Artemisia slammed her hammer into the ground, and the shock wave of it swept me off my feet.
I lay on my back, trying to catch my breath, but the wind had been knocked out of me. My entire body ached, as if the soil were draining me even more.
She strode toward me with her war hammer.
My fury aspect was quickly fading, and I tried to turn it off but couldn’t catch my breath to say the words. I struggled to keep my eyes open. I was going to pass out.
This was all familiar—I’d had a vision of this moment. Why had I felt like I was fated to go onto this field if this was how it would end? I hadn’t even had my last two trials of the elements.
My heart beat faster the closer Artemisia got to me. I felt the sword of the goddess in my hand but I was too weak to lift it.
“Now you die, Locrian.”
She raised her hammer over her head, intending to slam it into me.
Luna appeared on my chest.
That caused Artemisia to stop, to take a step back. “What is—”
My little aether dragon roared and shot silver flames at my enemy and I felt the intense heat of it.
Her roar set off something with the earth dragons and they all roared in return, making the ground shake violently beneath me.
Then I heard something that sounded like my sisters calling to me, and arrows began to fly overhead, toward my adelphia.
Five lightning bolts landed directly in the Carian camp and I heard the screams from the soldiers.
Suri started tearing the earth apart, creating another hole to eat up the army.
“This ends now,” Artemisia said. She again lifted her hammer to bring it down on me.
But Luna made a circle out of her body on my chest.
Hold on.
It was like a giant hook had been inserted right behind my navel, and I was yanked backward into a black void that suddenly filled with sparkling stars. It felt like I was coming apart and being put back together again, wind rushing around me.
Then I was lying on the ground and looking up at my adelphia.
Luna had brought me here.
“What was that? And did you talk to me?” I asked as she flapped her wings and moved away from me.
I transported you. And yes.
“Lia!”
I sat up and saw that things had gone terribly wrong.
Ahyana was holding on to her ribs, her face racked with pain. Suri was still opening holes for the army to fall into.
And Io was breaking off part of an arrow that protruded from Zalira’s shoulder.
I ran over to help. “What do you need?”
“Brace her other shoulder,” Io directed. “It went straight through at the best possible spot. She won’t have permanent damage, but we have to get it out of her right now.”
The best possible spot? It made me think that Dolion was the one who had shot this arrow. Not only because he was the only one who could have made it over that distance, but because he still cared about Stephanos. Instead of killing Zalira, as he so easily could have, he injured her instead.
