Gorgo awakens to find Sparta ruled by women. She learns that the female council called Daughters of Artemis control all aspects of the militaristic society of Sparta. She realizes that there are only women in Sparta as the women murdered all the men. Gorgo is forced to fight other women in military training. She desires to prove herself by ascending the military ranks and rightfully restoring her royalty. Gorgo realizes that she must prove herself quickly as Artemisia's army is coming to invade Sparta. She stood there, glowing promisingly with the celestial apparel of Apollonian light. A bright silver arrow moved through the air with blinding speed, silencing all waves of sound. The arrow quickly conquered all silences. It reached beyond where grasp of the heart's sentience could reach. She imagines seeing herself as she thought Leonidas once dreamed of seeing her, as an ageless bride in his mind's thieving night. She sees herself as a whiteness unremitting against the masterstroke of memory. She sees herself drift upon a scene that begins to fade into the unreachable distance. She imagines seeing Leonidas' hand reach out from the blackness to guide her. Gorgo finds herself drowning in the envious dark of forgetting, seeing forever take flight before her eyes. Two armies rushed at each other. The Spartan army hurled itself toward Artemisia's army. Gorgo told herself that she was merely imagining the scene before her, the scene of a goddess crippling a mighty army in mere seconds. She saw the army reduced to a lifeless mass in moments. The Daughters of Artemis looked on in voiceless wonder. They laid eyes on arrows that shone with a brightness that made the dark forest appear as being swy bright.