Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(11)

Diana squeezed Maeve’s hand. “I’ll be back,” she whispered.

She hurried out the door and ran across the columned court that connected the dormitory to the palace.

“Tek!” she called, jogging to catch up with her.

As Tek turned, another tremor struck. Diana careened into a column, her shoulder striking the stone painfully. Tek barely checked her stride.

“Go back to your friend,” she said as Diana trailed her up the palace stairs to the queen’s quarters.

“Tek, what’s causing this?”

“I don’t know. Something is out of balance.”

Tek strode into the upper rooms of the royal quarters without hesitation. Hippolyta was at the long table, consulting with one of her runners, a fleet-footed girl named Sabaa.

Hippolyta looked up as they entered. “I know, Tek,” she said. “I sent for a runner as soon as the first earthquake hit.” She folded the message she’d penned, then sealed it with red wax, marking it with her ring. “Get to Bana-Mighdall as fast as you can, but be cautious. Something is wrong on the island.”

The runner vanished down the stairs.

“There have been at least three reports of illness,” said Tek.

“Are you sure that’s what it is?” Hippolyta asked.

“I saw one of the victims myself.”

“Maeve,” Diana added.

“It may be striking the younger Amazons first,” said Hippolyta.

“Not all of them,” muttered Tek, casting a sidelong look at Diana.

But Hippolyta’s gaze was focused on the western sea. She sighed and said, “We’ll have to consult the Oracle.”

Diana’s stomach clenched. The Oracle. There would be no hiding then.

Tek nodded, a look of resignation on her face. Visiting the Oracle was no small decision. It required a sacrifice, and if the Oracle found an Amazon’s tribute wanting, she could inflict any number of punishments.

“I’ll light the signal fires to gather the Council,” Tek said, and was gone without another word.

It was all happening too quickly. Diana followed Hippolyta into her chambers. “Mother—”

“If they ride hard, the Council should be here within the hour,” said Hippolyta. Some members of the Council lived at the Epheseum or Bana-Mighdall, but others preferred the more isolated parts of the island and would have to be summoned by the fires.

Hippolyta shucked off the comfortable riding clothes and silver circlet she’d worn at the arena, and emerged from her dressing room a moment later in silks the deep purple of late plums, her right shoulder covered by a golden spaulder and scales of gleaming mail. The armor was purely ornamental, the type of thing worn for affairs of state. Or emergency Council meetings.

“Help me bind my hair?” Hippolyta said. She seated herself before the large looking glass and selected a golden circlet studded with heavy chunks of raw amethyst from a velvet-lined case.

It seemed bizarre to Diana to stand there plaiting her mother’s ebony hair into braids when the world around them might be falling apart, but a queen never appeared as anything less than a queen to her people.

Diana summoned her courage. She needed to tell her mother about Alia. She couldn’t let her go into a Council meeting without that knowledge. Maybe it isn’t Alia. It could be a disturbance in the World of Man. Something. Anything. But Diana did not really believe that. When the Council consulted the Oracle, Alia would be discovered and Diana would be exiled. Her mother would look weak, indulgent. Not everyone loved Hippolyta as Tek did, and not everyone believed that a queen should rule the Amazons at all.

“Mother, today, during the race—”

Hippolyta met Diana’s eyes in the mirror and clasped her hand. “We’ll talk about it later. But there is no shame in the loss.”

That wasn’t remotely true, but Diana said, “It’s not that.”

Hippolyta set two more amethysts in her ears. “Diana, you cannot afford more losses like that. I didn’t think you would win—”

“You didn’t?” Diana hated the hurt that spread through her, the surprise she couldn’t keep from her voice.

“Of course not. You’re still young. You are not yet as strong as the others or as experienced. I hoped you might place or at least—”

“Or at least not humiliate you?”

Hippolyta lifted a brow. “It takes more than the loss of a little race to bring low a queen, Diana. But you were not ready, and it will mean you must work even harder to prove yourself in the future.”

Her mother’s assessment of her chances was the same as her measured embrace on the platform, just as practical, just as painful.

“I was ready,” Diana said stubbornly.

Hippolyta’s look was so gentle, so loving, and so full of pity that Diana wanted to scream. “The results speak for themselves. Your time will come.”

But it wouldn’t. Not if she was never given the opportunity. Not if even her mother didn’t think she could win a damned footrace. And Alia. Alia.

“Mother,” Diana tried again.

But Hippolyta was sweeping out of her chambers. Lamplight sparked off the gold in her armor. The earth shook, but somehow her steps did not falter, as if her very stride declared, “I am a queen and an Amazon; you are wise to tremble.”