Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(100)

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t belong here, Jason.”

“But you could,” he said, still not looking at her. “In time.”

“Is this it?” said Theo from up ahead, standing near the top of the hill, hands on hips.

The ruins were less dramatic than Diana had expected. She knew there had once been a vast settlement here, shrines and temples dedicated to Helen and her husband. But now all that remained were a few overgrown foundations surrounding an unimpressive pile of earth that looked like a cross between a burial mound and what might have once been a temple, its stone walls slowly being swallowed by wildflowers. Beyond it, the green bowl of the valley glowed golden, as if the sun had pooled between the mountain ranges, glinting off the banks of the Eurotas far below.

“It doesn’t look like much,” said Nim. “And where’s the spring?”

“Maybe it’s a metaphorical spring,” said Theo. “Like the spring is inside all of us?”

“Why didn’t I run you over when I had the chance?”

“Diana?” said Alia.

The sick sensation in Diana’s gut worsened. “The Oracle just said the spring at Therapne.”

“Could she have meant somewhere else?”

“Where?” said Diana. “There are no other monuments to Helen in Therapne. ‘Where Helen rests, the Warbringer may be purified.’?” She could feel her frustration rising. “This is where Helen was laid to rest. It was her shrine first, before it belonged to Menelaus.”

“There’s nothing here,” said Jason.

Theo turned in a slow circle. “We came all this way for nothing?”

Jason shook his head. “Alia, we have to get you out of here. You could still be in danger.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Her eyes met Diana’s. “I held up my end of the bargain. The sun will set soon.”

No. They’d barely looked for the spring. They hadn’t thought this through.

“We still have time,” said Diana. “We’ll find some other solution.”

“How much time do we have left? An hour? An hour and a half? There is no other solution. I won’t live knowing I could have stopped this.”

“Alia,” Jason said sharply. “I am not letting you kill yourself.”

“It isn’t up to you,” she said. Her voice was clear and strong and rang with conviction, the sound of steel against steel. “This is between me and Diana.”

Sister in battle. It wasn’t supposed to come to this. Diana had known in her heart they were meant to reach the spring together. What other lies had she told herself?

“You can’t be serious,” said Nim desperately. “What if this is all some kind of big mistake? For all we know this Warbringer thing is just—”

“Nim, after everything you’ve seen, everything we’ve been through, you know this is real.”

“We’re not going to kill you off as a precautionary measure,” said Theo. He gripped her shoulder, more serious and more frightened than Diana had ever seen him. “There has to be a way to fix this.”

But Alia shrugged him off. She took a step closer to Diana, and Diana had to will herself not to move away from her.

Your cause is mine.

She’d sworn to become a murderer, stain her hands with innocent blood. She’d given her oath, but Diana had never truly believed she’d be forced to fulfill it. She could not; she would not, and yet how was she to turn away from the conviction in Alia’s eyes? Alia had fought with everything she had to reach the spring, to reach the future Diana had promised might be hers.

“Sister in battle,” Diana said, ashamed of the tears that roughened her voice. “I have failed you.”

“You haven’t,” said Alia, taking another step toward her. “Not yet.”

Jason moved to block her path. “Enough. We never should have come here. You would be safe right now if—”

“No,” Alia said, and Diana heard the anger in her voice. “Your solution was to hide. Ours was to fight. Don’t you dare blame us for trying. Diana, you gave me your word.”

Diana could feel the oath that bound her, as powerful as the lasso, as indestructible. She could not live with herself if she violated the vow she’d given. But how could she live knowing she’d taken Alia’s life? She was immortal, and that would give her an eternity to endure this terrible shame.

“Make your choice, Daughter of Earth.”

Eris. So she had come after all. To gloat. Diana looked to Nim, expecting a monster’s face, but saw Nim’s wide brown eyes, her mouth agape as she stared at a figure perched at the apex of the rocky ruins, black wings spread wide, the tips of her filthy feathers nearly touching the ground. Her hair flowed around her face in curling tendrils of darkness, and the gold smeared across her lips glinted in the sun. “Foolish girl, with your noble quest and your heart that yearns for glory. Can you do it? Cut her throat to keep us at bay?”

“Is that what I looked like?” Nim asked in disgust.

A wind rose, billowing up from the earth around them, and the sound of hoofbeats filled the air. The dust collected in the shape of two chariots, cutting a path around them, the hooves of their horses seeming to fly over the ground.