“Nymeris,” she realizes. “You said Nymeris pays you.”
Lara nods.
“Explain!” Elyssara snaps, rage burning in her veins.
“First, Thalmyr paid us to exile the gods, and take Nyrielle’s power. He wanted to rule. Not just Aevryn—the Known Realms, just like his lineage,” Lara says.
But none of it makes sense.
Elyssara’s memory becomes more vivid, recalling more and more of the vision.
Nyrielle.
Golden. Radiant. Devoted.
Kneeling. Offering her blood. Pleading.
She screamed when the spell took form—but it never reached her eyes. A performance.
Elyssara’s breath stutters.
“Nyrielle wasn’t really trapped,” she whispers, pieces coming together.
Silence.
“She wasn’t. She waswaiting.Because we werealsopaid to keep Nyrielle in this plane,” Lara confirms.
And that’s when Elyssara realizes—she never saw the end of the vision. Never saw Nyrielle’s fate confirmed before the memory splintered apart and the next began. The last thing Elyssara had witnessed was blinding light detonating across the chamber, and Nyrielle bleeding on the stone floor.
A ragged breath snags in Seren’s throat, her mind working hard to make sense of it.
“So I set up the spell,” Daphinia admits, “but I didn’t complete it. Just exiled the gods, and kept Nyrielle here. Told Thalmyr she needed to stay if he wanted her power. Convincing him wasn’t hard.”
“Why?” Seren asks no one in particular.
Elyssara’s mind pulls at the loose threads, drawing more of the memory to the surface, desperate for it to make sense.
“To make coin from them both, obviously,” Caev snaps, dragging an irritated hand through her cropped white hair.
“Not why did you do it, Caev, but why did Nymeris wantonlyNyrielle here?” Seren snaps, shaking her head.
Caev scoffs, but her face stays an unreadable mask.
Elyssara’s gaze snaps up, something wild and horrified and certain taking root. “Because sheisNymeris. Nyrielle walked out of that chamber.”
A beat.
“And she never stopped.”
The thought lands with the force of a blade sliding between her ribs—clean, precise, impossible to ignore.
Seren stills, mind still catching up.
“Hold on—” she says, but Elyssara raises a hand.
Memories crystalize now.
Fair skin kissed with sunlight.
