toward her, Mákhomai suddenly heavy in her hand. Her arm shook with the effort to keep it raised. A fresh fear swirled in her as the subway car suddenly rattled to life, an unseen engine starting.

“Do you feel it now?” Wrath asked her. Lore fumbled for her one earbud again, but it was too late. The power coating his words turned her limbs to rubber.

Lore staggered as sensation left her body. Her grip on the aegis eased against her will, and, for the first time, she could barely support its weight.

“Do you really believe she’ll allow you to live?” Lore asked Wrath, fighting to draw the words out of herself. Her body shook as she planted her feet on the ground beneath the water in one last attempt to keep from falling. “That Zeus and the others will let you have this world?”

“Fool,” Athena growled. “You know nothing.”