Skye and Queen Iona

The Balemorale Summit

After Undine, you travel with Tara and Celestia to Victoria's summit at Balemorale. Tara wants answers about the Ashray Elves' deaths and Sparagmos, while Richard describes a queen overwhelmed by political demands and the Empire's threat.

The visitors bring different needs: Miko wants allies for the Yokai Isles, Zhoom reports Elven refugees in the Sandsea, Samba seeks answers about Aquella, and Durance demands justice for the Ashray. Greenguard's suspicion of nonhumans obstructs the discussion. Although Victoria says she knew nothing of the Ashray's deaths, her refusal to cut ties with those involved deepens the breach with Tara.

Within the divided court, Granville presses for conquest as Henry Vaughn resents the restrictions on his house and the Lightguard's growing influence. Laidronette helps protect children with enchanted toys, while Marigold suffers for her father's old allegiance.

Skye's emissary Lieber praises Iona's care for the weak and asks that her Elven guards be treated fairly, but the Warden of East Skye beside him refuses to speak despite recognizing you.

Ophelia and the Balemorale Cellar

After the failed conference, Henry offers you and Celestia a tour of the castle, where reports of research ordered back from Chiral Valley lead you to the cellar once used by Dethrix's court mages. You obtain access and investigate with your companions.

Among the cellar's Chaos-tainted creatures, crystals and research records, Song recognizes Noelle's work on destroying Chaos. At its far end, you find the burned and crushed remains of a living Vessel.

Bill's journal identifies the woman made into the Vessel as his sister Ophelia and Drakath as her son. Poverty and the loss of a child had left her vulnerable to the court mages, who abducted her to house a fragment of the Queen of Monsters in a person born on Lore, allowing a directly connected Champion to be born.

Bill initially meant to kill the child, but Drakath's resemblance to Ophelia stopped him, and he later joined and trained the adolescent bandit prince without revealing their kinship. His journal records protection, frustration and affection beside violence, including the killing of a doctor after he mistook Drakath's flu for a fatal illness.

Lieber's Hostage Exchange

Fighting interrupts the cellar investigation: upstairs, Lieber has used an apparently courteous handshake to take control of Victoria's nervous system and leave her unable to move. With the queen his hostage, he explains the precise Energy trick and threatens to make her bite out her tongue or stop her heart if the rescuers attack him.

You rescue threatened guests and follow the kidnappers to the beach. Henry's knights try to damage the ships, but Lieber holds Victoria at arrow-point. The Warden's voice confirms his identity as Indradeep, the physician who worked with Iseul at Undine and cared for its patients.

Lieber offers to exchange Victoria for you, along with a chance to investigate Cold Thunder in Skye. When Celestia volunteers to accompany you, you accept the bargain and Victoria is released. Asked what she wants as Robina rather than as queen, she answers that she wants to save her friend.

Castle Eblana, Loughshine and Naoise's Grave

Lieber's kidnapping brings you and Celestia to Queen Iona's table in Castle Eblana, where, with Iseul and Indradeep beside her, she presents Skye as a victim of Greenguard and its own absent Avatar. She invokes the Ashray massacre, Greenguard's stolen wealth and Sparagmos to argue that Victoria intends conquest. Behind her appeal, however, she orders Iseul to lure the pursuing Greenguard forces through Eblana and Loughshine, destroy the towns, and blame them for the deaths of her rebellious subjects.

Victoria intends a rescue, but with Henry pressing her to lead and Granville seeking conquest, the nobles turn it into a declaration of war. As she orders the fleet to depart, the court takes up Henry's title for her, Queen of Victory, while Song warns that innocent people in Skye must not pay for Iona's actions.

Miko offers ships and Zhoom the Sandsea's fighters, while Brentan sets off to reach you as quickly as possible. Rather than accept Skye's invitation to attack Greenguard, Gravelyn sends Victoria a secret package, later revealed to contain an arrow belonging to the previous Champion of Light.

Lieber leaves your room unguarded, allowing you to meet Felix Taylor, Indradeep's partner and another former Court Mage of Dethrix. Felix describes years of coercion, exile, and physical deterioration from forbidden magic, explaining that Indradeep had saved him from execution, only for Iona to demand that he manufacture a Champion of Energy. You escape together, recovering medical records that expose Noelle's plans to exploit the injured Champions. Mabel, a maid risking severe punishment, helps you leave the castle. Outside its court, humans live under Elven nobles who treat their families as property.

Sheltered by Quince and the innkeeper Aisling among Skye's starving people, you try to escape, but Indradeep intercepts you and refuses to leave the family he believes had rescued him. Felix, in turn, refuses to imagine a future without his partner. After Brentan arrives to assist, you stage a threat against Felix to give Indradeep a reason to let you pass. He directs you toward Galanoth and the Fianna as, elsewhere, the Elemental Avatars begin taking sides in the approaching war.

Felix conceals your trail while Celestia deals with a predatory Leanan Sidhe. At Loughshine, fire and fighting trap the Fianna between Iseul's forces and Greenguard knights following Granville's orders. Kieran blames Galanoth for bringing the disaster, while his young companion Caoimhe guides you toward the ancient yews and recounts the rebellion's losses. Kieran's wife had died protecting him, and Iona's soldiers had taken their infant daughter, whom he believes dead despite rumors about Caoimhe's identity.

Struggling to control the power Fiamme had intensified, Galanoth explains that Iseul had forged your invitation and used child hostages to capture him and Artix, then forced them into Iona's experiments. The town's ancient yew had been ignited by Iona's lightning, not his fire. When Iseul seizes Mabel during the evacuation, you try to free her, but Iona strikes from afar and kills Mabel despite her own daughter standing nearby. Victoria arrives, drives Iseul back, pardons Felix, and joins her soldiers to the Fianna's resistance.

Following Caoimhe to Naoise's Grave, you pass through an ice barrier that vanishes at your touch, then subdue Iseul and find the remains of Naoise and his Dragonlord, Deirdre. The deeper tremors come from Volgritian, the Great Dragon of Energy, held down by chains and a lightning rod draining his power. When Iseul seizes a staff beneath him, its crystal draws the party into Bananach's memories.

The visions expose a pattern beneath Lothian history: rulers kidnapped people loved by outsiders, provoked invasions, and used those wars to suppress rebellion. In the aftermath of Tanaris's death, Eire blamed her welcome to the lost Elves while Bananach urged her into the Shadows after Haeos's followers crowned Gaheris on her father's corpse. Returning to the cave, you reject Iona's offer of peace and help free Volgritian. Victoria fights alongside the Fianna rather than accept the Queen's account of the war.

Lia Tara Hill and Iona's Defeat

At Lia Tara Hill, Muusa's survey explains why undead soldiers from Duncan's war are pushing the living away without drawing blood: stolen Undine runes had turned the fields into another Sparagmos, ready to consume an army. Duncan's spirit reveals how Taliesin had deceived the Champion Ingram into kidnapping Duncan's daughter Daphne, then poisoned his own adopted brother to remove a rival. Victoria orders Granville's forces out of the trap.

After a Druid's account confirms that Lia Tara Hill covers Tanaris's body, Henry reports seeing Caoimhe take the robes of Illaria, Iona's Southern Warden. Confronted on the hill, she describes being taught to kill before she understood what she was doing and made to believe her father would reject her. Kieran finally recognizes his daughter and tells her she can come home; her undead soldiers had been resisting Iona from within, keeping the army out of the sacrificial fields.

Iona strikes before they can reunite, incapacitating Illaria and capturing Victoria and Brentan. Deprived of her planned army sacrifice, she intends to feed you to Sparagmos instead, but Brentan creates an opening for the others to escape before staying to damage the obelisk. Though he can only dent it, the damage is enough to spoil its long-range function. Refusing to let Iona define his last act, he faces the weapon with Victoria, Tara, and Brittany in his thoughts.

Refusing to turn Brentan's death into vengeance against Skye's civilians, Victoria meets you at Castle Gaheris with his final warning: the Jus Divinum are inside Termina Temple, and their Mouthpiece speaks for a Mask. Beneath the palace, you find the children Iona had confined and used in attempts to create a Champion. With the arrow Gravelyn had sent, you help free Artix, and Lieber admits his allegiance to the Jus Divinum and his part in enabling your escape; the surviving children had also been evacuated at Iseul's urging.

After sending Artix outside and binding Lieber's hands, you continue upward. After freeing Rhubarb, you learn that Abel froze him and the wounded Water Titan as reserve sacrifices, but secretly sheltered the creature in the Plane of Ice to protect it. Rhubarb resents the kidnapping while recognizing that Abel's deepest anger is directed at the Avatars. You find Iona's diary, which exposes the murder of her family and the disasters she had engineered to make her adopted children dependent on her. Yet when Iseul begs her mother to surrender and leave with her, Iona answers by stabbing her and casting her aside.

Abel uses Gaheris's soul to force Haeos to surrender his power and title to Iona, then adds his own Ice, making her the Cold Thunder Avatar. She is burdened with Energy and Ice together. He has concealed the danger that such a vessel could not endure unrestricted power from two Planes, wanting her public destruction to break mortal faith in the Avatars and elevate you in their place. Stopping her collapse now means saving Lore without accepting his intended sacrifice.

Iseul stays behind to buy time and asks you to return Bananach's crystal to Tanaris's body. Victoria rejects the option of firing Undine's Sparagmos across Skye, which would kill those around Iona. Instead, she prepares Gravelyn's Light arrow with Tanaris's remnants, Bananach's will, power stolen from Volgritian and the Champions' help. Protected from the worst of the lightning by Bananach's remaining crystal, you climb the Avatar to reach its open core and hold it for Victoria's shot while searching for Abel, refusing to let your friend arrange his own death. The arrow still needs more power. His soul briefly preserved by the damage he had done to the obelisk, Brentan appears with thousands of wronged souls and freely offers his strength. He asks Victoria to remember him as her brother and carry his love to Brittany.

Tara and Gravelyn arrive to stand beside Victoria as she draws the bow. Their gathered light helps her fire the shot that brings Iona down. The victory takes Victoria's sight. Felix explains that the arrow has also spent the strength of thousands of wronged souls, including Brentan's.

Iona still claims Skye as her own, but Kieran takes up Bananach's staff and rejects her rule. He becomes temporary regent until the people can choose a governing council. Among the wreckage, Lieber offers Abel a place in the Jus Divinum before leaving with him.

In the Plane of Energy, Brentan discovers that the blast carried the souls to Tanaris, now an Avatar who is still making sense of Haeos's memories. Tanaris releases them toward their final destination.

When the sisters reunite, Tara grieves for Victoria's sight and Brentan, and for the argument that could have been their last conversation. Victoria tells her that her words helped bring her back from following Iona's example. She promises never to leave Tara behind again. Back at Termina, she pledges an alliance with Skye, Yokai and the Sandsea, promises to return Skye's stolen gold, and rejects the Jus Divinum.

Beneath the temple, Illaria identifies the surviving half of the Shadow Colossus and another Lightguard victim: her mentor Caoimhe, sacrificed to their imitation Drowning Machine.

Before Brentan's funeral, Victoria and Richard bring Tara to the empty graves Alteon had secretly arranged for Lynaria and Valen. Victoria recounts the expedition to Castle Bocklin, where their mother survived an attack by ritualists of Light while struggling with illness and uncertain memories. Tara asks how Lynaria later died, but Victoria had not been there and says the reports differ. The Lightguard's recent actions leave more for them to investigate. For now, she gives Tara time to choose how she feels about their family, while Richard stands guard and Tara shares her adventures with her mother.