Day 3, Part 1: The Solitary and The Comradery.

Dior Marini. District 1.

Chrys Gerhart is not there when she wakes up from her tent.

Neither is Kiernan Alcraiz. At first, she'd assumed that they were out foraging (and she'd prepared a reprimand on her lips, for they had not told her), but time dragged across the clock and as the sun dragged up on the horizon and they still had not returned, Dior knew that it wasn't simply that.

It is unsurprising to her that Chrys Gerhart leaves. Her District Partner was without an arm, bleeding out, and he'd made no secret of his despise of her. Why would he want to spend his last days on Earth staring back at her?

Chrys Gerhart will die. And better he take the Two boy with his demise.

(Usually, Dior would be pissed. They're breaking away from the pack. And she is angry, because he cannot simply leave—it's a betrayal, in the strictest sense, they're undermining her authority, they're making her a laughingstock of the Capitol for their leave, even armless Gerhart doesn't wanna deal with you—)

She wants to kill him for all his trouble.

And she does want to.

Rage bubbles in her veins. A sneer protrudes by her lips. Emotions, ever-present, roils the insides of her skin. She wants to murder him, wants to drag him six-feet-under Earth, wants to get the last word in, don't think you can just leave like that, don't think you can just embarrass me like that, don't think you can usurp me like that, and she wants his blood to splash claret over the golden mounds, wants to watch, wants to listen to him sing pathetic little death-breath songs upon his death—

(But Dior Marini is rational. Dior Marini can wait. And she finds that she does not care. Not really. Not as much as she'd assumed that she would. Her mission is far too clear to her, now. And her mission does not involve her District Partner, nor a child. No: there is something far greater that involves the pack now.)

Her mission involves the revolution. And as much as Dior Marini despises admitting it— it is true, what Althea Ivory says. Elkavich had given them a message— had given Dior a message.

They were to end the rebel forces.

They were to end Eight.

For Eight is inherently rebellious.

She knows it. She remembers it.

The 48th Games, for one, were a show.

Dior had been a mere child at the time, but she still remembers how Eight boy had scorned the Four girl of the Games. Till he was strangled by his own rope, and that, in itself, was a fitting retribution, made more delicious by Four girl's victory being proclaimed moments after…

(And of course. She'll never be able to forget the 53rd. The Eights, a wild hunting pack, leaping across the greenery and dancing through the diffusing mist, cackles beholden in their breaths, don't hide, hah, Marini, you'll never win, you'll never survive us—)

Dior Marini takes a shuddery breath. No, not now. She cannot think of Mattie, now.

(Her sister, gasping for breaths. Her sister, life drawn out of her breath. Her sister, dying because Eight. Because Eight girl decided to hunt, decided not to lay down and die. Eight girl, oh, Eight girl, with her brazen hair and her too-strong frame and her determined gaze and the unspeakable sneer upon her lips, Sadie Rendevez with her wild black hair and her wry scoff and her everlasting scowl and her unrepentant rebellion. Sadie Rendevez, slamming her head against the Peacekeepers' helmet, spitting in their faces, spiteful, smiling—)

And can they judge her, really, if she has a vendetta? Can they fault her, for wanting to murder her? And her goal is not only for the greater good but it is rational.

Eight girl is the last threat left in the Arena.

Chrys Gerhart is half dead. Kiernan Alcraiz is a child. Hera Dalenka is high. Rhodos McNamara is complaisant. Althea Ivory is… dangerous, but she is so easily controlled.

And what Dior is doing, is this:

She is listening to Elkavich's message.

She is fulfilling Elkavich's mission.

And she understands, now. Just why they were handpicked. Dior Marini was chosen because she was trusted with the killing of the rebels. She's designated the role of the harbinger of justice, of the slaughterer, of the Capitol's mission. And what Dior Marini is this: she is destined to end them.

(To finish the Eights, stab, smile, as their feet intermingle with dirt. So they do not trample upon Earth, wielding their spears and shields, oh, Marini, watch the outer Districts triumph. Watch them finish the Games. Watch them reign victorious, watch them strangle your neck with silver rope, watch them end you. Won't you just?)

The Arena is quiet. Too quiet, really. There have not been many dead— other than those that had perished in the Bloodbath and the Fives which they had stabbed to death.

And what Elkavich says is simple.

She wants them to hunt the remaining down.

The Capitol wants the Careers to give them a show.

To shake up the Games.

To return them to tradition, to normalcy, to the Capitol. To make the Arena what it should be; not how it was wasted as a vector for the rebels' message last Games.

(And perhaps that's why these Games are so similar to the last: similar forests, similar pines; merely pervaded in gold.)

It's a message. To them. To make the Games right again.

And Dior—

Oh, Dior Marini is all too happy to realise that mission.

Rhodos McNamara. District 4.

Rhodos McNamara isn't sure about himself.

(The Games should've been straightforward. He's to be a Career, he's to kill, he's to listen to the pack leader. He's supposed to do what they all said. That's what he's supposed to be.)

But… it isn't.

Nine girl had died, first off. By her own hands. And he should've went for the kill, he should've killed her, really, that was what he's supposed to do as a Career—

—but he didn't.

(And would it be selfish for him to say that he's almost…. glad? He can't imagine bringing the spear down, slicing through flesh, skewering skin, knowing that the work done was undeniably his—)

And then he'd seen the mark. And it had hit him, then. When Hera Dalenka had spoken up. The talons were from training. When he'd seen Three and Six…

(Three and Six. Conversing, as the training day had tied down, as the Gamemakers had drifted out of their stations, as the Careers had left, as it had only been he and them left in the room. They, talking amongst one another, and they didn't seem to notice him—not immediately, not at least till he'd gotten an eyeful of the marks upon their wrists.)

They've brought up the revolution. And he'd told the rest of the pack. And he should've said their names, Three and Six, for their mission as Careers were to hunt down the dissidents, And he'll satisfy his pack, he'll satisfy the Careers, he'll play his role, he'll be useful, indispensable to his companions, he'd be what they all want him to be—

But something had stopped him.

It is not untrue that Rhodos accedes to authority. He's complaisant, he's mollifying, he... pleases them. He's aware.

And seeing people, so openly defiant, makes him vertiginous. A part of him wants to tell them all, about the revolution, about the talons, about all he'd seen, about all he knows.

But he stops himself.

Rhodos isn't sure why, but knowing that Three and Six are rebels, knowing that they're working to make rebellion, change, is almost… entrancing. As it is sickening to his stomach.

He could never, of course. The prospect of going against authority is terrifying, and doing it so openly? Spitting their names, dragging a blade across your own neck for it?

It makes him shrink.

(But at the same time… it is like overcoming an obstacle. They were doing what they wished, from the pits of their souls. Unrestrained—unfettered—free. And Rhodos McNamara does not know why that resonates with him so much, does not know why the prospect of it makes his heart leap, just as it makes him dizzy. He does not know what it is that grapples in his gut.)

Revulsion… repulsion…

(… desire?)

Rhodos McNamara knows that change is underway. He knows that change sings in the undercurrent of the Games. He knows that change flits through the air, that change is restless through the ground underneath him, that quakes, under his feet.

Something will happen. And he does not know what, it is, exactly— but something will happen.

He feels it in his gut.

Three and Six are part of the revolution. He'd known it, since training. Tattoos wreathe their wrists; not marks, but talons. He'd seen it. He'd felt it, too—in whispers, in training, conversations forbidden, quiet, but sing-song, dancing alive like pyres that had lit themselves alive. He'd seen it, in their eyes.

Behind him, Dior rants about the Eights. About their upcoming hunt. Rhodos does not say anything. Instead, he thinks about Three, and Six, and he tries to suppress his palpitating heart, his quickening breaths.

He does not speak.

But he feels eyes upon his back. And Rhodos inhales a quick breath, he glances at his hands, because he's supposed to be using a weapon, he's supposed to be preparing for the hunt, doing something, he's supposed to be supporting Dior and, and he's not, he's not doing anything important now at all, and he's sure it's Dior that looks at him now—

"Rhodos?"

He turns around.

Althea's face looks back at him. And she's stoic, still—but it's devoid of the coldness that would usually clench her poise.

(It is too clear, to Rhodos McNamara: that it is more a veneer than anything.)

"Althea," he exhales, and the amount of relief that imbues his breath is unspeakable. "Um. What did you want to talk to me about?"

Althea looks around, and there's a certain anxiousness in them. "... I'm not sure," she says, and her voice's quiet in a way that Rhodos hasn't really known her to be, before. She'd never been anything but sure. Not really.

"It just feels like there isn't something right. With this Arena."

Rhodos bites his lip. His heart-rate slows, slightly—at least she isn't talking about yesterday, at least she hasn't changed her mind, at least she isn't mad, at least she's okay with me, still…

"Why do you say that?"

"It's just…" Althea sighs. "... it's so quiet."

And what is unsaid lingers between them. It has been quiet— too quiet. If Rhodos closes his eyes and imagines, it's almost as if he isn't in the Games. He could just be venturing into the autumnal forests of Four; he could convincingly be on a camping trip.

That was… ludicrous.

"I don't like it," Rhodos says, quietly. And even as he speaks, he feels something twinge by his lips. Because Althea trusts him enough to confide in him about her suspicions. And he trusts her enough to tell her about his. They trust each other.

"Althea?" he says, and Althea's eyes meet him in curiosity. "I'm sorry about—about yesterday."

"What do you have to apologise for?" And although Althea's face is in a veneer of passivity, and oh so very emotionless, Rhodos feels something like a smile push by his lips.

He shakes his head. "Nothing."

A hint of amusement pricks Althea's lips. She lets out a quiet sigh. And then, almost imperceptibly, almost suddenly, her poise slacks. It's as if the metal that held up her frame snakes out of her. Her eyes flit around, and worry strikes Rhodos's heart… and Althea's eyes, tired, look back up at him.

"I can't get it out of my head," she says, first. "Can't get… them out. Their deaths out. And I should. But I keep seeing them. In my dreams," and it's half a laugh. "… I know you say it's not weakness, but it is, because the world's seen me weak, and they can't, they shouldn't know…"

"No," Rhodos says, quietly. "No, you're not. Althea, you're one of the strongest people I know. I stand by what I've said. Feeling makes you human. And it doesn't matter if the world sees you… feeling things."

Althea raises an eyebrow, lets out a sardonic, half-broken chuckle.

"It does. It's the Games, Rhodos."

"... still."

"Don't you get it?" she says, and exasperation glimmers by her half-smiling lips. "If I can't kill, then I'm weak. And if I'm weak, then I'm not a Career—I'm not a Victor. I just want to show them," she says, and her voice lowers an octave; so much so that Rhodos almost can't hear her words, himself. "I just want to show them what I can do."

"I know," he says. "And trust me. They know, too."

It's quiet, after that.

"I hope you won't have to kill someone, Rhodos." Althea Ivory murmurs, finally. And although the words could've been biting, they're… not.

He meets the earnesty in her eyes. "You'll have to, eventually... you will, they'll make you. But that is the last thing you deserve to feel."

And then Althea Ivory trudges off, back to Dior, who calls for the pack, and Rhodos McNamara is left still, standing.

Althea's words clang in his head.

Hera Dalenka. District 2.

They trudge through the golden forests, and Hera Dalenka's stomach is rife with… something.

(Truth to be told— Hera Dalenka hasn't known how to feel, since the Games began. Perhaps she could say the same before that, too: in the pre-Games, in the interviews, in the train rides, in the moment she'd thrust her hand up into the skies and volunteered...)

But she can't think about that, now.

Instead, she stuffs her hands into her pockets… but they knock into the glass there. And another set of coldness sets into her chest.

(She'd heard the ping, after the rest of the Careers had gone to sleep. And Hera Dalenka's eyes had snapped up, through the bleary smear of the too-cold, too-dark night. Whirling with the winds was a parachute: swaying, side-to-side, and she'd caught the silver string in her fist.)

("Have this," was taped on the note upon the vial, "you deserve it.")

Morphling was not an uncommon sponsor gift. It'd been used, in the 52nd; the District Two girl was positively addicted, bubbling in its froth-white ethereality and in the wet glory from its overflow. She'd gone on to die in the Games: so high she didn't even see the attack coming.

Hera's fingers quiver next to the glass. She's stuffed the vial in, because she didn't want to think about it. But her fingers twitch, and before she knows it she's untwisting the cap, she's—

No.

Hera forces her fingers in a fist and stops herself from thinking.

Kiernan Alcraiz... had left. And her heart had shrivelled within herself—because she'd wanted to talk to him. Wanted to comfort him, reassure him. Ever since the Bloodbath. And she can only assume that he's being cared for, because Chrys Gerhart's left with him, and he's been far closer to Kiernan than she had ever been…

But she can't help but feel like… she wouldn't see him again.

A python constricts in her chest.

Because there was something left unsaid with Kiernan.

(And although the words don't quite form on her tongue, what she sees is the memory of Kiernan Alcraiz's stare in the train rides and there is the memory of Alcraiz, of Maeve Alcraiz, that District Two girl last Games who soared too high and fell too strong into the depths of forests and wind and cold and dirt...)

And Hera Dalenka knows she should've said something, knows that she should've confronted him, comforted him, but…

They're trudging through the forests. In the serene Arena indulgent in its gold.

Dior wants to hunt. The Eights remained unspoken, but the target painted upon their backs is… obvious.

(Does Hera want it? She's here in the pack. And she's revealed to them all about the rebels. About the party that the other Careers had left too early to see the ruin of. About the tattoos and about… them.)

What she said's affected the pack. Dior's jovial, for one—too willing to kill, only too glad to satisfy what the Capitol ordains. And she sees the sunkenness in Rhodos's eyes, the conflict that inhabits him, and she sees Althea Ivory, and her all-too-stiff poise and Hera almost wants to speak, do you feel it too, do their deaths affect you so much too—

It was involuntary, the way those words spilt out of her lips. And she didn't necessarily want to say it. But she did.

Because she was useful, she was capable, she wasn't just half-in a reverie all the time, she had strength, she was strong, she was perfect, she could…

(Could she?)

Hera Dalenka is a fighter. She can kill; she has the strength to. She has the decade of her life she'd put herself in training to prove so. She can shoot a target in the bullseye; she can fight a dozen people and stay standing; she can skewer a head from its body. She is able. She is capable.

Hera Dalenka wants to fight. She can fight; she has the will to. She has her parents' support; she has their wishes and their dreams for her future.

("You'll be set for life, once you win," her father had said, and Hera had nodded, once, twice, thrice. "I can't wait to design your clothes, after your victory," her mother had said, grinning, "and you'll wear white, right? It suits you! No, you must wear white; and I'll pick the lilies to accompany, oh, I can't wait for the day," and Hera had nodded again, had let a weak smile penetrate her lips, as her mother fretted over her and dressed her and led her by the hand, here, Hera, win for the Dalenkas, win for yourself, won't you?)

Hera Dalenka wants to survive. There are only so many left alive in the Arena, and she is underestimated. Althea and Dior's tenseness will come to a head; they will take each other out. Rhodos McNamara is an easy answer; he will cower, he will plead, he is more sheep than Career; and of course, Hera Dalenka may be the same, but she is aware of her own passivity. And Chrys Gerhart will die anyway, half an arm razed away, and Kiernan Alcraiz…

(Her chest constricts. No. She can't think about tactics. They make her stomach turn, treating everyone around her like they're chess-pieces, like they're stepping-stones rather than humans, no, Hera Dalenka cannot think like that.)

Hera Dalenka is clean, for now, at least. And she might still be suffering the aftereffects, she might be cold-turkey, but... she can win; she has willpower; she has strength; she can do anything.

In theory: Hera Dalenka is indisputably a contender for the Victor's crown.

(But ever since she had watched the Hunger Games on-screen—she'd known. From her trembling fingers and her stomach's agony and her bit-lips to stop herself from shivering. She'd known, and she'd taken meth and ket and acid and ecstasy and snow for it. She'd suppressed. Through stardust and silver and cheap-liquor and moonshine and she'd become the best for it, too.)

Her steps feel… barely there. She's unstable. She's untethered.

(Because Hera Dalenka knows, the moment her eyes had landed upon people, upon the tributes, upon everyone there—that she could not do it. She cannot kill. She cannot live up to her parents' expectations. She cannot make a better life for herself.)

Hera Dalenka is everything, and yet a Career she is not.

A sharp breath's taken by her side.

Hera's head turns to see Rhodos McNamara inhale. And she follows his line of sight to find where he stares at ahead—over the autumnal-riddled grounds and the susurrating leaves and the dark-gold sheen of the Arena—

To the peak of a tent.

Hera's breaths short.

Althea's eyes narrow.

Dior Marini grips her sword.

"So?" Dior says, turns to the pack, cocks her head. "What are we waiting for?"

What are we waiting for?

She has her hand on her dual daggers and she has her breath in her throat and Hera Dalenka knows she is voiceless. There is a stone in her throat and there are stones that bind her feet down and there are stones that break her skin and stones shoved in her mouth. She cannot speak.

"There are at least two people in there," Dior Marini says, lifting her chin. She doesn't even bother to conceal her voice—not even as the tent rustles, not even as the sound of a zipper being pulled sounds through the quiet air, not even as a hand peeks out through the wraps.

(They know who has power here.)

And the tributes get out of the tent, the kids leave the tent, and—and that's when she sees.

District Six boy. District Ten girl. Leave.

And they are deers caught in headlights.

"You know," Dior says, tuts, really, as her eyes swivel from Six and Ten to the Careers. "I'm getting tired of being the only killer in the pack. I've killed three. Rhodos— Hera, really? One and zero respectively. Neither of you has killed since the Bloodbath. I wonder what those in the Capitol will think."

And Hera Dalenka watches as the tip of Dior's sword touches the soft earth, as Dior cocks her head and leaves a question in her eyes.

"Go on," Dior says, nodding to Ten girl, whose eyes are too-wide, too-brown, lips parted like her breath's caught in her throat.

(Too human.)

"I'm doing you a favour, Hera," Dior says, and Hera feels coldness in her bones, feels ice in her spine, feels empty and void and like she is nothing at all. And Dior's eyes burn in her back as Hera's feet place themselves one and another in front of her, as she lifts her daggers from her sides (even as her veins are ice), as she approaches Ten girl.

Ten girl is scared. And yet she is rooted to the spot, and Hera feels her stomach plummet because it would've been easier if she ran if she took flight till she was just a body in a distance and then maybe Hera could imagine that she was doing target practice, that her blade was not a knife and that the girl was just a dummy.

But Ten girl's eyes are upon her, large and wide and terrified, and Hera's getting closer with every step, two daggers in her hands, and she knows—knows that this is something she cannot escape from.

And they're so close—face-to-face, close enough to kiss—when Hera's daggers sink into Ten girl's stomach.

She does not even protest. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is open but she is already so distanced, already like she is borne from mist. Hera watches as Ten girl falls apart in front of her; her hand, her markless-hand falling away, crashing into earth, red leaking from her gut with the shudder of her body, red by her mouth and red filling her mouth, dying, dying, by her hand.

I'm so sorry, Hera wants to whisper, at the corpse, at the soon-to-be-corpse, and yet her breaths and words are stuck in her throat.

I don't know why—

I'm so sorry—

And this she thinks as she meets Ten's dying eyes, as Ten's last breaths rattle from her chest, as Ten slips away into the void, and even then without a sound.

Guilt swallows Hera alive.

Her actions are involuntary. Hera kneels down, next to the body—even as Six boy screams, shouts, but even his are dull against the roar of mist—and Hera puts down her knives. She wavers before the corpse. Her fingers reach out, and they hover over the corpse, for a moment, fuck it, and she closes Ten's eyes.

I'm so sorry.

(And she will not say that apology out loud, for it is insincere, it is hypocritical, from a murderer that'd just killed Ten, who the hell would believe her, really, when she'd volunteered to be a Career. And so Hera Dalenka presses her lips, moves her hands away from the girl—for the last thing she would've wanted was to be touched by her murderer—exhales a breath, gets up.)

And Dior Marini will be pissed. But Hera Dalenka finds that she does not care. Not really. Not anymore.

Through the heavy mist, Six boy lets out a feral cry. And before Hera knows it he's barraging into her, he's screeching like an animal, sobbing, and Hera's breaths short, and she's on the ground, and she feels blows rain upon her skin and she's going to die, and she almost lets out a breathy laugh because hell, she's without her daggers that she'd left by Ten girl's side and she deserves it really, she should die, she killed, she killed and she can't—

—and Six boy's being dragged away, being dragged off her, kicking and roaring and crying, and it's Althea Ivory, stoic as stone, who saves her. And half of Hera wants to protest—don't, let him, I deserve it, it's retribution, really, it's just—

"Kill him."

And Hera's eyes are wide, but Dior is not talking to her. Dior Marini curls her lip and scoffs at Rhodos McNamara.

"Go on," she says. "Use your spear. Like how you'd used it upon Nine girl. What a bite it made on her throat. Make it clean."

Althea Ivory is still, but she is cold and white and sheetwhite, maybe, if Hera wants to read into it. Rhodos stares, and for a moment Hera wonders if he knows what to do, wonders if he's frozen, just as cold as she is, just as fearful, just as reluctant—

"Kill him," Dior hisses, and Rhodos nods, and Hera feels too many things roil in her stomach.

And Rhodos does.

It is so quick, it is barely a moment, when Six's neck caves open, yearning-wide with sick-black and the guzzle of blood, ruptured open by a blade.

Althea lets go. Six boy falls to the ground. And he's gasping, but he's guttering blood, guttering cerise, and even as his fingers stretch and he tries to reach for Ten girl's hand it isn't enough, it's never enough—

A cannon thuds off into the skies.

(They raise a field of goosebumps upon her skin, as the cannon's cry rakes across her skin, and Hera Dalenka swallows, and there's so much coldness that wraps around her, and it's the winds, battering her, unstoppable, so unforgiving, and she's so fucking frozen, god, and it's so reminiscent, too, so redolent—)

(… was this what the 55th felt like?)

And then there are claps, and Dior, too-sarcastic, looks between them, a sneer doused in sardonicism tinging her lips.

"Good job," Dior drawls. And Hera Dalenka wants to hurl, because the dirt eats at her, they crawl upon her skin and they swallow her in flecks of cold and they don't release, because seeing the dead's so disgusting, seeing the dead hurts her heart and hurts her head. And though she knows she's a Career (and showing kindness is weakness, being friendly is weakness, being caring is weakness)...

Hera Dalenka is so cold.

Rhodos is shaking. She can see it, even though she's five-feet away, and she knows that Dior's all-too-aware and she knows that Althea notices, too, because Althea fixes a cold glare fixed upon Dior. And there's half a challenge in Althea's eyes, and oh— oh, no.

"Two more dead. Are you happy now?" Althea Ivory says. And her voice is distinctly cold, still so frozen, emotionless— but a dare underlines it all.

A flare of anger flashes through Dior's eyes. But coldness, stolidness, stoicness steels her face, and that is all that remains.

"We are winning. Of course I would be happy." Dior says. And she turns away: back to Rhodos, back to Hera.

"It is the Eights that are left. Of the rebellion. We'll hunt them tonight. We'll fulfil what the Gamemakers—what Elkavich wants, tonight. Any objections?"

The coldness in Althea's stance flickers. A certain sort of controlled anger flicks in her eyes, and Hera's stomach turns.

"Why are you so obsessed with Eight girl?" Althea says, cocks her head. And her eyes meet Dior's, and it is a challenge that singes her eyes.

Dior's eyes snap towards Althea. But there is no surprise in her lids— it is almost as if she'd expected it.

"And do I not have a reason to want to hunt Eight down, Althea Ivory?" she snarls, and Hera's heart misses a beat.

"Let's—let's not do this now," Rhodos McNamara pleads. And Althea Ivory lets out an exhale (though it is drenched in knowingness), and Dior scoffs.

"What's the reason?" Althea says. A fit of certain anger pushes her lips down to a frown. And there is calculation in her eyes, and that would be Althea's equivalent to a sneer, and oh, oh no— Althea knows, too clearly.

Madness pulses in Dior's eyes. But it is pushed down with an insouciant sneer. "Haven't you just told us last night, Althea? Elkavich wants us to hunt. That's what we're doing. That's what I am doing. Do you really not want to do what our Head Gamemaker ordains?"

There is a suggestion seeped in Dior's ending words; one that makes Hera's throat tight and her heart beat too rapidly.

(Going against the Games, was something that no one dared suggest; not after the 55th. There was a void where conversations about the Victor were; there was no mention of any sort of rebellion. Hera knows, at least—she remembers, at least, even faintly, in distant memory, through slivers and shards she'd collected through her blur in exhilaration and euphoria.)

Althea Ivory does not rise to the bait. She tilts her head at Dior, and there is disdain that fills her eyes. "And, if I recall correctly—you had been obsessed with Eight girl long before. Haven't you, Dior? Even before the beginning of the Games?"

"And you've been challenging me long enough."

Dior's eyes flare. And there's a rage that takes her, unchecked—and Hera's eyes widen as Dior fingers grip tighter upon her sword, still-bloodstained, and she's riveting the steel upon Althea, and Althea's hand's upon her halberd, and she seems too ready to fight, and Hera can only watch, she can only watch and—

And then the earth beneath them explodes.

A/N: Cliffhanger time! What's happening? Any thoughts on our Careers now? Our tributes? Leave your thoughts below.

Thank you so much for reading!