Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  The goddess realized Lore wasn’t following and turned. Seeing Wrath, she reached for Iro’s blade and threw it with all her strength. Wrath turned, letting it graze his cheek as it tore through the air beside him.

  Aristos Kadmou had been the monster inside the maze of her mind for so long, she had a near-perfect memory of his scarred face and the way his coarse, dark hair had been shot through with gray. He looked younger now than Lore remembered, as if immortality had drawn him back through the decades.

  But there were echoes of him lingering there—the low, thick eyebrows. The deep olive tone of his skin. A face shaped like a cut diamond.

  Through the maelstrom of glass fire swirling around him, his golden eyes met hers, and he smiled.

  Found you.

  Lore punched her fist against the security panel and the door slammed shut.

  HER FATHER WOULDN’T TELL her where they were going.

  Lore dutifully carried the small parcel her mother had handed her and trailed a step after him. Her father loved to smile, but he hadn’t laughed at all that morning. He and Mama had barely spoken at all. Now his shoulder blades were bunched together like wasp wings. Judging by the expression on his face, she was afraid to ask for their destination, on the chance she might get stung by a sharp word.

  She didn’t like it. Not at all.

  April had drawn out all of the city’s secret life. Lore carefully avoided the small flowers and grass that pressed themselves up through the cracks in the sidewalk. The songbirds high up in the trees along their street greeted her

  as she passed. Lore smiled at them.

  Though Lore was older, and taller, her view of her papa never seemed to change. He looked as big and strong as any of the midtown buildings that cut at the sky like shining glass knives.

  Lore hurried to match the pace of her father’s long strides. After a moment, though, he stopped to wait for her. When Lore reached him, her father cupped a hand behind her head, then wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She finally relaxed.

  “Tell me,” he began, keeping his tone light, “how’s your Castor?”

  With the sun behind him, Lore couldn’t see his face.

  “He is not my Castor,” she said. “He is my hetaîros.”

  “Ah,” her father said, innocently. “I never had a hetaîros of my own, just my father. Do hetaîros see each other outside their training, or must they meet only within the walls of Thetis House?”

  Lore bit the inside of her mouth so hard she tasted coppery blood. She saw Castor outside Thetis House all the time. On the days there were no lessons for their class, or they were let out early, and neither her parents, nor her babysitter, Mrs. Osbourne, knew it.

  Lore was grateful for her little sisters. They may have stolen her old blanket and Bunny Bunny, but they kept Mrs. Osbourne’s gaze constantly turned away from her.

  “He is training more and more with Healer Kallias now,” Lore said, trying not to sound as hurt as she felt by it. One day, Castor would be the best healer the Achillides had, but until then, she didn’t want to work with any of the others who had lost their partners to training for the archives and weapon-smiths. “I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing Castor outside of training. . . .”

  “Outside of training—for instance, when you went to Central Park last Tuesday?”

  Lore slowed, her mind whirling with panicked excuses. She could say she had to walk home a different way because of traffic, or construction—

  “Ah-ah,” he said. “No lie was ever righted by another lie.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  “Promise me that you won’t go again without an adult,” her father said.

  Lore made a face and received a warning look that instantly erased it.

  “Why?” she asked, confused.

  “Because I said so, Melora,” he said. “And because it’s not safe.”

  Lore’s jaw dropped. Not safe? Yesterday her instructor had showed her which ribs to slide her blade through to strike the heart. She had practiced the move this morning in front of the bathroom mirror. “I’m fine, Papa. I always bring my knife with me.”

  Her father stopped again, drawing in a sharp breath. A look passed over his face that Lore didn’t understand. Not fear, exactly—more like she’d punched him in the stomach and he was fighting not to double over. He was silent for a long while.

  “I’m sorry?” she whispered. That was usually the answer he was looking for.

  He shook himself out of his trance, taking her hand again. “What have I told you about your knife?”

  “I can only use it at Thetis House or home,” she dutifully repeated. Which was stupid. All hunters needed their weapons on them at all times, even between the Agons. But the words still didn’t make him happy.

  He glanced around at the people walking by them, oblivious or checking their phones. Then he switched to the ancient tongue. “Because the Unblooded will not understand. They will take you away if they catch you with a weapon like that.”

  “I can defend myself!” The words burst out of her. “I am the best in my class. Instructor calls me the Spartan—”

  “Not even the Spartans were Spartan, Melora,” her father said.

  Lore pulled back, out of his reach. She hugged the parcel to her. Her thoughts became a confusing tangle. “What do you mean?”

  He knelt down to look her directly in the eye. “It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter. Perhaps there were some in Sparta who embodied those myths. Perhaps. But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.”

  Lore’s heart began to beat very fast. She clutched the parcel hard enough to rumple its brown paper. “But our legends are true. Our ancestors, the gods—”

  “If there were once heroes, they are all gone now,” her father said, rising. “Only the monsters remain. Your courage has always been great, chrysaphenia mou. For some monsters, that will be enough to scare them off—but there will be others, bigger beasts who will delight in the chase. Do you understand?”

  Lore said nothing. Her anger growled in her chest, bold and gnawing. She could take care of anyone—or anything—that tried to strike at her. Monsters had fangs, but that was why lionesses were given claws.

  “Do you understand?” he repeated, sharper this time.

  “Yes, Papa,” she said sullenly.

  “Castor’s father is an acquaintance of mine,” he said. “I’ll speak to him about arranging times for you to see him outside your lessons and ask Philip Achilleos for permission, if I must. But you—you must promise me.”

  “I promise,” she said, then silently added, To be more careful than I was before.

  They started walking again, rejoining the flow of people making their way across town. Lore stayed close to her father’s side, trying to avoid being jostled by roving school groups as they crossed Fifth Avenue. Lore didn’t spare them another look. They weren’t like her.

  “Your sister will join you at Thetis House soon. Would you like that?”

  Lore shrugged. She couldn’t imagine Pia, with her wide eyes and her little fingers always stained with paint, taking the hits from her classmates’ training staffs. The thought made Lore’s chest growl again, though she wasn’t sure why.

  “What shall we do for her birthday?” he asked, switching back into English.

  Lore shrugged again. She already knew what she would get her sister as a gift—a promise to make their bed and braid her hair every day until summer was swept away by autumn winds.

  “A movie?” she ventured. Her father didn’t like them much, but maybe this once . . .

  “A picnic?” he suggested instead.

  “A trip to Central Park Zoo?” she offered.

  On and on, they traded ideas, until they ran out of things they had done and had to inv
ent things that they couldn’t ever do.

  “A trip to the moon?” Lore said.

  “A dance with winged horses?”

  Lore shifted the parcel in her hands. It wasn’t heavy, but the clinking inside made her wonder.

  “A walk to wherever we’re going?” she suggested innocently.

  One corner of her father’s mouth twitched, but evened out again as he pursed his lips.

  “No, chrysaphenia mou,” he said, looking ahead. “We won’t take her there. It is a place of monsters.”

  Lore didn’t recognize the restaurant. She didn’t even think it was open. The shades were drawn and the door was locked. She glanced over to the name stenciled onto the larger of the two windows. The Phoenician.

  She gasped.

  “Say nothing,” her father told her in a low voice, taking the parcel out of her hands. “Do you remember what I taught you about the way guests have to behave? The Kadmides have invited us as a gesture of goodwill and peace.”

  Lore recoiled. “Not them, Papa—they’re the ones who killed—”

  “Melora,” he interrupted sharply. “Do you really think I’ve forgotten? We are alone in this world now, the five of us. Your mother’s people will not ally with us for the next Agon, and neither will the Achillides or the Theseides. They would all gladly watch the last of Perseus’s line leave the Agon. We need allies.”

  She drew in a long breath through her nose, holding it to keep from saying anything.

  “Aristos Kadmou, archon of this bloodline, wrote to me himself and asked that I come with my eldest daughter,” he said. “I could not refuse without it being perceived as an insult. They are not known for their graciousness when it comes to being slighted.”

  The air exploded out of her. “But, Papa—”

  “We must release the past if we are to ever find a future,” he told her. “Don’t be afraid. I am with you, and we are strangers here. Zeus Xenios will protect us.”

  Like he protected the rest of our bloodline? Lore was surprised at her mean thought. Of course he would protect them. They were Zeus’s chosen hunters.

  Lore knew her family wasn’t like the other bloodlines. But it was one thing to train with the house of mighty Achilles and another to go to the Perseides’ worst enemy for weapons and armor and information. She hated that it had to be this way. Perseus was a greater hero than Kadmos ever was.

  Her father raised his hand and knocked.

  A voice called back through the door in the ancient tongue. “Who comes here?”

  “Demos, son of Demosthenes, and his daughter, Melora, of the Perseides,” he replied. “At the request of the archon of the Kadmides.”

  The door’s lock slid open. Lore clutched the bottom of her father’s old leather jacket, then forced herself to step away and straighten. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She didn’t hide behind anyone.

  The woman who opened the door was well into her years of white hair and worn skin. She locked it behind them.

  The restaurant was dark, with only muted sunlight seeping through the screens. It was smaller than she’d expected, and, to make room, all of its tables and chairs had been pushed to the far sides and stacked. The gathered Kadmides moved, creating a narrow aisle between them. They hissed and smirked as Lore and her father passed by them.

  Lore stared back defiantly. A hunter never showed another hunter their fear. Not if they wanted respect.

  Familiar smells coated the air—oregano and garlic, roasted meat, oiled leather, bodies. Sitting near the back of the restaurant, elevated above the others on a small stage, was a middle-aged man, his dark hair shot through with silver.

  He leaned back against his throne as they approached. An old, powerful tree had been cut down to make it; Lore’s eyes fixed on the carved dragons protruding from either side of it, warning anyone who came too close.

  The man looked the way Lore had always imagined Hades would as he oversaw his kingdom of the dead.

  Sitting near his feet was a boy that looked about Lore’s age. He wore a similar outfit to the man—a dark silk tunic, dark pants, dark boots, a dark smile. He looked down his snub nose at her like a dog he intended to kick away.

  “Welcome, Demos of the Perseides,” the man said. “I am glad you accepted our invitation.”

  Lore had heard stories about Aristos Kadmou. His dead wives. His near-kill of Artemis. His ruthless rise through the ranks of his own bloodline to become archon. His face told all of these stories, the deep lines and heavy scars making it seem as if it had been carved from the same tree as his throne.

  From what Lore knew, he was only a decade older than her papa, but she supposed a black soul would rot you from the inside out faster than Khronos ever could.

  “I thank you for extending it,” her father said. “May I introduce my daughter Melora?”

  Lore glared.

  “Welcome, Melora,” Aristos Kadmou said with a small smile.

  “My wife has sent us with a gift,” her father said, holding up the package. Aristos nodded to the boy, who rose with a look of annoyance and went to retrieve it. He was the one to open it, and the one to hold up the two jars of honey inside.

  Lore balked at the sight of them. Her mother kept a hive on the roof of their building and sold the honey at one of the city’s farmers markets on the weekend. It was liquid gold to them, but the boy, Belen, wrinkled his little pig nose at the sight of it.

  “What do we need this for?” he sneered. “We can just buy it at the store for a few dollars.”

  Hot blood rushed to Lore’s cheeks, and it was only her father’s grip on her shoulder that kept her from clawing the boy’s face.

  “Now, Belen,” Aristos said lightly, giving the boy a look that was anything but chastising. “All offerings, even the most . . . humble, are welcome here.”

  Muffled laughter followed. Lore felt her father’s body go rigid beside hers. The hand he’d placed on her shoulder tightened, and though his head was still bowed, she saw him struggle to master his expression.

  Aristos snapped his fingers at one of the nearby women, who bowed to him in acknowledgment and brought forth an old bottle.

  “My favorite Madeira,” the archon said. “Aged over two hundred years.”

  Her father nudged her forward to accept it. Lore stared the woman down as she slinked forward, all muscle and sinew. Her eyes were rimmed with black kohl, as were the eyes of many of the other women and girls nearer to her own age gathered around them. It made their eyes seem to glow.

  They are the Kadmides’ lionesses, Lore realized, taking the bottle.

  “You are very generous,” her father said, the words stiff. “I thank you on behalf of my family.”

  “But of course,” Aristos said. “Think of it not as generosity, but as a sign of my good faith in the business we will conduct here.”

  “Business . . . ?” her father repeated.

  “Of course,” the other man said. “Why else would a man surrender his pride to come to the den of those who nearly extinguished his bloodline, if not for pure business?”

  Lore’s nostrils flared, but her father held on to his calm. “Why, indeed.”

  “I’d heard that you were going from bloodline to bloodline like a beggar seeking comfort and aid,” Aristos said. “A pity they did not see the opportunity you offer.”

  “For an alliance?” her father questioned, ignoring the whispers and snide laughter around them.

  “An alliance?” Aristos leaned forward on his throne, tilting his head. “No, Demos. I have an offer for you. An arrangement that will change your fortunes.”

  “If such a thing is within another man’s power,” her father said coldly.

  “I asked you to bring your daughter, for I would like to bring Perseus’s noble blood into our line,” the man continued. “I wish to purchase her from you, for marriage.”

  Lore’s pulse began to thunder in her head. Her temples throbbed.

  Her father looked to Belen, who was smea
ring his snot across the front of his tunic. “Surely the children are too young for their futures to be decided—”

  “Our fates are decided at birth,” Aristos Kadmou said. “As you well know.”

  “I am less certain of such things,” her father responded. “I believe we choose what we become.”

  “Then you stand against the Moirai?” the archon said. “Perhaps that has been your mistake these many years. I recognized my destiny as a boy. I inherited it, along with the vast timé and vaunted kleos of my sire.”

  “And yet you have decided young Belen’s fate,” her father said, “by requesting my daughter’s hand on behalf of your bastard son.”

  There was a hiss of surprise and clattering of weapons at the slight. Belen slunk back, his face red with the anger of shame. But when the archon of the Kadmides spoke again, he silenced even Lore’s father.

  “I do not want her for Belen,” he said. “I want her for myself.”

  Lore’s fingers went slack, and it was only reflex that allowed her to catch the bottle before it hit the floor and shattered. She twisted around to look up at her father, silently begging for them to leave now, before another vile word could pass from the man’s snake lips.

  “She is only ten years old,” her father said. “You are her senior by half a century—and your other wives—”

  A quiet murmur passed through the Kadmides. Some hissed, others thumped their chests, but it was the archon Lore watched. A thunderous expression passed over his face at the mention of his six wives, all departed to the Underworld without giving him a true heir.

  “I will wait until she is twelve, as ancient custom permits, to wed her, and wait until her first blood to bed her,” Aristos Kadmou said, not looking at Lore. “She will be fostered with me until then to ensure that she is brought up correctly.”

  “No!” Lore barked. Her father held her back, squeezing her shoulder again.

  “Forgive her, she is very spirited,” he managed to get out. “Your offer is . . . generous. However, Melora has already begun her training with the Achillides.”

  “Why?” Aristos asked. “Why bother, when you’ve known all along that there was but one future for her?”