Chapter Forty-Four #3
More murmurs of fear ripple across the air, and everyone can see the odds stacking against them.
Teddy’s fist collides with the stone in frustration. A rare moment of emotion from the General. “Fuck,” he grits out.
His eyes find Elyssara’s, his head shaking in disbelief.
She waits. Because she can feel that whatever he’s about to say will change everything.
“I taught the Nymerian army how to defend their shores from Dravara and Caeloria in the case of invasion. Weapons placements, naval defense, magic offense. They’ll know exactly how and where to use these machines to win,” the words come out like a confession.
“I also taught them how to attack. Claim territory.” He pauses, choking on the words he doesn’t want to say.
“They have every strategy I would use to take down Dravara.”
Take down Dravara.
The words bleed through Elyssara’s mind like a disease. Painful. Sickening. Debilitating. There are no murmurs this time. Just endless, deafening silence.
“We may as well have all the facts on the table,” Lara announces smoothly, voice a heady combination of velvet and venom.
“I really feel like there’s quite a lot already on there,” Ronyn mutters under his breath.
Lara shoots him a sharp glare.
“Ilyra is not who she appears to be,” she says. “She is Nyrielle, Goddess of Light and Wonder. She trapped the rest of the pantheon in an echo-plane to stop them from opposing her.”
Vren scoffs. “You mean you trapped them there. The only ones capable of such wicked sorcery are the godsdamned witches!”
Lara’s mouth curls into a snarl. “Morality does not govern our assignments. And I was not done, Melder,” she spits the last word like an insult.
And the room falls still. The silence stretches. The tension thickens. But it’s the dread that coats the room that sets Elyssara on edge.
Lara speaks. “Nyrielle is allied with Maireth for total dominion of the Known Realms, and they will be coming for your kingdoms.”
The room does not panic. It erupts. It erupts in a whipping tornado of hopelessness, blame, surrender, and rage.
Elyssara does not move. Does not react. She sits in the eye of the storm as it whips around her in a violent blast.
Calira’s voice splits through the room, commanding and steady. “Thalmyr will offer his Starborn army. It’s the only way we can eliminate the other kingdoms.”
Revryn’s expression fractures for only a heartbeat, as if each word from Calira confirms the terrible truth that Thalmyr raised the woman standing before him.
Thalmyr’s army. The same army that killed Elyssara’s neighbors. That assaulted the people of Virellin. That raided their homes, their bodies. That killed her father. Ronyn’s family.
Bile rises in her throat. The thought sickens her. She opens her mouth to spit vitriol at the Commander, but Vren cuts her off.
“You need the dragons!” Vren grunts, driving his fist into his palm. “Let the witches stay in their little fucking hideout and play it safe, and force them to free the dragons!”
Lara rolls her eyes dramatically. But Vren has a point.
Ronyn raises his hands in mock surrender.
“You know I hate Thalmyr as much as the next Virellin slum rat he’s personally victimized, but Calira has a point,” he ventures, keeping his hands raised.
“The Barrier only exists to protect Virellin Castle. Keeping the Starborn in to defend it from Ilyra. No—Nyrielle. Whoever she is now. I’m not saying he’s made good choices, but if we don’t make a move or get him a dragon or two, The Barrier comes down and the north will move before we have a plan anyway.
So, you know… time is of the essence. That’s my point. ”
Hold on. What?
Elyssara’s mind scrambles.
“What do you mean ‘get him a dragon or The Barrier comes down?’” she demands, eyes narrowing to slits.
Lara huffs audibly and mutters something under her breath. Vren moves to speak but Ronyn winks in a gesture that says ‘allow me.’
“Dragonblood holds up The Barrier to keep the evil bitches out. Every month, one of them sacrifices themselves to Thalmyr. So yeah, he needs their blood, or goodbye Barrier, and hello opportunistic attack from the north.” Ronyn answers simply, finishing his explanation with a nonchalant shrug.
Time stills. Realization sharpens. Like the fog has lifted. Everything finally starting to make sense.
“We give our blood and our lives, witch. What do you give?” Vren snaps at Lara, a haughty arrogance taking root in his demeanor.
Elyssara ignores it. Her gaze lands on Rubi. She’s rifling through her bags like a woman possessed.
“What is it?” Elyssara whispers.
Rubi holds a finger, searching frantically for something, her mouth moving as she recites words, calculations, scientific jargon Elyssara doesn’t understand.
Teddy notices, too. “What is it, Rubes?”
She hisses a noise in irritation, like any sound could interrupt the delicate hold she has on her thoughts.
Bowls fly from her bags, vials, powders, a pestle. She drags them in front of Vren. No one speaks. No one. The tension teeters on a knife’s edge. Everyone moves in, crowding around whatever Rubi is doing. Like this is what could unite a room full of rivals and enemies.
She pours vials of dark powders in equal measure in each bowl. Her fingers work deftly with the materials. She moves like a woman who has done this thousands of times. Like a woman who has lived inside the Nymerian apothecary with a point to prove.
“When I was in Nymeris, I discovered that there is a unique resin from Caeloria being sold to Nymeris,” Rubi says, her hands still working the powders, the pestle.
“Ilyra signed off on the import of ironsap. The resin. When mixed with threvenar, it takes what is normally a temporary memory suppressant that exists in the bloodstream, and carries it inside the cell making it a permanent and absolute occupation of a body,” she says, her voice a steady stream of facts and observations.
She measures more powders, this one with a slight tinge of amber.
“Ironsap is strong—it cannot be flushed, cleansed, or dissolved. No binders have been successful in extracting it. No tonics. No elixirs. It cannot be purged.”
She grinds the powders together, watching them mix into an indiscernible blend.
“Any techniques I’ve used have resulted in the altered threvenar repelling it, pushing it away. Effectively protecting itself from extraction. This is why the threvenar in Dravara has caused permanent memory erasure.”
Holy fucking Stars.
Her eyes lift to Vren, who looks at her with confusion.
Rubi unhooks her sickle blade from her belt. “Give me your hand,” she commands, and the Melder offers it, no hesitation. She slices into the flesh of his palm, and thick crimson blood blooms in a single bead.
“Into the bowl,” Rubi instructs.
Vren squeezes his fist, allowing one drop to fall into the bowl.
Two.
Three.
Rubi pushes his hand away, and hovers over the bowl, watching like this moment could make or break the realms. The blood runs down the inside of the bowl, following the curve of its interior. It falls slowly, patiently. And finally, the blood meets the powder.
Rubi sucks in a sharp breath, leaning closer still.
Saana kneels next to her, desperate to see.
Vren’s blood slowly, but certainly, covers the powder, like tiny grains trapped in a sphere, and dissolves them into nothing.
“Fucking Stars,” Rubi breathes.
Teddy shoves her in irritation. “Explain, Rubes.”
She nods slowly.
“It doesn’t usually do this. It usually stays separate. Repelled,” she murmurs.
“You said dragonblood holds The Barrier,” she rushes out, looking to Ronyn.
He nods, mind still catching up to whatever Rubi is realizing.
“Which means it forces magic to behave in ways it shouldn’t,” she says, words tumbling out faster now.
“Magic is meant to move. To be used. To flow. But dragonblood is powerful enough to hold it in place. To make it defy its own nature.” Her eyes dart back to the bowls.
“So I thought... maybe it could do the same thing to biology. Maybe it could force the compound to behave differently. Bind it together. Draw it out of the body instead of letting it stay.” Her gaze drops to the dragonblood, wonder stealing her breath.
“And it just absorbed the entire fucking thing.”
Saana’s eyes blow wide.
“You just found the cure for memory erasure,” she whispers.
Rubi looks at Saana. “Healer,” Saana explains, and Rubi nods to her like she realizes Saana might be the only other person here who understands the weight of this.
And realization hits the room.
Dragonblood returns memory to Dravara.
Not magic. Not prophecy. Blood.
Hope cracks through the room for the first time. Elyssara’s heart beats like a war drum in her chest.
“You did it,” breathes Teddy, squeezing Rubi’s shoulder.
An exhale leaves her that sounds like relief and redemption all at once. Like this discovery heals her in a way that nothing else could.
“Finally, people are understanding why we’re so important,” Vren grouses, throwing his hands in the air.
“We still need the Orbs,” Teddy says.
Fuck.
The Orbs.
“They’re in Nymeris,” Marin admits. “Ilyra pays my mother to say they’re in our vaults. She knows no one is reckless enough to risk coming to Caeloria uninvited, let alone breaking into Azhareth’s vaults. Except her and Kael.”
Reckless. Yes, she’s always been reckless. That, she knows.
“We can’t go back to Nymeris now. We have to leave them until we’ve won this thing,” Teddy decides, his voice brooking no argument. “The castle itself is impenetrable with wards. And now that we’ve left, we’ve shown our hand. Revealed ourselves. There’s no going back. Not until we take her out.”
Until we take her out.
The words claw at her mind. To take out a queen is one thing, but to take out a goddess with power beyond anything in this realm? It feels impossible.
Her heart beats out of her chest, hammering against her ribcage like a caged beast. But Elyssara ignores it. She knows what needs to be done.