Chapter 4

The plains of Whiterun Hold were renowned for being beautiful and utterly peaceful—and Aldric hated it.

It was not what he wanted to see after stashing his clothing and weapons outside of the city gates; when he shifted to run and hunt, he wanted something to match his mood. Angry skies, raging storms—anything other than the starry, peaceful night above him.

Aldric loped through the hilly grasslands miles outside of Whiterun. A mild, sweet-smelling breeze rippled through his fur and stirred the day's old scents from the ground as he hunted.

He turned north, dropping to all fours to head toward the mountains that bordered the edge of the hold. Each lungful of crisp air, each footfall served to push back the conscious thoughts racing through his mind.

There was no way to tell how much time had passed when he found himself suddenly approaching a road. A bridge stretched across a riverbed nearby, and he saw the flicker of a torch too late as he tried to slow his pace.

He blew past a small party—an armored man on foot, leading a horse that sat another, finely clothed man. Lit by the torch, Aldric caught a glimpse of the guard's shocked face as he streaked past.

The horse screamed as it reared into the air. The guard lunged out of the path of the animal's flying hooves and made a grab for the reins. The nobleman slid backward from the saddle, falling heavily to the stones.

He risked a glance behind him once he'd put enough distance between them. Both men were standing in the middle of the road, still looking in his direction. Aldric wondered if they knew what they had just seen.

For the better part of an hour, he followed a deer's trail until it fruitlessly tapered off near a stream. He paused, drinking deeply from the shallow water, and then shook the droplets from his muzzle. Lifting his head, he observed the land around him while he caught his breath.

He had always enjoyed being a werewolf, and that experience had become even better after meeting Rory. She'd taught him much about what it meant to be wolf and how he could deepen the tie with his beast.

And now it was something he had grown to resent. Being wolf had granted him power and strength and invaluable sharpened senses, but it had also allowed him to become mated forever. Aldric couldn't get away from Rory, no matter how many miles separated them.

Some days, he felt that his sanity was slowly leaking away. The bond felt like he was constantly waiting for her to walk through the door—any door. Even now, in the wilds of Skyrim, his body urged him on; as if he would find her, if only he ran faster, further.

You could, a voice whispered.

Underneath the stairs of Breezehome, there was a barrel filled with salt. Inside, wrapped in countless layers of sackcloth, rested a severed head that had once belonged to a witch. The Hagraven's head did not rot, as if it would wait patiently through the years to be reunited with its body.

And far in the frozen north, on a glacial island in the Sea of Ghosts, there was a brazier that burned deep inside of the resting place of Ysgramor. If he fed the witch to the flames, his beast would be ripped from his body. He could be free—from his wolf, from the bond.

You could.

Seconds after the thought passed, a haunting, melodic cry rose into the night air somewhere far away from him. His hackles rose as the song stretched on and on. When it had almost faded into nothingness, another wolf took up the call. Then a third, and a fourth, raised their voices to answer their alpha.

When only silence met his ears, he sank onto the soft earth below him. Breathing hard, his claws dug into the mud. Something akin to grief choked him. He felt paralyzed, as if the moment would never end.

Finally, Aldric pushed up from the ground, stumbling as he tried to clear his head. If the gods were trying to reach him with a sign, he was going to do his damnedest to ignore it. He simply closed his mind and ran.

By the time he made it back to the city, it wasn't far from dawn. The moons had passed their peak in the sky. He took a moment before dressing to watch the fading aurora, letting the breeze cool the sheen of sweat from his skin.

It was possible, after all, to feel lost despite knowing exactly where he was.

Walking into Jorrvaskr still gave Aldric a sense of trepidation. It had been a few years since all the changes had been made, and he couldn't deny that it had taken a weight from his shoulders—but he also couldn't shake the feeling that he had still let down everyone within.

It wasn't yet noon, so most of the Companions were busy starting their days. Brill was just inside, looking over something in a hardbound book near the door. He looked up at the sound of his entrance and gave an easy smile.

"Oh, good morning, Aldric," he said agreeably. "How do you do these days?"

Aldric ran a hand through his hair, looking around. "Better than I have been, Brill. Thank you for asking. Where is Vilkas?"

"He's in his quarters, working with this month's ledger."

He smirked. "I'm sure that puts him in a pleasant mood."

Brill laughed. "As it always does."

After taking his leave, Aldric made his way down the stairs into Jorrvaskr's living quarters. The hall was silent, though his sharp ears could catch muttered grumblings coming from the very end.

He followed the sounds of irritation, glancing into the rooms on either side of the hall as he went. Farkas and Aela were both out. The doors to the Harbinger's quarters were ajar, and Aldric knocked on one of them with a knuckle before leaning against the jamb.

Vilkas looked up from his seat at the desk, a severe frown darkening his face. He was perched in front of a thick book, opened to a page decorated with long columns of numbers and tiny scrawled statements. When he saw Aldric, his brow unwrinkled and the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.

"And what do you want, whelp?"

Grinning, he walked into the room. Vilkas took his offered hand and drew him into a half-hug, bumping his shoulder against Aldric's. "How are the finances, Harbinger?"

Vilkas waved him off good-naturedly before slamming the ledger shut, a scrap of fabric marking his place. "Bah. No matter how often I have to do this, I somehow manage to incorrectly tally the numbers at least twice."

"That's not something I miss."

"I do not doubt you, friend. The small details of leadership are so tedious." He gestured behind him. "Sit, sit. Would you like some mead? Farkas tapped a fresh keg last night."

The thought was tempting, but his head was still pounding from the night before. "Ah, no. Thank you."

"Tea, then?"

"That would be nice, if Tilma is around."

Vilkas smiled. "She's always around."

While he went off to find the elderly housekeeper, Aldric's eyes wandered around the sitting room he was in. It looked much the same as it ever had. When he'd lived there, he hadn't changed much of the way Kodlak had arranged it, and neither had Vilkas.

Deciding to hand over the title of Harbinger to Vilkas had not been an easy one. Aldric hated to disappoint anyone, especially the Companions he had come to care very deeply about, but it was the right thing to do.

The man in question returned with Tilma in tow, interrupting Aldric's train of thought. She carried a small tray with two cups of steaming liquid and a few small plates. The smell of the fresh, still-hot bread made its way to Aldric's nose and he perked up. Tilma's sweet bread was excellent—she tended to sprinkle cinnamon over each slice after buttering them.

"Hello, dear." After setting the tray down, she warmly stroked the side of his head.

"Good to see you, Tilma." He accepted a plate. His slice of bread was liberally covered in cinnamon, and he grinned down at it before demolishing half of it in one bite.

"Still not feeding yourself well enough, I see," she scolded.

He talked while he was still chewing. "I miss your sweet bread. I can't make it the same way you can."

"A good cook never reveals her secrets." Her eyes sparkled. "I made your tea just the way you like it, weak with just a touch of sugar."

"Thank you."

After she'd walked away, Vilkas looked at him over the rim of his own cup as he sipped his tea. Aldric was used to seeing the silver eyes of werewolf men and women, but something about the way Vilkas looked at everyone made his more piercing, more intense.

"How have things been?"

Vilkas swallowed. "Well enough. Kaspar has settled in well with Aela. We still hope to have him join us someday."

"Kaspar, a Companion?" For some reason, the thought amused Aldric. Aela's mate, a former scout for a werewolf pack, was talented in his skills, but he was also a gentle man.

Vilkas lifted a shoulder in a thoughtful shrug. "He has proven useful when traveling with Aela on her assignments. You know that we look for a range of talents when recruiting."

"That's true, I suppose."

A moment passed, neither of them talking while they drank their tea. Vilkas was much more friendly and open with him than he used to be, but the two were still not very close.

"I assume you're here wanting to know more about the pup that visited trying to round up members for his dwarven expedition." Vilkas played with his empty cup.

Aldric choked on his last piece of bread. After he'd forced it down, he looked up. "How do you know that?"

He gave a lopsided smile. "You don't visit much these days, then you show up only two days after a strange incident. Not hard to connect."

Aldric caught the slight catch in his voice when he mentioned his scarcity around Jorrvaskr. "I am sorry, you know. That I don't visit more."

Vilkas watched him patiently. "We worry about you, Aldric."

He looked away. "You don't have to."

"How can we not? It has been nearly six years—"

"It feels as if it happened only weeks ago, to me," Aldric interrupted. "I wish I could forget about everything, but I can't."

"When last we spoke of this, two years ago, I asked you if you still felt the bond with her," Vilkas remembered. "You said that you did, but you felt as if it were fading, and that you hoped in the future it would be even less. How is it now?"

Aldric vividly remembered that conversation, because he had been infuriated to find himself coming to tears during it. "For a time, I thought things were improving. I genuinely wanted to believe it. I have come to understand that nothing has changed at all, Vilkas. Since the day she took off, nothing has changed."

Vilkas dragged a crust of bread around his plate. "You always were very honest."

"I gain nothing by lying to myself," he said.

"How have things been with the barmaid, the young one?" the other man asked. "Ah… apologies, I cannot recall her name."

"Carina." Aldric shrugged. "She's good to me. A good distraction. She helps when I'm lonely."

"And the attacks in the morning?" Vilkas sat back.

"The same."

"Gods," the other man muttered, looking away. "I cannot imagine what you go through, Aldric. Truthfully, it has made me sour on the concept of bonding with another. Marriage does not present this problem."

"You would still hurt if you had a wife that left you," Aldric pointed out.

"Yes, but my soul—and my wolf—would not be permanently bound to her," Vilkas replied. "I would not suffer the way you do."

A soft feather of anger caressed the inside of Aldric's head. There were days, when he recalled how he had come to bond with Rory, that he was furious—at her, at himself.

At the time, he had wanted nothing more. He'd been in love with her, and he'd been certain that she'd been in love with him, in her own way. He spent much time thinking back, replaying every conversation, every glance, every touch. Had he only imagined what she felt for him?

When he felt like he had been fooled into the bond with her, he always reminded himself that she was going through the exact same thing. Wherever she was, she felt the intense desire to find him, to be with him. She woke up feeling sick every morning, and fell asleep every night with her arms aching to hold him. It gave him a sick sense of satisfaction to imagine her sharing his pain.

His food roiled in his stomach. "What did the boy have to say?"

Vilkas blinked at the abrupt change in subject. "Not much. Once it became clear he intended to go into one of the dwarven cities in an attempt to access the caverns beneath, I showed him out. That is folly."

"Surely you're not afraid of a challenge, Vilkas," Aldric goaded.

Vilkas gave him an indignant look. "The Companions will be glad to face any kind of troubles that come our way, but he has no clear goal in mind other than someone to escort him to a source of power. We are not mercenaries, Aldric. Under the leadership of Kodlak, you, and I, it has been our intent to uphold the noble legend of Ysgramor and his Five Hundred Companions."

Those lines were ones he'd heard several times before. Instead of making him feel proud, it was just another thing that stuck in his craw.

Vilkas' mention of Ysgramor served only to remind him of the unpleasant truth of things—it was hard for him to leave the puffed-up tale of valor and pride alone when he knew that genocide lay at the heart of it.

When he'd helped a vampire woman named Serana stop her father's crazed intentions to fulfill a prophecy to black out the sun, he had seen and learned many things. During their travels, they had met what were quite possibly the last two living Snow Elves.

The Nords came from the mother home of Atmora, led by Ysgramor to colonize the land. Snow Elves sacked the city of Saarthal during the Night of Tears, but Skyrim had belonged to them first. When Ysgramor retaliated for Saarthal, he sought to not only murder as many Snow Elves as possible, but to drive them from Skyrim.

The Snow Elves, seeking help from the Dwemer, had in turn been forced to consume a toxin that crippled their sight and made them complacent. This led to the race slowly mutating into what was known today as the Falmer.

Aldric sighed, ruffling his hair. It all seemed to lead back to Twigs and his trip. "Did he ask for anyone in specific?"

"He did not get that far with his pitch." Vilkas shook his head. "Though he did make an appeal toward Aela. Unfortunately, Kaspar overheard and personally escorted him out."

Aldric chuckled. "That's unfortunate."

"Why?"

"I came here to ask Kaspar if he would join me on the expedition."

Vilkas' reaction was comical. He jolted straight up in his chair, rattling his plate with his hand as he did so. "You are joining the boy?"

"Yes, I think I will."

"Aldric… why?" Vilkas demanded. "He is on a death mission. Blackreach is no place for him or the team he seeks."

"I don't know," Aldric said pleasantly. "I think he stands a better chance with me on his side."

Vilkas looked him up and down briefly, considering. "That may be true," he allowed, "but I still don't understand the reason why."

"I don't have much to fill my days with anymore, Vilkas. Skyrim no longer needs the Dragonborn, and I think I have had quite enough of trying to drink myself into a hole in the ground," Aldric replied. "I think I might like that kid. He has… something."

"Why do you need Kaspar?" Vilkas asked.

"He's still a scout. That will be useful."

"Why do you need a scout?"

"For an expedition like this one, I'll need many talents. Scouts, archers, thieves."

"So you are recruiting those with specific talents," Vilkas said. "You will look to your friends in Riften?"

"No."

Vilkas noticed the sudden stiffness to his body. "Ah. I remember. You are not on good terms with them."

"No," he said slowly. "I'll leave it to Twigs to find a thief on his own. If he'll even think to do it."

"Are you not worried one of your brethren will be recruited?" Vilkas questioned.

"The Guild will most likely turn him away, if Twigs even manages to make it to the Flagon." Aldric finished his tea. "Simply put, it's too dangerous. Thieves are nothing if not good at protecting their own hides."

"Would the vast amount of gold not be able to sway them?" he wondered. "Perhaps some of the younger, more inexperienced ones?"

He mulled that over. "I would hope not. Brynjolf wouldn't let anyone leave with Twigs. Not unless they wanted to stay with the Guild."

"You know what young men are like." Vilkas was serious. "So confident of everything. It may be tempting enough to leave their Guild for the promise of wealth."

"I would like to believe that Brynjolf hasn't recruited anyone as stupid as that," Aldric said bluntly. "Staying with the Guild means a dry, warm bed and plenty of food, not to mention steady work. This expedition represents wealth, yes, but at the high chance of death."

"And you want to take Kaspar with you?" There was a subtle tinge of accusation in his voice.

"I can protect Kaspar." Aldric swallowed his frustration. "I know many fine candidates, but I do not want to take a team of my friends with me. Kaspar is the best at what he does, so for him I will make an exception."

The unspoken sentiment that hung in the air between them was also that Kaspar did not have much to do. Since moving to Whiterun, he kept mostly to himself. It was hard for him to adjust to living outside of pack life, and he had taken upon himself the obligation of providing game to the Companions. Most of his days were spent hunting alone in the plains of the Hold.

Vilkas thinned his lips into a displeased line. "I cannot tell you not to do this, Aldric, and neither can I expect Kaspar to turn you down. He is not a Companion."

"I still am, though," Aldric challenged.

He nodded. "Aye, but you are a member of the Circle."

Aldric sat back and rolled the tension from his neck. "Thank you. I wouldn't want to cause problems here."

"I have faith in your decisions, my friend." Then suddenly a wide grin spread across Vilkas' face.

Aldric narrowed his eyes. "What is it?"

"Now you get to deal with Aela."