Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(20)

Diana shook her head. “No one is going to find you here. No one ever does.”

Alia raised a skeptical brow. “Is this some Bermuda Triangle shit?”

“Something like that. The island is incredibly hard to reach. It doesn’t show up on any maps or charts.”

Alia waggled her fingers. “Google knows all and sees all.”

“Google,” Diana repeated. “Is Google one of your gods?”

“Hey,” said Alia. “Just because I spend time online doesn’t mean I’m totally brainwashed.”

Diana looked at her blankly, then gestured for Alia to follow. “Come on. We’re too exposed out here.”

“I’m not sure the woods are a good place to be in a thunderstorm,” Alia said. Diana bit her lip, as if she hadn’t considered that. “I’m guessing you don’t get bad weather around here?”

“Never,” said Diana. “But it has to be the woods. We can’t stay out in the open.”

A chill spread over Alia’s arms that had nothing to do with the storm or her damp clothes. “What do you mean?”

“The people on this island came here because they don’t want to be found.”

“Like you?”

“I…didn’t have a choice. I was born here. But they really don’t like outsiders.”

Alia shivered. Great, they were one step shy of a dueling-banjos scenario. Dueling lyres? Keep it together, Alia. “They’re not in some weird militia or something, are they?”

“Actually, a lot of them are…uh…military.”

Better and better. Probably a bunch of paranoid survivalists, with Alia’s luck. If they didn’t like outsiders, they definitely weren’t going to like a brown girl from New York. “And they don’t have phones? Radios?”

“No contact with the outside world.”

“What if someone gets sick or hurt?”

“That isn’t a problem here,” said Diana, then added, “Or it didn’t used to be.”

So Alia had managed to get shipwrecked on Cult Island. Perfect. “Can’t we just steal a boat or something?” she asked.

“I considered that, but the docks are full of people. They’ll notice someone taking out a craft, especially during a storm. And I think we’re going to need more than a boat to get us to Therapne.”

“Where?”

“Southern Greece. The Gulf of Laconia.”

That made no sense—not if Alia remembered her geography right. The Thetis had only been a few days out from Istanbul. Even if they’d been wildly off course, it made no sense to travel that far. Why not Thessaloniki or even Athens? “That’s hundreds of miles from here. We can’t sail all that way.”

“Of course not.”

Alia took a deep breath. Her chest hurt as if someone had punched her. Her lungs still felt waterlogged, and her body was covered in bruises. Beyond that, she felt nauseous and bleary. She needed to see a doctor. She needed to get to a real city.

Unless Diana was lying or delusional—both of which were definite possibilities—she was stuck on an island crawling with weirdos, so she needed to be smart. Play along, she told herself. This girl wants to go to southern Greece? No problem. Alia could nod and smile for as long as it took to get somewhere with a phone.

She steeled herself and followed Diana into the green hush of the forest. It was like stepping into an alien world. Alia’s parents had taken her and Jason on a trip to the Brazilian rain forest when she was little, so they could learn about some of the new species of plants being discovered there and the medicines developed from those findings. It had been a bit like this—lush, alive—and yet not like this at all. The trees here were like nothing she’d ever seen, some of them wide enough around that the Thetis could have docked in their rings with room to spare. Their roots ran along the forest floor in thick spirals, covered in vines that bloomed with widemouthed trumpet flowers. The air smelled sweet and felt almost silky on Alia’s skin, and the raindrops on every surface made the moss, leaves, and branches glint like they’d been hung with gems.

Great place for a cult.

Alia knew she should keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t resist asking, “Why do we need to go to southern Greece?”

“Your expedition wasn’t attacked because of your parents’ work. You are being hunted.”

“Hunted,” Alia said flatly. “For my silky pelt?”

“Because you are haptandra.”

“Say again?”

“A Warbringer.”

“I’m not into gaming.”

Diana shot her a baffled look over her shoulder. “The Oracle says we must reach the spring at Therapne before the sun sets on the first day of Hekatombaion. It’s the site of Helen’s tomb, where she was laid to rest beside Menelaus. Once you and your bloodline have been cleansed in the spring, you will be a Warbringer no longer. You will never need fear for your life again.”

“Sure,” said Alia. “Makes perfect sense.”

“Hopefully, your enemies believe you’re dead, but we should be ready for anything once we’re off the island.”

I’m going to be ready to find the nearest police station and get the hell away from you, Queen Loon, Alia thought. But all she said was “Got it.”