Lore

Alexandra Bracken

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

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Part 1, Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “City of Gods”

Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary

Lore doesn’t want to believe Castor is the new Apollo, but with him before her, she can’t deny it. The setup of the ceremony seems odd, and she wonders if Philip plans to kill Castor to claim Apollo’s power for himself. Castor sits on the throne, and Phillip welcomes him back to the House of Achilles, listing the honors planned to celebrate Apollo’s presence and the improvements the House of Achilles has made in the world over the last seven years, particularly in medicine. Philip ends by asking Apollo to “create a disease that we alone can cure” in order for the House of Achilles to leverage power (94). Castor refuses.

Evander (Van), a relative of Castor’s, arrives and relays information about the current Agon. The Kadmides took control of the House of Theseus, killing Tidebringer and Hermes. Amidst Van’s speech, the mirrors around the room suddenly turn red, and a voice commands, “Achillides, hear me” (97).

Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary

Around the room, hunters fall to their knees at the mercy of Wrath’s power (he instills fear with his voice). When Wrath speaks again, he addresses Castor, offering him a choice. He can surrender and save his house, or he can fight and “all will die beneath my blade, beginning with you” (99). Castor refuses to surrender, and Phillip calls Wrath a liar, sighting that Wrath won’t even return the Achillide dead. In response, Wrath changes the mirrors to show the severed heads of the Achillides. He challenges the House of Achilles to come for the corpses, leaving with the threat: “you will join them soon enough” (100).

Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary

Following Wrath’s declaration, Lore makes her escape, pausing only briefly to consider taking Castor with her. Though it would solve many of her problems, she decides there is no way for her to sneak him out. Even more, he is safest with his house because the Achillides “would die before subjecting themselves to an outsider’s rule” (102).

Lore makes her way back to the room where she entered the building, but the door is locked. Frantic, she checks every door in the hallway, finally finding one that’s open. She searches for an escape but finds none. Voices in the hall approach, and she hides behind a decorative screen, peeking out in time to see Castor, Van, and Philip enter.

Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary

The men discuss Wrath’s breech of their security, coming to no conclusions. Philip demands to know “how an innocent boy of twelve bested one of the strongest of the original gods” (108). Castor doesn’t answer. Van and Philip leave.

Castor moves around the room without finding Lore. He finally stops in the center, and a panel in the wall behind him opens, revealing a masked hunter. The hunter fires a gun at Castor, and Lore breaks from hiding, tackling the hunter and knocking him unconscious. She removes the mask to reveal Philip Achilleos. With Philip neutralized, Lore tends to Castor. The gun was a tranquilizer. Lore wakes Castor by digging her palm into his chest, and Castor aims “a writhing mass of heat and light” at her (110).

Part 1, Chapters 9-12 Analysis

These chapters show the cutthroat world of the Agon and how hunters will do anything for power. Philip’s request that Castor create a plague only the Achillides can cure reflects how Apollo caused many such plagues in the ancient days. The House of Achilles is weak compared to the House of Kadmos, and as leader, Philip will do anything to tilt power to his favor. His attempt on Castor’s life shows he is even willing to risk the Kin slayers curse (a god being killed by a member of their own house), which may or may not even exist. Wrath’s display of power shows how much strength both he and the House of Kadmos have. Wrath’s demand that the Achillides surrender means the Kadmides have the power to take the House of Achilles by force. The Kadmides also have better technology, as evidenced by how easily they crack the Achillides’s security.

Ascension took the disease that ravaged Castor’s mortal form. Becoming a god fundamentally changed the makeup of Castor’s body, implying it’s possible for godhood to change other elements of a person. Wrath was an evil man before he ascended, but the threat of life and death without kleos hung over him, perhaps influencing his actions. As a god, Wrath no longer worries about dying (except for the Agon), and the ability to achieve kleos is in his grasp. Like Castor’s sickness, ascension took Wrath’s last vestiges of humanity.