Goddess (Starcrossed 3)

“He’s all yours,” Helen said unfeelingly, before leaving the tent to fly over the battle and find her men.

She spotted Lucas first. He was fighting alongside his father. She knew that Lucas would be fine, and that he would protect Castor. She looked around for Orion. Arrows whistled around her as the Myrmidons behind the front lines emptied their quivers. Seeing the arrows bounce off of her, they quickly put up their bows, pointing and crying out at the impossible sight.

From the air, Helen found Orion and Hector fighting back-to-back. A circle of six Myrmidons had them pinned down. Helen flew to them, and once she was in range, she called the swords out of the Myrmidons’ hands. Six swords jumped into the sky and hovered there as Helen landed with an earthshaking thud next to Hector and Orion.

Her arrival did not have the effect she expected. Instead of running away, the Myrmidons began to close in.

“The Tyrant,” they chanted in unison as they moved toward her like a congealing mass of hate. “Kill the Tyrant.”

“Not your best move, Princess,” Hector scolded. He pointed a frantic finger at Orion. “Get her off the battlefield!”

Before Helen could figure out why Hector was so bent out of shape, Orion threw her over his shoulder and started running to the tent. As she bounced uncomfortably against Orion’s back, she managed to prop herself up enough to see the entire phalanx of thirty-some Myrmidons zeroing in on her, and she figured it out.

The queen may be the most versatile piece on the chessboard, but if she gets taken out, the game doesn’t end. It’s only over when the king gets cornered that someone calls checkmate. Belatedly, Helen realized that she was the king in this game, not the queen.

As she thought this, Helen noticed someone running through the battlefield dressed in golden armor—her golden armor.

“Wait!” Helen screamed, reaching out for the girl in gold who was foolishly impersonating her. “That’s suicide!”

But the girl disappeared in the smoke, fog, and the surging throngs of fighters without pause.

As Scions from the House of Athens closed ranks behind Orion and faced the pursuing Myrmidons, Helen realized that the girl in gold could only be one person. Her mother.

Daphne waited until Jason had nearly knocked himself out to heal Claire, and Cassandra had gone to fetch him some food and water to revive him, before she brought the gold armor down off its rack. She donned it quickly and, wearing Helen’s face, charged into the battlefield.

She knew she’d never make it out alive, but she had never cared about her own life. Ajax was lost to her. Finally, after all these years, she’d accepted that. There was only one thing left to accomplish. One promise left that she had to keep.

All she had to do was get across the lines while the majority of Tantalus’s fighters were occupied with the battle. Then she would be close enough to kill him.

She’d traded her heart for this months ago—her heart for Hecate’s help in taking one man’s life. It didn’t matter what precautions Tantalus took. Hecate, the guardian of all crossroads and thresholds, had promised that she would open any door for Daphne.

As she ran across no-man’s-land, part of Daphne hoped that Helen believed that she was doing this to help her. An even bigger part of Daphne wished that it were true. But she knew better. She was doing this mainly for revenge. The fact that it helped Helen was just a bonus.

The Myrmidons were distracted, chasing the real Helen, who was thrown over Orion’s shoulder and being carried back behind the lines. Embarrassing, but Daphne knew her daughter’s removal from the battlefield was for the best. For all her awe-inspiring power, Helen was not a born fighter, and Daphne was glad that Orion had the good sense to get her out of the way.

Unlike her bighearted and easily bewildered daughter, Daphne had been in many battles and she knew how to use a sword. Ignoring the rapidly healing wounds in her thigh and shoulder, she cut down a few members of the Hundred Cousins where they stood and began clearing a path to the enemy line.

Daphne spun around in a circle to engage as many of them as she could to distract the enemy from Hector, Lucas, and Castor. None of Helen’s men were wearing armor and they needed to regroup. The only way for that to happen would be if Daphne could win the field and push the enemy back. As long as the Myrmidons were chasing the real Helen, Daphne might just have a chance to get across the lines and on to her real goal.

She killed three men and electrocuted another before her lightning caught Castor’s attention.

“Helen!” he shouted. Seeing Daphne surrounded by more and more soldiers, he began to charge to her rescue.

“Get back, Caz!” Daphne yelled, purposely using his old nickname. He was a smart man and quickly realized that the girl in the golden armor wasn’t Helen, even if she looked exactly like her.

Castor held out an arm to stop Lucas from flying to her and quickly explained things to his son. The two of them turned their attention back to fighting the Hundred Cousins, and Daphne killed the last of the men who had surrounded her.

Breaking across enemy lines, Daphne kicked a few hypnotized mortals out of her way. All the Scions and Myrmidons were on the battlefield, and the mortal reserves had yet to be deployed. Daphne didn’t want to use her sword on full mortals and sheathed it in favor of nonlethal hand-to-hand combat.

Even bare-handed, she tore through the reserves in seconds and headed for a cluster of big tents, calling out her challenge.

“Tantalus! Let’s decide this right now!” Daphne-as-Helen yelled. “One life instead of one thousand!” The crowd started whispering the word Tyrant all around Daphne. They were buying it. “Your life or mine. We’ll end this war before it starts.”

Tantalus flipped back the front flap of his tent and stepped out in full armor. Daphne dropped her face visor and wrung the pommel of her sword between her hands.

“But I have no lightning. I can’t summon earthquakes. I can’t fly,” Tantalus said, holding his hands out as he walked toward her, like he had nothing to hide.

“Sword against sword,” Daphne-as-Helen retorted. “No other talents allowed. Just your blade against mine.”