The Sacrifice

After Galmar had gone, Mjolna stood for a few moments taking in the room; the smell of sweat and war that lingered in the walls, was ingrained into every piece of furniture; the view through the windows that looked out over the White River. She wondered how long it would be before she was in this room again and prayed to whichever Divine was listening that she would get the chance. Their plan was risky at best, and deadly at worst.

She got a small, raggedy piece of paper out of the inner lining of her traveling cloak and read down the list that was written on it:

The Summoning

Scroll of Summoning and Sealing

Charcoal (to make the scroll)

Filled Black Soul Gem

Dragon heart

Sacrifice

She read through it quickly, for what must have been the thousandth time, but when her eyes landed on the last item of the list an ice cold fist seemed to clench around her heart. When she and Galmar had first discovered this list, in the early days of their planning, they had searched every book, sought out ever mage who might have an inkling of knowledge about it, but they had all insisted that this list would most certainly require a human sacrifice. She had personally looked for a loophole in all the text she'd read on the subject, but, of course, to no avail. It had to be a person.

A lot of thought had been put into the fifth item on the list and Mjolna and Galmar had agreed that if they were to keep this plan from Ulfric, it would have to be someone he would never notice was missing, so they chose a dark elf from the Grey Quarter. But, as there always is, there was a tricky part. Along with being unnoticeable by Ulfric, it would have to be someone who trusted Mjolna, so they would go with her when the time came. She was no stranger to murder, but the very thought of killing someone who openly trusted her was enough to turn her stomach.

She swallowed the bile that was threatening to climb up out of her stomach and trudged out of the room, across the wide dining hall and through a door on the opposite side. The door opened onto a case of cold stone stairs that she climbed swiftly and walked down a long hallway, opening another door at the end into a room she had never been in before, but had heard of often from Ulfric. The room contained an arcane enchanter, an alchemy lab, and shelves upon shelves of books, soul gems, and various alchemical ingredients that Mjolna was positively itching to brew together as soon as she laid eyes on them.

This must be it, she thought, Wuunferth's room. No other room she'd been to in the palace had possessed such an obviously magical aura, it was nearly palpable. She could almost see the leftover magicka swirling around the room from past experiments. She breathed it in for a few seconds, inhaling it deep, hoping to gain some courage from it. Then she strode across the room to a bed that looked as though the owner of it didn't use it much, it was neatly made and shoved into the corner so as not get in the way of other, more important things in the room. Mjolna looked critically at it for a moment then plunged her hand into the sleeping hay at the bottom in the top right corner, the one closest to the wall, just where Galmar had said it would be. Her hand brushed across a cold, hard surface; a box. She grasped it and pulled out of its safe hiding place.

She and Galmar had agreed that if he or Wuunferth were stopped by guards or Imperials with this box in the possession, they'd both be in a lot of trouble. Mjolna knew the box contained everything they would need, everything, that is, except the sacrifice, of course. It contained a few pieces of parchment and charcoal, sitting alongside a filled Black Soul Gem. If either of the men had been caught with it, it would have been assumed that they had practicing Dark Magic. She opened it and took inventory of the contents, plucking the parchment and and charcoal from their places and flattened out the paper on the nearest flat surface. Carefully, painstakingly, she drew a symbol of greatest power on it using the charcoal, the symbol that alone would be stronger enough to summon the thing they needed. When she was done, about twenty minutes later, she sat back and admired her handwork.

She then flipped it over and quickly scribbled another symbol on the back, a symbol she knew well.

After making sure that every circle, line, and curve were in the right place, she gently rolled up the Scroll of Summoning and Sealing and put it in her inside pocket next to the list, adding the Black Soul Gem with them.

She placed the now empty box back in its hidden spot in Wuunferth's bed and left the room. Walking back down the long corridor, down the cracked, stone steps and into the main dining hall of the palace once again. She turned toward the heavy oaken doors at the end of the hall and walked over, heaved the doors open, and swept outside into the night, heading toward Hjerim, the house in Windhelm that Ulfric had given her as a prize after a particularly difficult battle. Of course, she'd had to root out the serial murderer that had lived there before her, but that had been easy enough.

The walk freezing, and seemed longer than it should have, probably because of the cold. The wind howled all around her, threatening to whip off her travel cloak. Every now and then, when she turned a corner onto another street, she would get knocked back several feet from the force of it. She hated Skyrim weather. Her Altmer flesh and blood just wasn't up for it the way most of these damn Nords were. She missed her warm home, sometimes more than she dared to admit, but they had wronged Skyrim in a way Mjolna wouldn't easily forgive. She hadn't spent much time in the Summerset Isle's, even when she was a babe. She'd been orphaned at a young age and had somehow landed in Skyrim where she grew up in Honorhall Orphange in Riften. A place that still sent shivers of terror down her back.

Finally, when she thought she would no longer be able to stand it, she reached the front door to Hjerim, and pushed her way inside. She was very tempted to sit down by the fire and rest her bones, warm her backside. She'd hurried back to Windhelm all the way from Whiterun the previous night and hadn't even bothered to lie down before going straight to Galmar to bring him the news. Now she was regretting this decision, even though it had been the right thing to do. There was hardly any time to complete their plan, so there was no choice but to act hurriedly.

Quickly, she dashed upstairs and took the fourth item from her list out of it's lock box beneath some loose floorboards under her wardrobe. The heart of the dragon called Numinex. Even though Mjolna had always known she would have to give it up someday, it was the prize of her stolen collection. The tale of how she'd come by it was a thrilling one, to be sure. The fool of a Jarl in Whiterun, Balgruuf, had foolishly kept this pretty in a display case in the front hall of his palace, Dragonsreach. The things was pitiful and decayed, Farengar Secret-Fire had concocted a strange new potion to revive it and preserve it forevermore.

Once she'd gotten it in her possession, she knew it wouldn't be long before the authorities were out searching for it. It had been the prize of dear Balgruuf's collection, too, and she was sure he'd stop at no end to find it. But he'd never find it now. She was sure it was going to be destroyed in the summoning at the Throat of the World, just another thing she would have to lose tonight. "Speaking of which," she whispered to herself aloud, "I need to go… collect the last item." Mjolna had been trying to distance herself from this part of the plan.

Mjolna filled her pack with food and drink, a few healing potions, and some extra arrows for her bow. She made sure her twin ebony blades were secured on either side of her hips and tightened the holster that was holding her glass bow onto her back, and made her way out of the front door and into the icy cold again. The trip to Sadri's Used Wares in the Grey Quarter was much shorter than what it had taken to get to her house from the Palace. In a matter of minutes she was standing outside the shop, raising her fist to knock on the door. Usually, she would just barge right in, but seeing as the hour was late, she had decided to show some manners and knock first.

"Oh, bloody hell!" Mjolna heard Revyn Sadri curse from inside. "Who the 'ell is knocking at this time of night? I just laid down, I tell ya!" She heard hurried footsteps stomping down the creaky wooden stairs and a rustle of material that suggested Revyn was pulling on some clothes on his way to the door. After a few more choice words from him the door was flung open and an angry, disheveled, and tired looking Revyn stood from the inside of the shop looking out at her, squinting past the snow and shadow to make out who it was.

A range of emotions fled across the elf's face; shock at someone calling upon him so late in the night, excitement to see it was a friend, and then annoyance at remembering the reason why he was so shocked in the first place. The look of excitement nearly broke Mjolna's heart. "Oh, Divines," he griped, "What is it now, girl?" She was glad to hear that there was no emphasis on 'girl' as there had been when Galmar had said it earlier, and was surprised to find that she didn't mind the little insult coming from Revyn anway. "Another ruddy adventure?" he asked, trying to sound angry, but Mjolna swore she saw the corners of his mouth twitch upwards.

"Exactly! I hope you've got you're traveling clothes all warmed up, Rev. It's going to be a gold one," Mjolna forced herself to sound cheery, even though with every falsely cheery word she had to force down a lump in her throat that was threatening to make her cry.

"Oh, Gods'," he said, his voice dripping with exasperation. "Do you know what time it is? This couldn't wait 'till mornin'?" he demanded of her, though not unkindly.

"Sorry, Rev. I have something that needs dealing with up at the Throat of the World, and the last time I made that journey alone a Frost Troll nearly flung me off the mountain," she answered, still in the fake cheery voice, but managing a small chuckle at his indignant look.

"Good grief, Mjol, you can handle dragons, but not a little Frost Troll?" he asked, letting out a laugh. "I'm ashamed to call you Dragonborn! What do you have that needs dealt with all the way up there, anyway?"

"The Greybeards, of course, the old milk-drinkers. They've finally decided to let me meet Paarthurnax," she lied, with relative ease.

Revyn's face fell a little as a suspicious expression flitted across it, "I thought they already said you should go meet him?"

Mjolna faultered a little in her lie. She had forgotten that she'd already told him that. It was true, the Greybeards had told her she should meet their leader. It had weirded her out a little at the time, the old men wanting her to go meet an even older man that lived alone at the Throat of the World. But she had met him since, the old dragon that the Greybeards protected, and luckily she hadn't told Revyn about it.

"They did, but I haven't gone yet. And if Frost Trolls live halfway up that mountain I don't want to find out what else lives on it when I'm alone," she was trying to sound pleading and helpless because she knew it would stir up his fatherly instincts.

Sure enough, his face softened and his grin brightened, a look of mischief gleaming in his eyes. "Sure, Mjol. Let me just pack some essentials and close up shop, then we can go," he assured her, a broad smile now firmly on his face.

He jogged back up the stairs and Mjolna heard the unmistakable noises of someone rustling around a wardrobe, trying to decide what to take with them on a journey. "What do you think I should bring? I imagine it's gonna be pretty cold all the way up…" he called to Mjolna downstairs.

He continued to ask rhetorical questions and babble on about their past adventures, saying things like, "Remember that time we met the coven of vampires?" or "What kind of weapons, do you think? Melee or range?" All the while, Mjolna just stood in the front room of his shop, once again taking in a room that she may very likely never see again. Her eyes began to sting and burn, and the lump in her throat that had been ever present since Ulfric had gotten capture had become more pronounced. It felt as though a lead weight had dropped into her stomach. All she could think about was the fact that she was killing her friend. Murdering her friend. By the time Revyn bounced back down the stairs with an overly stuffed, very large rucksack, Mjolna's face was shining with tears. She had to turn around and pretend to examine an elven dagger on his countertop so that she could wipe her eyes and blink back the remaining tears.

"Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be," he said, still beaming at her.

Mjolna hurriedly finished inconspicuously wiping her face on her sleeve, then turned around to face him. The moment she caught sight of her companion's traveling bag, she laughed heartily. "Rev! You're not going to need that much!" she said, "We're only going to the Throat of the World and back."

Revyn didn't reply, but he grinned and Mjolna saw a red flush creeping up his neck. It was so typical of him to bring so much stuff. He was always one that liked his comfort and would only sacrifice it if it was impossible to bring along. She watched his back as he walked to the door, opened it, and then stood aside to let her through. She smiled kindly to him, stepped past and out of the door, into the cold for the third time that night. Her journey was just beginning and already all she could think of was how much she was going to miss the man that was now walking beside her.