I'm just posting on here to let everyone know that I haven't given up on this at all. Quite the contrary! I don't know how everyone else feels about this book so far, but I am not happy with it (especially everything after the meeting with Delphine). It feels rushed and mechanical, mostly because, as much as I love these characters and this project, it has been rushed and mechanical. Some of it was fun; most of it is not bad writing in and of itself. But there is so much more needed to do this right, which is the entire point of doing this at all. So I'm taking this as another great learning tool: how to fix something through editing the shit out of it.

I have some serious decisions to make where this is concerned, and I realize that most of the problems stem from the omission of Dawnguard. There should have been a lot more time and space to bring Aleron and Mjoll together more organically; this is hugely important to the story. There needs to be more understanding of the importance of each of the peripheral characters, especially Erik; this is also hugely important to the story. To fix these problems, I can either drop a few less important story arcs, like Dragonbane and "Aleron as a mage," or I can lengthen and flesh them out within this story. The second choice is by far the harder, but it is what I'm currently trying to do. With school in, it's hard to work as much as I want; but hopefully, with a week off in October and a couple of months to work on it otherwise, by Christmas break I'll be ready to start posting again.

This is the second book of the Blood of Akatosh Trilogy, following Blood of Akatosh - Dragon Rising.

Blood of Akatosh

.

Dragonborn

Prologue

Teldryn Sero stepped out of Fort Frostmoth into the ash lands of southern Solstheim. He looked back as he pulled the red veil up from around his neck to cover his face, then eyed the letter in his hand. Falx Carius. It was mad; and there was no way around that. General Falx Carius had died two hundred years ago, near enough. And yet there he had been, just moments ago, swinging that giant warhammer and killing five good mer. The ash spawn with him had done for the rest. Frightening things, those ash spawn - huge, man-shaped things seemingly made of the foul ash that covered the southern half of this cursed island. Everything Red Mountain touched was evil, in his estimation. That mountain had touched him, so long ago. What did that make Teldryn Sero?

He knew what he was, however much it always bothered him. Two hundred years ago he'd been the only survivor when daedra poured out of a massive stone gateway from Oblivion that just appeared in the middle of his family plantation. Five years later, he'd been the only survivor of the merchant vessel Netch Queen as it made port in Khuul on the northern coast of Vvardenfell. For a time, drifting among the small islands that gave no more hope for salvation than his hastily strapped-together raft, he had thought he might be the only survivor of an entire nation. He remembered thinking, as the fire spewed from Red Mountain and the sky was gray night even during the day, that the Reclamations had cursed him to be the speaker for a dead people. It was not such a strange thought. He had been everything the Dunmer people claimed to stand for. Azura, Boethia, and Mephala, the ancestor gods of the Dunmer people, were said to have inspired the use of magic, plotting, and assassination that defined the Dark Elves. He had exemplified each of those things, in his own way. A conjurer, he had been a great summoner of atronachs, and had even dealt with higher daedra on occasion. A schemer, he had been a prominent member of House Redoran, and close in the councils of that Great House. And he had gained his standing within the House as a skilled assassin.

Of course, that was mostly behind him now. The Oblivion Crisis had not destroyed Tamriel, the Red Year had not taken all of the Dunmer people; he was ignored by his House, now, and he no longer accepted contracts as an assassin - at least, he did not unless the money was very good. He did still summon atronachs in battle - the storm atronach he had called on had been very useful against the ash spawn only minutes ago - but he made it a rule to never again deal with any of the daedric princes, especially Boethiah.

But it seemed that some things never changed. It irked him that he still seemed to come out of every battle as the only survivor. If nothing else, however, that further marked him as an example of his people: he was a survivor.

.

It had been an awful experience, coming here to Fort Frostmoth. Guard Captain Veleth had warned him, and those that came with him. But the ash spawn had been attacking nearly every day for more than a month, and the people of Raven Rock had grown impatient. Impatient people paid well. He should have run at the first mention of an undead Imperial general, but Tamriel was full of strange wonders; keeping clear of the undead was a good way for a sellsword to go broke. Thinking back, though, it likely would have cost fewer lives to wait on the contingent of soldiers coming from Blacklight. A shame - Evo, at least, had been an enjoyable drinking companion.

He tried to put the fort behind him as he walked along the coast. He looked south and east, toward the island of Vvardenfell, the massive center of Morrowind, homeland of the Dunmer. Even at more than a hundred miles away, Red Mountain was visible, spewing ash into the sky as it had for two hundred years. He barely remembered, now, what it had once been. 250 years was a long time, and a lot of memories faded .He remembered Blacklight well, though; its cold winters and temperate summers, fishing the Sea of Ghosts off the northern coast.

To the northwest, in the direction of the city of Raven Rock, Teldryn saw a family of netch. Looking like a leather-armored jellyfish, and floating in the air via interior a sacks of strange magic vapor, the netch was not native to this far-north land; but it had adapted, as had the Dunmer.

Suddenly, beyond the netch, he saw something flying through the air. At first, he thought it might be a cliff racer. But then, it could not be one of the flying lizard-birds of Morrowind. Not only were they unheard of so far north; whatever this thing was, it was huge! It was hard to tell from such a distance, but he thought it must be bigger than a silt strider. It could eat a hundred cliff racers.

And then he heard it roar, and fire came from its mouth to flash against the morning sky. It was a dragon! Azura's light!

He stood staring, stiff as a plank, as the massive winged serpent swooped down and grasped one of the betty netch, much larger than even an orc, and lifted high into the sky with its prize. It flew away north with its poor victim screeching.

Catching his breath, Teldryn reached up to replace the veil that had fallen as he stood stunned. He started walking toward Raven Rock, again, shaking his head. 250 years was a long time. He'd never seen a dragon before; he had been sure they were extinct long before he was born. But sometimes the world needed to remind you it could always get just a little bit stranger.

The Throat of the World loomed above the village of Ivarstead, bathing the cold mountain settlement in shadows. Nestled between Lake Geir and the slopes of the Throat, Ivarstead was a quiet place, a farming village and a stop-off for pilgrims seeking to walk the fabled Seven-Thousand-Steps. Few ever sought to reach High Hrothgar, but many walked the lower paths in reverence. More than halfway up the mountain, two miles above even Ivarstead's considerable elevation, the home of the Greybeards was hard to reach.

"It's impossible," Klimmek said, frowning at the group and their supplies. The old Nord was supposedly the most experienced climber in the village, having made the journey to High Hrothgar many times over the years. "The winds are bad enough, but the cold and the snow will kill you. You have to wait until spring."

"I can't wait," Aleron told him. He could not wait months. He needed to know what the Greybeards knew. They would not have called him if it could not be done. "There's a path all the way up, so there'll be no trouble climbing. As for the cold, we can light fires, and we can sleep huddled." Mjoll snickered behind him, and Erik laughed aloud. Gods! "But we're going up."

"The path is all snow this time of year. You lose footing and you might find yourself blown off the mountain. And you won't get a fire going up there unless it's in a tent; and this time of year, the tent will blow away. I'm telling you, it can't be done."

"We'll pull a lean-to, then. Two. But we're going." He knew his face was hard. Klimmek seemed downright afraid of him, though he tried not to show it. He could not take any of the harshness out of him, though.

"Alright," the older Nord said. "I can't stop you. Just be careful. If you start having trouble breathing, just rest for a day or so where you are. The air gets… thin… up there; however much you breathe it doesn't seem enough. I've seen men lose their wits once the air gets thin. So rest often."

.

They left their horses in the village, along with Meeko. Caddock stamped and danced his impatience at being left behind, but there was no way to bring the animals up the mountain. Even with the carved path men called the Seven Thousand Steps, no horse could make that climb. It begged the question of how anyone had built a monastery up there. He doubted there were trees that high up. He doubted anything at all lived up there, except, of course, the Greybeards, and perhaps the occasional goat. The other horses were much more amenable; even Caddock's sister, the black mare Lydia had named Skade, was happy to have some rest after the long trip from Whiterun.

Gwilin, the little Bosmer woodwright, was quick about making a pair of lean-tos, once he was made aware that Aleron was the one the Greybeards had called. They were useful-looking structures, with legs that folded and hooked to ropes, so they could be used as sleds for dragging supplies. That beat carrying all their needs on their backs. And with another warning from Klimmek to watch for wolves in the early passes, they set off across the western bridge that led to the Seven Thousand Steps.

Any travel in snow was difficult. The trip from Whiterun, which would have taken perhaps a week in the spring, had taken more than three, and left them to climb the Throat in the dead of winter. Twenty miles or so a day had been cut to little more than five in the deep snows. Aleron expected no more than three miles a day climbing a mountain. Klimmek had said the climb could be made in less than two days in the late summer, when the snow was mostly gone and the winds were not so bad; he would give no estimate of the time it would take in winter. That turned provisioning into guesswork, which forced the group to pack all the food and water they could manage onto the sleds. The climb could take anything from a week to a month, but they would be ready.

On the first day, Aleron felt the soaking snow freezing him to numbness, and the entire group was forced to switch to new stockings every few hours. They had been warned of that, and so they did not run short; but all the socks had to be dried beside the small fires at the end of that first day. They did not come upon any wolves. Aleron suspected most wolves would have had the sense to be in warmer places this time of year. The danger of death, however, was still constant. By the end of the second day, the winds did get strong, and the need for the lean-tos was critical. Any amount of flint and tinder could have been wasted trying even to get a fire started in that howling madness, and no flame would have kept. Even with the shelters, the wetness of the supplies made fire-starting a battle. Keeping the shelters became troublesome on the fourth night, as the wind tried to expel the little structures off the mountain. If it was so bad here, and Aleron thought his three-miles-per-day guess had been fairly accurate, how bad would it be higher up?

Huddled together in pairs under the lean-tos, feet stretched toward fires they prayed would last, the group spent their nights shivering. Even Mjoll, pressed as firmly against him as she could be, their bodies like spoons in a kitchen drawer, wasted no energy in flirtation. Aleron was still aware of the feel of her wrapped in his arms, but there was no pressure for anything more. It would have been pleasurable, if not for the fear of freezing to death.

"What answers do you think you'll find up there?" Mjoll asked him the fifth night. She was speaking away from his as he enwrapped her from behind, and her words were muffled by her blankets pulled up to her face; but he could hear her well enough over the wind. "There's so much of all this I don't understand. And I'm a Nord. I can't imagine all the questions you have for them."

"Honestly, I'm trying not to think of it at all." He sighed, and she tried to bury herself even deeper into him, to catch all of the warmth of his breath. "I don't have the right questions, likely. All the things I think of are philosophy, really. I spent too many years among priests, studying histories and theological teachings. I suspect I'll want to know more than the historical theories of what being dragonborn means, but right now that's all I can bring to mind. The Septims were called the Dragonborn Emperors, before Martin Septim ended their line. And I'm fairly sure the Remans were as well. But there was no talk of relationship between the two lines. Centuries separated them. I'm not sure what to think of the Alessia's Empire, but the woman herself was gifted with Akatosh's blood. Is that what being dragonborn means, having the blood of the Dragon God of Time? That is what kept the Dragonfires lit all those centuries. But that's history, now. Moot. Martin ended the need for the Dragonfires, closed off the daedric realms forever. So what does it mean, now, to be dragonborn?

Mjoll turned to look at him. "It means you'll stop the end of the world." She saw his confusion and went on. "That is what the dragons' return means. Or that's what I was always told anyway. Alduin the World-Eater will bring back the dragons, and that will mean that he is ready to devour time itself. But the dragonborn is meant to devour the souls of dragons. So maybe you'll devour Alduin's soul and save the world."

He tried not to look at her as though she were a fool layman. It sounded very superstitious to Aleron, but he had heard of Alduin, and even the term World-Eater. But the brothers had taught him that Alduin was simply the early Nordic concept of Akatosh, from the time when Shor was their chief deity, and Akatosh was considered an elven god, Auriel. Come to think of it, though, Aleron had always thought it possible that Shor himself and Auriel were simply aspects of the Time-God Akatosh. Shor was certainly associated with eternity, while Auriel was associated with the past and the future. Could Alduin be a third aspect, the end of time?

None of that mattered, really. And just thinking on it only confirmed his suspicion that he should not.

"I don't know about any of that," he told Mjoll with a smile. "Like I said, I'm trying to keep an open mind."

And she looked at him for all the world as if he were a fool layman.

.

The sixth day brought more trudging through snow and stocking-changes that bore the real fear of blackness in the toes. No one showed any signs yet of frostbite, but feet perpetually numb could easily turn painful; and by then, it was too late. The snow was piled nearly to their waists, and nothing said it would be any less, further ahead. Conversation stopped as the group concentrated on breathing. They spent the seventh day keeping their fires going as much as possible and working feeling back into their toes. By the eighth day, they were breathing more easily, and so moved on.

Unfortunately, the eighth day, they also lost one of the lean-to sleds, along with half their supplies. It made for faster climbing, but if they were making any worse time than Aleron thought, they would run out before reaching the temple. They spent the eighth night all huddled together under one shelter, trying again to warm their numb feet. By midday on the ninth since leaving Ivarstead, Aleron noticed tingling in his feet - tingling with a small amount of pain. By that evening, they all felt the tingling, and Erik felt it in his fingers.

The tenth day, as Aleron was worrying over the loss of toes and fingers if this kept up much longer, the group rounded a bend to see a great stone structure ahead.

Stone! Aleron thought. How could they possibly have gotten so much cut stone up here?

It was an odd thought, he realized. He should have been elated that they had finally found High Hrothgar. It was a measure of his exhaustion that he thought of anything other than relief from the cold. He smiled. They had not been stopped by snowstorms or impassible winds; they had been lucky. Ten days was a long time to climb one mountain, but it could have been much worse.

.

There was no one outside the huge stone temple. Aleron could think of no reason there ever would be. The building, itself, stretched across the path in a winding, snakelike fashion, barring anyone from going further up the mountain without first seeking entrance here. Aleron looked up, and realized there was a good deal of the mountain left to climb, before one could reach the top. Likely no one ever had. High Hrothgar was here, and nothing could be worth what it would take to climb the rest of the way.

Two short stairways, leading to two separate pairs of doors, encircled a tall stone spire at the entrance. The doors of the temple, like everything else Aleron could see, were stone. They did not even seem to be cut, just natural stones the shape of ornately carved doors. Even the depictions of dragons along the outer walls seemed to be naturally occurring stone formations. It was possible, Aleron mused, that age could make stone simply look that way. But after so long, the winds here should have worn those carvings to unintelligibility.

He walked up the left stairway, and pushed on one stone door. He was surprised at how easily it swung open, and then that surprise was eclipsed by the physical shock of immense warmth coming through the doorway. He did not hesitate. He dove into the heat like a thirsting man into a pool. His breath was ragged with the attempt to pull all the warmth into his lungs and spread it throughout his insides. He heard the others, behind him, breathing the same deep, shuddering breaths. He pushed into the temple, noticing the stark blackness of the floors, the walls, the ceilings, - everything. The whole place seemed designed to drink light, breathing shadows into corners seemingly too close to torches and braziers for such darkness.

The doors did not open into a lobby, but into short passage of no more than ten or twelve feet. Light came from beyond, and Aleron led the group toward it, hopefully toward the fire that gave so much heat. The end of the passage opened into a stone hall so impressive that Aleron felt his jaw drop and did not stop it. Gaping was the proper response to such a place. Surrounded by monoliths, there was a wide lobby that looked more like a place of worship, before a short set of stairs that led into two large passageways to the left and right. The ceilings must have stretched half a hundred feet into the air, all carved black rock except for a large chimney hole to let out smoke. In the monoliths were great stone firepits, breathing warmth like the breath of Kynareth. In the center of the hall, Aleron looked up to see the open sky shining through the chimney hole.

"So" he heard a voice call, from somewhere in the shadows. It was a deep voice, full of calm and patience. "A dragonborn appears, at this moment in the turning of the age."

The stone spike glowed with a faint green light that seemed a physical presence in the mist. The faint black lines carved into the stone were unintelligible to Teldryn, but he knew that they were ancient. Ancient, even as elves reckoned such things; more, certainly, than just a few generations - Ages separated those symbols from his knowledge. Long ages.

Here in my shrine

The thought was not his, but then… it was. It had not been another's thought in his own head. Or had it been?

That they have forgotten

It was definitely not his own voice. But it was his thought.

Here will you toil

Or was it the other way around? His voice? Not his thoughts?

That you might remember

Were there other voices, now? No, just his own thoughts. Or another's?

By night you will reclaim

Something was wrong. He recognized this place, but not the mist and the glowing colors. He reached out to touch the stone, but pulled back. That was not his hand. Or was it?

What by day was stolen

That hand was human. He was not human.

Far from yourself

He was a Dunmer. A Dark Elf. Teldryn Sero. Wasn't he?

I grow ever near to you

How could he grow near to himself? Where was this place?

Your eyes once were blinded

Blind? Yes. No, what was he thinking. Blinded from what? Why was he talking to himself like this? Was he talking, now?

Now through me will you see

This was very wrong. These were not his thoughts.

Your hands once were idle

He looked at his hands. They flickered, like successive lightning strikes. Back and forth, the hands were now human, now Dunmer

Now through them will I speak

No.

And when the world shall listen

No. These were his hands. Teldryn Sero's hands. These were not his thoughts.

And when the world shall see

No! He had to stop this. What was happening?

And when the world remembers

NO!

That world shall cease to be

.

Teldryn woke, muttering to himself. "That world shall cease to be," he mumbled, sleepily.

The room around him was dark. He reached under his pillow to grasp his dagger. His breath was like a laboring sow's. He brought air into his lungs, only to feel as though he would choke on it. He pushed it out, and felt as if he were being strangled. In and out. In, and then out. It was a battle, one he could not lose, or even misstep. Every stumbled breath threatened to expel his consciousness, send him into Oblivion. In, deeply, and then out.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, he fell back into a tremulous sleep. He shuddered in his blankets, the bone-deep cold of his room in the Retching Netch searing his lungs and cracking his bones. After a time, his breathing settled. He began muttering to himself while he slept.

"Here in his shrine…"