#forelhost

He feels her skirt the room, her chill pushing back against the heat of his wards. Closer and closer she came to him. What to do when she arrived?

Her hand on the lid was a shard of arctic ice. In life, he was familiar with the clever men and mages' magic lurking under their skin, leaving tell tale signs of each person's strngths--and weakness--in the arcane. But hers was not subtle; it was a raging storm.

IF he concentrates hard enough, he can recall a similar potency in the Traitor's presence, electric and biting in its intensity.

Both are a storm.

Dovahkiin . . .

His whisper is kiss of warmth through the coolness. He can feel her hesitate above him, and he thinks he moved in error. She was leaving. He should have remained silent.

But then the lid is sliding, solid and heavy, to the floor. Snowflakes flutter into his sarcophagus, and Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin for the first time.

He is struck by her resemblance to the Traitor, chestnut curls framing an almost golden face, wherein sat a pair of eyes so blue that the sky would weep with envy.

But yet, there is a softness in her face that wasn't present in the Traitor's, a light in the eye and draw of the mouth that spoke of exhaustion and perseverance. Where the Traitor was full of pride, this woman, this fahlil was patiance.

Where the Traitor came and went with the flash of a summer storm, hers was the long cold that seized Atmora and threatened to outlast the world.

"She'll outlast you."

But Froda's warning goes ignored.

Her hand is on the staff. Though he has not wielded it since beyond the reach of mortal memory, its heart of flame still burns like an inferno. Her mouth purses when her hand grips the stave, its heat daring to thaw the permafrost under her skin.

It is as she draws her hand back, steam curling around her finger tips, that he takes the staff in familiar hands and rises from the grave.

The Dovahkiin stumbles back, her ring-clad hand held to her chest as his presence looms before her. He can taste the power trailing from his staff to her hand.

It is quick. It is almost easy. Vahlok did not have such a fortunate confrontation. Rahgot is up and over her in a vengeful blaze.

She drops to the floor, not in defeat, but to escape his fire, and Rahgot descends--

--but she is not there. In a whirl of smoke, he turns to find her poised on the side of his coffin, ice gathered in her hands. Her face is hard, her eyes frozen.

YOL TOR SHUL! "FO KRAH DIIN!"

The songs of fire and ice meet and burst against each other, dousing the chamber in a blanket of steam. He hears her gasp at the heavy air.

But a lich does not need air, nor does he need to see.

As she stumbles backward into his sarcophagus, Rahgot falls on her, a smothering shadow. She screams when his spidery hands find the collar of her armor and the pillar of golden skin above it.

"FEIM—"

But his hand crushes her windpipe, silencing the Thu'um in her mouth. Her eyes are blown wide, sightless in the dark.

How simple, how exquisite it was to have a creature so full of power within his hands.

She is bound up in a hard shell of silver ice, but Rahgot would see to that later. His hand still on her throat, he traces the other over her face, cresting over sharp elven bones and soft mannish cheeks. He reaches her ear, and feels a tremor in her throat when his finger catches on the leaftip.

Long ago, they said Traitor's power was born from dovah sos in his veins. At the time, Rahgot did not, would not believe such a blasphemy to the gods. But over the long ages in rumination with nothing but Froda's ghost and the mountain winds to haunt his ears, he pondered the possibility of a true Dovahkiin.

Now he believed, and now he holds one in his hands. A goddess in a mortal's skin. The power of the gods could be, would be his!

"You are a fool, Rahgot."

His hiss is ghastly, banishing Froda's ghost to the fringes and washing over the Dovahkiin's face in a cloud of decay. She gags beneath him. In retaliation, he pinches her ear between two bony fingers, and she chokes, gasping.

But it wouldn't do to kill the goddess of his new religion before he's preached his message. He would seal her in his own coffin as he prepared his ascension to a new priesthood.

His wards hold the lid in place, sealing the Dovahkiin without suffocating her. He would return for her soon, but first—

There is a gasp, a brush of frost, and then from the confines of the coffin, a whispy voice Shouts, her Thu'um penetrating through stone and death.

Rahgot rounds on the tomb, pivoting from his place on the stairs from his funerary dias. But it is too late. The Shout has burst from the air into the bones of Nirn itself.

"OD AH VIING!"

Odahviing tugs at a distant thread in the long tapestry of Rahgot's memory with the strength of iron tongs pulling teeth.

Odahviing. His old master.

But how did—?

"You've sworn fealty to your own doom."

Froda's taunting voice dances in his ears as thunder rumbles in the distance. The sarcophagus on the dias is still, but dust and debris fall from the ceiling like rain. Rahgot draws back, his staff raised to meet whatever new being threatened his sanctum.

"You know what's coming."

There was a crack! followed by a heavy crash. Dust choked the air, bitter in the cold and lingering smoke steam. Then, early morning light filters in, thin and golden. In its midst is a horned head and sharpened claw. Claws that would destroy Forelhost.

"Rahgot, mey! My teeth to your neck!"

THe roof was gone, and morning sun flooded the chambers, catching on the dust motes like magicka in the air. The smoke and steam dispersed quickly, and Rahgot, for the first time in nearly five thousand years, saw his god face to face.

Of all the dov, Odahviing was always a fierce and active ruler. Always quick to action and swift to speak his thoughts. Rahgot always knew his recklessness was why he fell in the war with the Nords. But before, Odahviing was a stalwart supporter of Alduin Thuri. His priesthood followed the example set by the High Priests in Bromjunaar. He sent lesser dov to heed Alduin's call against the Traitor.

Yet here he was, heeding the call of a weak fahlil with the blood of the gods. Why—?

But Rahgot could not ponder it any longer. His master was in the chamber. A large, brilliantly formed dovah, Odahviing's size forced Rahgot to sweep back across the cracked floor, all too aware of the heat and strength of a dragon's body. But his god did not look at him.

Odahviing's claws were prying open the lid. It fell away and he lowered his snout. Rahgot could just see small golden hands grasp at the crimson scales.

"Odahviing, I can't breathe—"

Her voice, faint, speaks a language Rahgot doesn't know. But whatever she says to the dovah turns the horned head in his direction. Odahviing is snarling.

"Mey lir, Rahgot! Ruth hi!" Odahviing, thur—

But the jaws are on him. As his bones are broken by his god's teeth, Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin sitting up. in his coffin, her arms draped over the side as she tries to catch her breath. Her hair is a whirlwind and her eyes crystal. What a ravishing goddess she would have made!

Her eyes catch his through the slits of his mask. Her face is as green as the cold orichalcum. But then her mouth turns up, a sneer, and she resembles the Traitor so utterly that Rahgot, for the first time in countless ages, grew truly cold.

"Save his mask for me, won't you, darling?" "Geh, Judsedov."

Rahgot doesn't know what the Dovahkiin says to Odahviing, but his god calls the fahlil the Queen of the Dov. The Queen.

His last thought was that she was already a goddess, and Odahviing, a god in his own right, was her loyal priest.

Froda's laughter is the last thing Rahgot hears over the rumble of the dovah's throat and the crunch of his own bones.

When the mask falls to the floor, bereft of its priest, it is several long minutes before Leara can muster the strength to retrieve it. Even then, Odahviing offers his head to help support her, and he guides her across the floor.

Picking it up, Leara fingers the cold orichalcum, tired.

"What happened?" "Well . . ."

She trailed off, warm and comfortable against Odahviing but embarrassed to continue. At Odahviing's gentle huff, she relents.

"He caught me off guard. I tried to stand on the coffin for leverage, and then the bloody lich tripped me up." "Lech." "What was that?" "Nothing, Kunziiyol."

Sighing, Leara turns her face into the warmth of Odahviing's snout.

"Let's go home."

Guiding the Dragonborn to the safe hollow at the base of his neck, Odahviing takes flight, leaving the ruins of Forelhost and the Dragon Cult behind.

"Drat, I forgot about the Word Wall!" "Ruth, vahdin."