The memory of her sisters, carved up beyond recognition, burst the pressure trapped in her chest. Rage and grief ripped through her; the world swung off its axis, and Lore attacked.

She slashed her blade down toward Athena’s chest. The god used her dory to parry it with little effort, her face expressionless, then swung it down, battering Lore’s right shoulder.

“No restraint, no discipline, no strategy,” Athena said. “Only anger. I saw it in you immediately. Like molten bronze waiting to be shaped by skilled hands. I merely had to plant the suggestion of the new poem. I knew you would find out where it was inscribed, and you would return for it. It became a matter of patience.”

Lore was knocked back by the force of the blow, but used the distance to toss the knife to her left hand, changing her grip. She feinted right, and when the goddess moved to block it, Lore sliced up. Athena leaned back, but the tip had caught her chin. The gash painted the side of her neck with blood.

Athena let out a single caustic laugh. She rubbed a thumb against the cut, studying it for a moment. “The problem with mortals that small, of course, is that there is only so much lifeblood in them. They die too quickly.”

Lore screamed. The sound was ragged, torn from the broken part of her. She gave herself over to the pain, cutting and clawing and slicing until the cell disappeared around her and she began to dissolve into instinct.

The hit from the dory came from behind, smashing against her skull. The knife flew from her hand as Lore fell to the ground. She rolled to face forward, but Athena clubbed her once more, then plunged the dory’s sauroter into her thigh. With a single stroke, she had pierced muscle, cracked bone, and pinned Lore in place.

The agony was so complete, Lore could barely draw enough breath to sob. Athena turned the spear, digging the tip deeper. Survival and instinct roared in her. Lore slapped a hand against the dank ground, feeling for the knife, and she seized it in triumph.

But before she could lift it, Athena gripped that same hand, wrenching it away. Then, with all the effort it would have taken to crumple the head of a flower, she tightened her fingers around Lore’s and crushed every bone in them.

Lore shook violently with gasping cries. Sour vomit rose in her throat at the pain, at the sight of her mangled hand.

“Why?” she begged. “Why?”

“They called for you,” Athena said. As the goddess pulled the dory free, the sauroter broke off, still buried in Lore’s leg. “Both of the girls. Do you think they knew you were the one who killed them?”

The memory of that night assailed her. Lore did not have to close her eyes to see it—the blood smeared on the walls and floors, her sisters thrown down on their beds, the dark gaps where their eyes should have been.

“They were just little girls,” Lore sobbed. “Damara was a baby. They were innocent!”

“None of you are innocent,” Athena growled. “Least of all you, Melora. Your father died first, begging, then your mother, who at least knew it would be wasted breath. I waited hours for you to return, and when you did, it was no longer in your possession. I watched as you stood in the doorway of your home, as you saw the gift I had left for you. But you did not cry. You did not make a single sound. You were stronger then than you are now.”

“Why didn’t you torture me to find out what happened to it?” Lore gasped out, one hand clutching at her face, her hair. “Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“I needed you to show me where you had hidden it,” Athena said. “And to give it to me willingly. Of course, once I learned of the poem, I had yet another reason to keep you alive. I could not let it disappear with your death until I read it myself.”

Lore clawed at her throat. She almost had, only an hour before. It had felt like her own idea. An inevitability.

“All those years with the House of Odysseus, I watched your pathetic existence, waiting for you to one day retrieve it or to reveal where you had hidden it,” Athena said. “I might have intervened and come to you in another form, to ingratiate myself to you, had Hermes not found you first.”

Lore shook her head, trying to shut out the words.

“I followed him to this city, curious as to why he was wearing a false face,” Athena said. “I had my answer soon enough. I felt the power of the averting charms he cast on his home. I could not enter it, nor even approach. There was but one reason he would go to such lengths to deny me. Only one mortal he would go to such lengths to protect. The fact I could not see you—that I could only catch the sound of your footsteps, the smell of you—confirmed it.”

The goddess studied the tip of her dory. “Hermes made such an effort, and all out of a misplaced sense of guilt. You see, he had traded his sighting of you and the aegis to keep his lover alive. He knew I had found the false Dionysus’s hiding place,” Athena said. “And when this hunt began, and I watched Hermes die from a distance, I saw my opportunity. His power would not hold beyond his death. I could finally go to you, unhindered.”

Keeping her blade up became impossible as Lore’s body turned to lead. Blood poured from her leg. It throbbed with every heartbeat. She pressed her back against the wall, its dampness soaking through her shirt.

“But Artemis attacked you . . .” Lore began weakly.

“As if my sister could strike such a blow without my consent,” Athena said. “We had planned to kill all the imposters this cycle, but she agreed to aid me in the deception once I told her of your connection to the boy who had murdered our brother. But he is so curious, is he not? I knew the moment I felt his power we could not kill him. Not until I found out what he was. It angered her, but it allowed me to get close enough to some of the other imposters to ensure they died by a true god’s hand.”

Artemis hadn’t been raving as her sister had claimed—Athena had betrayed Artemis by not giving Castor to her.

“You told Artemis to track me that first day thinking I would go to find him, didn’t you?” Lore said, finally putting it together. “And then you just—you watched her die?”

“We were not all meant to return to Olympus,” Athena said coolly. “Only the strongest among us will be recognized by the Horae and allowed to pass through the gates once more. Artemis faltered.”

Athena’s hand lashed out, catching Lore’s chin in a painful grip. “Shall we end your suffering and go retrieve it at last?”

Lore looked up at her, pouring every ounce of her trembling fury into her gaze. Her mind was a torrent of terror and disbelief. “It won’t be willingly given if you torture me for it. You wouldn’t be able to use it.”

“Not yet, no. However, I will have the inscription. I will know how to end the Agon,” Athena said. Lore felt her jaw begin to crack under her grip. “And when I am restored to my full power, I will be able to wield it once more.”

“But Wrath will . . . He’ll come for it,” Lore rasped out. “He won’t let you have it—”

“When I achieve the final ascension, he will be nothing more than a worm I crush beneath my heel,” Athena said. “Along with all those who dared to turn away from their true gods. I warn you, Melora, I will destroy everything and everyone you love, one by one, until you bring me to it.”