And I let go of the anger. Of the need for vengeance. Calmness and clarity settled inside me.
“I serve Dea, the earth goddess. I am her champion and her savior, and you will not harm anyone in this city.”
Then I invoked the aspect that whispered into my mind.
“Dea Soteira.”
Savior.
And the savior aspect was unlike anything I had experienced so far. Power seemed to come directly from the ground through the soles of my feet until it filled my entire body. Green and swirling and mighty.
My sword immediately lit up again.
I wouldn’t weaken. There wouldn’t be any pain. I wasn’t going to pass out. I knew, in a way I couldn’t have explained to anyone else, that I could fight indefinitely with this ability.
It was the aspect I had been meant to wield.
Because this wasn’t about vengeance. It was about me filling the role the goddess had asked me to. My job wasn’t to get revenge. It was to save her people.
The power swirled into the sword and caused the flames to roar even higher, so strong that I had to momentarily look away. My hand was vibrating, trying to hold on to it.
“Luna, go help Xander,” I said.
I wouldn’t need her again.
She flew off and I began walking toward Artemisia. She swung her hammer up to deflect an arrow a soldier had shot at her.
She went to hit her hammer into the ground because it had worked so well for her before. But it was as if time were suspended—her movements seemed so slow to me. I remembered the words that Xander had said to me when we had sparred.
Rely on your senses, your instinct.
I did. I pointed my sword, and the flames shot straight at her. She had to jerk to one side to avoid being hit.
“Enough games!” she screamed at me. “You will die!”
“I’ve already died. I’m not worried about you.”
“Your goddess will not protect you!”
She already was. “Your god has abandoned you.”
Artemisia raised her hammer and brought it down quickly at me. I met her and blocked the movement with my sword. The two god-weapons were interlocked and responding to one another, power surging around them.
Then there was a release of kinetic energy that pushed both of us back.
She yelled and came at me again, aiming for my head, but I easily sidestepped out of the way.
Something Antiope had once said in training came to me.
The closer you are to the opponent, the smaller the weapon should be.
And it was easy to see why. The hammer was unwieldy, unbalanced. The heaviness of it cost Artemisia precious seconds to pull it back into an attack position, leaving her open.
My sword did the opposite. The weight was distributed perfectly, letting me swing it at her without having to compensate. She spent more time getting out of my way than she did trying to hit me.
Stupid girl, speed is the most important thing in a fight!
I knew better than to let that hammer make contact with my body. If it did, I was finished.
