Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(105)

“You don’t understand what you’ll unleash upon the world,” said Diana. “This won’t be like one of the stories you loved. It won’t be a heroic quest. I’ve seen the future you speak of, and it is not glorious. It’s a nightmare of loss.”

Jason waved her words away. “Whatever vision the Oracle showed you was only one version of the future, one possible outcome.”

“It’s not a risk worth taking!”

“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?”