Lore

“There!” Lore said, pointing. “There she is!”

The archer was balanced on one of the smaller outcroppings between the waterfall and a weeping willow dripping with rain.

Lore shielded her eyes against the onslaught of the storm. The goddess’s face was striped with dirt, and a crown of leaves and thorns rested on her pale hair. Her once sky-blue tunic was nearly black with blood and grime. She raised her bow, turning the nocked arrow toward Miles.

“No!” Van leaped over the bench and ran for the pond, splashing into the dank water as Artemis let her arrow fly.

“CAS—” LORE BEGAN, BUT the new god was already on his feet. Power blazed from his hands, incinerating the arrow and exploding jagged stones around the waterfall.

Artemis leaped away just as Van threw himself over Miles to shield him, disappearing into the trees. Castor and Athena ran around opposite sides of the pond in pursuit of her. The dogs bounded after them, snapping and snarling.

That’s going to get someone’s attention, Lore thought. She jumped over the park bench and splashed down into the pond. “Is he—?”

Van held out a hand, blocking her path. His voice was low with fury. “Don’t touch him.”

Lore froze, her stomach knotting. “We need to . . . We need to get him out of here.”

Van’s voice was low with fury, and his whole body shook with the force of his words. “You always—you always do this. It’s always about what you want and everyone just has to— Just . . . don’t touch him.”

She didn’t know what to do, other than hold herself back as Van dragged Miles out of the pond. He knelt, securing Miles over his shoulder, then ran back into the safety of the nearby streets.

“Godkiller!” Artemis cried out from the darkness. “I’ve waited for this!”

Lore shook herself. She could deal with the fallout of what had happened with Miles later—right now, he was safe with Van, and there was another, more pressing problem at hand.

She ran up the nearest set of stairs, stopping as she reached the narrow walking path. She couldn’t see anyone else through the veil of rain and the thick brush, but she could hear bodiless voices as they echoed off the cliffs. She stopped as she reached the next level’s walking trail, scanning the trees.

“Leave, sister!” Artemis shouted. “You know this kill is mine! If you betray me again, it will be your life I take next!”

Betray her? Lore thought incredulously.

“You wish to speak of betrayal?” Athena thundered back. “After leaving me to become the new god’s prey?”

“And now you betray me with every breath my brother’s killer draws,” Artemis said. “You should have brought him to me. You promised he was mine!”

Lore tried running toward the sound of their echoing voices, but they seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“Listen to me,” Athena called to her. “Control your feelings before they destroy you.”

“Listen, listen, listen!” Artemis snarled back. “I will never again listen to you. You weave lies and spin promises that you never intend to keep. You have done this to us—you! We followed you, and you led us to ruin!”

“Yes, sister, but now we have found a possible end to the hunt,” Athena said. “New instructions. Help us find them and we will return home. The hunt will end.”

“We will never be allowed to return home!” Artemis growled. “When will you see this? We will never bask in our father’s light again. We will never know his favor. All that is left is to kill the hunters and false gods for what they have done to us. To punish them for their lack of faith. If I must die, then so must they—beginning with him!”

Lore raced up another long flight of stairs for a better vantage point. The cliffs there were reinforced with stone blocks, making her feel like she was scaling the walls of an ancient castle as she reached the lookout at the very top. She leaned over the cement railing, searching the park. Fear rose in her like mist.

There, Lore thought. Athena and Castor were both in pursuit of Artemis as she led them off the lower trail. They disappeared beneath the cover of the foliage.

Lore bolted back down the slippery steps. She was soaked through, but no longer felt the rain’s cold touch. The crash of falling tree limbs was her lodestar as she made her way to them.

The gods had circled back around to the waterfall, to the copse of trees at its crest, not far from one of the trail paths. The rock outcrops on either side of it seemed more like conjoined, flat-topped boulders when viewed from above. They jutted out over the pond like smaller cliffs and fed the waterfall with more rain.

Athena was a short distance from the other gods, ripping apart the tangled net of thorns, twine, and branches her sister had woven and thrown over her.

Castor and Artemis rounded on each other, slamming through the trees as they wrestled for control. Artemis struggled to get her carbon bow up. She reached back, only to find she was out of arrows.

Tossing the bow aside, she pulled out a small hunting knife she had strapped to her arm. Castor was forced to weave back and forth to avoid her erratic slashing. He hissed as it sliced across his forearm, and she redoubled her effort, darting forward to drive the blade through his throat.

“No!” Lore dove for the dory Athena had dropped, and sent it hurtling toward Artemis.

The goddess knocked it away easily with a humorless laugh, but Lore wasn’t trying to kill her. She only needed to give Castor a second’s chance.

He took it. When Artemis leaned back to avoid the spear, he punched her wrist, forcing her to drop the knife, and wrestled her to the ground.

Finally free of the net, Athena lurched toward the other gods at the sound of Artemis’s ravening scream. The ferociousness of it made the nearby birds call back in a screeching cacophony. Artemis kicked Castor off her, sending him sprawling back onto the grass and mud.

She grabbed her knife again and held it out in front of her, warding off both Castor and her sister.

“Listen to me—” Castor said, gripping his side. “Please—we need your help—”

Artemis moved with the grace of a stag and the uncontrolled fury of a raging boar. Where Lore could occasionally see a touch of humanity in Athena’s calculations, there was nothing but animal in Artemis. She was incomprehensible in what one of the ancient writers had described as her cruel mysteries. She was as unpredictable and merciless as nature itself.