He advanced and Diana retreated, eyeing him warily. “There’s nowhere to run now. I wonder,” he said, his hands forming fists, “how it will feel to be brought low by strength born of your own blood.”
He swung left. Diana dodged the blow. He came up hard right—a hook to her gut with tremendous force. Diana grunted as his fist landed. Jason released a whoof of air and drew back, startled.
He shook it off and lunged at her. She pivoted, intending to wrap her ankle around his and use his own momentum to bring him down. But he was faster now. He halted his motion, seized her shoulders, and twisted, hurling her to the ground.
He grunted as if he were the one who’d been thrown on his back, whirled as if expecting to find someone behind him.
Diana rocked backward and sprang to her feet.
Jason threw himself at her, unleashing a flurry of punches and driving elbows; she bobbed left, right, landed a punch to his gut. He drove the palm of his hand upward in a strike to her chin. Diana’s neck snapped back; the metallic tang of blood filled her mouth.
Jason reeled away, holding his hand to his jaw as if he’d been struck. He touched his fingers to his mouth, but there was no blood there. His eyes were wide and wild. “What is this?”
Diana licked the blood from her lip. Now she was the one to smile. “This is what it means to be an Amazon. My pain is theirs, and theirs is mine. Each wound you deal will be one you suffer yourself.”
“But it’s not just the—” Jason shook his head as if trying to clear it. He took a step toward her, stopped. “What is that sound?”
“Come, Jason, strike me. Grant me the beautiful death you promised. But with each blow, you will feel the agony of every Amazon fallen in battle. In each attack, you will hear the chorus of their screams.”
Jason clapped his hands to his ears. “Make it stop.”
“I can’t.”
He lurched forward, dropped to his knees. “Make it stop!” he screamed. “Don’t you hear it? Don’t you feel it?”
“Of course,” said Diana. “Every Amazon bears the suffering of her sisters, lives with it, and learns to endure it. It’s why we value mercy so highly.” It was what helped them remember that despite their greater strength, their speed, their skill, the promise of glory was nothing in the face of another’s anguish. Diana crouched down and took Jason’s chin in her fingers, forcing him to meet her gaze. “If you cannot bear our pain, you are not fit to carry our strength.”
“You meant to do this,” he hissed. “You tricked me.”
It was true. Jason knew she would not kill him, and she had known he would never surrender without the hero’s death he so longed for. “Let’s say I let you believe what you wanted to believe.”
“Kill me!” Jason yelled. “You can’t leave me like this!”
“You haven’t earned an honorable death—neither a beautiful one nor a quiet one. Live in shame instead, Jason Keralis, unmourned and unremembered.”
“You’ll remember me,” he panted, his face sheened with sweat. “I was your first kiss. I could have been your first everything. You’ll always know that.”
She looked deep into his eyes. “You were my first nothing, Jason. I am immortal, and you are a footnote. I will erase you from my history, and you will vanish, unremembered by this world.”
Jason gave a high, keening shriek, his entire body shuddering. He slumped over on his side, curling into himself like a child, and wrapped his arms over his head, rocking back and forth, his howls of rage becoming sobs.
She heard a loud boom and saw a spurt of flame rise from where she’d left Theo and Nim at the lab truck. A second later, another explosion sounded. Pinon’s cage.
Diana gave Jason one swift kick in the ass, as was tradition, then yanked the door from an armored truck and wrapped it tightly around him. That would hold him for a short while at least.
She glanced over her shoulder. The sun was about to set. They had only a few minutes left, and the spring was almost a quarter mile away.
She raced to the Humvee and threw open the passenger door.
“What did you do to him?” Alia asked when she heard her brother crying inside his metal cocoon.
Diana snapped the plastic bands binding her wrists.
“Nothing,” she said. “He did it to himself.” She turned her back to Alia. “Now get on.”
This time there was no argument. Alia leapt onto her back, and they were running toward the spring.
Alia held tight to Diana’s neck, taking in the chaos she’d unleashed, trying to forget the sounds of Jason’s whimpers as they sprinted toward the spring. Had Theo and Nim survived, too? How much time did they have left?
Branches struck her cheeks as they clambered down the slope to the river, racing along its sandy banks.
“What if we’re too late?” Alia panted, unsure why she was out of breath.
“We won’t be.”
“But what if we are?”
“I don’t know,” Diana said, unslinging her as they neared the plane tree. “I guess we just keep fighting. Together.”
They splashed into the shallows of the riverbed, the water growing deeper as they plunged toward the spring. Around her, Alia heard the chorus building once more, girls’ voices multiplying as she sank waist deep in the water, stumbling over slick stones, soaked sneakers searching for purchase on the river’s sandy bottom. She saw Eris high above them, heard her horrid screeching, saw the twins in their chariots racing along the riverbanks, both of them laughing, shrill and victorious.
Too late. Too late.
As the sun sank below the horizon, Alia hurled herself into the shining waters of the spring. She plunged beneath the surface, and the world went dark and silent. The water was far deeper than she’d expected, the cold like a hand sliding closed around her. Her feet kicked, but she could feel nothing beneath her. She was no longer sure which way she was facing or where the surface might be. There was only darkness all around.
She could feel that winged thing inside her, thrashing, but she couldn’t tell if it was fighting to keep hold or to break free.
Don’t go. The thought came unbidden to her mind. She didn’t mean it. She’d fought too hard to release the world from the horror this curse would bring. But some part of her wished she could keep a scrap of this power for herself. She’d done good with it, saved Diana with it. For a brief moment, that righteous anger had burned bright in her heart, and it had belonged to no one but her.
Her lungs tightened, hungry for air. Had the spring done its work? She didn’t know, but she didn’t want to drown finding out. She expelled her remaining breath, watched the bubbles rise, and knew which way to go. She shot upward and broke free of the river’s grasp, hauling herself back to shallower water, sucking in great gulps of air.
“Well?” shouted Nim from the shore, Theo beside her in the blue light of dusk. A bolt of joy—they’d made it. But…
“What happened?” asked Diana, offering Alia her hand and helping her rise.
“Nothing.”
Alia looked up at the sliver of moon that had appeared in the twilight sky, helplessness weighting her heart.
A rumble filled the air. Alia looked to the road, wondering what fresh disaster was headed their way, but the sound didn’t seem to be coming from there.
“What is that noise?” said Theo.
It was coming from everywhere. She began to pick out different pieces in the roar: the punishing din of artillery fire, the thunder of tanks, the shriek of fighter jets. And screams. The screams of the dying.
“Oh God,” she said. “It’s starting.”
Diana blinked, her eyes deep blue in the fading light. Her shoulders sagged, and it was as if an invisible crown had slid from her head. “We failed. We were too late.”
Was it my fault? Alia wondered. Had she doomed them in that last moment? In her selfish desire to keep some of that mysterious power for her own?
They stood hip deep in the river as the sound grew, shaking the earth and the branches of the plane trees. It rose like a wave, towering over them, the coming of a future thick with human misery.
And then, like a wave, it broke.
The sound receded in a rush, the tide retreating—and then gone.