“Before you do anything with that, perhaps we should keep it and then we can live forever, together,” he said.
“We will have that in the next world,” I told him. I very much planned on having him all to myself for all eternity.
I put the eye into the earth, covering it up. I put my hands flat over the top of it.
“Do you know what to say?” Xander asked, and I nodded.
The goddess had been inadvertently instructing me on what to say since I’d first dreamed of her.
I intended to rely on my instincts here. Fortunately, I knew the right aspect to use.
“Dea Euthalia,” I said. The green, swirling magic came up through my hands, filling my entire body. I pictured Locris the way that the goddess had shown me in my dream. Full of trees, grass, bushes, flowers.
I started to tremble under the weight of it, but then Xander was there, touching me so that I could take power from him. It was like swallowing a bolt of lightning.
Our baby also tried to help, but I didn’t draw on her light.
I didn’t need it.
This was also what I had been made for. I closed my eyes.
The ground violently shook around me but I took the magic and directed it out, coaxing the earth to come back to life.
I felt it happening all around me, felt the magically dormant roots in the ground stirring to life and pushing up through the soil. The pain started but I held on. I would finish this.
Then . . . it was done.
Panting, I turned off the aspect and opened my eyes.
I had expected new growth.
But everything around me was as it had been in my vision. The trees were full size, the flowers blooming. We were in a forest, surrounded by a green paradise.
It was beyond beautiful. It was everything that I had hoped for, everything that I had dreamed about. No one in Locris would suffer from starvation again. We would grow our crops, and life would return.
Locris was saved.
I had saved it.
The enormity of it threatened to overwhelm me.
Fortunately, my husband was there to be my anchor. “Your own name?” he asked.
I nodded. “The goddess told my mother to use it for me.” The goddess had put this into place before I was born—she had named me after this aspect so that I would know to use it to restore Locris. “‘Euthalia’ means well blooming, flourishing, flowering.”
“You certainly did that. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’m shocked that you’re still awake.”
“With you by my side, I can do anything,” I told him.
He kissed me and then helped me to stand. I was a little wobbly, but not too much.
We had begun to walk back to the palace when I suddenly saw a woman watching us. She was extremely tall, with silver hair and purple eyes.
Xander drew out his sword and put himself between us. I went down on my knees and tugged on his tunic to do the same.
After a moment he did so, and I said to her, “Thank you for the horses.”
Asteria, the daughter of the goddess, smiled so much like her mother that for a moment it took my breath away. “You were worthy of them because you asked for help for your sisters, and not for yourself.” She glanced around. “You did excellent work. My mother was right to choose you.”
