Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(116)

She heard a loud boom and saw a spurt of flame rise from where she’d left Theo and Nim at the lab truck. A second later, another explosion sounded. Pinon’s cage.

Diana gave Jason one swift kick in the ass, as was tradition, then yanked the door from an armored truck and wrapped it tightly around him. That would hold him for a short while at least.

She glanced over her shoulder. The sun was about to set. They had only a few minutes left, and the spring was almost a quarter mile away.

She raced to the Humvee and threw open the passenger door.

“What did you do to him?” Alia asked when she heard her brother crying inside his metal cocoon.

Diana snapped the plastic bands binding her wrists.

“Nothing,” she said. “He did it to himself.” She turned her back to Alia. “Now get on.”

This time there was no argument. Alia leapt onto her back, and they were running toward the spring.





Alia held tight to Diana’s neck, taking in the chaos she’d unleashed, trying to forget the sounds of Jason’s whimpers as they sprinted toward the spring. Had Theo and Nim survived, too? How much time did they have left?

Branches struck her cheeks as they clambered down the slope to the river, racing along its sandy banks.

“What if we’re too late?” Alia panted, unsure why she was out of breath.

“We won’t be.”

“But what if we are?”

“I don’t know,” Diana said, unslinging her as they neared the plane tree. “I guess we just keep fighting. Together.”

They splashed into the shallows of the riverbed, the water growing deeper as they plunged toward the spring. Around her, Alia heard the chorus building once more, girls’ voices multiplying as she sank waist deep in the water, stumbling over slick stones, soaked sneakers searching for purchase on the river’s sandy bottom. She saw Eris high above them, heard her horrid screeching, saw the twins in their chariots racing along the riverbanks, both of them laughing, shrill and victorious.

Too late. Too late.

As the sun sank below the horizon, Alia hurled herself into the shining waters of the spring. She plunged beneath the surface, and the world went dark and silent. The water was far deeper than she’d expected, the cold like a hand sliding closed around her. Her feet kicked, but she could feel nothing beneath her. She was no longer sure which way she was facing or where the surface might be. There was only darkness all around.

She could feel that winged thing inside her, thrashing, but she couldn’t tell if it was fighting to keep hold or to break free.

Don’t go. The thought came unbidden to her mind. She didn’t mean it. She’d fought too hard to release the world from the horror this curse would bring. But some part of her wished she could keep a scrap of this power for herself. She’d done good with it, saved Diana with it. For a brief moment, that righteous anger had burned bright in her heart, and it had belonged to no one but her.

Her lungs tightened, hungry for air. Had the spring done its work? She didn’t know, but she didn’t want to drown finding out. She expelled her remaining breath, watched the bubbles rise, and knew which way to go. She shot upward and broke free of the river’s grasp, hauling herself back to shallower water, sucking in great gulps of air.

“Well?” shouted Nim from the shore, Theo beside her in the blue light of dusk. A bolt of joy—they’d made it. But…

“What happened?” asked Diana, offering Alia her hand and helping her rise.

“Nothing.”

Alia looked up at the sliver of moon that had appeared in the twilight sky, helplessness weighting her heart.

A rumble filled the air. Alia looked to the road, wondering what fresh disaster was headed their way, but the sound didn’t seem to be coming from there.

“What is that noise?” said Theo.

It was coming from everywhere. She began to pick out different pieces in the roar: the punishing din of artillery fire, the thunder of tanks, the shriek of fighter jets. And screams. The screams of the dying.

“Oh God,” she said. “It’s starting.”

Diana blinked, her eyes deep blue in the fading light. Her shoulders sagged, and it was as if an invisible crown had slid from her head. “We failed. We were too late.”

Was it my fault? Alia wondered. Had she doomed them in that last moment? In her selfish desire to keep some of that mysterious power for her own?

They stood hip deep in the river as the sound grew, shaking the earth and the branches of the plane trees. It rose like a wave, towering over them, the coming of a future thick with human misery.

And then, like a wave, it broke.

The sound receded in a rush, the tide retreating—and then gone.

Diana’s breath caught. “Alia,” she said. “Look.”

Three figures stood by the plane tree, their bodies glowing golden in the gathering dark. Their features were indistinct, but Alia could see that one of them was a girl.

Helen. The girl stepped forward, her feet light on the ground, older than when she’d been allowed to race near the banks of the Eurotas. She placed a glowing wreath of lotus flowers against the plane tree, touched her fingers once, lightly, to its gray trunk.

In the golden sheen cast upon the waters of the spring, Alia saw armies retreating, soldiers laying down their weapons, crowds of angry people breaking their stride. The light faded, and Alia watched as Helen and her brothers drifted away from the river, until she could no longer find their shapes in the shadows. Wherever they were going, she hoped they found peace.