Meet the Voices in my Head

Really? She wasn’t in the mood for this. Between the patches of burns on her skin and the larger spot on her side and the fact that she’d killed three innocent mortal men in the last ten minutes, she really didn’t want to put up with this from him.

Was she about to say that? Absolutely not.

Exhaling slowly, be it to calm herself or out of pain, she explained, “I was just attacked by a Daedra sent by Azura to, and I quote, free my soul from you. You know anything about this?”

His tail twitched again. “Okay, you’ve piqued my interest. Explain.”

Sighing, Navalli sat down on the ground. “I was at an inn when a Daedra came up to me and started talking about how I either had to follow her or let everyone in the inn die. I laughed and... well, some illusion magic happened and... I killed two people, thinking they were her.” She frowned. “The Daedra was winning - Bal, I’ve never faced anything like her, and I’ve faced a lot of things - and then something happened. My memories of it are fuzzy, but I killed the Daedra and her Dremora. Otherwise, all I can really recall is torturing the information out of her. She said she was in service to Azura and that she wants vampires dead.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “I bit her and tore out her throat after that and left her in the hearth to burn.”

Molag Bal went quiet for a moment before reaching down to pick her up, sigils on his hand already glowing. Knowing what he was intending to do, Navalli allowed him to lift her from the ground and heal her.

Her relief was immediate as the pain stopped. “Thank you.”

He inclined his massive head to her and continued to lift her onto his shoulder. “You should have brought the Daedra here and let me question her.”

Navalli grabbed onto a ridge of his body to keep herself situated as he began to walk. “I told you, Bal, something happened. I’m not really sure what. I just remember... being able to feel everything that was going to happen. It was strange.” She shook her head. “You know anything about it?”

“No.”

“Bal!” She flicked his shoulder.

Amused, he continued, “You were an experiment for me, Navalli. A vampire like no other. Your abilities are as unknown to me as they are to you. However... I am curious to see exactly what they entail. We’ll have to put them to the test.”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose at that. Whatever he intended to do to test her abilities was not going to be any fun.

“Until then,” he stopped on the edge of the cave that was a direct entrance back to Nirn and raised his hand to lower her back to the ground, “Find another one of these Daedra and bring them to me. I would like to hear this information for myself.”

She gave him a sarcastic salute. “You got it.” She turned to leave.

“And Navalli?”

Pausing, she slowly turned to look back at him, only to see him smile with a shit-eating grin she hated. “Do come back and see Daddy soon.”

She was already making her way through the portal, the end of his sentence tapering to the empty air the portal left behind as it closed.

It took her months to track down another one of Azura’s daedra. They were still few and far between, no doubt since Azura likely lacked the resources to create so many at once. It was a blessing and a curse - she didn’t want to face another one of the bitches again, but she had been given a task and being unable to fulfill it for so long left her antsy. She only found one when she did because it had hunted down a small, unorganized clan and killed all the vampires within. Rumors spread fast and many assumed it was a team of skilled Dawnguard members that had done the dirty work, but the speed at which they had all been taken out was far too fast for the Dawnguard.

While the Dawnguard were vampire hunters, they were still mortal. They couldn’t outrun a vampire nor were they stronger, and silver weapons only did so much extra damage. Three of them were equal to one vampire, two if they’re extremely skilled and lucky.

There was no possible way the Dawnguard had done what the rumors described if there was any truth to them. Even a fraction of the brutality the stories told couldn’t be caused by a bunch of mortals. No, it had to be done by a being that feasted on blood and gore and had no other drive in life but to kill.

As Navalli approached the cavern entrance, she was trampled by the strong stench of vampiric blood. Sure enough, as she got closer, she could see the blood of the vampires staining the archway, purposefully lining it in an intimidating way that would no doubt scare off a rational being.

Thank the gods she lacked such rationality.

Just inside the entrance, she removed her cloak and tucked it into an outcropping of rocks, away from public eye. Then, she turned to her senses, trying to detect if her suspicions were correct. These daedra were hard to pick up, undoubtedly to prevent vampires from sensing them before they could get the drop. But every being, living, dead, or daedric, had some kind of signature, and Navalli wanted to train herself to find it before they could find her.

It was there, after several focused minutes. Subtle changes in the air, like someone flashing a candlelight at her from miles away. It was similar to the gut feeling she had experienced during her first fight, the one she had dismissed so easily.

Undoubtedly, though, the daedra already knew she was here. They were designed to hunt her. And she was going to run straight to the mouth of the predator with the intent of stabbing it through the tongue.

Keeping that in mind, she entered the cave at a crawling pace, staying light on the balls of her feet, eyes closely watching every shadow and every crevice. So much honing on her senses was making that thing come back - that beast under her skin that demanded to be freed, the beast she couldn’t name.

She kept it at bay. For now, at least.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?”

Navalli paused in the entrance of a large room. It was an open gathering room where bodies of slain vampires lay piled in the center on a large table. This must have been where the previous clan shared meals of mortals they had hunted down and collected for the sake of being cattle.

Thoughts for another time, though, as they were clearly no longer a problem.

Although Navalli couldn’t see where the voice was coming from, she could sense the daedra here.

Since she knew a fight was inevitable now, she withdrew her dagger from its sheathe at her side. “I’m not sure,” she answered, “looks like a pile of vampire bodies to me, but I could be wrong. What are you seeing?”

In front of the table, the air warped and turned, blurring the area as a female daedra not unlike the one she had fought before appeared. In fact, they looked almost identical, save for different hair styles. “I see a suicidal vampire.” The daedra folded her arms. “You must have no mind. I doubt any sane vampire would walk into this cave with the number of warnings I left behind. Unless, of course, you were looking to die.”

Navalli shrugged her shoulders. “I was actually looking for this really attractive girl I saw a few months ago. Come to think of it, she looked a lot like you. At least, she did before I tore open her throat and left her in a hearth to burn.” She cocked her head a bit. “You wouldn’t happen to know a slutty daedra by the name of Xiamara, would you?”

The daedra’s face changed, warped into unadulterated rage, as two spells began to glow in her hands - one green, an illusion spell of some kind, and a spectral dagger. “You’re the bitch who killed Xiamara?!”

Navalli tilted her dagger towards the daedra. “The one and only.”

Lips parted to give a feral hiss, the daedra moved in to attack. Just as she got within range, Navalli opened a portal to Coldharbour. The portal served as enough of a distraction to the daedra that she was able to grapple the daedra through by the waist without too much trouble.

After they finished toppling over each other through the portal, Navalli sprang to her feet and shouted, “Bal! I’ve brought you a new toy! Consider it a gift!”

While the daedra worked her way to her feet as she tried to grasp her surroundings, the air around them whirled in a storm-like fashion until the Prince appeared with cyan eyes of curiosity.

He eyed Navalli, then eyed the daedra, and an amused and hopeful glint entered his gaze. “You finally bring me one. I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to succeed in your task.”

Navalli bowed dramatically. “Ever your procrastinator, your royal prickliness.”

Ignoring her playful jab, he took a seat on a rather large set of boulders. “Well, get on with it then.”

“Get on with what?”

The daedra tried to open a portal to flee, but it quickly closed with a wave of Molag Bal’s hand. “The fight,” he said nonchalantly, as the daedra once again tried to open the portal.

When it closed again, the daedra clearly began to consider more realistic options.

“You can’t be serious,” Navalli responded, mouth agape. The daedra held her spectral dagger up to her throat, and Navalli hardly blinked twice about it.

Molag Bal, on the other hand, was paying close attention. Although bored, he held up his sigiled hand and held it in front of the daedra, who quickly succumbed to its enchantment. The spectral dagger disappeared and her spells lowered, although there was some resistance that suggested it was not by choice.

“I want to see just how skilled this daedra is. Otherwise, I won’t be able to properly judge how much torture it can handle, and I should know what my vampires and Children are going to be up against.” He nodded to Navalli. “You will fight, and I will watch. No pressure.”

Navalli flipped him off. “Fine. Release the bitch and I’ll try not to kill her.”

Without another word, he released the daedra.

She immediately tried to summon another dagger to kill herself, averting her eyes from Molag Bal this time around. However, before she could rightfully push it into her torso, Navalli was there with a hand gripped on her wrist.

“Look,” Navalli said through gritted teeth as her hand shook trying to prevent the daedra from suicide, “I almost feel bad for handing you over. No doubt whatever’s coming to you is going to be horrible. But if you make it easy and give us the answers we want, I’ll kill you before he has the chance to torture you.”

Molag Bal arched a brow at her, but said nothing.

The daedra shouted angrily at her and reached up to grab Navalli’s hair and yank her head aside.

Navalli hissed in response as she was tossed to the side. “That’s a cheap shot!”

As the daedra turned with the motion to try and stab Navalli, Navalli rotated and kicked the back of the daedra’s knees, sending her lurching forward to keep her balance.

The two continued to fight on even grounds for some time, and as the fight progressed and each took their own blows, Navalli could feel that beast crawling back to her. As the urge to release it grew, she swore she could hear Bal’s voice in her mind.

Let it out, Navalli. Show me what you can do.

When Navalli came back to, her arms were being held high above her head by her wrists and Bal was standing before her in his mortal form, jaw ticked in clear frustration.

“Are you quite finished?”

She blinked a few times before she nodded, and he finally released her wrists. Her dagger slipped from her hand immediately and she lowered her hands to see them covered in blood.

Her eyes moved from them to the daedra she’d been fighting, who was now lying on the ground, either dead or unconscious, and covered in raw, bleeding wounds.

Molag Bal, too, had a large gash on his arm that was quickly healing.

Navalli cursed. “Shit, Bal, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t worry, Navalli. Your lack of control during that time comes as no surprise. The ability is new to you. You will understand it with time, though we will work on that later. For now...” he crouched next to the fallen daedra and rested a hand over her. After a moment, her wounds began to glow blue and healed, and she woke up with a startled gasp.

Before she could get far, Molag Bal summoned chained cuffs and pressed them to the daedra’s wrists and ankles. Then, he returned to his Prince form and picked her up unceremoniously. “You won’t want to be around for this.”

And with that, he disappeared to another corner of Coldharbour, no doubt to torture information out of the daedra.

She truly did feel bad for handing the daedra over to Bal for torture and inevitably death, but she, too, wanted to know what she was up against and why, and there was no way she was going to get the information herself. Torture wasn’t her thing, and it seemed to be the only way to get these daedra to talk.

Bal would get it one way or another.

Knowing it would be some time before the daedra caved, Navalli went to go find a cold river to wash up in.

It was several Oblivion hours before Molag Bal made himself known again.

“Navalli? A word.”

Navalli looked down at his mortal form from where she’d taken up residence in a tree. “Apples.”

He rolled his eyes at her and held out his hand towards the base of her tree. It cracked and hissed and Navalli could feel its gravity shift under her. Cursing, she had no choice but to quickly jump from branch to branch to get down before the tree began to fall.

She had just made it to the ground when the tree began to officially collapse.

“I hate your landscaping.”

He chuckled. “How will I ever get better if I don’t practice at it?”

Navalli didn’t respond as she brushed herself off. “So? What’s the verdict?”

His eyes flashed, but in a blink it was gone. “Azura is apparently unhappy with the outcome of our last meeting, and is even further displeased with my decision to destroy my doorway to her realm. As a result, she’s created her own soul-sucking daedra.”

“But they just want vampire souls,” Navalli inserted.

Bal nodded. “When a mortal offers their soul to more than one Prince, the soul will go to whoever agreed to such a price first. However, the daedra override that rule, allowing the souls that rightfully belong to me be destroyed completely.”

She processed this information slowly. “So she’s enacting revenge by taking the souls of your vampires.”

He inclined his head. “That’s correct.”

“Shit.” Navalli ran her hands back through her hair. “So what does that mean for us?”

Olyvne frowned at Vaharis, who was lounging drunkenly in a comfortable chair on the other side of the room, a half-finished drink tilting in her hands. Vaharis’s cheeks were painted red as her eyes and she had already taken her shirt off long ago to walk around topless from the warmth of the alcohol in her system.

“What do you mean?”

Vaharis laughed bitterly and set the drink down on her dresser before it could spill out onto the floor as Olyvne had expected it to do. “You heard me! I asked why I bother!”

Olyvne waited patiently for Vaharis to actually explain rather than continue to snap at her.

Finally, Vaharis explained, “No one cares, Oly. No matter what I do. I could rewrite history at this point and no one would even congratulate me on my work. My name would go in one ear and out the other.” Vaharis put her hands on her chest and leaned forward. “I think I’m pretty great sometimes, you know! I’m not bad! I work really hard to be good at what I do!” She threw herself back into the chair and leaned her head up, arms stretched out to her sides. “But no one cares to say, ‘Hey, Vaharis, great job today, you did really good.’ Is that so complicated? I put my ass into this shit, Oly! Every damn day! I try so hard...”

A cringe of sympathy went through Olyvne. Vaharis was constantly left feeling unrecognized for her hard work - and to be fair, she often times was. Her parents only saw the accomplishments and not the person doing them. They wanted more and more from her. Vaharis seemed more like a trophy to them at times than a person.

Vaharis laughed bitterly. “And even you! You sit there and you listen, but you never say anything to me. You or anyone else, the people I call friends.”

“Vaharis-”

“Don’t, Oly!” Vaharis made a sweeping motion with her arm to cut Olyvne off. “You, Nireli, Geron, Strav, Tethis... none of you ever tell me I’ve done good. No pat on the back. No congratulatory hug. No recognition.”

Olyvne ground her teeth. Not because Vaharis was wrong, but because Vaharis was right. None of them wasted the effort on saying such things anymore because it seemed pointless. Vaharis always did good, and there were times she knew it as well as the rest of them - but then there were times like this when Vaharis’s self-worth took a turn and spiraled towards the center of Mundas.

Lowering herself in her chair, Vaharis sighed. “There are some days I just want to quit.”

“Vaharis, no,” Olyvne said gently, or so she tried. “You can’t. We all need you. We need your help with training, we need you to fight with us.”

“Why do I bother?” Vaharis reiterated. “No one cares. I’d bet I could leave tomorrow like my two useless brothers and no one would blink an eye.”

“That’s not true-”

“Just shut up, Oly.” Vaharis pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just shut up and do your studies and leave me be.”

Silence stretched between them for quite some time while Olyvne tried to figure out what to say.

“Vaharis, for the record... I think you’re great.”

Shouting. Lots and lots of shouting. Apparently she’d picked the wrong night to come to the inn. A groom-to-be was celebrating his score with his companions, loudly clinking tankards of ale and shouting songs with the bard who was practically bathing in gold by this point and wouldn’t complain about having to play Ragnar the Red for the seventh time in a row.

Navalli, on the other hand, was less than pleased about hearing the song over and over. There were more than four songs that could be played, right?

“Hey there, pretty lady mer. What’re you doing around these parts?”

Her eyes rose from where she was staring at the bar to meet a pair of endless black eyes, deeply set into an angular face with pronounced cheekbones common to that of the mer. The black was a stark contrast to the golden skin that was enriched with finely lined tattooed spirals that circled towards a pointed nose and thin lips. To match those eyes was hair as dark as her own, cropped short with only one long small braid traveling down the side of their body.

Navalli had never seen anything like her.

There was something off-putting, though - something that poked and prodded at the back of her neck, tingling like a freshly-scratched itch. A warning, of sorts, if you will. Something wasn’t right with this one, but what?

The feeling was only comparable to what she felt when she encountered a lesser Daedra. They had an unnatural feeling about them. Not quite as strong as the Princes’ - no, not nearly, especially that of Molag Bal - but not something to be dismissed. It was something that told her to be on guard.

She listened, but her external mannerisms were much different than her internal suspicions.

Her eyes fell down the length of the Daedra before her, absorbing the look of her armor - or rather, the lack-thereof. Black sheer fabric that fell almost to the floor and was slit on either side to the thigh, traveled up to the shoulders and down the arms. It was only fashioned with crisscrossing leather that was pressed with Daedric lettering.

A conjurer, no doubt. Likely skilled in destruction magic as well.

Navalli leaned her elbow on the counter and turned in her seat to half-face the Daedra. “You don’t look like the womer I asked for, but if you’re what I’m getting I suppose I can’t complain.”

The Daedra gave her a wiry smile. “Spoken like a true vampire.”

Well, so much for being on guard. Now she was fully alert.

The Daedra sat beside her. “I’ve a deal for you. A bargain I think you may like.”

She scoffed. “I don’t bargain with lessers.”

“But you will,” she insisted, pointed nails drumming nonchalantly on the counter, an action that bellied the growing tension between them. “Because right now, your options are few and it boils down to this...” She turned and gave Navalli a hard stare. “You will join me behind the inn, and you will let me kill you without complaint. Or, I will slaughter every human in here without mercy.”

Silence.

Then, Navalli laughed. “Oh, baby, you’re going to have to try a lot harder to turn me on. I’ve passed snacks around with beings a thousand times more terrifying than your arse.” Her eyes narrowed and she tossed her hair behind her for careless, dramatic effect. “Go home, muck, before you get yourself sent back to the Void.”

Looking unamused, the Daedra sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to prove my point, then.”

Navalli’s hand fell to her dagger just as the Daedra grabbed her wrist. A flame spell heated against her skin and damn did it burn like a bitch, but she refused to let the pain cost her. She reached for it with her other hand and yanked it free. Just as she went to stab the putrid creature, though, she rolled off the chair.

Out of a black and purple portal in front of the door, a dremora appeared, great sword drawn and ready for slaughter.

The room burst into chaos as women ran for the rooms to hide and the men stumbled for their weapons to fight.

Navalli, meanwhile, was throwing herself on the Daedric bitch who’d summoned him in the first place. 

Apparently, Daedric Bitch had been prepared for that. As Navalli moved down, a chair came falling on top of her, hitting her square in the head.

Cursing, she refused to be thwarted. She threw the chair aside, hard enough to send it smashing into the wall. The two of them wrestled on the floor until Navalli claimed the mount with her dagger pressed up against the Daedra’s throat.

“Who are you and what the fuck do you want from me?” She hissed, pressing the dagger close enough to the skin to draw blood.

“Name’s Xiamara, and I’m here to crush your soul.” The Daedra grabbed another chair with one hand and brought it crashing against Navalli’s shoulder.

Xiamara claimed the mount, her hands at Navalli’s throat.

Navalli could feel the heat burning her skin, yet, she found it in her to laugh. “You mean the one claimed by Molag Bal? The one I don’t own?”

“That’s the one.”

“You’re dumber than you look.”

“And you even dumber.”

She could smell fresh blood being spilled behind her. The dremora was winning the battle over there. She knew it.

Xiamara knew it.

The Daedra grinned wide, flashing a set of unholy fangs that rivaled the length of Navalli’s own. “You smell that, vampire? That’s your life source. That vital essence you need. I can free your soul from Molag Bal. Take it right from his hands... and destroy it. Don’t you want to be free from your captor? From your Master?”

Navalli laughed once. “Nah, I actually like him some days, but thanks for the offer.” She brought her dagger up and stabbed the Daedra in the side.

What shocked her most, though, is when she blinked and the Daedra became a mortal man. A man who fell on top of her, groaning and pleading for his life.

Shocked to her core, Navalli shoved him off her chest and yanked her dagger free, then looked around the room.

The Daedric Bitch was sitting on a table top off to the side, watching.

Illusion magic. Fuck, Navalli had underestimated her.

“You rank slut!” Navalli strode towards the Daedra. Listening more to her instincts this time to ensure she had the right one, she flipped her dagger around in her hand and swung at Xiamara upwards.

The Daedra flipped back on the table and readied a fighting stance.

A scream nearly broke her concentration. Another man had died at the hands of the Dremora.

Xiamara cocked her head and gave Navalli a wicked grin. “Chin up, child. It’s only all your fault they’re dying.”

Hissing, Navalli jumped onto the table and went into hand-to-hand combat. Something that proved harder than expected, as this Daedra was as well trained as she was.

If not more.

Navalli barely managed to pin her against the wall with her forearm against the Daedra’s throat. “What fucking Prince owns you?”

“Not the same one that owns you.” Xiamara kneed Navalli in the gut and shoved her off, flame magic glowing in her palms. The Daedra flung fire balls in Navalli’s direction, ones that she barely managed to roll out of the way from.

When she came out of her roll, she noticed the dremora raising his sword to execute one of the men fighting him.

Her attention momentarily drawn, Navalli dashed forward and managed to put herself between the two and block the downward swing with her dagger just in time.

“Go!” She shouted to the man, “Get everyone out of here!”

She shoved the dremora away and tried to disarm him of his giant sword. She stuck close to him, too close for him to attack him with his sword. He went for a punch - she dropped and swung her leg around to knock him to the ground, then brought her dagger down on him. He managed to move, narrowly avoiding his heart, making her stab his shoulder instead.

Navalli blinked. The dremora was now a mortal man, who was hollering in pain.

Mortified, she immediately withdrew her dagger, ever-immortal brain not understanding the consequences of doing so.

The dremora had moved on and was fighting the last two men while Xiamara sat off to the side, watching the show. “Two down,” she said, “three to go.”

Kill the conjurer. It might be the only way. Kill the conjurer and send the dremora back to the Void.

Yelling deep enough from her frustration to make her throat tense, she returned to her onslaught on the Daedric Bitch.

Xiamara continued to parry every attack, blow for blow, strike for strike.

“I haven’t had this much fun in ages!” Xiamara laughed as she blocked another blow. “You’re a much better fighter than the others.” She delivered a blow to Navalli’s gut that tossed her back into the hearth.

The Daedra was on top of her, hand on her head, trying to shove Navalli’s face into the burning embers.

Enough playtime. There was something under her skin. Something longing to break out. Something begging to be released. A creature she resisted for fear of losing control, but it was right there, begging for release. Begging to help her win.

With little left to do, she listened.

Navalli came back into her conscious mind to find the wreckage around her. (And now, you’re caught up to the present).

She raked her nails back through her hair. The damage was horrendous. All the men were dead. The dremora was little more than a pile of dust.

Xiamara lie dead in the hearth, body scorched.

She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Daedric blood. Gods, she prayed she didn’t actually drink any of it. Anyone but Bal’s would kill her.

But this all begged the question...

What had happened? What had she done?

As she walked around the side of the hearth, it came rushing back to her with the strength of a Dovahkiin’s shout. Let’s take a look at what she saw, shall we?

Something had taken over. Her instincts, perhaps, but more powerful than that. Her normally heightened senses were even stronger than normal. 

She could feel changes in the air. 

See movements a half a second before they happened.

She could smell the blood in the room so strongly she could taste it. The sweetness of it. She could feel the force of it within her without actually drinking it.

She could hear the difference in each individual rain drop that hit the roof, like separately strung notes on a lute far away.

Xiamara could sense a difference. Her entire body tensed, anticipating what was to happen next in this fight. But she couldn’t have predicted it, no matter how hard she tried.

With a strength she hadn’t seen in a vampire before, the vampire grabbed Xiamara’s short hair in a fist and yanked her sideways, slamming her head into the hearth’s stone wall, a crack resounding behind her own ears.

Her head felt as though it was on fire. No doubt she was bleeding profusely.

As the world spun, she looked up at the vampire who now stood before her. Despite her muddled thoughts, she managed to put the pieces together, and it rang a laugh from her. “You’re not just any vampire, are you? You’re a Daughter of Coldharbour.”

The Daughter’s eyes lit up, her upper lip curling. “Daddy’s favorite.”

Xiamara fired an exploding flame spell at the Daughter, but she was already out of the way by the time her arm had even been raised.

Logic told her flight. Her fear of failure told her fight. Something had changed in her opponent, and now she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

The Daughter’s head snapped towards her conjured dremora, who was going in for another kill. How odd it was to see a vampire so conscious of mortal lives. Of all that Molag Bal could’ve chosen, why this one? Why did the Lord of Domination, the Prince who swore to capture mortal souls for eternal servitude and slavery, choose a vampire who had morals?

What was this vampire to him?

Before she could cast another illusion spell to throw the vampire off her guard, she’d thrown the nearly-dead mortal man out of the way, disarmed her dremora with her own two hands, and used his own sword to end his life by shoving it through his gut.

With a scream, the dremora turned to black dust, and Xiamara cringed through her headache as she felt her connection to him snap completely.

The only mortal man left standing charged at the vampire with a dagger, not knowing who was friend or foe in the situation. Without hesitation, the vampire dodged the dagger’s attack, grabbed the man by his shirt, and tossed him into the nearest table.

The vampire returned her attention to Xiamara and began to stalk towards her.

Xiamara reanimated one of the dead mortal’s corpses and sent it after the two men left alive, but the vampire wasn’t swayed by the distraction. Instead, she picked up Xiamara by her leather straps and held her above the hearth.

“I give you thirty seconds to tell me who sent you and why.” Her voice was deeper, warped now, with underlying tones that threatened to end her very existence.

“Nice try, Daughter, but I’m-”

The vampire held her closer to the hearth’s heat. “Time’s ticking, Daedra.”

Xiamara shook her head. “Torture me all you want. Send my soul back to the void for all I care. We all die eventually.”

Closer. “Who is we?”

“I’m not falling for it.”

Her feet were now against the hearth’s coals. Finally, fight and flight both kicked in, and she began to kick and claw at the vampire’s arms and body to get free. The coals burned her feet, and she had no doubts that the vampire intended to wring out this process as long as possible.

She kicked some of the coals at the vampire, who didn’t even flinched as some of them singed her skin.

Her will was slipping. “W-We! As-As Daedra!”

One of the two mortal men left was slayed by his own comrade’s hands, and the risen undead was now going for the only one remaining - the groom.

The vampire refused to let her go. “Who holds your leash, filth?”

“N-no!”

She was into the coals up to her ankles now. Again, she tried to kick them at the vampire, fire burning into the vampire’s skin and clothes, but there was no visible reaction from her. “Ten seconds.”

“A-Azura does!”

The vampire scowled. It was the only moment where the vampire appeared to have returned from whatever state she’d been in. “The fuck does Azura want to do with the vampires?”

“She doesn’t want anything to do with them!” Xiamara spat. “She wants them dead! She wants their souls!”

Further into the coals. The pain was almost too much. “Why?”

Laughing, Xiamara spat at the vampire.

The response was the vampire yanking her back out of the coals to bite down on her neck.

Hard.

Forget the hearth - this was the worst pain she’d ever felt.

But it was over fast. The vampire tore open her neck and then tossed her into the hearth to die.

The last thing she saw was the vampire ending the reincarnated mortal’s life, turning them into dust.

Navalli sat down on one of the table benches, rubbing her face with her hands. No one was left alive. The mortals were all dead. The few that had managed to get out were long gone, but those who stayed to fight were dead. Even the Nord the she’d tossed aside and saved from the dremora was dead.

She was covered in blood; human, Daedric, and her own. The number of burn wounds she had was ridiculous. Smaller spots from the coals of the hearth, larger ones from the previous fireball explosions.