Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(81)

The previous night, they’d tacked east, but now they moved back toward the coast, where campers and beachgoers might provide some camouflage for their oddly dressed crew. At one point, they crested a series of low ridges and Diana caught a view of the bright waters of the Ionian Sea. The blue was more like her home waters than the sullen slate of the Atlantic, but it was still nothing compared to the coast of Themyscira. She was closer to home than she’d been since she’d crossed into the World of Man, and yet she’d never felt farther away.

As they looked out at the water, Diana was startled to hear Nim say, “Sorry about this morning, Theo.”

Theo kept his eyes trained on the sea. “I’m sorry I called you names. You’re not fat or ugly.”

Nim cut him a glance. “I am fat, Theo, and far too hot for your sorry ass.”

A smile flashed over Theo’s face. “I think you mean my worthless ass.”

Diana couldn’t help but respect their willingness to set their anger aside. She knew those insults must have stung.

They continued on, keeping as much distance as they could between Theo and Nim without losing sight of each other, just in case the reconciliation didn’t take. The situation suited Diana just fine, since it meant she and Jason had to stay away from each other, too. They hadn’t spoken a word since the previous night, and Diana wavered between feeling that was best for everyone and crafting an apology in her head.

She matched her pace to Theo’s. He’d removed his new shirt and tied it around his head, revealing dark freckles on his narrow brown shoulders.

“Theo?” she began.

“Yes, Big Mama?”

She raised a brow at the nickname. “This morning, when Nim was—”

“Trying to kill me?”

“Yes. Did you see…anything odd?”

“You mean like a hideous winged hellbeast?”

Diana didn’t know whether to feel relieved or distressed. “Exactly.”

“Yeah, I saw it,” said Theo. He shivered despite the heat of the sun. “When I looked into her eyes, they were…ancient, and I could feel…”

“What?” Diana prodded.

“She was happy. No, gleeful.” He shuddered and shook his arms as if trying to rid himself of the memory.

“She had wings, black eyes, what else?”

“Wild hair—not really hair at all, like you were looking into the dark—and gold smeared all over her lips.”

Diana hadn’t noticed the gold on her mouth. Her stomach clenched. “Gold from the apple of discord. That was Eris, the goddess of strife.”

“A goddess?”

Diana nodded, her stomach churning at the possibility. She had been raised to worship the goddesses of the island, to make the proper sacrifices, speak the appropriate prayers. She knew they could be generous in their gifts and terrible in their judgment. But she had never seen a god, and she knew they didn’t make a habit of revealing themselves to mortals, either. “She’s a battlefield god. She incites discord and thrives on the misery it creates.”

Again, Theo shuddered. “It was like there was a chorus in my head, egging me on. I hated Nim. I would have killed her if I had the chance. I didn’t just feel mad—I felt righteous.” He blinked. “And I’m a lover, not a fighter!”

“There are others,” said Diana. “The Algea, full of weeping,” she recited. “Até, who brings ruin; Limos, the bone soldier of famine. The brother gods, Phobos and Deimos.”

“Panic and Dread,” said Jason, catching up to them.

“And the Keres.”

“What do they do, exactly?” asked Theo.

“They eat the corpses of warriors as they die.”

He winced. “Maybe we don’t need to stop for lunch.”

“Is it possible Alia’s power is drawing them?” asked Jason.

“I don’t know what’s possible anymore,” Diana admitted. It was a frightening thought.

She loped ahead to scout the territory before them. She needed to think, and she wanted to be away from mortals for a moment, from their squabbles and hungers and wants.

The landscape here reminded her of parts of Themyscira, but there was no mistaking this place for anything but the World of Man. She could hear the rumble of cars in the distance, smell burning fuel in the air, hear the buzz and crackle of telephone lines. Through all of it, in the pulse and flow of her blood, she could still feel the pain and worry of her sisters on the island. She hated that they suffered, that she’d been the one to cause it, but she couldn’t deny that she was grateful for the connection, for the reminder of who and what she was.

Had she and Theo truly seen Eris? The gods of battle had been the creatures of her earliest nightmares. They were the enemies of peace, more terrifying than ordinary monsters because their power didn’t lie in jagged teeth or terrible strength but in their ability to drive soldiers to the worst atrocities, to drown the empathy and mercy of warriors in terror and rage so they were capable of things they’d never imagined. What if Jason was right and they were coming to the mortal world, drawn by the prospect of war?

As the day wore on, the heat rose, and the group’s pace slowed. By late morning, Diana could see that Alia’s steps were weaving and Nim was bleary-eyed from exhaustion. She dropped back to talk to Jason.