Diana Prince's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Diana Prince stood in a council chamber carved from Atlantean stone, and no one there believed a word she said. She had come to bring these deep-sea rulers back to the gods of Olympus, to share the wisdom of the Amazons. Instead, the sea-king's guards ringed her with spears. To them she was a spy from the surface, and her strange story only proved it. Steve Trevor stood beside her, still in his fur-collared flight jacket, hands raised in peace. He was the bomber pilot who had crashed on her island long ago, the one man who knew her before all this. "Just let her explain," he said, his voice steady but low. "I've heard it. It's true, even if it sounds crazy." "Then let her prove it," said the eldest of the council, a woman with pale eyes and a crown of coral. Diana lifted her chin. "I was not born," she said. "My mother, Queen Hippolyta, shaped me from the clay of the earth. The gods breathed life into that clay. I grew on Themyscira, hidden from the world of man, until this soldier fell from the sky and broke our peace." The guards laughed. Spears lowered a little, mocking. Steve winced. Diana did not flinch. She reached to her wrist and unclasped the battle bracelet there. Its layered gold bands caught the pale water-light. She held it high so all could see the war-marks pressed into the metal, the craft no surface forge could match. "Amazon-made," she said. "Strike it, if you doubt." The eldest nodded to a guard. He swung his spear-butt hard against the bracelet. The wood cracked in half. The gold did not even scratch. A murmur ran through the chamber. Then Diana drew the coiled rope from her hip. It bloomed with warm golden light, bright enough to push back the blue gloom of the deep. "This lasso holds no lie," she said. She looped one end around her own wrist. "Ask me anything. It binds me to the truth." The eldest leaned forward, testing her. "Why did you come to Atlantis?" The rope glowed brighter against Diana's skin. "To bring your people back to the old gods," she answered. "To share what my sisters know. Nothing more." The glow held true and steady. No flicker, no shadow. The council saw it. Slowly, the eldest raised her hand, and the guards drew back their spears. "You are no spy," the eldest said. "But you have shown magic no Atlantean has felt in a thousand years. That is a greater trouble than a spy." She rose from her coral throne. "The king must judge you now. And he does not welcome the old gods. He buried them himself." Guards closed around Diana again, gentler now, but firm. They would take her deeper, to the throne of a king who had cast Olympus out. Steve caught her eye and mouthed one word: careful.