Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
“My mother’s plans started out noble. Ambitious, but ultimately good.
But… something happened. Changed. Her vision went from prosperity to dominance to outright dominion.
Our people are suffering. Dying,” her eyes drift to Saana.
They exchange a glance that is both heavy and real.
Grief. Or desperation. Or both. “Or perhaps the cruelty was always there and power simply revealed it.”
Marin’s eyes land back on Elyssara.
“My mother trades a Caelorian resin—ironsap—to Nymeris. Ironsap, when combined with threvenar, makes it permanent. Transforms it into something that cannot be extracted from the body,” Marin admits, her words grave. “A monopoly on memory.”
Holy fucking Stars.
Elyssara stills, the gravity of it all finally landing in her bones. But Marin keeps going.
“And we do not hold the Memory Orbs. Ilyra has them, too. She has them all. Pays us to pretend we do.” Marin admits, her eyes serious.
Gods.
Elyssara’s mind stumbles over the admission.
The Memory Orbs.
Everything they had risked to recover them.
Another lie.
Another layer peeled back.
“You’re saying we’ve been chasing fucking shadows?” she grits out.
Marin sighs. “I’m saying you’ve been doing exactly what Ilyra and my mother wanted you to do.”
Rhaema’s words echo through her mind again.
Wherever you’re looking is exactly where she wants you to look. Wherever you’re not looking is exactly what she wants you to miss.
She opens her mouth to speak, but Marin raises a hand—
“That’s not all.” She sucks in a sharp breath, as if she’s steadying herself before something big. “We do not just make our wealth from the Orbs and the resin, Elyssara. We make it from the weapons we export to Nymeris.”
Elyssara’s mind spins. Her stomach drops.
Something clicks, but doesn’t fully form.
“No—” Elyssara cuts herself off. “Nymeris don’t even have an army. What need could they possibly have for weapons? For the resin? To alter threvenar?”
Marin and Saana share another glance, their fingers entwining atop the table.
The air in the small home thickens. Time slows.
“Because Ilyra is the one taking Dravara’s memories, and because…
she always planned on using Zerynthia’s General of War to train her army, provide her strategy, reveal your plans.
She has an army, Elyssara—the General is training them.
And they are not your allies. They are the army that will join Caeloria when we move to conquer all of Aevryn. ”
The air is stolen from Elyssara’s lungs.
Her chest squeezes with the pressure of breathlessness.
No.
No.
Teddy.
Rubi.
They’re there.
Her stomach drops so violently she nearly retches.
Reality bends.
No—it flips.
Queen Ilyra—the one who gave them intelligence, information. The one who hid her mother. Lured Elyssara and her friends. Used them all. Corrupted them.
Her mind swims.
“Elyssara, I need you to breathe,” Saana says, her voice firmer this time.
And despite herself, she does. Elyssara sucks in a sharp breath like she’s coming up for air after drowning.
“I need Kael,” she murmurs, voice breathy and desperate.
Marin reaches for her, but Elyssara pulls back.
“I’m not my mother,” Marin breathes, and for the first time, she sounds… real. True.
Elyssara pants, trying to suck in more air. “I don’t know what’s true anymore,” she admits. Because in the face of the truth, everything else seems like a lie.
“I need to get back to the Inside very soon, Elyssara. We need to keep going. We need to see eye to eye on this. It’s our only hope,” Marin pleads, her voice rising an octave.
Elyssara nods wordlessly, somehow believing the princess.
“I need you to keep working on taking back your throne. You need to find and shatter the Orbs, unbind the dragons, find a cure for the threvenar and ironsap. You cannot stop. Not now. You’re so close. We are so close.”
We.
The words hang in the air. Like they’re allies. Friends.
A sob tears free from Elyssara’s chest. Because right now, she’s never felt further away. So lost. So alone. So fucking unsure of everything.
But she drags her eyes up to meet Marin’s. “And what will you do? Keep living under your mother’s skirts and watching the world fall around you?” The words come out sharp and cruel.
Marin huffs an exhale. “My mother’s skirts offer me information. Information I can use. Information I fed to Rhaema and Kiva. But I was too late to save them…” she trails off, but her voice breaks.
Holy fucking Stars—Marin is an informant for the underground network of Caeloria.
Reality warps again.
“I need this empire to topple just as much as you do, Elyssara. My wife lives on the Outside—my fucking heart ripped from me every day. Everyone we know and love dying from thirst or starvation or for disobedience. I can’t take it anymore,” Marin admits, voice raw and defiant. “These are my people.”
The words land. Because Elyssara knows the pain of seeing your people starve. Die. Hang.
“So what will you do?” Elyssara presses, resolve forming in the cracks of her.
“I will keep your Starbound alive. I will find cracks in the Caelorian strategy. And I will be your ally on the battlefield when the time comes.” Marin doesn’t move. Every muscle in her body coiled tight. She needs this.
“What assurances do I have that you won’t fuck me?” Elyssara asks bluntly.
Marin’s gaze doesn’t falter. “Other than my word? Only the faith that my hatred for my mother is absolute and unadulterated.”
Marin pauses, her gaze piercing. “And that my love for Saana is the same: absolute.”
Before Elyssara can respond, a rip in the air splits the room. Like a blade has cleaved through reality, and tore it open. The acrid tang of ozone mixed with petrichor fills the space.
Saana and Marin exchange glances, and their weapons are drawn. But Elyssara holds up a hand, because she knows—
“Seren,” she breathes, and her best friend steps through layers of reality.
“El!” she cries, and their bodies collide in an embrace.
The women stay like that for a long time. Elyssara buries her face in the tangle of honey-blond curls. “You came,” she murmurs.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner,” Seren replies, voice cracked and broken with emotion.
Recognition flares through Elyssara’s chest, and she pulls back, eyes scanning the other women. They watch in silence. No judgment. Only Marin’s hand hovering over the blade sheathed beneath the thigh-high split in her dress.
“It’s okay,” Elyssara says, one arm still looped around Seren’s shoulder.
The women exchange glances—eyeing each other, assessing, calculating. Wariness thick in every gaze. Each one of them hardened and distrusting from life in the Known Realms.
“It’s okay,” Elyssara says again, firmer this time, more commanding.
“This is Seren Calvatere. Full-blooded witch, tasked with finding and allying the witches with Dravara. With removing the spell on the Melders.”
Seren’s shoulders pull back, chin lifting just slightly at the introduction. “And who are you?” she snaps pointedly in Marin’s direction.