Disclaimer: I own nothing and want nothing.
Fandoms: The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
Characters: Female Imperial Nerevarine, Varvur Sarethi, Ulfric Stormcloak, Female Orsimer Dragonborn, Original Characters
Pairing: Female Imperial Nerevarine/Julan Kaushibael
Genre: Drama | Political Intrigue | Tragedy
Notes: This thing came about due to my frustration with Bethesda and their shit excuse to remove the Nerevarine from all future events, called 'going on an expedition to Akavir, a plot-point that came straight out of Bloody Fucking Nowhere.' A Nerevarine with no true ties to Morrowind and a desire for further adventure I can see in that situation. But someone with political and military savvy, someone reforged in the heart of the Ashlands, someone who had come to love the Dunmer people, someone who could believably Mantle Indoril Nerevar?
It's a collection of stories set all over the timeline, from the beginning of Morrowind to, in this case, the start of Skyrim's plot. As such, they run the gamut from standard action/adventure fare to some romance, some drama, some cultural misunderstandings and, as seen here, wordy social commentary, theological debates and cutthroat politics. Just because Morrowind had the Nerevarine's support during the Oblivion Crisis and the Red Year does not a rainbows-and-sunshine situation make. Particularly when said Nerevarine is very specific about how things should be done.
Translation notes: Baan Malur is the name in Dunmeris language of the city commonly referred to as Blacklight in most Imperial-authored sources.
like a fire to a world so cold
(rivers of ash - part the first)
4E 201, Baan Malur, north-western Morrowind
'High King Torygg of Skyrim is dead. Murdered in his own throne room.'
The words kept repeating themselves in her head like a half-mad little ditty, as if the next repetition and then the next would somehow lessen their blow.
'High King Torygg of Skyrim is dead.' Easy enough to understand and take in. 'Murdered in his own throne room.' Infinitely less so to accept the consequences and future ramifications of this one single act of murder. Yet accept, anticipate and counter them she would have to, for the sake of her people. The duties of rulership would not simply flee to the four corners of the world just because a fool of a young Nord had gone and placed his head on a platter for the likes of Ulfric Stormcloak to claim with little effort.
Potema grit her teeth, marching down the corridor at a steady clip, the guards easily keeping pace with her long, even strides. Merely thinking of the Jarl of Windhelm and his ill-advised rebellion that had erupted into a full-scale civil war was enough to darken her mood all by itself.
'High King Torygg of Skyrim is dead. Murdered in his own throne room.'
Damn that man straight to Oblivion for getting himself killed so easily! Slapping a calloused hand on the rough stone-and-sculpted-shell banister, Potema stopped in place. Taking slow, measured breaths through flared nostrils, she methodically worked at reining in her temper and bringing her emotions back under proper control. Not even the almost predictable assassination attempts on the part of Hlaalu remnants and former plantation owners under House Dres were enough to unsettle her these days. Yet the urgent report from Skyrim had managed to do so. The world was slowly and steadily falling apart, in a way that would one day make the Red Year look like a child's play with sky-flares. And there was woefully little she could do about it, save for protecting her people, ensuring that Morrowind would remain united beneath the Grand Council... and plotting ways and means to the utter destruction of a Dominion.
Drumming calloused fingertips on the rough stone and surveying the expanse of Baan Malur with sharp, gray eyes, Potema Augusta Varro, Indoril Nerevar made manifest among the living once more, First Councilor, Farseer of the Ashlanders, Hortator and Nerevarine of Morrowind, set to thinking things through. Only the foolish and the suicidally self-assured jumped into a pit head-first, with little thought for price and consequence. And only the deluded closed their eyes and pretended that doom and disaster could not strike at the savage whims of the gods.
All around Potema, the Ashen Vanguard had arranged themselves in such a way that they could watch the open-air corridor from all sides, one of the mages holding a ward between stone banister and sloping, shell-shaped roof. It made the air shimmer faintly and Potema knew from experience that it would deflect anything up to a medium-weight crossbow bolt, along with most magical attacks. It was a taxing spell and the grim-faced Breton woman casting it wouldn't be able to hold it for more than one hour. No matter. One hour was enough to put her thoughts in order here in the cold afternoon sun. Some faint remnant of her youthful impulsiveness almost had Potema order that the ward be extinguished, but it was just that. A dead remnant. The Ashen Vanguard would obey her every order, up to and including the driving of weapons into their own hearts, should the Hortator and Nerevarine deem it necessary. They would obey her even in this, yet it would gnaw at them constantly to know Potema the least bit vulnerable and exposed to risk, particularly if done through her own choice.
"What have I wrought, my old friend?" She mouthed the words silently, looking down at the ring on the middle finger of her right hand and not knowing if she spoke them to the dead spectre of Dumac Dwarfking, Vivec or Voryn Dagoth. Or perhaps to all of them. It hardly mattered. To what hellish Outer Realm Dumac had been banished she knew not and both Vehk and Voryn were long past the ability of hearing words from the living. Moon-and-Star glinted faintly in the ruddy light, yet it brought Potema a cold sort of comfort. 'Take what you can and pay later', Caius had advised shortly before his departure and there had been bitter truth to his words. For her audacity and her ambition and the unrelenting spirit that had lead Potema into walking the steps of a long-dead Chimeri King and making him walk as her in turn, she was still paying.
The shadow moved, just at the edge of her eyesight. And Potema moved in turn. The hand that had been casually resting on Trueflame's hilt drew the enchanted weapon in half a heartbeat, as she spun on her heel, bending shoulders and hips and knees, using the momentum of the turn to her advantage. The dagger – surely poisoned, they were always poisoned – flew over her head, a hair's width above her skin. A hair's width that was as unfortunate a distance as a fjord, as far as her would-be assassin was concerned. Still turning, Potema swung Trueflame in a two-handed ascending arc in the second half of her heartbeat, one knee hitting the floor for stability. The flame-coated blade took her attacker in the chest, slicing a boiling line up to his left shoulder, splitting open cloth and skin and muscle and the white bone of ribs. Like a knife slicing through warm curds.
Her guards were too disciplined and well-trained to lose themselves to pandemonium at assassins in their midst. Instead, Farvyn Velothril moved at the same time as Potema, curved short-sword taking the hapless killer's head right off even as Trueflame turned his flesh to blackened char. Shadows at Potema's back and left fell in the same moment – one of them taking a fireball right to the face, another collapsing with a throwing knife in his throat, only to be expertly stabbed through the heart even before he hit the floor properly.
"Search the corridor for more of them!" No time to hesitate or falter. Potema's voice cracked through the air like a whip and several of her guards instantly saluted with fists over hearts, before loping down the walkway in both directions. They all knew what do to in moments such as this. It had been trained in them until it became as natural as a babe suckling at its mother's teat. However, they had to hear her voice, hear the cold, unflinching resolve there and know that she was unharmed under their watch.
"Honoured One?"
Farvyn Velothril was looking at her with a red gaze, worry painted plainly on his ash-dark features, voice as rough as two stones grinding together. And in the next breath, the Dunmer lowered his eyes, unable to meet Potema's own any longer.
"This filth was allowed to strike far too closely and you had to draw your weapon under our watch, Honoured One. We are shamed forever in your eyes and those of our ancestors."
Allowing a small, genuine smile on the grimness of her own face, Potema reached out a hand, firmly grasping Farvyn's shoulder. The hand where Moon-and-Star still glinted. The significance wasn't at all lost to the Dunmer man, who jerked his head back up, eyes wide, before swelling with pure pride at the touch. He looked at her with nothing but love and devotion. They all looked at her in such a way, once her eyes met each of theirs in turn. Love and devotion to the hand that had forged them, the hand that wielded, guided and sheltered them.
"I am well, Farvyn. And it was the bravery and quick thinking of the Ashen Vanguard that ensured this outcome. It will take more than a few motherless fetchers under Dark Brotherhood colours to strike me down with all of you by my side." 'And even on the day that a poisoned dagger does find my lifeblood, I will make certain that what I build can endure and live on.' But such words she did not say, settling for proud smiles and nods and small touches here and there, making the recepients stand even straighter, the devotion in their eyes fanned into open flames.
'What have I wrought? What I needed to. Living weapons of flesh and blood and spirit, among the strongest Tamriel has ever known. And if I fail in this gambit of mine, the world will need every single one of these who call themselves the Ashen Vanguard.'
"Do you know, Monette, why Vvardenfell was made?" Potema spoke coolly, with razor-sharp precision, as if an attempt on her life hadn't just taken place mere moments earlier. Not giving the bodies and the blood pooling on the stone floor even a passing glance, she leaned on the railing yet again. Benighted fools with all the intelligence of malformed scribs. They should have tried taking her out from the distance again. Perhaps they would have had more of a chance.
"Vvardenfell and the sea of ash were made by the gods to test and baptise the faithful, Honoured One", Monette Beluelle, the short, hard-face Breton mage answered without a hint of hesitation. She spoke with the same conviction as Dunmer born of Morrowind and none here among the Ashen Vanguard would scoff or call her a presumptuous parvenu for it. Not when they had all been raised from early childhood together, noble and commoner, Great House retainer and Ashlander, Dunmer and non-Dunmer, man and woman, taking in the lessons of duty and honour and sacrifice as early as they could walk. All had been born on the soil of ancient Resdayn, regardless of where their sires had come from. "We walk the ash-wastes and are transformed for it. We endure the killing storms and let them scour away weakness, so we may be born anew."
'As I once was, so very long ago.'
"And would you have the same lessons visited on those you are pledged to serve?"
Monette hesitated. This was no question to which a quick, rote answer would suffice. Nor was this meant to be religious instruction – she knew the Ashen Vanguard were all aware of the difference, even if they usually could not tell where Potema Augusta Varro the woman who had once been mortal ended and Nerevar Reborn began. Potema could not fault them for that, not when she had never been able set any line of separation herself. Not that she had cared to. Mantling was soul-changing as it was, without making herself unstable with ill-advised attempts at clinging to a past no longer relevant.
"I would have them be strong in the face of the storm, Honoured One. We will be of little use if they cower and bow their heads like beasts of burden when strength is needed."
Not that such was a pressing worry – not with the survivors of Morrowind, those who had lived through the horrors of Oblivion and the Red Year and slaughter at the hands of the An-Xileel. To a one they had been harrowed down to the bone, yet the memories of war and pain and hardship could still fade, even in a people so long-lived. Even in a people forced to look upon the ruin of Vvardenfell each and every day.
"Well-spoken. Morrowind shall stand strong. Yet that does not mean we will throw caution to the wind and set ourselves to fighting battles we cannot win."
Monette bowed her head and murmured apologies for her presumption, eyes lowered. Potema took away some of the sting by reaching out and lightly touching the woman's short, already graying hair. All around, Ashen Vanguard whispered assent, bowing their heads in turn, as Potema turned her eyes back to Baan Malur in the sunset. The great capital of Morrowind stretched out in all directions from the Rootspire, nestled in a great valley of the Velothi mountains, jagged peaks rising to the west and the east. The snow-capped mountains blocked her view of Vvardenfell and Red Mountain, yet Potema could have pointed to it even in the dark, with her eyes closed. A spark of the divine essence of what had been the heart of a God still lived in her, through Corprus, thrumming in time to her own heartbeat. It lived on even with her destruction of the Red Tower. Counsel these warriors as she might against fighting impossible odds, yet Potema knew that such a thing would be inevitable one day. It was all a question of careful preparation and managing risk and how many would be left standing in the end. As many as could be saved, but never enough.
As for her, the Nerevarine knew where her path was headed. It all else failed and no other choice was left, she would set the world aflame and use her own soul as kindling, if it meant the annihilation of the Thalmor and their singularly monstrous plans.
"Do you know the importance of the Towers, Ashibaal?"
The tall, heavily-scarred Ashlander man gave a sharp nod at this, beads and bone fetishes clinking in his braided hair, symbols of his origin, even if his oaths to the Nerevarine now superseded all notion of clan loyalty.
"They secure the world and our existence as we are now, Honoured One. They seal shut the jaws of Oblivion and maintain the work of Lorkhan the Dead God, so that the faithful might be tested and challenged by mortality into one day defeating and transcending it."
Potema nodded slowly, still looking at the mountains. A quintessentially Dunmer sort of answer, true to Velothi teachings down to the core. And one she had always liked. Not the unquestioning devotion to the mortal plane that far too many of the race of Men showed, yet also not the horrific grasping and clawing for divinity of the Altmer, that would unmake Creation itself. The mad bastards would one day destroy all of the Towers keeping Mundus and Oblivion separate. And in so doing, perhaps regain their oh-so-precious and much-coveted divinity, at unspeakable cost to everyone else. And Indoril Nerevar Reborn had unwittingly given them a helping hand when she had banished the Heart of Lorkhan, breaking the Red Tower in the process. It was such a bleak thing as to make almost anyone weep and gnash teeth in despair… yet in what way would that help? Histrionics and wishing for better were useless things – what concerned Potema was the world as it was and what could be tangibly done to it, not as it should have been.
"And the reason we live?"
"Our lives are as blades for the hearts of those who threaten holy Resdayn or the work of the Dead God, Honoured One."
As one, the members of the Ashen Vanguard thumped fists to chests once more, eyes blazing. Like her, they would walk through hell itself if it meant ultimate success for their cause. But unlike her warriors, Potema could not afford the luxury of having someone else make the difficult decisions and issue the orders for her.
During her childhood in Cyrodiil, seemingly a lifetime ago, she had attended the spectacle of a traveling circus. And in her memory was seared the elegant and efficient economy of movement that a woman had shown on the high-wire. Sure-footed and unafraid, she had danced and twirled a hundred hand-spans above them all. She had not faltered, though any wrong step meant certain death, juggling nine colourful balls and spinning on her heel. Potema felt much the same way now – a high-wire artist, in a position where doing nothing would mean death, yet where acting would almost certainly bring about the same thing. An artist juggling so many balls at the same time that it was a miracle she could still keep track of them all, while also paying attention to traps and pitfalls and false paths and even more false friends. All while the ghosts of dead regrets made her nights unbearable.
And yet she would endure. It was simple. What could not be changed had to be endured.
Counting in her head, Potema started reviewing her options and planning her next steps. Skyrim first. The bloody province was going straight to Oblivion in a breadbasket. Skyrim as a stable, peaceful, economically prosperous and politically functional entity had been essential for the stability of the Empire in the north. It had also been essential for the large swathes of borderland it shared with Morrowind and the number of Dunmer refugees the nation had taken in over the years. It mattered for very little that the Nords would as soon rip out their hearts and eat them than join the Thalmor in their mad crusade. By fighting for a break with the Empire, even a pale shadow as it was, they were only building on fragmentation that the Aldmeri Dominion overlords looked upon with pleasure. After all, it would be far easier for the Altmer and their minions to pluck prone nations one by one, rather than risk another protracted war with a strong, united Empire.
"Why do we still hold to the Armistice, Farvyn?" She asked the question almost idly, thoughts continuing to move forward at a steady pace.
"The Empire of White-Gold is necessary as a bulwark against the Thalmor and their accursed machinations, Honoured One. We are brave and strong, the blood and soul of Resdayn, yet we also know how to be careful and patient and cunning, as Boethiah once taught us. The Aldmeri are strong and have numbers on their side, so we will need numbers as well."
Skyrim. She should have been paying more attention to the land of her ancestors. She should've had that rabid dog of Windhelm put down as soon as it became clear that his charisma and his ambition and his bitterness toward Cyrodiil would be a problem–
No.
No. Assassinating Ulfric Stormcloak would have done little to change the course of things. He was but one man, whereas Skyrim's righteous fury ran much deeper and wider. Another with similar gifts, including the thu'um, would have risen by necessity and popular desire. Even finding some way of keeping Torygg alive might not have helped much. If every report Potema received from Solitude could be taken at face-value, High King Torygg had been sympathetic to Ulfric's demands for a sovereign nation, enough that he might have even proclaimed Skyrim's independence, had the Jarl of Windhelm come to him in peace, with convincing words. Potema wasn't certain which was the more disastrous option – a unified Skyrim making a sharp break with the Empire or the infighting currently tearing the province apart. Both situations were net gains for the Thalmor, in any case. As was Skyrim remaining attached to Cyrodiil, bitterly enough. As was Morrowind still holding to the Armistice instead of proclaiming Resdayn once more, as many wanted. Including Potema herself. Yet she would do what was necessary and so would everyone else, regardless if she had to charm or force them into it.
Skyrim was a lost cause for now. Or perhaps not. She had enough agents to keep watch over the important players, particularly in Windhelm. As did almost every Great House on the bloody Council. And even though Potema had entertained and then summarily dismissed the idea of killing Stormcloak, the same notion and far less sense could occur to someone else. Telvanni had no agents in Skyrim, of that she was absolutely certain. Redoran made official denials, yet like her, their honour was coloured by a heavy dose of pragmatism. Indoril… difficult to tell at present, something she would have to look further into. Dres and Sadras certainly had people on the ground. And Dres were the greatest danger. A knee-jerk reaction, a kill order sent at… say, slights endured by the Dunmer population of Windhelm… Potema suppressed a grimace. A botched assassination attempt on the Jarl would be as dangerous as a successful one in this situation. The connection to the Dark Elves would be made sooner or later and her people residing in Skyrim would pay for it in blood, before wrathful Stormcloaks would turn their eyes to the border with northern Morrowind once more.
Potema made a mental note to have all Dres correspondence with Skyrim much more thoroughly intercepted and supervised. After just a second of pondering, she added Sadras to the measure as well. The youngest of the Great Houses was fiercely loyal to the First Councilor in its dealings, for it had been Potema's word that had been the final approval for the dissolution and death of House Hlaalu, its lands and estates and monetary assets seized and redistributed. Yet gratitude could all too easily bleed into entitlement, which when not satisfied would then warp and fester into resentment and plots in the dark. No, taking Sadras for granted, even after all these years, was the decision of someone waiting to be stabbed between the ribs.
'Look at you', she thought bitterly, fingers tightening on Trueflame's curved hilt, Moon-and-Star grinding against the dark metal. 'Planning and plotting and spinning webs like Mephala herself. There are times when you utterly disgust even yourself. How right your sire was to name you after the cursed Wolf Queen!'
And yet she would continue to plan and plot and work around obstacles or go straight through them, because it needed to be done and there was no one else to get on with it. Some days, when the crushing weight of duty felt as if it would drive her straight into the earth, Potema could not help but bleakly wonder if there was anything left to her but necessity.
Skyrim, then. Like a swift, foamy mountain-river leaping and turning and twisting over the rocks, her thoughts jumped from point to point, flowing down quick tangents, resolving them and then returning to the main problem. In the Legions, a lifetime ago, she'd needed to think quickly in the heat of battle, lest good men and women die needlessly at her orders. It had been harsh, solid training for later ruling a nation and a people. Skyrim. The province wasn't lost. Not yet. Not if she had any say in it. The place already had its fill of agents and spies, rank-and-file soldiers, hot-heads, political agitators, naive revolutionaries, religious-fundamentalist types, pragmatists, stone-cold murderers. No, what Skyrim needed was something else entirely – it needed a hero, a galvanizing presence, strong and charismatic enough to counter Ulfric Stormcloak point for point, unite the province and deliver it back into the hands of the fools appointed by Cyrodiil, who had allowed this mess to happen in the first place. The corners of Potema's lips twitched faintly. Might as well wish that the Numidium should fall right into her lap, ready for use. The two were just as likely to happen.
'Without the Hero, there is no Event', Zurin Arctus had posited so long ago and Potema was certain that this writings on the nature and power of prophecy were what had convinced Uriel VII to release her from prison and send her into the East. How… appropriate that she should make use of the same reasoning, two centuries later. Skyrim needed its Hero and she would supply one, even if it meant trawling all of her holdings for the suitable man or woman. Nordic blood flowed through her own veins from one of her unknown parents, giving Potema the light eyes, pale mien and red-gold hair of Skyrim's children. Even if her height and features, name and upbringing, were entirely Cyrodiilic. But this was one task she could not set to accomplishing herself, even if under a different name and identity. Morrowind could not be that long without its First Councilor, not now – and Potema was certain, down to her marrow, that what would come to pass in Skyrim was not hers to build. Just to instigate. Perhaps.
Tapping a primal sort of rhythm with her fingertips on the banister, Potema turned her thoughts to Elisif the Fair. Little more than a girl, really, forced into calling herself Jarl after her husband's ignominious end, yet barely strong enough to hold on to Solitude even with the help of reasonably competent advisers and the support of the Ninth Legion. No, Elisif had not the mettle to be High Queen of Skyrim and Stormcloak knew it as well as Potema did. Perhaps he fancied taking her to wife, to solidify his claim in the face of both the Moot and the common people. By all accounts, the girl was loyal to her dead love, yet much could change – particularly if she ever found herself with a proverbial sword to her throat, Solitude surrounded on all sides. Potema had met her only once, during her most recent state visit to the Court of Solitude and the Nerevarine doubted that much had changed.
Torygg had been, in many ways, as young and inexperienced as his lady-wife. At the end of the talks, Potema had quietly drawn the High King of Skyrim to the side, pretending to be charmed by her host, even as she'd subtly revealed the golden coin in her hand, marked and blessed with the power of Talos the Divine. The very same coin that had been pressed into her palm at Ghostgate, as she'd met the face of an old soldier and known herself to be in the presence of divinity. Torygg had been suitably impressed and surprised to find a fellow devotee of Talos in the First Councilor of Morrowind – of all people! – and Potema had taken the time to counsel the young High King against rash thought and even more rash action. The Thalmor and their foul grasping for the divine would fall, yet it would not be a thing done by fragmented nations foolishly hurling their best and brightest to die against Altmer steel and magick. At the time, it had seemed to work, yet Ulfric Stormcloak had still managed to worm his way into Torygg's trust. And now the boy was dead for it, his land splitting itself apart.
Potema couldn't help but be grudgingly impressed by Stormcloak's shrewdness. It was a masterstroke, basing his uprising on the bitter resentment the Nords felt toward the White-Gold Concordat and the once religiously tolerant Empire turning back on its most fundamental principles. Had the Jarl of Windhelm instead made this rebellion fully about the Empire's taxation policies or his deeply nationalistic, Nord-centric views… well, he would have gotten far less sympathy in plenty of quarters. As things stood, even many who considered him a threat to peace and stability couldn't help but find his cause an understandable one.
She herself sympathized and agreed with Ulfric Stormcloak's theological concerns. Yet Potema would also contribute to the man's crushing defeat and ignoble death, because the secret worship of Talos had to be balanced at all times with maintaining a strong, unbreakable front before the Aldmeri Dominion. Far too many failed to understand this, both in Skyrim and here on the Grand Council itself, where short-sighted policies often ruled the day.
"Do any of you", she asked softly, so very softly that her guards had to strain their ears to hear, "know how one goes about killing a God?"
For a moment there was silence. This was something that Potema had not taught them.
"To kill a God, one must kill belief", Monette answered, hesitantly at first, yet with her voice gathering strength as Potema nodded faintly in her direction.
"That is truth. The death of a God may not be achieved even with the slaughter of their last adherent, so long as even a memory of them lingers on. If you seek to kill a God, you must unmake them, unbind them by stamping out every last trace of their existence from every pantheon in the world."
Which was precisely what the Thalmor sought to do. It was all a masterfully crafted plan, methodical and frightfully precise in its execution. Destroy the world as they all knew it by breaking the Towers, unmaking the God of Man and in the end, quite likely unmaking the race of Men itself. How much hate the Altmer must harbour for their bodies of flesh and sinew, to seek complete destruction for the sake of divinity! And hadn't such been the goal of Tonal Architect Kagrenac, behind her old friend's back? Ascension to divinity by pure logic, mathematics, engineering… and the greatest irony of it all was that it had lead to the disappearance and perhaps destruction of an entire people. Would that the same fate were visited on the Altmer and their ceaseless weeping for lost Godhood!
No. The Thalmor would not succeed. Not as long as a single other soul drew breath in defiance. This was, perhaps, her greatest success with the Ashen Vanguard. Their military prowess was perhaps bested only by their religious dedication – and such was saying something, among a people renowned for their piety. In them and the youngest scions of the Great Houses, all taught and trained among the Vanguard, Potema saw the future of Resdayn. And it was a future built on theological syncretism in the best tradition of the old Septim Empire – on a curious, yet sturdy melange of ancestor worship, healthy respect for the Princes of Oblivion, all mixed in with service to the Nine Divines, given local flavour and character. Perhaps her most difficult achievement and the one most responsible for all the repeated assassination attempts. And it had all started when wide-eyed Dunmer youths had first sought her for advice and instruction, after Akatosh himself had come in all of his blazing glory above the Imperial City.
Almost as silent as shadows, the rest of the Ashen Vanguard contingent returned, having found no further threat. They were followed by robed and liveried servants, all of whom bowed deeply in the Nerevarine's presence, before setting to the unpleasant duty of removing the bodies and cleaning up the pools of blood. None of the dark-faced Dunmer men and women even flinched at the task. It was, Potema counted idly, the thirty-sixth assassination attempt this year. Perhaps the thirty-seventh would prove more eventful and entertaining.
Yet her darkly amused speculation was interrupted by the arrival of an Ashlander woman hot on the heels of the servants. Colourful beads and feathers shimmered in her hair, chitin armour resplendent with carved symbols for all her achievements and all the enemies she had single-handedly slain in battle. Like the Ashen Vanguard, the woman saluted with fist over heart, intricate braids swaying with the motion. It was something in the warrior's grim, shadow-rimmed eyes that instantly made Potema know what she would hear, even before the accursed words came out. Like a knife taken to what was left of her beating heart.
"Farseer and Nerevarine, to whose wisdom we all submit ourselves. I am Yaras-Tul, Clanholder of the Ash-Walkers. The great Ashkhan, may his name and honour live on forever, has drawn his last breath."