Lara has seen that kind of excess before. It never ends well.
“You’ll open a Gateway for our army within the hour,” Nyrielle says. “Maireth set her armies in motion as predicted. The woman has the stomach for war but not the patience,” she laughs. “Maireth will strike Virellin by the moon’s peak—my Shades have confirmed as much. Caeloria will do the dirty work. We’ll step in with Skyfire, blades, and divine magic to clean up what they miss, and to take down all remaining threats in one fell swoop.”
She sucks honey off her finger, a too-sweet smile lifting the corners of her mouth.
Lara says nothing. She does not need to. Queens tend to continue speaking when silence fails to kneel for them.
Save Elyssara. Shedoesseem to listen. At least for a while before her emotions surge. A weakness she needs to master.
“They will let The Barrier fall in the hopes they can preserve the number of dragons. In the hopes they will free them. Thalmyr will make his final attempt at absolution, and Elyssara will do exactly what all self-righteous girls do when handed a kingdom in ruins,” Nyrielle continues. “First, she will mistake inheritance for destiny. Then, she will try to save everyone, and that will be her undoing.”
Lara sucks in a long breath, bored by the self-importance of a woman who’s hidden behind her wards for years.
“And my next assignment?” Lara prompts again, amethyst eyes pinning Nyrielle in place so she cannot wiggle out of the question. In truth, Lara is only interested in securing her next payment, not for the laborious games of kings and queens.
Nyrielle smiles then, slow and thin and ancient in all the wrong ways.
“I want you to cast the Memory Orbs to an echo-plane. Irrecoverable.”
The word settles across the courtyard with more weight than it should carry. Lara remains still, but her attention sharpens.
Nyrielle shoves the platter of fruit away, revealing maps of the realms that are spread beneath it, and marked with troop lines, plans, and projected points of impact. Their origins are undeniable:Teddy.The strategies he built for the army he would unknowingly face. Her chest squeezes, and she resents the emotion—whatever it is. Unsure whyfeelingis present in the face of strategy at all.
She shoves it down, far beneath the surface of what she’ll ever let see the light of day.
Nyrielle places one pale hand on the coast of Dravara as if she means to claim not merely its land, but the entire idea of it.
“The gods were weak,” she says. “Bound by sentiment. By balance. By duty. They thought mortals were important. Significant. Worth protecting. All while their own equals crumbled before them.” She half-lilts, half-spits the words, something personal wedging its way in, like the tip of a needle under a nail.
“They let gods suffer for the sake of principles they were too vain to question. They called it responsibility.” Her gaze lifted to Lara’s. “I call it ignorance to maintain the illusion of peace. And worse… submission to a lesser species.”
There it is.Not grief or trauma or even vengeance.Superiority. The kind born when one is overlooked for too long. Ignored.Used.
“You do realize,” Lara says lazily, “that most tyrants believe they are correcting something.”
“Most tyrants are mortal,” Nyrielle scoffs indignantly.
That is not an answer.It is a confession.
The courtyard seems quieter after that. Even Nyrielle’s posture changes, just slightly, the shift so small another woman might have missed it. But Lara does not miss things. Not glances. Not silences. Not the exact moment a person reveals the shape of the cage they’ve mistaken for a throne.
Nyrielle’s gaze drifts skyward.
“When this is over, the realms will be remade properly,” she says, decisive. Definitive. “No fractured loyalties. No competing crowns. No gods to weaken the design. Only one order. One will.”
Lara huffs a low laugh.
“If you say so.”
There is no world more dangerous than one built entirely around a single person’s certainty.
Nyrielle ignores that. “I’ll show you to the Orbs before we depart for Virellin. We cannot expect obedience from Dravara’s people if they know their history. Better to wipe it from existence. Remove any risk of an uprising or rejection.”
A statement, not a request.
Lara’s mouth curves again, but this time there is less amusement in it.
“And if I don’t?”
