Not in sound but in presence. In weight. In heat and smell and the pulsing thrum of something alive.
The Soul Cairn had stripped the world of all that. No scent. No air. No breath. But stepping through that portal, it all came rushing back, too sudden and too wrong.
I stumbled. Not from weakness, but from dissonance. The shift was violent, like I had been dropped from a great height into a place I once belonged, but no longer fit.
Stone pressed beneath my boots smooth and cold. The study. Valerica’s. Lit only by a single torch guttering against the far wall, casting long shadows that seemed to breathe.
I inhaled to steady myself—
and choked.
The air reeked.
Blood. Iron. Stale magic and rot.
Amon caught my shoulder, steadying me, but his gaze had already shifted, sharpening with recognition.
The first body was near the bookcases, slumped awkwardly, one arm twisted behind his back, head lolled to the side like a broken doll. One of the Dawnguard soldiers. His armor was soaked through, leaking darkness across the floor in widening stains.
The second lay closer. Or rather what was left of him. His crossbow crushed beneath his torso, bolts scattered across the stone like teeth.
Something inside me recoiled. That deep, primal corner of the soul that recognizes slaughter for what it is, not war, not even battle. Feeding.
Then I saw her.
Serana.
She stood a few paces ahead, framed by the firelight. Her posture was rigid, hands slack at her sides, fingers twitching now and then as though they ached for the cold curve of a spell. Her expression was unreadable, too still to be calm, too focused to be afraid.
Before her stood three vampires. They didn’t seem feral. These were the kind who fed with ceremony. Who lived long enough to forget they were ever mortal.
The one at the center was tall, golden-skinned, and wore fine robes so pristine they looked untouched by the massacre on the floor. An Altmer, expression sharp, eyes like polished amber, the kind of face that smiled only to mock. His gaze flicked toward Serana, then slid past her… and landed on Amon.
And that smile twitched. Just slightly.
To his left stood a Dunmer, smaller, pale even for his kind, with an alchemist’s belt slung across his shoulder and delicate fingers idly toying with the edge of his sleeve. There was something skittish in the way he glanced at the corpses, but it wasn’t guilt. Just annoyance. Like blood had splattered too close to his books.
And beside him… A brute. Broad, bone-pale, with hair like old straw and thick arms folded across his chest. A Nord, maybe, or what was left of one. He smelled like wet fur and iron. He was staring directly at Serana, lips curled back just enough to show the tips of his fangs.
The Altmer stepped forward by half a pace, graceful, deliberate. He nodded once toward Serana.
“Your father will be pleased to see you, my lady. You’ve been… missed.”
His voice was laced with courtly venom, the kind that dressed cruelty in ribbons.
Serana didn’t answer. Her face remained unreadable, but her magic stirred, I could feel it in the air, soft as a tremor beneath the floor.
And then the Altmer’s eyes slid to Amon. His smile grew sharper.
“And look. The pet returns. We wondered when you’d crawl back”
The Nord let out a dry laugh.
“Didn’t think you’d come dragging a snack behind you.”
I bristled before I realized they meant me.
Amon didn’t respond. His head tilted slightly, the way a predator studies a threat it doesn’t respect. His hand brushed mine, but he didn’t speak, didn’t even look at me.
The Dunmer muttered, just loud enough:
“He always did enjoy dragging corpses around. Guess this one walks.”
None of them moved forward. They didn’t have to. The room already belonged to them. They were circling Serana in words, letting the blood on the floor speak for them.
But the worst part wasn’t their cruelty. It was that they knew Amon and hated him. Not out of fear. Out of betrayal.
Whatever Amon had once been to them… he was not welcome now.
His fingers left mine. He stepped forward with the kind of stillness that wasn’t natural, a predator’s stillness, like the moment before a storm turns.
The air shifted around him softly. Enough that the torches flickered, and the Dunmer’s idle fingers froze on the edge of his sleeve.
He tilted his head, just slightly, as if he hadn’t quite heard the insult. Or perhaps didn’t care to.
Then he spoke, low and cruelly calm.
“You’re all still here,” he said. “How tragic.”
The Nord snarled softly, shifting his stance. The Dunmer stiffened.
But the Altmer just smiled wider.
“We could say the same of you. Though pet might’ve been generous. It’s hard to tell what you are these days, Amon. Ghost? Stray?”
Amon’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“And you’re still playing butler in a dead man’s house.”
The Altmer’s grin sharpened.
“And yet, here you are crawling back, dragged in on a leash. Is it loyalty or guilt that brings you home, Amon?”
The Nord stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. “He’s not back. Just lost.”
Amon didn’t flinch. His voice came low, deliberate, each word cutting cleanly through the thick silence.
“You’re not taking Serana.”
The Altmer raised an eyebrow. “You think you can stop us?”
“You left. You forfeited the right to speak for her.”
“I don’t speak for her,” Amon said. “But I will not let you drag her back into his cage.”
The Dunmer snorted. “You think Lord Harkon will let you decide what’s his?”
He turned to Serana.
“You’ve been gone long enough, my lady. It’s time to come home.”
Serana’s eyes flashed. “I have no home.”
The Nord moved then, fast. A blur of pale muscle and bone. He caught Serana’s wrist, wrenched her around before she could cast. The Dunmer blocked her spell with a grin.
Amon surged forward, magic gathering in his knuckles but before he could act—
Hands grabbed me.
The Altmer moved like mist, one moment across the room, the next pressed against my back, one cold hand curling around my throat, the other pinning my hip. His mouth was too close to my neck. His voice was silk-wrapped poison.
“I can hear it,” he whispered near my ear. “Your heartbeat. Fast, confused. Not afraid enough.”
“Let go of me—” I hissed, fighting the rising panic in my chest.
“Make a move, Amon,” the Altmer murmured, “and I swear I’ll make her scream.”
Amon froze.
One step forward and his entire body locked. His mouth parted slightly, breath shallow, as if he could already see the blood, the bite, the loss.
“Let her go Vingalmo.” he said, softer this time. A plea.
That made the Altmer pause. His head tilted slowly, his fingers still resting at my throat, but the tension shifted, no longer about hunger, or dominance, or even the game they were playing.
It became curiosity.
He inhaled near my jaw, the breath deliberate, almost amused.
“Now that,” he said, “is new.”
His fingers slipped down slightly, resting at the hollow of my throat.
“You used to watch mortals die without blinking. You used to feed beside us.”
He chuckled softly. “And now look at you.”
Amon didn’t move.
The Altmer turned his gaze toward him, grinning wider now.
“So she’s the reason you left? No… that’s not it.” He looked at me again. “You didn’t leave for her. You saw her. And you couldn’t look away.”
Then, deliberately, slowly, he leaned down, brushing his nose against the side of my neck like he was savoring the scent of something ripe.
“Tell me, Amon,” he murmured. “Do you dream of her? Or would you break for her instead?”
That was the moment Amon moved, fast. Too fast for me to see. One second he was behind me, the next he was between us, his hand wrapped around Vingalmo’s throat, pressing him against the wall with enough force to crack the stone.
Vingalmo didn’t fight back. Not at first. He only laughed.
“There you are,” he whispered through broken breath. “The monster I remember.”
Amon’s hand stayed locked around Vingalmo’s throat, pressing him harder into the wall. The Altmer’s feet hovered just above the stone, robes twisting beneath him like caught wings.
But behind us—
A scrape of boot on stone. The rush of cloaked bodies.
I spun just in time to see the other two vampires closing around Serana like a net.
She lashed out ice in her palms but the Nord was faster, catching her by the waist and slamming her back into the bookshelf. The Dunmer twisted something sharp in the air, a sickle-shaped rune, and her magic shattered with a crack.
“Amon!” she screamed.
Amon’s grip shattered bone. With a snarl that split the silence, he hurled Vingalmo across the room like a corpse. The Altmer hit the far wall with a thud and a crack, blood spattering behind him in a smear of red and velvet.
But Amon didn’t follow.
He turned to me.
“Get behind me,” he said sharply, already moving toward me. “Stay close.”
Across the room, the Dunmer raised a hand to Serana.
“Take her, Borald.” he snapped to the Nord, who grabbed Serana by the arm and yanked her toward the study doors, already swirling with dark mist. She struggled against him, kicking, clawing, screaming curses.
“No!” I shouted, raising my hand, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the magic answered.
Not the sluggish, frost-bitten haze it had become in the Soul Cairn. Not the echo. The real magic.
It rushed into my palm like breath returning to lungs.
And I cast. Not a shard or a spike. A wave.
Ice exploded across the floor in a shattering blast, streaking toward Borald’s legs, fast and jagged as spears—
But the mist caught him first.
He and Serana vanished in it.
The ice struck the stone behind them with a crack loud enough to shake the shelves.
I staggered forward, half a step, heart still racing, magic burning in my blood.
They were gone.
Serana was gone.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was charged.
Vingalmo rose from where Amon had thrown him, blood at his temple, robes torn, but his grin was intact.
The Dunmer turned his full attention toward me now. Not with annoyance. Not even with anger.
With wonder.
“Interesting.” he murmured.
The frost still hissed across the stone.
My chest rose and fell with the weight of it, not exhaustion, but raw power. My soul had returned, and I could feel it pulsing in every limb, in the burning in my palms, in the surge of magic that crackled just beneath my skin.
He moved toward me, slow, hands loose at his sides, every step a calculated dance.
I raised my silver dagger and braced myself to strike.
But he didn’t swing. Didn’t even block.
He dodged, elegantly, again and again, turning his body just out of reach as I slashed, ducking low when I tried to aim for his throat, stepping past me like we were rehearsing a routine only he knew.
“Raw,” he murmured as I spun, trying to catch him. “Wild. Dangerous.”
I lunged again—
But this time, he caught me.
How?
A blur of movement, and his hand closed hard around the back of my neck, pulling me to stillness like I was some stray creature needing correction. The silver dagger dropped from my grip, clattering against the stone.
I struggled, teeth bared, magic gathering but his other hand caught my chin, forced my face up to meet his eyes.
He looked… astonished.
His eyes searched mine, glowing faintly. “What are you hiding, little thing?”
“Feron!”
Amon’s voice cut through the study like a razor.
He was standing behind the Dunmer now, magic thrumming around him like a second heartbeat. But the Dunmer didn’t flinch.
“We’re not going to hurt her,” he said softly, still watching me. “She’s far too… intriguing for that.”
Vingalmo limped closer, grinning again, blood drying at the corner of his mouth.
“Kill her? No…” he said, eyes flicking between me and Amon. “Why waste her? You were keeping her all to yourself, Amon. Selfish.”
Feron’s grip tightened just slightly at my nape not choking, but firm.
“Imagine what she’d become if—“
“Let her go!” Amon snarled, stepping forward.
But there was panic in his voice now. A thread of something raw.
The Dunmer still held me, his fingers curled at the nape of my neck like he meant to brand me. His thumb brushed my throat like I was a specimen he hadn’t decided whether to dissect or tame.
Vingalmo circled behind him slowly, grinning again, lips slick with blood. His gaze drifted to Amon, then to me.
“I wonder what Lord Harkon would say.”
Feron’s grip on me tightened. I could feel his nails now, sharp against my spine.
Amon’s body was coiled, every inch of him alive with fury, magic pulsing beneath his skin like it was begging to be loosed. But he didn’t strike.
He stepped forward.
Once.
Then once more.
And slowly, carefully, he raised his hands open, not to cast, not to fight.
To surrender.
“Take me.”
The words dropped like a blade.
“Take me to Harkon,” he said, voice low, cracking at the edges. “You caught me. You can bring me back in chains, in pieces, however you like. But let her go.”
The Dunmer stilled.
Even Vingalmo paused.
“You would trade yourself… for her?” Vingalmo asked, incredulous. “A mortal?”
“Yes.”
“After all this time. After what you did.” He laughed dark and disbelieving. “You think he’ll take you back?”
“I know he will,” Amon said quietly. “He always wanted me caged. He’ll be pleased.”
His eyes flicked to me just once.
That was all. No words. No farewell. Just one look.
And in it, the choice. The quiet, inevitable weight of someone already gone.
My soul had just come back to me raw, bright, burning in my chest and now it slipped through my ribs all over again.
He was sacrificing himself.
“No,” I choked. “You can’t do this—”
“Fascinating, isn’t it Feron?” Vingalmo said, glancing sideways at the Dunmer. “No blood bond.”
His eyes flicked to me.
“And still—“
Feron looked at Amon for a long moment. And then, slowly, he released me. His hand dropped from the back of my neck with a finality that made my skin crawl.
“Touching.” he murmured. “Our monster has a heart that beats in someone else’s chest.”
Vingalmo smirked, “Let’s see if it breaks.”
They moved fast, too fast.
The mist around Amon shattered as Feron lunged, striking him across the face with the back of his hand, a blast of shadow magic exploding against his ribs. Amon staggered. He wasn’t fighting back.
“Run.”
I didn’t move.
“Go!” he shouted again, turning just in time for Vingalmo to slam a knee into his stomach and drive him to the floor. Blood sprayed from his mouth.
Something in me cracked.
I didn’t even breathe. I just froze like the air had left the room, like my ribs had locked around my lungs.
Run.
Run.
That’s what I was supposed to do.
I turned. One step.
But I couldn’t take it.
I saw his blood on the stone. Saw his arms pinned beneath Vingalmo’s knee, the black and red bloom already soaking into his shirt.
And something inside me something old and broken, screamed no.
Not like this.
I spun back, teeth clenched, hands blazing with frost. My vision blurred, not from tears but rage.
“Get off him!” I screamed.
“Nio—“ Amon rasped, voice thick with blood.
“Shut up,” I hissed. “You don’t get to die for me. Not without me.”
Not this time.
The frost flared again in my palms, but before I could cast, another blow hit me, magic this time, hard and sharp, seizing my limbs mid-motion. My legs buckled, and I dropped to my knees with a gasp, pain sparking behind my eyes.
Amon roared and the Dunmer struck him down again with a blast of shadow to the gut. He coughed blood against the floor.
Vingalmo laughed. He stepped back, brushing a streak of red from his sleeve with one graceful flick, and turned toward the Feron.
His eyes dragged over me then Amon.
“Lock them in the vault.”
He paused. Smiled slowly to Amon.
“You are starving, aren’t you?”
Feron frowned. “You think he’ll—”
“No,” Vingalmo said, teeth flashing. “That’s the beauty of it! He’ll try not to.”
I tried to move, to shout, to fight, but the binding spell coiled around my ribs like chains. My limbs wouldn’t obey me.
Amon twisted on the ground, blood still dripping from his mouth, eyes wide now, fixed only on me.
“Don’t,” he croaked. “Don’t do this—”
“You should’ve stayed gone,” Vingalmo said softly. “But you’ve brought us something far more interesting than Serana.”
“A choice.”
His voice dropped as he leaned closer to me, kneeling just far enough to whisper.
“Let’s see if your monster can save you from himself.”
The arrow flew through the mist, cold magic crackling along its shaft, and hit Durnehviir, but not where it needed to. Not his eye. Just above it.
The ice exploded across his face, making him flinch mid-flight, head jerking toward me. His wings dragged once against the air as he righted himself.
Then his gaze locked on mine.
And I knew I was going to die.
I saw it in him.
Not just a death, but all of them.
Burning. Devoured. Torn to pieces.
I fumbled for another arrow, tried to summon another spell but the magic dragged in my blood like frost in my lungs.
Durnehviir turned toward me fully, wings stretching into a glide so silent it felt holy.
The frost still coated one eye, but the other was open, watching me. Distant. Inevitable.
And then—
Amon stepped in front of me.
His shoulder brushed mine, arm raised not as a shield, but as if to push back the sky itself.
He didn’t draw a weapon. Didn’t flinch.
He only lifted his hand, calm and deliberate, and spoke:
“Nid, Durnehviir.”
The dragon faltered in the air.
Wings beat once. Slowed.
Then he hovered, directly above us, a shadow spread against the gray.
And spoke.
“Wo kos los daar… ahrk hin vahlok?”
I didn’t understand the words.
But the sound of them… They felt carved from mountains. Too old to belong here.
Amon’s voice answered without hesitation:
“Hi mindoraan.”
Silence, again.
Then the dragon began to circle. Wide and slow, like a storm deciding where to land.
I stared at Amon.
At his jaw, set with something too cold to be called anger. At his eyes no longer hollow, no longer soft.
He looked ancient.
How did he know this language? How could he speak to a dragon like he was its equal?
Durnehviir’s voice rolled down again, darker now,
“Zu’u mindoraan hi… yol do Fahdon do Tiid.”
Amon didn’t even blink.
He lowered his hand and answered:
“Nid bo. Pah zeymah los muzin. Do hi?”
A growl trembled through the ground.
But Durnehviir turned, slowly, deliberately, and began to rise.
I let my bow fall. My arms were shaking.
The dragon’s voice echoed once more,
“Zu’u fen kos ni sahlo.”
Amon raised an eyebrow. I saw the smile tug at his mouth, not amused, not cruel.
Just… sure.
And then he said—
“Hi fen. Aldin meyz do suleyk vulon.”
The dragon’s wings beat harder, rougher.
He was angry.
Amon had said something. Something that pushed too far.
But he didn’t stop.
His voice dropped again, almost quiet enough to be missed:
“Bax… lost hi mey wah krii?”
The dragon did not reply.
Did not respond.
But he didn’t rise, either. He lingered.
Wings wide, body taut in the air like a drawn bow. Just… watching.
And for a moment, nothing moved.
Not the mist. Not the wind. Not me.
It felt like something ancient had cracked open between them, something older than magic, older than words.
Like I wasn’t just watching a dragon weigh his odds.
I was watching two powers decide what kind of world we would walk out into when this moment passed.
And it almost didn’t.
Durnehviir hovered there, a monument of death and ruin.
And then, he turned.
Wings rising once more, he climbed into the dead sky, one beat at a time, until the gray swallowed him whole.
My arms were still heavy from the bow. My lungs still tight with breath I hadn’t remembered to take. But none of that mattered.
I was staring at him.
And I couldn’t look away.
He stood so still. Like the moment had never touched him. Like Durnehviir’s roar, his fury, his retreat, all of it, had been just wind.
I opened my mouth. Closed it again.
He had spoken in the dragon’s tongue fluently. Like he’d been born to it. Like he could command it. No hesitation. He had looked up at a creature of death and ruin and called it down with nothing but words.
And the dragon had listened.
The question churned in my head, but I didn’t dare say it aloud:
Who the fuck are you?
Was this the same man I had fought beside? Tolerated? Trusted, even?
No.
No, this wasn’t the same. This was something else.
I kept staring, trying to find him in the shape of that stillness, the sharp line of his jaw, the cold tilt of his mouth, the calm in his hands.
But all I saw now was shadow.
And just as the silence was about to crack—
“Okay,” a voice snapped behind us, “what was that?”
I flinched. Just a little.
Serana.
She strode forward, eyes narrowed, her usual elegance warped by disbelief. “You talked to him? Are you insane? What did you even say?”
Her voice grounded the air again, suddenly too loud, too real. The weight of what had just happened didn’t fall away, it shattered.
Serana’s voice still hung in the air, sharp and stunned.
Amon didn’t even glance at her.
He turned away from the empty sky as if the dragon hadn’t just happened, as if nothing had happened, and started walking.
“Come on,” he said, voice flat. “We need to get to the last Keeper.”
He just lifted a hand, dismissive, casual. “He won’t bother us again.”
I used to know him. I really thought I did. Or maybe I just wanted to believe I could.
Now? I wasn’t even sure what I’d followed into this place.
The last Keeper didn’t move.
It just waited, a skeletal silhouette wrapped in flickering soul-fire, standing near the broken edge of a ruined platform. The Soul Cairn stretched endlessly behind it, dark and still. But the silence didn’t last.
Serana moved first.
Without a word or warning.
She was a flash of frost and necromancy, her cloak of magic already swirling as she vanished and reappeared in the same breath. Amon followed like a current behind her, not chasing, but mirroring. Matching.
One moment he was beside me.
The next —
he was already in motion.
Together, they struck like twin blades of lightning. Terrifying and elegant.
I stood frozen at the edge, waiting for the moment to act but it never came. There was no opening. No need. The Keeper didn’t stand a chance.
Serana’s magic twisted upward in a column of light, and Amon moved through the gap like it had always been waiting for him. When he turned, she turned. When she raised her hand, he was already stepping through the arc of her spell, untouched.
Their shadows overlapped. Their timing was absolute.
Even their breaths, I noticed it, absurdly, rose and fell in sync.
In. Out. Strike. Turn. Silence.
Like they were extensions of each other.
The Keeper tried to swing its weapon once.
Just once.
And Serana shattered its stance while Amon reached inside its chest and tore the soul from it like smoke through glass.
I hadn’t even loosed an arrow.
I just stood there. Useless. A third shadow without a purpose.
My fingers curled tighter around the bowstring, and I forced myself to relax them, but the tension was already lodged behind my ribs.
I should’ve helped. I should’ve been something in that moment. But there had been no moment.
Not for me.
I felt like a child.
And not just because of the fight but the way they moved together. Trusted each other. As if they shared something I’d never been invited into. Something that didn’t need to be spoken aloud to exist.
And… it was beautiful.
Terrifying. But beautiful.
And somewhere in the pit of me, something twisted.
The Keeper was gone, its essence already devoured by the air. Serana dusted her hands off with a satisfied flick of her fingers and turned away, expression unreadable. Amon hadn’t even broken a sweat. He simply walked back toward me, each step unhurried, as if the battle had cost him nothing.
He stopped in front of me. Eyes cool. Voice low.
“Are you thirsty?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Hungry?”
I frowned. Thought about it. But—
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
And it was the truth. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. Or drank. Or needed anything. Here, in this place… I just kept moving. Like the need had burned out of me somewhere along the way.
He watched me for a second too long. Then, without a word, he reached into the folds of his coat and pulled out a small vial, murky purple liquid swirling inside.
“Drink.” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “I just said I’m not—”
“You must,” he interrupted, tone sharper now. “And you will.”
I hesitated, staring at the bottle.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” His eyes flicked down my frame, not lecherous but clinical. “You’ve been fading for hours. Your soul’s not fully whole. This place won’t let you feel the damage until it’s already done.”
I stiffened, lips parting to argue—
But he was already uncorking the vial and holding it out.
His voice softened, just barely,
“Please,” he said. “Drink.”
Not a question. Not quite a command.
Just… a wall I couldn’t push through.
So I took it. Swallowed the potion in two gulps. Cold bloomed behind my ribs as it settled.
Only then did I realize how dry my throat had been. How heavy my limbs felt. How… not fine I truly was.
Amon watched me the whole time. And when I handed the bottle back, our fingers brushed, he let them stay there, just a second too long.
Just long enough to make sure the potion had taken hold. Long enough for me to feel the pulse in my hand steady out and realize that it had been slipping.
He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t give me a smile or a lecture or one of those tired, arrogant remarks he usually had ready.
He just stood there like a wall I hadn’t asked for but was suddenly leaning against.
And I hated that I felt safer.
I hated it.
And yet—
For one breath. One quiet heartbeat—
I didn’t mind being told what to do.
Not by him.
Not when he said it like that. Not when he looked at me like I was still here, even when I wasn’t sure I was.
I pulled my hand back.
“Thank you,” I murmured, before I could stop myself.
He didn’t answer.
I let my hand fall to my side, still feeling the ghost of the glass between my fingers.
Amon didn’t look at me again. Instead, he turned, gaze scanning the distant fog, as if something invisible had shifted in the air.
Then he spoke, tone back to business. Sharp.
“The wards should be down by now,” he said, glancing over at Serana. “Let’s head back.”
Serana appeared from the edge of the ruins a moment later, boots silent on the cracked stone. Her eyes flicked between us, me standing still, Amon already moving, and her brows lifted slightly.
She didn’t say anything for a breath.
Then, as she reached my side, she muttered, “You look like you saw something you weren’t ready for.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I started walking. Fell in step beside her without meaning to. Amon was already ahead, his coat catching the faint light as he moved like he’d never stopped.
Serana didn’t speak again.
But I felt her glance sideways once, curious.
And then we kept moving, deeper into the Cairn, where Valerica waited and more answers I wasn’t sure I wanted.
The mist thinned as we approached the tower.
Not by much, but enough to see the glow.
The final ward, once a jagged web of magic across the gateway, had faded into nothing. The air shimmered with the remnants of the last sigil unraveling.
Valerica was already there.
She stood at the edge of the courtyard, her back straight, hands at her sides.
No more barriers. No more layers of ruin or distance between them.
Just her.
And Serana.
She stepped forward, didn’t look back at me. Or at Amon. She just walked toward her mother like she’d never stopped doing it.
And Valerica met her halfway.
Neither of them spoke. Not at first.
But then Valerica’s breath caught, sharp and audible in the dead quiet of the Soul Cairn and her arms wrapped around Serana in a fierce, trembling pull.
Serana didn’t resist. She folded into her like something unspoken had finally unclenched in her spine.
I turned away. Pretended to scan the horizon. Pretended the knot in my throat didn’t exist.
But it did.
It pulsed just behind my ribs, that slow, cold ache that never really left me. The kind that only flared when I saw things I couldn’t remember, but still somehow missed.
Like the way Valerica held her daughter now.
Like a mother who had waited centuries to make something right.
Like a mother who never stopped reaching.
And it hit me, too suddenly, too sharp—
I never had that.
Not once.
Not when the Thalmor came.
Not when I was dragged away from the forest with hands over my mouth.
Not when I screamed.
Not when I begged.
She let me go.
My mother’s face, I couldn’t remember it. Not clearly. Only the outline of her shadow by the fire, only the hum of a voice with no shape left in it. No scent. No warmth.
Was she afraid?
Was she crying?
Did she whisper goodbye?
Or did she just hand me over?
I’ve asked myself that question for years in the dark, between missions, with blood on my hands and sleep just out of reach.
I never had an answer.
I still don’t.
But now, watching Serana melt into the curve of her mother’s arms, I realized I had something worse.
I had silence.
The tightness in my throat wasn’t fear, or grief, or rage. It was all of them, tangled and rising like something I couldn’t swallow.
I clenched my jaw.
Don’t fall apart. Not in front of them.
Then—
“That’s enough.”
Amon’s voice landed like stone dropped in a still pond.
Serana stiffened slightly in her mother’s arms. Valerica drew back, expression darkening.
But he kept going, stepping forward like he hadn’t just shattered something warm.
“You had your moment.”
The words should’ve sounded cruel. Cold.
But somehow, they didn’t.
Because I felt it. The way his voice shifted just a fraction when he said it.
He wasn’t just ending their moment.
He was pulling me out of mine before I slipped too far.
Valerica’s gaze cut toward him, unimpressed. “You’re a charmer, as always.”
He turned to her, “Do you still have the scroll?”
A beat of silence.
Then, with visible reluctance, Valerica nodded and summoned it to her hand. Gold casing. Soft hum. Heavy as a promise.
She didn’t give it to him.
She stepped past him and placed it into my hands instead.
Her fingers were cold. Her eyes colder.
“Keep it safe,” she said. “And try not to let him talk you into anything reckless.”
I nodded, my voice caught somewhere behind my teeth.
The scroll was heavy in my hands, humming faintly like it could feel the weight of what came next.
Valerica had already stepped back, as if the moment was over. As if she’d given what she came to give.
But Serana wasn’t done.
She followed her mother across the courtyard, voice strained.
“Wait—you’re not coming with us?”
Valerica paused mid-step.
When she turned, her face was unreadable. Eyes steady. Voice calm.
“No,” she said. “Not while your father still breathes.”
Serana’s mouth parted slightly, disbelief washing over her. “You’re serious.”
Valerica stepped closer, “If I leave this place, he’ll find me,” she said. “And if he finds me, he’ll use me. You know what that means, Serana.”
“No.” Serana said, her voice rising. “I just got you back. You think I care what he’ll do? We’re stronger now. We can—“
Valerica shook her head. “Not yet.”
“You’re just going to stay here?” Serana’s voice cracked. “After all this, you’d still rather hide?”
Her mother stepped forward. And then gently, she reached out, brushed a strand of Serana’s hair behind her ear. Her fingers lingered there, light against her cheek. Her other hand lifted, cupping her daughter’s face like it was something breakable.
Her voice softened, low and aching. “I’ll be waiting. Just a little longer.”
Serana blinked fast, but the tears were there, glassing over her eyes.
“I can’t lose you again.”
“You won’t,” Valerica whispered, brushing her thumb over Serana’s cheekbone. “We’ll see each other again. When this is over.”
“But when will that be?” Serana’s voice cracked. “Do you even know what’s coming?”
Valerica’s expression didn’t change, but her voice softened — only just.
“I know enough to trust you’ll face it.”
They stayed like that for one breath. Two.
A daughter fighting to hold on. A mother already letting go.
Then Serana stepped back. Her eyes were rimmed red, but she didn’t wipe them. She just turned.
Didn’t speak but she looked like she had to fight every step not to look back.
And Valerica… she didn’t watch her leave.
She just stood still, face lifted slightly, like if she opened her eyes again, it might all vanish.
Amon said nothing.
Neither did I.
There was nothing left to say.
Serana walked ahead of us with her face set, her hands tight at her sides like holding herself together took every muscle in her body.
I followed. Still holding the scroll, still carrying the weight of things I hadn’t earned. Still feeling the echo of something I had no name for, grief, envy, something cold and shapeless curling in my chest.
And then, beside me, Amon’s voice came low. Just loud enough to be mine.
“Hard to watch.”
A few steps later, he added, softer this time, like a thought said aloud:
“Holding on is easy. It’s letting go that ruins people.”
That stopped something in my chest.
Because he wasn’t wrong. And I hated him for saying it.
And I didn’t.
So I just kept walking. Scroll in hand. Heart pulled tight. Eyes fixed forward.
And Amon stayed beside me, silent again but close.
The mist grew thicker again, swallowing the edges of the path. Serana stayed ahead of us, shoulders rigid, steps clipped. I couldn’t blame her. We were all carrying something now and none of us were talking about it.
But then,
A faint light bloomed just ahead. Hovering above the ground like a lantern caught in fog.
I stopped first.
The others followed my gaze.
The light drifted toward us, soft and pulsing like breath trapped in mist.
It was her. The soul again. The woman we’d seen before, only now her form was clearer. Still not whole, still flickering at the edges, but more real than before. She looked at us not like a ghost, but like someone waking up from a long sleep.
“You found her,” she said quietly, her voice not quite echoing, but suspended in the air like it belonged to the realm itself.
Serana stepped forward, wary but curious. “Who are you?”
The spirit turned her head slowly, a faint smile shaping across what remained of her face. “Lethara.”
I felt the name settle deep in my chest.
The ring. The one we’d been given by the soul who never stopped waiting. I reached into my coat without thinking, fingers brushing the cool metal. It felt heavier now.
I stepped forward and held it out. “He gave me this. He wanted it returned to you.”
She looked down at it like she’d forgotten what it was to be seen. Her hand lifted, more suggestion than flesh and she took it from my palm.
Her form shuddered once, almost like breath.
“He remembered,” she whispered, staring at the ring like it was the only solid thing left in the world. “All this time… he remembered.”
And then she looked up and locked eyes with me.
“You lost your love too,” she said softly. “Didn’t you?”
Something in my chest twisted. The tight, breathless ache I’d learned to carry like armor. But in that moment, it cracked and I couldn’t stop what slipped through.
I thought of him.
Of the way I still saw him in dreams. Still turned corners expecting a ghost. Still heard his name in silence, even when no one spoke it.
My throat tightened, but I didn’t nod. I didn’t blink. I just stood there, exposed under her gaze.
“You’ve been looking for something ever since,” she continued. “Trying to fill it. That sharp, hollow place inside you that keeps echoing.”
Her voice dropped, gentler now. “But it doesn’t fill. Not really. Not with time. Not even with death.”
She wasn’t speaking like a ghost anymore.
She was speaking like someone who had felt it.
Like someone who still did.
She brought the ring to her chest and pressed it there, where a heart might’ve once been. Her expression softened.
Her form shimmered faintly, dissolving at the edges.
As she began to fade, she looked at me one last time.
“Some of us carry the absence longer than we ever carried the love.”
Then she was gone.
I kept my eyes on the place where she’d been, where her voice still rang. Words that shouldn’t have hit so hard, and yet carved something open in me.
It was true. That I lost him.
And I’d kept losing him, over and over again, in every silence that followed.
The mist hadn’t even closed yet before Serana finally broke the silence.
She exhaled slowly. Then said, more to herself than to anyone else,
“…What a love.”
Not quite envy. Not quite wonder. Just quiet awe at the way two souls could cling to one another even in death.
Amon moved only slightly. But I felt it in the way the air shifted.
“Love makes people pathetic,” he said.
The kind of line meant to close a door, not open a discussion.
But Serana arched a brow and hummed lightly, just to be irritating.
“Hmm. Sounds like someone’s speaking from experience.”
Amon’s eyes didn’t shift, but his jaw did, a quiet tension clenching down.
“I’ve seen what love does,” he said. “It weakens. Binds. Makes people bleed for ghosts they can’t even touch.”
His words hung there, too pointed to be casual.
He wasn’t talking about Lethara.
And we all knew it.
Serana gave him a sideways look, tone dry.
“Right. Totally heartless of you. You should be proud.”
Amon’s lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“And yet, here I am, dragging you both out of this place. Curious, isn’t it?”
His voice was light. But something sharp glinted underneath.
The stairs and the portal loomed ahead, shimmering like a wound in the world, its silver light spilling over stone and ruin. Serana had already passed through, vanishing into the real world without a backward glance. I remained.
It wasn’t fear that held me. Nor hesitation. Just… hollowness. The faint ache of something that had been missing too long. The echo of myself, restored in fragments, but not whole.
“Lingering?” Amon said, as if it amused him. “Or have you grown fond of this place?”
I didn’t answer. Just turned to face him, chin lifted, eyes steady.
“My soul.”
His lips curled, not quite a smile, not quite mockery. “Ah. That.”
I said nothing. The silence between us stretched, thick as fog.
He stepped down, slowly, closing the space between us. With every footfall, I could feel the tension wind tighter in my chest. When we stood nearly level, he tilted his head and spoke again, low, teasing.
“You know, most people don’t ask for their soul back. They beg.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No,” he murmured, eyes glinting, “you’re not.”
His hand moved to the pouch at his hip, and he withdrew the gem with maddening calm. The soul shimmered faintly within, as if submerged in water. Lightless, but alive.
It was strange seeing yourself like that. So small and quiet. It made my throat tighten.
He rolled the stone between his fingers, watching me watch it. “Still warm.” he said softly.
“Give it back.”
His eyes met mine, that maddening mix of mockery and fire. “Say please.”
“No.”
His grin widened, but not entirely out of cruelty. There was something else there. Something that hovered between enjoyment and warning.
“You promised to keep it safe.”
“And I did,” he answered, as though offended I’d even question it. “Carried it through death and worse. You’ve never been safer.”
I reached for it, but he moved just out of reach, holding it between us like a dangling thread.
“You shouldn’t have trusted a monster with your soul.”
He didn’t move.
Just stood there, rolling the gem between his fingers like it was a coin or a toy, not the last piece of me I hadn’t yet clawed back. The longer he held it, the more the panic crept in, slow and venomous. What if he didn’t give it back? What if this was just another twisted game? What if he meant to keep it?
The thought buried itself like a splinter in my mind.
What if he lied?
My throat had gone dry, my heartbeat rising, not from the void in my chest, but from the weight in my thoughts.
He was dangerous.
He was capable.
He could lie, deceive, turn on a whim.
But I remembered the way his hand had steadied me when I stumbled. The way he insisted I drink the potion even when I’d refused. The way he fought beside me in silence, never once letting me fall behind. The way he’d stood between me and every horror this realm could conjure.
He didn’t have to.
But he had.
So when I finally found my voice, it was quiet. And honest.
“I didn’t trust a monster,” I said, breath unsteady, words small but clear.
“I trusted you.”
That stopped him.
The amusement in his face didn’t vanish but something in his expression shifted just enough to reveal the crack beneath. His eyes flickered over mine, as though searching for a lie, or maybe daring me to take the words back.
But I didn’t.
He stepped in close, too close, and lifted the gem. Cold radiated off it, but beneath that cold was something warm. Familiar.
Mine.
He pressed it gently to my chest.
The world jolted.
Not outwardly. Not visibly. But inside me, everything realigned. Heat flushed through me, followed by light and breath and rhythm. The silence I’d carried, heavy and constant, shattered.
I gasped, staggering.
My foot slipped on the step behind me. For a heartbeat, I tipped backward—
—but his hand shot out, catching me.
One hand gripped my arm, the other braced against my back. His breath brushed my cheek, his body too close, cold and warm all at once, as if the Cairn still lived in his skin.
Everything he was, the power, the cruelty, the impossible pull of him, wrapped around me like shadow.
I pulled away fast, my balance regained, but the sensation lingered. My skin burned where he’d touched me. My mind reeled.
“I hate you.” I muttered, unable to look at him.
His lips twitched with that infuriating smirk. “You’re welcome.”
He turned toward the gate. Eventually, I stepped beside him. The weight of the soul settled quiet inside me now, whole again. My breath was mine. My body, mine. And yet the burn remained.
Long before the frost gathered in my hands. Long before the wind screamed. Before the blood.
I was fourteen, he was older.
And we stood in the cold training hall of Clamcora, its walls silent and watchful, lined with swords that had tasted more blood than most of us ever would.
Elamoril’s hand rested at my elbow, his other at the small of my back, steady, warm. Like I wouldn’t fall if he was there.
His breath tickled my ear as he leaned in. “You’re thinking too much. Just feel it. Just breathe.”
I tried. I really did.
But it was hard to breathe when he was this close. When his scent, pine, leather and salt all coiled around me. When his hair, that unruly red, caught the candlelight like embers. When I could see the green of his eyes even in the shadows, so bright it felt unfair.
I loved him then.
Not in a way I understood. Not in the way that demanded to be spoken. But in the way you love the first person who ever made you feel seen .
I pulled the string.
The arrow veered wide, clattering off stone like it was mocking me.
I lowered the bow and groaned. “I’m never going to be good at this.”
He laughed, not at me. Just soft, fond amusement. “Not with that attitude.”
“You said to breathe.”
He smirked. “And did you?”
“No.”
“Then we’re learning.”
His hair curled behind his ears, disheveled from sparring. A loose strand stuck to his cheek with sweat.
He didn’t brush it away.
I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to.
“I’m cursed. There’s no other explanation.”
Elamoril huffed another soft laugh. “Clearly.”
I turned toward him, narrowing my eyes. “You’re supposed to be supportive.”
“I am. This is me being supportive.”
“ Calling me cursed ?”
“You said it first.”
He shrugged, smiling in that maddening, lopsided way he always did when he knew he was winning. “I’m just saying, you might be the only Bosmer in history with negative aim.”
“I will throw something at you.”
“I dare you.”
I spun and threw the arrow at him, tip-first but barely arcing. He caught it easily, spinning it once around his fingers with an irritating flourish.
“Still a bit left,” he said, holding it up. “See? You didn’t completely miss.”
“Give it back.”
“I’m helping.”
“You’re mocking.”
“I’m helping and mocking,” he said with a grin. “Multitasking.”
I took a long, slow step toward him.
He didn’t flinch.
He just smiled wider.
That stupid face. That stupid, freckled, beautiful face.
I lunged.
He yelped and leapt backward, nearly tripping over the edge of the bench. I chased him to the corner of the training room, half-laughing, half-murderous, and for a second we were just—
Kids again.
No Thalmor. No training schedules. No bruises blooming under armor or lectures about loyalty.
Just me. And him.
The boy with fire in his hair and forests in his eyes.
We crashed into the bench together, breathless. I landed hard on the cold stone, arms folded across my knees. He sat beside me, stretching out his legs like this was just another lazy afternoon in the sun.
“I hate this.” I muttered after a while.
“I know.” he said.
“I’m never going to be good at it.”
“You don’t have to be.”
I looked over, frowning. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re good at everything.”
He shrugged. “No. I just don’t care if I fail.”
That made me snort. “That’s the same thing.”
He turned toward me then, and his voice dropped, not low, just quiet .
“It’s not. It’s just… when you grow up knowing what you’re good for, you stop caring about the rest. I know I can shoot. But that doesn’t mean I understand the things you do.”
“Like what?” I asked.
He hesitated.
Then, softly, “Like how you survive this place without fading.”
I looked at him.
And for a second, I saw something I’d never noticed in him before, not strength, not charm, but fear. That thin, quiet fear we all carried, buried under bravado.
Maybe we were all just trying not to vanish.
He gave me the arrow back.
I took it without a word.
That was the day I decided I would keep every memory of him like it was sacred.
Because I knew, somehow, even then—
He wouldn’t always be there to remind me how to breathe.
The Soul Cairn stretched endlessly ahead, shrouded in its quiet, colorless dread. The three of us walked side by side, though none of us truly matched pace. My boots dragged. Serana’s glided. Amon’s barely touched the ground at all.
No one spoke for a long while.
But tension bloomed like a thunderhead.
I could feel it before I saw it, Serana’s mood twisting, jaw tightening, the graceful sway of her walk turning rigid. Then—
“You knew.” Her voice cracked the silence like glass.
Amon didn’t stop.
Serana halted, forcing both of us to pause with her.
“You knew what this place was,” she hissed. “You knew what my mother was hiding. You knew the prophecy and my role in it. Didn’t you?”
Amon finally turned to her, slowly, like someone indulging a child. “I knew pieces. I knew enough.”
Serana stepped forward, teeth bared, not the pretty smile of seduction, but the flash of an elder vampire on the edge of fury. “You smug bastard. You let me stumble through all this like a blind fool while you—what? Waited for it all to come to you?”
Amon’s gaze darkened, though his posture remained relaxed. “I’ve lived long enough to know when to play my cards. And I don’t owe you explanations.”
“You owe me answers,” she snapped. “If you were conspiring with my mother behind my back—”
“I wasn’t conspiring,” he said coolly. “I was planning. She wanted freedom and your safety. And you…” His eyes flicked to her with a mocking tilt. “You wanted purpose.”
Serana moved so fast even I barely saw it, one second still, the next, inches from him, a hand to his collar.
“You think I need purpose from you?”
Amon didn’t flinch. “I think you needed someone to believe you were more than your father’s pet project. And I let you believe that.”
Silence roared in my ears. This wasn’t a spat. It was war, centuries-old, wrapped in skin.
Serana’s voice, when it returned, was quieter. “You’re playing with all of us. Her included.” She nodded toward me without looking. “Do you think she won’t notice eventually?”
I blinked. Serana’s fingers curled into Amon’s shirt.
I took a sharp step forward. “Enough. Both of you.”
They turned. Serana’s eyes locked on mine like arrows and then something ugly moved behind them.
“Of course,” she said with a bitter laugh. “There it is. You defending him. Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m not defending anyone,” I snapped, jaw clenched. “I just—this isn’t the time—”
“Isn’t it?” Serana’s voice dropped, too calm now. “Or is it just inconvenient for you to see what he is?”
She took a step closer. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it struck like a blade.
“Do you believe all your feelings are your own?”
My stomach turned cold.
“What do you mean?” I asked, quiet.
Serana tilted her head, pity lacing her expression. “You really don’t know.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said to Serana, suddenly angry. “What are you even implying?”
“Come on,” she said, venom in her smile. “You think a vampire like him walks beside you this long, cares this much, without dipping into his charm? You think you’re just that special? He’s been bending your thoughts since the moment you met him. The only question is how deep it goes.”
My mouth went dry.
For a moment, no one spoke.
I could hear the wind howling through broken towers far in the distance, the echo of souls wailing in unseen corners of the realm.
Serana turned and walked off without waiting, the heel of her boot cracking a skull-shaped soul gem underfoot. It popped like glass.
Amon remained still, eyes on me. “It’s not like that.”
I didn’t move.
“You know it’s not like that,” he said again, quieter this time. “You’d feel it.”
Would I?
Would I really?
I searched his face for something, a flicker of guilt, or a lie, or the old teasing curl of his lip. But all I found was calm. Too calm.
The kind of calm that doesn’t need to lie because it already knows the answer.
The Dawnguard soldiers had looked at Serana like she was the sun. Slack-jawed. Glassy-eyed. Utterly gone.
My skin crawled.
Could that have been me?
No.
No. No.
My hands clenched at my sides, blood rushing in my ears like a tide. I couldn’t tell if I was angry at Serana for saying it, at Amon for maybe doing it, or at myself for not knowing sooner.
“Nio-” he said gently.
I stepped back.
He’d never ordered. Never commanded.
No. Not directly.
But…
There had been moments. Too many.
When he stepped too close, always just close enough to feel the pull. That unnatural magnetism. Like my body leaned toward him before I did.
Amon’s lips parted, something like hurt flickering across his features but he didn’t move toward me. Didn’t protest again.
Because if he had done it, then why speak now? And if he hadn’t… then why did he look so damn guilty?
I turned before he could say anything else and walked after Serana, heart thudding.
I’d always told myself I was in control. I had stopped him. I had resisted.
Hadn’t I?
I touched my lips without thinking.
What had I said? What had I felt when he brushed my cheek and whispered things I couldn’t remember clearly now?
Was it magic? Or was it real?
Even as I doubted him, doubted myself, I still wanted to turn around. I still wanted him to look at me.
To make it not true.
But I didn’t.
I just walked.
And with every step he stayed behind me in silence, my mind kept slipping like a boot catching on something soft and rotten beneath the ash.
Into memories, into the tension between certainty and doubt. Into the moments where I thought I had chosen. Where I thought I was sure.
Like when he offered his hand at the Sanctuary, at the feast still echoing with laughter and blood. He extended it without pressure, palm open, waiting. And I had taken it.
I remembered the brush of his fingers. The quiet sway of our steps through a hall of killers. The way the world shrank to just us as we danced.
I remembered feeling seen, like I wasn’t a blade, or a title, or a threat.
Just a woman.
Just me.
I shook my head, as if that could scatter the memories. But they only rushed in louder and clearer. Much crueler.
As if dislodging one had let them all spill loose, every touch, every look, every unspoken thing between us.
And now?
I didn’t know what had been mine… And what had been his.
The Keeper loomed ahead like a nightmare carved in bone, tall, armored, face obscured by a hollow helm, wielding a blade that crackled with soulfire. The moment it saw us, it shrieked, a sound like glass pulling me back to reality.
But Serana didn’t wait.
She surged forward, a flash of crimson light bursting from her palms, her cloak whipping behind her like wings of shadow.
She was already in the air.
The Keeper raised its sword, but her magic struck first, an eruption of red and black that sent it reeling. She landed hard, stalking forward with murder in her eyes and a snarl in her throat.
I could see it.
This wasn’t strategy.
This was rage given form.
Amon cursed under his breath beside me. “She’s not thinking.”
“She doesn’t want to think,” I said, watching her magic flare again, this time blasting the Keeper back into a crumbling wall of soulstone. “She’s done thinking.”
And I could understand.
Because what do you do when your entire life was written by other people? When your fate was decided before you ever had a voice?
You burn it.
You tear it down.
You scream.
Serana’s scream echoed as she lunged, claws now, her hands transformed in the blur of her power. Her fangs glinted, her eyes glowing like twin moons of blood. The Keeper slashed at her chest, she caught its arm mid-swing and twisted.
Bone cracked.
The scream that followed wasn’t hers.
She slammed it down, climbed on top of it, and unleashed a pulse of blood magic that shook the stones beneath our feet.
The Keeper retaliated, throwing her off, she skidded across the stone, rolled, and came up laughing.
A cruel, shattered sound.
“You think you get to control me too?” she screamed. “You think you can take me apart like everyone else?”
She wasn’t talking to the Keeper anymore.
Not really.
She was talking to her father.
To her mother. To Amon.
Maybe even to me.
The Keeper swung again brutally and Serana ducked under it with vampire speed, her claws dragging a streak of red across its armor. But her movements were faltering now.
She wasn’t holding anything back.
And it was starting to show.
Her magic cracked against the bones of the thing, but it barely staggered this time. The Keeper lifted its sword overhead, two hands gripping it like a guillotine, and brought it down toward her.
“Serana!” I shouted.
I didn’t think.
Didn’t aim.
I raised my hand and cast a burst of frost, sharp and sudden, lashing out in a white arc. It struck the Keeper’s arm mid-swing, and ice bloomed from the impact like frost across a window.
The sword slowed.
Not stopped, just slowed.
Enough.
Serana spun with a snarl, her eyes flashing toward me in recognition.
She surged up, faster than anything should be able to move. Her hands became flame and blood, her body a blur of crimson speed. She slammed both palms into the Keeper’s chest and detonated a spell through its ribcage.
The blast tore through the air like a scream, a shockwave of bone, magic, and force slamming outward in a single, violent breath.
I didn’t have time to brace.
The force hit me square in the chest and flung me backwards, weightless, breathless, the world spinning in a blur of ash and ruin.
But I didn’t hit the ground.
Arms caught me.
Strong and familiar.
Amon turned with me in the air, one arm cradling my back, the other rising to shield us both. The remnants of the explosion struck him instead, shards of bone ricocheting off his magic as he held me tight against his chest, unmoving.
I felt the impact in his body, the way he flinched, the subtle grunt of pain through his teeth but he didn’t let go.
Didn’t move until the sound settled, and silence returned to the Soul Cairn like a lid on a tomb.
Slowly, he looked down at me.
His face was close, eyes searching mine, red and blue burning soft.
“Nio,” he breathed. “Are you hurt?”
I blinked up at him, heart pounding.
No.
Yes.
I didn’t know.
Because the pain wasn’t in my body.
It was in the way he held me like he meant it.
In the way it felt so real.
If this isn’t real… Then what the fuck is?
I shoved him away.
Hard.
He let me go.
I stumbled a step back, caught my breath, and turned from him without looking again.
Serana.
She was on her knees at the center of the crater, her hands pressed into the scorched stone. Her body trembled with the aftershock, shoulders hunched, breath ragged.
Magic still shimmered faintly over her skin, threads of crimson light stitching together wounds that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Her sleeves were torn, revealing gashes already closing, the flesh knitting too fast to be natural.
But her face—
Her face was hollow.
Just empty.
I dropped beside her, slowly, carefully, my hands brushing the dust as I knelt.
She didn’t look at me.
Didn’t speak.
But her breathing hitched, once, as if the silence itself was the last thing holding her together.
So I said nothing.
I just stayed.
Close enough to be felt.
Far enough not to touch.
Serana’s breath slowly steadied, her claws retracting into trembling fingers.
She still didn’t look at me.
But her voice came rough, hoarse, barely above a whisper—
“We need to get to the last one.”
Her words weren’t a command.
They were a lifeline.
A direction to keep moving. To keep being.
I nodded, quick and breathless. “Yes,” I said. “We will.”
She finally looked at me with something barely holding together. Something… desperate.
I wanted to reach for her. I didn’t.
We rose in silence, side by side.
Behind us, I heard Amon’s footsteps crunch softly against the fractured bone and ash.
But I didn’t look back.
None of us said another word.
We walked on.
Toward the last Keeper.
Toward the end of something.
Maybe the beginning of something worse.
The ground still trembled from what Serana had done, the bones of the Soul Cairn humming like they hadn’t settled yet. The air was colder now, tighter in the chest. Even the sky, ever unmoving and gray, seemed darker.
Then the spirits began to run.
Not drift. Not wander.
Run.
Ghostly shapes, wolves, elk, horses, burst through the gloom, bolting past us with wild eyes and silent hooves. Their forms flickered like dying stars, fleeing away from the direction we were headed.
I stopped.
Serana’s shoulders stiffened. Amon stopped beside me, scanning the distance.
Then I looked up.
High above, just beyond the cracked towers, a single dove flew.
Small. Out of place.
It beat its wings hard against the weight of this realm, carving its path through the sky.
And then—
Shadow.
A darkness swallowed it whole, not with teeth, but with sheer size. Wings, vast and rotted, stretched across the heavens like tattered sails. The sky moved.
No.
It unfolded.
A dragon emerged, skeletal, immense, death given form. Its wings didn’t flap but groaned. Its eyes glowed the same sickly light as the Soul Cairn itself, as if it had been staring at us all along.
It opened its mouth and a sensation of a roar vibrated in my ribs, ancient and hollow.
Serana whispered, “What the—”
Amon’s voice cut her off.
“You woke him.”
We all stared as the beast turned in the air.
He emerged from the clouds like a storm shaped into wings, his body dragging the scent of death and forgotten things. Soulfire leaked from his jaws as he hovered above us, impossibly vast. And then— He spoke.
Not in words I knew.
But in something older. Too big for the throat, too final for mere sound.
“Zu’u fen kos mindoraan… Zeymah. Krif hi… aan ni med.”
The words crashed through me.
I didn’t understand them. Not one.
But they felt true.
They settled in my blood like iron in water, sharp and bitter. Something in me wanted to answer. Something in me remembered.
Dragon’s glowing eyes locked onto me.
Me.
Another string of syllables fell from his jaws, low and thunderous,
“Dovahmaar.”
I stood frozen.
Amon shifted beside me, not in defense, but recognition.
And then, suddenly, it’s voice changed.
Not its sound, still that rasp of ancient smoke and ruin, but its tongue.
“Strange,” the dragon murmured, the words thick with accent but clear. “They still send children with the blood of the sky… but no wind in their lungs.”
I blinked.
“What—?”
My breath caught.
But Serana moved.
“Enough.” she snapped, her voice like a whip. “We don’t have time for riddles.”
She raised her hands, and the magic was already there, furious and red, lighting the ashen ground in a flash.
“Serana, wait—” I said.
But she didn’t.
She hurled a blast of bloodfire straight at the dragon’s chest.
It struck with the force of urgency. She wasn’t hunting a fight.
She was clearing the path.
Dragon recoiled, more surprised than wounded. His wings snapped back, tail lashing through the air like a whip of bone.
He didn’t roar.
He answered.
“Toor… Bahlaan.”
The dragon’s words hung heavy in the air like ash that didn’t fall.
Serana’s magic still shimmered across the field, echoing in the dust, but the beast was no longer hovering.
It was diving.
Straight at us.
I raised my hand to cast, too slow, too uncertain…
And then—
An arm grabbed me.
I was yanked sideways, pulled down behind the jagged remains of a toppled stone pillar. My knees scraped bone and gravel. Breath knocked out of me.
I started to snap, but Amon was already covering me with his body as soulfire erupted overhead, streaking the air with white-hot death.
We waited still, breathless, as the blast passed over.
Then silence.
Only then did he lift his head, eyes scanning the sky.
I shoved his shoulder. “What is this?”
His gaze didn’t move. “Durnehviir.”
Another beat. Then he looked at me.
“The dragon protector of this realm.”
My blood ran cold.
“Protector?” I hissed. “That thing?”
Amon nodded once. “Bound by oath. Twisted by time. He watches. Defends. From the living… from the dead.”
“And from us?”
“Especially us.”
I twisted beneath his arm, eyes darting out past the broken pillar — searching.
“Serana,” I whispered.
Where—
There.
Through the haze and firelight, I saw her, already moving, already ignoring the chaos above her. She hadn’t stopped.
Shoulders squared. Head high. Her stride steady despite the scars still healing across her arms.
The wind shifted again hot and dry, though no fire touched the ground. Just Durnehviir’s wings beating against the fabric of this realm, each stroke like a warning bell.
Still behind the broken pillar, I looked up.
He was circling now. Not attacking.
Watching.
Waiting.
I pressed my back against the stone, throat dry.
“How do we even fight this thing?” I asked, barely louder than a breath.
Amon didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze stayed fixed on the dragon overhead. Eyes narrowed. Jaw tight.
“You don’t.”
I turned toward him.
“You survive it,” he said. “Long enough to get through. Long enough to make it choose… to leave you be.”
“That’s not a plan.”
“It’s the only one that works.”
I stared at him, then past him, out into the open where the ash still swirled, and Serana walked.
She hadn’t stopped.
Even after the flames.
She was still going.
“Nio,” Amon warned.
But I was already stepping into the open.
“I didn’t survive this long just to duck behind a rock.”
Not while she’s walking into its teeth.
Durnehviir’s shadow swept low again. His wings stretched wide, talons curling. He was descending, not to burn her.
To take her.
I threw up my hand and cast on reflex, a barrage of ice spikes launching upward in bursts of white light.
They flew hard and fast. But not high enough.
Durnehviir’s body shifted effortlessly between them, a gliding mass of bone and spirit, too swift for my spells. The spikes shattered against the air or fell back uselessly to the ground.
Too far.
Too fast.
Panic clawed at my ribs.
And then, without thinking, I opened my hands wider.
I didn’t reach for another spell.
I pulled.
Pulled the cold from the air. From the bones beneath my feet. From myself.
Frost began to gather in my palms, pulled from the heavy air, from the marrow in my bones. I shaped it without thought, without plan, a crude curve of shimmering ice, a bow formed from instinct and prayer.
A matching arrow took form in my other hand, jagged, unfinished, humming with tension.
Even now, the portal shimmered before me like a wound in the world, pulsing softly, daring me to come closer and still, I stayed rooted.
And I hated that I hadn’t turned around the moment I saw it. I hated that I’d followed Serana and Amon down here, descended into crypts with blood on my hands and stubbornness in my chest only to stop now. Here. On the edge of something I didn’t understand.
I let the question rot in my mind like poison, Do I really want to go in there?
No.
No, I didn’t.
I could stay. I could lie. I could claim I didn’t trust the portal. That something felt wrong. That I was thinking tactically. Perhaps I could feign ignorance. Say I misunderstood. That I didn’t know what it would take.
Bal forbid you take a moment to think. Amon had said earlier, voice like frost. Had to throw yourself into the deep end.
I clenched my fists so tightly my nails bit into my skin.
I didn’t have to do this. There was no blood price, no duty owed, no target. I could walk away, leave the portal untouched, refuse the cost. Would Serana understand? Amon would, but he would know. And he would remember. And he would smile.
That was enough to keep me here.
I had been many things in my life, a daughter, a weapon, a ghost with too many names. But a coward? Never. Not once. Not even when I should have been.
I had walked through fire. I had bled for gods I didn’t believe in. I had held death in my hands and laughed in its face.
So why was this the thing that made my knees want to buckle?
Because it wasn’t just a spell. It wasn’t just a portion of my soul. It was surrender. It was giving something I couldn’t get back, not to a god, not to an enemy, but to him.
Amon, who stood across from me now in silence, watching. Patient.
I turned my face slightly, jaw clenched, and stared at the portal again. The air rippled, thin as veil silk, yet impossibly heavy. I imagined walking through it, imagined leaving a piece of myself behind. What would it feel like? What would I lose?
Would it hurt? Would I still be… me?
I swallowed hard. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. The words clung to the back of my throat like thorns.
But I forced them out.
“I’ll do it.”
The words hung in the stale crypt air, barely more than a whisper, yet louder than a scream.
Amon moved like he had been waiting, as always, and now the moment had come.
He stepped closer, his boots silent on the worn floor. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I just stared past him, toward the portal, and tried not to think of what I was giving up.
“You’re sure?” he asked softly, stopping just a breath too close.
His voice was quieter than before, lacking that usual edge of mockery. Almost… reverent. As if he knew exactly what he was about to take from me and didn’t intend to pretend it was nothing.
I still didn’t look at him. “Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
“It would.” he said.
I turned my head then, just enough to meet his eyes. Red and blue. Always watching. Always unblinking.
“Do it before I change my mind.” I said.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. For a heartbeat, he looked like he might say something else. But then he reached for me.
I didn’t move as he raised a hand, gloved fingers brushing the side of my throat, then pausing at the buckle of my armor’s collar. His eyes flicked down, then up again.
“I need to touch-“
“I know.” I interjected, yearning for it to be done as quick as possible.
His hand worked quickly, unfastening the clasp at my neck. One loop, then another. I felt the cold air seep through the opening as the leather parted, exposing the pale skin of my chest just above the sternum.
I told myself the chill was what made me shiver.
Then his glove came off.
He slipped it into his belt, eyes never leaving mine, before lifting his bare hand and placing it flat over the spot he’d just revealed, the center of my chest, just above where my heart beat like a drum in a war camp.
His skin was cold. Not corpse-cold. Just… cool, like moonlight on river water. And yet, it burned where it touched.
“You might feel a pull,” he murmured, voice low. “Like something reaching inside you.”
“Charming.”
“You’ll hate it.”
I didn’t reply. I already hated him.
His hand splayed against me, fingers slightly spread, the heel of his palm pressing down with more weight than necessary. I hated how aware I was of it. How present every inch of that touch became, as if my nerves had sharpened to needle-points beneath his skin.
Then the magic began.
It wasn’t like other spells. There was no crackle of energy, no surge of flame or frost. Just a slow, sinking heat as if something invisible had reached into me and was pulling. Not cruelly. Not even forcefully. But firmly.
My breath caught. I clenched my jaw.
I didn’t cry out. I didn’t flinch.
But I felt it.
The magic laced around my spine like wire. It coiled through my chest, brushing places I didn’t know could feel pain or something like it. My knees weakened slightly, but I held my ground.
Amon’s eyes didn’t leave mine. His expression had gone still. Focused. Intense. Almost… hungry.
“You’re doing well,” he said, his voice a rasp now. “Almost done.”
“Don’t talk.”
His lips twitched, a ghost of something between amusement and approval.
I felt it then, the moment it left me. Like a thread being tugged from the core of myself, pulled through his palm and into the void.
And then it was gone.
The magic stopped. His hand lingered.
I slapped it away.
“Don’t ever touch me like that again.” I said, voice low, trembling.
Amon didn’t move. Not at first. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth pulled into that maddening smirk, the one that always made me want to hit him.
“Say it like that,” he murmured, “and I might think you want me to.”
My hand twitched near my blade.
Amon noticed. Of course he did.
But instead of flinching, he reached into his coat with that same insufferable calm and drew out a small, glimmering stone — no larger than a coin, black as the void between stars. It pulsed faintly in his fingers. Faint, but alive.
A soul gem.
Not just any.
Mine.
He rolled it once across his knuckles like a coin trick, the flick of his wrist effortless.
“Give me that.” I said, stepping forward.
And nearly staggered.
The world shifted. Just slightly. The edges of it frayed at the corners of my vision, stone walls wavering like heat off coals, air too thick, too close. My legs felt strange beneath me, too light and too heavy all at once.
I clenched my jaw, straightened.
But the sensation didn’t pass.
It felt like something inside me was missing, like a thread that held me together had been gently snipped.
That was the cost, it seemed.
Amon tilted his head, watching me with eyes that saw far too much.
“I’ll keep it safe,” he said softly, slipping the gem back into the pouch at his belt. “It’ll be better this way.”
“No.”
“It will be safer with me.”
“I don’t care. Give it—”
“Trust me.”
That stopped me colder than the spell had.
I stared at him, breath uneven, not from fear, but from fury. From the weight of that word.
Trust me.
I wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or both.
But before I could say a thing, Serana groaned loudly.
“Oh for the love of Bal, can we go now?”
She stomped toward the portal, cloak flaring behind her. “I didn’t drag you both through a cursed garden and half a castle for emotional sparring. Let’s move.”
I took one more look at Amon, at the pouch on his hip where the gem rested.
He didn’t smile this time. He just held my gaze, quiet.
And I turned from him.
Because if I kept looking, I might’ve killed him.
Or worse — believed him.
Serana didn’t wait for an answer. Her boots echoed across the stone as she approached the threshold, then paused. Without looking back, she gestured sharply to the two Dawnguard soldiers standing behind her, faces still blank.
“Guard the door,” she said, her voice sharp and flat as steel. “If anything tries to follow us in…”
A beat. Her head turned slightly, just enough for her amber eyes to flick toward them.
“…kill it. Or die trying.”
The soldiers didn’t blink. Just nodded.
She stepped into the portal’s glow, shadows swallowing her.
I stayed where I was.
Still standing. Still breathing. But… lighter. Not in a way that freed me. In a way that unmoored me. Like I’d cut loose something vital, and now my body didn’t quite know how to hold itself upright.
A part of me expected Amon to make a comment. Something smug. Another jab.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he stepped closer, just once, carefully and his voice came low, barely above a breath.
“You’ll feel it for a while,” he said. “The emptiness. The weight where something used to be.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t trust my voice.
His gaze searched mine, and there was no humor in it this time. Just something quieter. Something… still.
“But it won’t break you,” he said. “You’re not so easy to hollow out.”
I blinked.
Something in my chest twisted, sharp, unsure.
Amon took a step back, as if he hadn’t said anything at all.
Then he extended his hand toward the portal. “After you.”
I didn’t take it.
But I walked forward, slow and stiff, and stepped into the void with my shoulders squared, head high and a hole in my soul that echoed with every breath.
Crossing the threshold felt like stepping into a scream without sound.
The portal didn’t burn or tear. It pulled like sinking into icy water that had no surface. For a split second, I couldn’t feel my limbs. Couldn’t feel me.
Then I was through.
My boots struck stone, not the stone I had known above, not the cracked marble and crypt-floor cold of Volkihar. This stone was… dry. Dust-choked. Dead.
I staggered. The world was wrong here.
Everything was tinted in shades of grey and violet, like night had drowned the sun and left nothing behind but rot and ruin. The air didn’t move. It pressed. It hung in the lungs like ash and regret, thick enough to taste, thin enough to choke on.
Above me, the sky was not a sky at all.
It pulsed.
No stars. No sun. No moons. Just jagged cracks of light far above, glowing like the ribs of some buried god, broken open to bleed their glow into this realm.
The wind howled in silence. But there was no wind.
I stood at the top of a wide stairwell, carved from stone that seemed to rise and decay all at once. It twisted downward, flanked by towering pillars of black bone-like rock. Everything was ruined. Everything was waiting.
Behind me, I heard another step, Amon, emerging from the portal. His presence pressed behind my shoulder like heat that didn’t belong here.
Each step down the stairs echoed like a bell struck underwater. My legs felt heavy, and the dizziness hadn’t fully faded.
And yet… I kept going.
At the base of the stairs, Serana stood still, arms crossed, eyes scanning the wasteland like she was trying to absorb all of it at once. Her expression wasn’t fear. It was something quieter. Heavier.
“So,” I said, my voice rough in the air that didn’t carry echoes, “this is it.”
Serana nodded slowly. “It’s worse than I imagined.”
The sky above us pulsed with that unnatural violet glow, as if the stars had drowned and left only bruises behind. In the distance, souls drifted aimlessly, fading blue outlines of what they once were, some whispering, others screaming in silence.
“I thought I was prepared,” Serana murmured. “She told me stories. Said the Soul Cairn was cold, endless, and cruel… but this—” She shook her head. “This is a graveyard that forgot it was supposed to die.”
We stood in silence for a moment, the three of us gazing out at the rotting vastness of the Soul Cairn.
“How do we even begin to find her?” I asked, mostly to myself.
Serana’s jaw tensed.
Amon tilted his head, eyes fixed on the horizon like it held a secret only he could see.
And that’s when Serana turned, sharp, sudden.
“Maybe you know,” she snapped at him, voice cutting through the still air like a blade. “You helped her get here, didn’t you?”
Amon’s eyes slid to her. Not startled. Just still. “I opened a door. She walked through it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“And I answered anyway.”
Serana stepped forward, her face fierce under the pulsing sky. “You are all riddles aren’t you?Riddles and half-truths. My mother trusted you. I still don’t know why.”
Amon didn’t flinch. “Because she understood the cost of power.”
“More like she understood desperation.”
“Same thing.”
The silence that followed was colder than the air.
I said nothing, couldn’t. Not when the echo of the soul trap still throbbed in my chest like something unfinished. But I was watching him now. Closely.
Because she was right.
Serana shook her head, bitter. “If you know something, say it now. Because I’m not dragging her through this place blind. Not when she’s already given up part of herself to be here.”
Amon’s eyes flicked to me.
And for once… he didn’t say anything.
The tension still hung between them, sharp as broken glass. Serana’s shoulders were rigid, her breath tight. Amon had gone still again, that kind of stillness that wasn’t calm, just leashed.
I stepped between them, not looking at either.
“We’re wasting time.”
My voice came out rough, but steady.
I stared at the horizon, those jagged ruins in the distance, the crawling haze of violet light over the skeletal land.
“There’s three of us,” I said. “The Cairn is massive. If we split up, we cover more ground.”
“No.” Amon said instantly.
I turned my head, slow, jaw tight. “It’s practical.”
“It’s stupid.”
I rolled my eyes. “Afraid to be alone?”
He didn’t flinch. “I’m not the one with a soul like a cracked mirror. You shouldn’t stray far.”
My hand twitched.
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t get to give orders.”
“I’m not giving orders,” he said, stepping closer, “I’m stopping you from walking into a realm of soul-draining gods with half your soul and no backup.”
I bristled. “I’ve walked into worse.”
“Not like this.”
His gaze locked with mine, and for a moment, everything else disappeared, Serana, the Cairn, even the ache in my chest. Just his face, close, unreadable, stubborn in a way that sounded too much like fear when it came from him.
Serana muttered something under her breath and turned away, clearly done with the conversation.
I didn’t.
“Why do you care?” I asked, voice flat.
He held my eyes. “Because I remember what I was like before I lost my soul.”
A beat. The first hint of real truth slipped into his voice like a fracture.
“And you’re already stronger than I ever was.”
Then he stepped back, just enough to break the thread between us.
“Three of us. One direction. Let’s move.”
“Let’s head that way,” Serana said. “If I were my mother, I’d find something dark and defensible.”
“Of course,” I muttered. “A family trait.”
We hadn’t walked far.
Maybe a few hundred paces. Maybe a mile. It was impossible to tell in this place, where distance bent and sky stayed fixed in eternal dusk.
The ground cracked beneath our boots in long, jagged lines, and the air grew colder with every step.
Then we saw him.
A soul drifted toward us, pale blue and half-faded, but still shaped. A man. Or what was left of one. His eyes were hollow, mouth parted in something that once might’ve been a smile, or grief that had forgotten how to weep.
He stopped a few feet ahead, flickering faintly in the gloom.
“Wait,” he rasped. “Please—wait.”
Serana slowed, groaning under her breath. “Here we go.”
The spirit hovered, wringing phantom hands. “Have you… have you seen her? My Lethara. She wore red. She had a laugh like windchimes. She said she’d find me. I waited.”
I swallowed. “No. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t seem to hear. Or maybe didn’t want to.
“She always said I’d forget first,” he said quietly. “But I remember her. I remember her every day. I can’t forget her name. I won’t.”
Serana crossed her arms. “We don’t have time for this.”
The soul looked up, pleading. “If you find her, if she’s here, will you give her this?”
He held out something small and translucent, hovering between his palms, a broken ring, cracked down the center, its gem faded to mist. But even now, it pulsed faintly, like it carried something of him still.
“She’ll know,” he whispered. “She’ll remember.”
I stepped forward before anyone else could move.
“I’ll take it.” I said, gently reaching out.
The moment my fingers touched the ring, cold shot up my arm, not painful, but sorrowful, like the air after a funeral. The ring settled in my hand. Weightless and empty. And yet it hurt.
Serana rolled her eyes and kept walking.
The soul nodded, already starting to drift back into the haze. “Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you, thank you…”
And then he was gone.
I kept the ring in my palm as we walked, fingers curled around it like it might warm me. It didn’t. But I didn’t let go.
The soul’s words echoed, faint and frayed.
She’ll remember.
I doubted memory meant much here.
Still, I slipped the ring into the inner lining of leather, close to the chest, where even the Cairn’s chill couldn’t touch it.
We moved quietly through the gray, broken world, navigating crumbling arches and shattered towers, each one darker than the last. Serana led, sharp-eyed and focused. Amon drifted at my side, as if keeping pace with the way I stumbled every fifth step without meaning to.
I hated the way my legs still felt wrong. Hated the faint hollowness in my ribs, the slow pulse behind my eyes like something had gone missing and kept echoing its absence.
We passed a gate made of twisted bone. Beyond it, something shifted.
A structure loomed ahead, a ruin shaped like a half-collapsed chapel, its arches jagged like teeth. Pillars surrounded it in a wide circle. The air buzzed.
Serana slowed. “That’s… not like the rest.”
I narrowed my eyes. There was a figure at its center.
Not blue.
Still.
A massive, armored thing, black metal fused with something unnatural, its helm crowned with antlers or bones. It stood with a massive weapon planted before it, unmoving. Watching.
“What is that?” I asked.
Amon’s voice came low, sharp. “A Keeper.”
Serana turned, brow furrowed. “You know it?”
“I’ve heard of them. Servants of the Ideal Masters. They guard something. No one knows what.”
The moment Serana stepped forward, the Keeper moved.
No warning. No roar. Just a sudden surge, a tower of metal and death, hurling itself toward us with impossible speed.
The ground cracked.
“Move!” Amon’s voice cut through everything.
He was in front of me before I could blink.
No weapon.
Just his hands.
He met the Keeper head-on, slammed into it with a force that rattled my teeth. His bare hands struck the blackened armor, claws tearing across the plating with a screech like steel screaming.
The Keeper staggered.
Amon did not stop.
He moved like a storm given flesh, vicious, fast, and silent. No fancy footwork, no spells. Just raw, animal power. He climbed up the thing’s side like a shadow, sunk his fangs into the exposed seam between helm and shoulder.
There was a crunch.
The Keeper reeled with a soundless shriek, swinging its weapon wildly.
Amon dropped back, blood and something darker staining his mouth.
Serana was already casting, lightning arcing between her palms, her eyes glowing with wrath.
“I don’t care what you are,” she hissed. “Get out of my way.”
She flung the spell, and the Keeper spasmed, armor glowing under the impact.
I stumbled back, chest heaving. Frost flared at my fingertips, but the magic came slower now, like it had to climb through the hollow space inside me to reach the surface.
Another swing, the Keeper’s blade came down like a falling tower.
I froze.
Too slow.
Too slow.
But before it landed, something slammed into me from the side.
Amon.
He knocked me flat to the ground, teeth bared, arm curled around my head to shield it as the impact hit behind us with an earth-splitting crash.
Dust rained down. The shock made my ears ring.
He didn’t look at me. Just stood again with a growl, low, dangerous and launched himself back into the fight.
I tried to rise. My limbs felt heavy. My chest ached like something had been scooped out of it, like I was only mostly here, only mostly alive.
The Soul Cairn wanted me like this.
Weak.
But I wasn’t dead yet.
I forced my palm to the ground. Pushed myself upright, knees trembling, vision swimming.
The Keeper loomed above, reeling slightly under Serana’s barrage. Amon was circling, fast, low, teeth bared and soaked in black ichor. His claws raked across the thing’s spine as he darted past like a beast unleashed.
I dragged a breath into my lungs and raised my hands.
The magic came slow.
Sluggish.
Like water frozen in a river, struggling to move again.
But I pulled harder.
I called to it, not gently, not with grace. I ripped it up from inside me.
Frost bloomed across my skin, up my arms, clinging to the edges of my fingers like claws of rime. The air chilled instantly, heavy with the scent of winter and ruin.
The Keeper turned toward me, eyes glowing.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Look at me.”
And it did.
The frost erupted.
Not as a gentle mist but a blast of jagged, solid ice, raw and roaring. It hit the Keeper square in the midsection, encasing its lower body in thick crystal. Cracks spidered out across its armor, slowing its movement to a crawl.
It tried to lift its weapon.
The ice held.
Serana didn’t miss the opening, lightning crashed into its chest, again and again.
Amon leapt for its exposed throat, and this time, his claws tore through.
The Keeper buckled.
And fell.
Silence returned, thick, ringing, broken only by my ragged breathing.
I dropped to my knees, frost still clinging to my arms. My vision swam again, but this time… I didn’t fall.
Serana flicked her hand, dismissing the last of her lightning. “Well,” she said, brushing ash from her sleeve. “That was fun.”
I barely heard her.
The ground tilted beneath me in slow waves. My arms shook from the spell, my knees pressed into cracked stone, the frost still clinging to my skin like it didn’t want to let go. My lungs burned with every breath.
And then I felt him.
Amon dropped beside me in a rush, not elegant, not composed. Just there.
“Let me look at you.” he said, breath uneven, voice far too soft.
His hand cupped my shoulder, fingers careful despite the clawed tips. The other hovered by my arm, brushing off shards of lingering ice. His eyes scanned me like he expected to find something torn open.
And then, slowly, he reached for my face.
I flinched from instinct.
His fingers, cold and bare, touched my cheek like I was made of something fragile. His thumb grazed just under my eye, where sweat and frost had melted into a trail down my skin.
“You’re trembling.” he murmured.
“I’m cold.”
“You’re drained.” His gaze locked on mine, mismatched, piercing. “You shouldn’t have forced that much power.”
I forced a breath through my teeth. “It worked, didn’t it?”
A hint of something flickered across his face. Not a smirk. Not pride.
Something quieter. Pained.
“It shouldn’t have to cost you so much.” he said.
The world was dead around us, souls drifting, ruin humming in the distance, the stench of decay in the air and here he was, kneeling in the ash, holding my face like I was the last real thing in this place.
“I’m fine.” I whispered.
His hand lingered a second longer.
Then, slowly, he pulled back just enough to break the contact. But his eyes didn’t leave mine.
He didn’t say anything more.
Just reached down again, this time to help me up.
His fingers brushed mine and they wrapped around my hand. There was a softness to the way he lifted me, as if he thought I might shatter from more than exhaustion.
And for a breath, just one, I let him hold me like that.
My chest ached. My skin burned where he’d touched it. My thoughts were too loud, too full, too fast.
I didn’t pull away.
Not until I remembered why I should.
I slipped my hand from his the moment I had my footing. Said nothing.
Neither did he.
The silence between us was too full, too loaded.
And then—
“Are you two finished?” Serana snapped, marching up from behind, eyes rolling so hard it was a miracle they stayed in her skull. “We just killed a deathless monstrosity! This place is more dangerous than we thought.”
I didn’t look at her. I didn’t look at him either.
“Let’s keep moving.” I muttered, brushing frost from my coat.
Serana turned without another word and began walking, her boots crunching over the dead earth, already hunting the next ruin in the endless dark.
Amon followed, quiet as a shadow.
I came last.
I tried to keep pace.
But my body disagreed.
Each step felt heavier than the last. My legs dragged. The ache in my bones had sunk deeper, duller, like the Soul Cairn was feeding on my effort, savoring every motion I forced myself to make.
I bit down on it. Didn’t complain.
But Serana noticed.
I saw it in the way she slowed. How she glanced back once and then looked away quickly, as if ashamed of the impulse.
Then, without a word, she fell back beside me.
Her hand brushed mine briefly to get my attention.
“Stop for a second.” she said.
I did, blinking. “What—?”
“Hold still.”
Before I could argue, her palm hovered over my shoulder, and a soft golden pulse lit the space between us.
Warmth.
Not just in the skin, but in the joints, in the brittle ache between my ribs. It wasn’t a full restoration. It wasn’t enough to make me new again. But it dulled the gnawing ache in my bones, just enough to breathe easier.
The frost on my fingers faded. My spine straightened a little.
I looked at her.
She didn’t meet my gaze.
“You’ll burn out before we get to her if you keep going like that,” she muttered, already walking again. “So don’t make me regret wasting magicka.”
I blinked. Swallowed.
“…Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
But behind the sarcasm, I caught it, that flicker of understanding in her voice. Maybe pity. Maybe something harder to name.
I followed her without another word.
We walked.
And walked.
Time stretched thin in the Soul Cairn, hours or minutes, it was impossible to tell. The sky never changed. The ground never shifted. Just black stone, gray dust, and that endless, pulsing violet glow that made it feel like we were trapped inside a dying star.
The silence was unbearable.
The souls, the flickering wraiths, drifted past us like memories too faded to mourn. Some whispered to themselves. Others screamed. Most simply wandered, endlessly, like we were just shadows in their dream.
Amon remained silent, watchful.
Serana pushed forward, her jaw set, eyes searching every spire and ruin like her rage could summon her mother from stone.
And I… slowed.
Not out of pain this time. Not weakness. Just… doubt.
It started as a whisper. Then grew into a thought I couldn’t shake.
We’ve passed this tower already. That cracked arch, I saw it before. That bone pile. That twisted gate.
We were walking in circles.
“Amon,” I said quietly. “This… this isn’t right.”
He didn’t answer.
I stopped.
Serana spun on her heel, breath sharp. “Why are you stopping?”
“We’ve been here before,” I said. “I swear we have. That wall, look at it. It’s the same one we passed half an hour ago.”
“Impossible.” she snapped.
“Is it?” My voice was hoarse. “We don’t know how time or space even works here. It could all be shifting around us.”
Serana’s hands curled into fists. She looked around, really looked, and for a moment, I saw it.
The panic.
The helplessness.
And then she screamed.
A raw, furious sound that broke the stillness like a blade.
“Where are you?”
Her voice echoed into the dead air, bouncing off nothing, disappearing like it had never been.
“Where are you?” she shouted again, fists clenched, hair whipping around her face as the wind kicked up from nowhere. “Damn you, mother, answer me!”
The sky didn’t change.
The souls didn’t stop.
Only the silence came back, heavier than before.
Amon didn’t move. He watched her scream without a flicker of expression.
There was nothing to say.
We were alone.
Still walking.
Still searching.
And every step felt like the ground was laughing beneath us.
Then—
“You’re looking for her.” a voice said.
Soft. Feminine. Behind us.
We turned at once, blades and spells on edge.
But there she stood.
A soul.
Feminine in shape, faint blue glow trailing like mist around her wrists and throat. Her face was blurred, indistinct like a painting someone had tried to scrub clean. But her posture was proud. Regal. Not broken like the others.
She tilted her head slightly, studying us. When she spoke, her voice was dream-thin but clear.
“She’s still here. The one you seek. She’s clever. Not clever enough.”
Serana stepped forward. “What do you mean? Where is she?”
The soul blinked slowly, as if processing the question through layers of dust.
“Trapped,” she said. “Between the wards. She made a cage with light and salt. But they know. They’re watching her through the seams.”
I stepped beside Serana. “Where?”
A long pause.
Then the soul raised a hand and pointed — not in a direction, exactly, but upward, toward a cluster of jagged towers in the far distance, where the glow was denser. Where the air shimmered faintly.
“She sleeps beneath the hollow sky. In the place where wind doesn’t blow.”
The soul lowered her arm. “But be quick. The others stir. They don’t like trespassers.”
Amon narrowed his eyes. “You’re not like the rest.”
The soul didn’t answer.
She simply faded, slowly like fog peeling back from a window.
Gone.
I looked to the horizon where she’d pointed.
Even from here… the towers seemed darker. Heavier. And I could feel it now, that faint tug. Like a string wound around my ribs pulling me forward.
Serana’s voice came rough. “She’s there. I know it.”
And for the first time since we arrived, she didn’t walk ahead alone.
She waited.
We stood in silence a moment longer, staring into the distance where the soul had pointed.
It felt right. That tug in the chest. That shift in the air.
But then Amon spoke, voice low and sharp as ever.
“So we’re taking directions from wandering spirits now?” he said. “That’s the plan?”
Serana turned to him, bristling. “She knew something.”
“We don’t know we can trust her.”
“You think she was lying?”
“I think this place eats minds,” he replied. “And if it doesn’t eat them, it twists them. You don’t know how long she’s been here. Or what made her different.”
“She was clear.”
“No,” he said, eyes narrowing. “She was deliberate. There’s a difference.”
The words hung in the air like frost.
I exhaled slowly, the ache behind my ribs flaring again.
“She knew about the wards,” I said. “That wasn’t vague. That wasn’t a guess.”
Amon didn’t reply right away. His jaw tightened. His gaze turned toward the far-off spires again, slow and unreadable.
Finally, he spoke, voice quieter. “If it’s a trap, I’ll break it open myself.”
Serana huffed. “Glad to know you’re feeling helpful.”
He looked at me instead of her. “Just don’t let your hope get you killed.”
And then he walked.
I watched his back for a moment, then followed.
Serana fell into step beside me. She didn’t speak, but the look in her eyes said enough.
For now, we had a direction.
And a deadline.
We moved toward the towers.
The closer we came, the quieter the world became. Like the air itself was listening. Judging.
Even the drifting souls began to thin. The blue wisps turned away, veering wide as if repelled by something they couldn’t name. None came near.
The ground changed too.
Gone were the broken pathways and loose stone. Here, the floor of the Cairn grew smooth, carved.
Lines etched into the ground formed overlapping circles, spirals within spirals, so faint they were easy to miss. But magic hummed through them, subtle and sharp. I could feel it in my boots, in my bones. Like a chord drawn taut, humming just below hearing.
I stepped carefully. Even my breath came lighter now, as if anything louder than a whisper might break something that was not meant to be touched.
Ahead, the towers loomed, clustered close together like teeth grown too tightly in a jaw. They weren’t ruined, not like the others. They were intact.
Intact, and sealed.
Wards shimmered faintly across the space between them, thin sheets of magic, nearly invisible, only revealed by the way light refused to move near them. Where the wards were strongest, the air warped, sharp angles where there should be curves, shadows that bent away.
A structure sat at the center, low, circular, like a buried sanctum.
Serana slowed to a stop.
Her breath caught.
“This is it.”
The ache in my chest had settled into something colder now, not pain, but gravity. Like my bones had caught on something just beneath the skin of the world.
Amon remained back a few steps, arms folded, eyes scanning everything.
“She built this,” he muttered. “Layered wards. She wanted to keep something out.”
Serana’s voice was quiet. “She was keeping them out.”
The air here was wrong.
We approached the circle slowly, feet silent against the etched stone, the air tight with tension. The wards didn’t pulse.
They simply watched.
And beyond them, standing in the center of the seal, was a woman.
Tall. Still. Her form cloaked in layered robes of gray and deep violet, stiff as ancient parchment. Her hair was long, pale, her features striking even through the haze, sharp, defined, and cold as the stone beneath our feet.
But her eyes…
They widened.
“Mother?” Serana’s voice broke the silence like a snapped string. She stepped forward, her face open, desperate. “Mother!”
The woman took a half-step back.
“Maker…” she breathed. Her voice was older than her body. Tired. Hoarse from silence.
“It can’t be. Serana?”
A flicker of magic quivered across the ward, not an attack, not a trap. Just recognition.
Serana nodded, breathless. “Is it really you? I can’t believe it!”
She moved closer, both hands raised as if she might press through the shimmering veil. “How do we get inside? We have to talk.”
Valerica’s expression shifted, sharp, guarded, and already searching the shadows behind her daughter. “Serana? What are you doing here?” Her voice darkened. “Where’s your father?”
Serana hesitated just for a moment. Then: “He doesn’t know we’re here. I don’t have time to explain.”
Valerica’s mouth tightened. The fine lines around her eyes deepened with something that looked like pain.
“I must have failed,” she whispered.
“Harkon’s found a way to decipher the prophecy, hasn’t he.”
Serana opened her mouth—
But Amon stepped forward, voice like frost breaking stone.
“No. You’ve got it wrong.”
Valerica turned her gaze toward him, eyes narrowing—
And then her entire body froze.
Her breath caught. The wards pulsed faintly, reacting to the shift in her magic.
“Amon?” Her voice cracked like old parchment.
He inclined his head slightly, gaze unreadable.
“I see the years haven’t dulled your dramatics.” he said.
Valerica took a step closer to the edge of the ward, the magic flaring faintly between them.
“You said you would never return to this place. Not unless—”
Her eyes flicked to Serana.
Something changed in her face. Shock melting into dread.
“We’re not here to finish Harkon’s work,” Amon said. “We’re here to end it.”
Valerica’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment. The silence stretched.
Then, quieter: “If you’re involved again… it’s worse than I feared.”
Valerica’s gaze slid past Amon, and finally settled on me.
Her eyes narrowed. Something flickered in her expression. She straightened, her entire bearing sharpening like a blade being drawn.
“Wait a moment…” she said slowly, voice gaining edge. “You’ve brought a stranger here?”
Her tone cracked like lightning across the wards. “Have you lost your mind?”
Serana stepped forward, voice tight. “No, you don’t—”
Valerica raised a hand, silencing her without even looking.
Her gaze didn’t move from me. “You. Come forward.”
The wards shimmered slightly between us, reacting to the change in tension. The air grew colder.
“I would speak with you.”
Amon said nothing. His eyes were on me now, but his face gave nothing away.
Serana looked between us all, jaw tense. “Mother, she helped me. She’s—”
But Valerica didn’t blink.
She didn’t ask again.
She was looking straight at me and the weight of her magic pressed into my skin like frost.
She had questions.
And I had nowhere to hide.
I stepped forward.
The air between the wards shimmered faintly, thin, invisible threads of magic brushing against my skin like cold breath. I didn’t flinch, but my hand drifted instinctively to the ache in my chest. The soul wound still pulsed there, faint and deep.
Valerica’s eyes followed the motion.
Her voice came sharp. “So how has it come to pass that a stranger, one I’ve never seen, never sensed, walks beside my daughter inside this cursed place?”
Valerica didn’t give Serana a chance to speak when she opened her mouth. “It pains me to think you’d travel with Serana under the illusion of friendship or protection, while planning to turn her over to those who seek to control her.”
I met her gaze evenly. “This isn’t a ruse. I’m not her enemy.”
“Strange, then, that I can’t sense even a fraction of your soul,” Valerica said coldly. “And that you’ve come here with him—” her eyes flicked to Amon, “—bringing Serana into the hands of monsters.”
I stayed still. “I’ve fought beside her.”
Valerica’s mouth tightened. “Coming from someone cloaked in void-magic, walking half-hollowed through a realm of death, forgive me if I find your intentions unclear. Serana has sacrificed everything to prevent Harkon from completing the prophecy. I would have expected her to explain that to you.”
“I saved her,” I said, sharper now. “From being locked in a box and left to rot while you ran from your war.”
Valerica’s expression turned to ice. “You think you’ve saved her?”
She stepped closer to the barrier. The wards rippled, humming faintly.
“I find your choice of words… interesting, considering Serana is in far greater danger now than she ever was following my plan.”
Her eyes, bright and burning, locked on her daughter.
“You and Amon brought her here, and none of this was meant to happen. If Harkon is stirring, then you’ve placed her directly in his path.”
The words echoed colder than the wards.
And suddenly, I wasn’t standing in the Soul Cairn anymore. I was back in every shadowed hallway of my life, listening to someone say I shouldn’t have been there.
Valerica didn’t see me. Not really. She saw what I carried, the damage, the magic, the scent of monsters and death stitched into my skin. She saw a puzzle that didn’t fit into her careful plan.
And maybe she was right.
I wasn’t a protector. I wasn’t a hero. I hadn’t saved Serana out of nobility. No. It was just a mission.
But now I stood here, hollowed out, my soul carved thin like old bark, my hands still echoing from frost and death, and I didn’t even know who I was defending anymore.
Her? Myself?
Or no one at all.
Valerica’s eyes were still on Serana, full of judgment.
And I stood in the middle of it, cold down to my bones, unsure if I was meant to speak… or vanish.
Amon stepped forward, his voice low, but absolute.
“We didn’t come here to argue,” he said. “We came because the prophecy is in motion.”
Valerica’s gaze flicked to him again, sharper now. Wary.
“The Elder Scrolls,” he continued, “you hid them, scattered the pieces of the puzzle. But Harkon’s not chasing just fragments anymore. He’s after something whole. Something alive.”
Valerica’s expression turned cold.
“You think I’d have the audacity,” she said slowly, “to place my own daughter in that tomb for the protection of her Elder Scroll alone?”
Her voice sharpened, rising just slightly.
“No. The scrolls are merely a means to an end.”
She turned fully to Serana now. Her voice dropped, but the weight of it deepened.
“The key to the Tyranny of the Sun is Serana herself.”
The air shifted.
Even the ward pulsed, as if responding to the truth of it.
Valerica looked back at Amon, her gaze slicing clean.
“And you already knew that.”
Amon didn’t deny it.
He didn’t need to.
I looked at him, not out of shock, but out of something harder to name.
Serana stared at her mother, eyes wide, not in disbelief, but fury.
“You knew?” she said, voice trembling with rage. “All this time, you knew I was the key?”
Valerica didn’t answer.
“You sealed me away. You left me in that tomb. And you told me it was to protect the scroll.”
“It was to protect you.” Valerica snapped back.
“Don’t twist it now,” Serana shot back. “You never told me what I was. You never warned me!”
“I didn’t want you to carry that burden—”
“And yet here we are!” Serana’s voice cracked. “You kept me in the dark and now you want to act like it was mercy?”
The wards hummed faintly, flickering as Serana’s magic rose without her even casting. She was shaking from rage, from betrayal, from everything that had led her here.
And I…
I took a slow breath and stepped slightly between them.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re both right, both wrong.”
I turned to Valerica.
“But someone needs to tell me what Tyranny of the Sun actually is.”
Even the air seemed to pause.
Valerica’s eyes found mine, cool, assessing. Then she exhaled, slow and sharp.
“A prophecy,” she said. “One written in shadow and blood. The Elder Scroll speaks of it, a time when vampires would no longer fear the sun. When its light would be extinguished. Permanently.”
My stomach dropped.
“Destroyed?”
“No,” she said. “Blotted out. Forever. No dawn. No warmth. Just eternal dusk.”
An endless night.
“And Serana…” I glanced at her. “Is how he gets there?”
Valerica nodded once.
“She carries the blood. His blood. Pure. The final piece in a ritual meant to remake the world.”
She’s a royal.
I turned my head slowly toward Amon. He was watching me. Not smug. Not gloating.
Just… still.
Because he knew I’d figured it out.
He’d known from the start.
And said nothing.
My heart thudded once slow, hard, hollow. From the weight of what wasn’t said.
Serana’s voice came sharp, cutting through the thick silence.
“What ritual?” she demanded. “What does it do?”
Valerica hesitated, for just a second. But the truth was already spilling forward.
“When I fled Castle Volkihar, with the help of Amon,” she said, her voice tight with old memory, “I fled with two Elder Scrolls.”
Serana’s brows drew together. “Two?”
Valerica nodded. “The scroll I presume you found speaks of Auri-El… and his arcane weapon. Auri-El’s Bow.”
She glanced at Amon briefly. He gave nothing in return.
Valerica went on. “The second scroll is older. Harder to interpret. But its meaning was clear enough.”
Her eyes found Serana again.
“It declares: ‘The blood of Coldharbour’s Daughter will blind the eye of the Dragon.’”
Serana blinked. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Valerica said quietly, “that your father intends to use your blood in a profane rite to corrupt Auri-El’s Bow. With it, he believes he can extinguish the sun itself. Forever.”
My breath caught.
Blind the eye of the Dragon.
Not a dragon.
The sun.
And Serana—
She took a half-step back, the truth slamming into her like a wall.
Valerica’s voice gentled just slightly. “You are the Daughter of Coldharbour, Serana. The prophecy was never about the scrolls alone. It was always about you.”
The silence held for too long.
Serana looked stunned, her fury hollowed into something quieter, darker. She wasn’t speaking.
So I did.
My voice came out hoarse. “Are you saying Harkon means to kill her?”
Valerica didn’t blink.
“If Harkon obtained Auri-El’s Bow,” she said, “and Serana’s blood was used to taint the weapon…”
She paused.
“The Tyranny of the Sun would be complete.”
She looked at Serana not with apology.
Just grief.
“In his eyes,” she said, “she’d be dying for the good of all vampires.”
A sharp silence followed, jagged, breathless.
Serana turned away, her shoulders stiff, her face unreadable.
Amon exhaled once, softly. “And he wouldn’t hesitate.”
Valerica’s jaw tightened. “He never has.”
I took a step closer to the ward, staring Valerica down through the shimmer of her magic.
“You said Harkon’s plan can still be stopped,” I said, my voice low. “Then how?”
My fists curled at my sides.
“We kill him?”
The words left my mouth before I could question them.
Simple. Final.
But Valerica didn’t flinch.
Instead, her mouth twisted in something cold.
Contempt.
“If you believe that,” she said, “then you’re a bigger fool than I originally suspected.”
Her tone was sharp, old, and full of pain wrapped in disdain.
“Don’t you think I weighed that option before I enacted my plans? Before I sealed away my daughter and vanished from the world?”
Serana stood stiffly, her hands clenched at her sides.
Her voice came low at first.
“So that’s it.”
“I wasn’t a daughter. I wasn’t even a key. I was just blood in a bottle.”
Her jaw twitched. “He would’ve done it. Just like that. Smiled through it, probably. Said it was necessary. Said it was noble.”
She didn’t look at anyone.
And somehow, I found myself stepping closer to her.
I didn’t reach for her. Didn’t try to speak.
But I stood at her side. Close enough for her to feel it. Not pity. Not comfort.
Just presence.
Just, I understand.
Because I did.
Because I’d been broken apart and used in the name of things I didn’t choose. Because I’d been told I was sacred and treated like a sacrifice.
Because no one ever asked if I wanted to be anything at all.
Serana didn’t look at me.
But she didn’t step away either.
The silence sat heavy between us, thick with truths none of us had wanted to say.
But I was done being quiet.
“We won’t let that happen.”
My voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Serana looked at me like she hadn’t realized how much she needed someone to say it.
She turned toward her mother, eyes burning.
“And you? You knew. You knew, and you buried me. You didn’t even give me a choice.”
Valerica flinched — barely. But it was enough.
“Daughter, I-“
“No,” Serana cut in, sharp. “You tried to contain me. Just like him.”
A long, painful silence followed
Valerica stared at her daughter, not with anger anymore, but with something deeper. Something old. Worn. Grief softened at the edges by guilt.
“I’m sorry, Serana.”
Her voice was low, but steady.
“I didn’t see it. Not truly. I thought I was doing what was best… but I see now that I hurt you. And I never meant to.”
Serana didn’t speak. She just stood there, breathing hard, like she didn’t quite believe what she’d heard.
Valerica took a small step forward, and the wards pulsed, not threateningly, just alive.
“You’re right,” she said. “You deserve to choose for yourself.”
Another pause.
“And if this… woman is the one you’ve chosen to trust—” her eyes flicked briefly to me, sharp but no longer cruel, “—then I will honor that.”
Something in me flinched.
Not outwardly, I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. But something deep, buried, shifted like stone cracking under frost.
Honor that.
Trust.
Mother.
I wasn’t supposed to feel anything. And yet…
Behind Valerica’s voice, I heard another, softer, older. A lullaby. A whisper in a forest before it burned.
My mother’s hands brushing my hair back. My mother’s voice, shaky but proud. My mother’s face as it paled.
When she let me go.
With Thalmor.
To silence. To steel. To the hands that shaped me into something sharp and cold and obedient. Because I was useful.
I hadn’t thought of her in years.
I didn’t want to now.
But Valerica’s voice, that quiet, aching regret, cracked something I had buried so deep I forgot it still bled.
Serana was lucky.
I hated the thought. I hated myself for it. But she was.
She had a mother who regretted what she’d done. Who apologized.
Mine never did.
Not that I would ever forgive her.
The air was still humming with ward-magic when Amon finally broke the silence.
“Do you still have the scroll?”
Valerica nodded, composed once more. “Yes. I’ve kept it secured here ever since I was imprisoned.”
Her gaze shifted to the barrier behind her, then back to us.
“Fortunately, you’re in a position to breach the magical seal that surrounds these ruins.”
Serana stepped forward. “What do we need to do?”
Valerica’s voice returned to the sharp clarity of a scholar reciting facts, though grief still clung to the edges.
“You need to locate the tallest of the rocky spires that surround this sanctum. At their bases, the barrier draws its energy, siphoned from the souls imprisoned here.”
I stiffened.
Valerica continued, matter-of-fact. “Three of the Ideal Masters’ servants, Keepers, tend to the energy at each point. Destroy them, and the barrier should collapse.”
Amon gave a single nod.
“We’ve already killed one,” he said. “Two remain.”
He turned to me.
And I knew exactly what was coming.
“You need to rest,” he said, quiet but firm. “Stay here. Let Serana and I handle the last two.”
I stared at him.
He wasn’t condescending. He wasn’t even smug.
He was just wrong.
“No.”
His brow twitched. “You’ve barely recovered from the first fight. You’re not—”
“No.” I stepped forward. “I’m not waiting while the two of you run off to face what’s mine too.”
Amon’s expression shifted. “This isn’t pride, Niolenyl. You have to wait here.”
“Say that to me one more time,” I gave him a sharp smile, brittle as frost. “and I swear, Keeper or not, I’ll show you exactly what I gave up to come here.”
Serana said nothing, just watched us both, quietly approving.
Amon let out a slow breath through his nose, gaze sharp, but he didn’t argue again.
He knew better.
We turned to leave, the barrier still pulsing behind Valerica, the path stretching out ahead into the endless violet haze.
Serana walked first, wordless but focused. I followed without hesitation, the frost at my core finally beginning to settle into purpose again.
Amon stepped behind me.
Then—
“Amon.”
Valerica’s voice stopped him cold.
He turned back slightly, his silhouette framed by the shimmer of the ward, but didn’t speak.
Her eyes found his, old, sharp, and full of everything she hadn’t said before.
“Keep her safe,” she said quietly. “As you always did.”
The air went still.
Amon’s face didn’t change.
But I felt something in him lock tight, a tension, old and buried, snapping back into place like a blade being sheathed.
He gave a small, solemn nod. Nothing more.
And then he turned.
Serana walked ahead, shoulders taut, saying nothing. Amon was just behind her.
And I kept thinking about what Valerica had said.
As you always did.
My eyes narrowed.
Why would he?
Why would he want to stop the Tyranny of the Sun?
He was a vampire, a different kind, but still one. The prophecy was designed for the likes of him. Eternal night. No more hiding. No more weakness. A world remade in shadow and blood.
He could’ve thrived under Harkon’s rule.
Instead… he helped Valerica flee. Helped Serana escape. Helped me walk into this cursed plane with a shard of soul rattling inside my chest.
Why?
It didn’t make sense.
Unless he wanted something Harkon didn’t.
Unless he had been fighting this from the inside longer than any of us realized.
But why?
Why would a monster like Amon care what happened to the world once the sun was gone?
Why would he help the woman who sealed her daughter away?
Why help Serana at all?
A chill skittered down my spine, and for once, it wasn’t from the Soul Cairn.
I didn’t have answers.
But the more I watched him walk ahead, silent and steady, the more I realized, I wasn’t ready for them.
I wasn’t ready to face the fact that Amon might not be the monster I thought he was.
Not entirely.
And nothing in this place scared me more than hope.
Every one of us stood in a perfect crescent beneath the vaulted ceiling of Clamcora’s lowest training hall, twelve children in clean robes and cold silence.
Fourth year, most of us. Some younger, though no one acted like it. There was no youth in Clamcora. Just ranks, reports, and long hallways that echoed with footsteps too polished to run.
The walls here were white-veined stone, cut to resemble Altmeri marble, though we all knew it wasn’t. Everything in Clamcora mimicked something purer. Higher. As if imitation could become truth through repetition. Even us.
Magister Larnielle stood at the center, his hands clasped behind his back, golden robes falling in fluid, deliberate folds around his ankles. His hair was too perfect, his face too smooth. He looked as if he’d been carved from alabaster and given a voice simply to condescend.
And when he finally spoke, it was with that effortless Altmeri elegance, as though every word had already been ratified centuries ago.
“Soul magic,” he began, his voice a low echo across the chamber, “is not taught for cruelty. It is taught for order.”
He paused to let the weight of that settle.
“It is a discipline of inevitability. You do not learn it to feel. You learn it to master what must be taken. Mercy has no place in mastery.”
A servant emerged from the shadows, wheeling in a long iron rack. Cages clattered softly atop it, the sound almost delicate in the hush.
The animals were still at first. Some too still. Others shifted subtly, ears flicking or chests rising in ragged breath.
They were small things. Fragile things. Hares with patchy fur. A fox with milky eyes. A squirrel missing one paw. A sparrow with clipped wings.
A dove.
Ash-grey with a streak of ivory across its breast. Its beak trembled as it looked up at me through the bars, but it made no sound. None of them did. They had learned better.
We were assigned at random. But the cruelty was never really hidden. Every Bosmer child in that room knew what all of them meant.
We were Pact-bound, even if our hands no longer remembered the shape of prayer. All animals were sacred to us. Sacred, not in metaphor, but in blood oath. In bone and root and breath.
And here we were.
About to cast a spell that would steal their souls.
A boy near the end of the line—Tiralin—lifted his hand slightly, a foolish twitch of instinct. I saw him hesitate, but it was too late.
Magister Larnielle turned, not irritated, but curious.
“Yes?”
Tiralin’s voice was barely more than breath.
“What… happens to the soul? When it’s trapped.”
A silence followed. The kind that pressed against your chest, waiting to see who would breathe first.
The magister tilted his head slowly, then took a few steps in Tiralin’s direction, folding his arms like a scholar preparing to dissect a mistake.
“It is suspended,” he said at last. “Frozen in the instant of death. Stripped of identity, severed from memory. It becomes… obedient. Inert. And therefore useful.”
He paused beside Tiralin, his tone softening like he was indulging a child.
“You ask because you want to know what becomes of the creature. But what you should ask is: what becomes of you, if you never learn to command what must die?”
Tiralin lowered his eyes.
Satisfied, Larnielle turned from him and made his way back to the center.
“You were chosen,” he continued, “not because your customs were compatible. But because they are not. Consider this an unlearning. A shedding of weakness disguised as reverence.”
A beat.
“Now, begin.”
We raised our hands in silence.
I felt the magicka begin to hum along my skin, cold and steady. I’d practiced Soul Trap a dozen times. It came easily now. I could already feel the arcane threads coalescing in my palm, reaching toward the waiting gem beside me.
All I had to do was cast.
But my hand didn’t move.
The dove stared up at me from behind the bars. It blinked once, then twice, wings twitching as it shifted its weight. It didn’t struggle. It didn’t cower.
It simply waited.
I stood there, magicka fading from my hand.
I couldn’t do it.
Not to this creature. Not for this reason.
Around me, violet light burst through the air, threads of magic binding to fur, to feathers, to limbs. The others were already casting. Most had already drawn their weapons. Light shimmered with each death. One soul gem after another began to glow softly, pulsing like stolen heartbeats.
Mine remained dark.
The dove fluttered now, its panic rising. It tried to fly, slamming into the roof of the cage with a soft, dull thud. Its wings beat against the bars, feathers catching in the gaps.
And still, I stood frozen.
Then I heard him move.
Larnielle’s steps were silent, but the air shifted with him. I only noticed a gleam of gold from the edge of my vision, his ring.
His hand struck hard and fast, the edge of the ring carving a sharp line across my cheekbone. My head snapped sideways, and the world tilted violently, just for a moment. Light exploded behind my eyes. I tasted copper. My lip split open, and something inside me folded in on itself.
I staggered, breath caught mid-throat, catching myself on one knee as the gem beside me glowed faintly with stolen light from the others.
He didn’t even raise his voice.
“Sentiment,” he said, as if diagnosing an illness, “is a flaw I will not correct twice.”
He turned away, already done with me.
“Those who hesitate fail. And those who fail,” he said, “are forgotten.”
The room returned to silence. No one moved. No one looked at me.
The dove struck the cage again, feathers flying loose, beak catching the bars until it began to bleed. It would destroy itself before it ever surrendered.
And then—
A single arrow.
It tore through the cage like lightning, silent, swift and absolute. Straight through the chest.
The dove collapsed.
And only then did I realize, Elamoril had already been holding his bow.
Had he seen it coming?
The gem beside the cage flared to life, vivid violet, perfectly sealed. Still warm.
Elamoril didn’t speak. He didn’t look at me.
He just lowered the bow and stepped back into line.
Magister Larnielle glanced at him once.
“Efficient.” he murmured.
Then turned to the next.
The lesson continued.
No one spoke.
I stood in place, half-bleeding, the skin of my cheek hot and throbbing, my lip stinging with every breath.
I looked at the body in the cage. At the stillness that followed the fight. At the pale wings folded like paper.
And then at the gem.
It pulsed softly. Quietly. Unnaturally warm.
I hadn’t taken the soul.
But it was still gone.
And for the rest of the lesson, as the others moved on to the next spell and the next kill, I said nothing.
Cold stone pressed close on either side, the air stale and unmoving, as if the castle itself had forgotten this passage existed. Water dripped from the ceiling at odd intervals, irregular, like a heartbeat that had long since bled out.
I moved forward slowly, boots crunching over old gravel and broken roots. The light behind us dimmed to nothing, and we walked in shadows thick enough to choke on. Serana took the lead, torch held high. Her silhouette flickered against the walls, tall, poised, unflinching.
Amon was behind me. Always behind me. His steps silent. His breath a ghost at my neck.
“This way curves toward the old courtyard,” Serana said quietly, her voice echoing off the damp walls. “If the gate hasn’t collapsed, we can bypass most of the castle and head straight to her study.”
Her study.
She hadn’t said her mother’s name once. Just her. Like she couldn’t bring herself to call her mother aloud.
I kept walking.
The passage twisted tighter, forcing us into single file. We passed rusted sconces, cobweb-laced corners, skeletal remains of long-dead servants, hunched where they’d collapsed, their backs against the stone as if they had simply given up.
“Why didn’t your father seal this off?” I asked.
Serana didn’t look back. “He tried. But he never knew about this tunnel. My mother had it built before she disappeared. It was her escape, not mine.”
A gust of foul air swept through the corridor, damp and sweet, like rotting fruit. I covered my nose. Ahead, a sliver of light broke through a crack in the stones.
Serana pushed forward, and with a shove, the half-rotted gate gave way to a burst of color.
Color?
My eyes adjusted slowly then widened.
The passage opened into what must have once been a garden. An open-air courtyard, flooded with vines and half-dead shrubs, long overtaken by nature.
We stepped out into overgrowth and silence.
The courtyard stretched wide beneath a broken sky, its walls half-choked by ivy, its once-grand stonework cracked and sunken beneath years of rot. Vines curled over shattered statues. Light filtered down through fractured glass in the ceiling above, casting a sickly green glow across the moss-covered ground.
It was… beautiful, in a way. A grave of something once noble. Once cared for.
Serana didn’t speak at first. She just stood there, looking around like she wasn’t sure she’d really come home.
“This used to be her sanctuary,” she said at last, voice distant. “When I was young, she spent hours here. Tending to the plants. Adjusting the dials. She used to say this place kept the rest of the castle at bay. Like the rot couldn’t touch her here.”
I looked around. The rot had touched everything.
I stepped onto the moss-slick stones, boots sinking slightly into dirt where the flagstones had cracked.
It felt abandoned. Like something had fled, and something worse had taken its place.
Behind me, Amon remained silent. But I felt it. His posture had changed.
“What happened to it?” I asked quietly.
“She left,” Serana said. “And no one else cared.”
She moved forward, slow at first, her hand brushing along a crumbling wall as if expecting it to remember her. I followed, eyes scanning the stone until they landed on a strange, circular platform nestled where the fountain should’ve been.
A moondial.
Or what remained of one.
The arc of stone was inlaid with pale metal rings, etched with lunar phases, waning, waxing, new, full, but several crests were missing, their sockets empty and dark. The gaps broke the alignment, leaving the dial fractured, unresponsive.
Serana crouched by the edge, running her fingers over the dust-caked symbols. “She always said the dial hid the way to her study. Said it would only open under the right moonlight, when everything was in its place.”
She turned to me, then to Amon, who stood off to the side, arms folded, eyes narrowed but quiet. “We need to find the missing pieces. The crests.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Three.” She rose. “They’d still be here. She’d have hidden them nearby, but not far.”
She turned her head slightly, just enough to glance back at the two Dawnguard soldiers standing idle like statues near the wall. “You,” she said, with no warmth. “Search the perimeter. Carefully. Look near the statues, in the flower beds, under the benches. My mother was dramatic. She liked hiding things in plain sight.”
Neither man hesitated. Neither spoke.
They moved immediately, almost gracefully, as if her words had triggered a command sealed into their bones. One veered toward the northern edge of the courtyard, the other toward a half-collapsed gazebo wreathed in dead vines. Not a word. Not a flicker of protest. Only obedience.
I watched them for a long breath. Then looked back at her.
“They really are yours.” I said softly.
She didn’t answer right away.
“They’re Isran’s,” she said eventually. “I just… borrowed them. And left my mark.”
“Do they feel it?” I asked. “Know that they’ve been—”
“No,” she cut in, sharp. “They’re not suffering. Don’t start mourning them.”
I looked away, but the unease stayed with me.
Amon hadn’t moved. Still silent. Still watching. Like the ruined garden was whispering something only he could hear.
As Serana began searching near a statue half-swallowed by vines, I wandered toward the broken garden wall. A stone bench lay overturned beside a dead rosebush, and beside it, something glinted faintly beneath the leaves.
I knelt and pulled it free.
A moon crest.
Silver and cold, shaped like a full moon, edges dulled by time.
“Found one.” I said, and Serana looked over, a flicker of surprise crossing her face, followed by something almost like gratitude.
She didn’t say it. But she nodded once, then turned back to the moondial.
I shoved the moon crest I’d found into my cloak pocket and turned toward a nearby alcove where an old trellis lay collapsed in a tangle of wood and rust. Something silver winked from beneath it. I knelt, cleared the debris, and pulled free the second piece—a half-moon, faintly warm to the touch.
“Two.” I said aloud.
Serana looked up, her expression unreadable.
A moment later, the soldier near the gazebo straightened, holding something small in his hand.
“The last one,” Serana said, walking toward him. She took the crescent piece without a word of thanks. He simply stood there, staring past her like a man underwater.
Then she returned to the moondial.
Each crest clicked into place with a soft metallic sound. The rings realigned with quiet finality, and for a moment, the air itself seemed to shift. A low, groaning hum vibrated through the stones beneath our feet.
And then the moondial split open.
A hidden stairwell unfolded, stone sliding aside in a smooth spiral, revealing a narrow descent carved deep into the earth.
Serana looked down into it, then back at me.
“She never wanted anyone else to follow,” she said. “But she knew someone would.”
I drew my cloak tighter.
“And now we do.”
Without another word, she descended into the dark.
The stairwell coiled downward, narrow and slick with frost, like the castle had grown roots beneath its own bones. The deeper we went, the more the air thickened, old blood and wet stone curling in every breath. No torches lit the way. Only the echo of our footsteps, and the sense that something in the dark was listening.
“This wing was abandoned long ago,” Serana whispered. “My father sealed it off after my mother left. Said it was cursed.”
“What a relief.” I muttered, tightening my grip on the dagger at my hip.
Behind me, one of the Dawnguard shifted uneasily. The other was silent, eyes vacant.
A low groan echoed from somewhere ahead. Not human. Not alive.
The stair opened into a crypt chamber, arched ceilings, shattered pews, dust motes drifting like ash. For a moment, I thought it was empty.
Then the gargoyle moved.
Stone cracked.
Wings spread.
And it lunged.
“Down!” I shouted, diving aside as the creature’s claws raked the floor where I’d just stood.
The Dawnguard fired first, silver bolts flashing, thudding into the thing’s torso. It roared but didn’t fall.
Amon was already there.
He moved like a shadow given form, silent, brutal and fast. He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t need to. His hand sank into the creature’s throat, claws tearing through stoneflesh like paper. Then his teeth, those fangs I never let myself look at too long, buried into its neck.
The gargoyle shrieked once. Then collapsed.
I didn’t watch the way he fed. I couldn’t. I turned instead, just in time to see another one drop from the ceiling.
“Serana!”
“I see it.”
She raised her hand, eyes glowing faintly violet. With a sharp gesture, a skeletal figure burst from the crumbling tiles at her feet, armed with rusted blades and blind obedience. Her other hand flung a pulse of necrotic magic toward the charging beast.
The gargoyle reeled, screeching, and Serana’s skeleton struck—one, two, three times, buying us precious seconds.
A shriek tore through the chamber.
Not gargoyle.
Vampires.
From the shadows they came, feral, hissing, their eyes glassy with hunger. Not the elegant kind who stalk ballrooms. These were leftovers. Mistakes.
One lunged at me.
I let it get close.
Then drove my silver dagger into its side.
It screamed, smoke rising from the wound as I twisted the blade. My sword followed, clean through its throat. It dropped at my feet, twitching.
A second rushed me from behind, but it didn’t reach.
Amon was there, shoulder colliding with its ribs, driving it into a pillar with bone-cracking force. Blood smeared his chin. His breathing was ragged, fast.
He looked at me, wild and grinning, fangs bared. “You always this graceful with a blade, or am I making you nervous?”
I scowled, parried another strike. “You flatter yourself.”
Another vampire vaulted from the balcony above.
We turned at the same time.
Back to back.
His arm brushed mine, slick with blood and warmth that didn’t belong to either of us.
I didn’t flinch.
I moved with him.
He reached up and dragged the attacker from midair with a snarl, tearing through the vampire’s throat with claws alone. I met the next one with a slash of silver that split skin from shoulder to hip.
We moved as one, strike, dodge, pivot. A rhythm neither of us spoke aloud but somehow knew.
He grabbed a vampire, claws sinking into its stomach. Tore upward. It shrieked and split open, spraying blackened blood.
I ducked and sliced the legs out from under the next one.
“Nice form,” he said behind me, voice dark with amusement. “You’ve improved.”
“Thanks. I’ve been picturing your face on every target.”
“Makes me feel special.”
We pivoted again, my sword carving through a ribcage, his hand cracking a skull like glass. I didn’t have to look to know where he was.
He didn’t speak again until our backs touched once more, breath brushing my ear.
“You feel it too,” he murmured.
“Feel what?”
“Us.”
He moved away after that, vanishing into the next wave like smoke.
But I felt it.
His grin in the dark.
His blood on my skin.
And the echo of something I couldn’t name tightening in my chest.
I leaned against the cold wall, breathing harder than I wanted to admit. My hands were steady, but only just. Blood, some of it mine, most of it not, slicked my fingers and spattered across my boots. The silence that followed was deafening.
Amon stood a few paces away, shoulders rising and falling in slow, measured rhythm. He didn’t look at me. Not this time. But I could feel him. I always could.
The Dawnguard moved like ghosts now, checking weapons, wiping blades, too numb to speak. Serana knelt near a shattered urn, sifting through debris for anything that resembled her mother’s presence, but her motions were automatic, hollow.
No one said a word.
The corridor behind us reeked of death. The one ahead reeked of something worse.
Still, my mind wouldn’t settle.
Not on the bodies. Not on the blood. Not even on the battle.
But on him.
The way we moved. The way we fit in the fight, like we were meant to fall into rhythm. Like he knew every inch of me before I struck, and I knew just how far he’d go before I needed to.
I hated that, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel alone in the violence.
A part of me wanted to lean into that heat, to forget what he was. To let the shadow he cast fall over me.
But another part?
The louder part?
Wanted to run.
Because if I started letting myself feel anything for the monster who bled beside me—
I wasn’t sure I’d know how to stop.
The stone beneath my hand was wet with condensation or sweat, I didn’t check which. I just stared at the next set of doors, still closed, and forced my breath to even out.
Keep moving.
The doors groaned open with a reluctant, grinding shriek.
Beyond them, the air changed, heavier, wetter, steeped in the stench of rot and damp fur. The hallway stretched narrow and uneven, carved straight through the bedrock, its ceiling bowed with age. Iron cages lined the walls, half-collapsed, their bars twisted like something had tried to claw its way out.
Serana muttered, “The kennels.”
I paused. “You kept dogs down here?”
“Not dogs.” Her voice was colder now. “My father bred death hounds. For sport. For punishment.”
A snarl echoed from the dark.
I lifted my sword. The Dawnguard men raised their crossbows. Amon inhaled slowly, a sound too close to a growl.
Then the first hound lunged from the left passage, black-skinned and gnarled, teeth like stone, eyes glowing a dim red.
It hit one of the empty cages hard, metal crashing as it rebounded, then launched at us.
The bolt from the nearest Dawnguard found its mark, straight between the hound’s ribs, but it didn’t fall. Just kept coming, snarling like something that had forgotten it could die.
I stepped forward to meet it. My blade arced down, catching its shoulder. It howled, twisting away, but not before its jaws snapped an inch from my arm.
“Down, mutt.” Amon snarled, then caught the beast mid-lunge.
His hands didn’t just strike, they crushed, claws sinking deep, twisting. He pinned the hound beneath his knee and broke its spine with a crack so loud the others froze mid-charge.
And then they came.
Two more hounds from the shadows. Behind them, three feral vampires, half-starved, half-mad, crawling across the ceiling like spiders before dropping into the corridor with shrill shrieks.
“Don’t let them surround us!” Serana shouted.
Magic flared in her hands. Her skeletal minion reappeared, a new one this time, this one armored in fragments of bone. It leapt to intercept one of the vampires just as a hound barreled into the Dawnguard soldier beside me.
The man went down hard, but his partner shot clean through the beast’s skull before it could finish the job.
The corridor turned into chaos.
I ducked under a vampire’s claws, slammed the hilt of my dagger into its jaw, then rolled forward and sliced clean through its ankle. It hissed and tumbled, only for Amon to leap past me, one hand catching the creature by the throat, the other driving it back against the wall with enough force to crater stone.
It shrieked. He didn’t flinch.
His eyes were lit now, bright, unnatural. A predator unmasked.
“Too slow,” he murmured to the dying thing. “Try again in the next life.”
I was behind him, spinning to meet another hound. It lunged and I —misstepped.
Its weight hit me full force, slamming me into the wall.
Breath gone.
Dagger lost.
It snarled in my face, saliva burning hot against my cheek.
Then something cold swept past me like a gust of winter.
Amon yanked the creature off me and flung it halfway down the corridor. It skidded into a cage with a crack of bone and metal.
I caught my breath, pushed myself upright. “I had it.”
His smirk was all fang. “You’re welcome.”
“Don’t make me stab you next.”
“Only if you mean it this time.”
Another vampire screeched and launched toward me but this time, I was ready.
I caught it mid-swing, driving my silver blade through its chest. It writhed, steam rising from the wound. I twisted the sword free just as Serana sent a spike of ice into its throat.
We stood over its body, panting.
Serana exhaled, lowering her hand. “That should be the last of this pack.”
The Dawnguard regrouped, bloodied but alive. One of them leaned against the wall, panting hard, face pale. “What… what were those things?”
“Unwanted pets,” Serana said grimly. “They’re what happens when vampires start breeding loyalty instead of earning it.”
Amon wiped his hands on his cloak. The blood smeared, darker than it should’ve been. “And they say I’m the monster.”
I glanced at him. Still riding the edge. Still walking that line between ally and threat.
But he had saved me.
Again.
I didn’t thank him. And he didn’t ask.
The hall beyond the kennels was narrower, colder.
The air didn’t just smell of blood anymore. It reeked of something older. Something wrong. Like the scent that rises from a sealed tomb when the lock finally breaks, dust, soul magic, and sorrow thick enough to swallow.
We moved slowly now.
The Dawnguard had drawn their weapons again, though their steps were uncertain. Even as thralls they walked with a faint jerk in their limbs, as if something farther ahead was pulling against them.
She was quiet.
Too quiet.
Her eyes were on the walls, where the stones had begun to change, no longer simple rock, but carved now, smooth and etched with faded runes. The marks looked burned in, not chiseled. Some glowed faintly, like veins under skin.
“This is the boundary,” she said at last. “The castle’s bones end here. From this point on, everything was my mother’s.”
“What is it?” I asked, slowing beside her.
She looked forward, not at me. “A study. A sanctum. A prison. Take your pick.”
Amon stepped closer to the wall, dragging his fingers over a set of symbols near the archway. They pulsed once beneath his touch, then dulled.
“She warded it with soul energy,” he muttered. “I can taste it.”
“You can taste magic?” I asked dryly.
He smiled without humor. “Only the kind that bites back.”
The path ahead dipped once, then opened into a short antechamber, a ceiling of low black stone, floor littered with shattered glass vials and dried alchemical stains. Shelves lined the walls, half-collapsed under the weight of old tomes and forgotten experiments.
And there, at the end of the chamber, stood the glow.
Pure magic, shaped into a surface like still water, flickering with violet light. A portal.
Or nearly.
A shimmering barrier hummed in its center, thin, sharp, and utterly impassable. I could feel it before I stepped close. Cold in a way no weather could be. Like standing on the threshold of something that didn’t want to be seen.
Serana didn’t speak. She just stared.
“I thought she was hiding,” she said quietly. “But this…”
Her fingers hovered just above the barrier, where the light flickered in response. Her voice faltered. “What is this?”
Amon stepped past her.
He didn’t hesitate. Just stared straight into the pulse and muttered, “It’s a gate.”
Then, as if the name had always lived in his mouth:
“To the Soul Cairn.”
Silence fell.
Serana’s head snapped toward him.
“What?” she asked, too sharp. “What did you say?”
Amon didn’t answer.
She stepped closer, tension bleeding into her frame. “You said that like you knew it. Like you’ve been here before.”
“I’ve seen its edge,” he replied, low. “Long ago.”
Her jaw tightened. “You said you helped her. That you gave her a way out. Did you mean… this?”
His silence was louder than any answer.
“You helped her escape?” Serana’s voice cracked, fury and disbelief tangled together. “From him? From me? You knew this was here, and you never said a word?”
“She asked me not to,” Amon said at last. Calm. Quiet. Almost regretful. “I kept her secret. Just as I kept yours.”
Serana’s mouth opened, then closed. The light from the portal painted her pale features in ghostlight.
“You helped her disappear,” she said. “You let her go, and let me believe she—”
“I protected her,” he said. “From Harkon. From everyone.”
She laughed. Bitter and brittle. “And now you follow her daughter around like a dog waiting for scraps.”
Amon’s eyes darkened.
“Careful.” he said.
I felt it then, the storm between them, years and secrets and ancient betrayals pressing in, louder than the hum of the portal.
I took a step back from both of them.
“Enough,” I said, voice low. “I don’t care who opened the gate. I care how we get through it.”
Serana turned to me, her fury fading, replaced by something tighter. Something old. She looked at Amon, not like an ally, but like a wound that hadn’t scarred right.
“You know more than you let on,” she said coldly. “You’ve been dancing around this place like it’s familiar. So stop playing cryptic god and tell us how to lift the damn barrier.”
Amon didn’t flinch. He stood still, arms folded, the portal’s glow painting sharp lines across his jaw.
“You want my help now?” he asked softly.
“I want the truth.”
He exhaled through his nose, slow, controlled, but there was tension in his posture, like even he wasn’t sure what would happen if he spoke.
Then, finally:
“This barrier was designed to reject the living,” he said. “It’s not a lock, it’s a wall built from intent. Valerica infused it with soul energy, layered with necrotic binding runes, and rooted it in Oblivion itself. No mortal soul can pass through it unchanged.”
“So what,” I asked, staring at the flickering wall, “we just die and hope for the best?”
“I see now,” Serana nodded softly, her lips curving into something too amused for the moment. “Shall I do the honors then, Amon? I think she would die rather than let you near her neck.”
There was a giggle in her voice now, light, but cold beneath it. The kind of laughter you throw like a knife.
Amon’s head snapped toward her.
“No.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
He stepped forward, eyes locked on hers. “She’s not turning. Not even partially.”
Serana narrowed her eyes. “Then do enlighten us, savior,” she said, folding her arms. “What’s your alternative? Or are you just planning to carry her over the threshold like a bride and hope the realm doesn’t notice?”
“There’s another way,” he said, voice tight. “The soul trap. I’ll handle it.”
Serana’s laugh was short and sharp. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll hold the vessel,” Amon said. “I’ve done it before. I can protect what’s hers until she returns.”
My heart hitched. The words came too fast. Too real.
I cut in before either of them could dig deeper.
“And what happens if you fail?” I asked, my voice tight. “If my soul doesn’t come back the same? Or doesn’t come back at all?”
Amon looked at me, truly looked. No grin. No taunt. Just something old and worn around the edges.
“I won’t fail.”
Serana stepped between us. “You expect her to trust you with that?”
“She’s trusted me with worse.”
I hated that it was true.
But the thought of becoming undead, of giving up even a piece of what still tethered me to who I was before, was worse.
Much worse.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat of him unnatural and heavy, like standing too close to a storm.
Then he raised a hand.
Slow.
Deliberate.
His fingers moved toward my face, and instinctively, I flinched.
Not much. Just a breath of motion.
But he paused.
Not all the way. Just enough to let me stop him.
I didn’t.
So he touched me.
Fingertips brushing my cheek, light as ash. Cold at first, then warm.
“You’ve already survived more than you should have,” he said, voice rough with something close to reverence. “You’re strong. You don’t need fangs to cross that gate.”
His thumb barely grazed the edge of my jaw.
“You just need someone to hold the line while you’re gone.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Because I wanted to pull away.
Serana scoffed quietly behind us, but said nothing.
Amon’s hand lingered for one more heartbeat, then he let it fall, like it cost him something to lift it at all.
I turned to the portal.
The barrier pulsed again, slow, rhythmic. Like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
The fire was little more than a ring of embers by the time I began folding my bedroll, but its last heat clung stubbornly to the air, like the words Amon had left me with.
An endless night.
It echoed in my head with the weight of something ancient. Heavy. Final.
I didn’t ask what he meant. Of course I didn’t.
I had stood there, arms crossed, spine straight, pretending I was unshaken. But I hadn’t slept. Not truly. Not since that moment. The phrase curled in my skull like a serpent, winding itself tighter the more I tried to dismiss it.
Endless.
It was such a dramatic word. The kind people like him used, cryptic, ominous, meant to intimidate. Or maybe it wasn’t just a word. Maybe it was a promise.
Or a curse.
My hands trembled slightly as I fastened the buckles on my pack. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t tired. I was afraid, though I’d sooner eat my own blades than admit it out loud. Because if I feared the thing he wouldn’t name, then I had already lost ground.
And I had lost enough already.
Behind me, Amon moved without a sound. As always. Leather whispering. Metal glinting. He had nothing left to pack, yet he moved anyway, walking, rearranging, pretending to be occupied.
Or maybe pretending not to look at me.
I hated that I could feel his eyes even when they weren’t on me. Like a second sun orbiting too close to burn.
I pulled my cloak over my shoulders, turning from him.
“It’s a few hours to dawn,” I said coolly. “Let’s get moving before you’re cinders.”
He glanced up at that, lips twitching with something close to a smile. Not amusement. Just recognition. Like he could hear the unease buried under my words but knew better than to name it.
Let him keep his riddles. I had my own.
The ride was quiet at first. The air sharp with cold, the trees thinning as the scent of salt began to creep into the wind. Amon rode ahead of me, his silhouette carved against the last edge of night. He hadn’t spoken since we’d broken camp.
And I had said nothing either.
Because I didn’t know what I would say.
How had I walked into this, riding toward something I didn’t understand, with a man I understood even less.
The wind howled through the thinning trees, cold and insistent. The scent of salt lingered ahead, coastal air, sharp and bracing. I could feel Amon’s eyes on me, even when I didn’t look his way. And then, like nothing was unraveling beneath our silence, he spoke.
“You’ve always been called Nio?”
The question was light, offhand, as if we were two old friends out for a casual ride. I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Were you always this much of a nuisance, or did you perfect it with age?”
He smirked, utterly unbothered. “I like to think I’ve refined it.”
A gust of wind cut between us, and for a moment, I let the quiet settle again. But not for long.
“How old were you,” he asked, still far too casually, “when you joined up with the Thalmor?”
I turned sharply toward him, my glare immediate and sharp. “I didn’t join them,” I said, my voice cold. “I was taken.”
He lifted both hands in a mock surrender. “All right. Just trying to understand.”
“You don’t need to understand,” I muttered. “You just like pulling at things to see what breaks.”
He shrugged slightly, unrepentant. “But you’re still talking to me. That has to mean something.”
“It means I haven’t figured out how to shut you up yet.”
His laugh was low, quiet, like I’d said something sweet instead of venomous. “You fascinate me.”
I nudged Shadowmere forward, a small burst of distance stretching between us. “Fascinate you, or just confuse you beyond repair?”
“Both,” he said without hesitation. “And I think you like that.”
I cast him a withering look, but the corners of my mouth twitched before I could stop them. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” he said, softer now, “here we are. And I’m not leaving.”
His words settled over me like another cloak, heavy, unwanted, but undeniably warm.
I should’ve let the silence hold. I didn’t.
“I had the chance to get rid of you once.”
His gaze flicked toward me, unreadable. “But you didn’t. And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.”
“It was a mistake.” I said flatly.
“Fair.” His tone stayed calm. Steady. “Mistakes sometimes take us exactly where we’re meant to go.”
I cut him a look. “Don’t go poetic on me. You’re still a liar. Still a monster.”
He tilted his head, that infuriating smirk playing at his lips again. “And you? Aren’t you just as ruthless?”
I held his gaze. No sarcasm. No smile. Just an unflinching reflection of something I didn’t want to admit.
“Maybe I am.” I said quietly.
The world around us hushed, the trees, the wind, even the sea itself seemed to pause.
His smirk faded.
And in its place: something quieter. Sadder. Real.
“Then maybe,” he murmured, “we deserve each other.”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t even scoff.
Maybe I didn’t want to deserve anyone. Maybe I couldn’t. But there was something in the way he said it. No venom. No charm. Just truth.
And I hated that I listened.
I wasn’t ready to forgive him. But the silence between us didn’t push him away.
The trees thinned at last, giving way to gray rock and the churn of waves. The scent of salt grew stronger as we rode closer to the shoreline. There, just beyond the bend in the cliffside, the jetty emerged.
Serana stood near the end of it, her cloak flaring in the wind like the wing of a raven. Beside her, two Dawnguard soldiers lingered, both armored, both armed, and both… oddly still.
I slowed Shadowmere as we approached. Something about the way the men stood caught my eye. Too quiet. Too stiff. Their shoulders squared, jaws slack, eyes faintly glazed with something almost… docile.
They didn’t look like soldiers prepared for battle.
They looked like they were waiting to be told what to feel.
Serana turned as she saw us, her lips curling into a smirk like we were late to a party she’d long since grown bored of.
“There you are,” she called. “And just before dawn, too. How romantic.”
I slid off Shadowmere’s saddle, watching the men out of the corner of my eye. One of them blinked slowly, lips parting like he’d forgotten where he was. The other shifted, but it wasn’t tension in his movement, it was aimlessness.
“Your guards,” I said under my breath, just loud enough for her to hear. “They seem… off.”
Serana glanced at them and rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t mind them.” She said it like it was nothing, like it was weather. “Isran insisted I bring help, so I found a few wide-eyed volunteers. Can’t say I expect them to last more than five minutes in that place, but—well.” She smiled, lazy and pleased. “We work with what we have.”
I looked back at the men. They were watching her now, rapt, empty, like moths drawn not to flame, but to something colder. Familiar.
Like they were… enchanted.
The word stuck in my throat, and for a moment, something twisted in my gut as I stepped closer to the jetty. I didn’t say a word. Neither did Amon. But I felt him watching me again.
And this time, I didn’t meet his gaze.
“Come on, boys,” Serana said, clapping once as she settled into the boat, her legs stretched and crossed like a queen on her throne. “Row on.”
I slid in beside her, cloak brushing the edge of the bench, and watched the Dawnguard men obey. No hesitation. No question. Each took an oar, movements mechanical, expressions vacant. Like they were born for this moment—and nothing else.
They rowed like their lives weren’t their own.
And maybe they weren’t.
And I sat there, wrapped in my cloak, trying not to shiver at the sight of it.
“So,” I said at last, turning toward Serana. “What exactly are we walking into?”
She gave me a sidelong glance, her fingers tapping lazily on the side of the boat. “Castle Volkihar,” she said, her voice smooth. “My father’s home. A rotting fortress tucked behind a frozen channel. It’s quiet. Isolated. Everything a paranoid old vampire lord could want.”
“And he lives there?”
“He reigns there,” she corrected. “Rules over whatever flock of sycophants and schemers he hasn’t drained yet.”
I frowned. “So we knock on the front door and hope he welcomes you home?”
Serana smirked. “Not exactly. There’s a side entrance. Old and hidden. He won’t expect me to use it. He’ll expect me to beg.”
“And you’re not going to?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
A beat passed before Amon’s voice broke through, low and flat. “This is what your stubbornness got us into.”
I didn’t turn to look at him. I didn’t have to. His presence always pressed too close, like heat against my spine.
“Bal forbid you take a moment to think,” he muttered. “No—you had to prove something. Had to throw yourself into the deep end. And now we’re being ferried straight into a nest of vampires who’d rip your throat out just to hear how you scream.”
I turned my head slowly, meeting his eyes with ice. “And yet here you are. Rowing with me.”
“I’m not rowing,” he muttered. “The thralls are.”
Serana snorted. “You two are exhausting.”
“Not half as exhausting as this suicide mission.” Amon shot back.
“Oh, relax,” Serana said airily. “We’re not dying today. Probably.”
I looked toward the distant cliff where a castle spire barely peeked through the mist.
“Probably.” I echoed under my breath.
Thralls.
They weren’t really here. Their bodies were, but their minds? Gone.
So this was what it meant to lose yourself.
Not to grief. Not to fear.
A will that wasn’t your own.
I watched one of them blink slowly, like a machine resetting. The other stared straight ahead, muscles straining, not a flicker of doubt or exhaustion in his face.
They weren’t tired. They weren’t thinking.
A flicker of unease curled in my gut, sharp and familiar. Vampiric persuasion. The kind that rewired thought. That pulled at will, twisted the soul beneath the surface without leaving a mark.
I’d read about it. Heard the whispers. But watching it in real time—
My throat tightened.
For just a breath, I wondered what it would feel like.
To have someone reach in and shift something.
To speak, and suddenly you’re nodding. Smiling. Leaning in closer, when you should’ve run.
Amon’s presence pressed on me like a second shadow, and I felt that flicker twist deeper.
”Amon is not like that.”
But what if—
No.
I forced the thought down. Crushed it.
Whatever magic he had, whatever tricks vampires used, I wasn’t that weak.
The boat scraped against something solid, and I jerked forward slightly as it thudded against the shore.
We’d arrived.
The chill hit me first, wet and sharp, curling in from the sea like claws, sinking straight to the bone. I stood slowly, cloak dragging against the damp wood as I stepped off the boat and onto the narrow spit of shore.
Mist clung to the rocks like rot, thick and heavy. The scent of salt was sharp, but beneath it lingered something more putrid, like damp stone and old blood. The kind that never fully washed away.
I lifted my eyes to the castle.
It rose from the cliffs like a wound carved into the sky.
A sprawl of black stone and jagged spires, twisted and sharp like broken fangs. Its windows were narrow slits that leaked no light. The tallest tower pierced the clouds, its peak shrouded in a halo of storm fog. The walls were slick with frost and shadow, as if the very stone refused to thaw.
It didn’t look like a castle.
It looked like a tomb that refused to stay closed.
Serana stepped beside me, arms folded, her face unreadable.
“Home sweet castle.” she muttered, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Amon said nothing. I didn’t look back, but I could feel him, his silence stretched long and taut like a bowstring. Waiting.
We started walking.
The path was narrow, half-swallowed by brambles and ice, winding along the cliff’s edge. The castle loomed closer with every step, its silhouette growing more monstrous, more impossible. I tried not to look up too often as it made the world feel smaller. It made me feel smaller.
We climbed in silence, boots crunching over frostbitten stone as the cliffside path narrowed to little more than a ledge. The castle loomed closer, vast and jagged, casting its shadow like a claw across the sea.
I glanced toward Serana. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“The courtyard,” she answered without turning. “There’s an entrance buried beneath it. Forgotten by most. My mother used it to hide… things. Secrets my father didn’t know about. Or pretended not to.”
I raised a brow. “And you think she left something behind?”
“I know she did.”
I didn’t press her further. I didn’t need to.
There was steel in her voice, and something else under it, something bitter. This wasn’t just a search. It was a reckoning.
Amon followed behind us, quiet as always, but I felt him watching. Every step. Every breath. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the boat, hadn’t made a single comment. Which, for him, was unusual.
The path ended in a crumbling arch half-choked with ice and overgrown thorns. Serana crouched, brushing aside a patch of moss to reveal old stones carved with sigils, faded now, but still visible beneath the grime.
“Help me with this.” she said, and I knelt beside her, fingers cold against the rough stone as we cleared it together.
Behind us, one of the Dawnguard thralls shifted his stance, a small, unnatural movement, like a puppet being tugged the wrong way. I didn’t look up.
Let them keep rowing in their heads.
After a moment, the sigil clicked under Serana’s hand, and the rock groaned low and heavy as a section of the wall creaked inward, revealing a dark, narrow tunnel that led straight into the heart of the castle.
She exhaled, straightening. “There it is.”
A gust of cold air breathed out from the tunnel, thick with the scent of damp stone and something older. Forgotten. I stood there, motionless, the threshold yawning like a mouth before me. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, not really. But this was different.
This was her darkness.
“How long has it been since you last came here?” I asked, my voice low.
“Too long.” she said.
Then she stepped inside, not waiting for us to follow.
I went next.
And behind me, I heard Amon’s boots scrape once against the stone then fall into step, just close enough to remind me he was there.
Just close enough to remind me this wasn’t only Serana’s family we were walking into.
My eyes found Serana’s, quiet, unguarded, and in that stillness, I felt something strange stir between us. A flicker of recognition, maybe even longing after isolation.
Then my gaze shifted to Shadowmere, standing tall on the edge of the clearing. Regal as ever. Her black coat caught the firelight like ink spilling through a dream.
I rose slowly, brushing the dirt from my palms.
“What are you doing here?”
Serana moved closer, letting the firelight catch the sharp lines of her face. She said nothing at first, only glanced around the camp with her usual blank expression, as if taking inventory of my solitude.
“I could ask you the same.” she said at last, her voice quiet, a shrug rolling off her shoulders like the comment didn’t matter. She sank down beside the flames, not for warmth, but out of something that almost resembled patience.
“Field work,” I muttered, folding my arms across my chest. “How did you even find me?”
She chuckled, soft, low, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Well…” she said, and laughed again, this time with a hint of amusement. “Truthfully, I was looking for him. But I figured where you are… he wouldn’t be far.”
My brow tightened. Him?
Before I could speak, she turned toward the shadows beyond the firelight and raised her voice, only slightly:
“Come on,” she called. “You’ve followed her long enough. Out.”
For a moment, nothing moved. The fire crackled, spitting embers into the dark, and all I heard was the wind curling through the trees.
Then, a faint rustle. A shift, like something breathing in the dark. A footstep, deliberate but soft. Gravel ground beneath boots.
And then, from the black edge of the trees, two mismatched eyes appeared, catching the light like cursed jewels. Amon stepped forward, his expression carved from frustration, his gaze fixed not on me, but on her.
He looked like he’d been standing there forever.
How long had he been trailing me?
Hours? Days?
I glared at him, my brows narrowing.
“Really?”
Amon didn’t so much as glance in my direction. His boots crunched softly over the earth as he approached the fire, expression unreadable, carved from something colder than stone.
“Why did you come?”
Serana tilted her head toward him, her mouth curling into a mock pout as she stood.
“Not happy to see me?”
His voice came low, tight with irritation.
“Not even slightly.”
She rolled her eyes in exaggerated disbelief.
“Oh? Is it because I interrupted your brooding-in-the-shadows act? Very dramatic, by the way.”
Amon didn’t answer. He simply stared at her, his gaze hard and unblinking with the kind of restraint that made the air feel heavier.
Serana huffed, her voice shifting tone. “Fine. I came with news.”
She looked between us, as if expecting more curiosity than we gave.
“Isran found someone. A priest, or whatever you want to call him, someone who can read the scroll.”
The scroll. Her scroll.
Still, neither of us reacted. Not with words. Not yet.
She went on anyway, her tone lighter than the subject deserved.
“The fool’s gone blind, can you believe it?” she laughed, soft and strange. Like it unsettled her more than she let on. “Said the scroll spoke of a prophecy. One that could end everything. Or prevent it.”
A beat.
“But we need more. We don’t know enough yet.”
Amon’s voice cut through her words.
“We?” His eyes narrowed. “You’re working with the Dawnguard now?”
Serana met his suspicion with a pointed stare, her arms folding across her chest in turn.
“That’s where you left me, isn’t it?” Her voice softened, a hint of something wounded beneath the defiance. “And it’s better than crawling back to my father. You know how he is.”
The whole exchange between them felt like a conversation in another tongue, one I had no desire to learn.
Her father. I knew only fragments: that she was royalty of a kind, a vampire of noble blood, cloaked in the kind of power that made mortals tremble. If her father was anything like her or worse, then he must have been a lord among monsters.
And Amon? Centuries old, just like her. Maybe more. There was a world buried in their words, one I had never walked and had no wish to tread.
I turned on my heel and made for the tent. The shadows inside suddenly felt preferable to the weight of their shared past.
“You’re on your own, I’m afraid.” Amon’s voice drifted low and final.
“You won’t help me?” Serana’s tone shifted, catching me mid-step. It softened to something that didn’t quite beg, but was close. “I need to find my mother. She must know something about the scroll, about the prophecy. I can’t do this alone.”
A pause.
“Sorry.” Amon’s reply was clipped, like he was cutting something off at the root.
My hand touched the flap of the tent but then I froze.
“Really?” Serana exhaled, her voice hollow with disbelief. “You’re sorry?”
When I turned, her face was alight with something I hadn’t expected: grief. Her amber eyes shimmered, fury buried beneath a sheen of unshed tears. She wasn’t just hurt. She seemed… betrayed.
“You owe me,” she hissed, stepping forward. “And you know it.”
She shoved him. Open-palmed. And Amon stumbled, not far, just a step, but enough for my breath to catch. I had never seen him stagger from another’s touch before.
“Years,” she spat, her voice rising, trembling. “You sat in that cursed court. Watched my father destroy everyone he ever loved. One by one.”
She shoved him again, smaller this time, almost shaking.
“And you ran, Amon. Like a coward. When we needed you most.”
I stood there, frozen in the firelight, watching as the image of him, this ever-watchful, ever-collected shadow, cracked under the weight of something older than any of us.
Amon. Sitting in a throne room. Wearing court colors. Watching a kingdom rot from within.
I couldn’t picture it.
I didn’t want to.
And yet — I couldn’t look away.
Something in me shifted as I watched them, not quite understanding, but unable to turn away.
Perhaps it was pity. Or perhaps it was the way Serana, always so sharp-tongued and sure-footed, now looked small in her grief. Her fists were pressed against Amon’s chest, trembling slightly, as though they were the only things anchoring her.
For a heartbeat, I thought he might wrap his arms around her. That he might soften.
But Amon only stared down at her. His gaze was cold. Icy, even.
“I didn’t run,” he murmured. The words were low, but steady. “I helped Valerica through all of it. And you know that.”
Serana looked up into his eyes, searching, or weighing. Measuring. She could read him, I realized. Knew him. Had known him, long before I ever saw his face.
Years, she had said. Years of court. Of survival. Of shared silence and shared enemies.
Something stung beneath my ribs.
A quiet, bitter ache.
Was it… envy?
She knew his history. His shadows. His shame.
I only knew the mask he wore.
“We need to find her,” Serana said, softer now.
Amon’s eyes flicked sideways. To me.
He saw me watching, I knew he saw the questions gathering behind my stillness. He stepped back, and her hands slipped from his chest like falling leaves.
“I suggest you let this go,” he said, the softness gone, replaced by dry finality. “Disappear. While you still can.”
Serana’s head snapped up, her voice sharp and breaking all at once. “And go where?” She took a step toward him. Her hands open and pleading.
“The world I knew is dust. Every place I once trusted has turned to ruin. Everything is—” her voice cracked, fragile in the firelight, “gone.”
And for the first time, I understood her.
Not as a vampire. Not as a royal.
But as a daughter left behind by time. A daughter cornered with nowhere left to run.
Maybe that’s why I flinched when her eyes turned to me, wet and furious.
“Who do you think sent them?” she asked, voice colder, pointed like a blade. “The vampires who dug me up?” Then she turned back to Amon, her anger sharpening into betrayal. “You dragged me out of that tomb. You know what that meant.”
Her breath hitched. “You confirmed what I feared. That he would never let this go. Never let me go.”
I didn’t want to sympathize.
But the more she spoke and the more her grief cracked open and spilled into the air between us, the more I recognized pieces of myself in her words.
The dread of being buried by those who claimed to own you. The ache of waking in a world that had moved on without you. The fury of watching everything you knew, everything you loved, turn to dust, as if your absence had never mattered.
Her father’s reach. My captors’.
The shadows were different, but the silence was the same.
And I didn’t blame her, not for clinging to what remained. Even if that fragment was Amon.
She held onto him like I had once held onto memory, bitter and inevitable. The only proof that something before this life had existed.
My voice left me before I had the chance to think better of it.
“You should help her.”
Amon turned toward me, his expression tightening as his brows drew together. He didn’t speak but I felt the shift in him. The tension of being addressed, seen.
I tilted my head slightly, holding his gaze.
“It sounds like you owe her that much.”
Amon took a step back, slow and deliberate, as though retreating not from Serana’s pain, but from the weight of it.
When he finally spoke, his voice was glacial.
“I have other priorities.”
The chill in those words hit harder than any silence. I felt my jaw tighten, not just in disbelief, but in something close to outrage.
Other priorities?
After everything Serana had spilled at his feet, all her grief, her fear and her plea, he answered her with ice.
I crossed my arms, the motion sharp, protective.
“And what are those?” I asked, my voice low. “Other than following me like a shadow?”
He turned to me then, and the shift was immediate, infuriating.
His eyes softened. A smile, faint and knowing, curved at the edge of his mouth.
“Well,” he said, as though the question amused him, “only that. Nothing more.”
That warmth. That glint of mischief. It wasn’t meant for Serana, it was meant for me.
And I hated that I felt it.
My arms stayed crossed, but something inside me cracked sharp, like ice underfoot. His smirk lingered in the space between us, infuriatingly calm. Like none of this mattered.
Like Serana didn’t matter.
I stepped forward, slow but deliberate, the fire throwing gold across the snow at my feet.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
My voice wasn’t loud, but it was cold. Cut with disbelief.
“That you follow me around for sport? For fun?”
Amon’s brows lifted, faint amusement flashing across his face like he was enjoying this. That alone made my blood rise.
“You dismiss her like it’s nothing, like she’s nothing, and then act like I’m meant to find that charming?”
Still, he said nothing. But his gaze stayed on mine, unreadable now. But I wasn’t finished.
I took another step. The fire caught the silver of my armor, the breath in my lungs growing tighter.
“She’s asking you for help. Begging you. And you just…” I exhaled sharply, struggling to contain the heat behind my words, “you smile. Like none of it touches you. Like you’re just watching.”
I shook my head. Anger wasn’t enough to name it, not the frustration, the exhaustion, the helplessness we all seemed to carry but he refused to admit.
And then I said it.
“If you’re going to keep following me, haunting my every step, then say it.” My voice broke through the stillness, harsh and true. “Say what the fuck you want from me. Or walk into the damn woods and don’t come back.”
The air around us crackled, not with magic, but something older. Rawer.
And this time, I didn’t flinch.
The silence between us thickened, taut as a drawn bowstring. The fire cast shifting shadows across his face, and whatever amusement had lingered there was long gone.
Amon stepped closer. Just enough to draw the tension tighter.
His voice, when it came, was low and unreadable, like a wire pulled too far.
“I want to know…” he murmured, gaze steady, “why you’re not like the others.”
That was all he gave me.
No clarification. No name. Just a quiet, unraveling truth.
I didn’t know what he meant, not fully. But the look in his eyes made me feel as if I’d thrown him off a cliff and he was still calculating how far he had to fall.
Before I could respond, Serana gave a low, incredulous whistle and muttered,
“By Molag Bal’s cracked spine…” She shook her head slowly, eyes wide with mock amazement. “She roasted you alive and now your little immortal ego can’t handle the heat. That’s why you’re spiraling.”
Amon didn’t even look at her.
Which made her grin wider.
“It’s fine,” she added with a shrug. “Happens to the best of us. You’ll heal. Or combust. Either way, fun to watch.”
I said nothing but I didn’t look away either.
Serana let her smirk linger for just a breath longer, but when she turned back to me, her tone had shifted.
“I still need help,” she said quietly. “I have to find my mother. She’s the only one who might understand how to stop what’s coming.”
I didn’t answer right away.
Not because I doubted her, but because something inside me twisted, something that had been coiling for days.
Astrid’s coin duties. The silent glares. The unspoken punishment that turned me into a messenger girl, a background shadow, after everything I had done. After everything I had survived.
Running errands for the Brotherhood like a stray dog that needed to be reminded of its leash.
I looked at Serana, bruised with memories, maybe as lost as I was, and for once, someone was asking for help because they needed it. Not because they were testing how far I’d crawl.
“I’ll help you.” I said.
The words felt like the first breath after surfacing from cold water.
Amon turned sharply, his voice cutting in like a blade. “Absolutely not.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He stepped closer. Not threatening, but firm.
“It’s not safe. You get involved in this, you become a target. It’s not worth it.”
I stared at him, this vampire who had followed me through fire and blood, and yet still thought he could choose where I walked.
“I decide what’s worth it.” Then, coolly:
“So unless you’re planning to chain me to a tree, back off.”
His jaw flexed. Behind him, Serana raised both brows and muttered under her breath,
“And she roasted you again.”
Amon closed his eyes for a moment. As if counting to ten. Or twenty.
And I smiled, just slightly.
Amon didn’t move, but his gaze narrowed on Serana, sharp and suspicious.
“I don’t believe for a moment that Isran just let you walk out of Fort Dawnguard on your own.”
Serana rolled her eyes with a dramatic sigh.“He didn’t.” She lifted a hand and gestured vaguely northward. “Two Dawnguard soldiers are camping a little ways from here. They’re supposed to keep an eye on me.”
Amon raised a brow. “Supposed to?”
“Please,” she snorted. “They wouldn’t last two seconds in the Castle. I need someone who actually knows how to survive.”
She turned back to me then, her tone shifting to business. “We’ll meet at the jetty. That’s where the boat to the castle is.”
I gave a curt nod.
“I’ll be there.”
Amon scoffed quietly behind me.
I turned toward him, arms crossed, one brow raised. “Oh. Now you want to be involved?”
His lips pressed into a thin line, but his silence was answer enough.
Serana smirked again.
“Careful,” she teased as she backed into the shadows, “I don’t think you can survive another round.”
And then she was gone, swallowed by the trees, leaving only the echo of her voice behind.
Silence settled over the clearing, broken only by the faint crackle of the fire and the wind slipping through the branches above. I stood there for a moment, uncertain. Not just about the priest, or the scroll, or the coming journey, but about the fear I had seen flash in Serana’s eyes.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t small.
My gaze drifted to Amon.
He wasn’t watching me.
He wasn’t watching anything.
He stood still, shoulders taut, gaze fixed somewhere beyond the trees, lost in thought. Troubled. For the first time since I’d met him… unmoored.
I stepped closer, my voice quieter than before.
“Care to tell me what her father’s really after?”
A beat passed. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
Then, slowly, he turned his head toward me and when he spoke, it was with a kind of stillness that made the fire feel suddenly too far away.
The war room smelled of heat and ash, but it wasn’t the brazier that made the air feel heavy.
It was the silence. The kind that presses into your lungs like a stone, thick and waiting. It didn’t buzz with tension. It listened. It watched. It waited to swallow the first word whole.
I stepped through the threshold, my boots brushing against the stone like I hadn’t been here in years instead of days. My armor was back on, tight, still slightly damp from the bath, clinging to my skin as if it, too, remembered the darkness. I didn’t feel clean. I felt dressed. Contained. Like a weapon forced back into its sheath before it had cooled.
Nazir walked ahead of me with the easy certainty of someone who knew he’d done what was right, or was prepared to defend it, tooth and nail, if anyone said otherwise. His silence wasn’t hesitant. It was bracing.
Astrid stood at the head of the war table like a statue carved in fury. Her arms crossed. Her jaw locked. Her shadow stretched long across the room, drawn by the flickering brazier behind her.
She didn’t look at me.
She looked at him.
“I didn’t give the order to release her,” she said, her voice flat and controlled, but sharp as a knife pressed just under the skin.
Nazir didn’t blink. “No. You gave the order to let her rot.”
“You think I don’t know what I ordered?”
“I think,” he said, taking a few slow steps toward her, “you thought a cage would fix what you couldn’t understand.”
Astrid’s mouth twitched, not into a smile, but something colder. Something like restraint barely holding back the need to draw blood. Her eyes turned to me, finally, and I felt the heat of them before I saw it.
It wasn’t disappointment.
It wasn’t confusion.
It was fury, concentrated, aged, sharpened like a blade kept for special occasions.
“You’ve been out of that cell for, what, an hour?” she asked, her tone as smooth as a dagger drawn in the dark. “And already you walk in here like nothing happened?”
“I’m walking like someone who’s alive,” I said quietly. “You should try it.”
Nazir’s head turned slightly toward me, not quite a warning, not quite approval, but Astrid didn’t even glance at him.
Her gaze stayed locked to mine.
“I gave you everything,” she said. “You were our pride. Our blade. The blade I pointed at the world when it needed to bleed.”
“I still am.” I replied.
“No.” Her voice sharpened. “You’re something else now. Something reckless.”
She stepped around the table, slow and measured, the firelight catching the trim of her black coat. “I sent you on a mission. You ignored my orders. Returned half-feral. And when I asked for answers, you stood there in front of me like a stranger. Like a rabid thing that couldn’t decide whether to bite or bow.”
I said nothing.
Because she wasn’t wrong.
But she wasn’t right, either.
Nazir spoke then, tone quiet but steady. “It’s done. You punished her. That part is over.”
“A few days in a cell isn’t punishment,” Astrid hissed. “It’s indulgence. She should be down there still, cold and crawling. But instead—” she turned on him now, “—you brought her out like nothing ever happened. Like she hadn’t spilled blood without a contract.”
“She doesn’t belong in a cage,” Nazir said, sharper now. “And you know it.”
“She doesn’t belong here at all,” Astrid said through her teeth. “Not anymore.”
Then, with a slow breath, she reached under a pile of documents near the war table and pulled out a worn, folded parchment. It was crumpled, sealed with wax, and singed at the edge like it had come too close to someone’s temper.
She walked over and threw it at Nazir. It struck the table’s edge and slid toward him.
“From Leona,” she said. “Yesterday morning.”
Nazir picked it up, eyes scanning. His brow furrowed. Then, without a word, he held it out to me.
My fingers closed over it.
And I read.
Dominion Embassy, Haafingar.
Formal reception interrupted by unidentified insurgents.
Casualties among Thalmor elite: severe.
Ambassador Elenwen confirmed dead.
Two survivors in critical care.
Stormcloak involvement suspected.
No traceable signs of Brotherhood activity.
It had worked.
Ondolemar had kept his promise.
He had buried my sins beneath their rebellion and lit the sky on fire so no one would see my shadow moving through the walls.
Clean, on paper.
But the words cut sharper than truth.
Astrid’s voice came like a blade to the throat.
“You want to explain this to me?” she asked.
I didn’t.
Because nothing I could say would matter.
“I told you,” I said finally, voice low. “He would make sure there were no witnesses.”
She laughed short, sharp, empty.
“Right. No witnesses. Just corpses stacked so high they blacked out the moon. And a Thalmor dignitary with diplomatic immunity dead in her own goddamn office. You made sure of that, didn’t you?”
Nazir looked at me now. Not in anger. Not even judgment.
Just disbelief.
“You killed them all?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
Because I didn’t need to.
He let out a breath through his nose. Then went quiet.
Astrid circled the table now, her boots striking the stone like a drumbeat.
“I could’ve salvaged one death,” she said. “Two, even. I could’ve spun a story. Smoothed the edges. You know how this works, Niolenyl. We leave stains, not floods.”
She came to a stop in front of me, voice softer now, but colder than ever.
“But you didn’t just disobey me. You turned it into a message. A massacre. And now the whole world’s watching. The Dominion is sharpening their blades. The war just shifted. And we, we are walking on glass.”
“They blame the Stormcloaks,” I said quietly. “It worked.”
“For now,” she snapped. “But someone will ask the right question. Someone will see the pattern. The precision. The efficiency.”
She leaned in.
“You think Ulfric has assassins that strike like that? You think they leave no tracks, no blood trail, no survivors?”
My throat was dry. But my voice held.
“They already believe it.”
Astrid straightened, her expression unreadable now. More mask than face.
“You should’ve been executed for this.” she said.
Nazir shifted not a full movement, just enough to put his body half between us.
But I stepped forward first.
“If you want me dead, Astrid,” I said, “you don’t need a report.”
She stared at me.
And for a moment, just one, I saw her decide.
Her fingers twitched.
Then stilled.
She turned away.
Her voice, when it came, was low.
“Get out of my sight.”
She didn’t scream. She didn’t throw anything.
She didn’t need to.
She had already done what she came here to do.
She had cut me loose.
Not from the Family. Not from the Night Mother.
From her.
From whatever bond we had once shared, the one that made her choose me, train me, trust me.
It was broken now.
And I could feel it.
Nazir waited by the door.
I didn’t look back.
The parchment crinkled slightly in my grip as I passed through the threshold.
There was nothing left to say. Only the echo of the truth. And the price of being the blade.
After that day in the war room, I stopped being a blade.
I wasn’t exiled. That would have been simpler and cleaner. Final.
No, Astrid gave me something worse.
She gave me coin duty.
Not contracts. Not kills.
Coin.
I was sent to collect payments from completed assassinations, contracts carried out by others, rookies still wet with fear. I was tasked with retrieving satchels of gold and signed names.
No map.
Just a folded note and the weight of a silence that had stopped being sacred.
So I made my own camp.
A clearing east of Whiterun. Close enough to be useful. Far enough that no one would stumble across me by mistake. I gathered the stones, staked the tent, lit the fire, and did not speak for days.
This was what she wanted.
Not a reprimand. A reduction.
Her Silencer, crouched over a ledger by her own firelight, waiting for Brotherhood contacts like a glorified errand girl.
I told myself I didn’t care.
But I did.
I cared the moment I walked into a tavern and watched a contact flinch at the sight of me, like I was a creature too dark for daylight.
I cared when the poisoner from Windhelm handed me a pouch of coin without meeting my eyes, then thanked me for “coming all this way” like I was some courier in a traveling cloak, not the reason contracts got signed in blood to begin with.
I cared when my hands smelled more of parchment than steel.
It was late now. The fire was low, the stars veiled in heavy cloud. My tent leaned slightly to the right, the ground beneath uneven, but I didn’t fix it. Let it lean. Let it sink.
I sat still, knees pulled close, cloak drawn tight. I had long since stopped feeling the cold. The wind moved through the trees, brushing branches like a breath too soft to follow.
And then—
A sound.
Hooves.
Slow. Unhurried. Precise.
Not clumsy like a merchant. Not armored like a patrol.
Something… else.
Shadowmere stepped into view like a phantom conjured from my memory, red eyes glowing faint against the dark, breath steaming in the cold air. His coat shimmered black. His movement: silent.
And upon her back—
Serana.
She dismounted without ceremony, her cloak falling around her like ink in water.
She looked at the camp without expression.
“You’re hard to find,” she said softly. “But not impossible.”
I didn’t rise.
I didn’t flinch.
I only stared as the vampire walked forward, shadow trailing behind her like something alive.
She stopped near the fire.
Met my eyes.
And said as she tilted her head, “You look like someone who’s forgotten she was dangerous.”
It had been days since Astrid sentenced me to the dungeons, an unspoken decree masked as discipline, cloaked in the vague promise that I would remain here until I “remembered who I was.” But what she truly meant was clear: until I remembered to whom I belonged.
And I didn’t.
Or perhaps, on some level, I did. But it made no difference. Aside from the occasional offering of food and water slipped beneath the bars, there was no mercy in my captivity. No comfort in the shadows. Yet I refused to beg. I wouldn’t give her that. If she was waiting for a plea, she would wait forever.
I hadn’t touched the book since that first moment. It still lay where I had left it, cold and motionless on the stone floor, as if it had been waiting to be claimed and feared all at once. I couldn’t bring myself to reach for it again. I was afraid of what it might awaken. Afraid that the moment my fingers brushed its cover, the memories would surge forward, fierce and merciless!and I would remember too much.
And that terrified me more than forgetting ever had.
Fen came by each day, her steps muffled on the stone, her smile always present, if a little strained. Astrid, in all her twisted authority, had reduced her to stable duty, calling it discipline, though everyone knew it was just humiliation dressed in tradition. No contracts. No purpose. Just shoveling straw and saddling horses while others killed in the name of the Night Mother. Still, Fen never made me feel like any of it was my fault. She never looked at me with pity. Only that soft, persistent light in her eyes, as if she still saw someone worth showing kindness to.
She’d sit beside my door, humming or chatting about the happenings above, though there wasn’t much news to share. Lately, it seemed the only thing anyone talked about was me. My fall from grace. My silence. My punishment.
There had been no trial. No chance to speak. Just a quiet command, and then the sound of the lock sliding into place. Some whispered that I deserved it. Others murmured that it was excessive, cruel even. But none of them dared say a word to Astrid.
Amon came and went with his usual elusiveness, though “came” might be too generous a word. He’d appear in his cell one evening, and by morning, he’d be gone again, swept away to another contract like smoke slipping through fingers.
But this time, he was gone longer. Two days, maybe more, if I was still keeping track of time correctly down here.
Part of me wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d vanished entirely. If this place had finally driven him away.
When he would return, I would keep my silence, as always. I spoke to him only when absolutely necessary and I made sure nothing ever was. He tried, of course. To prod. To provoke. Sometimes with sharp-edged humor, sometimes with something that almost resembled concern. But I never gave him more than five words in reply. He hadn’t earned more than that.
He didn’t deserve to be my confidant, just because we shared the same stale air. Or because his voice, at times, softened. I could never know when he was being genuine, and that was the danger. Amon lied the way others breathed, smoothly, effortlessly, without shame or hesitation. He was intelligent. Persuasive.
Still, he didn’t press. Not anymore. He kept his distance, respectful and restrained in a way that surprised me. He didn’t invade my space. Didn’t try to push past the silence I wrapped around myself like armor.
And for now… that was enough.
Time had a cruel way of stretching when you were left alone. Each second hung heavy in the air, drawn out and sharpened by the silence.
A silence that didn’t simply exist, it listened. It watched. And when it breathed, it did so with teeth.
Above me, the iron groan of the dungeon door broke through the stillness.
I didn’t lift my head. But I listened.
Bootsteps. Measured. Heavy. That faint drag of leather on stone, betraying the worn-down heel of the left boot.
Amon descended the stone steps with his usual quiet arrogance, as if the weight of the world had never touched him. I didn’t need to look up to know the guards stepped aside. No one spoke.
Perhaps they knew, you don’t speak to a storm. You brace for its passing.
The door to his cell opened with a dull clank. Then, a breath of silence. Heavy. Pressurized.
He stepped in.
The door shut behind him, locking him in the dark with me like some cruel ritual we both endured. For a moment, there was only the faint rustle of his breath, steady and calm, like nothing could ever reach him.
Then he broke the silence.
“Poor bastard,” he muttered, almost to himself.
I didn’t answer.
“He cried,” he continued, quieter now. Contemplative. “Didn’t scream. Just sat there. Asked if I could send a message to his sister.”
I still didn’t look up. But my ears caught the soft creak of leather as he removed his gloves slowly, deliberately, one finger at a time.
“I told him I would, of course,” he went on. “Didn’t say the message would be written in blood.”
There was a heavy thump as something hit the floor, his chestplate, most likely. I stared at the straw scattered beside my cot, willing it to hold my attention.
But then I heard the scrape of fabric.
The wet pull of a shirt dragged over a broad back slick with sweat and something darker.
I didn’t want to look.
But I did.
And I forgot how to breathe.
His back was caught in the amber light of the torch, shoulders broad and cut from discipline, muscles shifting like poetry in motion. His skin was pale, unmarred where the fire touched it, like something carved, not born.
Until I saw them.
Scars.
Tiny. Countless. Scattered across his back in dense constellations, too many to count, too raw to forget.
The air thickened around me.
I remembered the sound of frost cutting flesh. Of the scream behind his teeth as the shards struck him.
I had done that.
I had driven them into him. A spell of wrath, desperation, or vengeance, I no longer knew. I had thought it left no mark. He never told me they scarred.
My head turned away too fast, and my breath caught mid-thought. I hated the sound of it. Hated that he’d made me forget to hide.
“Something wrong?” he asked, voice low, laced with amusement.
Bastard.
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. Let the cold return to my voice. “Your shirt’s on the floor.”
He chuckled, deep and rich. “Would you like me to pick it up?”
“You could at least pretend to have shame.”
“I don’t have to pretend for you.”
I looked back down at the floor, fingers still twisted into the fraying edge of the straw mattress. It gave my hands something to do. Something to hold, while the rest of me tried not to come undone.
He sat at the edge of his cot, bare back to me, elbows resting on his knees. The torchlight traced the contours of his spine, and for a while, he said nothing.
Then, with unhurried precision, he reached for a cloth and began to wipe the blood from his leather bracers—red smears, dried at the edges, glinting faintly in the low light. He didn’t hurry. He never did. Every movement was fluid, deliberate, almost reverent.
“You know,” he said after a long pause, his tone different now, calm, but edged. “This whole thing… Aren’t you tired of it?”
I didn’t answer.
“Being her favorite,” he went on, methodically working at a stubborn stain along the stitching. “Then her weapon. Now her prisoner. Doesn’t the whiplash exhaust you?”
I clenched my jaw. “I didn’t ask for commentary.”
“It’s not commentary,” he replied without missing a beat, his eyes still on the armor piece he was scrubbing clean. “It’s a question.”
I didn’t look at him. “If you don’t like it here, Amon, you can leave. You’ve done it before.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than his footsteps. The kind that dragged the air down with it.
Then I heard the creak of leather as he stood, slow and measured. He crossed the floor with quiet steps, bloodied rag still in hand. I didn’t need to look to feel him near, close to the bars, close to me.
“You think I stay because I can’t leave?”
“I think you’re dramatic.” I muttered, not daring to lift my gaze.
He laughed softly, melodic and low, tilting his head back so the torchlight caught the steel rings in his ears. They glinted like ornaments on something dangerous.
“I’m just waiting.” he murmured, voice drawn out like a secret.
“For what?” I shot back. “To see when your torture will finally kill me?”
His eyes darkened, not with rage, but something quieter. He stepped even closer, until the memory of his past trespass, of how easily he’d appeared inside, made the hair on the back of my neck lift.
“Torture?” he echoed, tilting his head to the side, still holding the blood-stained cloth in one hand. The scent of iron clung to him like smoke, violence and leather, sweat and steel. “Is that what I’ve been doing to you?”
He let the question hang there between us, gaze fixed not on my eyes, but somewhere lower. Somewhere unspoken.
Then, with a slow grace that made my breath catch, he brought the cloth to his collarbone and dragged it across his skin—wiping away a smear of blood that had dried just above his heart.
“You wouldn’t be so bothered,” he murmured, “if you didn’t enjoy it a little.”
I stilled.
My grip on the straws tightened, but I didn’t speak. I didn’t move.
His eyes lifted, meeting mine across the dim space. Torchlight danced along the curve of his smirk—half shadow, half hunger.
“You’re always watching,” he added, almost gently. “Even when you think you’re not.”
My throat felt dry.
“I watch to make sure you’re not behind me with a dagger.” I said coldly, forcing steel into my voice.
Another low laugh escaped him, dark and pleased. “Of course you do.”
Then he leaned a little closer to the bars, the scent of blood still on his skin.
“And yet… here we are. You, watching me. Me, waiting for you.”
His voice dropped to something molten, dangerous.
“I wonder which of us is more tortured.”
My breath stayed trapped behind my teeth, tight and sharp in my chest. I refused to let it out, not while he was watching me like that. Like I was something he’d already peeled open, laid bare under his gaze, waiting to be devoured.
I told myself I wasn’t affected. That the heat crawling beneath my skin was only torchlight, that the quickening of my pulse meant nothing. But I could still feel it, him, coiling in the space between us, winding around my ribs like smoke that knew how to burn.
But this… this was different.
There was something heavier in the way he looked at me now. Like he wasn’t amused anymore. Like whatever game he’d been playing had suddenly turned serious and I hadn’t been told the new rules.
I hated him for that.
I hated myself more for wondering what he’d do next.
I wasn’t sure what scared me more—that he would cross the line.
Or that I wanted him to.
Then—crack.
The dungeon door above shot open with a sharp metallic groan that echoed like a scream down the stairwell.
I flinched, instinct pulling me inward as boots thundered down the steps.
“Open the goddamn door!” Nazir’s voice exploded into the dungeon, livid and unyielding.
The guard near the cells jolted, dropping his dice in alarm. “O-of course, Listener!” he stammered, scrambling with his keys. “These were the orders of the Speaker, I—I didn’t—”
“I don’t care if the Night Mother herself whispered it in your ear,” Nazir growled. “Open. Her. Door.”
Amon hadn’t moved. He just stood there as if nothing had happened, blood still on his skin, smirk still ghosting his mouth, but his eyes flicked once, sharp and unreadable, to me.
Like he was memorizing something.
Or like something had just been taken from him.
I shot to my feet the moment the cell door groaned open, straw scattering beneath me. My steps were swift, instinctive, drawn to the sound of Nazir’s voice like breath returning to lungs too long starved.
He met me halfway, his hands finding my shoulders with a careful steadiness that made something inside me tremble. His eyes roamed over me—not just checking for bruises or blood, but for something deeper. As if trying to see whether my time in the dungeons had left a mark beneath the skin. A bruise where no one else could see it.
“Are you alright?” he asked gently, though his voice was tight with anger barely contained.
I gave a small nod, lifting my chin to appear composed. I didn’t trust my voice just yet.
“I can’t believe she’s gone this far—”
“I’m fine, Nazir.” I cut in, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. But it was enough. His expression softened, jaw unclenching as he breathed out through his nose.
“Throwing you down here like you’re nothing—like you’re some pathetic little insect—”
“Ahem.” Amon’s voice rolled across the space, low and amused as he tilted his head. “I am still here, you know.”
Both Nazir and I turned our eyes toward him in unison, sharp and unamused. A single glance was all we spared him.
And yet, the weight of it lingered.
Nazir turned back to me, his voice quiet but firm. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He gave me a gentle nudge forward, one guiding hand between my shoulders as he led me toward the stairs. His touch was warm. Grounding. Protective in a way I hadn’t realized I missed.
But I couldn’t help it. I looked back.
Just once.
Over my shoulder, from the corner of my eye, I saw Amon watching us ascend. His shirt still discarded. Blood still faint on his skin. That half-smirk still curling at the edge of his mouth, like a secret left unsaid.
His eyes.
Cold. Certain.
And swearing to ruin.
The air upstairs felt heavier than the dungeons.
Dense, as if it had absorbed the silence from below and turned it into something thicker. Something that clung to my skin.
We walked through the halls without a word, but the sound of us carried. The soft tread of my boots. The firmer, more decisive step of Nazir beside me.
And the murmurs.
They began the moment we passed the first corner. Voices low and strained, hushed with purpose. Like a rumor breathing just beneath the surface.
I didn’t need to hear the words to know what they said.
“There she is.”
“Thrown in the dark like a rabid dog.”
“Why did he go down there?”
Nazir said nothing, but I could feel his jaw clenched tight beside me. His hand hovered at my back not quite touching, but present. He was ready to catch me if I stumbled. Or to push someone aside if they came too close.
Eyes followed me. Some avoided mine entirely. Others watched openly, curious or cold. I didn’t flinch. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
I kept my spine straight, my steps steady, my expression unreadable.
Nazir didn’t stop until we reached the corridor I hadn’t seen in days. My door stood closed, untouched. For a brief, impossible second, I feared it might not open, that something inside had changed while I was gone and wouldn’t welcome me back.
But Nazir pushed it open.
The room was just as I’d left it. Still. Quiet. Mine.
He stepped inside with me, but only far enough to shut the door gently behind us.
“Sit.” he said, his voice finally softening.
I didn’t. Not yet. I stood there in the middle of the room, looking around like a stranger.
Nazir watched me for a moment longer before speaking again, quieter this time.
“She shouldn’t have done that to you.”
The silence returned, thick and familiar.
“Rest,” he murmured. “You don’t have to talk about it. Not now.”
He turned to go, hand on the door, but paused.
He turned to go, hand on the door, but paused, caught between leaving and lingering.
I broke the silence.
“About Fen…”
His hand stilled on the handle, but he didn’t turn.
“Already dealt with,” he said simply. “She is on a contract. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you walking these halls again.”
The words eased something in my chest, just a little.
Fen had been caught in the crossfire of my punishment, made to smile through her own humiliation just to keep me company in the dark. She hadn’t said it, but I’d felt it. I’d felt guilty.
Now, maybe, I didn’t have to.
I nodded, mostly to myself.
“Thank you.” I murmured.
Nazir lingered a second longer, as if debating whether to say more, but he didn’t. He only dipped his head in quiet reassurance and slipped out the door, leaving me to the hush of my room.
It was strange, standing in this space again. Everything familiar, untouched, like it had been waiting for me to return. The bed was still made. My cloak draped over the chair.
I sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, staring at the grain in the wooden floor until the thoughts stopped spinning and the world, for the first time in days, stopped pulling me apart.
My hands rested in my lap, palms empty, fingers twitching slightly, as if they were meant to be holding something. Turning a page. Gripping a dagger. Drawing blood or breath or both.
And then I remembered.
The books.
Still in the dungeon, lying where I left them in the straw. One of them, the one I had meant to study, meant to understand, was the dictionary. The one that whispered in the language of the dragons. The one that looked back at me.
I had left it there.
Forgotten it completely in my rush to follow Nazir, to leave that place behind, to breathe again.
I exhaled now, slow. Shaky. But not panicked.
Perhaps that’s a good thing.
Perhaps it was better this way. To leave it down there in the dark, untouched. Unread. Unanswered. Let it rot with the straw and the blood and the cold.
If I didn’t open it again… if I didn’t chase the voices, the meanings, the half-memories that stirred whenever I heard that language—
—then maybe it would stop.
Maybe I could be normal again.
I closed my eyes.
Maybe I could forget what had happened. The weight of that voice behind my ribs. The way it sounded like truth wrapped in thunder. The tremble in my hands after I understood even a fraction of it.
Maybe the book could be forgotten, like a dream dissolving with the dawn.
Left behind.
Abandoned like a nightmare I didn’t want to carry into morning.
I drew my legs up onto the bed and curled to my side. The room smelled faintly of smoke and lavender. Outside the stone walls, footsteps passed, people whispered, life moved on.
I closed the book like it might burn me. Not out of reverence, but fear.
My fingers hovered over the cover for a moment too long. My skin still felt warm from the steam of the bath, but inside, something had turned cold. The kind of cold that didn’t belong to water or air. The kind that started in your bones when you realized the ground beneath you wasn’t solid after all.
Force is yours.
I didn’t want to hear it again, but I did. The words were there, behind my ribs, behind my teeth, behind everything. Whispered not in Tamrielic, not in any tongue I’d been taught, but in that language. That voice.
It wasn’t madness.
It had never been madness.
I had been trying to claw those voices out of my mind for some time now, fighting them, fearing them, curling into myself whenever they came too close. But they were speaking a language. A real one. Ancient. Terrible.
Dovahzul.
The language of dragons.
The language of the dead mountain gods who bent the sky with their breath.
I pressed my hands to my temples, eyes shut, willing the room to stop spinning. But it wasn’t the room. It was me.
They had been speaking to me. Not just speaking, but commanding. Blessing.
What did they want from me?
Why me ?
My heart pounded like it was trying to escape. I curled into myself, legs drawn close, my chin resting against my knees like I was a child again. That part of me, the small part, the old part, wanted to scream. To sob. To forget. But forgetting wasn’t an option anymore. The moment I read those words, something inside me had shifted. It wasn’t just knowledge.
It was recognition.
Like something long asleep had opened one eye.
My lips parted. I could still feel the shape of the words there. Fus… kos… hi…
I bit down on them.
“Don’t tell me you’re crying over a dictionary.”
The voice was amused. Dry.
I didn’t look up at Amon. I couldn’t. My body might have been still, but my mind was fraying at the seams.
He shifted in his cell, I heard the rustle of his coat, the familiar scrape of his boot against stone. “Did you get scared of it?” he continued, tone playfully mocking. “What was it? Big words? Or is there a particularly offensive preposition on page forty-three?”
Still, nothing from me.
My fingers slowly curled against the pages, crumpling the edge. I didn’t feel the pressure, just the trembling.
“…Niolenyl?”
The shift in his tone was subtle but instant, no longer entertained.
A beat passed. Then another.
“Nio,” he said again, softer this time. “What is it?”
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to speak. I wasn’t ready to say aloud that the voices hadn’t been delusion, that the language of dragons had been haunting me for weeks, curling like smoke through my veins.
“I’ve heard it before.” I whispered, finally.
Silence.
Then— “Heard what?”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t.
The words had always been faceless. I believed they were madness, echoes of trauma, residue from too many nights curled in blood and silence. But now, now they had shape. Language. Meaning.
I kept my knees tucked to my chest, cape draped over my shoulders doing little against the chill that had nothing to do with the air. The bars between us might as well have been glass, I could feel him still, just beyond it. Like heat from a fire I wouldn’t turn to face.
Then, finally, his voice again.
Low. Careful. Feigning casual.
“Maybe get some sleep?”
A pause.
“You’ve had a rough night.”
Another pause, then a faint shrug in his tone. “I’d say you’ve earned a nap.”
I exhaled, quiet and sharp. Not quite a laugh. Not quite anything. Just breath.
He was trying. In his own way. Threading humor through the silence like stitching through a wound, careless, sometimes, but better than letting it bleed.
Amon never did silence well. He filled it with smirks and shadows, with the sound of wine being poured or blades being drawn. But tonight, he let most of it stand.
Because he knew I wasn’t ready to fill it.
“You don’t have to tell me what it was,” he added after a moment. “Whatever it is that’s crawling under your skin. You will when you’re ready.”
Another rustle as he shifted again. Metal softly clinking. The creak of old leather and chain.
“But you should rest. The world’s not ending before sunrise.”
A beat.
“And if it does… well. Wouldn’t want you to face it sleep-deprived.”
I let my forehead press against my knees, the cold iron of my thoughts dulling just slightly at the warmth in his voice. It was a strange thing, to be soothed by someone like Amon, a creature carved from night, from teeth and blood and terrible choices.
A part of me wanted to speak. To whisper that I was terrified. That something was coming for me, or worse, coming from me.
But if I said it aloud, it would be real.
And right now, I wasn’t ready for it to be real.
So I stayed quiet.
All my life, I’d fought monsters I could see, blades, poisons, eyes in the dark. I knew how to survive those. I could cut them open. Burn them down. But this? This was something inside me. And I had no name for it. No weapon. No plan.
Only questions.
Was I being marked? Summoned? Cursed?
Was I going mad?
The next time I opened my eyes, the fire was lower. The torchlight had grown long and strange on the walls. A heavy bootstep echoed across the dungeon floor, deliberate, measured.
Then another. And another.
I blinked, still half-caught in whatever shallow sleep I’d managed. For a moment, I thought I was dreaming again of stone halls, of voices, of words I couldn’t escape.
But this was real.
Astrid’s voice cut through the shadows, smooth and sharp like a blade drawn just past the throat.
“Get up.”
Metal clinked. A cage door swung open.
I sat up fast, the cape falling from my shoulders. My eyes adjusted to the figures now stepping into the torchlight, Astrid, flanked by two of the brothers. Her black leathers caught the gold in the flame. Her face unreadable. Her gaze locked not on me, but on Amon .
He hadn’t moved yet. He still sat in the same place, legs stretched out, hands resting loosely on his thighs. Watching.
Astrid nodded toward the door of his cell.
“Go see Gabriella,” she said flatly. “She’s got something for you.”
A contract.
Of course.
The wheel never stopped turning. Even now.
Amon didn’t move.
His eyes shifted to meet mine, and for a moment, I couldn’t quite place what I saw in them, not just defiance, not just disdain. Something heavier. A question wrapped in tension. A clenched jaw. As if he were searching for an answer in me. Should I go?
“I said—”
“I heard you.” he interrupted, voice low but steady. His gaze didn’t leave mine. Still waiting. Still asking. For what?
Permission? Reassurance? Forgiveness?
I didn’t speak. I only gave a faint nod, barely more than a breath.
Do as she says.
That was all he needed.
He rose from where he sat, slow and deliberate, and stepped toward the threshold of his cell.
“It would be better if I had—”
“Take him.” Astrid snapped, cutting him off before the sentence was finished. She didn’t look at him after that.
The brothers stepped in, each seizing him by the arms like a prisoner and began dragging him toward the stairs.
He didn’t resist.
But just before he disappeared into the shadows above, he turned his head. His eyes found mine one last time.
I lowered my gaze.
Let them.
I knew what he was. I’d seen him rip vampires apart with his bare hands, teeth, flesh, bone. There was nothing fragile about Amon. Nothing that should ever be pulled or dragged.
And yet, he let them.
He bore it all.
Why?
As the footsteps faded up the stairs, Astrid stepped closer to my cell.
I could see the tip of her boots just beyond the bars, polished and sharp, and I could feel her gaze settle on me like heat from a low flame. Not rage. Something slower. Heavier.
“I remember saying no bath,” she said coolly. “But I suppose Fennori needs to be disciplined as well.”
Her voice wasn’t raised, but it cut clean all the same.
I lifted my eyes to meet hers.
There was no fury in them, not anymore. Just disappointment. Deep and still, seated in her gaze like a monarch on a cold, immovable throne. Her brown eyes didn’t burn, they judged.
Fen had known we would be caught.
She’d known the risk the moment she led me down the passage to the old bathhouse. She knew what Astrid would see the second she laid eyes on me, pale white hair, the coal dye washed clean. A cover broken. A disobedience exposed by a single glance.
And still, Fen had done it anyway.
And now I would carry the weight of it.
We both would.
“She still thinks you need protecting. That you’re something delicate under all that blood.”
I looked up slowly, fingers curling instinctively at my sides.
Astrid’s eyes stayed on me, unreadable, unblinking.
“She’s wrong.”
Another step. Her shadow brushed the edge of my cage.
“But you know that, don’t you?”
I stood then, taking slow steps toward the door.
“You came down here to scold me for a bath?”
Her jaw twitched.
“I came to remind you,” she said, “who you belong to.”
The words struck harder than they should’ve.
Not because I feared them but because some part of me still remembered believing it. Still remembered when her voice had felt like purpose. Like safety. Like the only hand left holding me above the dark.
“I belong to the Brotherhood,” I said. “Not to you.”
She smiled then, but there was nothing soft in it. Nothing real.
“No, Niolenyl. You are the Brotherhood. You speak for us. You kill for us. You’re not just a blade, you’re mine. My Silencer. You don’t get to break formation and pretend it’s independence.”
I stepped closer to the bars.
“I didn’t pretend anything.”
“You defied orders,” she snapped. “You were told to kill clean. And instead, you left the Thalmor torn limb from limb.”
“They deserved worse.”
“You weren’t sent to make statements!” Her voice rose, not loud, but sharp and bitter. “I told you no bloodshed. But you didn’t listen to me! ”
I stared at her, breath trembling now from the weight of it all. I swallowed hard, the ache in my throat more than exhaustion.
She kept going.
“And then you came back and talked back to me. In front of the family. The Speaker. As if we were equals.”
“I wasn’t trying to shame you.”
“No,” she said. “You were trying to prove you’ve outgrown me.”
That landed like a slap.
I didn’t mean to say what came next, but it cracked loose from my ribs anyway.
“Maybe I have.”
It wasn’t rebellion. It was honesty.
Silence fell like stone.
Astrid didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. For a moment, I thought she’d strike me. Or laugh. But she just looked at me like something that had stopped obeying gravity.
Then she said, low and bitter,
“You’ll stay here until you remember what you are.”
I didn’t look away.
She turned, then paused at the edge of the dark.
“I’m not angry that you killed them,” she added without looking back. “I’m angry you did it like you’d already left us.”
And then she was gone.
Leaving only me behind.
Just the cold. And the question that wouldn’t stop echoing in my skull:
It was always dusk in Quagmire, but never the same dusk twice.
Tonight, the sky dripped rust and bruised lilac. The trees leaned at impossible angles, their shadows longer than their trunks. Time coiled in corners, snarling softly, untamed. This realm was never meant to hold peace and yet, nestled in the crook of a hollowed willow that bled slow silver, a child slept.
She was tiny. Still. Suspended in a cradle of dreamroot and old promises. Breathing steady beneath layers of woven sleep. There was no wind, but her breath stirred the dream-fog all the same.
A footfall scattered the silence.
Sai stepped through the haze with the casual arrogance of one who had once played dice with creation. But not here. Never here. Here, he walked like a man approaching a wound he had made long ago and only just remembered how to find.
“Luck,” Vaermina said, without looking up. “Or perhaps regret, today.”
“You let her dream too long.” Sai said, quietly.
Vaermina sat nearby on a swing made of hair-thin spiderglass. It creaked as it swayed. She didn’t look up from the thread she was braiding, shimmering, and faintly pulsing with breath.
“I let her rest,” she replied. “There’s a difference.”
Sai’s eyes, usually half-lidded and amused, sharpened. “It was meant to be a pause. Not an eternity.”
“You called it safety,” Vaermina said lightly. “Don’t change your prayer now.”
He stepped closer to the cradle, where the dream-fog thickened. The child didn’t stir. She hadn’t stirred in centuries.
“She’s beginning to hum beneath it,” he said. “She’s ready.”
Vaermina’s fingers stopped mid-braid.
“So you say.”
“I know,” he snapped. “The wheel turns again. The world is about to ask for her.”
Vaermina laughed, soft and bitter. “The world never asks. It takes.”
He turned on her. “Then let her wake and take something back.”
Vaermina tilted her head, regarding him like a puzzle she once solved and then forgot. “What are you truly afraid of, Luck? That she will sleep too long… or that she’ll wake and find him first?”
Sai’s face didn’t move. But the air did, sharp and slicing through the fog.
“You lost him,” she said, voice lower now. “You gave him nothing but riddles and distance.”
“He chose that path.” Sai growled.
Vaermina smiled again. “He chose the father who reached back.”
The realm groaned.
“I’m not here to speak of him,” Sai said. “The past is gone.”
“Is it?” she murmured.
Silence.
She stood, elegant and monstrous all at once and walked to the cradle. Her hand hovered above it, not touching.
“She still dreams of snow,” she said. “Of voices she’s never heard. And a name no one taught her.”
“Then she’s not as asleep as you hoped.” Sai said.
Vaermina glanced back at him. “Tell me something.”
He didn’t respond.
“If she wakes,” she asked, “what will you call her?”
He looked down at the sleeping girl. His mouth opened, then closed.
“I don’t know.” he said.
Vaermina smiled with real amusement this time, slow and terrible.
“Then you are not ready.”
The cradle pulsed. A thread of frost spidered across its rim.
And far, far away, in a different night altogether, someone who was once a boy and no longer entirely mortal paused mid-step, and felt something he couldn’t name shift behind his ribs.
Sai turned back to her, voice low and iron-flat.
“Wake her.”
Vaermina didn’t move.
“Ask the Divines,” she said sweetly. “You used to be their favorite.”
“I’m asking you.”
She smiled wider, teeth just a little too white. “Then find a way. If you want her so badly…” she stepped backward into the mist, her voice curling like smoke, “wake her yourself.”
Steam curled against the stone walls, soft and slow, like the air itself was exhaling after a night held too tight.
The bath chamber was dim, lit only by a few flickering sconces, their light dancing off the water’s surface in ripples of gold. The water was warm against my skin, heavy with lavender and moss, already clouded from blood that wasn’t mine. I sank into it slowly, letting it rise over my shoulders, over my collarbone, hoping it would take more than just the dirt with it.
Hoping it would wash away him.
The press of his hand. The feel of his breath against my cheek. The iron grip that pinned me to the wall. The way his voice had curled around me like smoke, like something I couldn’t breathe through.
I scrubbed harder at my arms, my throat, my wrists.
But it was no use.
Amon’s touch wasn’t on my skin. It was beneath it.
Fen sat across from me, arms resting on the edge of the stone basin, the ends of her braid damp and clinging to her collarbone. She looked at me with fear. Just steady, soft concern.
“I know you don’t like sharing the bath,” she said gently. “But… considering the circumstances—”
“I’m grateful.”
And I meant it.
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe the silence. Maybe just the exhaustion pressing into my bones but I didn’t mind her being there. Not this time.
I leaned my head back against the stone, eyes slipping half shut.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here.”
“I know.”
A beat passed. Then her voice dropped, quieter.
“But you looked like someone who needed to be saved.”
I didn’t answer. Just let the warmth lap at my shoulders and the silence curl between us.
She didn’t press. She never did.
That was what I liked about Fen. She knew when to ask, and when to just be there.
Tonight, she had done both.
And somehow, that felt like enough.
For a moment.
But not for long.
Her voice came again, gentler than before, barely more than a ripple across the water:
“What happened, Nio?”
My eyes opened slowly.
She wasn’t accusing. Just asking. Just trying to understand.
“At the Embassy,” she added, “All of them?”
I gave a small nod. My gaze didn’t leave the far wall.
“Is it true?” Her voice wavered slightly. “Did you really—”
“Yes.”
The word fell between us like a stone.
Fen didn’t move. Didn’t recoil. She just absorbed it.
“And Elenwen?”
My chest tensed. Heat pressed in around my ribs.
“She’s dead.”
A pause.
“But not by my hand.”
That surprised her. I saw it flash across her face.
“Then whose—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I met her eyes finally. “It was a mess. I lost control. And Astrid—” I forced a breath through clenched teeth, “She made her point.”
Silence. Then, softly,
“Did someone make you lose control?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
Elamoril.
His name crashed against my ribs like a wave, sudden and bruising. I could barely hold my breath against it.
He was supposed to be dead.
I had mourned him, buried him with songs in my head and blood on my hands. I had made him a ghost and lit candles in the quiet places of my memory just to keep him there.
But what if he wasn’t gone?
What if he was still somewhere?
My throat ached, and I didn’t realize my fingers had curled into fists beneath the surface of the water.
If he’s alive… then everything I became was built on a grave that didn’t exist.
All my blood. All my rage. All my choices.
Would he even recognize me now?
Would he want to?
Or would I be another monster to him, one more thing that should’ve stayed dead?
I blinked the heat from my eyes and leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees, water lapping gently around me.
Fen didn’t speak again, not after the bath, not during the climb back through the tunnels, not even when we passed the flickering torchlight near the guard’s post.
We moved like shadows.
Every breath was a risk. Every step down into the undercroft another chance to be caught. But Fen didn’t hesitate.
And I followed.
When we reached the final turn before the dungeons, she stopped me with a touch to my arm. Her fingers were damp from the bath, her eyes steady in the low light.
Then, wordlessly, she reached into the folds of her cloak and pressed a cloth-wrapped bundle to my chest.
“From your room,” she whispered. “Figured you’d need something familiar.”
My hands closed around it.
The weight told me it was books. But not just any books.
She’d gone to my quarters. The place I wasn’t even allowed to return to.
My breath caught as I peeled back the edge of the linen.
Three books, two worn volumes I recognized by touch alone. And between them… the slim, black-bound tome I’d stolen from Ondolemar’s study. The Dovahzul dictionary.
My throat tightened.
Of course Fen wouldn’t ask about it. Wouldn’t mention its origin. She probably didn’t even know. Or maybe she did, and that was why she brought it.
My fingers closed around the bundle.
“Fen—”
She cut me off with a look. Fierce. Certain.
“You’ll need something to keep you sane.”
A breath. “You kept me sane, more than once. Don’t argue.”
And with that, she slipped past the half-dozing guard and vanished into the stone halls above.
The cell door creaked shut behind me.
The books were still clutched to my chest, pressed to damp skin beneath the folds of my cloak. I stood for a breath, maybe two, letting the dark settle around me again.
But I wasn’t alone.
“Well, well,” Amon’s voice drawled from the next cell, low and amused. “She returns… reborn.”
I didn’t answer. I moved to the haystack and sat, laying the books carefully beside me like they were worth more than steel. In some ways, they were.
The scent of lavender still lingered faintly on my skin. But it was fading. And I hated how much of me wanted to hold onto it.
“You smell better,” he said softly, like a compliment spoken behind a smirk. “Not that I minded you before. But now? You’re radiant.”
I didn’t look at him.
But I felt the way his eyes followed me in the dark.
He always did that. As if looking was a kind of possession. One he never asked permission for.
“Get some rest,” I muttered. “Your flattery stinks worse than I did.”
I didn’t look at him. Not yet.
But I could feel the way he leaned closer to the bars, his voice curling through the dark like smoke under the door.
“You look like a woman who just crawled out of fire. And came out glowing.”
My hand tightened around the spine of the book.
“Do you want me to call the guard?” I said, quiet and cold. I turned my head, finally meeting his mismatched gaze.
“Have them chain you to the wall with silver? I bet they’d be thrilled to watch you scream.”
That earned a low, delighted sound from him, half-laugh, half-growl.
“Mmm,” he hummed, “Is that a promise, or are you just trying to turn me on?”
I stared. Unblinking.
“Try me,” I said. “I will make sure they melt it down and pour it straight down your throat.”
He grinned, teeth sharp even in the dark.
“Careful sister,” he murmured. “You keep talking like that, and I’ll start thinking you care.”
I turned away.
Not because I didn’t have more to say but because I did. And I didn’t want him to see it on my face.
Instead, I opened the dictionary.
My fingers traced the pages slowly, deliberately.
Let him talk.
Let him try.
The book sat in my lap like a stone. Heavy. Familiar. Stolen.
I had taken it from the shelves the last time I was in Ondolemar’s house without asking, without even thinking. Just slid it under my cloak like I had every right to it.
But as I sat in the dark, back against the stone wall, I couldn’t stop my fingers from tracing the edges of the pages like they were something sacred. Not because of what the book held.
Because of who it had belonged to.
It smelled like his house.
It smelled like him.
He hadn’t given me this book. He hadn’t given me anything. Not his trust, not his loyalty, not even the truth, not really.
And still I had told Astrid, with every ounce of conviction I could gather, that he would fix what I’d done. That he would protect the Brotherhood. That he had a plan.
But now, in the silence, I didn’t know if I believed it.
What if he didn’t?
What if the Embassy burned and the Dominion pointed their blades and the Brotherhood fell and it was all because I put faith in a man who had always walked the line between ally and stranger?
I turned the page, slowly. My eyes scanned the unfamiliar symbols, but I wasn’t reading. I was remembering.
Years ago, he had kept an oath to me.
To Elamoril.
He’d stood between us and the abyss once quietly, without thanks, without ever asking for more. Just did it. Because I asked.
Because he said he would.
Was that still true now?
Did any part of that man still exist?
I didn’t know.
But I wanted to believe.
Father help me, I wanted to believe he would come through again.
My eyes caught on a word in the middle of the page
Fus.
I stared at it, unmoving. The page beneath my hand had begun to curl slightly from the steam that still clung to my skin, but I didn’t notice.
I had heard that word before.
Not in the real world. Not from a voice I could see. But in my mind, shouted, deep and thunderous, rattling through my bones like a distant storm.
“Fus kos hi.”
I remembered it now. One of those nights where the voices came, uninvited, in sleep or waking, I could never tell the difference. A command, sharp and absolute, echoing through me like it had always belonged there
I hadn’t known what it meant.
Not until now.
My finger slid under the word. Fus. Force.
At the time, I thought I was losing my mind.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I turned the page. Then another. Searching.
Kos.
There. Buried among verbs and fragments. The handwriting in this section grew mess, like the scribe had been afraid to write it cleanly.
Kos – to be.
And finally,
Hi – you.
I stared at the three words. My fingertips trembled slightly as I traced them out on the page. Then I whispered them to myself, one by one. As if naming them might make the fear real.
Fus… kos… hi.
Force… be… you.
No.
Force is yours.
My breath slowed. The silence around me thickened like fog.
That… that wasn’t a threat.
It wasn’t a curse.
It was a blessing.
Something or someone had spoken those words into my mind long before I understood them. A voice older than anything I’d ever known. Deeper than language.
The air beyond the escape tunnel of the Embassy was thick with rain, each drop slicing through the night like tiny knives, as if the sky itself wept to cleanse the blood spilled beneath it.
Ten Stormcloak prisoners stood in a silent line, bound and bruised, their hands tied behind their backs with the same roughness that had bound them to a war they barely understood. Some were boys, barely past childhood, their lips trembling despite efforts to remain stoic. Others were older, men with grizzled beards and hollow eyes who no longer feared death but waited for it with the weariness of those who had already lost too much.
Feraendel, one of Ondolemar’s two ever-loyal guards, stepped forward with disciplined grace, though his golden armor was dulled by rain and mud. “Justiciar,” he said evenly, bowing his head, “these are all the survivors we could bring back alive from the camp.”
Ondolemar did not answer immediately.
He stood amidst the storm, blood seeping from the long, deliberate wounds that stretched down his body, Niolenyl’s farewell. It hurt with every breath, but he refused to let his spine bow beneath the agony. Pain was a form of prayer to him now, one he bore in silence as he stepped toward the line of captives.
His eyes, sharp as ever despite the ache, moved over the group with a strange detachment. He didn’t expect mercy from himself but for the briefest flicker of a moment, he pitied them. Especially the youngest. Children swallowed by someone else’s war. Sent to die for a broken crown and a dream carved from blood and ice.
One of the older Nords spat at his boots, the glob thick with contempt and rainwater. Ondolemar stopped.
He turned, slowly, like something ancient and unraveling. Golden eyes met pale blue.
“Thalmor filth,” the man growled. “Be done with it already.”
Ondolemar tilted his head, as if contemplating a question that had no right answer. His face gave nothing away. But something behind his gaze darkened, something ancient and tired. He had known hatred before. He wore it like a cloak. But this felt different. Not personal. Not venom. Just resignation.
From the edge of the group, a woman’s voice cracked through the rain.
“Please,” she gasped. “Please… have mercy.”
“Shut your mouth, Gretka,” barked a younger man beside her, her brother, maybe. Their eyes held the same storm. “Whatever this is,” he hissed, glaring at Ondolemar, “we’ll face it with honor.”
Honor. The word hung like smoke, useless and heavy.
Ondolemar’s gaze passed between the boy and the man who had spat. “Your son,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question.
The man clenched his jaw. Silence was his only answer.
Ondolemar turned to him fully, hands folded behind his back despite the sharp tremor of pain that moved down his torso. The storm beat harder, as if the sky itself grew impatient.
“Please—” Gretka tried again, rising, the other guard Volathil’s gauntlet shoved her back into the mud with ruthless indifference. Her cry was sharp, and quickly swallowed by the thunder.
Ondolemar walked to her, slowly. He knelt, achingly, and touched her chin with one rain-slicked hand, lifting her face. Her eyes were the same pale blue. But they weren’t cold. They were full, too full, with tears that had nowhere left to go.
“Back off, you—” the older man tried to rise.
Feraendel pushed him back down. “Stay down.”
Ondolemar didn’t look away. He could see it now. A father. A daughter. A son. Dragged into this doomed defiance together.
Cruel. So cruel. But this world had never been anything else.
He knew what it meant to survive it. Knew that the decisions made in the name of freedom and pride often cost more than just your own life, they consumed everyone who stood beside you.
“We die like true sons and daughters of Skyrim, Gretka.” the old man said quietly.
Her tears fell harder. She didn’t scream. She didn’t sob. But her lips trembled as she pressed them shut, as if sealing in every word she would never get to say. Every life she would never live.
“Our ancestors are smiling at us.” One of them barked.
“I’ll see you all in Sovngarde.” Another muttered at the end of the line. One nodded, and then another.
Ondolemar’s throat tightened. Whether it was grief or disbelief, he didn’t know. That they still believed they would die as heroes, that there was meaning in this… it was almost beautiful.
Almost.
He looked at Gretka again, brushing her tears away with his thumb. Her skin was warm. Still warm.
“Forgive me,” he murmured. Whether to her or to himself, he couldn’t tell. Maybe both.
Her eyes widened at the words. Not because they changed anything but because they meant nothing. What comfort was forgiveness at the edge of a grave?
“I have an oath to keep.”
His voice was quiet. Firm. Final.
The spell came like a shiver through the rain, deep violet lightning arching in silence, devouring breath before anyone could scream. One blink, and the Stormcloaks fell.
No agony. No struggle. Just… stillness.
Mud, rain, and bodies.
Ondolemar stood in the middle of it all, pain surging fresh through his side. But he did not look away. He would not pretend this didn’t cost him something.
A breath passed. Then another. The silence left in the wake of death was heavier than any scream.
Volathil approached from the shadows, his armor dark with rain and ash. The elf’s voice was low but urgent.
“Justiciar… your wounds need tending.”
Ondolemar didn’t answer at first. His gaze lingered on Gretka’s lifeless form, her eyes still slightly open, as if she had died in the middle of remembering something—perhaps a warmer time, or a name she would never speak again.
“I said-“ Volathil insisted, stepping closer.
“Place the bodies in the tunnel,” Ondolemar said softly, but with the weight of command. “In the upper halls too.”
Volathil paused. “Sir—”
“Be quick about it.”
The rain answered in his silence, falling harder, drumming against steel and stone like the ticking of some divine clock counting down to something else. Something worse.
Ondolemar did not look at his wounds. He already knew them. He felt every inch of where her blade had passed. Knew where her hands had shaken. Where she had hesitated. And where she hadn’t.
Volathil bowed his head and turned to Feraendel.
They moved to obey, hauling the fallen like broken dolls toward the dark mouth of the tunnel. Ondolemar stood still as stone, alone in the storm. His shoulders straight, though his body screamed. His robes clung to him like burial wrappings, crimson spreading beneath the folds.
The rain washed over the dead. The storm kept howling. And somewhere in the black sky above, the gods remained silent.
Arnbjorn’s voice cut through the dimness like a knife dulled by familiarity but still sharp enough to wound. He stood at the far end of the hall, arms crossed, his tone amused and disdainful in equal measure.
The hall itself was half-asleep, lit only by a handful of stubborn candles that burned low and steady, casting long, flickering shadows across the stone. The silence was not empty, it was expectant, like lungs holding breath. From deeper within the Sanctuary, I could already hear the thudding of hurried footsteps and the whispers of the awakened. Word had traveled fast.
I rolled my shoulders back in an attempt to brace myself. Not from the ride that had been endless, cold and from what was to come. And still, even as I stood on my own two feet, I could feel the ghost of Amon’s presence pressed behind me like a memory I couldn’t shake. He was beside me now, standing with a quiet confidence, his smirk subtle, his gaze fixed on the werewolf like a challenge spoken without words.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Astrid’s voice rang out sharp and sudden, like a sword unsheathed too fast. She stormed into the hall, clutching the folds of her nightgown, her hair tangled and wild. Fury laced her every step. Her eyes locked on mine, bloodshot and blazing. I hadn’t seen that look directed at me in years, not since the early days when I was more weapon than woman in her eyes.
“What have you done?”
The words weren’t whispered. They were thrown, like stones meant to bruise.
“Caused a mess, as always-” Arnbjorn muttered, but the moment the words left him, he winced, Astrid’s glare slashing through him like a dagger to the gut. He said no more. None of them dared to.
Figures began to fill the edges of the hall, like shadows drawn to a fire. My arrival was no secret, it had been dissected, discussed, exaggerated already, I was sure. I could feel their stares crawling over me, feel the questions curling on their tongues.
And gods, what a sight I must’ve been.
My hair was loose, hanging in wild strands. The coal dye had faded in streaks, leaving behind a tangle of black and snow-white locks matted with dried blood. My silk dress was stained in shades of red mingling like some sick tapestry of war.
Silence crackled around me, tense and brittle. Astrid stepped closer.
For a heartbeat, I thought she might strike me. Her fury flushed her throat and cheeks, veins standing out in stark blue lines against her pale skin. Her hands clenched, unclenched. But she didn’t raise them. Not yet.
“Your orders were clear,” she hissed. “No blood but the contract’s. And yet—” she paused, her voice low and dangerous, “I doubt a single man can bleed that much.”
A cruel twist of irony. The only one whose blood hadn’t painted my path was the contract.
My fists curled tight at my sides.
“It was necessary.” I said. My voice was quiet, but it carried.
Her eyes narrowed into slits.
“How many?”
There was no mercy in her voice. Only a hunger for the scale of my defiance.
I didn’t answer. My gaze shifted to the growing circle of assassins who had come to watch, their breath caught in their throats, waiting for a verdict, or a spectacle.
“All of them.” Amon said lazily, arms folded, his voice smooth as wine left too long in the bottle—dark, rich, and edged with rot.
A hush fell over the room. My heart thundered once. Twice. Then stilled altogether as Astrid’s eyes slid to him.
And there it was, that sharp, visceral loathing that she never bothered to mask around him. Not fear. Just hatred. Pure and simmering. Not for what he’d said—but for what he was. For simply being here.
Her eyes narrowed, jaw locked. But when she finally looked back at me, it wasn’t him she was going to bleed, it was me.
Then—
“Nio?”
Fen’s voice wavered gently through the tension. She had pushed through the crowd, barefoot and breathless, hair half undone. Her eyes flicked over my clothes, my hands, my face.
“Are you hurt? By Sithis, you’re—”
Her hand reached out, light and trembling.
“She’s fine.”
Astrid didn’t turn. Her voice came like frost.
Fen faltered. “But she’s bleeding—”
“It’s not her blood.” Astrid’s voice was calm now. Cold. A blade pressed against the throat of kindness. “Step aside, Fen.”
She would know it wasn’t mine. Of course she would. No wounds had opened on my skin tonight, nor on hers.
Fen’s mouth opened, then closed again. Her gaze lingered on me pleading, protective, helpless. Desperate for a sign I wasn’t crumbling beneath all that red. But I gave her nothing. I was stone. I was silence.
Standing in the middle of a massacre I’d painted with my own hands.
She stepped back, slow and reluctant. Quiet. Angry. Powerless.
Astrid turned to me then, the full force of her fury now focused. Her movements were restrained, almost elegant, but the rage beneath her skin was molten, waiting to spill.
“All of them?” she echoed, soft and sharp at once. As if tasting the words. “You went in for one. And you slaughtered the rest.”
I didn’t speak. I didn’t need to. The truth was carved in the blood still drying on my shoes.
“Did you even think,” she hissed, “what kind of chaos you’ve invited into the Brotherhood?”
Her eyes bore into mine, searching for regret. For weakness. For something she could twist into obedience.
But there was nothing left to twist.
“Nothing will happen to the Brotherhood.” I murmured, the words scraped from between clenched teeth. My voice low. Steady. I met her stare without flinching.
She raised an eyebrow, stepping in closer. The scent of her fury was acrid on the air.
“Oh?” she crossed her arms. “And who, exactly, is going to clean up your carnage?”
“The blame will fall elsewhere,” I said, each word as cold as her own. “He made sure—”
A pause. Her eyes narrowed.
“He?”
And then she laughed. Bitter. Sharp. Poison in the sound.
“So now we’re trusting Dominion filth with the future of the Brotherhood?”
She spat the words like they tasted vile, though her smile curled like a blade unsheathed. Her fists clenched once at her sides, and for a heartbeat, the room forgot how to breathe.
I lifted my gaze to hers, slow and deliberate, just in time to watch the remnants of her bitter laughter slide off her lips.
“You,” I said, soft as silk drawn across a whetstone. Each word carefully savored. “You were the one who trusted him first.”
A ripple moved through the crowd, small, sharp gasps held behind hands and glances.
“You were the one who forced me into the role.” My voice did not rise, but it carried cutting clean through the silence. “Into a scheme he prepared. Dominion filth, you call him. And yet you handed him my blade.”
Each word struck like a match. I could feel my voice wavering from weariness. The kind that seeps into your marrow. From the blood, from the ride, from the endless cycle of being used, obeyed, and punished.
From her.
I straightened.
“You should know by now,” I said, letting my hand drift to the side as I turned slightly, “I am no prey. I never was.”
More gasps. A collective shift in the crowd. Astrid’s gaze flicked toward them briefly, then snapped back to me, sharp as ever. I saw it in her eyes,
Don’t. Not here. Not in front of them.
But the line was already crossed. She knew it. And so did I.
With a soft motion, I reached into my hair. The golden pin, still crusted with dried blood, came free, and the strands fell in a cascade over my shoulders, white streaks tangled in black, wild as the night I’d survived.
“Consider this the payment.” I murmured.
Without looking, I tossed the pin in Arnbjorn’s direction. He caught it in a single breath sharp and instinctual, stared down at the blood-stained gold. I saw the way his eyes widened.
No more words were needed. Not for them. Not for this stage.
I turned.
But I hadn’t made it more than a few steps before Astrid’s voice cut through the air again.
“Do you know what this means?” she said, low and lethal. “To disobey orders?”
I didn’t stop. Not at first. But I turned my head slightly, just enough to catch her from the corner of my eye.
I knew what it meant. But I wanted to hear her say it.
“Punishment.” she hissed.
Only then did I stop.
I turned just enough to let her see the question etched in the tilt of my face.
What will it be, then?
Astrid’s jaw tightened. Her voice dropped to a snarl.
“Dungeons.”
The reaction was immediate. A single gasp, this time collective, full-bodied. The crowd recoiled in disbelief, as if she had struck one of them instead.
Me?
Punished?
Me. Her favorite.
Me. The Ashenblade.
My brow lifted. Barely. But I held her gaze, unwavering.
“No bath,” she spat, as though each word delighted her. “No bed. No food.”
She said it like she had waited years for this moment. As if it tasted sweeter than any victory. As if it proved something.
Let her savor it.
But she’d forgotten one thing.
I was forged in worse places than the dungeons of the Dark Brotherhood.
The silence stretched taut between us, binding our gazes like a thread pulled too tight to snap, two opposing forces caught in an embrace neither would break.
Authority and power.
Control and madness.
Maybe they were the same thing.
Maybe this was the only way she could feel whole by breaking me in front of them.
Maybe she had to make an example of me.
And still, none of it mattered more than the exhaustion burning through my bones, or the way my reputation cracked and crumbled at the feet of my so-called brothers and sisters, none of whom could seem to comprehend what they were witnessing.
Her eyes said it clearly:
Know your place.
Stay there.
Be a good little asset.
My jaw clenched before I could stop it. But I said nothing. I didn’t argue. I didn’t turn away in rebellion.
I couldn’t.
Not because I feared her. I’d made my peace with the cost the moment I painted the Embassy walls in red.
I had expected her anger, her rules had been broken. Her orders defied.
What I hadn’t expected was this. Her obsession. Her unraveling.
Since the Black Hand’s visit, she had been walking a fragile line. Paranoia veiled as authority. Pride masked as control. Maybe she feared what tonight would say about her more than about me. That she had failed. That she’d trusted the wrong blade.
She knew the Black Hand would learn of it. She knew Speaker Virel would hear every detail. And she knew he would laugh behind a closed hand, pity her, shame her for not sending Furoir instead. For not trusting the golden boy who never left witnesses.
But she knew me. Didn’t she?
She should have known what I was.
What I could be.
I said nothing.
I turned toward her fully, shoulders squared, head held high, and stepped past her slowly, toward the stairs that led down into the dungeons.
She didn’t stop me. Didn’t move. Didn’t tear her eyes from mine.
And I had no more words to give her.
Just blood drying on my skin.
And a storm still breaking inside me, silent and unseen.
Two sets of footsteps echoed behind me, one light, quick, urgent; the other slow, deliberate, unfazed.
I didn’t turn.
Not until a hand caught my arm—gentle but firm—halting me in the corridor that led to the dungeons.
“Nio, wait!”
Fen’s voice trembled with breathlessness, but her grip was steady. I faced her.
She searched my face with wide eyes, as if willing it to give up secrets I refused to speak.
“Are you alright? What happened back there? Tell me—”
“I’m fine, Fen.” My voice was flat, exhausted. I straightened my posture to appear more whole than I felt. “Just tired.”
And I was. Bone-deep. Not a single wound marred my body, but the weight of the night had settled on my shoulders like a second skin. Blood-slicked and soul-heavy.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the other set of footsteps approach.
Amon.
He strolled into view with that maddening ease of his, hands in pockets, expression unreadable—except for the faint smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth.
I narrowed my eyes. My brows pulled together.
He shrugged in response, unapologetic.
Smirking.
“You—” I began, jaw tightening.
But he was faster.
“Excuse me,” he interrupted smoothly, gesturing toward one of the stone cells lining the corridor, “but I live here, you know.”
His tone was light. Almost cheerful. As if this were a routine stroll to his bedroom and not a slow descent into punishment.
But it was the truth.
A sick, quiet truth that he did live here. And now I, too, was to spend the night here. Maybe more, if it pleased Astrid. The thought scraped at the inside of my ribs.
I found myself suddenly, absurdly, grateful to the former brothers who had thought ahead and built more than one cell into the dungeons.
Fen’s frustration simmered beside me, though her gaze was more tangled in confusion than anger. She kept looking between us, as if trying to thread together a story she hadn’t been told.
“I’ll come back in a few hours,” she said softly, brushing a hand against my sleeve. “With food. And I’ll get you to the bath. I know how badly you need it.”
Before I could answer, Amon swept past us with theatrical ease, alerting the half-asleep guard with a tap of his knuckle against the bars.
“Right, she stinks,” he said without missing a beat. “Even I can’t bear it.”
The nerve.
I nearly turned to slam his face into the wall but stopped myself. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
The smirk on his face spread wider as he passed through the threshold of his cell. The guard shut it behind him with a hollow clink and turned to me with an expression that was equal parts blank and baffled.
What in Oblivion are you doing here?
I ignored him.
I turned to Fen again. Her eyes were softer now, lips pressed in a thin line.
“Don’t get yourself into trouble for me,” I murmured. “I’ll be fine.”
“Please,” she scoffed gently. “Astrid’s gone too far. She’ll realize it soon enough.”
I gave her a small nod. Just enough.
Before I could retreat, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me—no hesitation, no fear of the blood or the dirt staining her sleeping clothes. Just warmth. Just Fen.
I let her hold me.
I patted her back, light and slow. Her presence made the chill of the dungeons just a little more bearable. She pulled back with a look that cut like kindness often does—one last glare at Amon, cold as ice, and then a warm flicker of a smile toward me.
“This is temporary.” she told the guard as if daring him to believe otherwise.
The man blinked, still processing everything. I stepped toward him, my voice steady despite the exhaustion knotting in my throat.
“Speaker’s orders.” I jerked my chin toward the door.
“Of course, sister.” His hands shook slightly as he fumbled with the keys, unlocking the second cell under my watchful eye.
His curiosity lingered as the cell door creaked open, iron groaning like it mourned for me. But I stepped inside without a word.
The cell was bare, stone walls, a rusted bucket in one corner, and a sad excuse for a bed: a heap of hay barely shaped into a nest. I sat down slowly, the straw crinkling beneath me, and leaned back against the cold wall. The chill seeped into my bones. Oddly, it felt like relief.
But in the corner of my eye through the iron bars dividing us, I saw Amon.
Lounging against the opposite wall of his own cell, looking far too entertained for a man behind bars. His smirk stretched lazily across his face, fangs glinting in the low torchlight. He didn’t look imprisoned.
He looked home.
I shut my eyes and leaned my head back. Maybe if I pretended hard enough, the stone would swallow me whole.
But of course, silence never lasted long around him.
“Such an overkill.” he murmured.
“Shut up.” My voice came flat, tired. I didn’t even open my eyes.
But I could feel him smirking in the dark. Could hear it in the silence between words.
“Come now, sister,” he coaxed with mock innocence. “Don’t be a stranger. Are you mad at me for saying you stink?”
“Funny,” I said, dry as ash. “Didn’t hear you complain when you were the one begging to ride with me.”
There was a beat of silence. Then—
A strand of my hair moved.
Lifted, featherlight, as if tugged by a breeze. My eyes snapped open.
Amon’s arm was extended through the bars and the only thing he could reach was the lock of hair that had fallen close.
I recoiled instantly, scooting to the other side of the cell in a sharp motion, hay crunching beneath me.
As far from him as possible.
“You’re right.” He leant closer to the bars, one hand curling around the iron with ease, his voice low and smooth. “Nothing about you can bother me.”
The corner of my mouth lifted in disgust as I leaned my head back against the stone.
Honestly, the dungeon was nothing. The cold, the damp, the stench, it didn’t compare. Not to this. To him. To his voice, slithering around every word like it was trying to dress itself as affection. To the way his presence made the walls close in, too tight, too warm.
“And nothing you say can get me mad at you,” I lied, flat and quiet. “Because I don’t care about you anymore.”
He didn’t reply.
The silence itched under my skin.
I leaned my head back again, closed my eyes, let the cold wall cradle my skull. I needed sleep.
I needed to be ready for whatever came tomorrow, punishment, confrontation, more blood. If Astrid had already sent word to Nazir…
But then—
A shift.
Warm air curled too close to my skin. Not a sound. No door. Just presence.
My eyes opened.
He was in front of me.
One knee sunk into the straw, the other planted firmly. His body was tall, broad, and unbearably close. He hovered over me, his thigh brushing just barely against my knee, his breath already warm on my cheek.
No space.
No warning.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
Before I could react, his hand slid over my mouth firm and cold.
Shock and fury surged, but my limbs hesitated. Not fear. Just the confusion of heat blooming where it shouldn’t. My breath hitched against his palm.
I tried to shove him back, but his other hand caught my wrist and pressed it into the wall behind me. His strength wasn’t like a man’s. It wasn’t even like a beast’s.
It was something older. Something undead.
His eyes met mine. Red, glowing faintly. And blue, lit like a flame behind ice. And gods—he was looking at me like I was already his.
“Really?” Amon breathed, his voice softer now, but heavier, more intimate. His gaze flicked toward the guard, slumped in sleep again, just like before. “What about the things that I do?”
His words soaked into my skin.
I moved again, but slower now, less certain. I hated the heat crawling up my neck.
His hand slid down and his thumb brushed just along the edge of my jaw.
A breath escaped me.
He felt it. I knew he did. And he didn’t smirk. He didn’t speak. He just watched me.
“So easy for you to speak behind bars,” he said lowly, “when you believe they could hold me back from you.”
His head tilted, slow, deliberate.
His mouth came close, not quite touching mine, but close enough. His breath was warm, and thick with something metallic. Something that shouldn’t have stirred anything in me.
But it did.
I could have reached out to the dagger strapped on my thigh, but my fingers just curled into the straw at my side. Every nerve in my body pulled taut.
He leaned in, just enough for his cheek to brush mine, and whispered:
“Tell me… what about now?”
I tried to find something solid, some anchor beneath me, some corner of reality I could cling to. My mind searched for the ground, for breath, for control, but my body felt like it had unraveled beneath his presence. It was mine, I knew it was, but in that moment it responded to his as if his nearness rewrote the laws that held me together.
What was it in me that resonated with him so closely? Why did I tremble under his touch not from pain or fear alone, but from something deeper, something more dangerous? Something shameful.
I hated how easily he unraveled me. Hated that the same skin that had weathered war and bloodshed now tensed, flushed, under the weight of his breath. I wanted to pull myself back, wanted to snap the thread that bound me to this moment, but the thread only tightened.
I tried to reason. Tried to break through the fog. How had he even gotten in here? But the question wouldn’t form properly in my mind, the words sluggish and senseless.
Every instinct I had screamed to push him away, to break free, to reclaim the air between us. But my limbs knew better. No strength I possessed could move him. I had felt it, his grip around my wrist like steel carved from ancient death. He could pin me like this forever if he wanted to. And that truth sent a quiet bolt of panic through me, cold and fast, and far too deep.
He could do anything.
And I could do nothing.
So I tried to drag my thoughts away from his body and back to who he really was. The way he lied without blinking. The way his smile curled around sins he never intended to confess. I told myself to remember, remember that there was no shame in him. No guilt. No line he wouldn’t cross. And still, part of me had dared to believe that he had changed. That the monster I had once saved had shed some of his hunger.
But I had been wrong.
That part of him, that invasive and twisted part, hadn’t died at all. It had been waiting. Patient. And now it was here, crouched over me like a shadow I had called into my own bed.
My breath hitched in my throat. My mind flared with protest, but the words came slower than they should have.
“I—” I tried.
Why didn’t I just let him die?
The answer lodged in my chest like a splintered dagger. And maybe it was cowardice, or maybe it was clarity, but what finally left my lips wasn’t rage, and it wasn’t a scream.
“I hate you,” I whispered. “Always did. Always will.”
There was no force behind it. No cry for help. Just a breath. A confession soaked in everything I wanted him to believe.
He smiled. Of course he did.
It was knowing. It was the kind of smile that said he saw through every word I spoke and down into everything I didn’t.
“So you lied,” he murmured, voice still warm against my skin. His eyes met mine, glowing low in the dim light. “You do care.”
I hated how quiet his voice was. I hated that he didn’t need to raise it to make it feel like pressure beneath my ribs.
I shoved against him, hand flat to his chest. But he didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He was stone beneath my palms, unyielding and terribly alive. I pushed harder, and still he didn’t move.
Then he reached for my hand.
His fingers curled around mine, right there against his chest, and his touch was gentle. Sickeningly so. His thumb brushed over my knuckles like a lover’s might, and my stomach twisted with revulsion and heat all at once.
“Next time,” he said quietly, “think before you speak.”
The words sank deeper than they should have.
Because part of me wanted to answer. Part of me wanted to fight. But the rest of me was too busy burning with something I didn’t know how to name.
He brought his mouth just behind my ear, the barest graze of air brushing my skin as he spoke.
“I want you to know, I was there.” His voice was softer now, slower. “At the fort, the crypt, the Embassy...”
I swallowed hard. He didn’t stop.
“I watched your hands go red. Watched you fall apart… and come alive at the same time.”
My throat tightened. My body was screaming to move, to hit him, to pull away, to reach for the dagger, but something else, something lower, was burning too hot beneath the surface to name.
“And not once,” he whispered, his voice nearly breaking into a sigh, “did I look away.”
His head tilted toward mine, his lips close, so close I could feel the shape of his smirk without even seeing it.
“You’re angry,” he murmured, “not because I’m here.”
His lips hovered just above mine.
Not touching.
Not yet.
Just there, like a cliff edge I was being dared to step over.
“But because you want me closer.”
I could feel the pull of it, of him, like gravity bending the air between our mouths.
And Father help me, my body didn’t flinch.
It froze.
My thoughts curled in on themselves like smoke, and all I could feel was the heat of him, the press of his words still clinging to my skin, echoing in places I didn’t want them to reach.
You want me closer.
No.
No. No.
I moved before I could think.
My palm cracked hard across his cheek.
The sound of the slap cracked through the air, sharp and final.
Amon’s head turned with the force, his cheek blooming red. But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t retaliate. His hand caught my wrist, and for a long, breathless moment, he simply stared, eyes dark and glittering, lips parted as though savoring the sting.
“There it is,” he whispered, “Fire. I wondered if you’d lost it somewhere in all that blood.”
His grip on my wrist loosened, but his body didn’t retreat.
My other hand slid down, slow and silent, until it closed around the hilt of the dagger beneath the silk.
He didn’t look down, but he knew. I knew he felt it.
And that damn smile curled wider across his face.
But then—
“What in Oblivion—?”
The guard stirred, boots scraping against stone as he jolted awake. His voice was thick with sleep and confusion, but the weight behind it was real.
“Is everything—?”
When I looked back—
Amon was gone.
No sound. No movement. Just gone.
The guard blinked at me, clearly unsure what he’d walked in on.
I stood there, back to the wall, wrist sore from the grip that had vanished like it was never there. My other hand still clutched the dagger, hidden in the folds of fabric, pressed tight against my thigh.
Amon sat in his cell as if he’d never moved. Legs stretched out. One arm draped over his knee. The red mark on his cheek the only proof of anything that had passed between us.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t need to.
I slowly loosened my grip on the blade and drew in a breath that didn’t quite steady me, but it held.
The guard stepped forward a little, uncertain.
“Everything alright, sister?”
I didn’t look at him.
“Water,” I said, voice hoarse but even.“Bring me some water.”
A pause. Then a flurry of keys and boots on stone as he moved.
The air outside the tunnel was thick with shadow and damp, the scent of moss and blood clinging to the stones like smoke after fire. The ground was slick beneath my shoes, ridiculous shoes, still dusted in gold, soaked now to the silk lining. I stepped out into the night with blood under my nails and death tucked inside my lungs.
No one followed me. No one needed to. The silence behind me was full of bodies.
My hands were full too.
In one, I still held the dagger, the one Ondolemar had given me. Delicate, elegant, and now baptized in his blood. In the other, the golden pin he had placed in my hair hours earlier. A keepsake. A symbol. A curse. I hadn’t let go of either. I just couldn’t.
The storm hadn’t broken yet, but the wind had changed. It carried warning, sharp, cold, restless. The clouds above looked bruised and heavy, stretching thick across the sky like an old wound. Distant thunder rolled once, low and slow, like a god whispering through his teeth.
I stepped forward through the rocks, past a dead tree whose branches had long since surrendered to the wind. The path curved upward and there, just beyond it, waiting like he’d been carved from the dark itself, was Amon.
He stood beside the lone steed, one hand resting lightly on its mane, the other tucked behind his back with casual grace. He looked like he belonged here, amidst the ruin, the stillness, the hush before the downpour. His coat was immaculate. His boots dry. Not a drop of blood on him.
His face lit faintly under the flicker of distant lightning. Sharp lines, one eye glowing faintly red, the other glacial blue—one fire, one frost. I didn’t know what kind of creature he was tonight. He didn’t look like a man. He never truly did.
“Only one horse?” I asked, voice dry.
His smile was slow, amused. “Only one of you.”
I stopped short, shifting my weight like I might turn away. The cold wind caught the hem of my ruined dress, white silk now dark, heavy with memory.
“I’m not riding with you.”
“You’re not walking either.”
“I’ll do whatever I damn well please.”
“Oh, I know.” He tilted his head, eyes glinting. “That’s why it’s so delightful to watch you unravel.”
I have no time for this.
I turned my back on him and started walking. The path curved upward into the trees. I didn’t know where it led. I didn’t care. My legs moved on sheer will, the dress tangling around my ankles like a snare.
“You’re not going far in that gown,” he called after me. “Unless the plan is to die dramatically at the next tree line.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“You’ve never survived yourself.”
That stopped me.
I turned my head slightly but didn’t face him. “What do you know about survival?”
“I know you didn’t kill him.”
My grip on the dagger tightened.
“I watched,” Amon said, now stepping toward me. “ I saw the way your hand trembled when you struck him. And how you pressed the blade in anyway. It was exquisite.”
I turned to face him, eyes sharp.
He took another step, then stopped a pace away from me. Close enough for me to smell the storm in his coat and something darker beneath it, like stone and copper and grave soil.
“You left him alive,” Amon said, voice lower now. “That’s cruelty, Nio. Not mercy.”
I couldn’t name the tone. Was it astonishment? Amusement?
He added softly, “Now, you’re falling apart in the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen you wear.”
I didn’t answer. The rain began then, soft at first, then steady. Cold drops landed on my face, soaked into my scalp. The coal dye began to run, slow black streaks curling down my cheeks like warpaint melting off.
I turned my eyes to the horizon, the trees, anything but him.
But I felt him behind me again, closer this time. He didn’t touch me, but I could feel the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my dress. It was wrong, the way it comforted me. The way his presence steadied my breathing, even when it shouldn’t.
“Get on the horse.” he said softly, now beside me.
“No.”
He leaned in, lips barely near my temple. “Then I’ll carry you.”
“I’ll gut you.”
“Please do. You’ve got a real talent for poetic wounds.”
I turned toward him fully, the dagger tight in my hand. He looked at it, then at me. Lightning cracked behind the clouds, lighting us both in ghostlight. I expected him to flinch. He didn’t.
Instead, he stepped back and gestured to the saddle. “We can argue the whole way to nowhere, or we can ride home in silence.”
Home.
My arms trembled. Not from exhaustion. Not from fear. From something deeper. Something I didn’t have words for yet.
I finally relented and climbed onto the horse, feeling the cold leather of the saddle beneath me. As I settled in, I heard Amon move behind me, graceful as always. He swung himself up onto the horse with ease, the leather creaking softly as he settled close behind me.
I felt his arm slip around my waist, steadying me, his touch confident and unashamed. He leaned in, his lips brushing close to my ear, his voice a low whisper that sent a shiver down my spine.
“You know,” he murmured, “there’s a certain beauty in the chaos you leave behind.”
I clenched my jaw, trying to ignore the thrill his words sent through me. “I didn’t do it for your entertainment.” I replied, my voice steady but quiet.
“Of course not,” he said, his tone teasing. “But I do enjoy seeing that fire in you. It’s what makes you so very captivating.”
His words were like honey laced with poison, and I hated that part of me was drawn to it. As the rain began to fall harder, his arm remained steady around my waist, a constant reminder of the dangerous game we played. He didn’t speak again, and for that, I was grateful. The silence allowed me to retreat into my own thoughts, even as the rain began to blur the world around us.
The questions swirled like a storm inside my mind. Was Elamoril truly alive, or had Elenwen twisted the truth for her own ends? The thought of him, somewhere out there, made my heart ache with a mixture of hope and dread. If he was alive, what would that mean for everything I had become?
And then there was Ondolemar. His motives were a labyrinth I couldn’t navigate. He had promised that the Brotherhood would remain untouched, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to his plan than he let on. Had he meant for things to unfold this way, or had I simply become another piece on his chessboard?
The questions felt endless, and each one seemed to lead to another, a chain of uncertainty that wrapped around my heart. I found myself clutching the dagger and pin even tighter, as if they could somehow ground me amidst the chaos.
But despite the turmoil, a strange calm began to settle over me. The steady rhythm of the horse’s gait, the gentle weight of Amon’s arm, the sound of the rain—all of it created a cocoon of quiet in which I could simply exist, if only for a moment.
I knew that the answers would come in time, and with them, more challenges. But for now, I let myself surrender to the night, to the questions, and to the quiet understanding that some truths could only be found in the silence.
