And Nyrielle…
Nyrielle had not even needed to try.
The Light collapses in her hand without resistance, folding in on itself until there is nothing left of it at all. Not even a flicker. Not even the echo of what had been.
Nyrielle lowers her hand slowly, her expression unchanged.
“You see it now,” she says, her voice soft, almost gentle, as though she is offering Elyssara a kindness. “This was never a question of strength.”
Elyssara doesn’t move.
She can’t.
Realization has anchored her to the ground—realization that this is the end. Frozen in place. Her magic is not enough to rival the stolen strength of the pantheon. Not even close.
The surge Thalmyr gave her burns through her veins, too much and yet not enough, flooding her system with a power she cannot wield fast enough to matter.
Around them, the world continues to fracture.
Stone splits beneath her feet. Fire tears through what remains of the city. The screams of the dying rise and fall, but they feel far away now, muffled by the weight pressing down on her chest.
Nyrielle takes a step forward. The space between them closes.
“You were never meant to win,” she continues. “You were meant to arrive. To gather them. To bring everything that could threaten me into one place so that I might end it.”
Elyssara’s throat tightens.
Not with fear.
With understanding.
This had always been the design.
No—this had always been fate. The Stars.
She thought this was choice. But now, as she stares Nyrielle in the eye, she recognizes choice has nothing on the story already written in the Stars.
Every step she has taken. Every choice she has made. Every person she has gathered to her side. All of it has led here.
Not to victory—to annihilation.
This is fate.
Nyrielle lifts her hand again.
This time, Elyssara doesn’t brace.
She doesn’t raise her power to meet it, doesn’t force her Light forward in a futile attempt to hold what cannot be held. Because she knows—there is nothing left that will change the outcome.
The air compresses around her, thick and suffocating, as Nyrielle’s power gathers once more—deeper now, darker, threaded with ancient and furious magic that tears at the edges of the world.
Elyssara closes her eyes.
For a moment, everything quiets.
The battle.
The destruction.
