Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(118)

“You held your own with a sword for a solid ten seconds,” said Diana with a smile.

“Fifteen, at least!” he said. “I was counting.”

Why is everyone acting like this is okay? As much as Alia loved Nim and Theo, she just wanted them to shut up.

“Don’t go,” she said to Diana. “Not yet. I know you liked New York. I could tell. Even the grubby parts. So what if they decide to take you back on Cult Island? Is that really what you want? To spend forever there?”

Slowly, Diana shook her head. “No,” she said, and for a moment, Alia’s heart filled with hope. “But my family is there. My people. I can’t take the coward’s way.”

Alia sighed. Of course she couldn’t. She was Diana. Alia rested her head lightly on Diana’s shoulder. “Promise me you’ll come back someday.”

“I promise to try.”

“Make me the oath.” There was magic in those words. She’d felt it.

“Sister in battle,” murmured Diana, “I am shield and blade to you.”

“And friend.”

“And always your friend.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Maybe the oath didn’t matter if that much was true.

“I will never forget you,” said Diana. She looked at Nim, at Theo. “Any of you, or the way you face the world with courage and humor—”

“And impeccable style?” said Nim.

“That, too.”

They linked pinkies then, Diana and Alia and Nim and Theo, like little kids at the start of an adventure, even though they knew it was the end.

Diana rose.

“Now?” asked Alia, getting to her feet.

“Before I lose my courage.”

Alia had to laugh at that. When had she ever seen Diana be anything but brave?

She watched her friend wade out into the waters of the spring and slip the heartstone from her pocket, clutching it in her palm. The river began to churn, the waters turning white with foam. Starlight collected around her, bright on the black waves of her hair. Alia wanted to call her back, beg her to stay, but the words caught in her throat. Diana had a path to follow, and it was time for Alia to stand on her own. Jason had been her hero, her protector for so long, and Diana had been her hero, too. A different kind of knight, one who’d chosen to protect the girl the world wanted to destroy; one born to slay dragons, but maybe to befriend them, too.

Diana raised her hand, her shape little more than a silhouette in the dark.

Alia lifted her own hand to wave, but before she could, Diana had plunged into the whirling waters of the spring.

A moment later, the river calmed and she was gone, leaving not even a ripple in her wake.

Alia wiped the tears from her cheeks, as Nim and Theo placed their arms around her shoulders.

“You should bring friends home more often,” Nim said softly.

“Guys,” said Theo after a minute, “how are we getting back to town?”

Nim shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the Fiat’s where we parked it.”

They began to make their way to the now-deserted road, Alia trailing slightly behind them.

She hadn’t been entirely honest with Diana. She did feel changed by the spring. Alia reached out to that dark, winged thing inside her—its shape was different now; it felt more wholly hers, and the dagger in its hand was sheathed. She gave it the tiniest nudge.

Nim’s fist shot out and punched Theo in the arm.

“Ow!” Theo yelped, and gave her a not-too-gentle shove.

Alia yanked her power back hurriedly. She was a Warbringer no longer. The spring had altered the legacy inside her, but it hadn’t taken everything. That strength was still there, hers if she wanted it, more gift than curse now, something she could choose to use or ignore. Make some trouble. She just might. For all the right people. She’d done good with this power before. Maybe she could find a way to do good with it again.

Alia glanced back once at the river, at the silver waters of the spring, but whatever ghosts once dwelled there had gone.

“Sister in battle,” she whispered once more, less a vow than a prayer, that wherever Diana was she would remember those words and keep her promise. That someday Alia might see her friend once more.





Diana couldn’t breathe; the water had her, the current driving her forward with impossible speed. She kept her arms straight before her, her body taut as she arrowed through the dark, the rush of the water like thunder in her ears. Some part of her ached for the friends she’d left behind, trembled with fear at what might lie ahead, but she refused to be distracted. There could be no mistakes this time.

She shoved all of her will into the heartstone, her only thought: Home. The bright shores of Themyscira, the little cove that cut into the northern coast, the cliffs that rose above it, the landscape of her heart.

Behind her closed lids, she sensed light, but she could not open her eyes against the force of the water, and then, with a tremendous burst of speed, she was hurled ashore. She slammed against the sand with enough force to rattle her bones and send her head spinning. No—not sand, stone. She was lying in the blue-lit hollow of the Oracle’s temple, sprawled wet and bedraggled in the moat that ran along the bramble walls.

The Oracle sat beside the bronze tripod, a slender curl of smoke rising from the brazier into the night sky.