“An immortal has no right to make that choice for humanity,” he said, a bitter edge to his voice, as if he resented his own mortality, as if he resented her for being something more. “You say we deserve a chance at peace, but why not a chance at greatness? The biological material my parents found at those ancient battle sites, the work they did on gene therapies. They didn’t know it, but it was all for this.” Jason threw his arms wide, encompassing his troops. “These are soldiers like no others, warriors to rival Odysseus and Achilles. They will do battle with creatures born of myth and nightmare, and the world will rally behind them.”
“You guys are gonna die,” said Theo, glancing at the grim-faced soldiers. “You get that, right?”
“Yes, we’ll die,” said Jason. “But we’ll live on as legends.”
“Like a hero in a story?” Diana asked.
“They aren’t just stories. You and I both know that.”
We’ll live on as legends. Jason wanted an opportunity to be the hero he was born to be. He wanted to live in a world that made sense. He wanted the death his parents had been denied, a death with meaning, a chance to be remembered. Immortality.
“And what about me?” asked Alia, anger seeping through her disbelief.
Jason touched her arm, and she batted his hand away.
“Alia,” he said, “I’m the one who wants you to live.”
“With thousands of deaths on my conscience?” Her voice cracked on the words. “Knowing that I was the reason so many innocent people had to die?”
“So a new age of heroes can begin.” Jason turned his gaze on Diana. “I lied to you. You lied to me. But there’s only truth between us now.” He stepped forward, and for a moment, the world dropped away. They were standing once again on that rocky hill, the stars wheeling above them. “The Amazons are warriors. They’re not meant to live out of time, isolated on that island. You know it’s true. You left Themyscira for the chance to be a hero, to give meaning to your life. Don’t you think humanity deserves that, too?”
The late-afternoon sun glittered off the water and made a mantle of gold that shimmered over Jason’s features. Diana saw in him the blood of kings, of heroes, the daring and the ambition.
“Stand with me,” he pleaded, “as we were meant to—side by side, seeking glory as equals.”
She’d thought her path would lead one of two ways: to the stifling familiarity of home or the terror of exile. Jason was offering her another future: a life lived without caution or fear of reprisal. One drenched in blood and glory, and she could feel her warrior’s heart fill with hunger at the call.
“Humans can’t hold to peace, Diana,” Jason said. His gaze was steady, certain, and in his words she heard the echo of her mother’s voice. “We’re brutes and have been since our beginning. If we can’t have peace, then at least give us a chance at a beautiful death.”
“Diana,” Alia said desperately. And in that moment, Diana knew that Alia was pleading for her own death; that frightened as she might be, Alia would rather die than see the world fall to Jason’s vision. That was courage. That was its own kind of greatness. Diana had not been raised to be just any warrior. She was an Amazon, and she knew true strength when she saw it. If Jason wanted this glorious future, she would not simply hand it to him; he would have to fight for it.
She met his gaze, and when she spoke, she heard her mother’s voice, Tek’s voice, Maeve’s. “You may well be my equal in strength,” she said. “But you are no match for Nim’s ingenuity, for Theo’s resilience, for Alia’s bravery. Might does not make a hero. You can build a thousand soldiers, and not one will have a hero’s heart.”
Jason didn’t turn angry. His face didn’t regain the cold control he’d shown so often. His voice was gentle when he said, “You were a story to me, too, you know. An Amazon. A legend come to life.” His smile was small, sweet, and something in her chest twisted at the words. “I sought you for so long, Diana. I dreamed of finding Themyscira, some remnant of a lost civilization that might yield a vital scrap of Amazon DNA. Instead, I found you.”
The ache in her chest became the cold press of something hard and unforgiving. So that was the truth of his desire, not for her, but for the power that might be gleaned from her.
“I can’t wait to meet the soldiers your blood will raise,” he said. “The secrets your genes will give up to me.”
She shifted into fighting stance. “Molon labe,” she said in the language of Jason’s ancestors. Come and take them.
“Oh, I will,” he said calmly. “I began building a serum from your DNA the first day we met. You left traces of your extraordinary bloodline all over my house. Hair. Skin cells. Who knows what treasures a supply of your blood will yield?”
“Never.”
“You’re as weak as your sisters, turning your back on greatness as they turned their backs on the mortal world.”
“Come closer and speak again of my sisters.”
“No, Diana. I have other plans for you.” He turned to the soldiers standing at attention beside the Humvee parked on the sand. From inside the vehicle, Diana heard harsh chittering, like a beetle clicking its wings, and then a wet, hungry sound like…like something smacking its lips. Jason’s eyes glittered as he gave the order. “Open the cage.”
“Stay behind me,” Diana commanded Nim and Theo, trying to keep her eyes on Alia and on the Humvee. There was a loud clatter as the vehicle seemed to rock on its mighty wheels, and the soldiers stepped forward, one with his gun raised to offer cover, the other with a long metal stick attached to some kind of collar. He threw open the rear doors. For a moment they were caught in shadow, and then they were backing into the sun, calling orders to the other soldiers as they dragged a huge shape from the depths of the Humvee.
“I call her Pinon,” said Jason. “The Drinker.” She had the head and torso of a woman, her breasts bare, her arms muscled, her red hair a ropy tangle. But her lower half was the segmented body of a glossy black scorpion, and a massive tail curled grotesquely behind her. “Part warrior, part arachnid, part parasite. She can drain an opponent’s blood in a matter of minutes, but she won’t digest it. Not until she needs it. Or in this case, I do.”
One of the soldiers used a hook to throw something at Pinon—a T-shirt emblazoned with “I NY.” Enjoy the best, prepare for the worst. He’d been planning this from the start. Pinon caught the shirt in one fist, breathed deeply of the scent, and cast it aside. Her vibrant green gaze fastened on Diana.
Jason signaled to a soldier, who tossed a sword at Theo’s feet in the shallows.
“Seems like a fair fight,” said Nim bitterly.
“Jason,” Alia pleaded. “Don’t do this.”
“You’ll grow stronger without these crutches to lean on, Al.”
“Jason—”
“Drain the Amazon,” he ordered. “Kill the others.”
His guards fell into formation, dragging Alia up the hill as she began to scream.
“Alia!” Diana cried, but Pinon skittered forward to block her path. The creature’s movements made her skin crawl. There was something unnatural in the creeping of her legs, the slither of that segmented body, but worse were her intelligent eyes.
“Find cover!” she yelled at Theo and Nim as she took her lasso in hand. But the remaining soldiers had fanned out in a half circle, cutting off their retreat and forming a kind of arena in the shallow waters of the river. They carried no guns, only swords and shields at the ready. Apparently, this was the kind of clean fight Jason thought the world needed.
Nim knelt to pick up the sword, but it looked almost as heavy as she was, and Theo took it from her, holding it awkwardly out before him, his narrow shoulders bunching with effort.
They crowded together, back to back, and edged deeper into the water, the river cold around Diana’s sandaled feet as she herded them toward a cluster of boulders that might provide cover. Pinon followed, her tail curling and uncurling behind her.
“On a scale of one to ‘we’re definitely going to die,’ where would you put this?”
“Shut up, Theo,” murmured Nim, her voice breathless with fear.
But they did not cower, did not weep. These people Jason discarded with such contempt, whom he could sentence to death with a few brief words, stood at her back, stubborn and courageous as they had always been.