Prologue

Snow creaks beneath me as I move. My approach is unhurried, but the beast makes no attempt to escape. His breathing is ragged, and dark blood has stained the snow beneath his jaws. Little puffs of white rise at every huffing gasp he expels. I halt beside the massive, glittering eye.

"Now," I say, and my breath fogs as if I too can breathe fire. "Tell me of the Horned Man."

The beast's huffing grows more intense. It takes me a moment to realize he is laughing at me. I clench my sword so hard that the blade trembles, scattering droplets of blood. "Tell me, beast."

"Fool," he says. His voice is like tamed thunder. "He will kill you."

"Maybe," I say. "But not in time for you."

He laughs again. "I have lived a great many years, fahliil. Perhaps it is time I tried something new."

I hiss. The woman knew nothing. The old men knew nothing. Now this great lizard will slip away into death without a word, smugly secure in his dotage. Every path a dead end.

"Besides," he continues, "what could I say? He has the soul of a dovah. He is a wild thing. Who can predict where he will alight? He will go where the wind calls him. He will fight and love, conquer and fail and rise again. That is what it is to be dovahkiin."

"That is what it is to be alive." My voice cracks like a whip, echoing across the stillness of the peak.

There is a twitch in the great maw, and I have the impression that the beast is smiling. "Perhaps. So live. You are young enough. And you will not catch him."

"I'll catch him." My flare of anger has left me as suddenly as it arrived, and I look away into the night. Snow settles in my hair. It is a delicate sensation. I have not noticed it before. But I have little experience with snow.

"I wonder," the beast murmurs, as if to himself. "Why did you come here? You could not have thought to find him. Not once you had interrogated my students. And you must know by now that any information I could give you would be much behind the times."

I am silent.

"Ahhh," he breathes. "Perhaps you thought you would draw him out? You think he will weep for his dear teacher, vow revenge? That he will rush to find you even as you hasten to meet him?" He laughs. "You will be disappointed, child. There is too much of the dov in him. No one remains to shed a tear for old Paarthurnax. You saw to that."

The great scaly head shifts. I subtly alter my stance, but the beast only slumps into a new position and sighs through something thick in his throat. His breathing seems raspier than it was as he resumes speaking. "No. You will not catch him. Not unless he wishes it. And if he has not turned to meet you by now, then he is playing some other game and you are only a toy in his hand. When he tires of you, he will throw you away. If you are lucky, your gods will catch you in the afterlife."

"I have no gods," I tell him. "Except myself."

He begins to laugh again, but then his great eye narrows on me. "Yesss. I see. Such a little scrap of divinity. Tovok. Remarkable. Where were they hiding you, all these years? But it is inconsequential, in the end. If he does not kill you, you will kill yourself. That power is too much for you."

I place a foot upon his flank, pressing into the wound. A sinuous ripple runs through his body as he flinches. "You spoke to him," I say. "Where was he going?"

"He had business with thieves. He joked of it. That is all I know."

My heart quickens. There are thieves all across this squalid land. It need not mean Riften. But it is a direction, and a hope. I will take it. I turn away, starting back through the snow.

"Will you not grant me mercy?" the beast calls after me.

I look back. Snow is already accumulating on the dark huddle of his body. Soon he will be obscured. For all that, the snow is not urgent. No wind drives it. It trickles gently from heaven, each flake settling in funereal stillness. It's like watching the deaths of stars.

"Krosis," the beast murmurs. Sorrow.

I turn and walk away into the night.