He looked out over the dark city, still without its dazzling lights. “I remembered.”

She looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

“I dreamed it, just now,” Castor said. “Apollo let me kill him, but he didn’t die. He ascended.”

Exactly as Athena had.

“Was that it all along?” Lore asked. “They had to willingly give their lives to a human?”

“I think it’s more than that. Do you remember what the Reveler said?” Castor asked. “That even Apollo knew that it would never end, and all of this—the Agon, the killing, it was all just pointless? I saw that in him. The realization was destroying him. He told me that he could feel the disease in me, and he got angry. He tore around the room, destroying whatever he touched. I thought it was because he was enraged that I had dared to meet his gaze, or that he’d been found, but that wasn’t it.”

Castor drew in another steadying breath. “He went still. All that fury, and then . . . silence. Thought. He pulled the blade from the sheath at his side and came toward me.”

“Were you frightened?” Lore whispered.

Castor shook his head. “No. There was something different about his expression—there was this focus. He asked me if I wanted to live. I told him I wasn’t afraid to die. Not anymore. And he said, If a mere boy is unafraid, I will match his courage. He put the dagger in my hand and closed his around mine. I couldn’t pull back. I couldn’t break his hold. He said, I am not without power, or purpose, and he pulled the blade in my hand into his heart.”

Lore couldn’t speak for a moment. “Why didn’t he just heal you? He had the ability, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Castor said. “The Agon was nearly over. He’d have his full power back within moments. But I think he wanted to be released from it—he wanted to escape the endless pain and violence and loss as much as we did.”

“And he left it the only way he knew how,” Lore said. “By letting you kill him.”

He nodded, rubbing his face. “I don’t know that it was a true sacrifice, because it served him in a way. I think they had to remember their true purpose, and they could only do that by giving up the power they had desperately tried to hold on to.”

A soft sigh escaped her.

Where were the other gods now? Lore wondered. Free, or still trapped in the dark world below?

Her hands closed around one of Castor’s, needing his touch. “Will it feel the way it did in the station? Will it hurt to leave?”

“I don’t know,” Castor said, smoothing the hair back from her face. “I’m not sure what’ll happen.”

The seconds were passing too fast. Lore squeezed Castor’s hand. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she wondered what it would be like to no longer feel it.

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

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just . . . worried about leaving the others.”

But it was more than that. I don’t want to go at all.

“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. . . .”

Lore closed her eyes, concentrating on the feeling of him, the sound of his voice.

“I needed the power this week, no matter what I thought of it,” Castor said. “But I still feel the way I did then, when I was a boy. Grateful for good days, when I feel strong in my body. Grateful for any time I have with you.”

Lore wrapped her arms around his center. He rested his cheek against her hair.

I don’t want to go, she thought. I don’t want to lose this, even for a moment.

She didn’t want eternity. She just wanted to hold Castor. To know that her friends were safe and nearby. To hear her city’s heartbeat, growing steadier by the day.

“Please,” Lore whispered—to the Cloudbringer himself, to whoever might have been listening. “Let us have a choice. Let it end.”

The air shifted around them, as if in answer. She felt a charge, spreading in a wild dance across her senses. A presence gathered behind them, a wall of immense, rumbling pressure. She didn’t turn around to face it.

“Please,” Lore whispered again, repeating the desperate prayer. “Let us go.”

Release us.

Wind rose, ruffling her hair. It sang an ancient song, carrying all that it had seen across lands, seas, and centuries. She drew in a sharp breath as it passed through her—a sudden warmth that spread across her soul. Lore gripped Castor tighter, but there was no pain. There was only light beyond her closed eyelids.

The pressure relented as the power shimmering inside her pulled free from her body like an unraveling thread. She drew in a sharp breath at the sensation, and again as it disappeared. The air settled and the sounds of the city rose once more.

Lore opened her eyes. “Cas . . . ?”

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.

Thank you, she thought. Thank you.

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.

GODS

DECEASED AT THE START OF THE AGON

Aphrodite—goddess of beauty, procreation, pleasure, and love

Ares—god of war, valor, brutality, and bloodlust

Dionysus—god of festivity, religious ecstasy, frenzy, theater, wine, and vegetation

Hephaestus (powers removed from the Agon)—god of fire, smiths, and stone- and metalwork

Poseidon—god of the sea, floods, drought, horses, and earthquakes

ALIVE AT THE START OF THE AGON