The lance of pure energy had blown a hole in the stone pillar the size of a wagon wheel, sending the rock in molten spatters across the sand. Maya had judged her aim carefully, shearing away the stone on the side closer to Tanax. It started to tip, stone cracking with a sound like a blaster bolt, slowly at first but with unstoppable momentum.

It was falling behind him, blocking off his retreat, unless he wanted to test his panoply against a thousand tons of granite. Tanax turned back to Maya to find her charging straight at him, haken leveled like a spear.

Get close. A hundred wisps of twisted space raced toward her, threads of deiat blooming all around him. Maya focused her power in front of her, a wave of fire that cleared her path, and ignored the rest. Tanax adjusted, flinging waves and ripping tendrils of energy, too many and too fast, desperate to make her back off and resume the long-range battle he was sure to win.

Maya refused. She kept coming, twisting aside to avoid his attacks as Jaedia would have done, not meeting him force for force but letting his power flow past her. Behind him, the huge stone pillar hit the ground with a crunch, and a wave of dust and sand engulfed them both. Maya closed her eyes against it, navigating by deiat alone, feeling the energy flowing through Tanax and the concentrated power of his haken.

A line of power touched her hip, space warping to snag and tear, ripping away a chunk of flesh. Another caressed her left arm, shredding her skin like a wood saw. Pain hammered at the edge of her consciousness, but she kept moving. Almost there. Tanax was right in front of her, haken raised, blinded by flying grit. At that moment, it was the easiest thing in the world to duck, letting his blade swing over her head, and pivot on one foot with all the momentum of her charge. Her flaming sword caught him high in the chest, drawing a titanic burst of power from his panoply belt as the blow picked him up and tossed him against the broken pillar.

He vanished from her sight, his connection to deiat snuffed out. Maya opened her eyes in time to see him slump forward, falling on his face to lie motionless on the sand. She stood in the center of a whirlwind of dust, bleeding freely from arm and hip, her skin slick with sweat. At the center of her chest, she could feel the Thing humming to itself, resonating with her power. The flames of her haken roiled and crackled.

As the roar of her own pulse in her ears faded, she could hear the cheering of the crowd.