Lore

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

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Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “City of Gods”

Prologue Summary

The Prologue is from Wrath’s perspective and takes place during the awakening—when the gods become mortal at the Agon’s start. After seven years as a god, Wrath’s human body feels clumsy and slow. He pities the original gods for having experienced the transition 212 times over the centuries and feels superior because “this would be his final taste of mortality” (2).

Hunters from the House of Kadmos arrive, dragging a struggling Hermes. Hermes tells Wrath he’ll never find what he seeks. With confirmation his prize has not been destroyed, Wrath beheads Hermes and sets forth to claim his eternal glory.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 opens with Lore engaging in her 15th arena fight in the six months since her friend Gil’s death. The fights have offered her many benefits over the last several weeks, and tonight it distracts her from the knowledge that “the hunt had come back to her city” (12). The hunt, or Agon, occurs once every seven years when Zeus turns the other Olympian gods mortal for seven days. Descendants of ancient Greek heroes hunt them, and if a hunter kills a god, they take that god’s place for seven years until the next Agon.

Lore’s street fight opponent tonight is a cocky guy with no fighting experience. He manages to get in a punch and to celebrate his victory, forces a kiss on Lore. His kiss recalls an Odysseide leader sexually harassing Lore years prior. Something inside her explodes, and she goes into a trance, savagely beating the boy. Only when someone lifts her off him does Lore realize she let out “a part of herself she thought she’d killed years ago” (14). Though she doesn’t want to, Lore gets roped into another fight. This time, her opponent is a young man she recognizes as a hunter by his bronze mask.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary

Though she wants to run, Lore stands her ground, telling her opponent she doesn’t fight “cowards who won’t show their faces” (16). The man removes his mask, revealing himself to be Castor Achilleos, a childhood friend Lore thought died seven years ago. Angry that Castor never came for her, even when she desperately needed him, Lore starts the fight.

After a blow takes both of them to the floor, Castor uses the opportunity to warn Lore. Someone Castor refers to only as “he” may be looking for her, which leaves Lore terrified because “there was only one he that would matter” (23). Castor leaves, and after a stunned moment, Lore goes after him. She bursts out of the building housing the fight in time to see an SUV speeding away. A red solo cup rolls toward her. The word “Apodidraskinda” is scribed along its side, which is Castor calling her to a game of Hide and Seek. She throws the cup in the trash.

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary

After collecting her pay for the night, Lore and her friend/roommate Miles go for food. On the way, Lore thinks about Castor and his warning. The “he” is Aristos Kadmou (now the god Wrath), an old enemy, but as unsettling as he is, Lore feels a “restlessness in her body she couldn’t purge” at the thought of Castor being alive (25).

Lore and Miles get takeout from a neighborhood diner and head to their brownstone. They pass a building covered in a dark substance Miles identifies as blood. Once she’s aware of it, Lore sees blood everywhere. She follows the trail to her brownstone, where the goddess Athena sits with a sword wound in her side that gushes “hot, reeking blood” (35). Athena orders Lore to attend to her and then passes out.

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 3 Analysis

These chapters introduce Lore, her current world, and the impact of the Agon’s world on her life. Lore, the title character, suffers from a form of PTSD, which has a few sources. The Agon world she left behind scarred her, both physically and mentally. As a woman within a male-dominated society, Lore was made to believe she was worthless, and she was trained to fear and obey men. Her blackout in Chapter 1 follows an unwanted kiss, which sends her back to the memory of the Odysseide leader forcing himself on her. The reminder that her mind and body were once under a man’s control triggers a response of fear and anger, two strong aspects of Lore’s personality.

Athena’s arrival at the end of Chapter 3 foreshadows a few things. Her fatal wound symbolizes the later wound that forces the goddess to give her life so Lore can rise as an immortal and save New York from Wrath’s destruction. Athena also represents how the Agon never truly let Lore go. For the last seven years, Lore believed she escaped the Agon because she saw little evidence of the hunt’s world. In truth, Gil (who is Hermes) kept her hidden and protected from any gods who would have tracked her between Agons. Athena tells Lore she was stabbed and betrayed, which is a lie. The wound is a convenient excuse to force Lore to help. After Hermes’s death, his protections wore off, allowing Athena to finally find Lore.