Lore
“I cannot imagine it is the squalor you live in now. Would you not like to live among the most powerful of the bloodlines—to have the gold and jewels and silk?” Aristos asked.
Her father had told her not to speak. She knew she shouldn’t have, even now, but she couldn’t help it. Pride flared in her heart.
“I will be a léaina,” Lore told him. “My name will be legend.”
The laughter of the Kadmides clawed at her from all sides, but Aristos Kadmou’s small smirk was somehow worse. Lore felt like her whole body might burst into flame. Her father’s hand stayed on her shoulder, but she no longer felt it. She no longer felt anything other than the pounding of her heart.
“You, a léaina?” Aristos said. “I have many of them, as you can see. All braver, faster, stronger than you—”
Lore released the scream that had built in her lungs, swinging the bottle against the stone pillar beside her. Wine flooded the floor like blood, turning the air sickly sweet as she lunged toward the nearest little lioness, clutching the broken neck of the bottle like a dagger. The other girl’s kohl-rimmed eyes widened, but Lore was faster, she was stronger—
Her father’s hand clamped down on her wrist, yanking it back before it could pierce the girl’s throat. For a moment, Lore saw nothing beyond the look on his face, the horror there. Her chest heaved, and she didn’t understand why it made her want to cry.
He drew her away from the lionesses, from the Kadmides who came toward her. For the first time in her life, Lore heard true fear in her father’s voice.
“Please,” he began, “she’s just a child—she doesn’t know her own temper, and there was no insult meant to you as a host. If there is to be punishment, I should face it, as I have failed to teach her better.”
The Kadmides gathered closer, tightening around them like a noose. Someone gripped Lore’s braid and gave it a vicious tug. She pressed her face to the small of her father’s back, gripping his shirt as a blow struck her between the shoulders.
Her father pushed them away from her. A whip snapped against his arm, instantly drawing blood.
“Stop,” she whispered. “Stop—”
It was another command that brought the room to silence. To stillness.
“Leave.”
The Kadmides obeyed the way Lore should have obeyed. They brought their leader pride as they left the restaurant, where Lore had brought her father shame. She knew about xenia, about the way a guest was meant to behave. She had violated something sacred.
When the last of the Kadmides had left, Aristos Kadmou began to circle them. His steps were slow and heavy as he clasped his hands behind his back.
“I apologize for my daughter,” her father said. “I will make any reparations you see fit.”
“There is but one thing I want,” Aristos Kadmou said. “It’s lucky that I enjoy fire in my women”—he leaned in closer—“and the challenge of extinguishing it.”
The archon slid an envelope into the pocket of her father’s shirt. “That is my offer for the girl. Send me your answer by the end of the Agon.”
Her father gave a curt nod, gripping her hand so tightly that Lore had no choice but to follow him to the door. She didn’t dare look back, not even as the other man spoke one final time.
“This is her future,” he said. “There is nothing more for her in our world. I will ensure that, one way or another.”
A few of his serpents lingered outside. They hissed and spat at Lore and her father as they passed. The humiliation made her heart feel sick and her body small, but it was nothing compared to knowing that she had shamed her father.
I will never gain kleos, Lore thought, her throat thick and her eyes stinging. I will never be anything at all.
They had been walking for nearly twenty minutes when her father slowed. He said nothing as he knelt and drew her into a fierce embrace.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pressing her face against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Papa. . . .”
He picked her up, clutching her to him the way he had when she was smaller, and carried her the rest of the way home.
THE VAULT’S DOOR SLAMMED shut.
Athena rounded on Lore, incandescent with rage.
“Why?” she snarled. “When our enemy was there, within reach—”
Lore somehow managed to choke the words out around the cold hands of terror still gripping her throat. “Too much time . . . too many of them—Castor—”
The door vibrated with a deafening bang as something slammed into it. Athena straightened at the sound, mastering her anger enough to growl, “If we are to retreat like cowards, then we do so now.”
Lore turned back, watching the door rattle. Indecision tore at her. They could take a stand. They could still kill Wrath here and end this nightmare.
Iro moaned, shifting against her.
Lore swallowed the bile in her mouth, her heart still raging in her chest. No—it was too big of a risk now. They needed to help Castor and get Iro to safety.
“Let’s go,” she told the goddess.
The pounding followed them down into the underground path, even after Athena bent the second door back into place behind them. Two hits, like a heartbeat. Bang-bang. It drowned out every thought in Lore’s mind, until she was sure she heard a message in it.
Bang-bang.
Too late.
Too late.
Lore’s phone vibrated as soon as they reached the empty shoe-repair shop. The message came from an unknown number, blocked by her service.
Safe.
A moment later, she realized who it was. Relief crashed through her as she texted back, Safe. Meet at Van’s place.
“Castor is all right,” Lore told Athena. The goddess had crept over to the door of the shop and had peeled back a corner of the brown paper covering it. She gazed out into the street, searching it for hunters.
“A shame,” Athena groused. “For now he must answer to me for our ruined hope.”
Lore adjusted Iro’s weight. The girl was taller than Lore, making carrying her awkward.
“It . . .” she began. “It didn’t work out this time.”
Athena’s gaze snapped toward her. “Why did you close the door? Does your belief in our objective falter?”
Lore shook her head. “No. He just—it left both of you too exposed. There’s a difference between a long shot and a no-win, and this became the latter.”