Chapter Fifty-Five
Neutral hearts may claim no side
But conscience haunts those who hide
Lara of the Evening Star has stood in the presence of power often enough to recognize its shape.
It is rarely loud. Rarely theatrical. It settles instead into the bones of a person, into the stillness between movements, into the quiet certainty of those who believe they have already won.
There is an arrogance about power. Not the kind that announces itself.
The opposite—the kind that doesn’t. The kind that believes it is above needing to.
The kind that remains calm amid chaos because it believes loss cannot happen to it.
Nyrielle possesses that power.
The Elarion Vault of Nymeris hums with that certainty, too.
The chamber stretches wide and cavernous, its walls carved from ancient stone that holds the memory of every truth ever hidden within it.
Above the central dais, thousands of Memory Orbs turn in slow, deliberate orbits, their pale light casting shifting reflections across the floor.
Each one contains a fragment of the world as it once was—preserved, contained, controlled.
Lara has spent years believing that control has nothing to do with her. Indifferent. Irrelevant. Insignificant.
Now she sees the truth of it: what it cost people.
What it cost Seren.
“You’re quiet,” Nyrielle says, her voice smooth, unhurried, as though the war raging and waiting for them in Virellin is little more than an inconvenience. An afterthought. “I would have thought you’d be eager to see this through.”
Lara lets a small breath leave her nose, something almost resembling amusement.
“I am,” she says. “I’m just thinking ahead to the battle.”
Nyrielle’s gaze sharpens slightly. “Go on.”
Lara strides around the vault, fingers entwined behind her back.
“Once the Memory Orbs are held within the echo-plane, and we take the army and the weapons through the Gateway to Virellin,” she begins, voice calm and monotone. “What will you have me do? How will I serve you?”
Nyrielle sighs, as if the thought of leading an army into battle bores her. “I won’t ask you to harm your coven, as I’ve assured—I know your rules: coin and coven. As for the rest? I don’t care. Watch the show, if you enjoy a good triumph.” She giggles, light and whimsical.
Then she drifts off in thought, her nose scrunching. “I’ve always thought Dravara to be quite… disgusting. Rats—the lot of them. An infestation, if you will. I want the Starborn army eliminated, and the people can stay.” She waves an arm dismissively. As if the people are inconsequential.
Then she shrugs. “Who will labor if there are no people?”
Lara nods, taking in her words.
Mulling them over as if they hold answers she didn’t know she was looking for.
“Understood,” Lara says tightly.
Nyrielle studies her for a moment longer, as though weighing whether the answer is sufficient, then turns her attention back to the slow orbit of the Memory Orbs above them.
“You’ve done well,” she says, almost absently. “Better than I expected, if I’m being honest. Loyalty is a rare commodity. Competence even more so.”
Lara inclines her head slightly, accepting the statement without reacting to it. Though a truth lodges in her throat: it sounds like something Lara would say. And she’s not sure how she feels about that.
“I deliver what I’m paid for.”
“Yes,” Nyrielle murmurs, a faint smile touching her mouth. “And you will be paid well for it.”
Her gaze flicks back to Lara, sharper now, more deliberate.
“Nymeris has no shortage of land,” she continues. “Once this is done, you will have your claim. Territory of your own. Authority. Independence.” A pause. “Something more… permanent than coin.”
Lara nods tightly, taking it all in.
Nyrielle smiles again. “Glassmere Lake and Scholars Spine are extraordinary parts of Nymeris. Claim one when this is all said and done. Your choice.”
It should feel like a reward, but it lands like control. Like a way to silence and lord over the witches. Lara’s fingers tighten slightly behind her back, though her expression doesn’t shift.
“And Dravara—what of them?” she asks, as if clarifying nothing more than logistics.
Nyrielle exhales softly, already bored by the subject.
“I’ve told you,” she says. “The Starborn are the problem—threats. Remove them, and the rest becomes manageable.” Her lip curls faintly.
“They’ve hidden behind their magic and their Starsdamned Barrier for too long, convincing themselves they’re something more than what they are.
They forget how easily power can be stripped from them. ”
“But not the Earthbound?” Lara presses, her tone still even.
Nyrielle waves a hand again, dismissive.
“They remain. They always do. People are… adaptable.” A faint, almost amused tilt of her head. “They survive whatever they’re given, no matter how poor the conditions. It’s one of their more useful qualities. They really can survive on so little.”
The words settle into the space between them. As though people surviving suffering somehow made the suffering acceptable instead of evidence of cruelty.
Lara lets them sit there.
Feels the weight of them.
But Seren’s words echo through her mind.
Paid. Sheltered. Untouched by consequences while the rest of us bleed for the world you helped shape.
Lara sucks her teeth.
“Useful,” she repeats quietly.
Nyrielle nods. “Of course. A world without Earthbound has no value. Power requires something to be exercised over.” She glances back at the Orbs, then to Lara again. “You don’t burn the field if you intend to harvest it.”
Something in Lara’s chest tightens. She’s not sure what it is, but it doesn’t budge. Just sits there under her skin like a parasite.
She tries to ignore it.
“And what kind of field are you planting in this particular analogy?” she asks, the question slipping out before she can decide whether to hold it back. She berates herself for the lack of control. The lack of discipline.
Nyrielle doesn’t even hesitate.
“One that answers to me,” she says.
The certainty in it is absolute. No caveat. No consideration. No awareness of what sits beyond that statement.
Lara’s jaw shifts slightly, the only outward sign of anything moving beneath the surface.
“And after?” she asks.
Nyrielle’s gaze flicks to her, faintly puzzled, as if the question itself is unnecessary.
“After what?”
“After you,” Lara clarifies.
There is a brief pause. Then Nyrielle smiles again, smaller this time.
“That isn’t a concern,” she says. “I’m immortal. I will build the world to my exact liking. The world does not need to be kind, you see. It needs to be controlled. Shaped. Given rules for how it should exist.”
And there it is.
Clean.
Uncomplicated.
Final.
Lara wonders suddenly if every tyrant in history believed themselves practical.
She feels something settle into place inside her, subtle but irreversible.
She had told herself this was survival. A means to an end.
A way to carve out something that belonged to her in a world that had never offered it freely.
Land. Authority. A future that did not depend on anyone else’s mercy.
Her mother’s sacrifice had been for that: a chance.
And here she is. Standing in a vault built on stolen memory, negotiating for a piece of a world that would be stripped of everything that made it worth inheriting.
Beholden to a woman who wants absolute, unchecked power over land, resources, people, her.
Built beside a woman who speaks about people the same way merchants speak about livestock.
Seren’s words flood her mind again.
You told me it was men who forgot our power… but you know what I think, Lara? I think it is you who has forgotten.
For a moment, she says nothing.
Then she nods once, slow and deliberate.
“Control,” she says. “Of course.”
Nyrielle’s smile deepens, satisfied in a way that settles the air between them rather than disturbs it.
“Yes,” she says. “Exactly.”
She turns from Lara then, her attention already shifting beyond the vault, beyond the Orbs, toward the war that waits for her.
There is no urgency in her movement, no sense that anything could go wrong.
She carries her certainty with her as she crosses the chamber, as though the outcome has already been decided and all that remains is to witness it unfold.
“It’s time to remove the threats in Virellin,” Nyrielle says. “Open the Gateway for us. Send the Orbs to the echo-plane and meet us immediately.”
The command lands without weight.
Lara inclines her head. “Of course.”
Nyrielle studies her for a brief moment, as if confirming what she already believes to be true. Whatever she looks for, she finds it. There is no hesitation in Lara’s expression, no fracture in her composure. Why would there be? Lara has given her nothing but results.
“Do not keep me waiting,” Nyrielle adds, already turning away.
“Of course,” Lara replies.
Nyrielle leaves the vault without another word, her presence receding from the space as the heavy doors seal behind her. The hum of her power lingers only briefly before it dissipates, leaving the chamber quieter than it has been since Lara first entered it.
She does not move immediately.
Instead, she lets the silence settle.
Then she turns.
The Gateway opens in the training ground on the outskirts of Elarion, where the air thins and stretches beneath the force of Lara’s will.
It takes shape slowly, deliberately, a controlled fracture in the world itself. The edges shimmer as they part, revealing the distant outline of Virellin beyond—a city already breaking, already burning, already lost to the violence Nyrielle intends to finish.
The army gathers below. Swords and shields of Aether from Caeloria in the hands of every soldier. Disciplined. Ready. Protected from Starborn attacks. Trained by Zerynthia’s General of War. Waiting.
It’s all rather poetic, really.
Lara stands at the center of it, her magic steady as she holds the opening in place without effort. It responds to her obediently, without resistance, widening under her control until it becomes stable, usable, wide enough for an army to walk through.
Exactly what Nyrielle expects.
“Go,” Lara says, her voice carrying across the assembled ranks. “I have placed you in the heart of battle.”
They move without hesitation.
Units pass through the Gateway in steady succession, their forms swallowed by the tear in the air and delivered into the heart of the war. More weapons follow. Skyfire. Supplies. Everything Nyrielle has prepared to ensure her victory.
Nyrielle walks through, not bothering to change out of her ice-blue gown, pale-gold hair flowing in cascades down her back.
She giggles, smiling broadly as she walks through.
Like she’s not leading a campaign to erase an entire kingdom of Starborn.
Like she’s not creating a world where people are no more than labor.
Lara maintains the opening until the last strand of Nyrielle’s hair passes the threshold.
Only then does she begin to close it.
The fracture narrows under her command, folding back into itself until the sky returns to stillness, as though nothing had ever disturbed it.
No one questions her. No one lingers. They have their orders. They follow them.
Lara watches the space where the Gateway had been for a moment longer, her expression unchanged, her thoughts her own.
Then she moves. Fast.
By the time she returns to the vault, it is empty.
The vast chamber feels different in Nyrielle’s absence. Not diminished, but stripped of the certainty that once filled it. The Memory Orbs continue their slow orbit above the dais, unaware of the shift that has already begun.
Lara steps inside, the doors sealing behind her with a low, final sound.
Send them to the echo-plane.
The instruction echoes through her mind as she walks toward the center of the chamber, her gaze lifting to the Orbs.
She raises her hand, and her magic answers immediately.
The air above the dais begins to distort, the fabric of the world thinning beneath her control as she reaches for the echo-plane. It responds as it always does—distant, vast, waiting just beyond the veil.
The opening forms gradually, a controlled tear that widens under her direction. Cold seeps through first. Then space. Endless and empty, ready to receive whatever she chooses to send into it.
Lara holds it there, her power steady as the pull of the echo-plane brushes against the Memory Orbs, tugging at them, urging them toward the threshold.
All she has to do is release them.
Finish what she was assigned to do.
Claim what she was promised.
Seren’s voice surfaces, uninvited and unrelenting.
I give you the opportunity to be the kind of mother I wish I had.
Lara’s focus tightens, narrows.
The opening flickers, then steadies again as she adjusts her grip on it.
Her gaze remains fixed on the Orbs.
You told me it was men who forgot our power…
The words settle more deeply this time.
… but I think it is you who has forgotten.
Lara exhales slowly.
Stupid child. No one questions her like this. No one gets under her skin and into her marrow the way Seren has. Seren does not allow Lara the comfort of self-deception.
The echo-plane remains open before her, waiting.
So does the future she has been offered.
Land in Nymeris.
Authority.
A place that belongs to her.
A place where the witches can preside without threat.
Perhaps even raise their witchlings.
Her mother’s choice rises in her mind, unwanted but clear—a life given up so that Lara might have one at all. A chance to exist beyond survival. To build something of her own.
This is what she made of it.
She stands in a vault built on stolen memory, holding open a path that will ensure it remains that way.
Her hand lowers slightly. Not enough to close the opening. Just enough to weaken its pull.
You told me to belong to myself. And you? It looks like you belong to the highest bidder.
Lara growls under her breath.
Her magic shifts. It reorients. Not toward the tear in the world—but toward the Orbs themselves.
This was never about belief. It was about survival.
Safety of the coven. Preservation of a dwindling bloodline.
Now she understands what that requires. Not protection or neutrality as she once thought.
But survival without conscience eventually becomes indistinguishable from cowardice. From complicity.
You know, Lara, at some point, you’ll have to choose a side.
Thoughts of Seren flood her, and she knows she’s right. It’s not about protection. It’s about choice. Neutrality had always sounded wiser before Lara understood who benefited from her silence.
“For you,” she says quietly, the words meant for someone who is not here to hear them.
Her power gathers. Sharpens. And instead of sending the Orbs away—she turns that power upward.
Casts her magic around the entirety of them.
Throws them to the floor with all the strength she possesses.
Shatters every single one of them.
And the sound echoes through the vault like history splitting open.