Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  The central chamber of Baron Hall was its round lobby—an expansive, lavish space. The old teller stands had been converted into bars, including one at the very center, directly below the dome ceiling. Blue, gold, and green lights artfully lit the space, as if none of the Kadmides swarming the building had figured out how to turn on the overhead set.

  It didn’t matter. Lore saw everything.

  The Odysseides, their hands bound and heads covered with hoods, each kneeled, waiting for their turn to be dragged to the bus outside. The Kadmides, meanwhile, were helping themselves to the other bloodline’s weapons and stores of cash, food, and antiques that had been hidden elsewhere in the building.

  And Wrath, standing at the center of it all, had his hand around Heartkeeper’s throat.

  WRATH LOOKED MASSIVE TO Lore, as tall and solid as the stone columns that circled the room. His sense of calm as he stood there, ready to break the neck of another god, was terrifying.

  “The informant was wrong about the timing,” Van whispered, stunned. “Or they changed it last minute.”

  Lore didn’t realize she was gripping Castor’s hand until he gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “Why is the false Aphrodite still alive?” Athena asked quietly. “Why hasn’t he been killed?”

  Heartkeeper’s dark skin was slick with either sweat or blood. His face, which had always been handsome, even before immortality, was now swollen almost beyond recognition. Ivory robes twisted around his legs, both of which were bent at unnatural angles, unable to support him under the influence of Wrath’s power. His mouth had been sealed shut with tape, preventing him from speaking—from using his power of persuasion on the other new god. A crown, one made of pearls and pale blue stones, lay in pieces nearby.

  “This does not need to be difficult.” Wrath’s voice crackled through the earpieces they’d stolen from the hunters. “Tell me how to open the vault and I will allow those men who kneel to me to live. I will allow you to serve me in the new age.”

  Lore moved, circling around the dome to see the other side of the room. The vault’s massive silver door was sealed shut. It had been designed to withstand almost anything, including bomb blasts.

  “I think the poem is in the safe room,” she told them.

  Wrath signaled to one of the nearby Kadmides. “Find his mortal child. Perhaps she can provide the necessary pressure.”

  Heartkeeper clawed at Wrath’s hands, but it was a feeble effort.

  “Where is Iro, daughter of Iolas?” the hunter demanded of the Odysseides gathered under guard. “If she is too cowardly to reveal herself, she does not deserve your protection, nor will you deserve the swift suffering it will bring.”

  It was a knife designed to slip through the ribs, to lodge in the heart of their pride. Lore closed her eyes, waiting.

  “I am she.”

  Lore’s eyes snapped back open. Van shot her a surprised look, but Lore shook her head. That wasn’t Iro’s voice.

  “I am her,” came another.

  “I am Iro,” said a third.

  Wrath turned, dropping Heartkeeper to the ground. The new god could barely lift his head, let alone crawl away. “Kill five of them for every minute she remains hidden. Take them off the bus if you have to.”

  “Where is Iro, daughter of Iolas?” the hunter called again, circling the group.

  Several struggled against their restraints, but there was no hesitation as one of the prisoners said, his male voice ringing out, “I am Iro.”

  He was the first to die. His blood sprayed onto the marble floor and whipped across the resolute faces of the hunters around him.

  Wrath bent over Heartkeeper, turning his head to face the killings before pinning it in place with his foot. He leaned forward, applying pressure. “Tell me how to open the vault. The information is not worth the cost of all of these lives. Not worth them remembering you as the sniveling coward who let them die.”

  Lore’s mind spun, trying to catch an incomplete memory before it had a chance to slip away. There was something about the vault—something about the construction of the safe room. Lore and Iro had once broken into the archon’s office to look at the documents and plans for the space.

  “Please!” a hunter begged as he was dragged forward toward the line of corpses. “Please, no!”

  The Kadmides hunters sneered with laughter. The one holding the blade drew it near to the terrified young man’s throat. “Do we have one who wishes to serve his new lord?”

  “Yes!” he cried out. The Odysseides around him snarled. “Yes—the girl, Iro. She’s in the vault.”

  Castor looked to Lore. She shook her head, her panic swelling.

  But there was something. . . .

  “Perhaps if her father will not tell us, his daughter might be inclined to,” Wrath said, returning to Heartkeeper’s prone form, only to glance back. “Kill him, too.”

  “My—my lord—” the Odysseides’ hunter cried.

  His scream blistered Lore’s ear as it burst from the earpiece.

  “I’ve never liked rats,” Wrath said simply, and turned before he could see the head severed from the hunter’s neck.

  He made his way to the vault, raising his hand to give a mocking little knock on it. “Child. Perhaps you would like to join us? I can’t imagine you would enjoy watching me bleed the life out of your father, nor snuff out the whole of the House of Odysseus. It is a terrible thing to be the last of your bloodline.”

  The memory returned to Lore in a flash. Another entrance.

  “There’s another entrance to the vault,” Lore said quickly.

  “You’re sure?” Castor asked.

  She nodded. “I saw it on the plans for the building when I lived with the Odysseides. Iro told me it would help her father escape because safe rooms usually have one entrance, and any enemies wouldn’t be expecting another.”

  “Do you remember how to access it?” Van asked her.

  Lore hesitated, but nodded. “There’s a tunnel connected to a shop—I think it’s on Thirty-Ninth Street.”

  “There may still be a way to kill Wrath and rescue the girl and what knowledge she may possess of the poem. Perhaps even the false god and other Odysseides as well,” Athena said, drawing out the words slowly. “Surprise is our ally, but timing will be our master.”

  Lore looked down again, to where Wrath lingered near the vault door.

  For four years of Lore’s life, Iro had been the only person she could completely trust and confide in, and Lore had been the only true friend Iro had as her bloodline jockeyed for power and favor from Iro’s newly ascended father. They’d both spoken that secret, quiet language of grief as they lost everyone close to them.

  Lore had always idolized Iro—how perfect and calm she seemed in the face of uncertainty when Lore’s own emotions felt too big for her body. Except for that last night, they had always protected each other, and Lore knew Iro’s insistence on training with her had been the only thing standing between Lore and a life as a servant at the Odysseides’ estate.

  Leaving her behind had been one of the most agonizing decisions Lore had ever made. She wouldn’t do it again.

  Iro, she thought. Just hold on a little longer. . . .

  VAN WENT TO GET to the Odysseides hunters on the bus. Lore didn’t like it—it wasn’t that Van couldn’t defend himself or talk his way out of most trouble, but they had no idea how many Kadmides were on that bus, or what they were willing to do to keep their prisoners contained.

  Don’t die, Lore thought. Please don’t die.

  She reached up, adjusting the earpiece. Static crackled over the frequency, punctuated by a few scattered updates from the Kadmides hunters keeping watch from nearby buildings.

  “All clear, no movement on the street—”

  “He wants us to check the transport for the girl—”

  “Shit,” she mumbled, looking down at the glowing screen of her cellphone again for the hundredth time in five minutes. “Get going, Van. . .
.”

  If ever Lore needed more evidence the Messenger always worked alone, it would have been clear from the fact that he carried an advanced drone in his backpack, but not something that would let him covertly communicate with her and Castor, who was waiting to attack from the roof if Wrath got to Iro before Lore did. In the end, Van had just given Castor a burner phone and linked into a three-way call.

  “Are you certain this is the entrance?” Athena asked, her voice low.

  Lore glanced across Thirty-Ninth Street, eyeing the shoe-repair shop again. They’d done a frantic search of the streets before Lore had spotted the vacant storefront.

  Given that Manhattan commercial real estate often didn’t stay empty for long, it seemed like a good bet, even before she’d noticed the small uppercase lambda beneath the historic site plaque beside the door. The Odysseides used it as a secret mark—lambda for Laertides, the patronymic epithet for Odysseus, son of Laertes.

  Now, crouched behind a line of parked cars, they waited. The signal came sooner than Lore expected.

  “It’s a go,” Van said suddenly. “Approaching now.”

  Lore drew in a sharp breath and turned to Athena. “That’s our cue.”

  They darted across the street and took up position on either side of the empty shop. The windows and door had been papered over to obscure the inside. Lore held Athena’s dory as the goddess bent to break the lock on

  the metal security gate.

  As it rolled up with a growl, Athena pulled on the door behind it. The lock snapped with ease.

  Once they were inside, the last of Lore’s doubts faded. The shop was barren, save for a few packs of supplies and water, clearly meant for emergencies.

  “This way,” Lore said, heading into what appeared to be the back storage room. There, beneath a hatch hidden by a rubber mat, was a set of stairs.

  Lore held up her cellphone to illuminate whatever was below, but it wasn’t necessary. A few scattered lights flickered to life as they passed by a hidden sensor, revealing the crude tunnel hidden beneath the buildings and streets.

  “Clever,” Athena noted.

  “We’ll see,” Lore whispered.

  Van must have muted his cellphone before entering the bus, because it was Castor who gave them the update. “Van’s on—it looks like . . . they’re off—”

  The words broke apart into static, then cut off as the call dropped.

  “What is the matter?” Athena asked, her expression alert.

  “No cell service down here,” Lore said, sprinting forward.

  The phone’s light bounced around the tunnel, keeping time with her steps. There was a slight rise to the pathway now, bringing them up out of the deepest part of the tunnel. More lights flickered on, revealing a massive silver door ahead.

  As soon as they were within a few feet of it, Lore’s earpiece started catching fragments of the updates being shouted over it.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “—headed west on Thirty-Sixth—”

  “—grab the bikes—”

  “Kyrios, Dorian—anyone have eyes from the roof?”

  A slightly pained voice answered, “We didn’t see anything until the bus drove away. One of them must have gotten free—”

  “Can you open it?” Lore said, trying to redial Van’s number. The phone still wouldn’t connect her calls, even as the voices in the earpiece became indistinguishable while they shouted over one another.

  “Iro?” Lore tried calling through the door. “Can you hear me? It’s Lore.”

  Athena felt along the edges of the seamless door, then stepped back, raising a fist. Lore jumped as she slammed her hand into the dead center of it. The skin over her knuckles broke open, leaving a smear of blood across the metal. She hit it again.

  “It’s reinforced to withstand a bomb blast. You’re not going to be able to smash your way through—” Lore protested.

  But Athena didn’t need to. As the center of the door bent in, it created enough room between the ground and the bottom of the door for Athena to slip her fingers beneath it. Her body shook with the strain of lifting it.

  “Iro!” Lore called. “Come out!”

  But there was no one inside. Iro had opened the vault door.

  Adrenaline spiked in Lore’s system, making a frenzy of her pulse as she ducked beneath the door, into the safe room. Just beyond it, Lore saw the grand hall.

  And death.

  The Kadmides were too fixated on the scene in front of them to notice Lore and Athena. They beat their fists against their chests, hissing as Wrath leaned an ear down toward a young woman in hunter’s robes. He held Heartkeeper’s head firm in one fist and pressed a knife to his throat with the other.

  Iro looked exactly as Lore remembered her—her dark curls had been scraped back into a low bun, revealing the patchwork of bruises and fresh cuts on her face and neck. Her brown skin had gone sallow, and even as her lips moved, her face, a portrait of severe beauty, was livid with contempt.

  It was the last thing Lore noticed before the world exploded.

  The glass dome shattered as Castor let loose a raw blast of heat and light, sending shards of glass and metal onto the Kadmides still gathered below.

  “No!” Athena growled.

  Castor had waited as long as he could—Lore knew that, but a tiny part of her echoed Athena’s frustration as his power raged down through the dome. His attack would help them save Iro, which Lore desperately wanted, but it would also force Wrath to retreat again to the shadows, and Athena would lose her best chance to kill him.

  We can still do both, Lore thought. We just have to act fast—

  Athena lowered her head and charged into the fray with a ferocious cry, only to be brought up short as the heat of Castor’s blast threw her back.

  Screams filled the air. The Kadmides fell to the ground, pierced with glass and shrapnel, and others fled, but not far—Castor’s power split, crackling and writhing across the ground like lightning scoring the land. It caught them in its snare.

  Lore stumbled forward, shielding her eyes as she searched for Wrath and Iro. The tile and cement caved, sending the escaping hunters down into the lower level. They disappeared into smoke and darkness.

  “Where is he?” Athena thundered.

  Four Kadmides rushed toward her, blades raised, but Athena was faster, slashing them across their chests with her dory. Lore struggled against the waves of heat roiling off the molten core of Castor’s power blast. She caught sight of Wrath’s outline through the wall of smoke.

  A hunter charged toward her, and Lore ducked to avoid his sword. A sharp pain lanced through her shoulder as the blade narrowly missed her neck, and he spun away again, vanishing so completely it was as if the swirling clouds of ash had swallowed him.

  But Lore forgot him as she heard Iro’s desperate voice call out, “Papa!”

  “Here—” Lore called to Athena. The goddess was still cutting through the remaining Kadmides, her eyes burning, the lines of her face set deep with the pleasure of her fight. “They’re here!”

  Lore swept her dory beneath the feet of a nearby hunter, sending him stumbling into a vein of burning power. She coughed, choking on the thick smoke as she struggled forward.

  “Iro!” she called. “Iro!”

  But it was Heartkeeper’s stricken voice that reached her first. “Don’t look! Iro, don’t—”

  Iro screamed.

  By the time Lore reached her, Heartkeeper’s remains were at her feet, his torso cleaved into two. The girl knelt slowly, her face rigid with shock. Her hands shook as they reached for his face.

  And Wrath was nowhere.

  Castor’s power abated, leaving fires and a few last lashes of fury in its wake. Lore looked up, searching through the rising smoke and the dome’s burnt-out frame, a fresh wave of dread rolling through her. The only reason Castor would stop attacking was if the Kadmides had reached the roof and he himself was in danger.

  “Where are you, Godk
iller?” Athena bellowed into the dark chaos around them. “Stand and fight, coward!”

  Lore banded her arms over Iro’s chest, pulling her back. “It’s me—it’s Lore! We have to get out of here! Iro, we have to run—”

  Iro broke free of her grip, spinning around to face her. She had the dory out of Lore’s hand and the tip against her throat in the span of a heartbeat.

  Lore saw the exact moment her shock wore off, and the other girl recognized her.

  A tremor grew in Iro’s body as she held Lore’s gaze. There was a bruise beneath her left eye, and her skin was streaked with sweat and grime. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, the tendons in her neck bulging with the panic of a trapped animal. “You can’t be here! You need to leave! He can’t see you!”

  Athena stormed toward them from behind, scattering the smoke and embers. Without a word, she lifted the shaft of her dory and knocked it into the back of Iro’s head. The girl slumped forward into Lore’s arms.

  “The imposter has fled,” Athena told her, visibly aggravated. “And now so must we. If the false Apollo could control his power, he may have been able to stop him. Whether intentionally or not, he has sabotaged our efforts.”

  “That’s not true—” Lore began.

  The goddess strode toward the waiting vault, stepping over the bodies and debris in her way. Lore knelt, lifting Iro over her shoulder. She bit back a cry of pain as the girl’s weight settled there, but it disappeared as soon as she began to run.

  They had just reached the safe room when Lore felt a pressure at the base of her neck. She turned slowly.

  Wrath appeared again amidst the destruction and eddies of thick smoke. He came toward them, that slow, long stride, closer—closer—

  Her hand found the door’s security panel and stilled. She forgot the reason they had come. She forgot the weight of Iro, and the burning in her lungs. She didn’t call out to Athena. She couldn’t speak at all with terror’s cold hands wrapped around her throat.

  Behind him, the remaining Kadmides were regrouping, gathering like shadows.