Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(115)

Diana changed her grip and swept her blade hard right, batting his sword away.

He scrambled backward, his left arm dripping blood. He looked less frightened than confused, as if he couldn’t quite fathom where his weapons had gone. “No,” he said. “This is all wrong. Achilles, Hercules, they won. In all the stories, they best the Amazons. They are the victors.”

“Those are the stories your poets tell, not mine. Surrender, Jason Keralis.”

Jason growled his frustration, circling left. “Did Menelaus surrender when Paris stole his bride? I know you aren’t willing to deal a killing strike.”

“You can’t win. Only my sisters can match me in fair combat.”

A fevered look came into his eyes. “Then put aside your weapons. Fight me hand to hand. Best me and take your victory.”

Would that end this? Give him the defeat in honest combat he sought? She doubted it. Diana shrugged, tossed her sword and shield far out of reach.

Jason sighed and shook his head. “So honest, so righteous.” His lips curved, the beginnings of a smile, sharp as a knife blade. “So easy to dupe. Only your sisters can match you?” He drew a syringe from his pocket. “Then you will fall to the might of the Amazons.”

She remembered what he’d said on the banks of the Eurotas. I began building a serum from your DNA the first day we met. Her cells, her strength.

“No!” Diana cried.

He jammed the needle into his thigh and depressed the plunger, then tossed the empty syringe aside. Jason straightened, cracked his neck. His grin widened. Diana took a step back.

“The sun sets,” said Jason, flexing his fingers as if testing the feel of his new strength. “An age of heroes begins. And I believe I promised you a beautiful death.”

He advanced and Diana retreated, eyeing him warily. “There’s nowhere to run now. I wonder,” he said, his hands forming fists, “how it will feel to be brought low by strength born of your own blood.”

He swung left. Diana dodged the blow. He came up hard right—a hook to her gut with tremendous force. Diana grunted as his fist landed. Jason released a whoof of air and drew back, startled.

He shook it off and lunged at her. She pivoted, intending to wrap her ankle around his and use his own momentum to bring him down. But he was faster now. He halted his motion, seized her shoulders, and twisted, hurling her to the ground.

He grunted as if he were the one who’d been thrown on his back, whirled as if expecting to find someone behind him.

Diana rocked backward and sprang to her feet.

Jason threw himself at her, unleashing a flurry of punches and driving elbows; she bobbed left, right, landed a punch to his gut. He drove the palm of his hand upward in a strike to her chin. Diana’s neck snapped back; the metallic tang of blood filled her mouth.

Jason reeled away, holding his hand to his jaw as if he’d been struck. He touched his fingers to his mouth, but there was no blood there. His eyes were wide and wild. “What is this?”

Diana licked the blood from her lip. Now she was the one to smile. “This is what it means to be an Amazon. My pain is theirs, and theirs is mine. Each wound you deal will be one you suffer yourself.”

“But it’s not just the—” Jason shook his head as if trying to clear it. He took a step toward her, stopped. “What is that sound?”

“Come, Jason, strike me. Grant me the beautiful death you promised. But with each blow, you will feel the agony of every Amazon fallen in battle. In each attack, you will hear the chorus of their screams.”

Jason clapped his hands to his ears. “Make it stop.”

“I can’t.”

He lurched forward, dropped to his knees. “Make it stop!” he screamed. “Don’t you hear it? Don’t you feel it?”

“Of course,” said Diana. “Every Amazon bears the suffering of her sisters, lives with it, and learns to endure it. It’s why we value mercy so highly.” It was what helped them remember that despite their greater strength, their speed, their skill, the promise of glory was nothing in the face of another’s anguish. Diana crouched down and took Jason’s chin in her fingers, forcing him to meet her gaze. “If you cannot bear our pain, you are not fit to carry our strength.”

“You meant to do this,” he hissed. “You tricked me.”

It was true. Jason knew she would not kill him, and she had known he would never surrender without the hero’s death he so longed for. “Let’s say I let you believe what you wanted to believe.”

“Kill me!” Jason yelled. “You can’t leave me like this!”

“You haven’t earned an honorable death—neither a beautiful one nor a quiet one. Live in shame instead, Jason Keralis, unmourned and unremembered.”

“You’ll remember me,” he panted, his face sheened with sweat. “I was your first kiss. I could have been your first everything. You’ll always know that.”

She looked deep into his eyes. “You were my first nothing, Jason. I am immortal, and you are a footnote. I will erase you from my history, and you will vanish, unremembered by this world.”

Jason gave a high, keening shriek, his entire body shuddering. He slumped over on his side, curling into himself like a child, and wrapped his arms over his head, rocking back and forth, his howls of rage becoming sobs.