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The cottage was small, but no smaller than the communal room of the house she had grown up in. It was just her now, with no sagely mother to dispense advice nor unruly brothers to give her weird nicknames. Perhaps it was even too large for one mer. The trapdoor with the sturdy lock did not worry her— she had made sure that nothing would be attacking her in her sleep any time soon.Between necromancers and Covenant troops, with an Argonian village to the south where only empty swamp had been before, danger surrounded her but she had never felt more safe. It was perfectly logical. Perfectly.Now if only the ghost would leave her alone.“Vestige…? Vestige! The world is in grave danger—” There he was, clutching his staff, looking about as if he could actually see.“He can’t hear you, though, if you were to answer him. Projections, you know. Funny things.”She shook her head, trying to stop the buzzing in her ear, but the bee was already inside.“I have no great brotherly affection for Lil’ Mo — such a sourpuss, he is! — but you’re mine, darlin’. And I’ll let you go only when I say so. Choice and Free Will, ha-ha! Some hero you are.”“Meet me in Vulkhel Guard, Vestige.” He started to fade, wisping out of sight, but then he returned to full strength, as if he had forgotten something. “It is of great importance that we talk.”“Leave me alone,” she moaned, digging her nails — long things, sharp things — into her temples and letting the pain overpower that voice.“Now, now, little hero, is that any way to talk to a guy you’ve only met twice? Or…” The buzzing grew louder, rising to a crescendo before falling off again. The other voice, the dark voice that rose and fell like a tide, but also flitted about and stung… That voice pricked her brain, and she was dimly aware of blood running from her forehead down her neck. “…Could you mean your dear Uncle? Oh ho, little one. After what you did to poor Aulie… Should I just find a better hero, a bigger hero, one who appreciates me? Should I skip rope with your entrails? Would you like that, little day-savior?”“No, Uncle,” she murmured obediently. She pried her nails from her face and went out to the garden to drop the piece of skin she’d ripped off onto the carrots. The previous resident was under the lettuce, feeding new life. It was poetic. More poetic, even, than the scene beneath the trapdoor, where a skeletal minstrel entertained row upon row of admirers.She had to admit, she admired Lobelathel’s creativity. Perhaps she went to Uncle. The thought was a good one.The ghost was gone, faded into the strengthening sunlight. That, too, was encouraging. She had no idea why he continued to haunt her, spouting nonsense. Uncle was all she needed. Only Uncle was real.She grinned, then laughed. Her mirth was unbound — fresh and airy, unlike the muggy heat that surrounded her.Uncle laughed with her, chuckles bouncing around her head.
~*~*~*~
The days came, the days went, and she danced with Uncle beneath the moons. Lightning flashed on the great plateau to the southeast, but Uncle was whispering in her ear; oh yes, Uncle was whispering in her ear.
~*~*~*~
She woke in a nest of flowers, a butterfly perched on her left antler. She could just barely see it when it gently shifted its wings. It was yellow and black. Like a bumblebee. Unlike Uncle’s own violet friends.Her head felt empty, devoid of the pleasant-terrible buzzing that had occupied the space for such a long time. No time at all.She was alone.She was alone.She was—Screaming through the tall grass as birds startled into flight before her, unseen until they burst out of cover with cries of their own. Cut by blades along her bare arms and breasts and legs, blood streaming from the thousand shallow cuts to drip in her wake. It hurt, it hurt, her body was ripping itself apart, her bones were splintering. She should be nothing but ashes, because the dream was over and Uncle had left her.Half-blind and crazed, she didn’t see the end of the field until she was upon it. Grass does not grow in mid-air.The drop was not a long one. The worst part of it was the landing, as it usually is with falls from any height. A scream of a different sort wrenched itself from her lungs as her already-bloody feet — first one, then the other — hit the rocky slope below, scrambling for a moment to keep her upright on the treacherous ground before she lost all balance and pitched forward. Jagged rock sliced open her palms first, then her knees, breasts and belly as she slid down the embankment.She came to an agonizing stop on a rough but strangely even surface. She managed a look at it, realizing faintly it was a gray cobblestone road — it had been, at least; it was now smeared red — before her neck finally gave up the fight to keep her head off the ground and she collapsed with a strangled moan.Blood was rushing in her ears, and the last thought she had before the darkness came again was akin to, I’m amazed I have any left to hear.
~*~*~*~
The first sign of trouble at Southpoint is the weather. The sky along the Long Coast is blue as a robin’s egg, but a black stormcloud hovers over the town, centered on the great Cathedral.
Kaylaneth quickens her pace.
~*~*~*~
Something was picking at her back. She moaned, and the sensation vanished, followed by wing-beats ruffling her hair as the bird flew away. When she opened her eyes she found it was early morning, and what she could see without turning or lifting her head, she did not recognize.A group of vultures waited on the road a stone’s throw from her face.
~*~*~*~
The shouts from the soldiers camped outside the town throb in her ears as she scrambles up the rubble at the gate, heedless of the splintered wood and sharp metal edges. Something is wrong, wrong, and it’s in her home.
She gets over the pile and teeters on the edge of a long drop for a moment, unable to breathe from the sheer horror of it.
The inn is on fire, and screams come from below, though she only gets a glimpse of people fighting before her stomach rebels and she has to turn away.
~*~*~*~
Next she opened her eyes, Magnus the sun was high in the sky, and the birds were gone. Something was coming from the other direction, the swift touch of paws on stone, and she braced herself for the senche’s jaws—“Dark moons! Kaylaneth!”That voice was familiar, but it was not his voice, and that fact made her ache.
~*~*~*~
“You!” Aulus cries, strangled voice echoing off the high ceilings of the Cathedral. The pioneers built it for the Eight Divines, but now it was far from sacred. “I thought myself rid of you! My daughter was finally listening again—”
Sheogorath cackles, but she cannot bring herself to look at him. He was the one who did this; no matter Aulus’ delusions, he was just a pawn.
But she doesn’t pity the Mayor.
“Lucinda is dead,” she says, both to gauge his reaction — to reinforce that he was worthy of her hatred — and because speaking it aloud will ease the desperate denial in her heart.
~*~*~*~
A clawed hand touched her shoulder. She tensed. The hand withdrew, and then the last person she wanted to see right now shuffled around to her front. “Oh, Kaylaneth…”Her mother. Raz was beside her, but she just stared at the age-lined face she should have known, had known her entire life. The madness was gone, but the space lingered. And in that moment Kaylaneth was the one who didn’t recognize her newly-fragile mother.
~*~*~*~
Her own mother doesn’t know her, and Kaylaneth runs. She can hear her and the soldiers shouting behind, but she runs, because whatever that creature is, it is not her mother. Oh, it may look like her, down to every valley of her face, and talk like her, but it’s not her, and Kaylaneth cannot take it.
She ends up in the middle of town, where people she grew up with, laughed with, loved, where the people she has known all her life are fighting to the death. None of them see her, caught up in their own battles, and she wavers, because though the townsfolk only have frying pans and sticks and their own fists, the guards are well-armed, and she is afraid.
She turns to see a flash of sunlight-stranded hair as her old friend Lucinda — her best friend before her abduction — goes down, and on top of her is…
No. No. Breath catches in her throat, and she pries her youngest brother off Lucinda and slaps him with all her strength.
Tagoroth sways in her grip, unfocused but with the beginning of recognition, and she thinks that maybe she has reached him, that she can reach more, but then he snarls, teeth dripping Lucinda’s blood, and he lunges, and she has raised her mace before she can stop herself, smashed his skull in before he can tear her throat out. Like he did to Lucinda.
~*~*~*~
“Dear, it’s me, I swear it’s me,” Daraneth said, looking every bit the frail grandmother she was. Kaylaneth’s lungs ached, she was not the only one hurting here—“You left me,” was all she could say. Her voice was stronger than she felt, though it was a whisper.“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”Raz looked on with pity. “Kaylaneth…”“Don’t,” she growled, struggling to sit up. Her arms trembled: her muscles were weak, weaker than they should have been, and she wondered how long she had been in that cottage with Sheogorath. Wondering hurt, too. “I— I can’t.” What exactly could she not do? Everything.Raz nodded, pity even more obvious now. “The Queen was worried about you. Would you go back to Elden Root with us?”The Queen? It took a second for her jumbled mind to make the leap to Ayrenn. The platinum-blonde Altmer beauty with the ethereal blue eyes that looked straight into her and still seemed to approve? That queen? Surely she would see — surely she would hate, or worse, pity.
Oh, oh no.
Her mother reached out, and Kaylaneth collapsed into her embrace. She smelled like a lightning strike; pure magicka. “Come on, dear heart. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” The words meant nothing, but that was fine. Kaylaneth let herself go; still the tears did not come at her call. She hung limp in her mother’s arms, alchemist’s robes pressing into her bare skin. Daedra even took my chance at catharsis from me.“Raz,” her mother said over her head, “she’s hurt. We have to get her to a proper healer at Elden Root, now.” Unfastening her cloak, she wrapped it around Kaylaneth’s shoulders, brushing against freshly-scabbed cuts and drawing a weak hiss from her daughter.“This one will take her,” came a voice that was not Raz’s. It was a young Khajiit woman’s voice, in a low purr that was unnatural — as if she was trying to act older than she was.“M’ursi—” That was Raz.Kaylaneth turned in her mother’s arms, wondering who else came to rescue her. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but the large brown tiger with red stripes sitting on the road a short distance away wasn’t it. Enormous green eyes — intelligent eyes — blinked at her, then the tiger’s mouth opened. Through rows of teeth that could rip her to shreds, the tiger said, “Hi, this one is called M’ursi-la. You don’t look so good. No offense.”“M’ursi!” Raz flattened his ears.She was tired, but this was as good a distraction as any. “It’s fine,” Kaylaneth interjected before the Eye could start. “I know I’m— Are you related to Raz?”“Yeah,” M’ursi-la said, sounding a bit guilty — for what reason Kaylaneth couldn’t guess. “His sister.”“Little sister. She isn’t even supposed to be this far from Arenthia.”“Come on, we’ve already been through this!” M’ursi-la whined, suddenly sounding just like a bratty child. Kaylaneth wondered how old she was. “Can M’ursi just take Miss Klaneth back to Elden Root now?”Clutching the lightning-scented cloak to herself, Kaylaneth stood on wobbly legs, her mother hovering behind her. “Shouldn’t I have some say in this? Not that I don’t want to go—”“Her name is Kaylaneth, M’ursi!”The siblings weren’t listening to her, anyway. She stepped forward, sensing her mother move behind her as if she was about to fall any second. Never mind that she was feeling like a newborn, it hurt her pride. “Stop it. I’m going.” Ah, but she was tired! She’d never felt this spirit-deep ache before.Raz paused his lecture as if he had just remembered the Bosmer was there. “Oh! Apologies, Kaylaneth. And— nothing funny, M’ursi! Straight to Elden Root, understand?”M’ursi-la rolled her eyes and crouched, tail flicking impatiently. Kaylaneth clambered up. She was unsure where to put her hands until the tiger said, “May want to hold on; Khajiit is good runner.” That was all the warning she got before M’ursi-la coiled and sprang, dashing off up the road so fast the jungle became a blur. Kaylaneth wrapped her arms around M’ursi-la’s neck and laced her fingers. She buried her face in the tiger’s soft fur; if she didn’t look, she could clamp down on the roiling in her empty stomach.
~*~*~*~
The Elden Tree was the tallest graht-oak in Valenwood, especially since Falinesti had disappeared. Kaylaneth had only been under the massive boughs twice before in her life. Once when she was a tiny child; that visit was mere impressions now. And several years ago, when her mother took her along on one of her many visits to the Mages Guild. The tree-city still awed her. They had been good enough to give her a window, after they deemed her unlikely to be suicidal.They, being the healers, were wrong.She looked at that window, a round one that looked formed in the bark like everything did around here, and wondered at how easy they had made it. She could just slip from her bed on one of the many occasions they left her alone, and leap. The view was lovely.But the rational part of her, or perhaps it was the part prone to despair and long naps, reminded the rest that she would only wake up in more pain than before.Her room was isolated from the rest of the ward. The ward, in turn, was far from the rest of the sickbay-resthome hybrid that this area had become since the liberation of Southpoint. Was that her? She could only remember parts of it, but the townsfolk that survived certainly did, hence her extra security.That and the Queen of the Aldmeri Dominion had taken it upon herself to visit. Frequently.“—and then Cariel stumbles across Raz’s stock of disguises and has to stay in a safehouse for two weeks while the enchantments wear off. The entire time she looks like Vivec, and no, don’t ask me why Raz had one of them in there. But as far as I know the Pact never caught wind of the fiasco in Vulkwasten or I would have to retire my crown in shame.” Ayrenn perched in the chair by Kaylaneth’s bedside, glancing over reports even as she recalled as many light-hearted stories of misadventure as she could. She wasn’t subtle at all, but Kaylaneth couldn’t even muster the will to argue.Her family. It doesn’t matter what they said, how they tried to persuade her to forget, both in her visits and her dreams. Lucinis and Nadil, charred husks in the ashes that were their home. Silloruin, last seen swimming out to sea, body never found. Tagoroth, slain by her own hand, Lucinda’s blood still dripping from his mouth. Lucinda, poor lovely Lucinda, her father the cause of all their ruin.Except…Oh, she knew. A Daedra can only lie. But it did make sense, in a twisted way. Mayor Aulus was a paranoid and controlling man, and he’d said himself that Kaylaneth was a bad influence on his daughter. Sheogorath had just… connected the dots.Though the feeling had long gone, she touched her lips, trying to evoke the emotion she had felt the first day she and Lucinda sneaked out. After Aulus forbade their friendship.Walking along the beach, Kaylaneth keeping an eye out for crocodiles and Nereids even as Lucinda held her hand, laughing over some forgotten joke. Turning, the setting sun catching Lucinda’s long blonde hair and something, something now out of reach made her kiss her best friend.She couldn’t get to that feeling, now buried under an avalanche of grief and guilt.Had she been the reason Aulus lost control?“Kaylaneth, would you like to have your tea now?” Ayrenn said, or maybe she had been speaking all along.Tea. That lovely drink, now ruined by a cocktail of herbs and secret medicines to combat her ‘melancholy’, as the healers called it. Like it could be summed up in a single word. Even a long one.Ayrenn was looking at her, an infinite sadness in those sky-blue eyes. Oh yes. Tea.
~*~*~*~
She blinked and Regring was there, cross-legged on the windowsill. The light filtering around him said a few hours had passed, or maybe it was over a day — she couldn’t tell and couldn’t think about it.Regring’s eyes were closed, hands folded in his lap as he liked to do when thinking on his Stories. When she was a small elfling, she tried to sit as still as he did, but she could never quiet her mind and let Y’ffre in. Her eldest brother had been born a Spinner, her mother said: a quiet, studious child, but when he spoke the world listened. She half-wished he would speak now. Surely a Spinner could fix her if no one else could.“Where’s Mother?” she croaked. She dreaded her visits, but missed her when she was gone.Regring cracked open his eyes, regret flitting across his face. “She’s working with the Mages Guild to get the Staff of Magnus dealt with. I imagine she’s in or near Cloudrest now.”Kaylaneth blinked. This was news to her. “Cloudrest?”“Yes, on Summerset Isle. She’s to have the Staff secured in Crystal-Like-Law.”The Crystal Tower. On a clear day, one could see the top of it from Woodhearth. She’d never seen it while she was on Auridon, but she’d been a bit preoccupied. “Why didn’t she tell me?” she whispered. She didn’t care. She didn’t.Her brother turned his head away from her, letting the light shine on his face. “She did. She visited you just before she left, a week ago.” His voice was matter-of-fact, but a Spinner has much practice hiding their pain, and themselves, from their audience.Oh. “I’m not okay, am I?” Well, she’d known it all along. It was another thing to have proof.Regring tensed, then slipped down from his perch. He sat down beside her and picked up her hand. “No, I’d say not, little sister. Not right now.”She felt tears well up, the first tears that came in an era, and she welcomed them. Regring didn’t so much as flinch when she let herself fall sideways, collapsing into his half-embrace and burying her nose in his hide shirt. And she cried.
~*~*~*~
There was no single moment in which she felt the medicine working. Still, after weeks (as near as she could tell) in the ward, she started to notice little things. The healers didn’t frown so much when she answered their questions, though she had all the same things to say. The daylight jumped around less and less often, or at least on a regular schedule. She could tell, sometimes, that she had slept, for example.Raz’s visits, once frequent, had slowed as his stockpile of light-hearted tales and chitchat dwindled. He still came by more than Nongiruin, though. Her fourth-oldest brother grieved Silloruin’s death in particular, and took his grief out on her for not trying harder to find his twin. Mother had dragged him along once, she recalled now. He’d hovered by the door, glaring at her and Mother alike. Regring didn’t fill the silence unless prompted, but she didn’t feel comfortable asking him for Stories. As for her last remaining brother, Eraegaer was in some crypt in High Rock and wouldn’t be back for months, if ever. Mother had written, but received no reply.Of the few people in the world she had left, she felt most comfortable in Ayrenn’s presence. Which was odd; she was a queen after all. Queen of the Aldmeri Dominion, so far removed from Kaylaneth’s troubles. It was hard to believe she was spending precious time with her that she could spend on the Dominion or the War.Still, Ayrenn kept coming back.Today she was just sitting quietly, looking over more reports by the light of a mage-lamp one of the healers had left. It was raining hard outside the window, the sound muffled by the thick leaves of the Elden Tree’s canopy. It was nice, to not have so much light. Just enough to read by. Regring had refused to write down any of his Stories. Instead he gathered all kinds of books, and scrounged up a shelf from one of his wood-singer friends to put them in. Books gave her something to do when the thoughts kept her up at night.Kaylaneth was deep in a fairytale about the Wilderking, all silent but for the shuffle of parchment and the rain in the leaves, when Ayrenn’s sharp inhale caught her attention.The queen was rereading a passage in one of her papers over and over, concern written on her fair face. She looked from the parchment, to the stack that she had read already, and mumbled something under her breath.“Ayrenn?” Kaylaneth croaked, voice hoarse from the few instances she had managed sleep. Then she winced. Forgetting decorum was just another way in which she was a failure.The queen ignored her slip-up. “Hold on, I think… Ah, here.” She dug a letter out from the ‘read’ stack and compared the two side by side. “That’s not right.”“What?” The mounting tension in the Altmer frayed at her nerves. She set her book aside. “What’s wrong?”Ayrenn set the papers down. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Kaylaneth. I’m sorry if I frightened you.” Her face had closed up again. The queenly mask.Kaylaneth boiled over. “Bullshit!” Though her heart was beating fast and everything left of her mind was screaming at her to stop, she continued her outburst. “I’m not getting any better just sitting here, we both know that. And now whatever that is—” she pointed at the papers, “—is going to be haunting me too! Because it’s definitely not ‘nothing’. I don’t— I need—” She cut off, anger and words both exhausted, because she was crying. Sobbing into her blankets, in fact, and snot was dripping from her nose as her breath hitched.Divines, she was pathetic.A weight dipped the bed, and Ayrenn, instead of getting a healer, as Kaylaneth had half-expected her to do, was sitting next to her. Not touching, not speaking, just there.It made it worse.It made it better.She regained control of her breath, but she didn’t turn her face from the blankets. She imagined her face was bright red, besides the snot and tears and general mess that was her life now. Ayrenn still didn’t say anything, so Kaylaneth ventured a croaky, “I’m sorry.”Ayrenn was silent, so she ventured looking up. The queen’ s eyes softened, but only for a moment. “One of my agents has betrayed me. Another one, that is.”“How do you know that?”“I compared his report to the one his commander wrote, and the stories don’t match. She claims they’ve been having no luck in Black Marsh, that the native Argonians are slaughtering them. He wrote that they’re making great progress destabilizing the region and will soon return victorious. One or both of them is lying. I suspect he is. He’s a renowned alchemist, but he has an insubordinate streak and hasn’t taken well to campaigning far from home.”“Why would he write that they’re succeeding when they aren’t?” Kaylaneth knew little about Black Marsh, or even Argonians themselves. She never had visited that refugee village east of Southpoint. At least not that she could remember.“Hmm. I suspect it has to do with that project he put forward a few months ago. Some alchemy that would poison a part of the Hist, and kill off the next generation of Argonians before they’re born. War is war, but that I will not authorize. I considered pulling him back after that, but he seemed to accept that he couldn’t do it well enough. But if he’s gone ahead with it anyway…”“What will you do?”“That’s the tricky part. I can’t withdraw the troops altogether — that’s my main front outside of Cyrodiil. The fleet assaulting High Rock doesn’t even come close. I don’t know how many of my soldiers are aware of Ruuvitar’s betrayal and are supporting him in this madness. I need to assess the situation. Send a couple Eyes out, that would be good…” She tapped her chin, the movement of those long fingers mesmerizing Kaylaneth for a moment.“I’ll go.”The strangled noise that came from Ayrenn was not at all befitting a queen. “What?”“I’ll go,” she repeated. “I need to get out. Send me with Raz, or whoever. I just need to get my mind off— Well. Grahtwood isn’t the best place for me right now.”“You are sure? I will need to talk to the healers, you know. It’s up to them in the end. But if they say you are well enough…” She gave a long sigh. “I suppose if you’re determined, you will get out one way or another. Please, Kaylaneth, promise me. Promise that you will wait.”Forever. The thought sprang, foreign but not unwelcome, to her mind. “I promise.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Eyes of the Queen were a small force, no more than three dozen strong at any time. Members weren’t often seen outside of Dominion territories, or Cyrodiil, but Shadowfen was a different situation now. The journey just to get to Black Marsh was a long and difficult one. Raz suggested they travel through the disputed Imperial heartland to avoid lingering in the swamps. There, everyone knew, the stagnant water hid worse than crocodiles: Argonian warriors, who could hide beneath the surface indefinitely, and drag even the wariest intruder under. Worse, they had no maps of central Black Marsh. Perhaps no one had ever charted those areas, even in the old Empire.Her partner was to be an experienced Eye named Cariel, who was Raz’s second in all but name. She was even more removed from Bosmeri culture than Kaylaneth, born on Summerset Isle to an Altmer father as she was, and this was a comfort. Most Bosmer, even ones who championed the Dominion (and many of them did not), pitied cases as these. All traces of envy for Kaylaneth’s natural antlers would disappear the instant they heard her Imperial-touched accent. For Cariel it was even worse.Though half-Altmer, Cariel showed no signs of it, at least in form. (Her accent was a different matter, and her mannerisms! Even Kaylaneth winced at seeing how she ate, delicate and proper and with two forks.) She was a stunning example of Bosmeri beauty — dark red hair held in a neat bun, wide hips for a small frame, huge green eyes — and Kaylaneth might have crushed hard on her if it weren’t so obvious that she hung on Raz’s every word. As it was, she’d discovered her type, and Cariel wasn’t it.Ayrenn was.She couldn’t believe it had taken her so long to figure it out. The queen shared a few key features with her childhood friend and first kiss Lucinda. They were both that pale blonde that caught light so beautifully, and they both had pretty eyes, and they both — oh! — they both had those long, lovely legs. It made perfect sense the more she thought about it, though she hoped that she wasn’t superimposing Lucinda onto Ayrenn. In any case, it wasn’t just Ayrenn’s statuesque beauty. She was compassionate, and deliberate in every action, and she had this un-Altmer way of biting her lip when thinking. Urcelmo despised that habit, going rather bug-eyed when he caught Ayrenn doing it. (She kept doing it. Who cared if her lips chapped? Kaylaneth didn’t.)Perhaps it was for the best that she would leave tomorrow. It was becoming difficult to keep from daydreaming of happier timelines where things may have worked out.Too late, she remembered to raise her shield, and Raz’s dagger swiped within a hair of her antler. She cursed under her breath. It should’ve been an easy block and counter, especially since Raz was still testing her recovery.He shook his dagger at her before sheathing it. “Ah-ah, my friend, too slow. Your mind is wandering again, yes? It is not your injuries?”He knew perfectly well it wasn’t her injuries. He was an excellent judge — and exploiter — of such things. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m thinking too much. I think the road will help.” She walked back to the racks at the edge of the training area to put her borrowed gear away. Once again, she had lost her armor and weapons. It was becoming a cruel theme in her life.“It is to be a grand adventure,” Raz remarked as he followed, tail swishing with excitement. “Should be peaceful for the most part, but once we get into Reaper’s we’ll have to watch for Colovian raiders.”Cariel was waiting in the shadows by the door, having tagged along to watch them spar. She rolled her eyes at Raz’s words even as she fell into step with him on the way back to Elden Root proper. “Don’t they have enough problems in Cyrodiil to bother invading other places right now?”“Heh. Apparently not. M’ursi was saying they’ve seen scouts across the bridges at Arenthia. All the better for us to go there, before they decide to get bold while the Mane’s guards are distracted.”Kaylaneth was content to follow as the senior Eyes chatted about the state of the world, but that last tidbit caught her attention. “The Mane? Is he in Reaper’s March?” She didn’t know much about Khajiiti hierarchy, only that the Mane was some kind of special spiritual leader like the Silvenar was to Bosmer.The other Eyes stopped in their tracks, and Raz clapped his furry palm to his forehead. Cariel’s eyes were wide as she said, “Oh, well, a lot of things have been happening all at once in the Dominion… Her Majesty got ratified, Redguards invaded Velyn Harbor, it seems some Altmer girl became the Wilderqueen — big mess, that one — and the new Silvenar and Green Lady got married.”“Oh.” It was a lot to take in. Of course there would be more events, but her head was spinning a little with just those. “And the Mane?”“Well... he was at the wedding, you see, except something odd happened. The reports vary, but it looks like he killed some of the party guests — the newlyweds are fine — and ran off—”Raz shook his head, interrupting. “From the descriptions of his rampage, we believe he has become corrupted by dark spirits. Which may or may not have something to do with the Imperials overtaking Forts Grimwatch and Sphinxmoth. Regardless, the Mane has disappeared. There can’t be a new Mane until we figure out what happened to the current one, and with him, shall we say, gone like a ghost...”“It’s a big mess,” Cariel supplied helpfully.“So if the Imperials do invade Arenthia...”“The Queen will have to send troops to repel them. This one does not want baby sister anywhere near there, but Raz’s parents are also there, and M’ursi is safer with him than anywhere on her own. So we go to Arenthia, see what we see. Yes?”Just the day before Raz had decided to go with them as far north as Arenthia, saying traveling through Reaper’s was better done in groups (and that M’ursi-la was liable to double back if she went on her own at a later date). But he hadn’t mentioned any specific danger there then. The threat in Cyrodiil was all too clear, but Reaper’s March was Dominion territory, wasn’t it?Still, she was content with the change in plans. She didn’t know Cariel well yet, and her doe-eyes for Raz were so adorable that Kaylaneth felt guilty for separating them. Raz seemed oblivious, but she doubted he actually was. If she found an opportunity to give them some privacy, she’d take it.At the very least, focusing on their potential romance would distract from her yearnings. They had a chance; she didn’t.
~*~*~*~
Ayrenn came to see them off. “Raz, you are to return M’ursi-la to your parents and scout the situation in Arenthia. I expect frequent updates.” Raz saluted with a fist to his chest, and the Queen turned to the Bosmer. “You two, don’t take unnecessary risks. I know you can handle yourselves but do not try to fix whatever you find in Shadowfen. Report back as soon as you can. Dismissed.”Kaylaneth touched her hand to her forehead, too late realizing it was an Imperial salute. But no one was looking at her except the Queen, whose eyes softened a fraction. She turned to follow Raz, Cariel and M’ursi-la out the gates of Elden Root, but had gotten only a few steps when Ayrenn called out to her.“Ah… Hold a moment, I need to speak to Kaylaneth alone.”She looked back, shield shifting with the movement. She hoisted it a little higher. The Queen inclined her head, and her heart fluttered. Why does she want to speak to me? The Madness again? Or... something else?They retreated to a side room while the others waited, M’ursi-la in particular looking impatient.“Kaylaneth,” Ayrenn started when they stopped in what appeared to be an old storeroom. The stacks of crates forced them closer than their Queen-and-agent roles demanded. Close enough for Kaylaneth to smell the Altmer’s sweet perfume. Feminine but not overpowering. Jasmine, she thought, and something else she had no name for.She just stopped herself from leaning in further to that intoxicating scent.Ayrenn caught her gaze and held it. She couldn’t look away as Ayrenn spoke, soft but deliberate, like she had come to a resolution and would see it through. “I know you need to do this mission, for yourself as much as for me. I cannot claim to understand this decision, not completely, but I support it. Just... Kaylaneth, please don’t risk yourself without just cause on the way. Return to us.” Her mouth twitched, as if she was about to say more, but instead she just held out her palms.This is a dream. How could she possibly... Dazed, Kaylaneth offered her own hands, and Ayrenn gently took them. Oh Mara. She couldn’t look at her eyes, so she studied their hands. Hers: the color of the sandy beaches around Southpoint. The Queen’s: golden like sunlight. Ayrenn had more callouses than he had been expecting. Even though she carried a sword, and had used it in Skywatch, Kaylaneth couldn’t imagine her with them. She was too perfect.“Return to... just return,” Ayrenn added, as Kaylaneth’s heartbeat thumped in her ears.Regring had tried to wean out any romance novels from her collection in the ward, she could tell. Still, being mainly adventure or a fairy tale did not exclude the hero from having a love life, and despite that infuriating elder brother-filter, romantic subplots snuck through. So it was that she knew what was supposed to happen in this moment: She was supposed to lean up on the balls of her feet, look snoggable, and the queen was supposed to sweep her up in her arms and kiss her, dammit.To her regret and relief, that was not what happened.The queen gently released her hands, nodded once, and then a thump and a yowl sounded from very close to their door. “Ouch!”“Stop that, M’ursi! What are you thinking, eavesdropping on them?”The last Kaylaneth saw of the queen, she pulled the door open and stood in the threshold, towering with her hands on her hips over a cowering M’ursi-la and an angry Raz. Cariel was a ways off, trying not to smile and mostly looking like she ate something rotten in the process.“Er, my queen, this one is sure she did not hear anything or mean anything by it...” Raz started.“It’s fine,” Ayren said, and though Kaylaneth could not see her face she thought she detected a hint of a smile in Ayrenn’s voice.“This one apologizes for his baby sister. Come on, M’ursi.”“Travel safe.”Then they split. Two Bosmer and two Khajiit marched off into the strengthening day, and Ayrenn kept a vigil over them — at least until they turned the corner to loop north around the Elden Tree.The road even through Grahtwood wasn’t something to sneeze at — the rain season had begun in earnest days before and while the droplets did not bother Kaylaneth from years living on the stormy Long Coast (though the Khajiit were soon miserable), the rivers and streams were a different matter entirely. Swollen now, some even overflowing their banks, and the war was diverting necessary labor to repair the roads and bridges north. In a week’s time they would be impassable, but they hoped to be out of the jungle and into the savanna in less than two days.They rested the first night in Cormont, having made good time. There were rumors aplenty about some lingering unrest from the failed rebellion years before, but they ignored it for the time being. They couldn’t fix every small town’s problems. Doubtlessly the rangers already knew about it anyway — they were everywhere. Nothing more they could do, not with a schedule to keep and their own prescribed missions.Kaylaneth wondered, on the road, if this was roughly the route they had taken when she was kidnapped. Drugged out of her mind as she was, she couldn’t begin to know, but the thought nagged at her.The gates into Elsweyr were ancient things. They’d been fought over many times, and closed entirely more times than that. History was not kind to Bosmer-Khajiit relations. But goodness if the Aldmeri Dominion wasn’t a game changer. And if anyone could transcend these historical divisions, it was Raz and Cariel.Cariel was an odd duck. In movements, graceful, but her personality… she was adventurous, bull-headed, and had a strange sense of humor that Kaylaneth couldn’t equate with either her “native” and “culturally pure” Bosmer cousins or Altmer. She wasn’t much of a prankster, but had a quick wit and dry sarcasm that caught Kaylaneth by surprise.Despite this, she liked Cariel. It was nice, having a friend again. And one she wasn’t likely to fall for.The second night they spent under the stars, on the edge of the jungle. A thunderstorm had swept in and delayed them for a few hours, but at least they were in Reaper’s March.And not a hint of danger except for the weather. They passed a great temple — Raz called it a monastery — midway through the third day, saw the monks, robed in the light blue of a clear sky, working in the gardens and milling about the grounds. It was a peaceful, domestic sight.The third night they spent in the city of Rawl’kha, at a Dominion camp as the inn was full of pilgrims to the local temple. They spent hours sitting around the campfire, unable to sleep from the lights of the city so close. There was a ceremony for the moons that night, Raz said, which was why there were so many lights.The fourth day was marked by an increasing ache in Kaylaneth’s feet, but she was focused on her surroundings. They were truly in the savanna now, and it might as well have been Skyrim’s snowfields for how jarring it was to her. The heat without humidity, yes, but also how far she could see into the distance. The trees, what few there were, only reached to half again Raz’s height but their boughs extended far, providing shelter to small creatures and large. Every senche seemed content to watch them carefully as they passed, at least.“Is it because you are a Khajiit?” she wondered aloud. They had gone around a tree and found a senche on the other side of it: a lioness, tawny as the very ground, who growled at them but did not rise as they scrambled to retreat.It was M’ursi-la who answered, tail flicking as she paced along beside her brother. “Hah! This one does not think so. These are lazy senche-lions. Wild animals, not clever Khajiit.”“But still sacred and worthy of respect,” Raz said sharply. “To answer your question, not-sleek one, these senche are cousins of Khajiit. They may look like us born when Jode is full, but they are not Khajiit. Not ‘wild animals’ either. Certainly they have some intelligence, but they do as they please. As do we all, yes?”“So why don’t they attack?” Cariel piped up from Raz’s other side.Raz patted his dagger, sheathed at his side. “Prey is abundant this time of year. Why attack those who can fight back?”Kaylaneth nodded; it made sense. Cariel was frowning, eyes far away. “Would they attack us in other seasons, when food is more scarce?” she asked.“Oh yes. The senche-lions are fierce fighters, valiant creatures worthy of praise, but they have to eat too.”The road followed a river north. Arenthia was built at the meeting of this river and the Strid, and across the Strid was Cyrodill. She was glad to be following such a steady source of water — her feet ached and the shallow pools where the river would not sweep her away were a balm to the soreness. She could also wash the grime of the road off every night, and not want for something to drink. They camped the fifth night in a small, open-air ruin a ways back from the river.The sixth day was uneventful. Everyone was tired, and mostly they all just focused on their destination, which had appeared as a smudge in the distance: the great towers of Arenthia, only visible for the clearness of the weather.The landscape gradually turned: grasslands and bare earth gave way to stands of trees, which grew more plentiful as they neared the city. They saw an ogre, off in the distance, hulking and wide, breathing so loudly they could hear it from such a ways off. “Probably scavenging an antelope,” Raz muttered, eyes never leaving the monster. To their left was a huge, fenced hill, with a stone ruin atop. A cairn.Birds were singing as Arenthia grew ever more distinct. Kaylaneth considered this a good sign, or at least not a bad one.Finally Arenthia towered above them. They crossed the bridge into the city on the eve of the seventh day, having made very good time. The city was still bustling, shoppers making the most of a market day almost over. But it was a wary populace that watched them a little too long before dismissing them as no threat.“I must speak to the clanmother in the morning,” Raz said to himself. He led them to the residential district, to a building more tower than house, and knocked twice on the door.A gray-furred Khajiit answered the door, claws out. He was slighter than Raz, perhaps born under a different moon phase, but despite this and his aged coloring he had Raz’s jaw, and those vibrant green eyes. His eyes slid over Raz and M’ursi-la, closest to the door, then the Bosmer, before he seemed to realize who he had seen and said in a strong purring voice laced with surprise, “Razum-dar, my son?”“Yes father, it is Raz! This one has brought M’ursi back and some friends. May we come inside? It is cold in the north.”M’ursi-la giggled at her brother, bounding inside and nearly knocking over her father. “Mom!” came her voice from deeper in the house.Raz’s father shook his head with the kind of long-suffering exhaustion Kaylaneth had only seen on her own mother. “Yes, yes, we already ate dinner so I’ll have to scrounge something up for you...”“Not to worry, father! We have plenty of supplies left,” Raz said as they filed in. “We will not suffer.”Kaylaneth barely had time to glance around the sitting room they were in before — bang! the door off to the right flew open, bouncing off the wall and shaking the rafters. A Khajiit who could only be Raz’s mother stood, hands on hips, in the doorway, pinning Raz with a withering look. “This one dares say you will not! You are not eating tack like some common soldier while you are in this house, child!”M’ursi-la peeked out from around her mother’s leg and stuck her tongue out at Raz.The matron did not miss a beat. “Do not think you are not in trouble, Ursi-ma,” she snapped, still looking down at her son. Down, because she had a good two heads on him. Kaylaneth’s neck hurt already.Raz, fearless against the Vipers, and the Heritance, and Daedra, caved under her stare. “Very well, mother.”She said nothing, just raised an eyebrow with a pointed glance to the Bosmer.Raz stiffened. “Ah, but where is Raz’s manners? These are his colleagues, Cariel and Kaylaneth. They are both Eyes, on a special mission from the Queen. Shorty elves, this is—”“They have far yet to journey?” Raz’s mother interrupted, finally stepping into the room and sweeping past them to stare critically at the living area.“Yes, mother.”“You all will stay here tonight,” she announced, tail swishing. “Cariel, Kaylaneth. This one is Tsalari. Husband is Julan-jo. Come, let it never be said Khajiit turned away the tired and hungry.”“We are not hungry—” Raz started under his breath.Tsalari froze, turned slowly. Cariel jabbed Raz with her elbow and blurted, “T-thank you, ma’am!”Kaylaneth had been observing the scene with a kind of detached amusement, but Cariel’s frantic signals to say something jolted her back into the present. “Er— yes, ma’am, we really appreciate it ma’am!” Mara, Ayrenn was not nearly so frightening, and she was a queen. Tsalari stared right through her, dark blue eyes — as big as the rest of her — narrowing slightly before she relaxed a fraction.Julan-jo sighed, shaking his head. “This one will go get the beds made up, he supposes... Oh, where will Aunt Nai-dra sleep then, dear?”“Great-Aunt Nai-nai is here, dad?” M’ursi-la groaned. “But she is so boring—”Her father stiffened, rounding on his daughter and crying, “She is nearly a hundred, Ursi-ma! Have respect for her, she has seen much more than you.”“Nai-dra can sleep by the hearth. That’s where she usually ends up, might as well shorten the journey,” Tsalari said dismissively. She had moved to the kitchen at the back of the room while they were distracted, banging about with the pots and pans and clearly trying to decide what to cook.“This one’s aunt has been sleeping on the floor?”The matron had her back to them, but she turned her head to stare at him sideways. “Tsalari tucked her into the guestroom, Tsalari found her snoring in front of the kitchen fire in the morning. She’s fine, husband. With our luck she’ll last another hundred years. It is not unheard of for the smaller phases.”“Still do not like it.”“Raz will help you, father. It will be good to see Great-Aunt Nai-dra again.” Raz took off his pack, setting it and his rain-proof jacket (made in the Bosmer style out of dried and stitched deer-guts) by the door as neatly as he could, before bounding into the other room after his father.The menfolk — and their common ground — gone, Kaylaneth glanced at Cariel. The other Bosmer looked just as lost as she felt, which was both comforting and terrifying. Should she offer to help? The matron seemed to be in firm control of the kitchen — would she be insulted?“One of you knows how to chop onions, yes?” Tsalari said, not sounding irritated yet but it was rather hard to tell.Cariel started, unable to hide her guilty look. “Yes ma’am!” She hurried over, heedless of the heavy packs and gear still on her back.Kaylaneth was now even less sure what to do with herself. She started with the obvious — removing her own burdens. She turned around to set her pack where Raz had set his... and nearly tripped right over a silver-gray housecat that had somehow gotten right behind her and plopped itself down to nap.M’ursi-la looked up at her startled gasp and bounded over. “Ah, that’d be Great-Aunt Nai-Nai. Hopefully she isn’t...”The housecat opened one milky eye, then closed it again.“Oh, good,” the tiger finished lamely.“She’s your Aunt?” Kaylaneth had never seen a Khajiit so tiny. Different phases of them, certainly. But it unnerved her that this sentient being looked exactly like the cats that roamed the docks at Skywatch, to control the mice.“Yep! Old spinster. She started living with us a few years ago. Dad says she used to be a spy when she was younger. I’m not sure if I believe him. Sure, Alfiq make perfect spies, but her? Hard to believe, doncha think? She just creaks around the house. And sleeps.”“Does she... does she talk?”“Nah, Alfiq don’t talk like we do. Even Pahmar and Pahmar-raht — that’s me — have trouble with forming these weird Tamrielic syllables. Ta’agra is easier by far, but Alfiq don’t have the spoken parts of that either. They need magic to talk. And no, she doesn’t. Can totally understand what you’re saying, though. And don’t treat her like the cats you have outside Elsweyr — Mom will get really mad.”“I’m not going to treat her like a common animal just because she resembles one in form,” Kaylaneth said, half amused and half offended. She felt a little silly doing it, but she bent down closer to the Alfiq’s level. “Greetings, honored Nai-dra. My name is Kaylaneth. I’ll be staying here a short while along with my friend Cariel over there. We are Eyes of the Queen, under command of your grandnephew Razum-dar. Are you really close to a hundred years old?”Nai-dra raised her head shakily, eyes unfocused, but she jerked her chin in what was undoubtedly a nod. Her fur was starting to clump and fall off, and the subtle tremble in her limbs spoke of what Kaylaneth’s mother Daraneth called the shaking sickness — one of the elders at Southpoint had it. He’d always been a little batty in Kaylaneth’s opinion, and she had actively avoided him when she was little. Everyone did, really, now that she thought about it. Except Lucinda, who took it upon herself to visit and bring him his meals and keep him company in what was in retrospect the last years of his life.She thought about that old man now, alone, sick and not even able to control his own body. And she had shunned him.“Miss Kaylaneth?”Oh dear. “Forgive me, I...” she whispered, straightening up before the roiling in her gut turned to getting sick all over the elderly Nai-dra. “I’m okay, M’ursi.”
Am I? Does it really matter anymore?
~*~*~*~
M’ursi-la had shyly offered to share her bedroom with her and Cariel, foregoing the guestroom entirely. The Pahmar-raht had promptly plopped herself in the center of the huge four-poster and gone to sleep, leaving Kaylaneth and Cariel to awkwardly clamber in on either side of her. Despite her best efforts to stay awake reading — she’d found a book of poems in the sitting room which Tsalari had near-ordered her to take when the matron caught her looking at it — M’ursi-la’s warm, soft fur pressed up against her side and rumbling purrs in her ears lulled her to sleep with ease.For once her dreams were restful, and she only remembered fragments — her mother’s lightning-scent, the soft rustling of pages.Cyrodiil. It would be the farthest from home she would be conscious for thus far — if Coldharbour didn’t count. She crossed into the war-torn land without fanfare, clutching her Eagle close. The steel talisman didn’t look anything like an actual eagle, but it was a symbol that would get them across Aldmeri Territory without trouble, according to Cariel.“How many times have you been here before?” Kaylaneth asked, shielding her eyes from the morning sun. Below, the Colovian Lowlands stretched away in rolling hills and patches of trees. They’d spent the previous day and a half picking their way from the lonely road south of Skingrad to the Western Elsweyr gate. Most of it was through wilderness, as no maintained paths connected them. The gate was more of a fortress and one of their centers of operations in Cyrodiil, the other being the Eastern Elsweyr gate near Bravil. Like Skingrad and the Gold Coast, Bravil and Leyawiin had been spared becoming active battlegrounds for the Three Banners War, though each of the cities had different reasons to be overlooked.All this Cariel had explained to her on the journey, though she had been careful to also mention that while these so-called “neutral zones” were effectively off-limits — no one could march an army through the Gold Coast unchecked, for example — that didn’t mean that the War didn’t affect them. Leyawiin had been torn apart in the early months of the conflict, and was now little more than a meaningless trophy to be squabbled over by the Pact, Dominion and what remained of the Imperial Legion.As for Bravil — no one knew. The gates were shut, and would not open. The rumor was that they hadn’t been closed to keep armies out, but to keep a sickness in. Brainrot, or the Knahaten Flu, or even a resurgence of the dreaded Thrassian Plague of the last Era. Cariel had shook her head in disbelief at this last rumor. “All hoarvor bile, of course, but what people believe is more powerful than what actually is. Remember that,” she’d declared.Now she leaned over the battlements, hair loose for once and ruffling gently in the warm breeze. “Ah… twice. Once all the way up to Chorrol. The other time I was in Black Boot when some reds — that’s Pact soldiers — attacked. That’s just north of here—” She pointed out a low wall in the distance, and beyond, the faint outline of a castle. “—past the Gate of Altadoon.”“You were there during a battle?” Kaylaneth asked, unable to keep her surprise from showing.She huffed. “Hardly a battle. Not like they get further north. These guys had slipped past the main defenders and were trying to claim Black Boot while we were preoccupied in a three-way at Roebeck. They weren’t very well-trained, though. Nords on a death-or-glory mission, I’d guess.”“They got death, then?”“Neither, actually. Well, one died. The rest we captured. As far as I know the prisoner exchange went well, though they weren’t happy to be captured in the first place.” Cariel shrugged and waved a hand. “Anyway, I haven’t been across the Niben. This is a learning venture for both of us. I have a route mostly planned, but I’d like to get your input on it. We also have to finalize our cover stories, though I’m hoping we won’t have to use them. In fact, I’m hoping we don’t meet any reds at all. Cyrodiil is a big place.”
~*~*~*~
Cyrodiil was, to put it simply, huge. Cariel showed her the map set up in the inner keep, the one the generals used. The distance from the gate to Castle Black Boot was a tiny portion of the total, and that didn’t even include when they passed into Shadowfen. To get there, however, involved crossing the Niben, which had only the three available bridges, all further north. Kaylaneth pointed out that these were perfect spots for ambushes, and the redhead nodded with pride before revealing what Kaylaneth didn’t know: there was a narrow spot just south of Bravil where the Dominion was ferrying supplies across Niben Bay, to set up a base in the mostly-unpopulated drainage valley across the water. It was a risky move, so close to Black Marsh, but the Eyes wouldn’t question it as long as they could catch a ride.“There aren’t any inns across the Bay, certainly not any that would cater to us,” Cariel said. “So we’ll be roughing it for a while.”Kaylaneth shrugged. The Nibenay Valley was described as a rainforest, similar enough to the lush jungles of Valenwood that she hoped it wouldn’t be too bad.Their cover stories were simpler than Kaylaneth had been expecting: they were sisters, refugees from Rimmen who had been disillusioned by the Dominion’s lack of aid and hoped to start again wherever the wind took them. That the ‘wind’ took them east? Pure coincidence. They hadn’t even needed alternate names, as no one knew Kaylaneth’s by reputation and ‘Cariel’ was very common, especially in Elsweyr.Unfortunately their cover meant they needed to change gear again, donning threadbare clothes and deceptively simple weapons. Cariel kept her elegant daggers in the small of her back, under a cloak, and displayed the mass-produced ones — little more than kitchen knives — on her hips. Kaylaneth’s gear was already low-quality, but it bore the Dominion eagle, and so had to be replaced with plain versions. As for their clothes, Cariel selected two common outfits each, and the cloaks. Even in the safety of the Gate, Kaylaneth felt vulnerable.The feeling only got worse as they left for the Eastern Elsweyr Gate. Though Cariel had explained that the countryside within the wall was well-protected from enemy forces, there were still wild animals to deal with. However, the only wolf they saw was from a distance, and it loped away as the wind blew their scent to it.It was practically boring, though Cariel’s presence was a comfort that kept her from turning too far inward. The countryside was pretty, but lost its novelty fast.Two days to the Eastern Gate, another to reach the ferry and cross — the shadow of Bravil looming the entire time, but it wasn’t their mission — and then it happened.The first sign was the animals. They hadn’t seen any life since leaving the haphazard Dominion forward camp, but they had certainly heard it — all manner of croaking, tweeting and buzzing followed their trek through the lowlands, though the creatures had long hidden themselves by the time they passed by. Then the constant noise just — stopped. It was gradual enough, starting with the frogs’ silence and ending with the insects, that neither Kaylaneth nor Cariel noticed at first. But then the second sign — a flash of sunlight on metal moving through the trees to their left — came, and both Eyes knew.Someone was flanking them.“Don’t run.” Cariel’s voice was strained as she slowly laid her hands on her hips. Kaylaneth’s eyes darted side to side, as she fought the urge to turn around completely. Her nose itched. She reached up to scratch it.The bushes rustled to the left, and then they were upon them, soldiers bursting in from all sides. Too many to count, too many to hope to beat. Kaylaneth whirled, blocking the sword coming down at her head, and lashing out with her mace to catch one lunging for Cariel on the temple. He went down without a sound.Dimly she was aware of Cariel shifting, putting them back-to-back. Without thinking, she cast, coating the other Bosmer’s daggers in fire without looking, but a scream in the next instant proved Cariel was putting them to use. Then she lost track entirely: two more enemies crowded in. Closed helmets covered their faces, but Kaylaneth, instincts taking over, watched their feet and hands, thrusting her shield at one as he tensed to lunge forward. He fell back, clutching at his nose.“We’re refugees!” Cariel screamed, but the soldiers ignored her.A huge warrior, all in heavy armor with an Imperial diamond on the breast (Kaylaneth’s blood ran cold) leapt at her and swung his warhammer, shattering her shield. Wood splinters flew everywhere, and she cried out as the shockwave ran up her arm into her shoulder. Oh gods, her hand.She ground her teeth. With a screech of fury she darted at the warrior, up in his guard, and swung her mace, but it glanced off his helmet and didn’t even faze him. He laughed in her face and switched grips to one hand, letting his weapon tilt down and batting her away with the other arm.It was like a horse had plowed into her. She had hit the tree before she knew what was happening, crumpling at the base as her vision flashed black, then white.The last thing she saw was the warrior stalking towards her, and behind… behind, Cariel, daggers now mere steel, Cariel lashing out like a senche-tiger at the laughing soldiers, Cariel landing blow after fruitless blow until one darted in and thrust his sword, Cariel gasping, eyes going wide and over-bright, Cariel, eyes holding hers until the last light went them and she dropped, lifeless, to the ground…Cariel. The name, the lament echoed in her head as the warrior swung his hammer and her consciousness exploded out, once again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This awakening was different. Clean, sharp, none of the mugginess of before. She snapped back to consciousness to find her broken body laying awkwardly against the tree, head turned to the side.The warrior — her murderer — was pawing at her bag, still attached to her side. He wasn’t looking at her, concentrated on his task. She closed her eyes again; she could pretend to be dead. She could wait for them to leave. She could drag Cariel’s body back — no, it would be too hard to get her through what they knew now was occupied territory. Bury her then, mark this spot somehow. She hadn’t had the map, so she didn’t know quite where she was.“Arkay’s balls, look!”The screech of one of the other Imperials broke into her thoughts, and she snapped open her eyes to find the speaker pointing at her, a look of pure horror on her face.“She’s— how?!”The warrior glanced back at his comrade, then followed the line of her shaking finger to look directly into Kaylaneth’s eyes.She was frozen, and so was he for a second, but then he opened his mouth and screamed. The last thing Kaylaneth saw was the flash of his mailed fist coming for her head.
~*~*~*~
“I killed her.”“I know.”“She was dead.”“And now she’s dead again. But if the same miracle happens twice, we’ll be ready.”Kaylaneth groaned. She felt like she’d been trampled by a mammoth, and when she tried to shift her aching arms she realized abruptly that they were tied. Bound tightly, in fact, along with her legs. The only thing she could move was her head, and that sent a fresh wave of pain through her neck and shoulders.“Ah, there she is,” the second voice said, from right in front of her.Kaylaneth opened her eyes to find that time had not progressed much; it was still afternoon from the sunlight filtering through the trees. But the Imperials had evidently settled down for the time being. Six of them sat in a circle around a small fire a short distance away, eating bread, while the warrior who had killed her stood a short distance away, eying her warily.The eighth Imperial was crouched before her, staring straight into her eyes as she oriented herself. He was short, middle-aged, and balding, with a face that would have been kindly in any other setting. The staff on his back was taller than he was, topped with a mockery of the Red Diamond.“Well, hello there,” he said. “What is your name?”Kaylaneth blinked at him, and pressed her teeth together.“Why are you here?”Y’ffre, even his voice sounded like he was a grandfatherly scholar holed up in a library somewhere.He shook his head and frowned, as if disappointed in her silence. “My dear, it really would be better for you if you cooperated. Perhaps we should get to the real questions. Whatever are we to do with you? And perhaps more of interest, how is it that you are still alive after Alcaeus smashed your head in with a warhammer?”Alcaeus snarled, “Dammit, she isn’t some research project! She’s obviously a Dominion agent. She has to die.”The mage rolled his eyes, replying without turning from Kaylaneth. “We tried that already, if you don’t remember. But I suppose my… curiosity may not be sated at this time. A shame.” He fixed Kaylaneth with an inscrutable look. “That means one question remains, my dear. We cannot just let you go.”“Can’t you?” Kaylaneth rasped, though she hadn’t expected them to in the first place.The mage smirked. “No.” He stood up, brushing down his robes. “I do have an idea, though. I bet there’s a market for you, such an oddity as you are.”Icy fear pricked at her spine. He couldn’t mean…“What are you talking about, old man?” Alcaeus snapped, crossing his arms over his broad chest.A wicked smile crept across the mage’s placid face. “I have… connections, you could say. I’m thinking of using them. Those Dark Elves pay a pretty silver for an enemy prisoner, especially since they can’t take lizardfolk anymore.”Dark Elves? Kaylaneth swallowed hard. She’d never met a Dunmer, though she had heard of their legendary cruelty. And their living gods, though that hardly concerned her at the moment.“Do you really think it will work?”“Of course. Will make a tidy profit I think, and come out better for it though three of us are dead. More loot for the rest of us, right? I’ll set up a meeting. In the meantime, we march for Cheydinhal. Divalia! You’ve still got the stuff, right?” The mage beckoned one of his comrades over, a whip-thin Imperial girl who watched Kaylaneth rather as a horse watched a tiger. She was the one who had blown her cover.Kaylaneth struggled when she saw the bottle, but Alcaeus stunned her with a jab to the head and the mage poured it down her throat.It burned as it went down and almost instantly her sight blurred. Her thoughts turned in wheels in her head, but she couldn’t figure out how to move. Dimly, she was aware of Alcaeus hauling her up over his shoulder, and her head lolling from side to side. The mage was barking orders from somewhere, armor clinking unnaturally loudly to her ears.As the warrior fell into step with his comrades, she caught a glimpse across the clearing, her vision tunneling into a singular image: Cariel’s red hair, stained with drops of blood, fanned out around her lifeless and picked-over body.
~*~*~*~
Whatever the drug was, they fed it to her every morning and afternoon, when they broke camp and when they stopped for a brief rest in the heat of day. Somewhere, at some time — time blurred together, wound around and looped in the oddest of ways — they had found a cart and thrown her in the back. She knew this because one day the afternoon rest was later than usual, and her mind started to plummet back to earth from the soaring state it had been in. Not long enough without the drug to plot an escape, but long enough for her to realize that she was in a cart where she hadn’t been in one before, rolling along in the center of the group of Imperials.At least she had a shade; they didn’t want their prize to have a sunburn.Then they stopped for the rest, and she didn’t yet have the energy to resist another dose.
~*~*~*~
One morning — it was morning, wasn’t it — she woke from the strangest dream. M’ursi-la had been there, asking questions she had no answer to, questions she couldn’t remember now, and then the young Khajiit had snarled, mouth opening wide, and between the rows of sharp teeth flashing in the moonlight, she had seen sunlight-stranded hair and blood. So much blood.
~*~*~*~
Spinning, swirling, soaring. Rainbow-tinted stars swam before her, and she tried to catch them, but her body was too heavy. A cacophony of unfiltered noise rose around her. Her head throbbed. Why couldn’t she move?The tang of copper filled her mouth.
~*~*~*~
“—we go. She’s back.”The voice buzzed in her ear like a bee. Kaylaneth jerked her head away, opening her eyes. For a moment, the blurry sight before her clashed with the stark clarity of her other senses and her thoughts. Then she blinked, and the world came into focus.The older mage was before her again, face still etched in false kindness, though his jaw was set and his eyes were hard. She was sitting in the back of a shaded cart, clad now only in rough-spun cloth. She couldn’t see anything past the mage, as he had climbed into the cart with her and filled her vision, but the air smelled… damp. Rotten.“Did I die again?” she choked out. Something was clinging to her face, in a trail from her nose to her chin. Without thinking, she reached up and scratched at the line, and found that it was dried blood.“Yes, my dear,” the mage said with a dramatic sigh. “Overdose. Regrettable.”She reached back into her memory, and found only a headache.“In any case, you won’t have to take any of the stuff again. Here we are. Here is where we leave you.”“Where— where is ‘here’?”The Imperial smiled, another wicked thing. “Here is Tear.” With a flourish, he turned and threw off the cart’s canvas roof.Her breath stuck in her throat. Somehow, they had left Cyrodiil while she was drugged. Indeed, it seemed to her they had left Tamriel entirely, and entered a plane of Oblivion. The smell alone was horrendous, but now she knew what it was from: the giant mushroom directly above her. To her left was a sea, dark waves crashing against a shore overgrown with docks. To her right, farms stretched away into the distance, growing crops of the like she had never seen. The laborers worked in groups, bare-backed, pulling down stalks under the heady glare of the sun, and foremen walked between the rows, whips coiled at their sides or held at the ready. Straight ahead were the walls of a city, a great, hulking, fortified thing made of gray stone. From every possible place flew banners with chains on them. Guards patrolled the walls, mere steps away from falling to a certain death on the ground below.They were stopped a ways off the road into the city, where a stream of people came and went, watched over by the guards. That was itself a normal-enough thing, if not for who these people were: litters borne by men clad only in loincloths, heads down as they carried their burdens. Due to the distance and the strong afternoon sunlight glittering off the ocean, she couldn’t make out many details of the ever-shifting throng, but some part of her knew what she was looking at. Morrowind. Dark Elves and their famous cruelty. She was in the middle of it.It was too much, too soon after resurrection. Her vision narrowed again, turning spotty at the corners. Her eyes flicked from the guards, to the whips, to the slack faces of the slaves going by, but she couldn’t—The mage leaned forward, invading her space. “Look at me,” he snapped, and though she couldn’t help but look at him, for lack of other options, he wasn’t satisfied by that. His kindly elder facade fell away, revealing the monster beneath. “Listen here, you little—”“Dealer’s here,” came Alcaeus’ brusque call, and the mage leaned away again, placid smile falling neatly into place.“We went through a lot of trouble for you, my dear,” he said with a wink. She did not miss the warning disguised as a statement of fact, despite it all. He wanted her to behave. Probably to impress the dealer. He wants to make a profit in his investment, by Y’ffre, she thought, and her lips twisted despite her fear.“Bring out the merchandise and we’ll deal,” another, unseen man said. His voice was laced through with an accent of the like she had never heard before.The mage grabbed her arm and — with a force she could scarcely believe came from such a frail-looking body — dragged her from the cart. Her bare feet hit muddy earth that squelched between her toes; she would have fallen but for the Imperial’s grip. The mud was cold, despite the heat of the day, and as she tried to recover her footing she stepped on something that cracked under her weight and cut at her heel.She didn’t want to know what it was.Alcaeus leaned against the stalk of the giant mushroom, picking at his fingernails and steadfastly pretending to ignore everything around him even as his eyes flicked up every few seconds to covertly check his surroundings. The other members of the band were nowhere to be seen, but…Perhaps the only reason her eyes hadn’t immediately alighted on the dealer was the force of her denial, but now that she had seen him she couldn’t look away. Even in the great cities of Elden Root and Skywatch, there had been no Dunmer. He may well have been ordinary among his people, but he was at once the most terrifying and fascinating visage she had seen. She had heard they had ash-gray skin, but his was darker than any ash she knew, close to coals. Severe of face, his cheekbones could have pierced steel. And the eyes! Red as wine, with no pupils, they brought to mind the Dremora she had fought in Skywatch. She didn’t bother to suppress the shiver that shook her whole body.He stepped forward, heedless of the mud staining the bottom of his long red robes. Intricate stitching along the seams hinted at his wealth and position: the thread glinted gold, and made the shape of endless chains, just like the flags on the city walls.The Dunmer folded his hands behind his back and inclined his head at the mage. “I am Melor Dres, senior Acquisitor for the Pens. I received your letter. This is the item of interest?” he asked, eyes flicking over Kaylaneth and seeming to dismiss her in the same glance.She bristled, face burning hot at being referred to so callously. The mage’s nails dug into her arm.“Yes, sir,” he said with pride, like a child presenting his artwork to a doting parent.“Hm.” Melor stepped closer, looking her over. With fingers that felt like they’d been held to a fire, he grasped her chin and tilted her head this way and that. She resisted her urge, no, her need to spit in his face. He felt the texture of her (filthy) hair, tapped an antler with a perfectly-manicured fingernail.“Natural antlers,” he breathed, sounding impressed to Kaylaneth’s ears though she still couldn’t quite get through the accent. “Plain-looking, though. We will have to do something about those scars.” He turned slightly, and it was only then that Kaylaneth saw the scrawny Breton just behind him. His hunched shoulders and rough shift — it looked rather like a re-purposed millet sack, actually — marked him as a slave as surely as the thick iron collar around his neck. He held a quill in one hand and a parchment board in the other, scratching down notes as his master spoke.“I believe you mentioned capturing the item in a skirmish, yes? So some measure of fighting prowess… we’ll find out what, later—”The Imperial tensed. “Sir—”Melor waved a hand, silencing him. “—but of more interest right now is that you wrote the item came back from the dead twice?”“Three times, sir. We were keeping her drugged and she finally overdosed just outside the city. Came back just before you arrived. But, sir—”“Drugged?” The Acquistor raised an eyebrow. “With what? Never mind, we’ll find out in the intake. If what you say is true, the item will go to auction next week.” He returned his attention to Kaylaneth, glancing over her one more time. She had an idea what he was about to do. Now or never.He slid his fingers under her chin again, running his thumb over her bottom lip. Don’t bite, don’t bite…His grip shifted, wrapping itself around her throat, squeezing gently, mockingly. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath.When his other hand moved to cup the back of her skull, she tensed and let her lips part in a gasp.And when her eyes locked with his and she saw the intent, felt the pressure on her neck, she roared, flames bursting from her mouth like the dragon she should have always been.
~*~*~*~
She woke alone, for once.Alone as a slave can truly be in the infamous Pens of Tear, which is to say, not at all. Her cage, an iron-barred cube with the barest amount of straw on the floor, was among thousands of them in just one warehouse. They lined the floor in neat rows and stacked all the way to the ceiling, such that a slave placed in the exact center of the building could see every one of their fellows. See, but not communicate with or touch on pain of a beating by the otherwise absent guards.It didn’t take her long to realize their secret — how they knew she had tried to question the prisoner next door, a middle-aged fellow Bosmer with the loose skin of one who had once been pleasantly plump. She had looked back with sunken eyes, shook her head, and curled further into a ball, shutting out the sight and sound of Kaylaneth. And the guard, who had arrived within seconds, levitated to her row several dozens of feet up via some kind of spell and, without preamble, struck Kaylaneth five times with his whip. It didn’t take her long to spot the thimble-sized magical orbs after that, whizzing along the rows or spinning slowly in the corner of each cage, watching them.She thought about knocking hers out of the air, but then the lightning shield around it pulsed, and she tossed out that idea.The great slave-pens of Tear utilized chains mundane, magical, and metaphorical. Just as dinner arrived for her section — the cages seemed to be sorted according to race, as every slave on her ‘floor’ and the one immediately above was Bosmeri, with Altmer on the level above that and Khajiit below her — via another spell, a scream echoed through the warehouse. Kaylaneth craned her neck towards the sound, spotting the tell-tale glint of steel armor, a guard’s armor, far above.More guards arrived, shooting up the columns with their spell until a group was clustered around one cage. The prisoner continued to scream, and from the looks on those around her — ranging from strained to resigned — they knew what was about to happen.The screams cut off abruptly, and they brought him down, a Redguard covered in whip-marks old and new hanging limply in the middle of the group of guards. His eyes were wide, blinking furiously as if making up for the paralysis of everything else. They floated down and across to a cage several levels below Kaylaneth’s, on the ground floor. She hadn’t taken a good look at the bottom yet, but as she watched them put him in one of the few empty cages in the warehouse, she noticed that level held prisoners of all races. Some kind of punishment?She thought it odd that the level for disobedient prisoners would be so close to the exit. That was until she saw the Khajiit above him — Khajiit were by far the most numerous of the races here, taking up more levels than most of the other races combined — answer the call of nature, and noted with a roiling in her gut that there was no magical barrier between the floor of the Khajiit’s cage and the roof of the Redguard’s, as there was further up.Other than that incident — and the knowledge that came with it — life in the Pens was positively boring. The guards only ever appeared to discipline misbehavior and, more rarely, remove a slave. Probably for sale, though she remembered something about an auction. The other slaves didn’t talk to her or each other, and she didn’t blame them. The only noises in the Pens were the shifting of straw, food entering and leaving their bodies, and thousands of people from all over Tamriel breathing.Tear was aptly named. Its most numerous class lived in despair, and died quietly.
~*~*~*~
Kaylaneth slept when she needed to. Most of them slept the boredom away, in fact. Some nearby had nightmares, even, though the guards didn’t arrive for their mutterings. She had resigned herself to whatever came her way by this point — the cages were sealed without a guard to open them, and the orbs were always watching. Who would rescue her? She dreamt about it once. Ayrenn riding in on M’ursi-la, streams of light pouring from her hands and burning Tear and all the Dunmer in it to a crisp. It was a good dream.She could keep rough track of the time by the tasteless rice-porridge that arrived for breakfast and dinner, but there were no other indicators. There was no real point to it, anyway, but she needed something to focus on besides watching the other slaves waste away with her.So it was that she knew it was about three and a half days into her captivity when the guards came to her.
~*~*~*~
Sheogorath was there in her dream, laughing and eating cheesewheels with her while Molag Bal sulked in the corner, refusing Uncle’s offers to join them with a petulant huff.“You’re mine, darlin’,” Sheogorath repeated, tapping her on the head with his cane. “Not Mo’s, not anyone else’s. Broad Daylight over there wants you too, but she’ll just have to wait, won’t she?”Kaylaneth looked where Uncle indicated, but all she saw was a glimpse of the woman’s face — ethereal and beautiful, the stars given something like mortal form — before she smiled. The sun flared out from between her teeth, the onslaught of light blinding Kaylaneth while both Sheogorath and Molag Bal chuckled.She startled awake to find one of the faceless, silent guards floating by her cage. They stared at each other for a moment before Kaylaneth remembered to look away, running a hand across her matted hair and hugging her arms to her body. Was it auction time already? Melor had said next week, right? But no one else was being taken, and all the slaves around her were surreptitiously looking on.The guard ran his fingers down the edge of the cage, and the bars sprang open. He beckoned with one hand, the other held ready with a spell. Probably of the kind that hurt. She shuffled forward, keeping her eyes down. What was going on?She reached the edge of the cage, with a long drop to the floor below. The guard grasped her arm, the leather gloves bruising her skin though his grip wasn’t rough, turning her around and pressing her back to his chest. His armor was freezing through the thin cloth she still wore, but he held her tight and shot back down to the ground before she could so much as squirm or scream.More guards were there at the bottom, ushering her along despite the dizziness. They left the cages behind, pulling her down a short corridor and into a preparation room. Each corner held something different: a sunken area for washing, a rack full of roughspun clothes, a wall lined with unidentifiable instruments, and lastly, what appeared to be a waiting area complete with an ornately carved tea table.First they washed her, a highly uncomfortable process which involved stripping naked in front of the guards — and she still couldn’t tell whether they were leering or not behind their helmets, which was all the worse. Then buckets upon buckets of cold water, soap burning her eyes, and a threadbare excuse for a towel. Water dripped down her back from her hair, again free of the braid she preferred to keep it in, as the guards hurried her over to the clothing. One of them selected a long cotton shift the color of burnt porridge.She was pulling the garment over her head when the door burst open, followed by an exasperated shout of, “Sedura Ushari! My lady, wait—” The guards shrank back, and Kaylaneth tugged down the shift in time to see the new arrival, standing like a stormcloud in the doorway.She was almost as tall as Ayrenn, though with none of her serenity. Ushari Dres was, Kaylaneth would discover later, the epitome of classical Dunmeri ideals for beauty and grace, though in that moment the Bosmer just saw a towering, ashen-skinned Dunmer lady in a lavender dress that would not have been out of place in an Emperor’s ballroom. Though young of face, her hair was a shining silver, swept up in an elegant knot at the back of her head. Her eyes, also silver, glanced over the room dismissively before landing on Kaylaneth.The lady raised an eyebrow, then turned halfway, to where Melor Dres stood in the hallway behind her, a panic-stricken look on his face. Kaylaneth looked, then looked again. His face… it looked exactly the same as she remembered, like the fire hadn’t even touched him. Were their healers that good?“Ushari—” Melor pleaded.“Don’t,” the lady snapped, “call me that, s’wit.”Kaylaneth could have smiled, watching Melor backpedal. “Yes, Lady Dres. It’s just that this area is— the item is not yet fit for your presence, my lady—”“I’ll decide that.” Ushari turned her back on him, striding forward to look more closely at Kaylaneth. The urge to smile evaporated under her stare. Who was she, who could make Melor quiver so? “It doesn’t matter whether she is trained or not. Though, I am disappointed in you, Melor. Such a valuable collector’s item and you let her remain feral? The auction isn’t that far away. Losing your touch, are we?”Melor held himself a little straighter at the direct challenge, though his voice still wavered. “I was going to target a certain market—”Ushari spun, hands alighting on her hips. “A certain market? Like Aunt Mirise, perhaps?” Melor made to protest, but she waved him off. “No, don’t answer that. That was precisely your plan. Tsk. As I said, it doesn’t matter. I will buy her now.”The Acquisitor gaped.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Olive was being corrected again.Kaylaneth stood with the other household slaves in a neat line around the inner courtyard where the corrections were always held. Back straight, feet together, hands clasped, eyes forward, always forward when witnessing a correction. Don’t look away. Don’t even blink.Olive was crying, fat tears rolling down her face as she gasped and whined. She had screamed on the first stroke, but had now run out of breath to scream. Kaylaneth knew that feeling, as surely as she knew the stretch of the scars on her own back. Hers weren’t even that bad, really. It had helped that she was already so fragile, in a way; she learned within the first two days to keep her head down.Down, except for times such as these.Kaylaneth watched Olive’s face, not bothering to hide the sympathy-pain she felt. Mistress Idrana called these teachable moments, and they were as much for the other slaves as they were for Olive. This is what happens. This is what will happen. You will watch and ache, and hate yourself for doing nothing. Olive was supposed to be her friend. Was her friend. Theirs was an uneasy pact born of mutual fear: fear of Mistress, fear of the corrections, fear for each other and themselves. It was uneasy because they feared for themselves. Here was a weakness she could not help, because Olive was only a girl and did not deserve to be alone.The final lash fell and the House guard coiled the whip. He had been leaning in to each stroke like an artist captivated by his own work, but now he stood tall, waiting on Mistress.“Well?” Ushari prompted from the veranda.“That one,” said the guard stationed next to her, pointing at a tiger-striped Khajiit opposite Kaylaneth, “looked away twice.”Zurr recoiled, immediately prostrating himself. He said nothing. Knew better, as he had been here for a long time. He should have known not to flinch away, too, but he was soft-hearted. He was always one of those who made it worse, without meaning to. Kaylaneth almost wished he had meant to; she would know to hate him then.Ushari sighed; it echoed through the courtyard, still but for Olive’s great heaving sobs. “And we were doing so well.” She flicked her fingers. “Ten more. Count them.”Kaylaneth swallowed and chanted with the others as the strokes resumed.When it was done, two of the gardeners pulled an unconscious Olive from the post and carried her away. Ushari leaned back into her chair on the veranda and gesticulated with her bladed Alik’r folding-fan. “That needn’t have happened, any of it. Remember that. Back to work.”It needn’t have happened, that much was true. Olive wasn’t a fighter, and had never so much as raised her voice from a squeak in the month since Kaylaneth was bought, but she was good at what she did. That was the problem — she took pride in her work. When Ushari fidgeted during her manicure, Olive knew the nails would be ruined and said so. She had been a stylist’s apprentice, before, and knew all sorts of things on subjects Kaylaneth had never bothered with but Ushari was meticulous about.But Ushari hated being told to do things, and hated even more being told not to do them.“Kay, here,” Ushari commended with a snap of her fingers as the slaves filed out.Kaylaneth turned and approached, kneeling by Ushari’s chair when her mistress indicated to do so. Y’ffre, but she hated that particular shortening of her name. She never hated it before, but Ushari had ruined it.“What do you think, Kay?” Ushari asked offhandedly, dangling her fingers in front of Kaylaneth’s face.She squinted. Ushari’s nails were done in royal blue today, to match her dress she supposed. Little pricks of light twinkled like stars when she moved them. “They’re lovely, Mistress,” she said carefully. “You always have such a sense of what would look most stunning.”“Mm. And Olive?”The question. “Olive does her best to carry out your vision, Mistress, but she was wrong to speak to you so.”“Did she deserve her punishment?”She winced. Gods forgive her. “…Yes, Mistress.”Ushari tossed her head and peered down at her slave. Kaylaneth could feel those strange silver eyes boring into the back on her exposed neck. “Well, of course. But I’m surprised at you, Kay. I thought you were such good friends. You’ve supported each other since your arrival, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”Perish the thought. Ushari Dres noticed everything, particularly when it was right in front of her nose.“But here you are,” the Dunmer continued, startling her out of the nasty course her thoughts had taken. Kaylaneth was suddenly very glad she was not facing her mistress, not with the flush that flooded her cheeks. “You’re throwing poor Olive under the silt-strider, behind her back. Oh, how delightful.”Ushari Dres noticed everything, particularly when it suited her particular kind of cruelty.
~*~*~*~
As Ushari’s handmaiden and personal attendant, Kaylaneth accompanied her mistress almost everywhere. She slept on a pallet at the foot of her bed, stood behind her at her meals, and endured the torment of her social circle.She even came along when the young Dunmer met with her parents.Ushari, at twenty-two, was technically an adult by the Dunmeri reckoning, but she still lived with her parents and was beholden to them. Kaylaneth got the sense that Maldrus and Idrana Dres were coming to regret spoiling their only child so, if only because her tantrums were becoming less and less appropriate as she grew older.They were taking tea in one of the smaller sitting rooms — which was still almost of a size as Kaylaneth’s childhood home back in Southpoint — while sunlight filtered in through the enormous windows and a few of the maids came in and out with dishes. Kaylaneth was kneeling against the wall just behind Ushari’s chair, hands folded in her lap, watching the elder Dres through her eyelashes. It wasn’t the best place to spot her mistress’ cues, but she hoped she wouldn’t need to.It was the same old fight again.“Daughter,” Maldrus was saying, “you need to think about your future.” He was a middle-aged (however old that was) mer with a lined face and far too many rings on his fingers.“Father,” Ushari drawled, “you need to stop thinking about my future for me.”Kaylaneth would be ripped apart for daring to speak to any free person like that, let alone her master and mistresses. Her own mother would have been very disappointed in her too, had Kaylaneth ever said such a thing. But Ushari spoke with impunity here.“Ushari!” Idrana said, her raised — though only slightly — voice making the other slaves flinch. “This is possibly the only invitation you are going to get to an academy, certainly the only one to Shad Astula. If you do not take it, it’s gone. I will not have my daughter delegated to a minor role in the Pact!”“Who says I wanted a role in the Pact to begin with?” Ushari’s hands clenched around the teacup, rattling it against its saucer.It was the same point she had made several times before, but Maldrus and Idrana gasped in unison like this was news.“Ushari!” This time Idrana’s voice really was raised, and the Breton maid who had been refilling her teacup flinched so badly she had to stop pouring so the hot liquid wouldn’t splash. “We need to show our support for the Pact! You are a noble lady of the Great House Dres invited to the best magical academy in Tamriel, you will attend.”Ushari leapt to her feet, throwing her napkin to the ground and knocking over her teacup. The porcelain shattered, splattering tea on the carpet — and Kaylaneth’s bare knees. “I will not!” Ushari shouted, turning on her heel and flouncing out of the room.Kaylaneth doubled over, frantically dabbing at the scalding liquid with the hem of her tunic. Y’ffre, it stung. It was somehow worse than a whip — perhaps because she hadn’t been expecting it.Maldrus got up to storm after his daughter, but Idrana held him back. “No, don’t follow her,” said the matron. “Ugh. You there, I expect this mess cleaned up now.” She looked at Kaylaneth and shook her head. “Someone help her to the slave quarters, too. I doubt Ushari will want pus all over her rooms.”She certainly wouldn’t die from the burns — unless infection took her — but they wouldn’t heal without assistance. And she could see how Olive was doing.
~*~*~*~
One of the maids ended up helping her to the slave wing, where there was a small infirmary. Kaylaneth hadn’t been to the wing in weeks, since she started sleeping in Ushari’s room. Or rather, since Ushari had been certain she wouldn’t be murdered in her sleep. The Dunmer never visited the slave wing, and neither did her parents. It was squirreled away at the back of the manor, as far from the frequently-used living areas as possible.Her skin pulled around the burns, which had quickly become shiny crimson splotches across her legs. She sat on one of the two pallets in the tiny room and tried not to hiss as Vicard, who usually worked in the kitchens but was a healer on the side, poked at the wounds. He had already poured as much cool water as could be spared over them.Olive was face-down on the other cot, breathing shallow but steady in an induced sleep. When healthy, she would have been pretty if she wasn’t so frail-looking, but now she was pale and her face drawn in tight even in unconsciousness. Her back was a mess of bandages and rags made into bandages. Kaylaneth could still see a few of the criss-crossing lines where the blood had seeped through. A bucket in the corner contained the changed cloths, and she’d passed a pot in the common room where yet more were boiling for the next round.Vicard pumped a bit of magicka into a spot about the size of a gold piece, where the tea had made concentric circles of progressively-worse burns that felt like they had burrowed straight to the bone. They probably had; it was right on the kneecap. When Vicard raised his hands, the outer circle of burns had faded, leaving just the center, which was still red and shiny. The jagged edges of her skin, at least, had healed over.“Sorry, Kaylaneth,” he said, rocking back on his heels, “I can’t do much more right now. These shouldn’t get infected, as long as you keep them clean. I need to save everything I can for Olive.”“How is she? I’ve never seen it this bad before.”“She would have recovered by now if Mistress Ushari had allowed her medicine for that sickness last week instead of letting it run its course. She was already weakened by that.”It was likely. This close to Black Marsh, diseases lurked in the very air and one could tell time by the frequency at which new strains appeared. The slave population was particularly vulnerable, especially as Argonians had been replaced by other races. If the Ebonheart Pact was never formed, would the Dres have been content to only take Argonians and whoever else wandered into their nets? Would Vicard, Zurr, Olive, Kaylaneth herself — would any of them be chattel now?War took everything, it seemed. But—Ayrenn believed so much in restoring peace to Tamriel, in leading by example, and her convictions were her grace, moreso even than her natural queenly bearing. She believed. The Orrery had seen that strength of spirit and deemed her worthy of ruling all Tamriel. Kaylaneth only regretted that she wouldn’t see it happen.Her musing did not go unnoticed. “What is it, Kaylaneth? You just got this—” Vicard gestured to his own face, frowning.“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said, “and what will it help?”Vicard paused, eyes sad. “Kaylaneth, whatever it is… look, you realize Mistress Ushari is trying to separate you from us on purpose, right? She wants to isolate you. She wants you to think there is nowhere else to turn, to get you to rely on her for everything. It’s a common tactic for them. But we’re still here.”Kaylaneth opened her mouth, but her protest died on her lips.“It’s okay, Kaylaneth.” Vicard moved to check on his other patient, feeling along the bandages and pressing his hand to Olive’s forehead. With his attention pointedly turned elsewhere, the air itself felt lighter.“How much did you follow the Three Banners War, before…?” she began, indicating the humid, badly-lit, cramped room that was standard for the slave quarters.“I was one of the first on the front line when it began, three years ago. High King Emeric sent troops through the Inner Sea to Vivec City in an… admittedly misguided attempt to assassinate the Warrior-Poet. We failed, of course.” He held a cup to Olive’s lips, but she shied away, even in her sleep. He set the water down and shook his head in frustration. “I was the only survivor. I could only keep myself alive, and that was how I ended up here.” Shame colored his voice. What must it feel like, to be the only one left?Kaylaneth couldn’t imagine. Heat rose to her cheeks as she coughed and continued, “Then you know that Queen Ayrenn is the leader of the Aldmeri Dominion. I was an agent of hers, an Eye of the Queen. I hadn’t been one for very long, but I think — that is, I hope — she trusted me. A lot happened in a short amount of time. I was supposed to go to Shadowfen to scout out suspected insubordination. There was an alchemist who had wanted to poison the Argonians’ eggs, kill them all before they were even born, and though Ayrenn had forbidden it, she thought he was going ahead with it.”Vicard shuddered and glanced at her, but didn’t interrupt.“I was sent with another Eye, but we were attacked as we crossed Cyrodiil. They killed her and tried to kill me. But I’m… I can’t die, or rather, I always come back to life. Scared them halfway to Oblivion, I think, but then they sold me to the Dres. I’m some kind of trophy to them, but at least Ushari hasn’t killed me for sport yet. The process can be unpleasant.”“I had heard a rumor…” Vicard said slowly. “But I didn’t believe. How— no, wait, I don’t really want to know that badly.” He paused, thoughtful, one hand still brushing Olive’s sweat-soaked hair from her face. “Tell me more about your Queen. I never met Emeric, though the mission was supposedly his idea.”Kaylaneth needed a moment to gather her words. “Queen Ayrenn… She’s beautiful. On the outside, of course — long blonde hair, eyes like the summer sky. But she’s also genuinely a good person. Not just with the Argonian eggs, either. I spent several weeks in an infirmary, recovering from… an illness, and though she was busy, though she was a queen, she sat with me until I was better. We weren’t that close—” oh, what might have been! “—but still, she kept me company. Told me stories. She had wandered Tamriel before she became Queen, for seven years. I…”“You love her.” Vicard’s eyes were sad again.“I… yes. Yes. I never got to say so, though. I may never have the chance, now.”“For what it’s worth, I hope you do, someday.”
~*~*~*~
Olive was into her second week of recovery, awake and walking with some difficulty. Kaylaneth didn’t get many opportunities to visit, but one of the maids assigned to Ushari’s rooms brought her updates. The Breton would have extensive scarring, but she would live. If left alone, that was; one could never account for Ushari.The lady, meanwhile, settled back into her usual routine of ignoring her parents’ disappointed looks, and Kaylaneth returned to her mistress’ side, enduring the attentions of her ‘friends’. The mer Ushari ostensibly called her paramour, despite sleeping with everyone but him, had a reputation for cornering other people’s slaves, and he had now set his sights on Kaylaneth. She knew she wouldn’t be able to defend herself without follow-through. All she could do was stick close to Ushari’s side and pray her mistress’ fickle whims wouldn’t turn to a different kind of bloodsport.Kaylaneth was so concerned with maneuvering around her mistress and her social circle that she nearly missed the whispers of the other slaves. Someone had overheard Maldrus talking to Idrana about a letter from his sister-in-law, one Mirise Dres. The words “family visit” were used, which such creeping horror that a pall fell over the slaves, and even Kaylaneth took note.“Who is she?” she whispered to her maid contact, Berry, after Ushari had snuck out for a night on the town — one of the few times she wasn’t in the same room as her mistress now.“Mirise Dres is the worst of them all!” Berry whispered back urgently, smoothing over a pillow. She was a nervous one. “She’s a necromancer! Tortures for sport! They say she has Telvanni contacts, and is always doing experiments on us poor folk to trade notes with them. There isn’t a horrible thing she won’t do. And… well, Kaylaneth dear, you should know what the rumors say.”“What?” she said, something in Berry’s voice making a lump of dread coil in her gut.“They say… well, they say that she’s coming for you.” Berry shook her head and shuffled closer to pat Kaylaneth’s arm. “Sorry, honey.”“What… what do I do?”Berry drew her into a fierce hug. “Honestly, dear? You sneak into the master’s workshop and grab all the nightshade you can find.”Nightshade… she couldn’t quite believe it would be that bad, after what she had survived already. It probably wouldn’t work on her anyway. What was there to do, except wait and anticipate?Berry realized too late who she was speaking to, and drew away with a choked sob, covering her mouth and saying no more.
~*~*~*~
Mirise and her entourage arrived with considerably less fanfare than Kaylaneth was used to. The Dres were large on ceremony, and she had expected the whole estate to turn out, but no such summons came. She had kept an ear turned to the whispers, but heard little more than she had before. The other slaves were now avoiding her, save Vicard and Olive.She came to Kaylaneth one sweltering afternoon, the day after Mirise arrived.Ushari was at dinner, and for the first time her parents had barred the slaves from the room — all but Old Fazu, who was a known snitch and simpering kissup. With little else to do, Kaylaneth tried to enjoy her brief reprieve. She spent it in the gardens closest to the slave quarters; less well-kept than the others, and more functional than ornamental. Sitting under a rare sweet-smelling mushroom, while Olive paced around the vegetables, Vicard hovering at her elbow, Kaylaneth breathed in, breathed out, and savored the illusion of peace. The heat made her sluggish, or maybe that was the mushroom fumes.A figure appeared in the corner of her vision, emerging from the house. A guard on patrol, most likely; it was always best to pretend to ignore them if they weren’t interacting with her. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t look directly, but shifted her eyes so she could see them easier while studying a nearby noble sedge flower.The figure paused a moment, then crossed the garden. They stumbled, arms flung wide to help their balance. Shit, Kaylaneth thought, the sweat dripping down her spine suddenly turning cold. Drunk. But headed straight for her, and aware enough to maneuver around the herb-beds. She abandoned all pretense, leaping to her feet and turning to face the stranger.It wasn’t a guard. She was a Khajiit, dressed in the red-and-black uniform of Mirise’s household slaves, lurching toward Kaylaneth with the determination of a self-assigned mission.Kaylaneth glanced toward the vegetables, but Olive and Vicard had wandered further away across the garden, closer to the shady walls of the estate. Too far to hear her unless she screamed, and that would attract other kinds of attention.The Khajiit shuffled up to her, to a polite distance, then closer, closer than Kaylaneth was comfortable with. Her ears swiveled to catch any sound, most often pointing back the way she had come. And she didn’t say anything, just stared at Kaylaneth with an unreadable expression through all the scars crisscrossing her face.“Hello?” Kaylaneth said at last, thoroughly unnerved.The Khajiit blinked slowly, once, twice. And lunged, grabbing Kaylaneth’s hand between hers and yanking her closer, nose-to-nose. Startled, Kaylaneth yanked back, but though the stranger was fragile-looking, she had the look and strength of one possessed.“You must run,” she said, and her voice was so rough and rocky that it took Kaylaneth a moment to understand.“What?” she said, when she’d processed the words. “What are you—”She growled, ears twitching, and signaled for silence. “Come,” she ordered, and tugged Kaylaneth to the side, around the mushroom. She stopped behind it, pressing close to the stalk to shield them. “Listen.”Her name was Mouse. The Dres had given it to her, just as they had given her dull eyes and clawless hands. What had once been fur was now crossed by so many silver scars that Kaylaneth couldn’t tell its original color, and she lurched about like a drunkard because her tail, any Khajiit’s greatest asset, wasn’t there to help her balance. Mouse told her of the horrors of the Dres that Kaylaneth had been lucky to avoid thus far: torture for the sake of torture, magical experiments and darkness, pain, endless agony she would never escape from. She told Kaylaneth that her Mistress, Mirise, had heard of her niece’s latest acquisition, and had sharpened her knives. Had the rack cleaned for a new victim. An army of immortal slaves would be useful, she believed, if only she could crack the secret of Kaylaneth’s revivals. And so she would kill her, as often and in as many varied ways as possible. The imagination of Mirise Dres was boundless when it came to cruelty.“You must run.”“I can’t—” But why couldn’t she? She’d never tried. Perhaps she was broken, though she thought herself just trying to survive. Perhaps they were one and the same.“You must!” Mouse repeated, getting in close again. “You must try, at least, or you will never know if you could have been free.”Kaylaneth opened her mouth to protest again, but couldn’t think of what to say. After a few moments of gaping like a fish, she swallowed and started over. “How?” she whispered, though she was certain they were alone and the stillness of the day — born from the nigh-unbearable heat and humidity that made everything quieter than usual — made eavesdropping difficult.Mouse’s ears kept moving, listening, though her hearing was, without a doubt, compromised by the multiple ragged holes in them. “Stow away. A ship. A caravan. Walk, if you must. Anything, or you will never know. They will consume you and leave nothing but your bones to bleed dry.”Her sweat went cold again, setting off chills that she tried valiantly to suppress.“Go,” Mouse urged. “Go now, and never look back.” Her eyes, lifeless and distressingly matte, were suddenly feral, gleaming.Kaylaneth stepped back, heart hurling itself against her chest. Mouse tensed, ready to lunge again, and she took the hint.She ran.
~*~*~*~
For once, she cursed not being a Nightblade like her brothers. She was not made for sneaking, and had few skills that the Dunmer couldn’t shrug off. Staying in one spot and defending others — that was her usual focus. A bastion against the darkness.If she couldn’t get around the guards, the only option was to get them away from the gates. There was a Dres banner that hung in the entryway of the estate. She would enjoy burning that down.With a puff of breath on the bottom point, the cloth smoldered and caught. She pressed herself against the wall by the side gate, just out of sight of the guards, and waited. It wouldn’t be long, she thought — though the house had a stone foundation, the walls were a dark, likely expensive wood, and the halls were filled with things that would burn.Dunmer may have been immune to fire, but their precious things were not.It did not take long. As soon as the cry went up from the main house, one guard left his post to investigate. He was soon followed by the other as smoke billowed from the windows. She slipped out, back scraping against the stone.Though she was no Nightblade, it paid to have grown up around them. She knew how to place her feet, and watch for patterns. An abandoned rake was an easy steal; she held it low at her side, ready to defend. She contemplated setting the siltrice field just outside the estate ablaze, but deemed that too risky.The docks were crowded, even at such an unbearable time of day. If there was a respite for the slaves hauling cargo up and down the gangways, it was that the salty air seaside was home to fewer bugs than in the fields. On occasion a breeze would even blow in from the ocean. Right then all was still, the sails hanging limp from each mast. With no winds to be hand, the oar-slaves would have to take up the work to get cargo to Ebonheart, Davon’s Watch, and Vivec City.Her clothes were too conspicuous to take up the guise of dockworker, though. And she was running out of time before someone found her missing. Heart in her throat, she dashed for the city walls.She pressed herself against the cool stone, letting it steady her. There! A ship on the far side of the docks was having trouble pulling in, listing dangerously to one side. Damaged, or a rebellion belowdecks — it didn’t matter, because the commotion was drawing attention away. Kaylaneth clutched her rake and sprinted for the water.The water was warm and silty, even before she disturbed the mud on the bottom. She waded in up to her chest and hid under the dock just as a worker trudged by. The two boats tied up closest to her were too small to hide in, and she guessed they were for ferrying goods back and forth to the enormous galleys out in the harbor, which couldn’t get any closer or risk running aground. But at the very end of the dock was her best bet: a good-sized tradeship, already heavy with goods and taking on more. Hopefully they would miss one Bosmer.She pushed off from the bottom and swam for it, following the dock down. The gangway area was too exposed; a guard stood there, watching the slaves haul crates. She’d have to dive around to the other side of the ship and look for entry where she wasn’t an easy target in the water.Deep breaths. One— Two—Lightning arced down her spine. She flailed, smacking her arm against the nearest post with a wet smack and dropping her rake. The jolt came again, spreading out her limbs, turning them to jelly. She bit her tongue, blood filled her mouth—The pain faded, but it was too late. She’d drawn attention — the clank of steel boots on wood, shouted orders coming swiftly in her direction. She needed to move, but her limbs were heavy. Water sloshed over her face, washed out the copper taste with salt. Was she drowning? It felt like drowning.Something hard caught against her side and she was pulled up, up, onto the dock. It was the guard, with his dual-pronged spear, which was now resting snugly against her throat as she gasped for air on the rough planks. A ring of onlookers gaped at her. Slaves, mostly, until they were herded away and replaced with guards and other freemer, still gaping.Someone shouldered through the crowd. Kaylaneth wanted to curl into a ball and sink into the heart of Nirn when Melor Dres shoved his way in and stood sneering down at her. “Well, well, little beast. Couldn’t outrun the tracking spell, I see. Let’s get you where you belong.”She no longer had the energy to protest.
~*~*~*~
They led her back to the estate. Melor’s hand burned like a brand on her arm though she was chained, leashed, and defeated. No way she was getting out again. Her last chance at freedom and it was gone.Ushari was waiting for her in the sitting room, lounging on her chair, a triumphant conquering queen. Her parents sat on either side, more reserved but no less conquering. Another Dunmer leaned against the wall behind them, face hidden by the shadows. Mirise. Y’ffre, give me—Melor shoved her to her knees before her Mistress, turned on his heel, and left.Her Mistress tsked, crossing one long leg over the other. Her dress rode up enough to reveal the dagger strapped to her thigh. “Oh my. I told Melor he should have taken special care with you from the instant you breathed fire on him, but did he listen? Of course not. And now you’ve taken my kindness and thrown in back in my face, Kay. This will not stand.” She snapped her fingers, gesturing to one of the guards in Kaylaneth’s peripheral vision.She tensed for a blow that never came. Instead a commotion came from the side door, as the guard dragged Olive in.“No! No! Please—”Bile rose in her throat. Her head snapped up, gaping at Ushari.The guard forced Olive to her knees. She was sobbing brokenly, begging Kaylaneth with her eyes. She knew no mercy would come from the Dunmer.“Mistress, please,” Kaylaneth gasped, head spinning. “Punish me as you see fit, but leave Olive alone, she hasn’t done—”Ushari smiled. “I will punish you, Kay. This is just the first part.” She gestured, and the guard seized Olive by her hair. She’d closed her eyes, mouthing a supplication.Kaylaneth’s eyes stung; her nails bit into her palms. She looked away. Coward, coward, look what you’ve done. But she couldn’t escape the thump of Olive’s body hitting the floor.“Remember, this wouldn’t have happened if you’d just submitted like a good slave,” Ushari purred. “Auntie? She’s all yours.”Mirise stepped forward, and what Kaylaneth had thought was just shadows was actually a mask, black as pitch, that only revealed her eyes. She clasped her niece on the shoulder as she passed.“Well done, Ushari,” was all she said.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“It’s a shame your mind doesn’t revive itself along with your body,” Mistress said, flicking a scar on Kaylaneth’s arm.She studied the carpet, her mind blissfully blank. She said nothing, because Mistress required nothing to be said. Her arm didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt, actually, beyond a faint ache in her stomach. But that was always there.Mistress sighed, drawing her fingernail along her slave’s ear. It twitched. Kaylaneth felt a need to lean away, but she ignored it, letting Mistress tease the jagged edges. It wasn’t painful, merely uncomfortable. She was lucky to just be uncomfortable.Lady Mirise had finished her experiments a day before and sent Kaylaneth back to her Mistress. Walking alone through the halls on her way to Mistress’ rooms, Kaylaneth was fully aware of the whispers exchanged and the looks the other slaves gave her when she came upon them. They scuttled out of the way, watching her almost as they would watch a freemer or their own Master and Mistresses. Kaylaneth wasn’t sure how that was supposed to make her feel, so she felt nothing.“Why do you have these scars, though?” Mistress turned on her side, propping her head on one arm and drawing Kaylaneth’s head back with the other to study the four ragged lines on her face. She remembered these well, though she didn’t many others, including the older, thinner ones on the other cheek. Lady Mirise did not lose control easily. It took a long time for her breakthrough, and innumerable revivals on Kaylaneth’s part. The lady was undeterred.But these scars… The black soul gem had shattered, when Mirise had tried to trap her the first time. She’d awoken to nails raking down her face, and the eyes behind the mask burning.Mistress was waiting for an answer. Kaylaneth swallowed, hoping her voice didn’t come out too raspy to be intelligible. “Lady Mirise caused them, Mistress.”Those silver eyes narrowed. “I know that, idiot.”She must have misinterpreted the question. Stupid, stupid slave. “Forgive me, Mistress,” she whispered, bowing her head.But Mistress didn’t punish her, just sighed again and turned onto her back, sitting up a little on the couch and picking up her novel. “I suppose you wouldn’t know, anyway,” she muttered, and opened the book.Mistress’ moods were strange of late.
~*~*~*~
Shad Astula.A school of magic, but also a place that groomed future leaders of the Pact in philosophy, politics, and history, among other subjects. It was said to be the most exclusive institution of its kind in the east, only prevented from the top spot in the entirety of Tamriel by academies in Summerset and (before the war) Cyrodiil.Graduates became advisors, generals, court wizards. Even those who failed the rigorous training had the prestige of being invited in the first place.It wasn’t something easily ignored, especially for someone as high-profile as Ushari. She was the Grandmaster’s favorite niece, after all, and with Omin Dres currently out of the city her parents were essentially the rulers of Tear, even if they left management to others. She was the subject of gossip.She didn’t want to be known as the one who refused Shad Astula. It would, likely, haunt her — how long she wasn’t sure and didn’t care to know anyhow.But the main reason she caved was her aunt. Mirise, once she’d finished with Kaylaneth, had gotten wind of the situation and assured Ushari that she wouldn’t have to stay in the dormitories with the other students. The Dres had a manor house in Mournhold, where Mirise lived with her husband Alarel. It was quite close to the docks where she’d ferry back and forth to the academy. Plenty of room for her and a slave, all the comforts of home, and the Mournhold nightlife was dazzling.And with that Ushari’s reasons for refusing the invitation shriveled up and blew away. She didn’t have an objection to the dorms, specifically, but her aunt was aware and encouraging her to go. She had to go.“I’m taking Kay,” she’d demanded, and Mirise had smiled indulgently.
~*~*~*~
The journey to Mournhold took three days by carriage, a time that Kaylaneth spent curled up at her Mistress’ feet, watching the countryside go by through the one-way glass panel in the door. She was dreadfully restless, cooped up with nothing to do, but Mistress spent the entire time with her nose in one book or another, or playing with the flames she conjured. Last minute studying, most likely, but she could tell by the afternoon on the second day that her Mistress was also bored.Kaylaneth was just glad Lady Mirise had a separate carriage. She did not want her attentions should she become bored as well. The experiments succeeded, she was sure, but she hadn’t written off another round, either.As usual, there was nothing she could do.Mournhold was huge, larger than Tear, and patrolled by guards in golden armor and crested helmets, whom Mistress called Ordinators when they stopped the carriages for inspection. Mirise produced her documents and they were on their way again, rolling through city streets. A large market district was just inside the gates, where traders hawked their goods, calling out to passers-by. Their guards cleared the way for the carriages to get through the crowds, and out into the quieter residential streets.The Dres clanhouse in Mournhold was far smaller than Tear’s sprawling manor, but no less opulent. Even were it not for the banners outside, Kaylaneth would have known it immediately for what it was: a ragged Khajiit was pulling weeds in the front, while a Dunmer in finery oversaw a team of slaves loading empty cages onto a wagon.The noble turned as the carriages rolled to a stop before the clanhouse. His short red hair drew no comparison to the other members of House Dres she had met thus far, but his eyes were too familiar: silver, piercing, prying her apart though he could not possibly have been able to see her. They were Mistress’ eyes, and this must be her uncle. Alarel, from the whispers, was far less formidable than either his wife or even his brother Maldrus. He did not enjoy the politicking, was not an adept socialite, or even a mediocre one. From all accounts he did nothing to maintain his status, and everything to enjoy it while it lasted.This did not make him less dangerous. For Alarel, while not quite a predator, was certainly a scavenger. He lingered on the edges of the path his wife carved through Dunmeri society, picking off those weakened by her. Where Mirise had a certain subtlety to her torments, her mind games, Alarel had no such patience. He took what he wanted, which was everything available to him.If she wasn’t broken, Kaylaneth would have… what? She couldn’t imagine it. Her mind was so far removed from that time that it was impossible.She followed Mistress out of the carriage, head bowed so she would not have to see Alarel’s eyes alight upon her. She could feel his attention though, even as he greeted his wife and then his niece. Silver eyes boring into the top of her head, drinking in all the details.The blessing was a week away. A week before Mistress could tour Shad Astula and begin classes. A week of sticking close to her side — at least.
~*~*~*~
“I should not be here, Mistress—”Dangerous, and ungrateful besides, to say, but she feared the wrath of the Dunmer’s goddess even over being sent back to the clanhouse alone. Alarel would find her, a vulture spiraling down to a carcass, but that was a danger she knew well.Showing up uninvited to a goddess’ home was not.“Shut up,” Mistress snapped, grip on Kaylaneth’s wrist tightening. She wove through the crowd, tugging the Bosmer along with her. “They can’t keep me from bringing you, you’re mine! It’s not like it’s illegal, except for lizards.”A few heads turned at that, and one brightly-colored Argonian hissed something at Mistress, arms crossed. She glared back, curling her lip, and jerked Kaylaneth to the edge of the throng.Above, the Mournhold Temple loomed. Ordinators and their counterparts in the Temple, the Hands of Almalexia, stood at every corner of the courtyard, even as the soon-to-be students whispered excitedly amongst themselves. The Blessing would start any minute.Kaylaneth arranged herself at her Mistress’ side. Head bowed, hands folded, eyes down, she prayed the feeling of being watched would go away. The fine hairs on her arms tingled; it took all her self-control to keep still. What did it matter if every eye in the courtyard was on her, anyway? It didn’t. She was such a bad slave, such an embarrassment to her Mistress.Inside the Temple, a bell rang, and the doors opened.Kaylaneth swallowed the lump in her throat and followed her Mistress, and the other students, inside.Sunlight, though it was overcast outside, streamed through windows at the arches on either side of the room, and the heavy smell of incense wafted on an unnatural breeze. Knee-pillows were stacked in the corners closest to the door. A large space had been cleared in the middle, and behind this was a lectern. Six Hands stood guard at a door at the very back of the room.“Line up for your Blessing,” one of them said, though it was impossible to tell which one.“Go… stand in the corner or something, Kay,” Mistress whispered, pushing Kaylaneth. She stumbled, but righted herself and hurried to not-quite-hide in the shadowed place behind the pillows. This, at least, was familiar.The students lined up in columns facing the lectern, though it took a few minutes to do so. Mistress ended up in the front, only visible to Kaylaneth by virtue of her height, and that there weren’t any Nords in the way. The lectern, and the Hands, were obscured.Kaylaneth settled into her position again, hopeful this would be a boring ceremony.It was, right up until, at the end of a rambling speech by one of Almalexia’s priests, Mother Morrowind herself made an appearance.“…bow your heads for the Goddess!” said the Hands as one, stamping their spear-butts. A bright flash blinded her a second later, and when she blinked the spots in her eyes away, She had appeared at the door at the far end.The Goddess radiated light, so much so that Kaylaneth couldn’t tell what she looked like before she was forced to avert her gaze and blink tears away for looking at the sun. Even then the feeling lingered, a pressure and a weight lifted all at once.She bowed her head again, dizzy. Almalexia was speaking, but a buzzing was rapidly building in her ears, a buzzing that was familiar but not at all comforting. Uncle.
You. You are the one.
The buzzing lifted as a voice filled her head. How could a voice, even a living goddess’, feel safe? Like she was a little elfling again, cradled in her mother’s arms? Or like staring into Ayrenn’s eyes? Ayrenn, Ayrenn. How could she have forgotten?
You wanted to. It was less painful than remembering.
The voice cleared that thought away, filling her head to the brim once more.
Seht said our salvation would be in one who embodies the Four Corners. I did not see, but now… one whose soul belongs to one corner and mind to another, whose body has failed and survived many tests, but whose spirit nonetheless that persevere. You.
“Me?” she whispered into her shoulder, eyes still screwed tightly shut.
You. You will receive My blessing to hunt down those who would see Me fall. You will excise the poisonous blasphemy behind it, and you will be rewarded. You will have aided Me.
The presence slowly withdrew, and dimly she heard Almalexia finishing the blessing — with Her voice for all gathered to hear, not with the magic inside her head. The buzzing, ever-present, made itself known again, and Kaylaneth whimpered.“Wait, what if—”
Ushari knows. She will aid you.
And then Mother Morrowind was gone, and in Her absence the buzzing was all Kaylaneth knew.
~*~*~*~
She awoke like she’d been doused with cold water, sitting up too fast and gasping out her apologies for sleeping late. Mistress just stared at her from where she sat, the expression on her face promising pain… later.Mistress hadn’t awakened her, she realized; she wasn’t wet, any more than she would be otherwise from the sticky air of Morrowind. Her heart was racing, though, and she could have sworn she’d been forcefully wrenched from some dream she couldn’t (and wouldn’t, most likely) remember.“You’re always causing trouble, Kay,” Mistress grumbled, folding her arms and glaring. “I was all set to finally get some freedom and my parents off my back, and then you had to get the attention of Almalexia.” She huffed and looked out the window of the carriage, at the torrent slamming into the ground outside.“Where… are we?”Mistress’ scowl deepened. “Very funny. We’re exactly where we were an hour ago when you last asked me. The rain hasn’t stopped, genius.”Dread settled in her stomach, a pit from a fruit she never should’ve eaten. She didn’t remember that.She didn’t remember anything. Just the Blessing and… oh. The buzzing.She sank further into her seat.Mistress turned to look at her suspiciously, and she realized her silence had gone on too long. “Oh,” she whispered, hoping she won’t have to explain that she didn’t remember.“Hmph. If you are going crazy, I’m not surprised,” Mistress said eventually. “We’re a day outside Mournhold. Just north of some little lizard village called Silent Mire. The storm reached us two hours ago and we haven’t been able to move on. If it keeps up much longer the road will be impassable regardless, but the guards all swear we can’t move an inch.”Kaylaneth nodded slowly. She peered out the other window at the storm. The rain looked impenetrable, but looming out of the darkness were the towers and spires of what she guessed was some kind of military outpost.“Tal’Deic Fortress,” Mistress supplied before she could ask. “I ordered them to at least seek shelter for us there, but they said the gates were closed and there was no answer. Ridiculous! What kind of Pact fort just closes up?”She had a bad feeling about the Fortress just from looking at its shadowed form through the rain, but she said nothing.“This is stupid. It’s only rain.”“Khenarthi’s Roost had a storm just like this one…” she said before she could stop herself.Mistress turned her head sharply, and Kaylaneth cringed, lowering her eyes. Her hands shook, and she didn’t know why. What use was cowering?But Mistress just studied her, still-strange silver eyes sweeping up and down, picking her apart. After a long moment the Dunmer sat back. “What happened on Khenarthi’s Roost?” she asked casually.The words came without conscious thought. “There was a storm. It sank a whole Dominion fleet, and stranded the few survivors. It turned out to be Maormer sorcery, and we stopped a bigger one they were trying to summon. It was… terrifying.” She shuddered as a memory escaped its prison in the back of her mind. Rain lashing down, the rumble of thunder distant and very, very near. Static on her skin when the lightning bolt hit too close.“Maormer? The fabled Sea Elves?”“Yes. They murdered the Silvenar and later tried to invade the Summerset Isles. They were allies with the Veiled Heritance, who were trying to overthrow Ayrenn.”Mistress cocked her head. “You said ‘we’, before…” she mused. “And you referred to the Dominion Queen by her first name. Who are you, Kay?”Lightning struck. Its flash illuminated Mistress’ face, making her gray skin glow and her eyes gleam with hunger an instant before they filled with fear. Kaylaneth cried out, clapping her hands to her ears. Over the rain, over her own staccato heart, the tree next to them cracked and groaned.“Shit,” Mistress breathed, just as the tree, engulfed in flames, came crashing down.Kaylaneth dove for the floor of the carriage. Mistress froze a heartbeat longer (too long), mouth gaping. Kaylaneth wrapped around her legs and pulled.The sound was incredible. Mistress screamed next to her, long and piercing, but that was nothing compared to the carriage roof caving in under the weight of the ancient tree — a crashing, a crumpling, a collapsing of metal and wood. The rear axle broke and her stomach flopped into her mouth as the floor tilted. Slowly, the tree rolled off.Mistress paused for breath.Darkness, and silence but for the ever-present rain and the Dunmer’s panting breaths in her ear.“Magelight,” Kaylaneth hissed. She was kneeling, arms still wrapped around Mistress’ legs, and the Dunmer curled over her, draping her hair everywhere. She couldn’t see, but as she slowly tried to shift her knees, her back hit part of the collapsed roof. Metal, from the feel of it through her tunic.Mistress shifted, and her breaths stuttered. “Oh, oh—”“Are you hurt?”“Hand— trapped. Shit,” she got out. Kaylaneth could hear her teeth grinding together. “Where— where are the guards?”“I don’t know,” Kaylaneth said quietly, a cold lump settling in her chest. She didn’t hear anything outside but the rain. “Hold on, I’ll try to get out.” She tried not to think about what it meant that she was now thinking of Mistress as someone to be comforted, reassured. Protected?No. Ushari, a voice whispered in her head. At least for now.The darkness was absolute. She disentangled her arms, trying to ignore the Dunmer’s whimpers, but keeping an ear on her in case she got worse. She reached left into the void, slowly shifting her own body. She touched what remained of the carriage door. Heart leaping with hope, she shuffled closer — and nearly impaled herself on the jagged piece of wood that poked into her side, under her ribs. Shit.Her hand withdrew, felt between her and the door. Beside the split wood, the floor was littered with shards of the tinted glass window, some of them big enough to be deadly.“Can’t go this way,” she said.Ushari’s boots scraped along the floor in front of Kaylaneth as the Dunmer drew up her knees. “Okay.” Her voice was small, and for the first time Kaylaneth had known her there was no trace of confidence or condescension in it.“I’m going to try the other side.”“Okay.”She went back, still careful in case she ran into something. When she reached the wider space where Ushari was wedged, she scrunched up as much as she could and rotated. Ushari’s hair was everywhere, the strong scent of her perfume filling her lungs, and she tried not to cough.When she was facing the opposite direction from Ushari, she inched her hand out, then paused. “Can you cast Magelight?”Ushari was quiet, and Kaylaneth was about to reach back and make sure she was still conscious when a wisp of light appeared behind her.Though it was weak, and she was facing away, she had to squint at what was ahead until her eyes adjusted. Debris from the carriage was everywhere, including glass shards as long as her fingers. But—She squinted again. An opening, up and to the right. Not large enough for Ushari, she didn’t think, but she might be able to squeeze through. If she could keep herself from being dashed against the glass and slivers of wood on the lower left, deposited there when the carriage tilted.Well. She would suffocate if she didn’t try.Bracing herself against a smooth patch of oak, which had once been the wall between the seat and the floor, she reached up and gave the closest beam an experimental tug. It didn’t move. She wriggled up, knees scraping against uneven wood, and crept forward.Her tunic caught, and she spent a precious minute detangling it while not shifting the delicately-balanced beams. She reached out, into a dark spot untouched by the weak magelight.She wasn’t sure what the feeling on her hand was until her fingertips touched the sheet of rain.“Oh!” she cried, and nearly lost her balance in her joy. “I found an exit!”“…good…” Ushari said weakly, and the magelight stuttered.Kaylaneth turned her head to see, but all she saw was the wreck of the carriage before the light went out entirely.Plunged into darkness again, Kaylaneth froze, caught between going back or going forward. You’ll die, the voice said. But which way held the closer death?All danger is near to death, the voice said, and went silent. The rain pattered on, so close.She growled and lunged for the exit-hole, a mad scramble of flailing limbs and self-preservation instinct. Something creaked dangerously, but she shoved at the hole until it widened enough for her head, then her shoulders, and after that it was easy.She landed on her face in the churning mudpuddle that had once been a road, and had never been more grateful. Her legs followed after, belatedly, and even the ragged tear down her calf, a parting gift from a wood-sliver, was nothing compared to the splat they made as she fell full-body in the mud.It felt glorious.But she was in danger of drowning, so she hauled herself up, swayed, and looked around.The rain was slackening to a normal level, and off in the distance she could see a patch of bright sky that heralded the storm was ending. She didn’t know who to pray to, anymore, but she sent one up anyway in thanks. Kynareth was technically an Imperial goddess, but Southpoint had Imperial roots anyway, and she’d been raised on a mix of Bosmer and Imperial traditions. So it was probably Kynareth, if anyone.She turned back to the carriage. It looked worse from the outside, if that were possible. The rear wheels had come off with the broken axle, and the back end rested against the muddy ground. The tree had rolled a bit, flattening the camp set up behind the carriage. She saw… she didn’t want to look, but their three guards were accounted for, and the horses had slipped their leads and fled.At least no fire lasted in the rain.She swallowed tightly. She had to. It would weigh on her forever if she didn’t. From a practical standpoint it was also smart, to have two people instead of one in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t trust that the Argonians of Silent Mire would help her.She couldn’t trust Ushari to help her either, but better a danger she knew than one she didn’t.Still, her movements were slow, reluctant, as she set to digging the Dunmer out. She told herself it was because she didn’t want the whole thing to become more of a deathtrap than it already was.The rain had stopped entirely and her hands were steadily dripping blood from small cuts by the time she had dragged enough debris away to see Ushari. Or part of her. She was still partially obscured, but her silver hair was unmistakable. A large oak beam crossed between her head and Kaylaneth, and this same beam was the one that pinned her hand to what was once the carriage-bench where she had sat not so long ago. How long had it been? She couldn’t begin to guess, not with Ushari so close and so… small.She did look small from this angle, curled up again with her head resting against the beam, out like the magelight if she hadn’t responded to being exposed piece by piece.Or dead.She swallowed again, and reached out to lift the final obstacle.With the slightest nudge against the beam Ushari groaned and lifted her head a little. Kaylaneth couldn’t see her face, but her left hand twitched where it rested against her side and went slack again.Kaylaneth wedged her shoulder under the beam, and though Ushari woke with an agonized cry as the pressure lifted from her mangled hand, she didn’t dare stop. She levered it up with the last of her strength and pushed until it fell clear, and panted with her hands on her knees until her breath, at least, returned. She would be very sore tomorrow, if she saw tomorrow.“Mmph… Kay?” Ushari called weakly.She straightened, trying to ignore the stitch that made itself known in her side. “Here, I’m here.”Ushari had risen to an unsteady crouch, trying to crawl out of the hole with only one hand. The other was cradled against her chest, only recognizable because it was still attached to her arm. Her ash-gray skin had turned an almost silver color, and her eyes, while not cloudy yet in imminent death, were unfocused.Without hesitation, Kaylaneth supported her with an arm around her shoulders and led Ushari from the wreckage.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She salvaged what she could from the guards. Though it turned her stomach, she took the armor off one and found a dry tunic beneath, which she used to wrap Ushari’s hand. None of their armor fit her, so she left it, but she did find a shortsword, which would work in a pinch. The heavy cloth they had used as a shelter was soaked through with rainwater and covered in bits of bark from the tree that had rolled over it, but she wadded it up and took it anyway. The waterskins were undamaged, but most of the food was squished or covered in mud or both.
Ushari sat by what was left of the tree while Kaylaneth worked, and was silent as the Bosmer paced back and forth to put her selected items down at her side. Her hand, completely wrapped in the dark red garment, was still cradled against her chest. She seemed in shock, but Kaylaneth didn’t know what to do about that so she didn’t do anything yet.
They needed to travel light. She moved almost automatically and tried to stop herself from thinking how she could do so — the answer lay somewhere in her repressed memories, perhaps. That would be a dangerous trove to open right now.
When she had sorted everything, she crouched by Ushari. “Hey,” she said, like she was soothing a frightened animal. There were Bosmer who could calm any wild beast, but she’d never had such a power.
Ushari’s gaze drifted over and locked onto her own. “You…” she mumbled. Her tongue darted out to lick her cracked lips. “You came back.”
The slave-training screamed at her to drop her eyes, but something else kept her still. “Yes.”
The Dunmer let her head fall back against the massive trunk, blinking up at the sky. She was silent for a long time, so long Kaylaneth played with the idea of just leaving her there after all. She still hadn’t come to any conclusion when Ushari rallied and sat up straight. “What do you intend to do, then?”
“I don’t think returning to Mournhold would be a good idea,” Kaylaneth admitted. “For several reasons.”
Ushari frowned, as if Kaylaneth had said something unexpected. “Yet you’re still here.”
She blinked, trying to decipher that. Did Ushari want her to run away? Or did she merely expect such a thing? Did she expect Kaylaneth to kill her? The thought had, briefly, crossed her mind, but only after she’d dug Ushari out. By then it was near-laughable. “I intend to continue the mission, actually.”
It was Ushari’s turn to blink. “Alone?”
“If need be, but it would be easier together,” she said. “Can you still defend yourself?”
Ushari slowly raised her left hand and flexed it. A miniature lightning storm cloaked her fingers. “Oh. Yes.” She lowered her hand and stared at Kaylaneth. “You’ve… never mind. Did any of the healing potions make it?”
You’re going to need a surgeon and a miracle, Kaylaneth thought, but offered the last intact potion. Perhaps it would ease the pain a little; she was amazed how stoic Ushari was, though perhaps she was still in shock.
When she’d downed the whole thing, Ushari flung the bottle away and staggered to her feet. Kaylaneth shouldered the pack with their supplies, taking one last look at the wreck. Just how reliable was Ushari going to be in the fight to come? She wasn’t even really sure what she was supposed to be doing — had Almalexia told her, and she’d just forgotten?
As if sensing her trouble, Ushari said, so casually Kaylaneth could weep with gratitude, “Vox’s lair shouldn’t be far. North and a little east, in an old ruin that was once a shrine to the Good Daedra.” Kaylaneth wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “Anyway, there’s going to be more than just Maulborn in there. My guess is lower Daedra at the very least. And Vox herself.”
Kaylaneth nodded and started off down the road. Ushari fell into step with her, eyes on the horizon.
~*~*~*~
It felt strange, to be holding a weapon. Like it was too much and too little all at once. But she found her instincts still served her well, at least when it came to fighting Daedra. They encountered a clannfear as soon as they crossed the bridge, but it fell easily to their combined talents. Kaylaneth was good at drawing attention and keeping it, while Ushari hung back and fired her arcane bolts from a safe distance, neatly frying their opposition before the Bosmer could so much as get a swing in.
They followed the coast east, avoiding the forbidding main approach to the ruin Ushari said was called Eidolon’s Hollow. It was swarming with Daedra and Maulborn. Kaylaneth hoped to find a better way in.
It was only after an hour of sneaking down the beach that she realized any “better way” was still going to put them right in the thick of enemies. The Maulborn were out in force. There were dozens, perhaps a hundred or more, of them just along the perimeter of the ruin. Just that she could see. Dusk slowly encroached and a night-fog rolled in from the water.
She was about to ask Ushari what she thought when the Dunmer stopped in her tracks. She peered at the shore ahead, already enveloped in fog.
“What is it?” Kaylaneth whispered.
Ushari shushed her with a wave of her hand and crept on.
Kaylaneth followed. With their luck they were creeping up on a camp of Maulborn. But as she caught up with Ushari she started to pick out shapes.
Fallen shapes.
Ushari shot forward before Kaylaneth could stop her, stopping by the closest body. For it was a body — an Ordinator. An arrow stuck out of the back of his neck. Kaylaneth hefted her sword, scanning for enemies, but Ushari was not so cautious. She checked the next body, and the next.
“Oh!” she cried when she reached the fourth, and knelt down. Kaylaneth, despite herself, lowered her sword and went to stand beside her.
This Dunmer was in robes, not armor like the rest, but by some miracle he was the only one still alive. He sat, bent nearly double, with his back against the corpse of another Ordinator. The latter had bandages wrapping his torso, and it looked like he was already injured when the attack happened.
“Healer,” Ushari said, reaching out to the survivor with her good hand. “Healer, wake up.” He groaned, breath ragged, when she touched his chin. She raised his head.
His eyes were cloudy, and a line of dried blood ran from his nose to join the fresh dribbling from his mouth.
Ushari spoke gently, more gently than Kaylaneth had ever seen her. “What happened here?”
The healer coughed, blood speckling Ushari’s hand, but she did not withdraw. “Vox… came. Left the ruin. We couldn’t… Three help us…”
“Where did she go?”
“The old shrine. Knife Ear Grotto. Said… she’d…” He coughed again, eyes wide and whole body shuddering. Then he went still.
Ushari took back her hand, wiping it absently on her dress. “Three bless you,” she murmured, and stood.
“Knife Ear Grotto?” Kaylaneth asked.
Ushari glanced at her, as if only just remembering she was there. “Ancient shrine to Boethiah from before the Tribunal. Seems fitting — unlawful overthrow of authority and all that.” She sounded like she was quoting something. “If I remember my maps, it’s just a little bit further.”
They continued on, and sure enough another ruin rose out of the fog, jutting out from the rock face in ebony. The entrance faced the water, where a rotting rowboat lay half-buried in the muck, and the doors were carved with Daedric script worn down over years and years by the weather and the simple passage of time. The entrance was unguarded, and the braziers flanking it were dormant, but as Kaylaneth approached she saw a still-glowing coal out of the corner of her eye. Someone had been here recently to light the braziers, but the salt-spray had snuffed out the flame.
“The Gauntlet Tabernacle…” Ushari muttered, peering at the writing on the doors.
“You can read that?” Kaylaneth said, half to herself. To her the script was illegible, both from being in a different language and from wear.
Ushari had moved on, though, nudging the door open a bit. “Looks clear so far.” She glanced back, studying Kaylaneth for a moment. The Bosmer could have sworn she was going to say something else, but she didn’t, and her expression didn’t betray what it might have been. Instead Ushari put her back to the door and pushed, jerking her head to indicate for Kaylaneth to enter first. The heavy stone scraped against the floor.
Kaylaneth hefted her sword and slipped inside, inching along the wall. The inside of the ruin was illuminated by torches set at intervals, as well as more claw-like braziers. A short flight of stairs led down, and then an archway at the end of the hall, through which part of a larger room was visible.
She listened. The crash of waves from outside, the dripping of water through the stone, Ushari’s breathing. Her own heartbeat. And, from deeper in, the low murmur of voices. Deep, like chanting.
She started down the stairs, crouched low. Rocks and the bones of small animals littered the path, which was itself rough-hewn. Her feet were still bare, but she figured it helped her stealth as long as she didn’t step on something sharp enough to cut through her thick calluses. More than once she cringed as Ushari carelessly crunched a rat skull under her boot.
But there was no break in the voices, which did in fact turn out to be chanting. Kaylaneth couldn’t understand the words no matter how hard she concentrated. Ushari said nothing, but when the Bosmer looked back, her face was near-silver again, eyes wide. She knows, Kaylaneth thought.
She didn’t want to know herself, though, if Ushari’s expression was anything to go by, so she did not ask.
Sneaking up to the archway, she flattened herself against the wall and peeked around the corner. She need not have bothered, as the room beyond held only rubble and crumbling bookshelves. A double flight of stairs at the other end led deeper into the ruin, but the chanting was loudest from a gate to the right. It wouldn’t budge when she pulled on it, and through the bars she could just see a lever on the other side.
“Can you reach it with magic or something?” she whispered.
Ushari rolled her eyes. “Maybe, but that will just bring every Maulborn in the ruin down on top of us. These things are often warded, anyway, and checking for those is a two handed job.” She gestured with the mangled limb while she spoke. “No, we’ll have to take the long way around. Hopefully it’s just a simple loop. Some of these ruins are mazes on purpose.”
“The Maulborn have to have gotten over there somehow,” Kaylaneth said, mostly to reassure herself that she wouldn’t be wandering an ancient Daedric shrine with Ushari for the rest of her life. Could she even die of old age without a soul? It wasn’t something she wanted to dwell too long on.
Ushari just shrugged, jerking her chin toward the stairs, and Kaylaneth held back her sigh.
~*~*~*~
After her cultists, Vox herself was no challenge at all. No wonder she had so many of them, but most were mages of some description or another, and once Kaylaneth got close she dealt with them easier than otherwise. She still had no armor, after all.
Ushari stepped past Kaylaneth, sparing a long look at the Magistrix’s body, but ultimately moving on to the blood-soaked altar. “What is all this?” she muttered.
Kaylaneth had no answer to offer, and so stayed silent. Vox’s still-open eyes, even in death, stared at her, not through her. Her skin crawled. She knelt beside the body and reached out to close her eyes. It would seem respectful, but most of all stop the staring.
Children.
She froze, sword slipping from her fingers. Another voice in her head — but no—
Ushari jumped. “Mephala’s many legs, what was that?” she swore.
Interesting, what and who we swear by, hmm? The voice chuckled darkly. You are in My shrine, you have killed My followers, why should I not pay you a little visit? Excellent work, by the way. I do love a good bloodbath.
“Boethiah…” Ushari sounded faint. She was trembling.
Indeed. But now, I think…
Kaylaneth flinched as the voice changed, like it was whispering from behind her instead of echoing around the chamber. Little one, child of Y’ffre and Akatosh. How far have you come, how far you will go. But not like this. Not with her.
She could do nothing to stop herself from looking up at Ushari. The Dunmer was swaying, head back, clutching both hands to her chest now. Her eyes were closed, her lips moving.
You have the chance, now. Take it. Take your freedom back. You will never be dust again.
Her eyes burned from staring. She imagined her sword slashing across the long arch of that throat. That throat had never been marked by bruises in the shape of long, strong fingers. No platitudes or pleading had ever spilled from it. That throat had only ever been bared as a side-effect of jutting her chin.
Why do you hesitate? Do not worry, she cannot hear Me. Well, she can, but not what I am saying to you. Do you really think that, if you return, it will not be right back to your place? She will have you whipped for every time your eyes have met. She will strip you down to the bone for daring to get the attention of the impostor goddess. Kill her.
Her hand twitched toward where her sword lay. In a single movement she could lunge up and bury it into her would-be Mistress’ back. A quick death, quicker than she deserved, but safer. If she got the lightning out…
Kill her, and you can return home.
Her fingers wrapped around the handle.
Kill her, and you will be free.
Freedom… She tensed her legs, ready to spring.
Kill her, and I will reward you greatly.
She stopped. Blinked.
Ushari’s eyes opened. Her chest was heaving, nostrils flared not in anger but in fear. She turned her head and looked down at Kaylaneth, crouched on the floor. “Well?” she whispered, harshly, after a moment.
Kaylaneth took a deep breath, and, with all her might, focused on that dark spot inside her head where the Prince lurked. And pushed.
The spell, if that was what it was holding them in place, shattered. Kaylaneth launched to her feet, nearly tripping over Vox’s legs as she retreated. Lightning sparked in Ushari’s hands, but she did not throw, just watched her former slave warily.
Kaylaneth shook her head furiously, trying to dislodge the smug satisfaction Boethiah had left behind. The Prince should not be satisfied, right?
“Boethiah spoke to you…” Ushari was whispering, gone silver as her hair. Had she only just realized what happened?
She shot the Dunmer a flat look, turned on her heel, and strode out of the shrine.
~*~*~*~
Outside the fog had cleared, but it was still the dead of night. Kaylaneth stalked west along the shore, thrumming with restless energy. A close encounter with a Daedra could do that, she supposed.
She didn’t really care what Ushari did, but eventually the Dunmer caught up and followed a few paces behind. Rather like a lost guar, Kaylaneth thought nastily. Perhaps it was for the best, and at least she had the decency to stay silent.
The moons were not full just yet, but bright enough to see clearly by, which was how they found the Ordinator patrol. Ushari reported their success, kindly leaving out almost every detail. Kaylaneth was happy to give her all the credit.
~*~*~*~
You are changed, Almalexia noted. Kaylaneth knelt in the Temple’s inner sanctum while the Goddess floated around her in a circle. Away from Her Hands, away from Ushari, just her and Mother Morrowind.
“How so, my lady?” she whispered, staring at her hands. She missed her sword already, though she had known it was a temporary allowance.
“You need not call me that, child,” She said gently, normally, pausing in front of her. Kaylaneth could just see Her golden feet. A deeper gold than—
She shuddered with her whole body.
“What you saw, what you heard, what you thought — all we experience shapes us, Kaylaneth,” Almalexia said. Still so gentle. “And I would ask you now: what did you experience?”
Something in Her voice had Kaylaneth chancing a look at the Goddess’ face. She still radiated light, though less blinding than before. And She looked at Kaylaneth in a way that made her heart ache, made her want to tell Her everything.
So she did.
It was rushed, and disjointed, but Almalexia said nothing through it all, though Kaylaneth felt she was baring her soul with every pause for breath. Halfway through she could no longer look at the Goddess’ unchanging face, so she spoke to her hands instead.
And when she was done, she rubbed at her tired eyes and wished to go home.
Almalexia’s feet drifted down, down, touched the floor with a clink of Her bangles, and then She stood in her inner sanctum like an ordinary mer. Her hand, so gentle, so soft, reached down and lifted Kaylaneth’s chin.
Her face was solemn, but in Her infinite eyes there was kindness, and reassurance. “I would grant you a boon, Kaylaneth,” She said, speaking her name like a soft sigh.
Behind her, the walls of the inner sanctum dissolved into nothing, revealing a void beyond. The darkness encroached, the floor and ceiling and the pool of magicka in the center of the room all falling away, until it was just her and Almalexia… who smiled, and leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. Just as Her lips made contact She, too, was gone, and all that was left was Her voice.
I would send you home.
~*~*~*~
She re-formed in a huge, plush bed. A cascade of blonde hair and a long, elegantly tapered ear were within inches of her, then their owner rolled over.
She was sleeping gently with her mouth ever-so-slightly open. She tried to fling an arm out as she rolled, but hit Kaylaneth instead, and it was this that woke her up. Her sky-blue eyes opened, blinking sleepily in the pre-dawn light, and focused on Kaylaneth… whose only thought was shit, before Ayrenn screamed and kicked her off the bed with both feet.
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Sitting on marble, surrounded by guards, while clad only in the same rough tunic she’d been wearing all along, Kaylaneth blinked up at the helmeted visage of the nearest one and felt her mind go blank.“Kaylaneth!” Ayrenn gasped, scooting further up in her bed.With some effort, Kaylaneth turned to look at her, but couldn’t meet her eyes.“You know this vagrant, Your Majesty?” the nearest guard said, not moving his sword from the Bosmer’s neck.“She’s not— Where is Urcelmo?”“Here, my lady.” The Battlereeve shouldered his way through the pack of guards. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Kaylaneth, and she was suddenly not sure whether to be grateful for the familiar face or not.Kaylaneth swallowed hard and rasped, “Where… where am I?”Urcelmo’s face hardened even more at the question. “You are in the queen’s palace. In her bedroom.”Her palace? But she didn’t remember there being a palace specifically for the queen on Auridon, and in any case, as she looked around, she didn’t recognize the architecture.“Kaylaneth, how did you get here?” Ayrenn said, firmly but not unkindly.“I don’t—” She paused. How did she get here? She remembered Almalexia sending her away, but she had never been here before, much less thought of it as home.The sword at her neck twitched.Urcelmo shared a look with Ayrenn, then sighed. “All right, everyone back to your posts. We’ll sort this out from here.”At least they follow orders, Kaylaneth thought dimly as the sword left her neck and all the guards, over a dozen of them, left the room. In their absence she could look around easier. Ayrenn’s bedroom was smaller than she would have expected, and more sparsely furnished. A map of Tamriel took up almost the entirely of one wall. It was dotted with pins to mark… something. The war? Ayrenn’s travels?The queen in question ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. She got up and disappeared behind the divider on the other side of the room, presumably to change. Kaylaneth didn’t move, and Urcelmo just crossed his arms and stared at her. She could feel his eyes on her bowed head.When Ayrenn returned, fully dressed, she gestured toward the chairs in the corner. “Come, sit.”Her stomach still ached from where she’d been kicked, but she gingerly got up and shuffled to a chair. It felt… strange, sitting on furniture after so long. Ayrenn perched in the other chair, Urclemo hovering at her shoulder.“Kaylaneth, where have you been all this time?” Ayrenn finally asked, and her tone made the Bosmer look up. There were— yes, those were unshed tears in the queen’s eyes.She swallowed hard, and when she spoke it was with a whisper. “Morrowind.”Ayrenn’s eyes widened. Kaylaneth couldn’t look at her anymore; she dropped her eyes and bought her knees up to her chest, hugging them close. Y’ffre, she could feel her own bones. What must she look like to them? She was surprised the queen had recognized her so quickly.As if on cue, the battlereeve butted in. “Is that where you got those scars?”“Urcelmo!” Ayrenn snapped.Kaylaneth flinched and hugged herself tighter. She couldn’t recall the queen ever taking that tone before; that scared her more than the question. “Yes,” she whispered.“Would you be all right if I wrote your mother? She’s still here on Summerset. Do you want to see her?”She looked up in surprise. Mother? She couldn’t imagine the pain her mother must have been going through, losing her daughter so soon after the chaos in Southpoint. But she remembered her mother’s lightning-scented hugs and suddenly all she wanted was to be an elfling again, ignorant of the cruelties of the world. Ignorant of what else could smell like lightning, could twist that achingly loving memory to pain and fear.Ayrenn’s eyes were so sad and so blue, an endless sea to drown in.“Mom,” she croaked.~*~*~*~
To Be Continued in
When Coldharbor Calls Book III: Ship to Wreck