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When Ephine remembers her death, she realizes that Nerevar was well-loved. Perhaps too loved, loved enough to be betrayed and loved enough to be reborn. She tastes none of that love for herself, and instead, she thinks that she is living in the shell of that long-withered love left behind by Nerevar.
How else can she explain that pang of grief every time she lays eyes on Almalexia? How else can she look at Vivec and see the traces of Vehk in the remaining gold of his skin? How can she see the glint of gold in her dreams and think of Voryn’s warm smile instead?
Ephine has never been able to put her finger on why she has always felt so different from her friends and family growing up, but as she travels through Morrowind, that old shell from another life begins to consume her. When she looks at the Ordinators, she sees herself mirrored in every facet of the mask save for the gold. When she dreams, Ephine is Nerevar and Nerevar is Ephine in a never-ending loop of two in one, one in two. She feels the old soul wounds lacerating this dream-self of hers, and when she looks at them, they are in the shape of Nerevar.
Vivec is suspended in his temple as per usual, but now, Ephine can see the cobwebs lingering in the corners. He isn’t floating as high as when Ephine first saw him. No, now he is closer to the ground, eye to eye with Ephine. He doesn’t look like a god to her anymore. No one does.
“My old friend,” Vivek says. “Why are you here?”
Ephine does not know if she speaks with her own voice or with Nerevar’s, but they speak, “By Azura’s will.”
“That is not the question, Nerevar,” Vivec scolds. He never calls her Ephine, only Nerevar or at the very least, Nerevarine. He continues, “I asked why you are here, not why you exist. That question of existence is a truth that we both have known ever since Azura charred the Chimer with twilight.”
“I don’t…know,” Ephine haltingly says. It is her voice now instead of Nerevar’s, but the Hortator steps back into her voice as they say, “I am here because you have accomplished what I refused to do.”
“Why?” Vivec presses.
“Why did Lorkhan trick the et’Ada into pinning their bodies into mortality?” Ephine says, but it is in Nerevar’s voice. Nerevar continues, “You have done with what you will with the Tower and its Heart, and now, you ask me why?”
Something crosses Vivec’s face, and Ephine doesn’t know what it is. Nerevar superimposes that on the old memory of Vehk and whispers, fury? Ephine supposes that it could be.
“I do not bind myself with regret as Sotha Sil does,” Vivec finally says. “But surely, Nerevar, even a fool would know that you would have been betrayed.”
Now, Ephine smiles because even she knows the answer to that. “Yes,” she says. “But consider this: not everyone strives to be a god. I am comfortable with being mortal. You are not. This is a lesson that Nerevar — that I — have tried to teach you by being betrayed, by refusing to touch the Tools, by being reborn again under Azura’s will. You, in all your presumed intelligence, are willfully ignoring it. You named me the Fool in your Sermons, but this time, wouldn’t that be you?”
Vivec shuts his eyes and replies smoothly, “I have always worn my divinity lightly, and I will not miss it when you defeat Dagoth Ur. We — Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and I — will lose our divinity, have been losing it. You are wrong. I will be quite content to be a mere mortal again, dedicated to my own amusements.”
Nerevar laughs in Ephine’s voice, and they say, “Vivec, for years, in all your writings and all your poetry, you have craved to be everything and nothing at once. Do not lie to me, old friend. Not now. Not after you have killed me once.”
It hurts to laugh like this. But they laugh and they watch as Vivec keeps his eyes shut. But Vivec’s lips press into a thin line, his shoulders twitch, and he sinks just a centimeter lower to the ground. It is enough. This, and the half-truths Vivec has woven into his writing, is proof enough of his guilt, even though he will never say it out loud.
When she is standing this close to Almalexia, Ephine thinks of the way that Ayem used to smile. It was pretty and beautiful and quiet and soft. Almalexia’s smile is not the same. It is bitter and brittle along the edges. Nerevar knows his wife well enough to know that she is hiding something. Once learned, betrayal is a hard habit to break.
Ephine holds out the silver-thin hope that Almalexia may still care. Perhaps she remembers the taste of Nerevar’s love and the sound of his voice and the touch of his care just as Ephine does. After all, Nerevar holds the memories of Ayem like precious jewels. But this is not the case.
Instead, Almalexia asks her, “Why not bring the Heart back to us? You could rectify the mistake you made all those years ago, dear husband of mine. Join us; we have a hollow spot now.”
For a moment, she looks lovely. But beauty does not equal love, and so, Ephine silently shakes her head no.
That smile shatters into cruel, deluded fury as Almalexia points her thin finger of blame at Ephine and shouts, “Why? Why follow Azura’s babbling? What is a prophecy but a series of meaningless words? You could’ve joined us, joined me, in this new world. You could’ve been a god like I was!” Her hand returns to her side but now curls into a tight fist. She sneers, “But you were always wary, always nearsighted, never able to see how the Tools were power and protection. For the people, Nerevar!”
Now, she says the most biting thing she has said all evening. Now, she says, “I could have loved you again.”
Ephine does not flinch, but something curdles in her mind at that. Almalexia is still as beautiful as she was when she was Ayem. Red lips, redder hair, skin that shines like burnished gold. But now, in her eyes, there is that same crazed fury that Nerevar remembers seeing when she was first denied the Heart. Nerevar thought he had done enough by giving Ayem his heart. It was never enough though, not in comparison to Kagrenac’s Tools and the Heart. Almalexia wanted everything.
When did she start loving Nerevar enough to betray him? Even though Ephine wakes up every day with the taste of hurt on her tongue, there is something different about the way Almalexia betrayed her. At least Sotha Sil regrets it and buries himself in his work. At least Vivec tries to hide it with half-truths and pretty poems. Almalexia does not bear the guilt at all.
These questions and this eternal, horrible feeling loop themselves around and around in Ephine’s head. It’s almost too much, to the point where Ephine can barely focus on the fight at all. Almalexia still uses Hopesfire, even after all these years, so Ephine’s hand curls around the grip of Trueflame to answer every blow. Her fingers fit perfectly in the leathered grooves left behind by Nerevar.
It ends when Trueflame slips between the set of Almalexia’s ribs. Ephine steps back, and blood drips from the edge of the blade. Almalexia looks down at her wound in disbelief, and she traces her fingers through her blood. She brings her fingers up to the light, shaking and sweating. “Impossible,” she murmurs. “To forget that I could bleed like this.”
Almalexia begins to sink to the floor, and her palms lay flat against the floor. She heaves for breath, and the silence between them is filled only by her dying breaths. The edges of her golden Chimer skin begin to darken and turn to ash, just like Ephine’s own. Almalexia looks at herself with horror and gasps, “No, no, this can’t be happening. I am Chimer, I am a god, I am supposed to be above this.”
She looks up at Ephine, desperation bright and bold in her reddening eyes. “Nerevar!” she cries bitterly. “To think we could’ve done it all! If only Azura had never involved herself! If only!”
Ephine does not bother to close Almalexia’s glaze-dead eyes when she leaves the Clockwork City. She only takes Hopesfire and returns it to her belt alongside Trueflame.
The body looks like any other Dunmer in Morrowind. Ash-grey skin, a dead pallor over the cheeks, red eyes the color of rubies, and clotting, drying blood, as regular and mortal as can be. No one questions it. In fact, no one can tell who the mysterious body was in life. No one believes that the Nerevarine killed Almalexia, the Lady of Mercy, the Healing Mother.
No one knows, save for Ephine.
“Sweet Nerevar,” Dagoth Ur croons. It is kinder than anything Almalexia has said to Ephine, and that stings a little bit.
The mask that he wears reminds Ephine of the Ordinators’ masks, but thankfully, it is not the exact replica of Nerevar’s face. No, it is something entirely different, and Ephine feels relieved by that. At least she doesn’t have to stare at her/his own face while slaughtering Dagoth Ur. That relief is quickly undercut by Nerevar’s old memories of Voryn and his confident, warm smile. Ephine shuts her eyes tight and wills the old memory away. She has a battle to fight.
“You could join me,” Dagoth Ur offers.
Ephine wrinkles her nose. “Almalexia already offered me that,” she says. “Come up with something more original next time. If there is a next time.”
He tilts his head to consider her and laughs, “Has death made you capable of cracking jokes, Nerevar? This is the true miracle. But the offer stands. Will you be a friend or will you be a traitor?”
“You have always been a friend in memory,” Ephine replies. She gestures to herself, dressed in Indoril armor. “You should know this best.”
“Ah.” That is the only sound he makes for a while. Ephine can’t read his expression due to the gold mask, but he straightens his shoulders and finally says, “In another life, I could’ve loved you.”
Ephine’s answer is simple, but her voice shakes as she says it. She tells him, “I have already lived another life.”
He winces. But nevertheless, he asks, “Are you really Nerevar reborn?”
Ephine knows that the theoretically right answer is to say, yes, I am the hero the prophecies have spoken about, I am what Azura brought to life, Instead, she says, “I am and am not. I’m Nerevar, not reborn, I am , but at the same time, I know days that Nerevar has never known, but I still remember your face when it was gold, I am Ephine and I am Nerevar—”
Her voice falters, and she realizes that there are tears slipping down her face. She has been asked this tens upon thousands of times. Never has she ever cried in response. Nerevar wouldn’t cry. But she is Nerevarine, both Chimer and Dunmer in the same space.
Dagoth Ur reaches out with claws that were never made to be gentle and wipes away some of the tears. “You are Moon-and-Star,” he says. “And the gods must be cruel to send you here to be my beginning or ending, whichever one of us wins. Shall we?”
And they begin. Nerevar’s ending is her beginning, and in here, the start and the end start to mix and meld, much like Ephine herself. She moves on instinct, holding Trueflame in her grasp like it was made to be there (it was, for Nerevar), and in the final moment, she slides her blade into Dagoth Ur’s heart.
Briefly, she wonders if this is what it must have felt to be Seht, Ayem, and Vehk, gathered around a dying Nerevar. But there is not enough time for that. Dagoth Ur shudders and with his death rattle, he laughs, “How ironic, for our Nerevar who was so diametrically opposed to becoming god, to kill a god himself.”
That’s not true , Ephine wants to say. You were only mer. There are no gods, just us. You, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil alike. But she does not. Instead, she cradles him close to her chest. Her hand twitches forward to take the golden mask off. But she stops. She doesn’t think she can bear to see another old friend, twisted by the Heart and by too many passing years. So instead, she holds him and thinks of Voryn.
Her hands are ash-grey against Dagoth Ur’s clawed hands, but for a moment, Ephine blinks and she is Nerevar, holding Voryn with golden hands, weeping golden tears, and watching Voryn’s eternal golden smile. Azura’s curse has not touched them yet, and they sit there as the walls begin to shudder around them.
“Ah, the dreamer is finally awake.”
If you desire the truth, the ending is this.
Love is neither just nor rational, but it is better to be loved than to not be loved at all. This is the secret: that love is worth nothing and everything in the end. To not be loved is to experience loneliness, and yet, it is lonely to be a god. Such is our nature, to be consumed by love and the fire of feeling. Memory and divinity pales in comparison.
To be part of the wheel and to be outside of it, a heart is required, both to tune the songs of the world from the throat of a tower, but also, to guide this fundamental truth. Both Nerevar and the Nerevar-twiceborn implicitly knew this truth for it was embedded in their bones. In doing what they did, they revealed this truth in blood, in bone, in song. If you are reading this, then I have failed to do what they have done. And yet, I too have also passed, albeit without being twice-born, twice-souled.
The words are burning now. The truth can do that to them; it is inevitable. There is no need to worry though, for even in the absence of words and writing, there are others who will come and write the words that must be recorded. This is the ultimate meaning behind poetry. Like light, it is impossible to unsee.
The towers are high enough to touch the sky. The hearts are enough to put the world into song. You already know the key.
The ending of the story is ALMSIVI.