#karnwyr

·•★•·

The bells chimed in the Temple of Kynareth.

Eyes forward, Leara mounted the stairs to Dragonsreach at a steady pace. She would not go into her destiny a quivering mess.

Beside her, Bishop ambled on as if they were barhopping late at night, chasing the alcohol and outrunning the guards. When he returned with her to the inn in Ivarstead, Leara elected to ignore the dark look Balgruuf shot her from beside the hearth. Even as she entered her room, Bishop at her shoulder, with Karnwyr darting to them from beneath a table, she ignored the Jarl. He was not her father, and she was not fifteen, sneaking around with some boy. If she chose to take a man into her room, she would.

And she did so again when they arrived in Whiterun, late the night before.

…if she got up later, in the middle of the night, to go sit in quiet meditation beside the cold coals in the barroom, then that was her business. She would thank others to stay out of it, at least until she slew the World-Eater. Then she would be dead, and it wouldn’t matter to her what wild yarns they spun into her legend.

Bishop was talking. He never ceased talking, but she’d learned to tune him out. Occasionally, she heard snatches of “after” and “us” and “run away,” but she gave them as much attention as she did Balgruuf’s disapproval—that is, mechanical placation and empty indifference.

She had more important things to focus on at present. Like the trap and Odahviing. Whether or not he could tell her how to get to Sovngarde, and…what it might cost her to gain that information. On the return trip from High Hrothgar, she’d pored over the Prose Edda. People would leave her be—for the most part, Bishop did not—when she claimed she was studying the ancient skalds as a means to prepare for the coming confrontation. She dwelled on Olaf One-Eye’s battle with Numinex for a long time, late into the night while the rest of the traveling party slept in tents and under stars. Despite historical and skaldic discrepancies illuminated through Viarmo’s annotations, Leara knew for certain that the trap would work and it would hold. Would that she could lure Alduin himself into Dragonsreach and be done with it! Perhaps that would keep the armies from invading Whiterun! Surely Balgruuf would forgive her cold shoulder if she made him the World-Eater’s jailer!

Or perhaps he would curse her ten ways to Sundas. It could go either way. A lesser dragon like Odahviing would be far more manageable.

Before leaving The Bannered Mare, Leara had taken Bishop aside. Between them, Karnwyr stilled. Ever since Bishop rejoined them, the wolf avoided his master. Once, joking, Leara asked if Bishop had done something to offend his pet. Bishop’s scoff and eye roll, punctuated by an “I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately,” and a “He’s probably spending too much time with your girly…influences,” confused her. She did not ask again.

Whatever had upset Karnwyr, she hoped the wolf would settle once she left for Sovngarde. She wouldn’t be there to play mediator between wolf and master.

“When we go in here,” she said, cutting off whatever rude remark about the Jarl that Bishop was no doubt whetting on his tongue, “I need you to listen to me.”

“When don’t I, sweetness?”

“All the time,” she retorted, then, “Listen to me: the great porch is about to be overrun. Guards, the Jarl, members of the court, us, and a very angry dragon. He will try to kill you. He will try to kill me and everyone else on that porch. This is going to be more dangerous than anything else we’ve faced,”—her confrontation with Alduin at the Throat of the World did not count— “and I need your focus. If I say run, run, and if I say shoot, you shoot. Do you understand me?”

The poison flame in Bishop’s eyes burned. “You don’t know how hot you sound right now, do you?”

“Bishop! Please!” She grabbed his hands. She hated doing so, but touching him always seemed to grab his attention. “Hitherto now, every threat we’ve encountered has been child’s play. This is an adult situation with adult consequences. In a narrow place like the porch, it can become a furnace very quickly! Dragon fire is to be feared with reason, and we’re about to be up close and personal with it!”

Bishop nodded, and then before she could withdraw her hand, he kissed her knuckles, his eyes never leaving her face. “You’re in charge, Princess.”

That was another thing, Leara thought as they crossed the bridge to the palace. “Princess.” Bishop had no shortage of nicknames for her, things he deemed as terms of endearment. Ladyship. Sweetness. A pair of fine legs. But “princess” was new. She knew he’d not used it until Ivarstead, until that first night back in bed together when he wrapped her close and buried his mouth in her hair. Had he overheard Esbern’s revelation? Did he know? Or was he trying out a new addition to his ever-expanding list of names to use to avoid using her own? Would she care just as much about another nickname, or was the prickle under her skin because of what she so recently learned? She wanted to ask. She dreaded doing so. It was a mystery that would soon lose any meaning to its resolution.

All speculation. All things she didn’t have to concern herself with because she was going to die.

Lips thin, she approached the doors, the faceless guards greeting her with a murmured, “Dragonborn.” This time, they opened the doors. Bishop whistled. Leara hurried through, nodding a quiet, “Thank you,” as she went.

The grand foyer was still. Neither maid nor child could be seen as Leara led the way up the stairs to the great hall. The last time she was in Dragonsreach, she asked Jarl Balgruuf to let her trap a dragon in his keep. Now she was here to see that task through. Around and above her, the yellow braziers crackled, merry and cheerful and so unlike dragon fire. She prayed to the Divines that that was all the fire Dragonsreach would see, that she could contain the dragon to the porch. If things got out of hand…but they wouldn’t. This dragon was not Alduin. Hadn’t she proven before that she could manage a regular dragon? She slew Mirmulnir on the plain, frost and katana in hand, a team of guards behind her. Sahloknir she caught like a bat in a trap under the cover of darkness. Then there was Golzkreinyol, killed on the road to Riverwood following her infiltration at the Thalmor Embassy. And lastly, significantly, there was Venstrunbo, slain on the way to Windhelm with Bishop as her audience. Her failure with Alduin at the Throat of the World was not that he was a dragon, but that he was the embodiment of the end times and the doom of all. If she died in Sovngarde, staving off his tyranny, so be it. That was her fate. But it would be because she fell to Alduin.

Odahviing would not have such pleasure. She would slay him herself before she let him kill her.

Jarl Balgruuf was not in his throne, nor was the court gathered there. Scarcely, however, did they reach the dais when Hrongar, Jarl Balgruuf’s brother, met them. During her previous visits to the keep, Hrongar had never taken much notice of her. It wasn’t until the day she slew Mirmulnir that he truly spoke to her, and then it was to instill in her the importance of the Dragonborn in Nordic tradition. Where Balgruuf was the cautious politician, Hrongar was all bullheaded warrior, ready to do whatever it took to defend Whiterun and uphold his family’s honor. Leara wasn’t surprised that he would be right in the middle of her scheme with the dragon. Hrongar was always itching for a fight, and what’s a bigger fight than inviting a dragon into his brother’s palace?

“I still can’t believe you got my brother to agree to this,” was his greeting, amusement flickering around his eyes.

 “It’s the necessary next step if there’s any hope of defeating the World-Eater. I’m thankful Jarl Balgruuf sees that too.”

Hrongar grinned at her. Behind her, Bishop growled, so low that Leara was sure Hrongar didn’t hear it, but still.

“You have the Greybeards’ blessing,” Hrongar said, ignoring the agitated ranger. Of course, Bishop wasn’t the Dragonborn, so Hrongar wouldn’t care who he was. That such dismissal would just offend Bishop more flitted in a thought through Leara’s mind, but she waved it away. If Bishop caused a problem, it would soon be something she wouldn’t have to share. “My brother tells me you have the means of trapping this dragon and taking down Alduin. For a pointy ear, I’m impressed with your handling of this. It’s the Nord way of things, no doubt!” He boomed a laugh.

Akatosh, did Hrongar just compliment her? Divines be damned, and now slaughterfish will fly.

“She’s more Nord than you!” Bishop spat.

Pardon, what?

For the first time, Hrongar actually looked at Bishop, “What are you babbling about, Snowback?”

Leara threw out an arm to prevent Bishop from darting forward—she knew he would—but he brushed by her, a sneer twisting his mouth. “You talk about her being some great hero, like you didn’t think she could do it, but this woman is ten times the Nord you or your blue-balled brother could ever be! She’s putting her ass on the line to cover yours like you're all a bunch a snot-nosed brats in soiled pants! She’s not your nursemaid! Stop sucking on her tits!”

Or that’s what Bishop would have said. Before “You talk about her—” fell in full from his mouth, Leara cast Muffle over him. Hrongar stared, stunned, as Bishop’s mouth kept moving in voiceless rage. Beside them, Karnwyr ducked his head, embarrassment clear even on a wolf’s face.

“I beg you’ll excuse him,” Leara said, “He got rather drunk last night and hasn’t quite moved from intoxicated to hungover yet.”

Hrongar grunted. “It’s on his head then if he stumbles like a fool into the dragon’s maw.”

That would certainly save Leara from needing to do more damage control, wouldn’t it? Regardless… “Shall we get on with it then?”

“Yeah, follow me. The porch is this way.”

By then, Bishop seemed to realize neither Leara nor Hrongar could hear him. He tugged on Leara’s arm as she made to follow Hrongar, who was already striding toward the steps at the back of the hall. Rolling her eyes, Leara waved her hand, and the Muffle spell covered her, too.

“—believe you did that to me again!”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d not insult everyone who talks to me!”

“Hey,” Bishop snapped, “I didn’t insult the damn innkeeper!”

“No, you were too busy staring at the serving girl’s arse!”

“So?”

Just a little patience, Leara chanted in her head. Just a little longer, and then you’ll be gone, and Bishop can go screw all his bloody feelings for you into the damn serving girl.

Tone measured, cool, Leara spoke. “We are going to the porch. You are not going to talk to the court while I handle this business. You’re going to listen to me up there like you’re going to listen to me now, all right? And maybe,” silver pulled on her tongue, “later, when the whole nasty unpleasantness is over,” the silver dripped over her lips as she leaned just sotoward Bishop. His eyes glazed, focused on her, her mouth, the silver webs she was spinning just for him, “I’ll make everything worth your while.”

“Wait,” Bishop’s head was trying desperately to keep up with his second brain, it seemed. “You mean—”

“Yes.” Not at all. But he didn’t need to know that, did he?

A growl purred from Bishop, but unlike the threat he thought he was issuing to Hrongar before, this was pure desire. “Dominate me all you want on that porch, darling, but know that when we’re alone tonight, you’ll be the one surrendering.”

“You can count on it,” Leara fluttered her eyelashes, then, grabbing his arm, she dragged a quite pleased Bishop toward the stairs, her Muffle dissipating around them. She ignored the watchful eyes of Karnwyr; dogs—and wolves, she’d found—could always tell when something was wrong, and Karnwyr was especially attuned with her emotions. She couldn’t face her own anxiety and fear reflecting back at her from Karnwyr’s sad, dark eyes. So she ignored him.

Hrongar was waiting at the base of the stairs, eyebrow raised in question as she approached, Bishop pulled behind her. “Sobering him up,” she told Hrongar by way of explanation. She wagged her fingers at him, ice crystals and pale light dancing between her gloved digits. Like most Nords, Hrongar had a distrust of magic that could rival some folks’ aversion to government. At her little display, Hrongar scowled and turned up the stairs.

Good, he wouldn’t get in Bishop’s crosshairs again.

·•★•·

So, this is where everyone is, Leara thought as she, Bishop, Karnwyr, and Hrongar stepped onto the porch. Jarl Balgruuf stood forward and off-center, eyes following several of his guardsmen as Irileth directed them into position for the coming trap. Everything was there. They were just waiting. Waiting for her to take the stage.

And what a stage she had! The great porch of Dragonsreach was a cavernous stone hall lined with roaring fire-filled brasiers. On any other occasion, it might have housed long tables and decorations, symbols of Whiterun’s nobility and history. Today, however, the high walls and the sweeping tiles were clear, prepared in wait for the coming dragon. At the end of the porch, a wide curving balcony offered a panoramic view of the tundra and the boreal mountains bordering the Pale to the northeast. The view was stunning, but it was the contraption overhead that drew Leara’s eye. A yoke, alike to those used on livestock in the field, hung above her head, a prison and a marvel held by great chains older than the last three ages. Midway down the porch were two rests where the yoke would be locked in place, preventing the dragon from throwing it off and breaking free. It was magnificent. It was horrifying. A pit settled in the bottom of Leara’s stomach at the sight. In another time in this same place, that yoke bore down on Numinex, driving him mad in isolation, his pride and strength broken by mortal men. What would it do to Odahviing?

Jarl Balgruuf met her, then, drawing her eyes from the dragon’s yoke. His face grim and eyes hard, tired, as if he had gotten as much sleep as Leara had the night before. That is, barely any at all. Balgruuf hardly spared Bishop’s specter over Leara’s shoulder a first glance before addressing her. “Brother, Dragonborn,” he greeted them, voice not quite as warm as in the past.

“Jarl Balgruuf,” right fist over her heart, Leara bowed her head.

“It’s that time, then, Dragonborn,” Balgruuf went on, “As I promised, the great chains are oiled, and my men stand at the ready. We’re ready to spring this trap. You do have a plan, don’t you, lass?”

Her understanding of Dragonrend burned through her soul, too hot, and her studies of the Poetic Edda churned through her mind. “I do, as sound as any plan is when calculating for a live dragon.”

Balgruuf nodded, “My men know what to do. They await your word.” He paused, then, “My city’s in your hands, lass, I’m trusting you to protect it.”

It wouldn’t be the first time, but it was definitely the most pivotal. “I’ll protect it with my life,” she assured him with a soft smile.

Beside her, Bishop grumbled wordlessly, but remained otherwise quiet, thank Akatosh.

Balgruuf’s eyes flicked past Leara, then back to her, movement hardly noticeable. “Hrongar,” he said, “would you take the Dragonborn’s companion to the upper balcony? As an archer, that’s the best place for him.”

“Like Hell I’m going up there!” Bishop cried, stepping forward. Despite being some distance away, Irileth’s gaze turned toward them, crimson and blazing with warning. Karnwyr whined. Bishop turned to Leara. “Ladyship, do you actually expect me to leave your side when you call this oversized gecko down here?”

Flames threatened to blaze hot embarrassment across her face, but she doused them with years of training. “Yes,” she said, voice cool. “I expect you to listen to Jarl Balgruuf the Greater.” Bishop glared, opening his mouth to fire off again, but Leara had had enough before they ever reached the palace. “If he tells you to shoot the dragon, shoot it, and if he tells you to jump off the porch, do that too!”

Hrongar laughed, loud and full. Balgruuf didn’t, but he was clearly just as amused if the pull at the corner of his mouth was anything to go by. Even Karnwyr wagged his tail at his master’s expense!

“Bullshit!” Bishop snapped, face red.

“Bishop,” Leara sighed, and she raised an eyebrow at him. Remember what we talked about. She fluttered her eyelashes

Bishop opened his mouth. Closed it again. Did a fish impression for a moment or two, then swore under his breath. “Fine,” he acquiesced, “Whatever.”

Bishop went off with Hrongar, who was still chuckling.

“You too,” Leara said, gentle as she brushed a hand over Karnwyr’s head and ears. The wolf blinked up at her, eyes soulful and pleading, but Leara wouldn’t have him in the line of fire. “Can’t have you as dragon bait, even if you're cute enough to eat!”

Karnwyr wagged his tail, preening under her attention, then, with one last long look too knowing for an animal, he loped off to the stairs after Bishop. Leara watched him go.

“Are you all right, lass?”

Now alone with the Jarl, Leara’s shoulders sank, not quite as sure as she’d set out to be when she first arrived. “I will be,” she admitted, not quite meeting his gaze. He was worried for her. She’d known that this whole time. She wanted—but she couldn’t. This was the beginning of the final chapter. She didn’t need to drag Balgruuf into her…whatever she had with Bishop.

“Leara, is he—”

“Let’s spring this trap, Jarl Balgruuf.” With that, she strode toward the balcony.

He walked beside her. “What is your plan?”

A clever little grin tugged her mouth out of her previous mode. Ah, yes! Her plan! “I’m going to call the dragon.”

“Call the dragon…?” Balgruuf frowned. They came out on the porch balcony where a handful of guards already waited. A moment later, Irileth joined them.

“Yes, call him!” repeated Leara, absently studying the vivid blue skies of a cloudless morning in high summer. Wonderful visibility! “With my Thu’um, naturally. The dragon will come because it’s my Thu’um issuing the challenge. See, ever since that day at the watchtower, ever since the Greybeards went and told everyone under Magnus that there is a Dragonborn, dragons seem almost giddy to test themselves against me!” The souls tucked inside her own stirred in recognition of her greater power. Balgruuf stared at her.

“Is that why the beast attacked the watchtower?” Irileth asked, unimpressed.

“Excuse me, Housecarl,” one of the guards chimed in. He coughed, nervous, as the Dragonborn, the Jarl, and his Housecarl focused on him. The man cleared his throat. “That was before the Greybeards’ summons, remember? The dragon that attacked us at the Western Watchtower came before anyone knew the Dragonborn was, well, the Dragonborn.”

Leara blinked in recognition, the guard’s features visible through the helmet’s open faceplate. “You were at the watchtower that day, weren’t you?”

The guard bobbed his head. “Aye, ma’am. Name’s Gardbrand.”

“Well, Gardbrand,” Leara said, a pep in her voice as she turned toward the open sky. “You’re an old hand at this dragon business!” Then to Balgruuf, “Give the word, it’s time.”

But Balgruuf hesitated. “What happens once you call this dragon down on us?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “I’m going to bait him into the trap. As easy as luring a fox into—”

“—into a henhouse,” Gardbrand finished. Leara nodded.

Irileth, studying the landscape, sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Aye,” agreed the Jarl. The two made their way back under the cover of the porch. His voice rang out against the stones. “Ready, men! Get in position!”

“I’d hang back if I were you,” Leara told Gardbrand, “This balcony is about to get crowded.”

“If it’s all the same, Dragonborn, the Housecarl ordered some of us men to stand ready at the balcony,” he explained.

Of course she did. “Good man,” Leara said instead. “But at least get out of the line of fire, will you? I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of this.” Except me.

With a short nod, Gardbrand took up a station at the edge of the balcony, right by the mouth of the porch.

Leara stood alone. All eyes on her.

Feim. Zii.

It was time.

Drawing in a lungful of air, sweetened by flowering cotton and wheat from the farms around Whiterun. Farms in danger if her plan failed. Whiterun’s safety was the central lodestone in the mass weighing her shoulders. All of Skyrim—Tamriel and existence itself—was doomed if Alduin was allowed to continue his tyranny, but today, right now, it wasn’t Alduin that threatened Whiterun. It was Leara and Odahviing, and her plan to trap him.

Best get it over with.

“OD AH VIING!”

Rushing wind like the hush of snowfall billowed from her mouth, a coming winter chilling the summer.

The world was still.

Behind her, a murmur of voices whispered. Guards, the Jarl, others.

“Where is it?” someone asked. “Where’s the dragon?”

“The Thu’um,” someone else said in awe.

“Do you—wait, what was that?”

“The wind, Snorri! Stop shaking!”

As her Voice sprang against the stones and danced on the wind up and away from Dragonsreach, out over the tundra and to the mountains beyond, Leara watched. One hand on the hilt of her katana, crystal eyes cut across the distant horizon. Was that a speck of movement off to the east, or a glare from the sun? A flicker of red appeared above a snowcapped ridge. Sky whales! the skalds in the Poetic Edda waxed whimsical about.

A dragon, her practicality realized as the flicker grew larger. The dragon! Odahviing!

“Shor’s bones!”

Akatosh give her strength!

Still, she held her position. Another Shout poised on her tongue. Divines help her, may she only have to utter Dragonrend once for this! The burning horror that seared across her soul when she used Dragonrend on the Throat of the World fought to be at the forefront of her mind, the pain and fear distracting her focus from the present. When she learned the Shout that prophecy said would cast down the World-Eater, its understanding dug into filling her with a mortal dread unlike anything else she could imagine. What’s worse, was that she knew she must use it again now, and again later when she met Alduin in Sovngarde. Now that the moment had arrived, that knowledge alone was almost enough to send her running from the porch. Her legs itched to flee.

Leara held her ground. She would not run.

Her hand tightened on her katana’s hilt.

Wait, where was the dragon?

Night fell across the porch balcony. Thunder roared. No, not thunder, not the night! The dragon—Odahviing flew from over the top of the keep, his wings casting Leara and her surroundings into deep shadow. His roar shook the air, loud, challenging. He was large, scales crimson between silvery snow blue wings like a bloom of blood on the ice. But, Leara noted, he was neither as large nor his horns as towering as Alduin’s. He was, as she previously thought, a very average-looking dragon, if a bit brilliant for his coloring.

Odahviing roared; a guttural thunderclap without the focus of a Word of Power, the power of his Voice still shook the air. Leara froze. Dragonrend! Dragonrend now!

Her mouth fell open.

Nothing came out.

“Steady! Steady now! Keep under cover until it’s down!” Balgruuf’s voice boomed behind her, carrying with it all the power she couldn’t muster.

Odahviing, heedless of her simply standing in a dumb stupor, circled back around to the balcony. “Dovahkiin! Het zu’u los!” Then with wide jaws, the dragon snatched a guard from the edge of the balcony and flung him through the air. Too stunned even to scream, the guardsman flew in a wide arch, then fell, disappearing beyond the edge of the porch to the tundra hundreds of feet below. A scream, a woman’s scream and not a dragon’s Shout, rang in Leara’s throat, her hand outstretched.

Gardbrand!

No. No. She would not freeze. She would not let this Odahviing kill anyone else. She was Dovahkiin. She was the one with the power to challenge the World-Eater. She would quell this worm and crush him under her boot.

“JOOR ZAH FRUL!”

Pain blistered in white-hot fracture lines, spiraling across her chest and through her veins like a poison. Death kissed her, its breath filling her lungs with decay and dread so deep that she drowned in the noxious fumes. The Shout tore from her mouth, from her soul and blood, and crashed into Odahviing. Hardly had Leara caught her breath, choking on a pain more spiritual than physical, when she saw the looming weight of the dragon coming for her, bound to mortality and the dust of the earth like any finite being.

Moving from the growing shadow was one of the hardest things she ever had to do, but Leara managed it. Once her feet were moving under her, she found she could almost breathe again. Body twirling, she drew her katana, a slight tremor betraying her wavering spirit.

She faced the dragon.

His knees and the joints of his winged forelimbs were buckled, bowed into the floor. His head was lowered, but his eyes were on her. Focused with intention and a dawning realization.

Did he, did he not realize until she crushed him to the floor that it was she who called him there? She who issued the challenge? Did Gardbrand die because Odahviing didn’t realize, didn’t care to know, that the Dragonborn was neither a man nor a Nord? …had Alduin ever let on just who and what the Dragonborn was?

Frost and fury flared in a blizzard within her breast, brushing away the remnants of Dragonrend’s hold as she faced the dragon. He would know who she was!

For a moment, all was silent as the Dragonborn and her opponent locked eyes.

Then the symphony of yelling guardsmen and barked orders crashed into her ears.

Air whistled, and then an arrow—one of Bishop’s, she recognized—bounced off one of Odahviing’s horns. It clattered to the ground, useless, but it was enough. More arrows began to rain down, a slanted sheet against the dragon. Odahviing roared, again wordless, but agitation clear.

“Fall back!” Leara cried over her shoulder, though she didn’t take her eyes from the dragon. “Don’t kill him!” She didn’t want to think of what a headache that would cause! “Fall back!” And she danced back.

Twirling her katana blade in an arc, she pushed air into her lungs, desperate to appear collected as she performed her part.

It was like threading a needle, leading Odahviing under the cover of the porch. She danced just out of reach of his red maw, her silver boots tapping across the tiles as she skirted backward. His eyes were focused on her. Almost—

“I will conquer where Alduin failed!” Odahviing’s voice drummed against her ears. Leara didn’t have time to over what he meant, because the next moment the world was on fire.

“YOL TOR SHUL!”

“YOL!” she Shouted, countering his flame with her own. Hers swirled in a white gold blaze into the heart of his flames, cutting the inferno down. Heat wafted through the porch. Odahviing’s fire was unlike Paarthurnax’s. When Paarthurnax greeted her, his fire was a heat so intense that reason told her she should incinerate the moment she felt it, yet its brush over her was so gentle that it was like being cradled when she was a small child. Paarthurnax’s Thu’um brought comfort. But while Odahviing’s flame was nowhere near as hot as Paarthurnax’s, there was nothing soft about it either. Broiling with pride, it was easy to understand why the other dragons considered Odahviing a hothead!

People yelled around her. Someone would be spotting for her to signal for the yoke to fall once Odahviing was in place, she was sure. And—yes! She spied Balgruuf watching intently, his sword in hand and his mouth moving as he barked orders that she couldn’t quite hear over the dragon’s noise. She thought she heard a bark, and was glad that Karnwyr was out of harm’s way.

She spun back, a whirl of Frost Cloak cocooning her, and Odahviing lunged forward, jaws snapping where she once stood.

“Come along, little snapping turtle!” she sang, ice crystals tightening into a shield, making her brave. “Here I am! Catch me!”

Where Dragonrend’s grip on her had loosened into a faint ache, soothed by movement and magic, it still held an iron fist on Odahviing. He growled, low and deep, shaking the flood underfoot. His eyes, obsidian dark, glared at her with a heat nearly as hot as the Thu’um. He calwed his way forward, intent in his pursuit.

Leara laughed and danced ahead.

“NOW!” The command sprang out, and then with a heave, the trap was sprung. Clang! The chattering of the chains screamed through the air; then, with a groan, the yoke fell. Heavy, broad, it came down on Odahviing’s shoulders like a headman’s axe, pinning his wing joints down and forcing him a roar and a groan into the floor. Trapped. Snared. A prisoner in Dragonsreach!

“Nid!” howled Odahving.

By the Nine, they’d done it!

Laughter continued to bubble out of Leara, not mocking, but relieved, sincere, and perhaps a little disbelieving, because, sweet, sweet Mara and her multitudes of mercies, the plan worked! Paarthurnax would be so proud of her! It worked!

“We got him!” Balgruuf cried. He was at Leara’s side in an instant, light and relief shining in his face. Irileth was right behind him, less joyful but just as relieved that the plan worked. “This is amazing! I’ll be famouser than Olaf One-Eye himself! Irileth! Do you see? We’ve caught a dragon!”

“Yes, my Jarl, I see him,” replied Irileth, only marginally impressed.

“Horvutah med kodaav. Dii paak los zok.” Odahviing rumbled. What was he saying, she wondered.

“Sweetness! Princess!”

Weight hit her shoulders, and Leara found Bishop pressed into her side, his arms around her. He was panting, catching his breath. Oh, he ran down, didn’t he? Maybe he should lay off the mead. Feeling awkward, Leara patted his forearm where it pressed against the collar of her armor. “It’s quite all right,” she told him, trying to be reassuring.

His hold tightened. “That scaly bastard tried to roast you alive!”    

“But he didn’t!” Leara reminded Bishop. As evidenced by his very tight hold of her completely intact upper body. The sting of Dragonrend under her skin flared. Ow. She cleared her throat. “You can let go now.”

Bishop’s hold tightened. Then, at her look, he pulled his arms away, thankfully without fuss. She’d take that victory too, while she was at it.

            Hrongar appeared beside his brother. Standing before Odahviing, pinned under the yoke his ancestor used on another dragon, Hrongar let out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned, we caught the dragon! Now what do we do with it?”

“That’s what I was wondering,” said Balgruuf, crossing his arms. “What’s the next step, Leara?”

She released a slow breath. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Bishop sputtered in her ear. “Talk to it? Like, like it’s a person?”

“Why, yes, he has language! And intelligence! Where else do you think the Words of Power come from?” she asked, somewhat aghast but truly not at all surprised that Bishop would consider dragons as little more than mindless beasts. He would be the type to think he was smarter than a dragon, of all things, wouldn’t he? “Here, let go.”

Bishop’s hold on her held.

“Bishop.”

“Best let her be about her business, lad,” Balgruuf said, tone hard. He pressed a large hand into Bishop’s shoulder. “Let her go.”

Bishop scowled down at the Jarl’s hand. Irileth’s moved toward her sword. But then Bishop let go, and Leara propelled herself forward and away from him. Not frantically, no. She strode forward with purpose. She came to a stop before Odahviing. He was watching her, eyes trailing her movements as she came forward to meet him.

“Drem Yol Lok,” she greeted.

The dragon’s head tilted to the side, assessing her. “Zok frini grind ko grah drun viiki, Dovahkiin.”

She stared at him. What did he just say? She resisted the urge to look back at Balgruuf or another Nord—someone who might know something of the dragon tongue, or at least more than her! Might the court wizard know? Farengar was certainly very interested in all things dragon! Would he know enough to be an effective translator? Hopefully? She hadn’t considered what to do if this dragon didn’t speak Cyrodilic like Paarthurnax or Vulthuryol. Though, how did the dragon in Blackreach know the modern common tongue after millennia shut in the dark? Could it be that because the dragon tongue was a system built around true understanding and the power of language that dragons were able to learn language in a way mortal minds couldn’t fathom? Did it have anything to do with dragons as spiritual beings beyond the confines of the material world? Dragon language acquisition was not something she ever considered before she began learning Words of Power, but now Leara wondered if perhaps that was why she’d never had trouble picking up other languages.

“Hi tinvaak Dovahzul?” 

That was a question, she realized, recognizing tinvaak. Was he asking her if she spoke his language? “My apologies,” she said, “but I’m not very familiar with your tongue.”

Turning his head to the other side, Odahviing continued to stare at her. “Krosis, dii mey. My own folly goes unchecked, it seems.” Oh, thank the Nine! She could understand him! “My...eagerness to meet you in battle was my...undoing, Dovahkiin,” he said at length, drawing out words as if meditating on their meaning in the same way Paarthurnax bade her do with the dragon tongue. “I salute your, hmm, low cunning in devising such a grahmindol,strategem. Zu’u bonaar, you went to much trouble to put me in such a…humiliating position." Despite his complaint, Odahviing seemed actually impressed with her trick.

She couldn’t help the swell of pleasure in her at that.

“Of course,” she said, all heroic professionalism, “Understand, please, that I didn’t merely trick you to show you off as a trophy to the local Nords. Something so trivial is hardly the outcome I want from this.”

“Nid, hind siiv Alduin. You wish to know where Alduin has flown.”

“Yes, precisely,” Leara clasped her hands behind her back, leaning forward just so in interest. “Do you happen to know where he’s hiding?”

Odahviing snorted. "Rinik vazah. An apt phrase. Alduin bovul.”  He shook his great horned head. “One reason I answered your challenge was my wish to test your Thu’um for myself. There is talk among many of us, questioning Alduin’s lordship. Many have begun to doubt that his Thu’um is still strongest.” To Leara’s mild surprise, Odahviing chuckled. “Only between ourselves, of course. Mu ni meyye. No one of us is yet ready to defy him so openly.”

How curious! Were the dragons waiting for her to prove her Thu’um over Alduin’s, or were they waiting for him to crush her and assert his tyranny over all once more? It was probably best not to ask. She didn’t think she wanted to know the answer. “You were just telling me where to find Alduin, yes?”

"Unslaad krosis. Innumerable pardons,” Odahviing apologized, not sorry at all. “I digress. He has flown to Sovngarde, where he seeks to gather his strength by devouring the sillesejoor,. the souls of the mortal dead. A privilege he jealously guards,” Odahviing growled, his disdain for Alduin’s keeping such a feast evident. Leara raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. “He keeps his door to Sovngarde in Skuldafn, one of his ancient fanes high in the eastern mountains. Mindoraan, pah ok middovahhe lahvraan til. I surely do not need to warn you that all his remaining strength is marshalled there.”

“All of them?” she asked, voice far calmer than she felt. All of his remaining strength? What did that mean? She rocked back on the balls of her feet, new information swirling in her mind.

“Geh. Zu'u lost ofan hin laan, now that I have answered your question, you will allow me to go free?"

Glancing up at Odahviing, she nearly choked on her own laughter. Still, she shot the dragon a wry smile. “And let you go racing back to tell Alduin I’m on to him? No, thank you. I think the Jarl of Whiterun could use you as a guest for a while longer.”

“Leara,” said Jarl’s voice rang out behind her, not nervous, but not entirely enthused by the prospect of a dragon as an extended houseguest either. “I don’t want any dragons living in my city and endangering my people!”

“Oh, you needn’t worry, Jarl Balgruuf!” she called, all bravado. “You can make an exception for Odahviing here! He’s very polite!”

Neither Balgruuf nor Odahviing found that very funny. Well, phooey them.

“Hmm, krosis. There is one...detail about Skuldafn I neglected to mention," the dragon hummed, almost sing-song, almost ‘I know something you don’t know.’

Leara was on guard again at once. “Well, go on, then! I imagine I won’t like this, and that amuses you, doesn’t it?”

"Only this,” began Odahviing, “You have the Thu'um of a dovah, but without the wings of one, you will never set foot in Skuldafn. Of course,” he added, rather sly. Leara raised an eyebrow. “I could fly you there. But not while imprisoned like this."

“Oh, is that all?” she laughed, even while the guards around her exchanged looks. There were ways to fly. Old levitation spells, forbidden by the Arcane University and the Empire, but the University was gone, and she herself was forbidden within the Empire for what she was. She could find those! Maybe the College of Winterhold had the secret? Surely they had scrolls on that or some other spell that could carry her over the mountains! Or maybe, perhaps, could she go to the Throat of the World without darkening Master Arngeir’s door? Could she seek Paarthurnax’s help for this final journey? There were options; she had options. “If wings are all I need, then, Odahviing, what do I need you for?”

Odahviing reared back, or rather, he would have if not for the restraint of the yoke on his shoulders. Bishop appeared at her side, brows knit. “Sweetness, what are you doing?” he hissed.

“Negotiating,” she told him, “Now let me talk to the nice dragon, will you?”

“Surely you see the position you’re in, Dovahkiin,” said Odahviing. “You are but a mortal koordin. Your dovah silcannot help you. I can.”

How she wanted Paarthurnax! He would know what to do right now. Were she to free him, could she trust Odahviing enough to carry her to Skuldafn? Could she afford not to? “He’s coming soon,” she murmured. Bishop glanced at her. The longer she delayed, the more Alduin’s strength would grow, grow until he came back to Tamriel. But Paarthurnax— “I cannot reach him in time,” she realized. She couldn’t do anything else. Time was more than short; it was gone. It was trust Odahviing or nothing. “You demand a great deal of trust for a serpent caught in a snare. One might believe you’ll say anything to free yourself. However, I’m not interested in dancing around an impasse with you. I have work to do, and a deadline by which to do it.” Course decided, she turned to the Jarl and his men. “Release the trap.”

Next to her, Bishop was already shaking his head. “You have got to be kidding me!”

“Quite serious, I promise.”

“Lass,” Balgruuf was quick to join her. “Do you think this is wise, freeing it?”

Ah, so that was it. Balgruuf didn’t want the dragon to stay in his keep, but he didn’t want to let Odahviing off so easily. Had Balgruuf thought this whole time that she would slay the dragon and be on her merry way once she got what she wanted? Again, Numinex’s skull mounted over the Jarl’s throne taunted her. She could almost see Odahviing’s enshrined beside it. That was what Balgruuf wanted. Grateful as she was for his help, Leara couldn’t let him have his prize. “Oh, Jarl Balgruuf, it’s not wise at all! But it is necessary,” she said at length. Then she offered Odahviing a bright smile. “I suppose I’ll have to trust you to do what’s necessary, too, won’t I?”

“Of course, Dovahkiin.”

“Aye, you’re right, again, I suppose,” Balgruuf sighed. “Take word upstairs,” he told a guardsman. “The Dragonborn wants to free this dragon. We await her signal.”

The guard grumbled. “Aye, sir, though it seems like a really bad idea to me.”

“On with you, soldier. This is all part of the Dragonborn’s plan,” Jarl Balgruuf dismissed.

Bowing, the guard left. Irileth huffed but went about directing the men on the ground.

Leara supposed she could leave at once, couldn’t she? There was nothing left in her room in The Bannered Mare. Her tab with Hulda was paid. Karnwyr was—Karnwyr! There! At her beckoning hand, he darted from the far side to her, tongue wagging. Good, he was okay, and Bishop was here; Bishop would take care of him, as always. Or at least until the next time bandits running a fighting ring decided Karnwyr was an easy target, and then she hoped the next person who agreed to help Bishop get him back fared better than she! Yes, everything was settled. She had everything she owned—everything she needed with her. It was time.

She turned to go.

“Are you insane!” Bishop was in front of her at once, blocking her path—again. “You are going to trust that, that overgrown lizard and fly it?”

Leara sighed. “You heard him as well as I did, Bishop. There’s no other way to get to Skuldafn! There’s no time to find another road. This is my path, and I must walk it. Or, well, fly it, I suppose,” she amended after a moment.

“Gods, you are insane!” Bishop’s whole body shook, whether in anger or disbelief, though, she wasn’t sure. His hands flexed at his sides, as if to grasp her and pull her into him once more, but he clenched his fist as tightly as he ground his jaw. “Should have known all that head trauma would get to you, sooner or later,” he hissed, drawing into himself as if, as if she betrayed him or something. Had she? No. He went on, “I will not stick my neck out for you this time!”

Her own body was shaking. Nerves. “I never asked you to!”

“Maybe not with your fancy words, but everything I’ve done has been for you! Because of you! No more! I’m done! I—” he hesitated, as if he wanted to go on but couldn’t bring himself to. At once, Bishop rounded away from her, a dark shadow, and stormed into the palace.

“Bishop, Bishop! Wait!” she cried as he disappeared through the doors. Wait for what, though? Not her. Not her. But…she glanced down at Karnwyr. Beloved, sweet, loyal Karnwyr, who was watching her now with the saddest, most knowing eyes. She brushed a loving hand over his ears, one last time. Then, running to the doors, she yanked one open. “Go,” she told the wolf. “Go and please make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. I—” Now she was lost for words. Leara swallowed. Karnwyr, sensing her heart anyway, always, licked her gloved fingers and went through the door, head and tail bowed to the ground.

Why did she want to cry? She couldn’t. Not now. There wasn’t time.

“YOL TOR SHUL!”

Dragon fire heated the air. Leara hadn’t noticed Balgruuf or his brother leave, but she was thankful they weren’t sitting front row to her argument with Bishop. Rather, now they were trying to pull Farengar, the court wizard, out of Odahviing’s reach.

What was that idiot doing!

“I just wanted a couple of small samples! Nothing that this, this Odahviing would miss!” the mage was defending as Irileth pulled him back by the forearm. Shorter than Farengar though she was, Irileth outclassed the mage in every other class, and perhaps even in battle magic, if Leara had to guess.

“That’s enough, Farengar,” Balgruuf was saying, frowning as he crossed his arms. “The time will come for your experiments later. The Dragonborn needs this dragon unspoiled.”

“Yes, yes, I do,” Leara said, joining them. Farengar had the decency to look at least a smidge bashful. But only a smidge. Leara gave Jarl Balgruuf another Bretic bow. “Thank you, Jarl, for all your help, and for entrusting me with your city’s safety. I’m sorry that my plan cost one of your guards his life.” The sight of Gardbrand disappearing over the balcony edge still swam in her mind. She swallowed. “I’m ready to release the dragon.”

Things happened very quickly after that. The chains were wound, the yoke was lifted, and soon, Leara was standing beside Odahviing on the edge of the balcony. The skies of Skyrim spread out before her, brilliant blue and deep. She flew before, when Vulthuryol bore her and Karnwyr to the Tower of Mzark, but this, this was different. This was the open sky, not a cavern in the depths of the earth. How much more would flying feel with Odahviing?

“Here we are, lass,” Balgruuf said, staring out over the northern reaches of his Hold. “Seems like yesterday you were bringing news of Helgen to my doorstep, and now here we are.”

“How time flies,” Leara murmured.

He clapped her on the shoulder, not hard. There was a camaraderie and respect between them, despite Leara’s past missteps. “Now, Leara,” he went on, “I won’t be denied a third time! When you come back, I’ll be making you a thane in my court! It’s only right, after all you’ve done for my people and all of Skyrim.”

That he believed she could survive the World-Eater was a sweet, if shortsighted, thought. She was a traitor and a runaway. Committing herself to the Dragonborn’s destiny, pursuing it to the end, was that not her final bow? Her life for all, the redemption of her every past misdeed, her betrayals and cowardice? Her mind went to Ulfric Stormcloak for a moment, just one, to the man she saved after serving the hand that would have killed him. Saving him didn’t make up for her sins against him. Could she even hope that saving Tamriel could truly clear her name? No, but she would give her life for its people all the same. Such was the demand made of every Dragonborn at the eleventh hour. Like Martin Septim, she would give her life and pass into history. There was nothing left for her after that.

But she did not tell the Jarl this. She did not breathe these things to anyone. Instead, she offered him her most honest smile, not the Knight-Sister’s guarded thinness nor the Dominion officer’s haughty curl, but the full bloom that belonged to a young girl dancing through meadow grass in the Iliac Bay. She gave this to Balgruuf, and then, head high, she made her way to Odahviing’s side.

Mounting his shoulder and settling in the junction of his neck was certainly easier than when she’d had to take Karnwyr on Vulthuryol. Once settled, she laid a hand on the warm red scales of his neck. “Take me to Skuldafn.”

“Zok brit uth!” Underneath her, his chest rumbled what might be a dragon’s purr. Around her, his silvery snow blue wings rose, fluttering and stretching after his confinement. “I warn you, once you've flown the skies of Keizaal, your envy of the dov will only increase. Amativ! Mu bo kotin stinselok!” With that, Odahviing took off from the balcony, his wings catching in the air.

She was flying!

A call of blessing followed her on the wind. “May Kynareth guard you while you pass through her realm!"

She desperately wanted that peace to fill her.

The claws raked across her skin.

A breathless sob escaped. Master Arngeir’s arm around her remained the only support between her and the ground.

Her head was pounding.

Master Arngeir nodded, and then Master Borri was at her other side. Together, the two Greybeards led her forward out of the path of the winds. She didn’t know where until they turned her, and she felt the blistered carvings of the Word Wall at her back. The Word Wall. Paarthurnax’s perch, where he taught her the understanding of Yol those months ago. She recalled him atop the wall, a grey specter against the cloudscape. She could see him in her mind’s eye with his long neck curved toward the heavens in silent contemplation as he meditated with her. The nature of Feim hummed inside her.

The peace in the air seeped into her lungs. Something in her popped, and she could breathe again. Rapidly. Hunger gnawed at her lungs, desperate for air. Thin as the air was here compared to the wheat and barley fragrances beginning to ripen around Whiterun or the florals wafting through Solitude on a chilled sea breeze, Leara was relieved. The corset loosened, and the claws retreated.

Her lungs, her chest, her head, her limbs—they all hurt. But she could breathe.

Blinking against the tears, she peered first at Master Arngeir, then Master Borri, and at last, the dim twilight of the Throat of the World. Tension still thrummed under her skin, but here, she felt almost disconnected from it somehow.

Against the distant starlight, a dark shape moved, blocking the sky and casting a deep shadow over the summit. For a moment, terror seized again in Leara’s chest. Alduin. The World-Eater is here. Then, it was gone just as quickly.

Ice crunched, curls of steam rose, and Paarthurnax landed before them with his broken horn and weathered wings. “Drem Yol Lok, fahdonne. What has happened?”

“Drem Yol Lok, Master Paarthurnax,” Arngeir bowed his head. Snow trembled around them as Master Borri echoed the greeting. “We apologize for disturbing your meditation. We know it is not customary to make the climb so late, but a matter arose that we thought best to bring to you.”

Lowering his head, Paarthurnax peered at Leara. “Krosis, Dovahkiin, rek los feim. She is kras, sickened.” A deep rumble vibrated from the old dragon’s chest. Leara felt it in her bones. “She is lein kreh, world-weary.”

Leara sagged into Master Arngeir, her hand scrabbling up to hold his shoulder. It hurt that she couldn’t come back to High Hrothgar after this. Leaving Arngeir would be like losing her grandfather again, or so she imagined. She was very small when he died. But her grandfather never had reason to distrust her, whereas Arngeir could probably write a whole book of reasons why she wasn’t to be trusted. She could live with that if she had to. She was used to it. It was nice of him to agree to bring her to Paarthurnax, though she still needed to meet with Paarthurnax anyway. Trapping a dragon in the Jarl’s palace was Paarthurnax’s idea, and she was sure he knew how she could lure one there.

“There was an incident between the Dragonborn and her…companion, among other things.” Something in Master Arngeir’s voice darkened. “It is no longer in her best interest to remain in High Hrothgar, at least for tonight. We wondered if you would meditate with her.”

Smoke curled from Paarthurnax’s nostrils, his serpentine eyes narrowing at Master Arngeir’s words. “Geh, that is for the best.” The ground trembled as the old dragon crawled closer, water vapor hissing around him. “Come, drun Dovahkiin het. I will keep her.”

That sounds safe, Leara thought.

But Master Arngeir hesitated. If he opposed actually leaving her with Paarthurnax, he didn’t say anything. (That his concern might be in leaving her on top of a frozen mountain overnight did not begin to occur to her.) Then he bowed his head. From his robe, Borri drew a meditation mat; he spread it on the ground, and he and Arngeir helped Leara sit on it. Once seated, her head lulled against the scorched stone.

Relief trembled through her legs. Wrapping her arms around herself, Leara whimpered.

Frowning, Master Borri cast Master Arngeir a look. His mouth thin, the elder Greybeard only shook his head. Leara watched through blurring vision as he reached toward her. His hand settled on her hair. A half thought that it was probably tangled beyond recognition now wafted through her mind before vanishing in the maelstrom churning inside her. She hiccupped a sob.

Overhead, Paarthurnax snorted, smoke curling from his nostrils. “Drem, Dovahkiin. This vulon will pass.” He lowered his head to her and breathed, the warmth of his fire thawing the anxiety still crusting her skin. Leara tried to offer her teacher a smile, but it curved in an awkward grimace instead. Paarthurnax snorted, good-natured.

Master Arngeir bowed his head. “Would it serve for Master Borri or I to stay here with you, Master Paarthurnax?”

“Nid, dii fahdon,” rumbled Paarthurnax. “She will be pruzah, safe here.”

“As you wish, Master,” Arngeir bowed in deference.

For a moment, Leara wondered that Paarthurnax would be worried about her safety when Arngeir was clearly worried about his, but the thought was fleeting. The dragon’s breath was warm, and the night air calming. The most dangerous thing on this mountaintop was her, and she could hardly breathe without her lungs shaking.

The air trembled as the two Greybeards murmured their farewells to Paarthurnax—and her; Master Borri pushed back her hair and drew the hood snugly over her head. In turn, Master Arngeir’s hand fell on her shoulder. “We will speak tomorrow, child.” Giving her shoulder a squeeze, he turned to go, Borri following.

Leara could only hiccup,

Warm breath washed over her again. Paarthurnax exhaled, warming the air around Leara. It wasn’t that terribly cold up here anyway, she thought, scrubbing at team tracks with her sleeve. Perhaps because this was Paarthurnax’s home?

“Come, dii kiir, do you wish to tell me what maar ruth hi this night?”

The offer was well-meaning. Leara wanted to speak. But when she opened her mouth, she could only gasp, sucking air in as quickly as it fled her body. A blur of fear and tears smeared across her memory. She saw poison and storm clouds bearing down on her, and she felt a hand grasping hers. Any more than that hurt her to remember. She couldn’t. The core of the moment was lost, but the horror remained.

She shook her head.

Assent rumbled out of Paarthurnax’s chest. “Mu fen ni tinvaak do nii. Come!” The white dragon lifted his wing. “There is no better meditation than lingrah praan, deep sleep.”

Stunned, Leara wobbled, shifting onto her knees. She didn’t trust herself on her feet. Leaving the mediation mat against the Word Wall, she crept into the hollow of Paarthurnax’s shoulder. Nestling against a live dragon was a concept she, as a Blade and Imperial citizen, couldn’t quite wrap her head around; once her tear-frozen face was pressed into the heat of Paarthurnax’s worn scales and his wing settled over her, she decided she didn’t care to try. She could accept this.

This was safe.

She wasn’t okay, but she was with Paarthurnax, and he would keep her safe.

Tugging the Greybeard’s robe tighter around her shoulders, she pushed closer into the dragon’s side. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Paarthurnax hummed.

·•★•·

He passed her hand into Master Wulfgar’s.

The weight of her sobs had eased, but the way her thin chest struggled for every breath struck him. She wasn’t there. She hadn’t been since that bastard forced himself on her, and she fell.

Ulfric wouldn’t say he regretted throwing that milkdrinker into the wall, but he didn’t mean for Leara to hit the floor. He watched her wobble between the two Greybeards, her dress in tatters and her hair a crumpled cascade. Her poise over the negotiations was shattered with her composure. The woman could hardly stand, much less speak. At the moment, Leara was not the Dragonborn: She was broken. He felt it when her hand was in his: Small and shaking and too cold to strike back.

His fingers flexed in recollection of the hands briefly cradled in his.

His hands clenched, and he rounded.

There, slinking down the corridor through the shadows, was Bishop, scurrying off like the rat he was.

Ulfric was on him in an instant.

Smack! Bishop’s head hit against the stone, yanking out a loud yowl. Ulfric’s hands, fisted in Bishop’s leather jacket, forced him against the wall. The similarity to their confrontation in his dungeons struck Ulfric, but this time, Leara would not save Bishop from him. The man was a leech and a viper, draining and poisoning Leara in turn. No more.

“Get off me!”

“Like you got off her?” growled Ulfric.

Bishop snorted. He made to kick at Ulfric, but the taller man, wary of Bishop, slammed him into the wall. And again, for good measure! Bishop’s head lulled to the side, but the grin he shot Ulfric was cutting in its clarity.

Grunting, Ulfric dropped Bishop on his ass.

“You are pathetic,” he said, glaring down at the heap on the floor. “I am not blind to how you treat the Dragonborn like she’s your whore to throw around as you like. But even whores are owed a wage! What do you do for the Dragonborn? Nothing! You’re a leech.”

Scrabbling at the wall, trying to stand, Bishop slipped back, shaking. With disgust, Ulfric realized the bastard was laughing! “Don’t give me one of your damn speeches about justice and all that crap you spew,” sneered Bishop. “You’re wasting your time! You wouldn’t even look at her if you knew what she is—”

With a crack! Ulfric’s fist snapped against Bishop’s jaw. Bishop shouted, stumbling into the wall. His hand shot to his face, and already Ulfric could see a bright red mark that would no doubt blossom into a brilliant bruise.

Drawing his fist back, Ulfric scowled at the rat sniveling on the floor. “Whoever she is, Leara is the Dragonborn. It may have escaped your notice, but she’s trying to save Skyrim’s people, including your sorry ass!”

Footsteps sounded at the end of the hall, but Ulfric didn’t cut off from his death stare.

“The only ass she’s trying to cover is her own!” sneered Bishop. His eyes were venomous, though their effect fell short from his tender prodding along his jaw. Ulfric restrained the urge to deliver a matching blow to the other cheek. “If you think she wants anything to do with you or your psychotic little—”

“Jarl Ulfric!” It was Ralof. “What—”

The soldier beside Ralof swore. “That’s the bastard who got a hit in on Calder!”

“Piss off!” Bishop sneered.

Fighting every desire to slam his fist into Bishop’s pointed little face again and again, Ulfric turned to his guards. “Grab him.”

They nodded.

“Hey, what gives—hey!”

Together, Ralof and Bjarni yanked Bishop up to his feet, each with a hand wrapped around his elbows. Bishop struggled against their hold, thrashing his head back and forth, twisting his torso, but it was in vain. The grip Ulfric’s men held on him was strong in its fury.

“Call your thugs off me!”

“What do you want us to do with him, sir?” Ralof asked, face hard. It was then that Ulfric remembered how excited Leara was to see Ralof that morning. Ah, yes, they were close, weren’t they? Ralof reported them making it through the ruins of Helgen together. Ralof would be worried about her.

Ulfric could already feel a headache mounting at his temple just at the sight of Bishop; everything this rotten excuse for a Nord did was a thorn in his side. Today was already long. He secured none of the terms he wanted to settle at the peace conference, and Tullius was walking away from the butchering of Dunstad smelling like mountain flowers. His one consolation was that the Stormcloaks would not be made to pay for their mistakes in the Reach. Failing their mission objectives and falling to the Empire had been strong enough of a blow without draining their treasury to appease the Imperials for failing to keep back to Forsworn. This stalemate born of the Dragonborn’s puppetry may allow her to carry out her plan, but it will let tempers flare. Tension would mount like pressure on a bowstring, and whether or not Leara is able to defeat the World-Eater, that bowstring would snap, and the arrows of war would fly again.

Could she defeat Alduin? Again, the sight of Leara’s panic filled his mind. His fist closed, tightening around the phantom of her hand in his. How many soldiers had he seen crumble like that, never to rise to battle again? Doubt tugged at Ulfric, but he forced it back. No. The Dragonborn would succeed. The World-Eater must be stopped for Skyrim to know peace. There was no other option.

But she couldn’t do anything with a serpent-like Bishop biting her heels and poisoning her mind.

Ulfric held up a hand. “Bring him.”

“Like Hell am I going anywhere with you!”

“Hey!” Crying out, Bjarni jerked back as Bishop folded his legs, dropping in a dead weight between the two soldiers and pulling them with him. Bjarni went stumbling to his knees. Ralof tried to yank up on Bishop, only to receive a kick in return. Spit flew from Bishop’s mouth as he broke Ralof’s hold with a shout of rage that threw Ralof off balance. At once, Bishop was on his feet, his face twisted in anger. He lunged at Ulfric, then, “Damn it!” as Bjarni pulled back on his bow sling. Bishop went down—hard.

Bishop made to roll to his feet, only for Ralof to plant his boot on his shoulder. Bjarni was quick to drop a knee on Bishop’s chest.

“You have one choice,” said Ulfric. He was done with this. “I will not disrespect the Greybeards by killing you here, but don’t count on that to save you. You will come with us, or I will make you, and you will not like that.” He leveled a glare at Bishop as his men jerked him to his feet. “What will it be?”

The returning scowl was dark. “You’re an entitled, washed-up old religious freak—ah!”

Bishop’s head fell forward.

Blinking, Ulfric’s gaze shifted to Ralof,  who stood wide-eyed with his arm outstretched. He clocked Bishop in the side of the head with his gauntlet. After every hit Ulfric made to his head, it was Ralof’s blow that finally knocked the cockroach out. Now, if only they could pinch off his head. But despite the way Bishop treated her, Ulfric got the uneasy feeling that Leara wouldn’t be comfortable with them simply killing Bishop. She was too kind. If she hadn’t wrestled his and Tullius’s wills for the better part of the afternoon and won, Ulfric would fear she didn’t have the constitution to carry through with her end of the treaty.

Fortunately, the Dragonborn wasn’t here. She was wherever the Greybeards whisked her off to, which left Ulfric with the pleasure of handling Bishop. Personally.

Ulfric led his men in a silent march through the monastery. When they passed the west wing, he spied Elisif and her ladies’ maid standing in a huddle behind the arch. Elisif’s hand flew to her mouth at the sight of Bishop being dragged between Ulfric’s men. Her eyes darkened in a scowl, but Ulfric didn’t have the time to puzzle out the Empire’s pet. He already didn’t have the time to involve himself in the Dragonborn’s private relationships, yet here he was.

It’s for the good of Skyrim, he assured himself.

“What are they doing? Who’s that?” her ladies’ maid whispered too loudly.

“Hush, Erdi, never you mind!” came Elisif’s quiet hiss.

The Stormcloaks stalked past in silence.

They rounded a corner, down a short flight of stairs to the main corridor. At once, Ulfric scowled at the sight.

Turning her golden head with the grace of a hawk hunting rodents for its dinner, Elenwen regarded Ulfric’s procession with a delicate eyebrow. She smirked, “My, my, and what could this be?”

Beside her, the other High Elf’s mouth pinched in what might have been a smothered laugh if the Thalmor weren’t all soulless pieces of horker dung. They were blocking his path.

“Out of my way, Elenwen.” He did not have time for this. He didn’t want to make time, either.

Elenwen, however, did. “And why should I do that, Ulfric, when you and your men are clearly in violation of the pacifistic nature of this,” she cast a sour yellow stare at the ancient stonework and tapestries woven in the dragon tongue, “institution?”

“It’s nothing to you, Elenwen. Out of my way.”

Her eyes cut back to him. “I wonder, what would Miss Ormand have to say if she saw your men taking prisoners here? Is that not her traveling companion?”

Ulfric could feel Ralof stiffen behind him. His jaw tightened; Ulfric refused to play the Thalmor bitch’s games. He would not.

“Where is your Dragonborn?” Elenwen went on, clearly pleased with the sound of her own voice. It grated on Ulfric’s nerves. “I was hoping to speak to her. She would be interested to know how you and your men have treated the Greybeards’ hospitality and her friend. Don’t you agree, Hindalia?”

“Yes, Mistress,” the other High Elf simpered.

A half memory of the Dragonborn’s stuttered address to Elenwen during the council tugged at Ulfric’s attention. Leara’s behavior around the Thalmor chilled his blood at the time before her quick turnabout, and dismissal of the Thalmor’s “oversight” for their farce of a treaty smoothed the way. He dismissed it at the time, but now it begged for his recognition. Something wasn’t right. You wouldn’t even look at her if you knew what she is.

What is she?

Dragonborn. Altmer. Half-elven, hissed his better sense. The Dominion hates halfbreeds. But how did he know that?

“Move. I will not ask you again,” Ulfric bit out.

Elenwen stuck her pointed nose in the air. “I see you’re entirely unwilling to be civil. It’s a wonder that any manner of peace could be reached.” Nonetheless, she stepped aside.

Ulfric stormed on, clouds gathering in his wake. Neither Ralof nor Bjarni spoke, though he could feel their heightened curiosity, almost like he still felt the magic of Elenwen’s tortures. Perhaps that was why he was so affected during the council: He could feel the magic she once used against him burning in the air, electric. Bishop lulled incoherently between them, still out of it from Ralof’s blow. A small mercy.

Thank Talos, the foyer was empty.

He strode ahead of his men to one of the monastery doors. Pushing it open, Ulfric directed Ralof and Bjarni to hoist Bishop down the steps.

“Where are we taking him, sir?” Bjarni asked once they reached the landing where the stairs split.

A chill wind curled down Ulfric’s spine. He glanced up; the mountain peaks rose far above them in shadowed observance. The clouds shifted, and on the wind, he thought he heard a trace of the Voice cut the air. Ulfric frowned.

All was still. Stars winked at him, knowing.

“Toss him.”

With a great heave, Ralof and Bjarni released Bishop. No small amount of pleasure filled Ulfric as he watched the bastard ragdoll down the steps, rousing with a cry as he knocked against the icy stones. If Ulfric grinned when Bishop rolled into a snowbank at the base, burying his entire head in the process, well, neither of his men would say anything. A quick glance at Ralof showed the younger man with his arms crossed and a dark look shading his otherwise sunny face. “He hurt her, didn’t he?”

“Aye,” Ulfric nodded.

Ralof’s scowl deepened. “You’re a better man than me, Jarl Ulfric.” Ralof saluted him, then disappeared back into the monastery. Ulfric and Bjarni watched him go in silence. Turning back, Ulfric watched Bishop struggle to pull himself from the snowbank. He yanked hard, then pinwheeled back on his ass in the snow. Too bad he didn’t flail off the side of the mountain and rid them all of his presence.

Ulfric’s mind churned. Too much demanded his focus already for him to try and puzzle out the nature of the Dragonborn’s feelings and her ill-formed relationship with a lecherous bastard like Bishop. And yet that was where his mind went. Every time he saw her, Leara appeared weaker, drained in excess by Bishop’s leechcraft. Elenwen’s implications—whatever in Oblivion they were—only agitated him further, as she surely intended them to do. There was something wrong here that he couldn’t place his finger on, nor could he afford to. If there was one thing the Dragonborn’s peace agreement bought him, it was time to plan his next maneuvers. Tullius would undoubtedly do the same, but Ulfric could plan for that as long as the Dragonborn carried through on her word.

The winds picked up again as if stirred by his mood. “With me, Bjarni. Let’s get inside.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ralof was nowhere to be seen, though the foyer was not as blessedly empty as Ulfric had previously thought. Cool grey eyes watched him from the base of one of the stairs. Delphine passed the whetstone along her katana’s blade, methodically.

“What was that about?” Amusement colored her tone.

“Where were you?”

“What?”

Ulfric jabbed a finger back toward the entrance. “That piss poor excuse of a man attacked the Dragonborn. Where. Were. You?”

Delphine lowered the whetstone. “It’s not my job to hold her hand, Ulfric! She’s a grown woman!”

By Talos. “Funny, because we were always taught that the Blades were sworn to protect the Dragonborn. Yet, in all the time I’ve known her, I’ve found that protection to be sorely lacking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Delphine got to her feet, grip tightening on her katana. The whetstone clattered to the floor.

Bjarni stepped back, his hand flying to his empty sword belt on reflex. Ulfric remained firm. “If you don’t know, then I greatly overestimated you.”

“Did it occur to you that there might be a reason why she doesn’t want our help?” Delphine shot back.

A reason? Ever since he found Leara being preyed on, some great secret about her was dangled in front of him. First from Bishop, then Elenwen, and now Delphine of all people!

Ulfric didn’t have time for this. Galmar would say he didn’t have time for this. Galmar—

Ysmir’s beard. 

“Whatever her reasons, you need to figure them out. Wanted or not, the Dragonborn’s protection is the Blades’ mandate.” Though his tone was even, Ulfric was ready to roll heads. Punting Bishop down the stairs only did so much to soothe his temper. “If she cannot stop the World-Eater, then it’s on your head.” He turned to go, leaving Bjarni to hurry after him, wide-eyed in his wake.

Delphine stood seething.

Ulfric did not care. There was work to do.

·•★•·

Warmth enveloped her body.

Shifting, Leara stirred. A slow drumbeat pounded nearby, low and distant. She pressed her face closer to the warmth, not cold but still so very comfortable. When was the last time she felt comfortable waking up? She wasn’t sure. She knew it had definitely been a long time since she’d been properly warm. This was nice. She couldn’t recall a single dream; neither dark wings nor white lightning blighted her rest. It was peaceful. If only she could sleep like that every night.

Her palm brushed against her pillow. She hesitated. Warm and dry, it was unlike any pillow she’d ever used. Who made pillows from hardened leather? She brushed her fingertips down, smooth like snakeskin.

Where was she? Why did she fall asleep here? Try as she might, Leara couldn’t remember. Her memory before the oblivion of sleep was a blur of aching lungs and wind in her ears. Snatches of faces flirted beyond her recognition, all unwilling to step forward, no matter how she tried to draw them out. The last thing she remembered was—

Esbern. Her great-grandmother. Martin Septim.

Bloody Hell.

At once, her heartbeat pounded in her ears. A distant ache filled her chest, though she couldn’t quite tell what it was. Fear? Adrenaline? The weight of yesterday pressed down on her, and she huddled closer to the warmth. Oh, her not-a-pillow was moving, a slow and steady rise and fall like breathing. She tried to match her breathing to its rhythm. Her fingers folded, and the pads caught on a rounded edge. Scales?

Paarthurnax.

She was with Paarthurnax.

Her eyes shot open, then up. Spread close overhead was the living canopy of Paarthurnax’s wing, a warm golden brown from her vantage beneath it. In the dim light filtering through the membrane, she found herself nestled beside the wing joint, curled against his ribcage. The drumbeat in her ear was his heartbeat.

A tear prickled at the edge of her eye, relief flooding through her in a giddy wave. Leara laughed, breathless and warm. She was with Paarthurnax.

The breathing changed, and she realized Paarthurnax was waking up. I imagine that even dragons must rest sometimes.Isn’t that what Master Arngeir said? She giggled again. It appears they did.

That’s wonderful. 

The wing blanketing her fluttered, lifting. Leara turned her head and met Paarthurnax’s dark eyes through the gap. “Good morning,” she whispered. Her voice was tight. How hard did she cry after Esbern left? Trying to remember hurt too much. How did she get from the library to the summit? That might be a question for Master Arngeir once she returned to the monastery—if he chose to speak to her at all.

“Pruzah vukren, Dovahkiin,” returned Paarthurnax. Folded against his side, Leara could feel the Thu’um rumble in the dragon’s chest. “You have slept long. Krein alok, the sun rose not long ago.”

Leara rubbed her eyes. They were dry. “I thought you were asleep,” she mumbled.

Paarthurnax showed his teeth in that odd way that could be a dragon’s smile. “Sleep. Geh, I have rested. But I have also kept watch. You slept nilhahnu for one of sossedov. Dreamless,” he added at Leara’s confused face.

“Oh.”

The wing around her rustled. With slow precision, Leara got to her feet, her hands braced against Paarthurnax’s side for support. She shuffled along until she slipped from the sheltering wing into the bright morning sunlight glittering over the Throat of the World. A world of diamonds and skylights gleamed around her, almost too much for her eyes, still tender from sleep and whatever else happened the night before. She lifted a hand to shade them, huddling closer to Paarthurnax’s neck as she went.

Warm breath blew over her, stirring her hair and fluttering her voluminous grey robes. Half a thought went to why her hair was loose and how she’d snagged one of the Greybeards’ robes before another breath rolled over her, blowing it away.

“Come, Dovahkiin. We will meditate on the understanding of Zii, ‘Spirit’, in your tongue. Do you know it?” Paarthurnax asked.

Feim. Zii. “Yes, Master.”

Paarthurnax hummed. “Come.”

Leara followed Paarthurnax, feet shuffling as he directed her to the Word Wall, where she found a meditation mat waiting for her. Wide-eyed, she glanced from it to Paarthurnax before making her way to it. At once, she missed the contact when her hand left Paarthurnax, but she swallowed the chill and took a seat. Crossing her legs, she settled the robes around her to they kept her covered. Underneath, she caught a glimpse of torn chiffon. A pain shot through her heart.

“I’m ready.”

The dragon bowed his horned head. “We have meditated on Feim, on the joorre understanding of fading and the unslaad zii. A body may break and fade, but the strength of the spirit is that it endures unending,” Paarthurnax peered down at her, something knowing in the dark recesses of his eyes that didn’t quite sit well with Leara. “You have mulaag zii, a strong spirit. It has carried you far.”

“Yes, Master.”

Smoke curled from Paarthurnax’s nostrils. Was he amused? He continued, “Deepen your understanding of Zii, and the endurance of the spirit. You will need it when you face Alduin again.”

Then he fell silent, and Leara breathed out. Meditation was not an unfamiliar practice to Blades within Cloud Ruler Temple. Esbern was right: It was one of the very few things that the Blades and Greybeards could agree upon. Breathe in slowly. Hold. Exhale slowly. Again. Called on by association, her last memories of the night before, when Esbern told her who her family was, who she was, resurfaced in her mind. Heir of the Septims. Was it the strength of their ancestral spirit that bolstered her forward, through dangers, toils, and snares, to where she sat now, pensive in meditation with a dragon on top of a mountain just days before she planned to slay the World-Eater? How much of Martin Septim’s soul was present in her own? Tiber Septim’s?

As a Blade, the thought made her uncomfortable. As Dragonborn, it was like a promise. After everything she’d gone through, it emphasized her inadequacies and shortcomings.

A lesser daughter of greater sires.

Paarthurnax huffed as if sensing the dark trail her meditation led her on. “Su'um ahrk morah.There is more to you than you know, dii kiir. You will find your strength before the end.”

Bowing her head, Leara continued her relaxed breathing, desperately grasping Paarthurnax’s words as she did. Here, now, she only wanted to come through her battle with Alduin. Everything else could come after.

“The Jarl of Whiterun has agreed to let us trap a dragon in his palace,” she said at length. Paarthurnax was right. She would continue to meditate on Fade and Spirit. “Now, what do I do?”

“Hmm, yes,” Paarthurnax rumbled. He craned his head toward the skies as if listening. “I have been pondering on exactly that question. Lingrah morah. I have tasted the voices of Alduin's allies on the wind. Pogaan nahlaas, vokrii wah jun.There is one who I remember well. Odahviing. He is the one to tell us where Alduin has gone.”

Odahviing. The name flitted in with the names of those dragons she killed before. Mirmulnir. Sahloknir. Golzkreinyol. Venstrunbo. Vulthuryol, who she did not slay, who helped her escape the dark of Blackreach, and who she promised to free. Odahviing. Would she end up slaying Odahviing, or could he be an ally like Vulthuryol? If he was one of Alduin’s followers…A sick feeling rolled in her stomach. She didn’t enjoy killing dragons. Pah! Greatest dragonslayer, indeed!

“How am I to lure Odahviing into the trap?”

Leveling his head with Leara’s, Paarthurnax regarded her with something she might call fond and—bashful?  “Ah, I forget how little you know of the dov. Our names are always made up of three Rotmulaag, Words of Power. You see Paar Thur Nax, a Thu'um, a Shout, yes?”

Paar Thur Nax. She tasted it in her soul, the memory of a flavor from childhood that she couldn’t quite recall. She didn’t understand it. Paar Thur Nax. Oh. Hadn’t Vulthuryol called Alduin thuri? And there was Thur inside the dark dragon’s name as well. What did it mean? The question gnawed at her, but she batted it away. More pressing than her curiosity was the need to understand Odahviing’s name. If a dragon’s name was a Shout, then—but that made sense, of course. The Greybeards called her with a Shout. Dov Ah Kiin. She was Dovahkiin, and their thunderous summons had beckoned to a part of her that she hadn’t then known about. She hadn’t understood, but with some encouragement from Jarl Balgruuf, she’d been quick enough to heed the call. Quick enough to surprise herself at the time.

They truly were Words of Power. Each word had in itself a tone that, when sung by the right musician, altered the world around it. It was unlike magic. Magic was of Aetherius, a power born of sunshine and starlight. But the Thu’um was not otherworldly. It plucked at the earth’s bones as easily as she did a harp’s strings. Her thumb found the mithril and diamond band on her finger, as cold as the Black Band was hot. Without it, her ability to draw magicka and cast spells was stunted. She was forced to rely on others' pool magicka into her rather than replenish herself naturally from the starlight as other mages did. The curse of those born under the Atronach. But the stars held no sway over the Voice. The ability to draw on the Thu’um came as easily to her as any dragon. She lacked only the understanding to use it as they did.

Knowledge was power.

“I understand, but how do we know he’ll come just because I’ve called him?”

“He is not compelled to come, but the dov are prideful by nature. Few could resist such a challenge. Especially from you, Dovahkiin. But Odahviing, he is…headstrong? Boziik. Rash. Even among the dov, he was known for this.”

Twisting the rings on her hand, Leara pursed her lips. Dragons varied in personality just like men, elves, and beast folk. Perhaps they had a greater understanding of their individual natures due to their language. Names didn’t just mean something; they were meaningful. Apparently, that meant that even after millennia, Odahviing was a hothead, and everyone knew it. She would try to appreciate the consistency.

“He will not resist the challenge of your Voice, Dovahkiin. He will come.”

Good.

“Now! Hear his name. Odahviing. Taste it on the wind. Od Ah Viing. Know it in your su'um! Od Ah Viing!”

A song like the coming of winter sang across her skin, a rush of wings and the thrill of air speeding past, dancing across her skin. Her soul engulfed the Shout, full and deep like a snowbank. It settled like cracking ice inside her, asserting itself over the distant murmur of the dragon souls she’d absorbed before, placing itself above the words she knew. One more Shout she’d gained the mastery of. Od Ah Viing. Snow Hunter Wing.

“He will come,” she whispered, a new assurance washing over her.

She could do this.

·•★•·

High Hrothgar was silent when she slipped in from the courtyard. 

It was still early morning. Magnus rose early in the summer, especially so far north. It couldn’t be later than nine o’clock, at most. Passed time for the Greybeards to give their morning venerations to Kyne in the courtyard.

All was still.

Lowering the hood of her borrowed robe, Leara crept down the hallway. Had the delegations already gone? It would make sense. There was no point in hanging around High Hrothgar with the enemy when the treaty needed to be implemented. And it was best to get as far down the mountain as possible before night set in, and the steps froze. She didn’t envy any of their pack animals. Karnwyr was miserable enough climbing the steps, and he was made to prowl through snow!

Karnwyr! Akatosh, she hoped Bishop fed him dinner. She’d been useless to anyone else the night before, she was sure. Pain thudded at her temple; Leara rubbed at it gingerly. Any further attempts to recall what happened that led her to wake on top of the Throat of the World under Paarthurnax’s wing were in vain. There was nothing to do but ask, wasn’t there? If there was anyone to ask. She hugged the robe tighter around her. Surely, Master Arngeir wasn’t so put out with her that he wouldn’t answer her questions. Someone had to give her this robe and escort her to Paarthurnax.

Nodding to herself, Leara turned the corner to her cell. She would feed Karnwyr, ready her armor, and then find Master Arngeir one last time before she—

Leara halted. Jarl Balgruuf paced down the length of the hallway. At her approach, he looked up, a grim smile on his face.

“Ah, Dragonborn, I—” Balgruuf seemed to do a double-take. Behind him, the two guards standing sentinel gaped. “What happened? You look like Oblivion froze over!”

“Do I?” She supposed she needed a mirror. Mirrors were such trivial things when preparing to fight the World-Eater. “Consequence of sleeping outside, I suppose.”

“Why in Shor’s name would you do that?” Balgruuf asked, somewhat taken aback. “It was freezing last night. I thought to take a walk in the courtyard before bed, but it was too cold even for a Nord.” He frowned. “What were you doing, girl?”

“I was meditating.”

Balgruuf’s mouth was drawn. “And did you find the answers you were looking for?”

Odahviing’s name rustled in her soul, a snow flurry of light. “I did, thank you, Jarl.”

Balgruuf regarded her. “Good. If your business with the Greybeards is finished, you’re welcome to travel to Whiterun with me and my men. Unless you’ve anything to tend to elsewhere before we spring this trap.”

For a moment, Leara’s mind wandered back to the aunt and grandmother left behind in Wayrest. To the cousin she hadn’t seen since the war. “I’ll get my things together and join you shortly.”

“Aye, then we’ll be off.” Balgruuf and his men left, and Leara entered her cell.

Her arms were full of Karnwyr at once.

Laughter bubbled its way out of her mouth, warming her chest and relaxing her throat. She dropped to her knees to embrace him, Karnwyr’s tongue a whirl of warm, wet puppy kisses over her face and hands. Giggling, giddy, Leara scratched behind his ears and down his neck, then up again as Karnwyr preened before her, his tail wagging at the speed of hummingbird wings.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t come back last night!” Leara said, regret mingling with the laughter in her chest.

Karnwyr licked her cheeks.

“Did Bishop feed you? I suppose he did. He was taking care of you long before I came around,” Leara mused, more to herself than the wolf. She wrapped her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. “He’ll take care of you after I’m gone, too.”

At that, Karnwyr whined.

Leara shushed him, running her fingers over the bones of his face. “I know his manners are horrendous, but not everyone gets to go through the Anaratelin Academy for Accomplished Altmer,” her smile bowed sadly. “You’ll be all right. Now,” she got to her feet, “let’s get ready. We’ve overstayed our welcome here.”

Used to running and being gone in a moment, Leara made quick work of setting the cell to work, gathering her belongings onto the bed to be packed back into her bag once she donned her armor. Shedding the heavy robe, she paused, caught again by the sorry state of her once lovely dress. The chiffon was ripped as if pulled on. Dust clung to the hem, and here and there were places where the snow had breached the robes to stain her skirts. Regret squeezed her heart: It wasn’t beyond repair, but there wasn’t time for her to set aside for it.

Heart aching, she hung it in the wardrobe beside the borrowed robe. Something for the Greybeards to remember her by after she left for Sovngarde. A ruined gown for a fallen princess.

Armed and armored, she pulled her hood over her hair, once more bound in a braided bun. “C’mon,” she said to Karnwyr, fastening her sword belt. She grabbed her bag and, with the wolf, left the cell.

Silence hung over the passages, a cold wind holding its breath. It was so different from the bustle of yesterday when Imperials, Stormcloaks, and others meandered through the halls after the peace conference. She’d flown by them all in her haste to reach the library, and now they were gone. As she passed open doors, she peered inside, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the Greybeards, of Master Arngeir, but each room open to her was empty. She didn’t dare enter through closed doors.

Where was Bishop?

Karnwyr whined, bringing her to a pause at the top stairs into the foyer.

There! Master Arngeir stood with Jarl Balgruuf and his party, the other masters behind him.

“My men are ready,” Balgruuf was saying. “When the Dragonborn gives the word, we are prepared to spring the trap.”

Tilting his head, Master Arngeir folded his hands together. “But the question remains: How to lure a dragon into Dragonsreach?”

Balgruuf started, then paused, his eye catching on Leara as she made her way down the stairs. “An excellent question, one I’m hoping the Dragonborn’s meditation has provided an answer for. Has it?” he asked her as Leara came to stand beside him and Arngeir.

Eyebrows raised, Master Arngeir regarded her, but Leara couldn’t meet his stare. “Yes, Jarl Balgruuf,” she said. “I found all the answers I needed at the top of the mountain.”

Wulfgar and Borri lifted their heads, both watching Master Arngeir. “You show your training well,” he said. Leara’s attention darted to him. “The road before you is clear, Dragonborn. Wind guide you.”

She bowed, going a little deeper than she might otherwise. She would miss Master Arngeir and his guidance, churlish as it was on occasion when she pushed too far. He was wise and could be kind. She wished she could stay.

The relief from Sky Haven Temple burned through her mind. Alduin’s Wall, found again only through the dragon blood poured on the seal. In the depiction of the prophecy, it was a Blade who stood against Alduin the World-Eater on the edge of the end of time. The Last Dragonborn was a Blade. No distance run or time elapsed could erase that. She didn’t belong in High Hrothgar, just like she didn’t belong in Alinor or the Imperial City. It was true.

How the truth stung.

"And you, Masters. Thank you.”

A cloud passed over the sky blue of Master Arngeir’s eyes, but when Leara blinked, it was gone. She dropped her gaze again. She heard Jarl Balgruuf thank the Greybeards for their hospitality. Then they were leaving High Hrothgar. Her joints moved with the programmed mechanics of the dwarven automatons from Alftand. Bound to destiny.

“My child.”

Leara turned.

Jarl Balgruuf and his men were already partway down the stairs to the landing, but Leara stopped. Master Arngeir stood at the door, watching her.

Her spine straightened. “Sir?”

A shadow that was almost sorrow crossed his face. “There is a great deal of confusion raging through your spirit. You will need clarity if you hope to win against Alduin. Remember your lessons.”

“I will continue meditating as Paarthurnax instructed me.”

Arngeir raised his hand, then let it fall. “Breathe and focus, my child. Kyne will keep you.”

The question of Bishop clawed up her throat but caught in the bars of her teeth. She wouldn’t ask Master Arngeir about him, not now. The elder Greybeard made it no secret how he disliked the ranger, and Leara wouldn’t tarnish her last farewell with her teacher by bringing Bishop up.

She hoped he was okay.

“Goodbye, Master.”

“Sky above, Voice within, Dragonborn.”

A final bow, Leara descended the steps of High Hrothgar one last time.

·•★•·

They didn’t catch up to the others. Jarl Balgruuf didn’t seem bothered by this. “I’d rather not get caught between Ulfric and General Tullius on the stairs.”

“And the Thalmor?”

“If I don’t see Elenwen again this year, it’ll be too soon.”

Leara laughed while nerves coiled inside her. Breath and focus. Alduin was the priority, and any threats from Elenwen didn’t matter.

Or so she told herself, wrapped in her bedroll with Karnwyr tucked in beside her. The mountain wasn’t so cold in high summer as it was in early spring, but Karnwyr still shivered, so she took pity on him. The wolf was her responsibility until she met back up with Bishop. As they made their way down the Seven Thousand Steps, she grew convinced that he’d simply left the monastery early to escape the tensions between the Imperials, Thalmor, and Stormcloaks. Plus, he hated it there anyway. Bishop knew she was heading for Whiterun next, so it would make sense that he’d left early with plans to meet up later.

This was the reassurance she gave herself on the second night in their descent.

Missing Bishop was ridiculous. He was pushy and handsy and kissed her without asking. Not to mention, he could be possessive of her when he had no right to be. Never mind his poor manners and gross humor! But he’d been there for her through the long dark of Alftand. He was a helping hand in her treks through the wilderness, where she might otherwise get lost. He thought he was helping her. He was there after the ball, after her mistake with the harp.

She thought she killed him in Blackreach.

Later, when they finally approached Ivarstead and greener vistas, she wondered if Bishop might have abandoned her.

Her, maybe. She came with too much risk.

But Karnwyr? His wolf?

I was tracking my wolf, Karnwyr. He’s all I’ve got.

No, Bishop would turn up. He’d be back like a tarnished silver piece, showing up in unlikely places.

“You all right, lass?” Jarl Balgruuf asked her.

They stood on the bridge into Ivarstead. Underneath, the mountain stream rushed heavy and away, fat with melting snow from the Throat of the World. Magnus hung low in the western sky, casting Ivarstead deep in the shadow of the mountain. There was a hushed calm there where a thousand pilgrims tread in search of peace that she was desperate to feel. Her meditations on Feim and Zii lulled her, but still, turmoil churned in her chest over Alduin, Elenwen, Bishop, and the weight of her destiny, lineage, and life.

She felt too full for her body. If someone stabbed her, she wondered if it would all flow out with her blood.

Akatosh save her!

“Just thinking,” she replied, waving her hand in a vague arch. “Trapping the dragon is only part of my objective. I need him to tell me where the World-Eater is and to prepare to find him.”

Balgruuf passed a hand over his wheat-colored beard. “We’ll stay the night in Ivarstead. A night at the inn will be good for my men. We’ll be on the road back to Whiterun first thing in the morning.” He pressed a steady hand on her shoulder; she could just feel the weight through her pauldron.

Leara mustered a half smile.

The Vilemyr Inn was well-lit, if a little quiet. From what she was told before, Ivarstead didn’t see as many travelers as it once did, due in part to the war. There was something else the townspeople seemed tight-lipped about, wide-eyed and whispering, but she was always in a hurry when she came through. There was never time to ask. The innkeeper, Wilhelm, seemed happy enough to see them. He was quick to regale Leara and the Whiterun party with the near bar-fight earlier in the day when the Stormcloaks and Imperials both stopped in for lunch. Balgruuf’s laugh was a booming drum at that. Even Leara found herself smiling at the irony of leaving a peace council only to narrowly avoid a drunken brawl.

Her spirits held up through the beginning of dinner, right until the bard began singing The Dragonborn Comes, that same song Alec had embarrassed her within Candlehearth Hall. Faint appetite gone, Leara slid her untouched rabbit stew away and got to her feet. “Excuse me,” she murmured and left Jarl Balgruuf and his men sitting around the dinner table. Karnwyr made to follow her, but she shook her head.

She needed a minute. Just a few.

The world was on her shoulders. It was being shoved inside her.

Feim. Zii.

Head whirling, Leara clung to the porch rail. Her eyes closed, her head fell against the post, letting it support her as well as the roof. The door swung shut behind her, silencing the girl’s lilting chorus of, “I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes.”

If she kept pushing forward, she could ignore it, right? Right?

“Leara.”

The air in her lungs froze. Forcing her eyes open, Leara peered past the beam. Her knuckles tightened bone white on the rail.

Bishop stood in the street, his skin cast in a soft blue blush from the light of the moons. Leara’s mouth popped open. Her lungs squeezed. Bloody Hell.

A familiar smirk curved over Bishop’s face. “Surprised to see me, ladyship?”

“I—” Yes, no. Perhaps? “What’s wrong with your jaw?”

“My jaw—” Raising his hand, Bishop ghosted his fingers over the deep red mark, wincing. “Had a run-in with a troll.”

“I don’t recall seeing any frost trolls on the trip down.”

“You wouldn’t. I took care of the bastard.”

A laughter of mixed disbelief and relief tumbled from Leara. Bishop continued to smirk. He waved her over, “Take a walk with me?”

For some reason, her lungs seized. Leara pressed a hand to her breastplate, the faint beat of her heart quick under her palm. A stroll through the night air. Yes, that would help.

She left the porch.

His hands in his pockets, Bishop led her across the street, off from the main road onto a side path leading by a few weatherworn houses. There were several gardens throughout Ivarstead, full of the summer produce. An evening breeze drifted through, carrying with it the scent of the stream and the surrounding pines. There was a lake nearby, but they moved away from it, trailing southward toward Jerall road.  

After a bit, Bishop broke the silence. “I wanted to speak with you.”

“Is it about why you left High Hrothgar?”

Bishop watched her, his eyes dark under furrowed brows. Growling, he kicked the grown. “You really have no idea, do you?”

Iron boning pressed into her lungs. “What are you talking about?”

“I—no, I can’t!”

A chill. “Bishop?”

Roaring, wordless, he spun away, his hands fisting in his hair. Unease sent Leara pacing backward. “You don’t know! I can’t—I can’t do this! This isn’t me! For my whole life, I’ve never cared about anyone but myself! And now I care about you!”

I care about you!

Her chest tightened. Does he really? He wasn’t good at showing it, she thought darkly. He cared about Karnwyr, but other people? Did she know of anyone Bishop cared for besides his wolf? Besides…her? “Bishop, wait—"

“Let me finish.” The look he gave her was full of such desperation that Leara’s teeth clacked closed. “I can’t be sure when it happened, when a hunter’s jealousy of someone luckier to get his prey transformed into this.” Jealous? Of who? “When the desire of bedding you changed into the joy of just being near you.” With every word, he stepped closer to her until he was right before her. Bishop took her hands in his, his skin warm through her gloves. “When I started feeling content just holding you in my hands. Every time you walk into danger, I freeze inside, thinking that this may be the last time I see you alive, despite our combined skills.” Pale eyes were heavy on hers. “Every time you sleep wounded, I dread to close my eyes, fearing to see you dead when I open them.”

Oh, Akatosh. Fires of Oblivion. Daedra and damnation! Her head ached, her stomach ached, and her chest ached. Now, her heart. Damn. She didn’t love him, but whatever Bishop felt for her, he tried to express it in the best way he could. He just wasn’t very socialized, was he? At least not by polite society. Divines, she wasn’t going to try and fix him. She didn’t want to try—she could barely fix herself and she’d been trying since she ran away from home!

But he was sincere.

Gingerly, Leara pulled her hands from Bishop’s; then, just as the frown deepened on his face, she wrapped her arms around him. The leather of his jacket was rough on her cheek. Still, she pressed into his shoulder. Her arms slipped along his back, brushing by his weapons to grasp at his shoulders. In the circle of her arms, Bishop’s body froze, as rigid as her lungs. Slowly, thawing like winter, Bishop returned her embrace, his nose brushing her hair.

“Is this some kind of expression of sympathy?” His breath stirred her curls. Leara breathed a snort. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t care.”

Perhaps it was sympathy, but she owed it to him. Bishop stayed with her this far, and he kept coming back. He cared.

         Whose room was it? 

         A soft groan slipped from her mouth as she sat up. Whoever paid for the room wasn’t there—she hoped someone paid for it. If she’d wandered into what appeared to be the jarl’s suite without pay, Hulda would have her head and her coin purse! Not that she could afford a night in here anyway. Oh, but what if it was someone’s room, and she was now intruding on their privacy? And for what? How? 

         Anxiety gripped her, yet she found it difficult to really worry. Slowly, limbs protesting, she got up, breaking from the warm cocoon to stand up. Midway through, she stopped and stared. There, on the pillow, was a rose. What?

         Biting her lip, Leara plucked up the rose. A full bloom not unlike the roses grown in the greenhouses of the Alinor kinladies. Its petals were such a deep red they were almost black, a blood-kissed dusk in hue. And it smelled divine—

         Perhaps wicked, her mind supplied, though she wasn’t sure where the thought came from. 

         Rolling the stem between her fingers, Leara sniffed it absently as she moved from the bed. The scent was rich, heady like a raspberry wine, and yet there was a musk like whiskey and smoke. It was marvelously complex, and she couldn’t pull her nose away from it, even when she found her blanket and pulled it around her shoulders. Funny that she’d folded the blanket when placing it over the back of the chair. 

         Drawing deeply from the bloom in hand, her eyes wandered again to the wardrobe. Without thinking, her free hand crept to the knob, and she pulled it open. 

         There were her belongings, neat and prim as if she’d placed everything there herself. But she hadn’t! How did it get here? What happened?

         She inhaled sharply, and her nose was filled with the rose. 

         Whatever it was, it was fine. She was fine. Everything was fine. 

         With some reluctance, she laid the rose on the table and began to dress. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that today was the day. Today was the day she swept into Dragonsreach and called a dragon down on Whiterun to trap him and track down the World-Eater. Today was the fulfillment of her destiny. 

         After tying her hair in a braid, she coiled it into a bun and pinned it at the back of her head. A part of her longed for her Blades armor even as she pulled on her greaves and fastened her war skirt with her sword belt. Another part missed the leather and linen of her Dominion uniform. Maybe it was the uniformity she missed, the sign that she was one of many and not singled out alone. 

         But she was Dragonborn. To be Dragonborn was to be alone. 

         For she was the Last. 

         Shouldering her bag, she stared at the rose, full and depthless, on the table. Leaving it didn’t sit well with her, and she didn’t want to lose it either. Her heart clenched, and she placed it in her bag. 

         On top, where it wouldn’t be crushed. 

         Hopefully.

         Ready, she faced the door to the hall— 

         —and the call of her name punctuated by a high woof!

         “Leara!” Bishop was before her, his hair rakishly tussled and his jacket unfastened. “Leara, what the hell? Where’ve you been?” Beside them, Karnwyr grunted. 

         “I was asleep,” she replied, surprised at the mild tone in her voice. 

         His hands hovering around her face directed her eyes to his. There was a green gleam in the pale of Bishop’s eyes that struck her, but she wasn’t sure why. 

         “What were you doing in there?”

         “I was sleeping.”

         “Why?” The with who? hung silently between them, yet she felt it charged like a battlemage’s lightning. 

         “Must’ve wandered in there in the middle of the night,” she whispered, leaning her cheek into the heat of his palm. A feathery tremor, his thumb brushed her cheekbone almost against Bishop’s will. Distract and deflect. “I’m sorry. I didn’t feel well and I think I went for a walk.”

         The muscle in Bishop’s jaw tremored, “The pressures of hero worship catching up with you, princess?” She covered his hand with hers, pushing her face into the cradle of his palm. “Nah, I think you’re getting clingy. Is that dragon scaring you already?” 

         Yes. “No.”

         His breath on the shell of her ear sent a dull shiver down her spine. “You should have woken me up. You know I’m here for you, darling.”

         “Yeah, I know.” All too well. His habit of coming back to her despite the odds was now as familiar as the inevitable break of dawn. She nuzzled his palm. “I’m sorry, Bishop. Let me worry about the dragon, and I’ll make it worth your while later.”

         “Oh, ho! Will you?” Bishop chortled, eyebrows shooting high. A smirk pulled wide his mouth. “Bold words from you, sweetness. Don’t think I won’t hold you to them, because I will.”

         He stole a kiss from her with a moan of contentment. She let him take it. 

“Ah, see, Delphine? I told you she would be here!”

The pinch-faced Breton rolled her eyes. 

“Good afternoon,” Leara greeted the Blades, an unchecked warble in her throat. She clamped her mouth shut. 

Either not noticing it or not caring to point it out, Esbern brushed past her into the room, a reluctant Delphine following. At the intrusion, Karnwyr growled, neck bristling as he pressed his side against Leara’s leg. 

“Do you mind calling off your dog?” Delphine sniffed, popping a hand on her hip. 

Leara’s fingers were already carding over the top of Karnwyr’s head. “Shh, boy. It’s all right. They’re friends.”

If wolves could look skeptical, Karnwyr did. Leara pretended not to notice. 

“What can I do for you?” Leara asked, drawing attention away from the still-agitated wolf.

“Now you’re asking?” Delphine half-laughed. “Where have you been? You disappear off to Talos knows where, chasing Dragonrend, and the next thing we hear is you got your ass handed to you by Alduin!”

“Delphine, please,” Esbern shook his head. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“It’s why I’m here,” grumbled Delphine. “Did the Greybeards turn you against us? Do they have you a little meditation mat out in the snow so you can Shout to the wind like a mad woman?” 

Leara’s eyes drifted closed. Inhale. Feim. Exhale. Zii. Her spirit was too strung out for this. “I’ve been following the path laid out for me as Dragonborn, just as you so eloquently pointed out earlier, Delphine, or have you forgotten?”

“That’s why we’re here,” coughed Esbern. 

Delphine scowled, her thin brows scrunching into little knots. “We need you to take this seriously, Leara!”

“Oh, but I do!” Casting her hands out beside her as if to say Look at me! Leara let out a hoarse laugh. “I’m taking this very seriously. I am the most serious I’ve ever been, and I was able to continue my primary mission during the Great War, unlike some people! It’s hard to get any more serious than that, but I have!”

Delphine lunged. 

Karnwyr barked. Esbern cried out. Leara sidestepped, avoiding the steel dart grabbing for her. Pivoting, Delphine rounded again; though she made no further movement, her face was dark. “Somehow, I doubt that! Because at least some people didn’t run away when things got too hard! How could we know when you went after Dragonrend that you hadn’t done it again?”

Ice tickled the palms of Leara’s hands. Her rings burned. The lingering frostbite stung. Just as Delphine understood her meaning, Leara understood hers. Delphine may be inept, but she stuck to the Blades’ mandate. Leara did not. She ran away. She always ran away. Her face tight, she turned to Esbern, who was looking toward the ceiling, an unwilling witness to the continued rift between his fellow Blades. After a moment, his gaze dropped, and Leara met it with an awkward tilt of her head. Ignored, Delphine crossed her arms. 

“I’m not running now,” said Leara, flat. “What do you want? After today, I won’t be coming back to High Hrothgar. I’ll be able to rededicate myself to my oath as a Blade.” Elenwen would be hunting her anyway. If Leara survived Alduin, serving as a Blade would be all she had left. Bishop would either have to live with that or leave.

Elenwen said he would leave anyway. She was usually right. 

Clearing his throat, Esbern said, “That is part of what I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Here we go,” Delphine rolled her eyes. Leara frowned. 

“What is—”

Tap! Tap! on the door again. As one, the three Blades turned to stare at it. Karnwyr grunted. 

“Come in!” Leara called. 

Cracking the door open, Master Einarth poked his head in. In silence, he regarded Delphine and Esbern before looking to Leara. His hands flew in a quick sign. Then he watched her. 

“Thank you, Master.” Nodding, the Greybeard withdrew. Leara turned to Delphine and Esbern. “It’s about time to rejoin the peace talks. This will keep until later.”

“According to the old man, it’s already waited centuries,” Delphine grumbled, almost under her breath. Nonetheless, she brushed by Leara and Esbern to the door. 

Karnwyr made to follow Leara. “No, boy,” she whispered, chest pained. Karnwyr stared up at her, eyes wide and full. The iron encasing her lungs buckled under her breath. “I’ll come back for you later, okay? I need you to wait here for me until then. That’s a good boy,” she whispered, running her hand over his head and down his neck once, twice. “It’s for the best.”

Karnwyr whined, but Leara didn’t look back as she shut the cell’s door. 

The other two Blades were already far down the hall. Leara slowed her pace, pretending to straighten up her ruined hair. She wasn’t eager to catch up with them and risk more of Delphine’s temper. She would deal with it later. 

Outside the doors to the meeting hall, Legate Rikke and one of her legionnaires stood in the quiet discussion, though Leara saw them still as Delphine and Esbern went through to the chamber. Rikke’s eyes followed the Blades with a frown, then connected with Leara’s down the hall. 

“That will be all, Orianus. Rejoin General Tullius in the hall.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Saluting, the blonde legionnaire left. 

Then, Leara found herself face-to-face with the Legate. She just kept her shoulders from dropping under the taloned point in her eyes. “Good afternoon, Legate.”

“Dragonborn, can I have a word before you go back in there?” Rikke asked, to the point. “It will only take a moment.”

“Of course.”

Casting an eye in either direction, Rikke waved Leara closer. “Look, I don’t think talking peace with Ulfric is the way to handle things.”

“What do you mean?”

Rikke’s face was grim. “If Ulfric gets his way, he would expunge from Skyrim citizens whose only crime was to be born of a non-Nordic woman.” A quick dart of amber eyes told Leara that Rikke’s attention was on her elven ears. “That is unacceptable to free men everywhere. If you think you can get through to him, you’re either a fool or an optimist, and I don’t think you’re an idiot, Ormand."

So, the Legate wanted to caution her against the potential fallout from the peace conference. If Leara wasn’t already keenly aware that Skyrim’s—and the world’s—fate hung by a thread entangled with her fingers, she’d give the warning about Ulfric’s intentions more consideration. Yet, it niggled at her. She recalled walking through the Grey Quarter in Windhelm with Jolinar Aren. There was a cultural divide in the city that cut through its citizens. Did the people there make any attempt to understand each other? It was so far removed from the cosmopolitan melting pot of the Imperial City that she was used to. Leara regarded Rikke, keenly aware that they needed to return to the meeting hall. Yes, there were racial tensions in Windhelm—there were racial tensions throughout Skyrim and the whole Empire, even the Imperial City, if she were being honest—but until Ulfric threw her out because she was half-elven (and that was the only reason), she would push for peace. She would try. 

“Perhaps I am an optimist,” she conceded at last. “Thank you, Legate.”

Rikke nodded, mouth drawn, and they entered the chamber. 

Leara had a peace to negotiate.

·•★•·

The melancholy shroud that wrapped around her with the strength of burial linens hadn’t left when she woke up far too early the next morning. For a while, she lay there, the weight of darkened memory pressing into her chest nearly to the point of suffocation. Pearls glittered in her mind’s eye, fractured and crumbling to bone dust with every beat of her heart. And oh, how deep her heartbeat felt, pounding a drum she never knew she could play. At once, there were festival and funeral drums dancing together. Joy mingled with grief, and it wouldn’t leave her. It clung to her like white sand between her toes, working its way throughout her person until she came through pain to be a pearl herself. Safe in her warm bed amid the furs, behind palace doors and city walls, she still felt thousands of miles and years away. Lost, lost to a time without balls and wars, or at least not the kind that moral men understood. She couldn’t sleep again, not with that melancholy kissing her soul. 

One glance at Julia on the other side of the bed told Elisif that her friend was awake. Supine on her back, Elisif could only see part of Julia’s face and the trickle of tears slipping down into her hair, spread in a dark cloud across the pillow. 

Elisif reached out and snagged her hand, giving Julia’s fingers a comforting squeeze. “I didn’t know anyone could play like that,” she whispered. 

Julia turned to her. “I don’t even know what that was.”

“Do you,” Elisif began, then cut off. Blinking, she realized she was also crying. Divines. “Do you think it’s because she has the Voice?”

Julia’s hand in hers tightened, bone-crushing, pearl dust. “I don’t know.”

Elisif and Julia weren’t abed for long. At half past six, a knock came at the door. Although the ball ended prematurely, and they’d gone to bed earlier than expected, neither Elisif nor Julia felt as if they’d slept at all. 

It was Erdi, with a note. “Your grace, Lady Julia,” she curtsied to Elisif and then Julia, her knees and ankles wobbly. Sitting in her bedclothes with a face damp from tears, Elisif waved her on. “This came from Castle Dour.”

“General Tullius?” Elisif asked.

“Yes, your grace. He expects a reply as soon as possible.”

The note, it turned out, was a short directive telling her to get ready for a long trip to High Hrothgar—High Hrothgar!—where the Dragonborn was holding a peace conference between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks. “Is she mad?” Elisif asked Julia as they quickly put together a traveling trunk. 

Julia didn’t pause her work, but she looked thoughtful. “I think she’s trying.”

“So are we!” 

Julia just shook her head. 

That was over two weeks ago. Now Elisif sat at a table in High Hrothgar, across from her husband’s murderer, while General Tullius debated giving away Markarth, and her concerns went ignored. 

The trip to the Throat of the World wasn’t horrible, per se . . . only, General Tullius made as much time for her on the road as he did back in Solitude, and traveling, Elisif didn’t have Julia’s arm and will with her to get Tullius to listen to her. Legate Rikke was willing to give her an ear on occasion, but Elisif knew that was more out of sympathy than anything. The Legate was strong and commanded respect, knowing what to do and when to act, even if her temper sometimes got the better of her. Elisif wished she could be like that. As it was, she spent most of the trip in turns dreading the peace conference and caught in the memory of sorrowing harp song. When she wasn’t pushing for the General’s attention or dwelling in her turmoil, she was entertaining Erdi. 

Oh, Bolgeir said she didn’t have to entertain her ladies’ maid, but the girl was so excited to be on the road, traveling through Skyrim, that Elisif felt she could give the girl some of the attention no one would give her. Divines knew she wasn’t going to as the two Thalmor for company. Yes, she did enjoy Elenwen’s dinner parties and soirees, but there was something in the First Emissary’s eyes that had unnerved Elisif since they left Solitude. And Hindalia, well, she wasn’t very amicable from her experience anyway. It was a very trying trip.

Sitting there, stuck in a peace conference she couldn’t believe in, Elisif hoped that Erdi was keeping out of trouble. Hopefully, the other legionnaires wouldn’t get too upset with her. 

Lost in thought, she half-watched the Dragonborn, Leara Ormand, enter the room. Legate Rikke came after her. Somewhere behind her, General Tullius and Jarl Balgruuf were talking in heated whispers, the Jarl of Whiterun seeming not entirely pleased with whatever Tullius wanted to talk about. At Leara’s reentrance, the two men quieted. 

“Where’s Master Arngeir?” Leara asked.

“He went to meditate,” Ulfric told her. 

Leara nodded, pale gold face pensive as she returned to her seat. 

Across the table, the pale Breton in armor, the one Ulfric had called Delphine before, rolled her eyes. She mouthed something to herself that Elisif couldn’t catch. No one else seemed to pay her any mind, so Elisif ignored her.

Elisif twisted the handkerchief in her lap. As soon as the Dragonborn called a recess and left, the Greybeards left to meditate, a sigh whispering in his wake. Ulfric and his general, with their guards, went quickly after, leaving the Imperial delegation hauled up in the meeting hall with Jarl Balgruuf and his men. General Tullius paced the length of the room for much of the remaining hour, his face drawn in a thoughtful frown. Occasionally, he would stop to speak to Legate Rikke or ask her a question, but otherwise, he kept to himself until the other delegates returned. Clearly, he didn’t like being here any more than Elisif did, but they came nonetheless at the Dragonborn’s request.

She was going to trap a live dragon in Whiterun!

How could she do that? Even if Whiterun still had the mechanisms that legends said were used to bind Numinex, how did Leara Ormand plan to lure a dragon into that trap? And how did she draw out the dragon? Reports flooding in over previous months made it clear that dragon attacks couldn’t be timed. But was it possible for the Dragonborn to time them? Elisif was bursting with questions, but she held them in check. Now was not the time. 

General Stone-Fist slid a new goblet of mead to the Dragonborn. Elisif then realized that earlier, when she was serving, she never set one down for herself. “Care for some mead, Dragonborn?”

Leara blinked up at him, owlish with surprise. “Oh, thank you, General.”

“It’s not poisoned,” he added. 

What?

A slight giggle escaped Leara’s mouth. “Why would it be poisoned?” 

Galmar Stone-Fist actually smiled at her. Elisif couldn’t believe it. 

Apparently, Ulfric couldn’t believe it either, if the slight crease between his brows was anything to go by. Then he caught Elisif’s eye on him, and his narrowed at her. She ducked her head. 

From the corner of her eye, she spied Legate Rikke steal a glance toward the Leara, who was sipping her mead. Perhaps Elisif wasn’t the only one who couldn’t quite make her out. She couldn’t decide if that was reassuring or not.

As she mused over this, Master Arngeir returned alongside the other Greybeards. Seeing that they were all seated around the table—more or less—Master Arngeir nodded to himself. “Dragonborn, I trust this recess has helped you.”

If Elisif hadn’t turned to watch, she would’ve missed the pale knuckles blanching as Leara tightened her hold on her goblet. “Yes, thank you for obliging me, Master Arngeir.”

Master Arngeir seemed not to notice. “Good. Now, General Tullius, Jarl Ulfric, if you would, we will resume the negotiations.” 

“Yes, let’s get on with it,” General Tullius agreed, straightening in his chair. 

“At present, the negotiations stand thus: Before our recess, General Tullius made a bid for the Rift, which was met with Jarl Ulfric’s demand for Markarth and the Reach. These terms have not been agreed to. As the mediator, the Dragonborn spoke against land trades from either side.” The Greybeard Master turned a steady watch from Tullius to Ulfric. 

Involuntarily, Elisif shuddered at the memory of the explosive shouting match that broke out earlier and her heavy hand in instigating it. But if getting a rise out of General Tullius was all she needed to do to protect Western Skyrim from being broken apart to feed the Stormcloaks, then she would do it again and again.

“Now that we have reconvened, I would ask the Dragonborn to elaborate on her reasoning,” Master Arngeir continued. 

“Thank you, I will,” Leara said, standing. Her gaze swept the room; for a moment, Elisif looked into eyes bluer than a winter sky and nearly as cold before they moved on. She shivered. Leara continued, “I recognize that all of you have come here to negotiate a treaty, and with that comes certain expectations. You see this as an opportunity. I do as well. This peace conference is an opportunity for us to come together for the good of Skyrim so that despite whatever differences we may have, we can rest assured that our cooperation here today give us the opportunity to address those differences at a later date.” She paused, breathing evenly. “I cannot stress enough how vital this treaty is as a means to handle the dragons and Alduin himself. Esbern has already explained how the ongoing conflict is feeding the World-Eater’s strength.” She clenched her fingers together. “I know with the present conflict, it’s hard to look beyond the turmoil of politics and battle strategy, but we need to remember that our enemies are not always other men and mer. History has shown us that we struggle not only against flesh and blood, but against darkness and evil itself. Was the Oblivion Crisis so long ago that no one remembers what we were fighting against? Is our memory so short that we cannot see the greater picture beyond our personal desires?”

“She makes longer speeches than Stormcloak,” Elisif heard Captain Thrain whisper in an aside to Lieutenant Orianus. 

“The dragon threat is real. Alduin is real. Many of you have seen him already.” Then Leara held out her palms so that everyone could see. For the first time, Elisif noticed the pink flush lingering along her hands, tapering into a pink at the ends of her fingers. It reminded Elisif of snowberry juice stains after having washed her hands twice but with the pigment still clinging to her fingertips. Frostbite. “I fought him, and I must fight him again, once more for all. If I don’t, Skyrim will burn, and the land you conquer and trade will be dead.”

“If you lost to the World-Eater once, what makes you think you’ll be victorious in a second meeting?” Jarl Balgruuf asked.

Leara’s hands fell against the light blue of her skirts. “Before, when I faced Alduin the first time, it was here on the Throat of the World. When I fell, he fled back to his stronghold. To defeat him, I need to cut him off at the root.”

“Why didn’t he kill you then?” Elisif heard herself ask before she thought better of it. 

Straightening, Leara merely smiled. “He couldn’t get to me. I was in a safe place.” Then she looked to Master Arngeir, who Elisif was surprised to see give the Dragonborn an almost-fond look, but it was gone so quickly that she was sure she imagined it. 

“I’m sure we’re all very thankful you survived,” Tullius said briskly. “But I can’t just agree to a truce because you asked nicely. The Emperor will expect a reason why there’s a ceasefire without a resolution. You can’t just expect us to come here and agree to your treaty without receiving anything in return. We need something substantial here, or else you could have gone ahead with your little plan without dragging us halfway across the province to talk about it.”

“Of course,” Leara agreed. “I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time, General. What do you suggest?”

Tullius tapped the tabletop. “We want compensation for the massacres Karthwasten and Kolskeggr Mine.” 

General Stone-Fist’s fist slammed against the tabletop. “Shor’s bones, what are you saying?”

It was Legate Rikke who replied. She always seemed quick to try and match Galmar Stone-Fist’s temper with hers. “You slaughtered the very people you claim to be fighting for! True sons of Skyrim would never do such things!” 

“Damned Imperial lies!” General Stone-Fist spat. “My men would never stoop to such methods, even in retaliation for your butchery at Dunstad—"

Ulfric’s face was hard. Elisif could feel the weary sigh escape Leara Ormand, even if she couldn’t hear it. “This is our homeland, Tullius. All the blood spilled in this war is on your head.”

“Don’t forget who started this war, Ulfric!” jabbed Tullius. “One way or another, you’re going to pay for your crimes.”

“If I’ve committed a crime,” Ulfric sneered, “it’s because the Empire decreed the lives of men should be held by the Aldmeri Dominion, rendering free men to be slaves!”

“Once again, the Empire gets blamed—"

“Excuse me,” Leara interrupted, holding up two frost-damaged fingers. Jaws snapped shut as she directed those fingers toward Galmar. “What happened at Dunstad? Where is that?”

“Dunstad Grove was fortified by Fort Dunstad in the Pale, south of Dawnstar,” Galmar explained. Elisif shifted uncomfortably: She knew what he’d say next. “The Imperials attacked in the night with a couple of their battlemages. Next thing our men knew, the wall was breached, and the village inside was on fire.” His voice was gruff, emotion swelling his words. Elisif felt her own throat wobble. But while tears stung the backs of her eyes, Galmar Stone-Fist’s grew dark with rage. “It was a bloodbath! The entire village was destroyed!”

A tear trailed down Elisif’s cheek. But Legate Rikke, she was affected in a different way. Rikke’s hair flew about her shoulders as she rose to her feet, righteous anger glinting in her amber eyes like fire. “That's a lie! Dunstad Grove burned because of your marauders! My legionnaires are disciplined, unlike those—"

“By Shor, that’s a mug of sheep’s piss!” Galmar Stone-Fist spat. “You saw what happened, Rikke! You slaughtered them, and not just the men, but the women and children too! You slaughtered them like animals, you butchers!”

“Do you hear that, Tullius?” Ulfric asked, low. “The blood of Skyrim’s innocents cries out for wergeld.”

“You’re determined to have our silver whether you get Markarth or not! But you don't really expect compensation every time a village is destroyed in a war that you started, do you, Ulfric?” Tullius asked, passing a weary hand over his chin. Elisif could hear the grit of his teeth. 

“What happened at Karthwasten? And Kolskeggr?” Leara’s voice broke in before Ulfric could retaliate.

“Ulfric’s made no secret that he wants Markarth. The Stormcloaks led a raid, and half of Karthwasten burned or fled!” said Rikke, still heated. “Now the town’s more vulnerable to Forsworn attacks than ever!” 

“And Kolskeggr?” Leara asked, raising a hand to cut off whatever sharp remark was pending from the Stormcloak side. 

“Richest gold mine in Skyrim. Now the Forsworn have that too,” bit out the Legate.

Leara cast a brief glance at the seething Stormcloaks. “Let me see if I understand this correctly: Because the Stormcloaks failed to take these places and the Imperials couldn’t hold them, the Forsworn came in and took over.” She sniffed, “Perhaps I should be negotiating with the Forsworn then.”

“Try if you like, but they’ll betray you as soon as your back is turned.” A storm darkened Ulfric’s face.

“Aye,” said Galmar. 

“Both sides want compensation for grievances dealt by the other,” Master Arngeir said. “The Imperials wish to recoup the losses from Karthwasten and Kolskeggr Mine, while the Stormcloaks seek retribution for the massacre of Dunstad Grove.”

“That’s fair,” said the Dragonborn, tone placid. “Seeing as both sides demand compensation from the other, the clear solution would be for both sides to nullify their claim.”

General Tullius actually groaned. “So, that’s it. You’ve dragged us across Skyrim for a social call.”

“On the contrary, General, I believe we’ve accomplished quite a lot here today.”

That was it, Elisif realized. There was nothing left to bargain for, and they couldn’t leave without agreeing to the truce, or else every military leader here would look like a fool. She wondered what Falk would think of it, then decided that her steward would grumble and say there’d be no need for her to leave Haafingar and the safety of Solitude after all. Falk and Bolgeir were always concerned about her leaving the palace, even with Bolgeir’s steady protection. Their fears of a Stormcloak assassin striking out at her in the streets of Solitude crept into her heart, coiling there with biting surety. But for all her fears of being killed during the war, Elisif was afraid of surviving it. She was afraid of what would happen to her if Ulfric was elected High King, and she was there to see it. She was afraid of the aftermath. 

She was afraid that the cost of a lasting peace would mean selling her hand in marriage to her husband’s killer. 

Except, now, Elisif began to wonder if that was a transaction Ulfric would even entertain. Often, his eyes would flit to the Dragonborn, following her as she settled the terms of the treaty. The near-constant glare Elisif had kept directed at the Stormcloaks for the duration of the conference eased, and she wondered. If the Dragonborn could bend the wills of the war leaders to her own for a temporary and non-invasive truce, what else could she do? 

“I believe we may have an agreement. General Tullius, Jarl Ulfric, these are the terms presently on the table: The Stormcloaks will forgive the compensation owed them by the Empire for the massacre at Dunstad Grove, and in return, the Empire will forgive the compensation owed for the losses at Karthwasten and Kolskggr Mine.” Master Arngeir gave them both a look as if challenging either of them to raise new objections. “You both agree to this?”

Leaning forward, Ulfric braced his arms against the table. “The sons of Skyrim will live up to their agreements.” His glare sought Tullius. “As long as the Imperials hold to theirs.” 

Tullius worked his jaw. “The Empire can live with these terms, yes, for a temporary truce until the dragon menace is dealt with.” He stood, then, leaned forward as he added, “After that, there will be a reckoning, Ulfric. Count on it.”

Ulfric Stormcloak barred his teeth, a silent threat, and Elisif shuddered. 

Then, her husband’s murderer’s attention fell on her. “You should be pleased, Elisif. You've done well for yourself as the Empire's pet Jarl. But beware! The Empire's loyalty is fickle. They will tire of this war, and then I will be the one dictating terms to you.” His punctuating smirk was as final as a period.

“I have nothing to say to that murderer,” hissed Elisif, turning up her nose.

“Jarl Ulfric, General Tullius, come ratify this treaty for me, please,” Leara said, cool voice cutting the heat. 

Out from under the shadow of Ulfric’s storm clouds, Elisif breathed a sigh of relief. 

As much as she wanted the Dragonborn to defeat Alduin the World-Eater and save all of those poor souls in Sovngarde, Elisif hoped that she would also be able to curtail any more warfare from Ulfric’s quarter. Skyrim needed Leara. They needed her desperately.

·•★•·

Rubbing her eyes, Leara fell back into one of the chairs in the Greybeards’ small library. The peace talks exhausted her. For a while, she’d worried things would devolve into aggressive negotiations. But thank Mara and her many mercies, she actually got through the ordeal unscathed! Or as unscathed as she could be after giving such a heartfelt speech and strong-arming Ulfric and Tullius into agreeing to a temporary peace without splintering Skyrim and destabilizing its peoples further. All while wearing the invisible corset of anxiety that Elenwen so effectively tied her in. Persuasion and perseverance under pressure were nothing new to her, but, gods, the carry-through was far more draining than she remembered.

Well, Bishop would be surprised, she decided. He didn’t think she could it off, but she had, and now there was peace. A temporary and fickle peace, but it was enough to satisfy Balgruuf. As they’d left the hall to return to their own parties, the Jarl of Whiterun pulled her aside and commended her for her efforts. “For a while there, I didn’t think we would make it through,” he said quietly.

“Neither did I,” Leara found herself admitting. “But I’m glad it worked it.”

“It won’t hold for long,” Balgruuf cautioned her. “This ceasefire of yours rests on you. The armies won’t march on Whiterun if the dragon becomes more than we can handle, but they won’t rest their heels long. They don’t have the incentive. If the World-Eater isn’t taken care of soon, their goodwill will run dry.”

“I know,” Leara said, watching the legionnaires trail after Jarl Elisif and her housecarl. “Tullius isn’t as submissive to Jarl Elisif’s will as Ulfric may believe.” She peered at Balgruuf from the corner of her eye. “He answers directly to the Emperor. If Titus Mede tells him to jump, Tullius will ask how high. If the Empire doesn’t think it needs Skyrim’s trust, they’ll settle for taming her through other means.”

Balgruuf looked surprised. “You sound bitter.”

“I prefer realistic.” She sighed and stopped walking. Balgruuf hung back, waving his guards forward. If Irileth were here, she’d have a guar. “This war is a sideshow to the politicians in the Imperial City,” Leara said quietly. “The Emperor is more concerned with holding the southern border against the Dominion.” She glanced over her shoulder, keenly aware that the Dominion was there in High Hrothgar. Balgruuf nodded, grave. “That is where the Legion’s strength is massed. But the Thalmor know this. If—when the next war comes, and it will come, they will use Skyrim as a staging ground. The civil war is just a means for clearing the way.”

“How do you know?” Balgruuf asked.

Because it made sense, she thought. While Skyrim wasn’t in their plans when she was a member of the Aldmeri Dominion, she knew how they worked. The Thalmor were more opportunistic than anyone in the Merchants Guild could ever dream of being, and the destabilization of the North was an opportunity if ever there was one. “They’re sharks,” she said at last. “Skyrim is full of blood, and when everyone is dead or dying, the Dominion will gorge. They will take the Empire from its weakest point, and that will be it.” 

Balgruuf believed her, though she knew he was reluctant to. She painted a dark landscape. But twice upon a time, he asked her to join his court as a thane, and though Leara refused, she knew in part that he must value her perspective to a point. 

She mulled over this as she sat in the library, a collection of venerations to Kyne cracked open and unread on her lap. Now that she’d thought about the Dominion taking a destabilized Skyrim, she couldn’t escape it. 

But that was a concern for later. Her present worries needed to be concentrated on Alduin and the Dragonsreach plan. 

And Elenwen. 

“Ah, there you are! I’ve been looking for you!”

Starting, Leara breathed a sigh of mixed relief and exasperation when she saw it was just Esbern. Standing just inside the door, his attention roved the shelves and scroll boxes lining the walls. The room was a trove of knowledge dating back to the Battle of Red Mountain in the First Era. Many of the texts Leara couldn’t read as they were written in Old Nordic, but she had no doubt that Esbern could work his way through them as easily as any of the Greybeards. It was truly unfortunate that the Blades and the Greybeards couldn’t put aside their old strife and share in knowledge, though Leara had a sneaking suspicion that much of the information found in Sky Haven Temple would be of little use to the Greybeards. Some of it, she was sure, they would outright repudiate. 

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Esbern said.

“Not at all,” Leara half-lied, shutting the book in her lap. She didn’t bother marking the page. She wouldn’t be coming back. “Where’s Delphine?” she asked, noticing the woman’s absence for the first time.

It should’ve been obvious when the quiet atmosphere of the archive wasn’t disturbed by Delphine’s tension. 

“She’s in the courtyard, practicing her katas.”

“I’m glad to know she at least learned something during training.”

“Elanor, please,” Esbern’s sigh was heavy. “Why must you and Delphine be so at odds? We only have the three of us. We cannot afford to fight each other.” 

“Does she understand that?” 

Esbern dragged a withered hand down his face. “Delphine’s will is strong.”

“I know.” And she wouldn’t accept any opinion but hers, either. “But so is mine.” Leara didn’t go through years of exposure to the Thalmor’s indoctrination and come through with her person intact for her to surrender to Delphine now. 

A fond smile peaked through the old Blade’s tiredness. “That reminds me,” he said, a spark of his once-familiar excitement popping to life. “I wanted to ask about your katana.”

Her katana . . . “Didn’t you ask me about it before? In Sky Haven?”

“Yes, we discussed it briefly,” he said, taking a seat in one of the other chairs. “But I still have questions. I know you’re tired, but satisfy an old man’s curiosity, eh?”

“All right,” Leara resigned herself. It’s not that she never wanted to talk to Esbern. As a young Knight Sister, she was quite fond of the chronicler who kept the records and histories of the Blades. She recalled on occasion when he would instruct the younger apprentices and acolytes in their Order’s lore. It was from Esbern that Leara learned most of what she knew about Tiber Septim and the founding of the Third Empire. But that was a long time ago, and after today, her patience was wearing thin. Most Blades lorekeepers didn’t encourage apprentices to read something like The Arcturian Heresy. There would be time enough to entertain Esbern’s questions when she returned to Sky Haven Temple—if she survived Alduin. 

Putting up with Delphine would be a real pain in the—

“The Altmeris runes on the blade, those aren’t the only mark your katana bears, are they?” 

Leara blinked, then shifted. “Why?”

Esbern leaned forward, hands grasping the clawed arms of his chair. The intensity in his face made Leara want to squirm. “You said your great-grandmother was a Knight Sister during the Oblivion Crisis.”

“Yes.”

“Is there another glyph or symbol on her katana?”

Lips pinched, Leara nodded, short and to the point. “On the pommel,” she relented. “There is a rose, engraved and set with red enamel. It was a personal symbol, or so I was told.”

“I wonder what it meant.”

“I don’t know. It was important to my great-grandmother, but it was nothing I ever knew about.”

Esbern studied her. “What was her name?”

Her name? Why was he so fixated on her mother’s grandmother? She cast back into her memory, seeking a name amidst the dusty remembrances of the Breton countryside and her aunt’s kitchen, of magic lessons and whispering voices. Pastries and Spellcraft. There was a day, she recalled, before her mother left, when she never saw her again. She insisted she was being hunted, but Aunt didn’t believe her. Who or what was after Maman, Leara was never told. She didn’t even know if her aunt and uncle knew. But she remembered her grandmother, pale in her rocking chair, muttering that Marelen was just like her grandmother: She courted Death, and he drove her mad. “Avarin,” she said at length. “Her name was Avarin Racuvarla.”

“Starfall.”

“That’s the common translation, yes.”

Esbern sat back, his face aged and drawn. Something haunted him. Something besides Alduin and the years of ridicule he received for believing in prophecies that others condemned as fairytales. Whatever it was, it was serious. More serious than even the dragons, Leara realized. And that scared her. Horrified her to a level that before was reached only by Elenwen and the Thalmor. 

“During the Oblivion Crisis,” Esbern began, oblivious to the tension and terror twisting Leara’s insides, “There were few active Altmer agents in Cyrodiil. None were named Avarin.”

“I never said she—”

“In the annals, the name Racuvarla was recorded once when she took the Blades’ Oath during Frostfall following Uriel Septim VII’s assassination in Last Seed.” Esbern’s grip on the chair arms was white, hard. An eager light shown in his face, but Leara couldn’t stand to look at it. She shrunk into her seat. “That Knight Sister was Avarenya. You have the Hero of Kvatch’s katana. Which means . . .”

Then he trailed off.

Bile bubbled up her throat. She swallowed once, twice. Her chest burned. “Esbern, stop.”

“Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?” Getting to his feet, Esbern began to pace the room. “It makes sense now. Everything about you, the prophecy, it all has clicked together to form a full mosaic. It’s extraordinary! It’s a miracle!”

Fisting her hands in her skirt, Leara felt the enchantment from the Black Band scorch her skin, searing her veins and boiling her blood. Please. Stop. Don’t continue where she feared to tread. 

“It’s in your eyes, in your soul!” Still, Esbern rambled on. “The truth is plain as day now. It was no secret that she was devoted to him. Some theories even suggest they were in love. But the truth remains that if she hadn’t been an exile, it was more than likely the Elder Council would have encouraged the match! But we could never have known they were so close. Yet now it makes sense: Those were dark times, and the end of the world was at hand. Then, when it was saved, he was dead, and she left. She left, and now you are here.”

Disconnect resonated in her chest, pushing her soul beyond the confines of her anxiety and the nauseous acid within. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to control her breathing. Feim. Zii. But the course of the day had already abused her poor lungs nearly to collapse. It was all she could do to maintain her composure.

Feim. Zii. Fade. Spirit.

She sucked in a breath. Then another. “Speak plainly.”

“Your great-grandfather was Martin Septim.”

Martin Septim. The Dragonborn Emperor and last of the Septim bloodline. 

Except apparently not. 

“Was he?” Her voice was faint.

“I see it now in your eyes,” said Esbern. “They are the same Rumare blue as the Septim Emperors. There is no life without water, and Lake Rumare is the life of Cyrodiil. The Septims kept their throne on the Imperial Isle, and they were the life of the Empire. You are the life of the Empire.”

To her astonishment and mounting horror, the old Blade bowed before her. “Esbern!”

“You are the heir to the Septims,” he said. “If things were as they should be, you would be Empress of Tamriel.”

Leara pressed a hand to her mouth. 

“But the world is full of peril now, and you can no more claim your birthright than the Blades can return to Cloud Ruler Temple.” His voice rang in mourning that Leara couldn’t help but echo, but surely for different reasons. Here, at this moment, she longed for the simplicity of her days as a Knight Sister more than she desired anything else in her life.

“What would you have me do?” Leara thought she sounded far away. No, she sounded like someone else entirely. 

“Do?” echoed Esbern. “There is nothing you can do but continue toward your destiny. But this changes everything for the Blades! Once again, there is a Septim to protect, and when the dragon menace is taken care of, we must return to that mandate.”

Her soul teetered between astral flight and smothering under her flesh and bone. “Air, I need air.” 

Esbern blinked, as if seeing her for the first time. Mara’s mercy. “I see that you had no prior knowledge of any of this.”

“No,” was her thin reply.

“Extraordinary,” he mumbled, teetering on the edge of a sea of lost thought. “This must be a great deal for you to take in.”

“A bit.”

“I’ll leave you to take it in, then,” he said. “The Greybeards have taught you meditation, yes? We may be at odds over certain issues, but we can still agree that meditation is good for the soul.” He made as if to pat her hand, then, thinking against it, bowed a second time. Leara was floating, anyway. Or she felt like it. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Elanor Septim,” he muttered this last to himself as he left the library, awe sparkling from him. 

Leara doubled over, her arms wrapping around her, trying to hold herself together. The grip on her shoulders was so hard that her fingers ached. The frostbite burned anew as if it had never healed. She wasn’t just the Last Dragonborn, she was the heir to the Dragonborn Emperors. She was a Septim. Gasping, she drew her legs into her chair, loosening her hold just enough to readjust her arms around her knees. Then, they were pulled tightly into her chest. She wanted to be small, so small that she’d float away unnoticed like a dust mote in the air. But she couldn’t. Oh, she couldn’t!

She had a destiny to live up to. Not only was she to fulfill the prophecy of the Last Dragonborn, but now the mantle of the Septims fitted itself to her shoulders, weighing her down and making her more real and present than she’d ever been. 

What did she do with this information? How did it serve anyone? What would she be expected to do now that she was not only heir to Tiber Septim’s calling as Dragonborn, but to his Empire?

If people knew, would she be assassinated?

Ariella, assassinated. Geldall, assassinated. Enman, assassinated. Ebel, assassinated. Calaxes, bastard that he was, was assassinated by the Imperial Guard for threatening rebellion! Their father, Uriel VII, was assassinated before the Blades’ very eyes. Beyond them, back throughout history, assassination and insurrection defined the Septim Emperors. For all that their Dragonblood kept the Princes of Oblivion at bay, politicians didn’t care. Seldom did they take religion seriously, and when they did, it often turned to heretical and cultish practices. Hadn’t she touched on this during the peace conference? Even if her Dragon Soul helped her guard the world against Alduin’s maw, as soon as she inconvenienced an important figure or got in the way of some upstart’s plans, she would fall as easily to the assassin’s blade as any of her ancestors. 

She couldn’t stand for that. Martin, last and greatest of the Septims, he didn’t fall because he stood in the way of someone’s machinations. He faced the Daedric Prince of Destruction for the good of Tamriel and sacrificed himself to seal the liminal barrier once and for all. If it was from Martin Septim’s line that she sprouted, maybe she should fall in her battle with the World-Eater. Better than being taken by the Thalmor and killed by Elenwen for her defiance. 

It sounded eerily like Kintyra II and the War of the Red Diamond. 

All illusions of choice shattered like brittle fish scales from before her eyes. She was a Septim. She was going to die. She was destined to die.

She was a Septim.

When the first tear fell, she couldn’t stop the others that followed.

·•★•·

Her arms ached when he pried their death grip from around her knees. 

“Stop, stop,” she choked, chest too full and heavy and tight and—

“No can do, sweetness. You’ve been hiding in here for over an hour,” said Bishop.

“I want to hide!”

“Hey, you’ve been crying,” his rough fingers brushed as the still-present tears gathered under her lashes. Leara jerked back, but his other hand on her shoulder held her in place. “I’d’ve thought you’d be as pleased as a queen since your little peace plan seems to have worked and all.”

A shudder rocked Leara’s body. “I am pleased, but I, I.”

“Is it because that Thalmor bitch spoke to you?”

A tremor ran through her limbs, whether from stiffness or fear, she wasn’t sure. It was likely both. Prickling along her skin sent the fine hairs on her arms and neck standing on end. The whiff of ozone stung her nose. “What are you talking about?” She was hoarse.

She needed water.

“You don’t have to hide from me, darling. I saw you together.” Bishop’s tone was almost gentle. “Is that the reason you keep refusing me? Do you want to be dominated? Because I promise you, sweetness, I can dominate you in ways she could only dream of. Unless . . .”

Leara could only shake her head, fresh tears and new terror swelling inside her. Pounding started up a long drone at her temple. 

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women who think real pleasure can only come from another woman.” The gentleness was gone. His hands grasped hers, crushing. Fragile nerves trembled and threatened to shatter in his hold. “C’mon, let me show you what real pleasure is! One night with a man like me, and you’ll forget that Thalmor bitch and all the lies she’s whispered in your ear.” He leaned toward her, and the memory of Elenwen’s breath on her ear, her lips on her skin, constricted Leara’s throat. She couldn’t breathe. “I can touch you in ways she couldn’t hope to, I can reach places inside you that no one else could find.”

Jerking, Leara’s chair went falling back. She was stunned only a moment before she scrambled away across the floor, her skirt tangling around her legs. Bishop, not expecting the chair to fall, stumbled forward with a shout. Leara shot a frantic look over her shoulder to see him catch himself on the upturned chair legs before he could faceplant the shelf in front of him.

Good, at least the books were safe.

“Damn it to Oblivion, woman!” Bishop rounded, eyes a poisonous fire, but Leara was already at the door, her back to the wood and her hand on the knob. Her heart was thundering so loudly that it was as if a storm had sprung up around High Hrothgar, threatening to tear it from the mountain. “When will you stop playing hard to get?” He stalked forward, every inch the hunter he claimed to be. 

She could only shake her head. Everything was swimming.

“Trust me, you’re going to want me, and when you see that, you’ll be all mine. That I can promise you!” He was almost upon her. “Never give a hunter a target, ladyship, and you’ve given me a pretty irresistible one.”

Shadows darkened Bishop’s eyes. Black spots fluttered across her vision. He was on top of her.

The knob twisted in her hand. The door disappeared, and she fell back into the hallway, scrambling away. But while Leara was faltering on her feet, Bishop was steady. Her heel caught on her skirt, and she went down.

White lightning, Bishop’s hands were on her arms, pulling her up and into his chest. 

“Am I stirring something inside of you, princess?” His voice rumbled in her ear, heavy, cloying. Princess? “Desire? Passion? I’ll gladly stir it some more until you give into it.”

“I don’t want it,” she choked out. 

“A hunter loves a challenge, sweetness.” Then his mouth was on her. “Hmm.” The moan in his chest was obscene. Leara’s knees buckled. Wind rushed in her ears. 

Wind rushed against her. She caught herself, her wrist jarring from the force.

“The woman said no, you bastard!”

Blinking, Leara stared up from a pool of silk and chiffon to see Ulfric Stormcloak looming overhead, the thunderclouds in his eyes were baring down on Bishop. Bishop, in turn, was against the opposite wall, one arm braced against the stone while his offhand clutched his shoulder. His jaw was tight, and the glare—a dagger couldn’t cut any deeper. Did, did Ulfric throw Bishop into the wall?

“Oh, piss off,” he sneered. 

But Ulfric did not “piss off.” He turned to Leara, crumpled on the ground. Akatosh, Mara, Kynareth, Divines. A red flush burned up her neck and across her cheeks. Mortification stirred every other ill feeling that accumulated in her bones since waking from her nightmare. Today was a nightmare.

To her eternal surprise and confusion, Ulfric didn’t walk away. He crouched before her, his eyes softening as he offered his hand to her. Stunned, Leara saw herself extend her left hand toward him. Her fingers curled around his. Ulfric’s hand was warm but not burning, not like the Black Band. At once, the ice lingering under her skin settled into a faint chill.

“What the Hell?” Bishop’s whine cut through. “Get off her!”

“So you can crawl back on her like a leech?” Ulfric growled back. Still, he cradled Leara’s hand in his. “She said no.”

“What do you know, old man?” Bishop sneered back. “Can you even get a woman off anymore? How’s your performance?”

Ulfric’s jaw was so tight, Leara was sure a vein would pop in his forehead. Yet she couldn’t speak. Her mouth moved, fishlike, and like a fish, she couldn’t breathe the air around her. No sound would come out. Bishop’s yammering was ringing in her eyes, but she no longer comprehended what he was saying. The tension was too much, the weight too heavy. Her lungs were so shriveled within the anxiety’s iron corset that she couldn’t draw air. 

Something in Ulfric’s face shifted, pulling his features. She tried to latch on, desperation flooding her veins. She wanted out, she needed out. A soundless sob burst out, stealing away any strength she had left. The first tear fell, and then another. 

Sound faded in and out as Ulfric took her other hand, cradling both her hands between his. She thought Bishop said something. Then Ulfric shot a half-heard, “Shut—” up? over his shoulder. Thunder raged in her chest, suffocating.

“Please,” she whispered, airless. 

Ulfric was saying something, but she couldn’t really understand him. A broken “safe” and “breathe” made it through, but her mind was too sluggish to make sense of it. 

Her veins began to burn.

“What is—on—”

Ulfric looked up in relief. 

Then Master Arngeir was beside Ulfric, and one of Leara’s hands was passed to him. She thought she heard him ask Ulfric what was wrong, but whatever he said, Leara heard it as if from underwater. Her tears were drowning her, flooding her lungs.

She wanted out, she wanted away.

Take me away. 

Feim. Zii.

“Paarthurnax,” she rasped. She thought she rasped. She thought.

A frown pinched Ulfric’s brows, but Master Arngeir simply nodded. “Jarl Ulfric—up.”

Ulfric’s arm slipped warm and heavy around her waist, and Leara found herself being drawn to her feet. Her knees wobbled, but Ulfric’s hold on her was steady. 

“Let me see her,” Master Arngeir said, drawing her other arm around his shoulder. Elevated between the two, she felt air trickle into her lungs. Feim.

Leara gasped, and the sobbing began in earnest. Zii.

A cloth was pressed to her face.

“Hush, child,” Master Arngeir murmured, wiping at the tears. “We will take you.”

Beside her, supporting the brunt of her weight—though there wasn’t that much there these days—Ulfric remained silent. Leara could sense the storm brewing in his presence, but for the first time, she wasn’t afraid that it was directed at her. 

·•★•·

A gentle hand shook her awake. 

Predawn was sweeping in across the sky, depthless midnights touched here and there with the golden pinks of pending morning, mixing in a dappled grey and bruising violet off toward the west. It wasn’t yet half after four in the morning. 

Blinking in a slow haze, Leara peered up to find Master Arngeir standing over her, a frown set on his weathered face. 

“Are you well, child?” he asked, worry set around his mouth. Leara supposed she’d worry too if the prophesied hero she’d had to nurse back to health went and froze to death on the back porch before fulfilling her destiny. If her face wasn’t numb with cold, Leara imagined she’d have blushed with shame. 

“I’m all right,” she whispered. She wasn’t, but it was fine.

Master Arngeir’s frown deepened, probably because he wasn’t foolish enough to take her words at face value. He offered her a hand, and after a moment, Leara took it. Some other time, she may have been alarmed by how easily the elderly Greybeard pulled her up, but she already knew she hadn’t been eating well since long before Solitude. Maybe since before Mirmulnir. She wasn’t sure anymore. “Good morning.”

“Let us hope it will be,” said Arngeir, grim. “There are many hours still before our guests arrive, but there is much to prepare.” His hand on her shoulder, her teacher guided her back toward the monastery. 

An early breeze swirled the edges of her blanket, brushing her bare legs. Leara cast a longing look to the mountain peak, hidden as it was by clouds and the vanishing night. Her gaze fell, and she found Master Arngeir watching her, knowing. 

“It isn’t forbidden for you to make the climb whenever you wish,” he told her.

“I was worried he was sleeping,” she blurted, not willing or able to admit the exhaustion gnawing her limbs, rooting her to the earth when she sought the sky. “Have you ever seen a sleeping dragon?”

To her surprise, Master Arngeir laughed. Full of the same light, wry amusement she could almost recall in her grandfather’s voice from her earliest childhood memories. “I imagine that even dragons must rest sometimes.”

Good, maybe when this was over (if she was even there when it ended), she could rest, too.

·•★•·

Master Borri spied the Imperial and Stormcloak delegations coming around the curve of the mountain near noon. They were maybe around half a mile apart from each other, neither party daring to get too close to the other. Each was mounted with additional guards and pack horses. Amid the snow and ever-present ice on stone, it was a slow climb to the monastery. 

Even from the table where Leara sat with a light lunch of dried berries and herbal tea, she could feel the tension growing like a tightening bowstring. Or perhaps a noose, growing tight around her throat as she fell through the gallows—

No, she would not think like that! This was an opportunity, a hope to forge peace – if not a lasting peace, then perhaps a peace that could pave the way for a stronger, more steady solution down the road. Skyrim was in turmoil, and if she could in any way soothe the gash made by the Civil War while tending the burns from dragon’s fire, then she would do her best. As Dragonborn, she could only succeed or die trying.

Of course, it was as impending death crept back into her mind that Bishop finally made his appearance. Yawning and stretching, he gave his side an absent scratch as he sauntered over to Leara’s little table. Snagging a fistful of berries off her plate, he threw them back, chomping down with a short cough.

Leara winced behind her teacup. “Lovely for you to grace us with your presence.”

Beside the table where he was gnawing on a cow bone, Karnwyr grunted.

Bishop burped. “Took me forever to get comfortable on that damn cot,” he grunted. He plopped into the chair across from Leara and reached for her plate. 

She smacked his knuckles. “Oi! Let off! You snooze, you lose!”

“Please, woman, I catch most of the food you eat!” Bishop snorted. 

Leara withdrew her plate from the table, holding the remaining fruit out of Bishop’s reach. “I’m afraid you don’t have time to filch off my plate. You need to get ready!”

“Ready for what?” he asked, wiping crust from his eye.

A grimace twisted Leara’s mouth. Bishop was a frightful sight: His hair stuck out in nearly every direction, and his night clothes were in equal disarray. She was glad none of the Greybeards were there at the moment to see him. As dignified as they were, Bishop was just as frightfully embarrassing to look at. 

“The delegations will be here within a half hour or so. We need to be ready to open the doors and get the peace talks underway.”

Bishop flapped his hand in mimicry of her talking. Leara pursed her lips in a tight line. “This little tea party of yours has nothing to do with me, sweetness. It's all you and the old windbags, thinking you can get everyone in Skyrim to kiss and make nice.”

Leara ate a berry, grinding the semisweet fruit into shreds. 

“What are you going to do?” he went on. He pushed the chair back on its rear legs and leaned against the wall, his arms behind his head. “Are General Troll Face and the Stormdrain going to sit around the campfire and braid your hair? Will you do each other’s nails and makeup, too?” He leered at her, “Can I watch?”

Silently, Leara drained her teacup. Then she set it down. “You will not make a fool of me in front of them,” she said, voice cold. 

“Me? Make a fool of you? No, darling, you do that all on your own!” Bishop laughed. “What are you even trying to accomplish here, anyway? Because you sure as Hell aren’t going to establish a lasting peace between those two warmongers.”

Scooping the rest of the berries into her hands, Leara restrained the urge the throw them at Bishop’s head. Instead, she dropped them one by one into her mouth, methodical. She was too tired for this. So little sleep and such a long time before she could try to get more. The day stretched miles onward in front of her, but her patience with Bishop was growing desperately short. She was done tiptoeing around him.

“I’m trapping a dragon in Dragonsreach.”

Then she walked away, the clatter of a falling chair and broken pottery behind her. 

·•★•·

Leara was careful to avoid Bishop in the intervening time before the Imperials and Stormcloaks arrived. After leaving him in a spluttering mess of chairs and pottery shards, she’d disappeared into her cell. Her blue gown hung on the wardrobe where she left it the night before, freshened and primed for the council. Wearing armor to conduct peace talks didn’t sit right with her, so the blue dress it was. Running her fingers, still tinged pink from frostbite, over the lace, something in her chest loosened. She made it this far. She could do this.

She had to.

Once dressed, she went to stand in the foyer of High Hrothgar, her hair carefully pinned and her hands folded before her. Nerves ran electric up her arms and around her ribs, but she pushed it away. She had to. This was for Skyrim. Her discomfort wasn’t even worth considering.

The heavy doors opened, and she heard Master Arngeir greet Ulfric Stormcloak and his party. Leara’s hand tightened over her rings, the enchanted bands biting into her skin. Master Arngeir said something. Ulfric replied, his voice humming against the stones. They exchanged words that she couldn’t understand, but she remained in place. 

The thump of heavy footsteps came down the corridor, and then Ulfric Stormcloak entered the hall beside Master Arngeir. His gaze wandered over everything but her, for which she was almost grateful. Let her be a backdrop. He was taking in the ancient stones and carvings that formed High Hrothgar. Oh, yes, he lived here once, didn’t he? He was supposed to be a Greybeard a long time ago. Before the war. Odd that that slipped her mind. She needed to remain focused. It wouldn’t do for her memory or attention to slip during the peace talks. Things were tense enough as it was without her issues getting in the way. Leara swallowed, her eyes trailing from the Jarl to his party. There weren’t many of them in reality, just Ulfric, one of his generals – Galmar, wasn’t it? – and some guards. A few carried bundles of supplies on their backs; these followed Master Borri into the west wing, where the parties would be housed in empty cells for the night. The couple that remained stood near to their Jarl’s back. 

A blond head caught her eye, and Leara blinked. Then, a genuine smile blossomed over her face. 

“Ralof!”

All heads turned toward her, and Leara’s ears grew warm as she realized that, yes, she did call out her friend’s name. Her smile curved bashfully as one of the other guards elbowed Ralof, snickering. Ralof gave her a jaunty wave, and she relaxed. 

“Ah, Dragonborn,” Ulfric Stormcloak began. He stepped forward, his attention on her. “It seems your efforts have paid off.”

“That remains to be seen, Jarl Ulfric,” she said. She squeezed her rings, the black band hot. Meeting his eyes was incredibly difficult, especially after the incident with Bishop in the Windhelm Jail. Mara’s mercies, she managed it, if only because of the iron stiffening her neck and spine. “Thank you for making the trip.”

“You made a convincing argument. I’m hoping your position at the negotiation table will be as credible.” He didn’t appear quite as hard as before, but Leara remained on guard. 

“I hope not to disappoint.” 

The General, Galmar, grunted. Leara recalled how he initially scoffed at the idea of the peace council, though he gave Ulfric his support when the Jarl asked for it. She found herself glad that Ulfric brought him and not the other general, Yrsarald. Both were opinionated, yet Galmar gave the impression of being a little deeper in thought than Yrsarald. “Make it worth our time, then. The road from Windhelm was too long for us to come here to be made fools of.”

Leara’s smile was thin. “I wouldn’t dream of it, General.”

Beside them, Master Arngeir held out his hand. “Dragonborn, if you would, perhaps it is time to show Ulfric and his party to the meeting hall.”

“Of course, Master,” Leara bowed her head. “Please follow me.” 

Up the steps and down the wide stone hallway, she led them, Ulfric and Galmar at her shoulder and the guards behind. This close to Ulfric, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Did any escape her bun? She’d need to duck out and get another pin before they opened up the peace talks. Maybe two, just to be sure. 

“Well, Dragonborn, I trust there will be a point to all this,” commented Ulfric.

Leara cleared her throat. “We haven’t discussed the terms yet, Jarl Ulfric. You may not like them. Besides, General Tullius isn’t even here yet.”

“He can take his time getting here,” Galmar scoffed. “Damn faithless Imperials. Can’t even get to a meeting on time.” 

One of the guards chuckled. Ulfric’s wry face caught in her peripheral. Leara stared resolutely ahead. “They should be here fairly soon. Only, their party is larger than yours,” she said. “It’s slower going on the steps with so many.”

“Aye, too many. They can’t go anywhere without their Thalmor handlers holding the leash, and Talos knows those elves are dragging their feet every step up this mountain.”

The Thalmor . . .?

If Ulfric and Galmar hadn’t been at her back, Leara would’ve frozen in place. As it was, her knees wobbled, threatening to buckle under her. The Thalmor? She shoved her right foot forward, continuing her walk down the corridor. The Thalmor were coming? Electricity stung the too-raw nerves of her hands, biting and itching under the skin as it crawled up her arms. The Thalmor were coming. Anxiety and lightning gathered in her chest, burning and binding. 

Elenwen. 

There was the door to the meeting hall. It was a wide, low-ceilinged room with a large round table dominating the center. Its shape rather resembled a horseshoe, with a low hearth burning between the table’s arms. It was empty: Master Einarth had gone to help Master Wulfgar with the delegations’ animals. “If you’ll please be seated on this side,” she said, indicating the left. To her ears, her voice was high away and cool, lost in the clouds her head was threatening to dive through. “Would you care for some mead?”

“Yes, if you please,” Ulfric said. He was watching her. He knew. He knew. He knew—

“For me as well.”

“Right,” Leara nodded. “I’ll be back.” She turned and left. 

But barely had she stepped into the hallway when a large hand slipped around her arm, encircling her small wrist. Panic seized Leara’s heart, squeezing harder and tighter than before. She whirled around, free hand freezing over with frost magic. 

. . . and then it dispersed just as quickly. 

“By Shor, you’re still as flighty as a pine thrush!”

“Ralof!” Leara scoffed and swatted his arm. But the relief that eased her heart and muscles was visible in the small smile she shot her friend. 

“I figured you might want some help,” Ralof shrugged. 

“Sure!” 

Her arm linked with Ralof’s, Leara guided him down the monastery corridors to the kitchen. High Hrothgar was ancient: From what Leara understood, the monastery once housed dozens of disciples and students to Jurgen Windcaller’s Way of the Voice, as well as masters of the Voice and clever arts (or whatever it was the Old Nords called their magic). It was an old building, very cold, but made of a sturdy dark stone that blurred the building’s silhouette from afar during snowfall. It was tranquil and distant, far apart from the world below and full of peace. Despite the turmoil twisting in her soul over her destiny, High Hrothgar held in its walls a centered grounding that reminded Leara of her youth at Cloud Ruler Temple. Reminiscent, but calmer and heavier, too. Heavier with the weight of the world. Leara couldn’t help but hope that the Imperial and Stormcloak delegations would feel some of that peace mingled with purpose when they met at the negotiator’s table. 

“How have you been?” she asked Ralof. 

“I can’t complain. No more near executions, so I’ve had that going for me,” he laughed. His golden hair and sunshine smile were a bright spot in the dim halls. “Can’t believe I’m actually here at High Hrothgar. But you’re used to it now, right?”

“Hardly,” Leara echoed his laughter. 

Ralof grinned, “It’s hard to believe that scrawny elfling from Helgen turned out to be the Dragonborn.” 

There’s a good-natured disbelief in his voice that reassured her. Ralof’s was a genuine and kind character. Without him, she’d have never made it out of Helgen. His company on the road to Riverwood and the invaluable aid his family gave her once they got into town were vital components to her journey into Skyrim, without which she would have been in dire straits. Leara smiled softly. She’d missed Ralof. “Yeah, it really is.”

Earlier, Master Einarth had set a pot of spiced mead on the hearth to warm. It was meant to be served when both parties were present, but Leara needed space from the anxiety of Ulfric and the Thalmor pressing into her lungs. A platter of goblets sat on the heavy wooden table that served as both a counter and dinner table. Passing these, Leara took up the ladle to gauge the mead’s temperature. 

“I don’t mean to pry—”

“You do a little bit.”

Ralof chuckled. “All right, perhaps I do. But what is this meeting about? How is peace going to stop the World-Eater?”

Her hands stalled their stirring. “Did Jarl Ulfric tell you it was Alduin at Helgen?”

“Aye, he did.”

“Ah.”

“Leara,” Ralof hesitated, “what are you planning?”

She pressed her lips together, hard. Was it only over an hour ago that she fired the answer off in Bishop’s face? Her throat tightened. She’d need to get a hold of herself before the meeting began.

“I need to go to Sovngarde,” she whispered to the hearth. 

“What?”

“I—” Am going to die. “Need to trap—” A dragon, a live dragon. “I need to use Dragonsreach. Peace is Jarl Balgruuf’s price.”

Large hands gently pried the ladle from her brittle fingers. Ralof hooked it on the pot’s handle. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” he said, not unkindly. “I’d just like to know you’re taking care of yourself. You look tired.”

“Thanks,” she laughed, but it wasn’t as full as before. “I’m fine, really.” She wasn’t, but she would be. She had to.

Carrying the platter of goblets, Leara led Ralof back to the meeting hall. Entering, she found Ulfric already seated at the table, a frown creasing his face. It smoothed out when he looked up at her, a cloud passing from in front of the sun, but Leara could only offer a small smile in return. Galmar stood beside him, talking lowly, though, on Leara and Ralof’s entrance, he went silent. Akatosh, please let me make it to Sovngarde. If she was to die, it’d be far more beneficial for everyone if she did so while defeating Alduin rather than if Ulfric exacted revenge for her Thalmor past and her role in the war. 

“We’ve prepared spiced mead,” Leara explained, gesturing for Ralof to set the pot on the stone sideboard rather than the hearth. Best to keep it out from the middle of the potential battleground. Lips pursed, she cast a subtle warming rune on the bottom of the pot to keep the mead hot. She took a goblet from the platter and ladled it full of mead, then she faced the table. The guards were watching her, and Galmar, his arms crossed, was eyeing her, too. Was Skyrim much like High Rock? It was better to be safe than sorry. She brought the goblet to her mouth and swallowed a mouthful. Master Einarth’s spice blend was warm and comforting and left her chest warm for a blissful moment. 

Then she handed the goblet to Galmar, and the feeling was gone. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, gruff. 

“It’s not poisoned,” she replied. 

“Why would it be poisoned?” 

“Galmar, don’t torture the woman,” Ulfric said, sitting sideways in his chair so as to face his general. 

The grin that curved across Galmar’s face ruffled his mustache and crinkled his eyes. “I’m only putting her through her paces.”

Leara tried to muster a light smile, but she was sure it looked like a grimace. “Perhaps that’s best left for the peace talk.”

“Perhaps,” Ulfric said, accepting the goblet from Galmar. 

Perhaps. Leara nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to be ready to greet the other delegation.”

“Of course,” Ulfric lifted his goblet. 

Skirts brushing around her ankles, Leara forced herself to walk sedately from the room. Ralof shot her a quick, reassuring look, and some of the renewed tension in her chest eased. Once in the corridor, her shoulders dropped, and she heaved a sigh.

“Having fun playing hostess?”

“As much as I can, I suppose.”

Bishop pushed off from the wall, his arms crossed over his chest and his face dark. “We need to talk about this circus of yours.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Aside from the litany of issues she needed to address this afternoon alone. 

He followed her down the hall. “You want to trap a dragon in a damn castle, and for what? So, you can fly off into the sunset and die?”

“That’s not why, and you know it.”

Bishop caught her wrist in his. His hands were harder than Ralof’s. “You know why I worry about you, woman. You know why—urgh!”

Resigned, Leara came to a halt. “Bishop, please. Whatever concerns you have, can we please discuss them after the meeting? I’m pressed for time now.”

“You sure as Hell weren’t pressed for time when you were avoiding me all morning,” Bishop grumbled. “All right, fine. Have it your way. But when they hang you out to dry because even your demands are too much for those egomaniacs, don’t come crying to me!”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

Pulling her wrist from Bishop’s grip, Leara continued down the hall. She wasn’t surprised when, a moment later, his footsteps echoed after her. 

“Where’s Karnwyr?” she asked.

“In your room, out of the way.”

Oh. That was probably meant to be considerate. Still, she missed the wolf’s comforting presence by her side. 

“I saw you getting friendly with that guard. What was that about? You taking in any man who bounds after you like a lost puppy, or do you just prefer blonds?”

“What, Ralof?” Her head twinged. Lovely, on top of the discomfort from sleeping outside, she was gearing up for a headache. “He was helping me with the mead. Which, by the way, I didn’t see you offer to do.”

Bishop barked a laugh. “Me? Serve mead to the Stormdrain himself? Listen, sweetness, you and the old windbags can play political nursemaids all you want, but I’m not getting involved.”

Not getting involved, her right hip! Bishop had done nothing but insert himself in her business since she met him! And, all right, she did allow him to after the entire Blackreach incident, but still. His definition of non-involvement was clearly from a different dictionary than hers. And it was wrong. 

She moved to tell him so, then paused. A familiar voice caught on her ear, and Leara spun, her eyes blown wide. “By Akatosh.”

“Now what is it?”

Ignoring Bishop’s question, Leara lifted her skirts and hurried down the corridor. She rounded the corner, only to freeze at the top of the stairs, a confused Bishop at her heels. There, in the foyer, were precisely who she didn’t want to see standing in the middle of the Greybeards’ home. 

Delphine and Esbern. 

The Thalmor were coming. The Blades were here. Ulfric Stormcloak was down the hall.

Nausea rolled in her stomach. She swallowed hard, her throat dry. Her attempts to keep the Blades and the Greybeards apart in the course of her destiny were in vain. Delphine would figure out how much she sympathized with the Greybeards’ philosophies over those of the Dragonguard that Delphine sought to restore, and Arngeir, Arngeir would learn of her red past as a Blade, and the Greybeards would banish her from High Hrothgar. The sanctuary at the top of the mountain would be lost. Paarthurnax’s guidance would be lost. She was going to be ill. She couldn’t afford to be. Akatosh.

Master Arngeir towered over Delphine, though he stood eye to eye with Esbern. For a peace-loving monk, he looked ready to toss the two Blades out on their rear ends—violently. “You were not invited here. You are not welcome here."

Delphine was dressed in Akaviri armor; prim and put together, she looked every inch the Knight-Sister. Conversely, Esbern was in warm wool, making no distinction toward his affiliation to the Blades. But his Thalmor dossier aside, his association with Delphine was enough. 

“We have every right to be here for this council,” Delphine said, glaring down her nose. Watching a small Breton glare down a venerable Nord was jarring enough to be funny if Leara weren’t agonizing over why they were here. “Actually,” she went on, “more so, since the Dragonborn is a member of the—”

Esbern, who was busy studying the architecture of the monastery, caught sight of Leara at the top of the stairs. “Ah, Elanor! There you are!”

It was like watching a train of merchant wagons piling up in the marketplace, unable to prevent the accident and unable to look away from the disaster. Master Arngeir’s frown turned to her, and Leara’s heart sank. 

She descended the stairs. “Good afternoon, Esbern, Delphine. How remarkable to find you here, seeing as I didn’t invite you.”

“An oversight on your part, right?” Delphine lifted an eyebrow, as pale and condescending as ever. “You look comfortable.”

Stopping short of standing by Master Arngeir, Leara was keenly aware of the room’s tension settling on her shoulders in a heavy shroud, all attention on her. “How are you here?”

“It’s no secret that you fought Alduin and lost,” Delphine sniffed. She cast a wary glance over Leara’s shoulder at Bishop, then, ignoring the darkening glare on Master Arngeir’s brow, she went on, “Just because we packed up and moved shop doesn’t mean I don’t still have my contacts. I’ve not been on the run this long making stupid decisions like completely cutting myself off.”

“Of course not,” Leara smiled, gritting her teeth. 

“I still have my contacts in Whiterun. You’re not as subtle as you think. I’ve known about this little council meeting for nearly a month.” Which meant as soon as Delphine found out, she was ready to make the trek to High Hrothgar. Wow. “We have just as much right as anyone else to be here, seeing as we’re the ones who helped you get this far in the first place, Elanor.”

Leara spluttered. Arngeir’s scowl deepened. “Is that so? The hubris of the Blades truly knows no bounds.”

“If it were up to you people, she would stay sitting here on your mountain all day with her head in the clouds!”

It was Bishop’s hand on Leara’s elbow that kept her from popping Delphine in the mouth. Absence, it seemed, made the heart grow fonder. Leara felt better about Delphine and the Blades’ contempt for the Greybeards when she wasn’t in the same Hold as her. 

“Delphine, please,” Esbern said, speaking for the first time. “We didn’t come here to debate the philosophies of Blade and Greybeard. Remember the issue at hand: Alduin must be reckoned with.” Then he turned to Master Arngeir, a tired look on his weathered face. “You called this council for that reason. You wouldn’t have done so otherwise. We have much information on Alduin and the crisis at hand.” There was a glimmer in his eyes. “You’ll need us here if you want the council to succeed.”

Despite this, Master Arngeir’s scowl did not relent. However, after a long moment, he bowed his head—shallow but acquiescence, nonetheless. “If this is how it must be, then so be it. You may attend the council.”

Esbern nodded his thanks, but Delphine only smirked. 

Leara wanted to scream, and they hadn’t even started the damn meeting yet. “If you’d please follow me—”

“Actually, Dragonborn, I would like a word,” Master Arngeir went on. He did not look at her. 

Oh. Her throat tight, Leara turned to Bishop, who, by some undeserved mercy from the Divines, had kept whatever snide comments he usually had to himself during the exchange with the Blades. “Escort Delphine and Esbern to the table.”

“Are you serious?” said Bishop. “Did we not just have the conversation about why I’m not getting involved with your little—”

“Bishop, please.”

He quieted. Then, casting her a shady look under pinched brows, jerked his head toward the stairs. “C’mon,” he told the Blades, “What her ladyship decrees.”

A harsh breath pushed through Leara’s nostrils as the Blades followed after a grumbling Bishop. As he passed, Esbern clasped her shoulder, but it did nothing to settle her nerves. Actually, Leara was feeling too much. She knew it. Too much was happening. She thought she could handle it, but . . .

No, she had to handle it. She would. It was fine. 

“When you told us that it was the Blades who showed you Dragonrend, I knew to worry about what other counsel you might take from them,” Master Arngeir said. He did not look at her; instead, his gaze was fixed on the tapestry above the entrance. Leara remained silent. “Their claim that they are responsible for you traveling the course of your destiny should be laughable.” Then he faced her, his eyes tired. “I have told you before how the Blades use the Dragonborn, but it seems you already know it.”

“Yes,” Leara said. She recalled the lessons, the stories. Watch for the Dragonborn. Protect the Dragonborn. Follow the Dragonborn.

“I did not fathom that the Dragonborn was a member of the Blades, and yet, all this time, that is who you are.”

Leara lifted her eyes, her shoulders set though they wanted to sag. “What do you want me to say, Master? That I should never have joined the Blades? That I regret the years of service I gave and the lessons I learned? That I renounce them?” And hadn’t she thought of it? If Delphine’s dismissal of Leara’s standing as a Knight-Sister wasn’t enough, the fact that she abandoned her post during the war was enough. She all but did renounce the Blades, for all her delusions on the contrary. 

Master Arngeir’s countenance was grim. “I would know that we can take you at your word, but now I see that we have reason to question, not only your means, then your intentions as well. We must take you for what you are, Dragonborn.”

“And what am I?”

“A charlatan.”

·•★•·

His thumb stilled on the goblet’s rim when she entered, followed by the Imperials.  

He stood at her entrance, Galmar following suit. His eyes met General Tullius’s over the Dragonborn, Leara’s shoulder, and his jaw tightened at the sight of the towering forms of the Thalmor ambassadors behind him. A smirk cut across Elenwen’s face, and Ulfric’s scowl deepened. So, they expected him to sit down and treat with the Thalmor today. 

They were wrong. 

In with Tullius and Elenwen came a host of others, a great number that drowned the small company Ulfric selected for his entourage. Ever present at the General’s side was Rikke, as fierce and hawkish as he remembered her. There was a storm in Rikke’s eyes that seemed determined to strike him across the room. After Rikke’s gale came the slight figure of Jarl Elisif, barricaded by her ever-present housecarl. The would-be queen was wide-eyed and still, almost as if being in High Hrothgar, in this room, drew her into her shell. Mousy, he thought. 

Two legionnaires trailed the group, a small blonde woman and a taller Nord with a dark mustache. They, like he and his men, were disarmed, their weapons likely in the antechamber with the Stormcloaks’. After them came two guards with the golden horse of Whiterun on their armor. Balgruuf came between them, apart from the Imperials, but clearly of their delegation. Even if he would not choose a side, Ulfric questioned whether Balgruuf could ever truly be persuaded from the safe path laid by the Empire. It was the type of safety that bore complacency from the familiar, refusing the call to action from conviction. Balgruuf knew what was right. Ulfric knew this. But Balgruuf would sooner turn to the familiar for the protection of his people rather than risk all for his convictions. This was the truth. 

And yet. And yet, for the sake of their old friendship, Ulfric hoped Balgruuf would find the courage to follow his convictions, to join the cause and free Skyrim from her bondage. That alone would carry more weight than any peace treaty that the Dragonborn thought she could orchestrate. 

After the delegation came Master Arngeir and the other Greybeards. Not for the first time, Ulfric wondered why they agreed to host the war leaders in their monastery. High Hrothgar, always remembered as a bastion of peace, was now the host to warriors and their opposing views. How Leara convinced the Greybeards to open their doors to this council, even to discuss the dragon threat, Ulfric didn’t know. But no, one glance at Master Arngeir’s face showed a lingering shadow in clear eyes. Arngeir, at least, was not happy about this turn of events. 

At once, Leara returned to the pot of spiced mead and prepared the tray. Ulfric only caught a glimpse of her pale eyes as she passed in a swirl of blue. 

“Take your seats, and we can begin,” said Master Arngeir, sitting himself at the head of the table. Off to the right, Delphine huffed. “Now that everyone is here, the Dragonborn will serve the mead. We offer this in goodwill, in the hope that everyone has come here in the spirit of—”

As he spoke, Elenwen sat down at the table. Ulfric, on the cusp of sitting back down himself, stiffened to his full height. 

“No, we will not sit at the same table as that woman!” he said, forceful. “You insult us by bringing her here as if you expect us to just accept the presence of your chief Talos hunter!”

Legate Rikke scoffed. “Here we go.”

Galmar growled, eliciting an eye roll from Balgruuf. Elisif sighed. 

“Now, Ulfric, I have every right to be here,” Elenwen said, poised like a serpent on the edge of her chair. “It is in the best interest of every party for a representative of the Aldmeri Dominion to ensure that the terms of the White-Gold Concordat are upheld. Particularly given the history of certain local governments in disregarding those terms as they see fit. Such a breach of treaty is a reason enough to be concerned, wouldn’t you agree, Miss Ormand?” 

The air stilled, cooling. “Yes, Mistr—Madame Ambassador, perhaps.”

Then the room warmed again, but a chill ran up his spine.

Her head bowed, Leara returned to his field of vision, her tray laden. In silence, she served the mead. 

“Look here, Ulfric,” Tullius said, pointing his hand. “You cannot dictate who I bring as part of my delegation. If you can’t accept that, then there’s no point in us going any further.”

Ulfric gritted his teeth. Beside Rikke, the Dragonborn stilled. Across the table, he saw her purse her lips. Elisif took a goblet, and Leara moved on.

“If we must negotiate the terms of the negotiations, then we will never get anywhere,” Arngeir said. There was a rumble in his voice. “Perhaps this is a matter best addressed by the Dragonborn.” 

Standing between Balgruuf and the Thalmor, Leara’s cold eyes flicked from Tullius to Ulfric and back. “I believe—”

The nerve of those Imperial bastards, Ulfric brooded.  

“As Ambassador Elenwen said, we are discussing matters that may encroach on the terms of the White-Gold Concordat. It is to the benefit of all that we respect the existing treaties so that we can work out an agreement that works for everyone.”

And here was the Dragonborn, with her half-answers and line-walking. The chill curled around his spine again, sharper. He did not expect this, not from her. But what does he really know of her? “Either she walks, or we do,” he declared. “If you think I will sit at the same table as that Thalmor bitch—"

Leara’s chin was defiant. “You misunderstand me, Jarl Ulfric. It is imperative that we observe the existing treaties, but I don’t think we need the Dominion to hold our hand to do so.” She turned to Elenwen, who was within arm’s reach of her. Behind Elenwen’s chair, another golden-haired Altmer woman stood, her statue’s face unable to conceal the heat as she stared down the Dragonborn. Leara merely smiled. “If you’ll pardon us, Madame Ambassador, your presence may do more harm than good here. Please, excuse us.”

Elenwen stood. She was taller and darker than the Dragonborn, Ulfric noticed. He had never used magic himself, but there was something in the air that left an electric film on the back of his throat. He wondered if anyone else could feel it. 

“Very well, Miss Ormand, you may conduct this meeting as you see fit.” Elenwen’s eyes cut to Ulfric. “Enjoy your petty victory, Ulfric, as long as your Dragonborn is here to win the battles for you. The Dominion will treat with whatever government rules Skyrim. We would not dream of interfering in your civil war.” Turning on her heel, she beckoned her lackey. “Come, Hindalia,”

Tearing her glare from Leara, the other Altmer followed her mistress. 

“Run away!” cried Galmar, slamming his fist on the table. His goblet wobbled. “We’re not as easily culled as your Imperial pets! Skyrim will never bow to the Thalmor!”

Rikke charged to her feet. “You’re lucky I respect the Greybeards’ council, Galmar, or I’d—"

“Legate!” Tullius’s hard snap cut her off. “We’re representatives of the Emperor here! Act like it!”

Her dark scowl carved a harsh line across her face, but Rikke obeyed like the good legate she was. “Sorry, sir.”

Leara placed a new goblet in front of him, removing the old one. She did the same for Galmar. 

Arngeir cleared his throat. Despite the Thalmors’ exit, the tension in the room was heavy. “Now that that is settled, may we proceed?” 

Ulfric cleared his throat. “I have something to say first.” 

“Are you serious?” muttered Rikke. 

“I agreed to attend this council to come to an agreement about this dragon menace. That is it. Beyond that, we have no interest in negotiating with the Empire over any terms.” After all, hadn’t the Empire denied them in the past? Turnabout was fair play. “I consider even talking to the Empire a generous gesture on our part. It’s only a matter of time before they’re driven out of Skyrim.”

“Are you done? Or did you want to continue dictating from your soap box?” Tullius asked, eyebrow raised.

Galmar bristled. He moved to speak, but Ulfric held up a hand. “Fine, let’s get on with it.” 

On the other side of Galmar, Leara sat in the empty chair. Intention lit up her face, but there was a shadow lurking there, under the blue. She watched them. 

Master Arngeir stood. “Good. General Tullius, Jarl Ulfric, this council is unprecedented in nature. Never before has High Hrothgar opened its doors to mediate a war, yet we stand here now at the Dragonborn’s request. I would ask that you respect the spirit of High Hrothgar and its history of peace and benevolence. Your being here brings the hope that we can find a lasting peace for the good of all Skyrim. Dragonborn?”

“Yes, thank you, Master Arngeir. Jarls, Generals, Legate,” she nodded to Rikke, “I have asked you here to discuss the present dragon crisis. The Greybeards have been generous enough to open their halls to us, allowing us a neutral meeting ground where we might discuss terms for a truce that would allow for a swift handling of the dragons’ threat.” Perched in her chair, Leara leaned forward as she spoke, straight-backed and still. “Jarl Balgruuf has agreed to allow me to use his palace Dragonsreach to capture a dragon, but it is imperative that we first reach an agreement that protects the people of Whiterun in such a delicate situation.”

Capturing a dragon! So, that was her plan. Ulfric wasn’t sure what to make of it. When he agreed to the council, he knew it was an opportunity to confront Tullius without a battle’s bloodshed, but even when the Dragonborn insisted this circus was necessary to defeat the World-Eater, Ulfric never expected her solution was to capture a live dragon! Did she hope to ensnare the World-Eater himself, or was this dragon a rung in the ladder as she ascended toward the top? What did she hope to gain from capturing a dragon, information, allies? Ulfric sat back in his chair, lost in thought.

Around the table, the other reactions varied. Balgruuf, knowing Leara’s plans from the start, simply stared ahead, determined. Galmar, however, and Rikke too, it seemed, were more affected: Galmar’s loud splutter over choked mead nearly drowned out the Legate’s heated swear. Her General, it seemed, didn’t quite catch the ramifications of such a declaration. This was to be expected. Ulfric didn’t imagine an Imperial like Tullius would realize the meaning behind holding a dragon in Dragonsreach, much less comprehending the threat of the World-Eater himself! But it was Elisif’s reaction that caught Ulfric’s attention. Her hands pressed to her mouth, the Jarl of Solitude was wide-eyed and speechless. 

Good, Ulfric thought. Perhaps with the legend of Olaf One-Eye brought into the modern age, she might learn a new respect for Nordic history and tradition. Somehow, though, he doubted it. 

Delphine’s near-silent “Damnit” against the whispering of the guardsmen pricked at the edge of his attention. When the Blade appeared in the doorway, clad in her Order’s armor and shadowed by the old man, Ulfric hadn’t known what to make of it. Hers was a face he’d never expected to see again, and yet here she was at the Dragonborn’s peace council. He half-wondered why she was here. 

After the initial reaction, Leara continued, “In light of this, I would ask that the members of the council look beyond things such as territory and resources in order to help ensure the dragons are dealt with swiftly. Thank you.”

“Yes,” Arngeir nodded. “Now, let us open the floor. Who would like to start the negotiations?”

The muscle worked in Ulfric’s jaw. Until now, he fully intended to open his position by demanding Markarth be handed into Stormcloak hands. Still—

Tullius held up his hand. “Our terms are simple: Riften must be returned to Imperial control. That is our price for agreeing to a truce.”

Elisif’s eyes darted to the General, wide, then, finding Ulfric’s gaze, they hardened. Her mouth thinned.  

“By Talos, he’s got stones!” gristled Galmar. “You’re in no position to dictate terms to us, Tullius! If you think we’ll turn Riften over just because you barked an order, then you overstep yourself!”

Crossing his arms, Ulfric leveled a look at the Imperials. “That is quite the opening demand. Tullius.” One he was loath to meet. 

Galmar’s scowl was fierce. “Ulfric! Don’t say you’re considering accepting this demand! It’s outrageous! We can hold Riften against these milkdrinkers, and Jarl Laila—”

He could see Rikke bristling. For all that he appreciated Galmar’s gumption and tenacity, it could easily lead them into trouble. Ulfric was no fool: He knew good and well that there was little stopping Tullius from making another attempt to capture him on the road from High Hrothgar. It was only the respect held by Skyrim’s people for the Greybeards that stayed the General’s hand. But respect could only be stretched so far before it snapped with tension. Ulfric’s men were outnumbered here. Their cards needed to be handled with care.

 Ulfric held out his hand. “Peace, Galmar. We’ll do whatever I find to be in the best interest of Skyrim, understood?”

Still glowering at the Imperials, Galmar nodded, “Yes, my lord.”

“Come on, Tullius, do you really expect us to simply hand over Riften? Just like that?” A wry smile tugged at Ulfric’s mouth. “Because your legion has failed to take it by force, do you think we’ll surrender our hold if you ask instead?”

“I’m sure that General Tullius does not expect something without discussing a price,” Arngeir said, voice hard and peaceable all at once. 

In the corner of his eye, Ulfric saw Leara cross her hands. Her face was closed. 

“Of course he doesn’t!” Galmar barreled on ahead. “What are you willing to pay for Riften, Tullius? Empty promises and more Imperial bluster?”

“That’s enough, Galmar.”

“Jarl Ulfric, in exchange for the Rift, what would you want in return?” asked Arngeir.

Now, since they were asking. “First, let me be clear: The sons of Skyrim have learned from bitter experience that talking to the Empire is a waste of time. Their promises are always punctuated with a sword and a shackle.” The memory of the betrayal at the Markarth gates still gnawed at him decades later. “However, I accepted the Dragonborn’s invitation to this council, and so, whatever the Empire does, I will negotiate in good faith.” Galmar nodded his agreement. 

Turning to the Dragonborn, Ulfric found himself met with a cold blue stare. Unlike a month ago in the Windhelm jail, when she would no longer look him in the eye, she met him head-on. But there was an edge to the ice that he hadn’t seen before in their previous encounters. If he weren’t so preoccupied, he might have wondered if it had anything to do with that fleabag, Bitchup, or whatever his name was. He would have wondered if the man was still hounding Leara. He may even have spared half a thought toward the woman’s dog. But they were fleeting curiosities. This truce and its potential ramifications dominated his attention, and he couldn’t spare much more from that. 

“Well, Dragonborn, this is your peace council, right? Tell us, what do you think the Rift is worth?” he asked.

Tilting her head, Leara regarded him from the end of the table. “The Rift has its own advantages that would be hard to match from another Hold,” she said. “If you were to trade Riften for, say, the Reach, that would split the holdings and scatter both sides across the map. No matter how you cut up the map, problems rise up.”

“This whole Civil War is a problem, Leara, or have you forgotten?” Tullius asked. 

Leara’s lips thinned. “I am keenly aware of what’s at stake here, General, but I don’t consider tossing Holds back and forth like some kind of game to be a productive use of our time here. The Stormcloaks cannot surrender the Rift.”

“You’ve disappointed me,” Tullius grumbled, brows drawn low. “I agreed to attend this council based on your good name, but it seems you’re determined to favor Ulfric at every turn!”

“You’re mistaken, I do not—”

“Markarth is our price,” Ulfric stated, coming to a decision. He did not want to give up the Rift. That would put the Empire right on his southern flank. But if he could gain the Reach from it, the silver mines and its proximity to Solitude would soften the blow. And who’s to say they couldn’t retake Riften in the coming months? His soldiers knew Riften and its advantages better than Tullius could ever hope to! The sons of Skyrim would shatter the Imperials in a siege. Of this, Ulfric was certain. 

“Are you serious?” Elisif said, speaking up for the first time. “This, both of you—you disrespect the Greybeards and the Dragonborn by using this council as a means to advance your war engines! We are here to negotiate a truce, not draw new battlelines!”

“Jarl Elisif!” barked Tullius. “Let me handle this!”

“But General!” the woman persisted. “These demands are outrageous! Did none of you hear what the Dragonborn said?” 

“Jarl Elisif—”

“I can’t believe this,” Balgruuf said, half-rising from his chair. “This is how the Empire repays us for our loyalty? By trading us like playing cards?” Ulfric moved to speak, but Balgruuf jabbed a ringed finger at him. “And don’t you start on how your cause is any better! That’s a load of sheep’s dung! You came here intending to barter for Markarth, consequences be damned!”

Ulfric ground his jaw.

“General Tullius!” cried Elisif, refusing to back down. Over her shoulder, her housecarl lurked in threat. “You don’t intend to go through with this! You can’t trade Markarth for Riften! Not to that, that traitor!” Well, the girl had guts, Ulfric could give her that. If only she’d found them before. 

“Enough!” Tullius snapped, rubbing his temples. “That’s enough!”

“What’ll it be, Tullius?” demanded Ulfric. “Markarth for Riften? Or is that too steep a price for your vanity?”

Galmar huffed.

“Don’t try me, Ulfric! The day is coming when I’ll have you back under the headsman’s axe, and there will be no dragons there to save you!”

With a shout, Galmar shot to his feet. “I’d like to see you try, leech!” 

“That’s IT!” Rikke was out of her seat. “Keep your tongue, Galmar Stone-Fist, or I will take it from you!” 

Noise sprang up around the room. Ulfric was on his feet. The cries of his men and the legionnaires joined in a maelstrom of sound, drowning Galmar’s shouts and Rikke’s threats. Balgruuf was on his feet, but Ulfric couldn’t understand what he was saying, though the red in his cheeks hinted at his explosive anger. Elisif’s housecarl had a hand on the back of her chair; his Jarl pressed backward as Tullius leaped up beside her. 

“Never trust an Imperial!”

“Have you heard nothing—?”

“—will not stand by while you—"

“Damn faithless—"

“Oh, I should’ve expected this!”

“—nothing left to say to—”

“We will WALK!”

“This is a farce!”

“How dare you—”

“By Talos!” Delphine swore, “Can you hear yourselves?” She was drowned out. 

“This is no negotiation at all!” yelled Tullius, voice loud above the din. 

“You’re losing the war, and you know it!” Ulfric retaliated. His fingers itched for his sword. 

“How many lives must be spent before you see the cost of this war?” Elisif cried out, rising to her feet. Her housecarl hovered nearby like a mother hen.

Galmar’s snarls filled Ulfric’s ear.

“You always were a fool, Ulfric!” Rikke’s voice went shrill.

“The Empire’s pretty words are worthless!” 

“Says the speechmaker!”

“Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth!”

“QUIET!”

A thrill of chilled air curled through the chamber, dowsing the storm of voices in cold silence. Ulfric turned, words caught in his throat, to see Leara at the foot of the table. He was alarmed to see frost creeping along the tabletop from where she’d braced her palms against the stone. A lock of hair curled from the braided bun at the base of her neck, as frozen still as the rigid set to her thin shoulders. He caught her eye, then, as she stared down everyone at the table. The guards behind him shifted in discomfort, and Ulfric couldn’t say he wasn’t unsettled himself. It was like looking into the Sea of Ghosts in the dead of winter: Desolately cold and inhospitable. The caress of frost from her glare was as bitter as the icy mists of the northern waters. 

“Be quiet,” she said again, tone level. Power hummed in her voice, even at a lowered volume. “Please. You’re acting like children.”

Arngeir let out a weary sigh, his hand over his eyes. Guilt and embarrassment niggled at Ulfric at the sight. Despite his leaving the Way of the Voice and his future as a Greybeard to fight in the Great War, he still held the utmost respect for Master Arngeir. It was not lost on Ulfric that he’d spent more time with the elder Greybeard than he had with his own father during his childhood. 

Clinching his fist, he held his tongue, but he stood his ground.

“Is this what passes for diplomacy in Skyrim?” Leara sniffed. “I expected better.”

Ulfric rounded on her because, Ysmir’s beard, she wasn’t helping, despite Tullius’s assertions, but then the old man beside Delphine stood. There was a shift in Leara’s posture then, almost imperceptible as she drew back from the table. Her hands fell to her sides, drawing the frost away with them. Ulfric turned away. 

The man tugged at his wool scarf, sorrow written in the lines of his face. “You are all so consumed by your hubris that you are blinded to the real and present danger! What do wars and territories matter when the doom of creation hangs by a thread? Nothing!” 

“Is he with you, Delphine?” Ulfric asked, crossing his arms. “If so, I’d advise you to tell him to watch his tongue.”

Short though she was, Delphine forced forward an imposing figure in her armor. “He is with me, and I would advise all of you to shut up and listen to what he has to say before this gets any more out of hand.”

Across the table, Tullius rolled his eyes. 

Squaring his shoulders, Delphine’s friend stepped closer to the table. He was tall. Ulfric imagined he’d been taller before age set into his bones, but there was a spark of wit about him that pushed back the years. Long ago, Ulfric recalled learning that the Blades Order consisted of more than just knights and warriors. Throughout their vast network were spies, scholars, and scouts, among other things. Although the Empire dismantled the Blades after the war, leaving them to be picked off by the Dominion’s hunters, the infamous Order’s operatives were no strangers to hiding. Or so the stories told. But looking at Delphine and her companion, Ulfric wondered how many Blades really evaded the Thalmor. He hoped more were as successful as Delphine and the old man seemed to be. 

“Don’t you understand why the Dragonborn must capture a dragon? Don’t you understand the reason why the dragons are such a threat to us?” the old Blade said. “Alduin the World-Eater has returned! He is here, now, at this hour, and he devours the souls of the dead, of your fallen comrades! Every life lost in this pointless conflict only adds to Alduin’s power. If it goes on, his strength may become unmatched.” The Blade’s focus centered beyond Ulfric, and he knew the man was watching the Dragonborn. The woman who had offered hope. “Can you not, just for a moment, set aside your anger and hatred in the face of this mortal danger?” 

Isn’t that what the Dragonborn asked when she met with him in his war room? And he agreed to come, didn’t he? He knew what the dragon threat meant—Leara told him then, and since Ulfric found himself dwelling on it when his mind should be on the movements of his troops and the planned attack on Fort Snowhawk. Yet field reports and casualty lists struggled to hold his attention when contending with the World-Eater’s shadow. Every soul in Sovngarde fed the World-Eater’s strength; whether it came from an Imperial or a Stormcloak, every child of Skyrim whose spirit sought the solace of Shor’s Halls was lost to the black dragon’s maw. 

It was sickening. 

“I don’t know about the end of the world,” Tullius began slowly. He rubbed his chin in thought. “But these dragons are getting to be more than the Legion can handle. If this truce can help the Dragonborn eradicate this menace, then we all benefit.” Lifting his gaze, Tullius sent Ulfric a hard glare. “It would do you well to remember that, Ulfric.”

“If he’s right about Alduin,” and Ulfric was sure the old Blade was, “we each have just as much to lose as the other. Remember that, Tullius. Now,” his hand on the back of his chair, Ulfric sat back down. “Back to the matter at hand—”

“I would like to call a recess.”

Almost as one, Ulfric and Tullius turned toward the Dragonborn. Leara was sitting back in her seat, prim yet for her drawn face and the still-frozen curl. Her gaze glossed by his to meet Master Arngeir’s. 

“I think a break might benefit us all,” she continued, straightening. 

Master Arngeir nodded, slow and tired. Ulfric could see the exhaustion creeping across the elder’s face. This council was wearing on him. Part of Ulfric regretted that. Another part wished to have things over with so that he could return to the Palace of the Kings and plot his next course of action during the intermittent peace. “We will adjourn,” Master Arngeir said. “The council will reconvene in an hour’s time. When we do, may cooler heads prevail.”

This time, the scraping of chairs was loud against the silence. Properly chastised, the council members stood. No doubt, each would go off into their corner to discuss new terms and unravel the reasoning of the Blades and the Greybeards. 

And the Dragonborn, Ulfric thought, watching her disappear through the doors in a swirl of blue skirts.

Ulfric didn’t understand her at all.

·•★•·

The echoes of the fight rang through her head as she darted down the hall, away from the meeting hall and the crowd gathered there. She needed a minute. She needed water. She needed sleep. She needed, she needed to breathe. 

Bursting out one of the side doors, she entered the courtyard. The sun glittered off the surrounding snowbanks, lighting the area a brilliant white. It was perhaps a little warmer than it had been during the night, but Leara didn’t pay any attention.  She fled toward the overlook near the edge of High Hrothgar’s mountain shelf to a half-moon of stone benches facing out toward the Whiterun Plains below. She collapsed on the middle bench, half laying, half reclining on the cold stone. With a shaking breath, she pressed her forehead into her arms.

Elenwen, Elenwen was here. And so were Delphine and Esbern. 

And the peace talks!

Arngeir thought she was a liar. 

Leara’s chest constricted. She forced icy air into her lungs. Her hip ached where it dug into the bench. 

What in Akatosh’s holy name were they doing? What just happened? As soon as she gave either man the floor, Tullius and Ulfric made grabs for the other’s land. What they could not take by force in battle seemed like fair game at the negotiating table. But didn’t she tell them this wasn’t that kind of negotiation? They were here for the good of all Skyrim—all Tamriel, and yet they used their compliance as a shield to guard their true purpose: They both sought power over the other. 

That’s the way of war, Leara reminded herself. Just or unjust, to show weakness to the other side was a risk most didn’t recover from. Was leaving Whiterun alone a weakness? She didn’t think so. She knew Balgruuf agreed with her. Whiterun’s safety when Leara captured the dragon was his utmost concern. But how far would Balgruuf go to ensure Whiterun’s safety and neutrality? Further than she would, Leara mused darkly. She wasn’t willing to appease egos just for her own benefit. Balgruuf, loath as he might be to surrender to either side, would make concessions if it was for the wellbeing of his people. But Leara couldn’t choose the people of Whiterun over the rest of Skyrim. She didn’t have that luxury. She needed an agreement that took care of everyone, or if not that, at least one that didn’t put them into a worse position than they were already in. Trading Markarth for the Rift was not the answer.

Hard nails bit into her palms as she squeezed her fingers into fists. No, she and Balgruuf might have a similar goal, but even he wasn’t on her side. He didn’t owe it to her to be. Neither did Tullius. Certainly Ulfric didn’t. 

We must take you for what you are.

A charlatan.

A dry sob seized her ribs in a vice. After today, she wouldn’t have the Greybeards either. Despite everything she’d done to follow their teachings, her past as a Blade won out. Arngeir no longer trusted her. Oh, he put on a good show for the negotiations, but there was a weary shadow over his shoulders. She knew what he wasn’t saying. She was a monster—

Not even Delphine and Esbern could be counted to side with her. Delphine never made her distrust of Leara a secret, and Esbern’s proximity to the other Knight-Sister cast his friendship in doubt. She missed Cloud Ruler Temple. She couldn’t trust the Blades. 

There was no one’s side for her to be on, because no one was on her side.

“Akatosh, don’t let me be alone,” the sob broke from her throat, rocking her body in its wake. “Don’t let me be alone!”

“Oh, but my pet, you are alone.”

Leara stilled, her muscles tensing. She didn’t dare raise her head from the nest of her arms.

The whisper of boots on stone was her only warning before a familiar hand trailed long fingers through her hair to the coiled bun. The nails dug into the back of Leara’s skull, drawing out a gentle pain. Leara inhaled, breath catching in her throat. The hand left her skull for her neck, trailing lightning to her shoulder. Her nerves burned. 

“What do you want, Elenwen?” whispered Leara, holding herself still. She could not defend herself. She couldn’t even move from the fear freezing her blood. 

But she could still hear the smirk in Elenwen’s voice. “Is it too much to believe I might wish to speak to a very old friend?” 

Her fists tightened. “We are not friends.”

“Oh, but weren’t we?” Then Leara was wrenched into a sitting position, Elenwen’s thin arms disguising the strength in her hold. Leara was pulled up to face her and found herself powerless to stop it. But that’s how it always was. 

When Elenwen and her newest protégé had swept into the foyer behind General Tullius and Jarl Balgruuf, effectively ending Leara and Arngeir’s conversation, an iron corset had laced itself over Leara’s lungs, pulling her inward and stealing her breath. The haunted memory of the Aldmere’Loren weaving its darkling shroud over the ballroom at the Blue Palace asserted itself, drawing with it the sight of hundreds of devastated faces, each wrecked with emotion too deep for mortal hearts to comprehend. The image shadowed Leara’s gaze as she greeted the Imperial delegation, spine stiff, face frozen. Night terrors full of cooing whispers and crackling electricity threatened to take her in the light of day as she led the group to the meeting hall. The entire time, Leara could feel the pinprick of lightning on her skin, a shadow and a threat, ever real, never sleeping. Elenwen knew, and what was more, the Ambassador had told her companion. One needed only to meet the younger Altmer’s burning glare to know this. 

Yes, Mistress.

Where Leara found the strength to deny Elenwen’s attendance to the council, she wasn’t sure. But if she took nothing else from him, she could thank Ulfric’s adamance that the Thalmor be denied presence. And he had every right to do so. How could any of them fathom what Elenwen had done to him during the war?

What Leara did to him.

She shuddered. 

The golden iron of Elenwen’s grip held Leara’s wrist in a snare. “Considering all the years we spent together, I had hoped you would think differently.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, but don’t you, Vilya?”

Leara twisted back, tugging at her wrist, but Elenwen’s grip remained firm. The other hand came to catch her chin. Again, Leara threw herself back, but Elenwen was firm. Then her thumb and forefinger cradled Leara’s chin as the other fingers, long and biting, splayed across the side of Leara’s neck. She could feel her pulse drum against the steal hold. 

“Don’t be a brat, Vilya. You know how I hate your childishness.” 

The fingers tightened, pressing into her windpipe. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Good girl.” The hand did not relent. No, instead, Elenwen leaned closer still, lips so close to Leara’s ear that she could feel the cool breath brush her skin. A shiver ran down her neck and into her chest. The corset tightened. “This is how it is going to be. Your little charade is over. This defiant streak you’ve fostered will be pruned. Perhaps you believe you’ve been clever in your evasion of the Aldmeri Dominion, but no one can run forever, not the Blades, and certainly not you, my pet. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Elenwen regarded her with green-gold eyes, as bright and acidic as any ripening citrus fruit. Unbidden, a memory of someone in her class comparing Elenwen’s eyes to Lady Finduilas’s citrus orchard rose up. Their glower was just as sour. “The only reason you will walk out of here alive,” Elenwen said softly, poisonous, “is because intelligence reports you are the only one capable of ending this little dragon crisis. Certainly, those fools you’ve invited to this mockery of diplomacy seem to think so. Once it is resolved, expect to be visited by a Justiciar force. Resistance is futile.”

Leara tried to swallow, only to gag against the collar of flesh around her neck. 

“I don’t know how a half-breed such as you managed to infiltrate the ranks of the Thalmor and ascend to such a high position,” Elenwen continued, low in Leara’s ear, “but believe me, we will find out. When we take you, you will beg for death before the end. We will unmake you, and when at last you die, you will not know your own name, Vilya, or any other.”

The mechanical “Yes, Mistress” clawed its way up Leara’s throat, but she fought it down. She fought Alduin—and lost—but she survived the first encounter. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t let Elenwen leave here believing she had the upper hand. Again. Leara tricked the Ambassador for years, back when she was not nearly as important as she was now, and hadn’t Leara done it again just months ago at the Embassy party? She was a Blade first, and hiding was in her nature. 

You are the one who revealed yourself to the Dominion, you bloody bimbo.

Wasn’t she? The pieces didn’t all fit within her mind, but then, Elenwen’s intelligence network was more than Leara could keep up with amid the dragon crisis. The Thalmor had agents hunting her for months. Every move she made was chronicled by their eagle-eyed spies. And she’d made some bad moves, her encounter with the wizard Ancano, for one, and the performance in Solitude, for another. And then she answered to Vilya. Yes, Leara passed the point of deniability long ago. It seemed Elenwen anticipated that, or else she wouldn’t have touched her. She knew Leara for what she was. 

Hopefully, hopefully, Leara could pull the wool back over her eyes when she came for her. Or, if not, daze the Thalmor enough so that Leara could once again escape their grasp. 

The defiance strangled the old compliance. “Surely you realize I will go to someone and tell them what you’ve said. You’ve promised me death. I don’t think the Nords will take kindly to their Dragonborn being threatened by the Thalmor.”

But Elenwen only smiled, flashing pearly teeth in a predatory gleam. “Who would you run to? After all, you said it yourself: You’re alone. Tullius is mine, and Ulfric won’t help you once he realizes what you are. Sooner or later, the Jarl of Whiterun will ow to one of them, and you’ll have nowhere to turn. Not even the old men want you here.” Her thumb stroked along Leara’s jaw. “I do hope you’re not counting on that little ranger of yours. He will soon flee than fight for you.”

Tears bit at the corners of Leara’s eyes, icy as they wound down the side of her face. Cooing, Elenwen released her wrist and brushed them away. “Now, now, my pet, don’t cry. You knew this was inevitable the moment you crossed the Dominion. Perhaps if you hadn’t left, I’d have kept your secret. After all, you always were my most promising instrument.” 

Then Elenwen drew Leara forward and placed a kiss on her forehead. It was dry and hard, just as it always was. Her thumb brushed the lingering tears on Leara’s still face, and then she stood. The sudden cold was a relief from the intensity of Elenwen’s proximity, but still, Leara couldn’t breathe. She would relearn to breathe soon, but for now, she was still choking on the doom in her chest. The bands of iron did not release her lungs. 

“Compose yourself quickly, my pet,” Elenwen sang, saccharine. “Didn’t I teach you not to fall apart outside closed doors?” Her laughter was light and high. “Don’t fret. I will see you again before we leave High Hrothgar. And after that,” her eyes softened, but not truly. It was a false gentleness. Infantilizing and demeaning. “It won’t be long until I have you again.”

Like that, Elenwen was gone, leaving Leara in a huddle of gooseflesh covered by too-thin clothes. Her hair was a mess, but she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. The iron corset encasing her lungs was freezing over, binding hard around her. Was this what others felt when she cast the Frozen Façade over them? Her fingers jerked, painful as they unwound from the tight fists, but nothing happened. Not even her magic could banish the feeling. Feim. Zii. 

Pressing both palms over her heart, Leara pushed against them, panting. Air trickled into her lungs, painful against the force Elenwen exerted on her throat. Just enough not to leave a bruise but enough that Leara wouldn’t forget the touch too quickly. She kept panting, and soon, her lungs were working against the fear strangling her. Feim. Zii. 

Once she felt she could breathe, Leara wavered to her feet. Her mind reeled at what Elenwen had said. The Thalmor weren’t just coming for her. They were going to kill her, and now there was no doubt. And there was no one to help her. No one.

She was alone. 

But hadn’t she always been? It was foolish for her to ever think otherwise. 

Yet that never stopped her from surviving, did it? She had until she faced Alduin to decide how best to evade Elenwen’s agents. But such a decision hinged on Leara’s surviving the battle in Sovngarde in the first place. More and more, she was starting to think that it may be best for her to die facing Alduin, so long as she took him down with her. Perhaps it wasn’t a matter of surviving indefinitely but surviving until she faced Alduin for the final time. 

Because that was her destiny, wasn’t it? She was Dragonborn. By the grace of Akatosh, she was born to face the World-Eater in this twilight hour. Everything before that a stepping stone needed to reach that point. 

Dashing the remnants of half-frozen tears from her face, Leara turned back toward High Hrothgar. And then, the fine hairs at the back of her neck prickled as if there were eyes still on her. Eyes that never left her. Lifting her skirts, she hurried back toward one of the side doors, the closest to her bedroom.