VI

Dawn arrived at Winterhold as if Akatosh himself had been aware of what had happened to his child the night before. A cold, icy rain poured upon the crust of snow that normally covered the town. The main road was a disgusting mixture of mud and slush, and Faralda had been forced to abandon her normal post at the entrance to the College, owing to the fact that the already precarious bridge separating it from the rest of town was now next to impassable.

Grimnir had not returned to the College last night. The Arch-Mage lay prone on an understuffed bed in the Frozen Hearth, unable to sleep, the gusts of wind hissing through the drafty walls of the inn. He had not moved a muscle since stumbling in nearly a whole day ago; his mood had taken a most unpleasant turn after slaying that dragon. He could still see Onmund's face in his mind's eye, those eyes full of shock and disappointment … and terror …

How could you have lied to me?!

A knock on his door sprang him from his reverie just then—but beyond this, Grimnir didn't have the energy to acknowledge it, never mind to answer it. He didn't even have the energy to get up from his bed, or crane his neck to look at the door—in fact, he didn't have the energy to do anything at all. But the knocking continued; Grimnir thought he heard voices on the other side, but he was too absorbed in his mood to really pay attention beyond that.

He suddenly heard the lock turn over, and the door creak open. Footsteps, now—and then, a shadow fell over Grimnir's face, staring back down at him from what felt like mere inches' distance.

"You look terrible," Grimnir heard a familiar voice say—and it was this, more than anything else, that persuaded him to finally crack open an eye.

Brelyna Maryon was hovering above his face, inspecting him with an expression that no magic in the world could help Grimnir to read. Her normally immaculate robes looked as if they'd been dragged through Riften's Ratway, covered in mud and soaked through completely.

"You look worse," he groaned ruefully.

The Dunmer looked at her robes with no small amount of disgust. "We had to sneak past Faralda to cross, or we'd have been here long before now," she said apologetically. "She's closed the bridge off completely—this storm out there is only going to get worse."

"We?" Grimnir frowned—had she not come alone? "Brelyna, what … "

He made to sit up from his bed, and in so doing, Grimnir answered his own question: J'zargo was standing on the threshold of the door, just out of his previous field of view. The Khajiit's arms were folded, his narrowed eyes were staring unblinkingly at Grimnir, and the rest of his expression was entirely unreadable. And next to him was—

Grimnir felt the sour feeling redouble in his chest as he sat bolt upright in his bed. "What are you doing here?!" he asked, fatigue immediately forgotten amidst the wave of anger that had suddenly washed over him.

"Ask her," said Onmund with a careless wave towards Brelyna. He was not looking at Grimnir, instead focusing on a spot just above his head. "I didn't want to come along, either."

"We … " J'zargo began, but suddenly his eyes flicked towards Onmund, and he hastily cleared his throat, "this one has been very worried about you. When you did not show yourself on the grounds last night, Brelyna feared for your sanity. Recent times have been troubling, yes, but for you most of all, no?"

"You haven't answered my question," growled Grimnir as he turned back to Brelyna. "What are you doing here? And why is he—?"

SMACK.

Stars danced in the Arch-Mage's eyes as his cheek—the one scarred by the necromancer inside Hob's Fall Cave—erupted in awful pain. The force of Brelyna's slap—entirely unexpected by anyone—sent a swearing Grimnir off-balance, where he fell sprawling onto the shabby bedspread.

Brelyna towered over him with the most terrible look Grimnir had ever seen on the dark elf's face. "Because," she snarled, teeth clenched in absolute fury, "I am not going to stand by and let Skyrim be turned into a gods-damned charnel house simply because two mages believed their own thoughts were more important than the lives of thousands of innocent people!"

Grimnir had never seen Brelyna lose control like this. Her hiss had risen into a shriek, her hands were balled into fists, and her hair was beginning to shake loose from its twin plaits.

Only when the Dunmer's tirade had ended did the Arch-Mage realize he was trembling head to foot. Not even the brief feeling of gratification he felt upon seeing the abashed look on Onmund's face failed to stem the tide of shame he felt burning inside his stomach.

He could only manage to stammer, "My own—but—he was the one who—" before, again, he quailed under the stare Brelyna was giving him.

"Please don't take that tone with me, Grimnir," the dark elf groaned—her tone more measured, but her anger no less diminished. "The weather outside is terrible, the bridge is even worse, and if you haven't noticed by now, the province is in crisis! This is not the time for two grown men to bicker like children, and I won't stand for it!"

Grimnir's eyes flitted to Onmund briefly, and saw that he too was shrinking back from Brelyna. This time, though, he felt no surge of grim satisfaction to distract him from the torrent of emotions brewing inside him right now.

Deep down, the Arch-Mage knew that once again, Brelyna was right. He'd been a fool—he'd let everything that had happened yesterday cloud his mind to the bigger picture. There was a time in his life where a single dragon would have indeed been that "bigger picture"—and now that time had passed. People were dying all around them—and this was how he'd chosen to commemorate their passing? By slaying a dragon and losing the trust of one of the few people he'd truly been able to call a friend?

Brelyna must have seen him moping, because she immediately snapped at him, "No. Don't feel sorry for yourself on me, Grimnir. I didn't risk my neck crossing the bridge in this weather just so I could slap you in the face."

She shot a look at Onmund before turning back to the Arch-Mage. "Now," she said, keeping her voice as level as possible. "You two are going to sit down. Things happened yesterday that neither of you know the full story to. I'm going to help make sure you talk them over like reasonable people—because the sooner you do, the sooner we can get back to saving the world. We've got too many axes hanging over our heads as it is. Understood?"

Even if he wanted to, Grimnir didn't feel as if he had it in him to disagree. " … Understood," he grumbled—and so did Onmund, to his slight surprise. He felt the mattress sink slightly to his right as the Nord sat down beside him.

Brelyna, meanwhile, settled in a wooden chair next to the bed, while J'zargo continued to stand beside the door. "I feel like I should start at the beginning, Grimnir," the Dunmer said, much more patiently, diplomatically. It was much like the voice he himself had tried to use during that peace conference, Grimnir thought—neutral, arbitrary, favoring neither one party nor the other.

"Shortly after you left the session to deal with that dragon," Brelyna began, "Onmund pulled me aside. He told me that he had some doubts about your claim to not need to read Words on tombstones anymore. He also told me that he did not believe you were taking this new avenue of study simply because you wanted to respect the privacy of Nordic tombs. Am I right so far?" she asked Onmund.

The Nord said nothing, but merely nodded. He still did not look at Grimnir.

"Onmund then broke away from me, with the intent to catch up with you," continued Brelyna. "J'zargo and I hurried after him, and caught up with him right as we caught up with you, Grimnir—around the time you Shouted that storm into existence.

"And this," the dark elf sighed, "is where things get muddy. I'm going to give you both the benefit of the doubt here, but that doesn't excuse what either of you did. And there are going to be consequences, Tolfdir told me—for both of you. But we'll get to that later."

Consequences? Grimnir felt an uneasy feeling in his gut, like something cold and heavy had slid down his throat. Tolfdir was normally a kindly soul, but Grimnir remembered his predecessor, Mirabelle Ervine, to be a rather severe woman. He had never quite found out if that severity came from her mood, or as part of her job as Master Wizard.

"Right now, I want to hear both sides of the story. And I'm going to start with you, Onmund," said Brelyna. "Grimnir's got a lot more explaining to do than you—but I have the feeling that he won't be able to say his piece until he learns from you what happened … before he slew that dragon."

Grimnir frowned, interested. Before he'd slain Bahlokmaar? Had they seen something he had not?

Onmund was silent for some time, and Grimnir began to wonder if the Nord really wanted to talk about this at all—impending crisis be damned. But he need not have worried; Onmund cleared his throat, and—still not looking in Grimnir's direction—began to speak.

"I had to see it with my own eyes," he said hoarsely, not at all like his normal self. "How you could make new Shouts—using Words we'd never heard before. I know that you can take in the souls and knowledge of other dragons when you kill them—but I also know you can't use that knowledge without knowing a specific Word of the dragon language, right?"

Grimnir wasn't entirely sure where Onmund was going with this, but he nodded all the same. And it was here, now, that Onmund finally turned to look at Grimnir, and the Arch-Mage could not help but wince; the apprentice's eyes looked no less bloodshot than they had the other day.

"So explain what I saw yesterday!" Onmund said, his voice raised, almost feral in its sudden display of emotion.

Brelyna made a small noise in her throat, and Onmund's anger wilted almost as suddenly as it had flared up. When he next spoke, his voice was much softer, as if he didn't want Grimnir to hear what he was saying.

"When that dragon fell from the cliff," he said, "something about you … changed. I—we all saw the dragon's body start to burn … but you were on fire as well."

Grimnir drew back in shock. That was news to him—and most certainly unexpected news at that. He tried to think back to that battle, when he was absorbing Bahlokmaar's soul, but his memory seemed to consist of nothing but fire—all-consuming, all around him. Had that, then, been when—?

"It wasn't normal fire," Onmund went on, "it didn't burn like regular fire. Half the time, it didn't even look like it was even there … like it was ghostly or something. But then it started forming shapes … all spiky and … black … "

Grimnir was forgetting his anger with Onmund with each passing moment. He could not believe he was hearing this from the apprentice's mouth. Had Onmund seen what he had seen, then, as it formed in the last burst of flames that consumed the body of Bahlokmaar? And if so …

"Did they look like the dragon language to you?" Grimnir asked, cutting off Onmund before he could change the subject. "These shapes you saw in the fire?"

Onmund blinked. "I might have seen something like that," he replied, almost off-handedly. "But there were other shapes as well—and they were forming around you."

Again, Grimnir was flabbergasted. What was going on here? "What kind of shapes?" he asked hurriedly, so determined to find out the source of this unexpected mystery that he sounded like a desperate, broken man. "Onmund, the more you can tell me about what you saw out there, the more I might be able to tell you back!"

And now Onmund was drawing back away from the Arch-Mage, his eyes not daring to look in Grimnir's direction. "I s-saw … ghosts … " he stammered. "Black s-scales … b-black w-wings … a-and … a t-t-tail … "

It felt as if Grimnir had been thrown from the topmost tower of the College, straight into the Sea of Ghosts. "That's impossible," he heard himself saying in utter disbelief, miles away from the bed he was sitting on. "Only I could have seen that … "

You and I are bound together, Dovahkiin—for now and for ever!

"What do you mean?" Onmund asked. "Seen what?"

"I think this is where you need to start explaining yourself," said Brelyna with a look at Grimnir. "You'd better start from the beginning. What did you do to that dragon you fought? How have you been making these new Shouts?"

Grimnir did not really know what to say—he could not truly answer one without answering the other. But he took one look at Onmund, and saw that—for the first time since he'd last seen him—the anger was fading from his face, rapidly giving way to that most human of desires: the desire to know the truth.

Grimnir knew he had to try, at the very least. And he decided to start at the only place he knew.

"There was some truth to what I told you, Onmund," he began, "about how I didn't want to seek any more Words at the expense of our ancestors' tombs."

Onmund said nothing.

"It was Savos, really, that made me convinced about it," Grimnir went on. "Do you remember how we encountered his spirit inside Labyrinthian? Do you remember what he told us about what had happened in there?"

All of them did indeed remember. It had only been less than two weeks ago, in fact, that they had encountered the apparition of their former Arch-Mage inside that immense tomb-city. The ghostly Dunmer had imparted his memories of his own visit there to the four mages, told them of how he and five other mages of the College had come to that cursed place in their youth, star-struck by the temptation of riches in both knowledge and gold.

It had ended in disaster. One had been ripped to pieces before they'd even left the entry chamber. Another had simply vanished off the face of the earth, slain so quickly that her demise had gone unnoticed. A third succumbed to despair, and abandoned them, resigned to her impending death. And compared to what had been waiting for them, Grimnir knew that that half of the group had gotten off easy.

Morokei. Grimnir had only faced a dragon priest once before in his life, and he had not been keen to repeat the experience any time soon. Morokei had been too much for Savos and the pitiful remains of his group to battle; their only hope had been to seal the horrible lich away. Savos had done so, but at the cost of the last of his friends—he had bound their spirits to the place, to hold Morokei and his power at bay for all eternity. Finally, Savos had sealed off the whole of Labyrinthian, that the legion of monstrosities contained within could never threaten the world again.

When Grimnir had destroyed Morokei those weeks ago, and finally learned the truth of the matter, he had been furious with Savos for not telling him all this. Up until that point, he had seen the departed Dunmer as a figure with power as great as his authority—if perhaps a laissez-faire attitude in both regards. Now, though, all he could see of Savos was a coward who had sacrificed his friendship to save his own skin. Maybe the Dunmer had had his scruples—it had been the only way; he'd been thinking about the "bigger picture."

But then again, so had Grimnir.

"I didn't want to go the same way as Savos did," he continued, and it never struck him until later just how heavy his voice was feeling right now, "and I didn't want to make the same mistakes he did. I don't see any of you as sacrifices or pawns," he said resolutely, hardening his voice. "And I know that if I were Savos, and I was facing Morokei back then … I'd have let that damned lich kill me, rather than use you the way he used his friends."

Onmund's jaw was hanging so loose that it looked nearly dislocated. Evidently he had not been expecting this train of thought at all, the Arch-Mage thought.

"On our way back to Winterhold," Grimnir continued, "I made a vow: I would never tread inside a tomb for the rest of my life, unless I was alone. Labyrinthian was only one of many in Skyrim. I didn't want to take the risk that there might be worse things out there than Morokei. Your lives are worth more to me than that. Especially considering who I am now," he added, absentmindedly stroking the robes of his station with a gloved finger.

He paused here for a breath, and to see the effect of his words; Grimnir had not told any of the mages of this vow before—though to be fair, if the entire affair with M'Alga had not started immediately thereafter, there might have been time to talk about it long before this moment. All three of the apprentices were dumbstruck, even Brelyna, whose eyes looked ready to glisten with tears. J'zargo's normally beady eyes were wide in admiration.

But Grimnir only had eyes for Onmund. For only a moment, he had seen a smile flit about the Nord's mouth. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but to Grimnir, that smile had been extravagant praise considering what everyone had been through.

"So it wasn't simply about respecting the dead?" Onmund asked, finally breaking the awed silence. "You were just trying to keep history from repeating itself?"

"That's about it," said Grimnir. "Maybe I'm not as devoted to tradition as you are when it comes to respecting the dead, but if it makes you feel better, I still won't loot a burial urn if I can help it, either—though I can't say the same for J'zargo," he added with a wink in the Khajiit's direction.

Everyone laughed briefly at this—even Onmund, much to Grimnir's relief—while J'zargo glared back at them in mock indignation. It felt good to have a lighthearted moment like this, Grimnir thought, amidst all the turbulence of both the events of yesterday and the weather of today. It made him forget—if only for a moment—the depths he had sunk to in order to claim what he had.

Unfortunately, that was exactly when Brelyna chose to dive back in to the conversation. "And what happened to you after you slew the dragon?" she asked. "Did that have anything to do with wanting to make these new Shouts?"

Grimnir had been prepared for the sinking feeling, but it still left a disagreeable feeling in his insides all the same.

"I've known since Saarthal how seriously the Nords take ancestor worship—and none more so than you, Onmund, out of all the Nords I've met," Grimnir told him. "I started to wonder about how I might find alternatives to raiding tombs just to find a treasure that might not even exist—and even if it did, might not help me in any way.

"So I started searching the Arcaneum for tomes that might contain some more accounts of the dragon language—the theory being that if I could read a Word on a tombstone, it wouldn't be any different to read it on parchment. Unfortunately, Urag could offer me very little help in that field—and what little he gave me had nothing I didn't already know. Which meant I had to … improvise."

"Improvise?" Onmund asked, leaning closer. He sounded apprehensive, and Grimnir couldn't blame him—especially given what he was finally about to reveal.

"Let me tell you something about the dragons," the Arch-Mage explained. "They're hungry creatures to a one—driven by greed and desire … the want to possess more. They covet gold and precious stones, and all other manner of riches, but above all this, they desire power. And knowledge, to them, is quite literally power—knowledge of the Words.

"When one dragon slays another, then the treasure possessed by the one that was slain is the victor's by right. This treasure can be gold or other such riches—or, as I've said, knowledge. I can absorb the souls of other dragons simply because I have beaten them—their souls, and their knowledge, literally belong to me."

"So that's what you did?" Brelyna asked, skeptical. "That can't be all to it. We've all seen you take down dragons before, and none of what we saw yesterday happened at all during any of those times."

"You're right, of course," said Grimnir. "Because all of those times happened before I finally discovered a breakthrough in my quest.

"In hindsight, I was amazed I didn't figure it out sooner. But I came to discover that there is one thing that every dragon possesses. To most, it might be insignificant in the grand scheme of things—certainly for a soul as consumed by greed as a dragon. But unlike Words and souls and wealth, this one thing cannot be parted from any dragon—not by mere force alone. Dragons are just as proud as they are greedy—they will not part with this treasure to anyone they consider beneath them. It must be given willingly, and to those they consider of equal or greater standing. Do you know what that one thing might be?"

Silence. Even Brelyna looked stumped as she tried to fathom the Arch-Mage's question.

"I'll give you a hint," said Grimnir, feeling the ghost of a smile play out on his face. "It's something we all have, too. Every man, every mer, and every beast as well."

There followed more silence, and more confusion on the part of the other mages.

One long minute later, J'zargo finally ventured a guess. "A name?"

Grimnir grinned. "Precisely," he said. "Every dragon has a name. I tamed Odahviing only because I bested not only him in combat, but Alduin himself as well. To Odahviing, that was proof of my mastery over him, and as a symbol of this, he placed his name with me—giving it willingly, as I just said. And just like my Shouts," Grimnir said, leaning in close, "their names, too, are made up of three Words of the dragon language.

Brelyna let out a gasp at this point, both hands flying to her mouth, and Grimnir suspected the Dunmer had just put two and two together.

"That's how you've been learning these new Shouts?" she asked, eyes wide as septims. "By learning their names?"

Grimnir grimaced. She wasn't wrong, to be fair. But … "Not exactly," he said, feeling his voice grow heavy again. "I don't know if I'd call it learning. Not in the literal sense of the word, anyway.

"Like I said, a dragon's name is its most jealously guarded secret. They won't part with it, even on their dying breath." He paused. "Normally."

Onmund was looking at Grimnir with an expression of mingled admiration and fear. Grimnir could feel the revelation coming, building in his chest like dragon-fire, and he instinctively knew that one emotion was much more warranted than the other.

"You found a way, didn't you?" he said, more quietly than Grimnir had ever believed his voice could be. "I don't know how … but you took that dragon's name—against his will. Is that right?"

Wordlessly, Grimnir nodded.

Brelyna looked faint, unable to talk any louder than a squeak. "That's … that's … "

"Exactly why I didn't want you to find out this way," said Grimnir sadly. "I didn't want you to see what I was doing, because I didn't want you to be in any danger—I wanted to protect you. But that was exactly what happened. I let myself get caught up in the battle—and because of that, I put you in harm's way. And I can't apologize enough for that," he sighed, "especially with you, Onmund. Maybe it wasn't for the reasons you thought, but you were very right to blame me for all this. I failed you all as Arch-Mage … but more than that, I failed you all as my friend."

Brelyna sighed. "Grimnir," she said softly, "I already told you—and I'm sure Onmund agrees with me—don't feel sorry for yourself. We're all glad that you want to apologize over all this. It's very human of you. But—"

The compliment piqued Grimnir's interest. Human was a strange way of putting it, he thought—but for some reason, hearing the word put a strange warmth into Grimnir's insides, not at all like the inferno that had licked at his insides as Bahlokmaar lay dying before him—

Grimnir's mouth dropped as a sudden connection between the things that Onmund had seen that morning—and the things he had felt burning, raging inside his chest at the same time—sprang into his mind.

"It wasn't an illusion," he said softly, feeling the pieces of the puzzle click together. "But then it wasn't meant for you at all!"

"Sorry?" Brelyna looked nonplussed at the sudden outburst.

"Right when you all came up to me," Grimnir explained, "the Dragon Shouted at me. It was a fear spell—not unlike the one I'd been trying to master for some months now—but much more potent than anything a normal illusionist could hope to conjure. At first I thought the Shout might have hit the three of you as well as me—that was why I thought you all looked so terrified of the sight of me! I thought you were under the effects of the Shout … "

He broke off, feeling overwhelmed by the revelations. "But?" J'zargo pressed on.

"Before that—right after I'd created that lightning storm," said Grimnir, "I felt something in me. Something burning. Like I'd had a Dwarven furnace suddenly light up in my chest."

"You were speaking the dragon language," Onmund said. "We all heard it. Didn't know a word you were saying, of course—and we'd never heard you do it before … "

"Because I haven't," said Grimnir truthfully. "Not even when I'd started using the names of dragons to make my Shouts. Why it was that dragon specifically, I don't know. Maybe it was because he was tougher than any I've had to face lately. Even that storm I Shouted didn't bring him down completely. Then, right after you came, he hit me with that Shout, and I saw … I saw … "

But he did not finish his sentence; there was no need to, Grimnir knew. The three mages knew him well enough to understand that there was only one thing that could possibly be the Dragonborn's worst fear … only one dragon.

"That must have been when it happened," he eventually brought himself to say to Onmund, "those … shapes you saw around me. I was trying to break through the illusion. And I did—but I must have used a little too much force, huh?"

"That's putting it mildly," Onmund said dryly, and Grimnir was glad later on that he was able to laugh at the jibe.

"Well," said Brelyna, "I'd say that about clears everything up on both ends. I've done about all I can—you've each said your pieces and explained yourselves. Now … Grimnir, Onmund … are you ready to put these events behind you, so that we can finally return to more demanding matters at hand?"

The two Nords looked at each other, blue eyes staring back into blue.

"Aye," Grimnir declared—how could he have said otherwise? After everything he'd said earlier, there was no reason to reject Onmund as a friend over a misunderstanding—if, perhaps, not a simple misunderstanding.

"As long as we don't run into any more dragons on the way," said Onmund. "It's … I'd rather not have to see anything like that again. Not until I'm ready."

Grimnir had been expecting something of the sort, and he nodded. "I understand," he said.

A sudden noise, like someone's throat clearing, snapped the four mages out of their concentration. It would have been entirely unremarkable if it hadn't come from right outside the door of the room they were sitting in.

"Who comes?" J'zargo asked sharply, whirling around to face an Imperial soldier, barely a few feet away from the Khajiit. He was looking unmistakably at the mages—and Grimnir had an uncanny suspicion that he himself was the particular subject of attention.

Right away, the Arch-Mage knew this was no ordinary soldier. His uniform was unlike any Legionnaire's he'd yet seen in his time in Skyrim. The leather was darker, and the cuirass was emblazoned with a red diamond that did not contain a dragon, but a single eye enclosed by three long fangs. It was a symbol that Grimnir had never seen before.

Which immediately made him feel uneasy.

The soldier stepped forward. "I'm Agent Arcturus of the Penitus Oculatus," he introduced himself, pulling out a thin oaken cylinder from a satchel. "I was instructed to deliver this personally to Arch-Mage Grimnir Torn-Skull."

And just as suddenly as he'd appeared, he marched away, and out of the inn.

Grimnir knew instantly that that had been no mere courier; every syllable of this Arcturus' voice was heavy with military efficiency—not one moment of breath wasted in his words. And that name … Penitus Oculatus

He was saved from asking by Brelyna, however, whose eyes were currently wide with shock. "Grimnir, you'd better open that right now." She swallowed. "Penitus Oculatus is Imperial special security."

It was Grimnir's turn to be shocked now, and he almost didn't make sense of the meaningful look the Dunmer gave him as she said the last three words. "Imperial special security" could only mean one thing in this situation.

The Emperor of Tamriel is in Skyrim.

Almost automatically, Grimnir reached for the parchment inside the wooden tube. It was surprisingly small; he had been expecting some long-winded letter. Instead, however, when Grimnir unrolled the parchment, he only found five words in a practiced, but hurried-looking cursive.

Find me in Solitude. Now.

There was no signature. Even so, as he passed the note around for Brelyna, Onmund, and J'zargo to see, every last one of Grimnir's alarm bells were going off in his head. Only one person could have the possible resources to know the Arch-Mage's whereabouts at all times—and have the authority to send an agent of Titus Mede II's personal security force to summon him to the one remaining major city in Skyrim that was under absolute Imperial control.

And it looked as though he, too, had come to understand just how much danger the Emperor was in.

J'zargo frowned. "Who is this from?"

Grimnir looked him dead in the eye. "General Tullius."


"We leave on the double," Brelyna said, as they rushed out of the inn barely three minutes later. "We'll worry about supplies when we actually get there."

The storm had not abated one bit during the mages' conversation; indeed, it only seemed to have intensified in the time since. Grimnir was immediately soaked in freezing rain, high winds whipped at his robes and bit into his exposed flesh, and he nearly slipped and fell on his backside in the veritable lake of mud that had formed right before the doorstep of the Frozen Hearth.

"I'll call Odahviing," Grimnir yelled, unable to carry his voice any other way because of the horrid weather. "Tullius wouldn't summon me like this if he didn't want me over there on the spot. When a man like him says 'now,' he means it."

"No!"

Grimnir turned, incredulously, to look at Onmund, who had spoken just now.

"No," the Nord said again, shaking his head to and fro. "Not Odahviing! There's a carriage right over there," he added, pointind to a horse-drawn cart that had taken shelter under one of the ruined buildings left over from the Great Collapse. "We … we can get to Solitude that way. I just … I just don't want anything to do with dragons for right now. Okay?"

Whether it was because of the storm, or because of his friend's nerves in light of recent events, Grimnir did not want to debate this for very long. "Are you sure?" he asked. "It'd be slower. The way this storm is going, we might not be there for days!" And M'Alga could very well have attacked half the other Jarls in the province by the time we get there, he thought—not to mention the Emperor!

"But it'd be safer," replied Onmund. "For everyone."

Grimnir knew he had a point, and nodded. He wasn't keen on having to put Onmund through any more trouble, anyway.

"All right," he said. "I understand."


A minute later, Brelyna was almost forcing a fat sack of gold into the carriage driver's hands while everyone else was clambering on board.

"Where're you off to?"

"Solitude," panted Brelyna, completely out of breath from the weather and the tension of their mission. "The quicker you get us there, the better we'll pay you for your trouble. The security of Tamriel is at stake—so no more questions, just get us to the city gates yesterday!"

And without further ado, the horse was spurred into a trot, and its hooves splattered against the mess of mud and slush as the cart began its long journey west to Skyrim's capital city.


So absorbed were Grimnir and the mages in facing the prospect of confronting M'Alga again—of saving the Emperor from a certain, grisly fate—that they were totally oblivious to their surroundings. Had they bothered to take a glimpse of the main road at that moment, they would have seen three figures, each clad in clothes unknown to anyone in Skyrim—each concealed under an off-white mask of spiky, cracked bone—continuing to stare at the quartet as they left in the carriage.

"No doubt about it," said one of those masks in a rough voice, brown robes whipping in the wind. "It's him."

"What are we doing just skulking about, then?" asked a second voice impatiently, a female voice that was even rougher than her companion's. "He has to die for what he's—!"

"No," said the third, the tallest and calmest of the lot, yet his voice invited no debate whatsoever. "Not here. If we are seen, there will be an investigation. And everything leads to him."

"As if our master could be stopped by something so insignificant!" scoffed the female. "These fools in Skyrim bleed each other dry over nothing—and that's precisely what they are to him! Nothing!"

"Won't we be seen eventually, though?" the first figure asked. "Is that not ultimately part of our master's plan?"

"It is," the other male agreed. "What this Dragonborn is capable of was not expected. Even our master would not dare to use that kind of power so callously. But that power only proves this so-called Dragonborn is nothing more than a farce. He is ignorant and incapable of the true power that a true Dragonborn wields."

The figure grit his teeth, unseen behind the mask. "Our master wants him hunted down, but the pretender must not know. And we must keep it that way—right until the trap closes around him. We will shadow him, draw him away from his companions. And then … "

He deliberately let the remainder of his sentence hang in the air as they watched the carriage disappear into the storm. Then, the wind howled, and a sudden sheet of freezing rain lashed upon the rock ledge on which they stood.

But by the time it hit, the three figures, too, had vanished into nonexistence.


True to Grimnir's prediction, the journey to Solitude was much slower by carriage than by dragon. He was, however, determined not to damage his relationship with Onmund just as reparations had already begun, and so the Arch-Mage braved the wind and the cold, even as the freezing rain soaked him through to the bone. It helped that Brelyna had cast a very pleasant handful of flames around them all—although it took the better part of an hour for her to convince the driver that she was an able enough mage to keep said flames from devouring horse, carriage, and all inside, during which even Grimnir and Onmund were half frozen stiff from the horrible storm.

Fortunately, the storm's intensity lessened as they wound their way through Eastmarch, and by the time they had crossed into the Pale, the sun was at its zenith, and was beginning to peek out from the clouds for the first time in what felt like ages. The driver, here, now felt comfortable enough with having his horse go at a much faster pace than before, per Brelyna's instructions—and Grimnir, who had not trusted himself to risk wasting his breath in the wind and rain, felt comfortable—and warm—enough to speak.

"What were these consequences you were talking about this morning?" Grimnir asked Brelyna as the carriage rattled through Fort Dunstad, past a large number of dead bodies, half-covered by snow, which the Arch-Mage knew belonged to both Stormcloak and Imperial alike.

"Oh." Evidently Brelyna had not intended to elaborate either back then at the Frozen Hearth, or now en route to Solitude. "Well, I'd hoped Tolfdir would have been the one to tell you. My plan was to take you back to the College, so you could face him then. But, well, you know what they say about best-laid plans," she sighed.

Grimnir did not, in fact, know—and neither was he in the mood to. "Just tell me, Brelyna," he said irritably.

Another sigh. "You asked," shrugged the Dunmer. "Onmund … well, I forgot to mention that he punched me right before he left the grounds to meet up with you yesterday. Got me right in the stomach, too," she added, to Grimnir's combined dismay and amazement. "Tolfdir had to give him a formal reprimand for that."

That surprised Grimnir. "For punching you?" he said incredulously. If Mirabelle had been in charge, Onmund might have been lucky to get demoted right back to novice, he thought. Onmund had caught a lucky break, in his opinion.

"It … might have helped that he and I both gave him the benefit of the doubt," Brelyna said. "We've already established that Onmund meant well for you both, and as far as we're all concerned, you've mended your differences quite well.

"As for you, Grimnir," the Dunmer went on, and the Arch-Mage braced himself, "Tolfdir's put you on probation, so to speak. Until we can be absolutely sure that M'Alga has been killed for good, he's ordered you not to go running off on your own. That's partly why we're all here: Tolfdir thinks having friends close by you might dissuade you from doing anything especially hotheaded—like killing a dragon, for instance."

Grimnir winced. "So he doesn't want me killing any dragons at all?" he said in disbelief. Probation, he thought incredulously—Tolfdir must have had a right laugh about that, he thought, putting him of all people on probation!

"That's right," replied Brelyna. "None of the staff wants you taking any chances with them right now—not with the danger we're facing right now. You're the only person in the province with knowledge of how M'Alga works. And the College wants the three of us"—she indicated herself, Onmund, and J'zargo—"to make sure that knowledge doesn't die with you."

"Master Tolfdir has also put the College on full alert," added J'zargo. "He is in the process of sending students and staff to other cities throughout the province, that their security may also be bolstered against the threat of M'Alga. It is just as well that you have been ordered to Solitude. As far as Master Tolfdir is concerned, it is almost certainly M'Alga's next target."

"And he could be there already for all we know," Grimnir said, as the carriage made a sharp left turn, heading away from the nearby town of Dawnstar and bearing directly west. "Gods, I hope we're not too late … "


The next few hours were some of the tensest Grimnir had ever experienced. Even the knowledge that he was now on "probation," as Brelyna had said, was no distraction from what he was afraid was waiting for him. He kept having erratic dreams about seeing the provincial capital turned into an abattoir, filled to bursting with corpses of men, women, and children—all of whom, for some reason, seemed to be wearing the faces of Solitude's Jarl, Elisif the Fair, General Tullius, and a haughty-looking old man that Grimnir assumed must be the Emperor of Tamriel.

Fortunately, when the carriage rocketed through Haafingar as the sun was setting—thankfully, they had already passed Morthal; Grimnir assumed he had had one of those dreams at the time—the mages saw the enormous natural arch of stone rising from the delta of the River Karth. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that not a single wisp of smoke was to be found rising from the great city that had been built onto that arch.

"We got lucky," Brelyna said, not daring to conceal a smile.

"But we're still not there yet," Onmund told her. "How much longer?" he hollered at the driver.

"About an hour, give or take," said the Nord at the reins irritably. "Depends on when you quit asking me that!"

Onmund sat back down, looking slightly abashed. Grimnir, meanwhile, feeling immensely more at ease than he had been all day, felt the waves of fatigue crashing down upon him. As if the sight of Solitude alive and well had been some strange, silent order, Grimnir slumped in his seat, and drifted off to a dreamless sleep …

The next he knew, he was being shaken awake by what felt like a pair of furry gloves, and J'zargo's voice was ringing in his ears. "We are outside the gate," he hissed insistently. "Get up, you layabout!"

Grimnir halfheartedly swiped at the Khajiit's arms, to no avail. "I'm up, I'm up," he mumbled, and only then did J'zargo release him.

A few moments later, Grimnir was quite fully awake as his mind caught up with what J'zargo was saying, and he nearly fell out of the carriage as the sight of Solitude's massive, nigh impregnable, and very much intact gate stood before them. Half a dozen guardsmen stood either side of the great double doors. Grimnir noticed they seemed to be wearing the same uniforms as Agent Arcturus.

Penitus Oculatus? he wondered. Guarding the city gates?

Four guardsmen pushed open the gates to admit them inside—perhaps, Grimnir thought idly, they had orders to let Grimnir in on sight. No doubt General Tullius would have given them an accurate enough description of him.

And speaking of the Daedra Lord …

His iron-gray hair looked thinner than when Grimnir had last seen him at High Hrothgar, and yet the glint in his eyes remained all the more evocative of a razor-keen blade, wielded by a professional … General Tullius stood directly beyond the gate, dressed to his usual military nines, eyeing Grimnir with a stare as piercing as any sword.

"Dragonborn." Tullius' tone was perfunctory, no-nonsense. "I see you got my message."

Grimnir felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. He didn't like it when people called him Dragonborn—especially not when they had greater authority than he did. It was something he'd been trying to wean himself off, after all. But hearing it from Tullius was exceptionally irksome—as was often the case when one man had happened to have personally overseen the attempted beheading of another.

"There wasn't much of a message to send me, General," Grimnir replied back testily.

"You can thank the Penitus Oculatus for that," Tullius grunted, jerking his head towards several soldiers stationed nearby, who Grimnir realized were also wearing those darker leather uniforms. He had the strangest suspicion they were listening in on their conversation.

"The whole city has gone to hell over two days," the general continued to grumble, "and they haven't exactly been accommodating. The order came from them, Dragonborn. The Penitus Oculatus are the ones that want you here."

Brelyna and J'zargo made noises of surprise, but something else had grabbed Grimnir's interest. "What do you mean, the city went to hell?" he asked Tullius. "I'll admit I was expecting to see the city in ruins, seeing as you didn't have the time for small talk in your letter. But everything looks fine to me."

"That's because you didn't take up my offer," Tullius said coolly. "You're not a Legionnaire. So of course you aren't seeing this from their point of view. This business with the Emperor has been working us all to the bone. And then, of course, the murder … "

The mages started. "What murder?" J'zargo yelped.

Tullius sighed. "You see that man over there?" he asked, pointing across the street. Grimnir followed his finger to a man with long brown hair, his hand stroking the hair of the little girl clutching at his knee like a lifeline. Both of them wore the same look of stricken horror that suggested someone very close to them had died, and the awful truth had yet to sink in. A small knot of people surrounded them, and each person appeared to be comforting the duo.

"Sorex Vinius," explained the general, "and that's his sister Minette right next to him. Their father Corpulus ran the inn across the street … up until recently."

Grimnir had only visited the Winking Skeever once before, and that had only been to meet a wood elf with a bloody history. He had not stayed long, and he therefore had no knowledge of who this Corpulus Vinius might have been.

"What happened?" Onmund asked.

Tullius sighed. "We're still trying to put the pieces together with the few guards we can spare," he said heavily. "Night before last, a man called Gaius Maro was found dead in the master bedroom of the inn. But that wasn't even the half of it—the morning after, Sorex found his father in his bedroom—with a dagger stuck through his heart. The room was locked from the inside."

"K'sharraj," swore J'zargo. Brelyna had a hand over her mouth in horror. Onmund looked pale.

Grimnir, however, pressed on. "Did the innkeeper kill this man, then?"

The general nodded. "We think he had a hand in it, at the very least," he said. "We searched the room and found a pile of gold tossed outside his window. Beyond that … we don't know. The man died without a mark on his body—poisoned, by the looks of it. Healers found traces of undiluted netch jelly on his mouth."

"Netch jelly?" Onmund frowned in confusion, but Brelyna seemed to understand—and she did not look happy.

"You can only find that stuff around the island of Solstheim these days," she explained. "It's the only place you can find any sizable herds of netch anymore after Vvardenfell erupted. Netch jelly's a strong paralysis agent when it's undiluted—rumor has it the Morag Tong use the stuff in their assassinations—"

She broke off suddenly, eyes suddenly widening. Grimnir knew the look of a person who was beginning to put two and two together.

Apparently, so did Tullius. "Exactly," he said, nodding grimly. "And there's no indication he had so much as a drop of the stuff behind his counter, either."

He straightened up, and his tone became more no-nonsense than before, every inch the Imperial general that Grimnir had first seen at Helgen in passing, shortly before his scheduled execution.

"These are the facts we know," he said. "Right now, there are two people in this city that—dare I say it—demand more attention than you, Arch-Mage. One is the Emperor of Tamriel. The other is his chief of security, Commander Maro, who just so happens to be the father of the man who was killed in that inn—who himself was also part of the Emperor's personal security, and more to the point, was personally in charge of overseeing the preparations for the Emperor's arrival in Skyrim."

"Security … " Grimnir murmured, thinking about the strangely uniformed man that had delivered his letter, and the soldiers standing guard at the city gates. "Then this Gaius Maro was Penitus Oculatus, too?"

"That's right," said Tullius. He suddenly maneuvered to within inches of Grimnir—perhaps on the pretext of inspecting his clothing? Grimnir wondered—and dropped his voice to a near whisper, to where only the five of them could possibly hear what the general was saying.

"You never heard this from me," Tullius hissed, "but the Penitus Oculatus are doing their damnedest to make sure that word about this case doesn't spread. If they found out that I disclosed any of this, even to you, I might not be a General for much longer."

Grimnir frowned. "Why?"

Tullius looked left and right before he answered, as if to make sure no one was listening in. "The guards found something on Gaius Maro's person. A letter. It sounds as if he'd been conspiring with the Stormcloaks … to kill the Emperor."

Grimnir's eyes widened. Onmund was incredulous. "Just how many people want this man dead?" he exclaimed.

"Can you prove this?" Grimnir's tone was skeptical. Something about that sounded off—the timing was too convenient, considering the political climate of the province right now. And he knew Ulfric Stormcloak would never consider going to such lengths in his quest to eradicate the Empire—their presence in Skyrim was one thing, but assassinating the Emperor himself was quite another!

Tullius, for his part, seemed to share the same opinion. "We're not ruling out the possibility of a hoax," he told Grimnir, "but neither are we ruling out a genuine threat. That's why I called you up here. If anyone decides to make good on this threat, Stormcloak or no—they'll have the Arch-Mage and the Dragonborn to answer to. No one could possibly threaten the Emperor then," he smiled daringly.

"I can think of a few who might try," said Grimnir coolly.

The smile faded from Tullius' face almost as soon as it had appeared. "What do you mean?" he said sharply. "Is there something you know about all this, Arch-Mage?"

For a moment, Grimnir wondered about filling Tullius in on everything; the necromancers, the monster they had created, the extensive destruction and numerable deaths they'd already caused in Skyrim. But the Penitus Oculatus were no mere city guard, he knew. There was worse than M'Alga to be found around the Imperial City, surely—and that place, too, had had more than its fill of the Black Worm in days of old. Whether the Emperor's security could stop M'Alga was a matter of opinion, he thought—but Grimnir believed they were drilled well enough to at least hold him off until the Arch-Mage could deal with him personally.

So he refrained from mentioning the topic outright—no need for unnecessary panic. "Did you hear about what happened to Idgrod?" he asked, lowering his own voice.

"I did," said Tullius sadly. "My condolences—if it weren't for these troubled times, I'd attend her funeral personally. I wish I'd been there to help her."

"Well, I was there," said Grimnir. "And believe me when I say you couldn't have found a better man for the job." For a moment, he thought he'd seen Tullius' brow furrow—had he picked up on the double meaning in the Arch-Mage's words?

"Good man." He apparently had not; Grimnir didn't know if that ought to make him feel better at all.

"Commander Maro's in the courtyard of Castle Dour, on top of the hillside yonder," said Tullius, pointing over his shoulder. "You'll be reporting to him."

And without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel, and marched off elsewhere.


As they began their trek through the streets of Solitude, Onmund pointed out the number of Imperial soldiers patrolling the city. Most of them, Grimnir saw, wore the darker leather of Penitus Oculatus agents. It struck him how rigid and unwavering they looked, even when compared to normal footsoldiers of the Empire.

Two such agents now pulled up just ahead of them as they entered the castle courtyard. They did not appear to have noticed the mages, and indeed seemed to be deeply absorbed in conversation with each other.

"This city is crawling with Legionnaires," said one of them. "And you know what? I'm still nervous. Lazy and useless, the lot of them—can't even keep the Stormcloaks in line. No way I trust them with the Emperor's life."

"You worry too much," said his companion. "The Emperor's never been safer. You think assassination attempts are planned overnight? We discovered the plot. End of threat."

"I suppose," said the first guard with a shrug. "But what about the old man? Son killed, the family name ruined—and he's acting like nothing even happened. Think he's even fit for duty?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." There was an unmistakably severe tone to the second guard's words now. "Commander Maro is the best the Penitus Oculatus has ever produced. You should be half the man he is!"

"No, no, you misunderstand," said his friend, holding up his arms in surrender. "It's just … I feel for him, is all. To have to carry a weight like that … it's got to take its toll. That happened to me, I'd be a wreck."

They disappeared down a doorway at this point, and Grimnir could hear no more.

An elbow in his ribs distracted him suddenly. He whirled around to face Brelyna, who was pointing opposite the doorway, towards a tower on the other side of the courtyard—and the man standing guard at its door could only be Commander Maro.

Grimnir thought that that Penitus Oculatus agent from before might have had a point: there was no trace of sadness or fury to be seen in the Imperial's face at all. There was, however, a flame in the commander's gray eyes that Grimnir knew all too well—a look of determination so strong that the Arch-Mage briefly wondered if the man had some Nord blood in him.

Brelyna nodded at him reassuringly, and Grimnir strode forward—

—only to be rebuffed by Commander Maro. "Halt!" barked the Imperial. "This castle is off-limits to outsiders."

If Maro's face betrayed nothing as to recent events, Grimnir thought, then his words betrayed even less. The commander was as stern a man as Grimnir had ever met, and that included General Tullius—and Maro's voice alone made him certain this was not a man to cross in any circumstance. There was only one thing for it.

Grimnir puffed out his chest as best he could—when dealing with anyone affiliated with the Empire, the more important the official, the more important you had to make yourself look to them to get anywhere on words alone.

"I am Grimnir Torn-Skull, Arch-Mage of Winterhold," he said, putting an imperious tone into his voice. "General Tullius has informed me that a threat has been made against the life of Emperor Titus Mede II."

"I am well aware of this, Arch-Mage," responded the commander with equal bluster. "Has Tullius no faith in his own Legion?"

"The Emperor is no ordinary man, Commander, and neither is his assassin," Grimnir replied. "If you want your charge to live, then you will give us leave to guard him."

Maro's eyes narrowed for a moment, as if sizing up the four mages, before he finally appeared to give way. " … Very well," he grunted. "You may enter—but you will be discreet. The Emperor will be dining soon, and the last thing I would wish is for the bungling of amateurs to ruin his meal."

Ignoring a snort from Brelyna, he signaled to a pair of guards nearby, who snapped to attention and fell in step with the commander as he marched away from the castle grounds.


Brelyna cast a withering look at Maro's retreating back. "'The bungling of amateurs,'" she fumed. "I have half a mind to teach that pompous fool a thing or two about House Telvanni!"

Onmund laid a hand on her shoulder. "Never mind him," he soothed. "So, what's our plan?" he said to Grimnir.

The Arch-Mage surveyed the thick walls. "Small castle," he said. "M'Alga won't have much of a chance to hide in here. Brelyna, can one scrye cover the whole of this building?"

"Yes, it can!" the Dunmer said, with a grim half-smile.

"Good." Grimnir hauled open the door and bade them inside. As it closed with a bang behind them, Grimnir caught a glimpse of an ornately carved throne, flanked by iron braziers and surrounded by flowing white banners and enormous crimson flags, decorated in the dragon-diamond symbol of the Empire. But he paid the throne room little heed; he had a plan to set in motion.

Brelyna's eyes were already glowing with scrying magic. "Two people in the kitchens," she murmured, her gaze briefly flicking to a passageway off to their left. "Whatever they're cooking looks about finished. Then, there's … another four upstairs. One of them must be the Emperor. I don't know who the other three might be. Probably nobles, merchants, people like that."

"Then that's where we'll head," said Grimnir. "We won't enter the room—don't want to attract too much attention to ourselves. We'll keep our distance from there"—he pointed out a room upstairs and to their right—"and if things go bad, we'll be in prime position to catch M'Alga before he shows his ugly face.

"J'zargo, stay on this floor. Watch for anything suspicious. Brelyna, keep your scrye going for as long as you can. I want constant security on this place. Onmund, if M'Alga's in hiding, we'll force him out by—"

"Excuse us, please."

Grimnir jumped, his plan momentarily forgotten: the two cooks had emerged from the kitchen, and were now walking their way towards the mages. One of them—an Imperial so tan that Grimnir first assumed her to be a Redguard—was carrying a large pot of stew, while a smaller maiden followed closely behind her.

"What is this J'zargo smells?" The Khajiit was sniffing greedily at the aroma of the stew—which Grimnir, plan be damned, had to admit smelled very good.

"This is the Potage le Magnifique," said the cook, proudly sweeping her free arm over the pot she carried, "prepared as only the Gourmet can."

Brelyna raised an eyebrow. "The … Gourmet?"

"You'd better believe it!" said the Imperial, jerking her head back at the woman behind her. "This woman right here is the personal chef of Titus Mede II—the most famous chef in Tamriel: the Gourmet!"

The woman in question did not acknowledge this, or make any other introduction to the mages. She was quite young, now that Grimnir came to look at her—though that could simply be a matter of size; the woman was either so small, or her chef's hat so large, that the garment almost completely hid her eyes from view.

" … regular prodigy, she is," the cook continued to rave. "Trained in Breton cuisine since she was a child … don't tell me you've never heard of her cookbook! Best-seller for the last decade!"

"So this one can smell," J'zargo commented offhandedly.

Onmund, however, looked as if something was bothering him. "Why are we only hearing about this now?"

The Imperial scoffed, as if the answer was as simple as adding one to one. "Well, since the Emperor hardly leaves the Imperial City, she never leaves his kitchen!" she exclaimed. "You should consider yourselves lucky—I can count the number of people who've actually seen the Gourmet's face on one hand, present company included. Now if you'll excuse me," she said, a faint note of irritation beginning to show, "the two of us have a dish to serve."

And without saying another word, the two women strode away from them and up the stairs, leaving behind four mages exchanging darkly significant looks.

J'zargo had a grim look on his face. "Khajiit smells something, yes he does—and it is not the food," he growled.

Brelyna looked just as disconcerted as he did. "Something's not right here," she murmured to Grimnir. "We'd better tail them—we'll head to that room you pointed out, and keep cover there until the time comes. I can still keep my scrye up for a few minutes more before I need to take a potion. Don't worry—if M'Alga even comes near this place, I promise you that I'll be the first to find out."

Feeling somewhat more reassured by her words, Grimnir had to agree. But just like Brelyna, he could not shake the feeling that something was amiss here, and he couldn't yet put his finger on what that could be.

They took position inside the room directly across from the staircase—a bedroom, Grimnir noted apropos of nothing as he saw the immense bed in the space, larger than even Savos' bed in the College. They were close enough to hear snippets of conversation from the dining room at the other end of the hall.

"But aren't you the least bit nervous?" Grimnir heard a woman's voice say. "After everything that's happened?"

"You mean the wedding? My cousin's apparent murder?" asked a second voice, and the Arch-Mage blanched as he realized just whom that voice could possibly belong to. "An unfortunate misunderstanding, no more. Cold mead, hot tempers—these things happen."

"Quite," said a third voice. "Yet that recent business with the young officer—Maro, was it? The son of your commander, plotting your assassination!"

"Mm, yes, an unfortunate turn of events, that," said the Emperor of Tamriel, "but an isolated incident. And I have been assured that the fault was with the man's son alone. Truth is, we are in no danger whatsoever. Killing an Emperor can be useful, but befriending one? Now that's beneficial—as I'm sure you'd all agree."

There was a general round of laughter at this statement.

"Here we are," Grimnir heard the Redguard cook murmur. Even from this distance, he could tell she was trembling from head to foot. "Gods, I'm nervous! We'll go in in just a moment. Please, I'll serve him, and you just stand there and … I don't know, be amazing!"

The two cooks disappeared down the doorway. The Gourmet stopped behind her suddenly, and for a moment Grimnir wondered if she was merely being polite, to let the other cook in first.

Then the Gourmet turned around to stare at the hallway behind her, and in a dark corner of his mind, Grimnir instantly knew they had been discovered. But the rest of his mind could not be bothered to process this fact—he had just seen the Gourmet's face for the first time.

No. Not the first time.

He would know those black eyes anywhere.

Grimnir stood there, boots stuck to the floor as if rooted there, unable to believe what was happening. The pitch-dark eyes of the woman—horribly familiar, dreadfully cold—narrowed slightly, and her thin lips curled into a small, daring smirk.

No …

Then the woman turned away from them, as if the entire, silent exchange had never even happened, and close the door behind them with a snap.

"Wait." Though she sounded miles away at this point, Grimnir heard the first traces of understanding creep into Brelyna's whispered words. "That face … "

No, Grimnir heard his own murmuring voice echoing in his ears. He could not believe it—he could not! But the longer he stood there, the more aware he was of what was happening: in just a few moments, his plan had failed.

Everything had gone wrong.

"No … no, no," he repeated, over and over again. Grimnir no longer knew if he was actually speaking the words out loud anymore; his body had gone numb from toes to lips, and he felt himself threatening to unbalance on his own shaky feet.

Because even as the Arch-Mage watched his plans unravel before his eyes, even as he knew death itself was bearing down upon the most politically powerful man in all of Tamriel, another piece of the puzzle was beginning to click together in his mind.

Somehow, he—they—had known. Had the Black Worm planned for this from the very beginning, he wondered—perhaps even orchestrated the events that had led to this point—and brought the Emperor here, to this exact spot in Solitude? Had they been aware of how high the security, inside the city and out, would be bolstered to prepare for the Emperor's arrival—drawing all the attention away from the war raging across the province—

The septim finally dropped.

"Damn it," Grimnir mumbled—unable to speak louder in his raw shock. "Damn it all, I've been a fool!"

He knew now what was going on. But to stop it from happening, he knew he had to act now. Even if that meant—

And suddenly—as if his body had begun to act of its own accord—Grimnir felt himself sprinting downstairs towards J'zargo, towards the door to the courtyard.

"Where are you going?!" the Khajiit hissed.

"I made a mistake," Grimnir said hoarsely, his hand upon the door. "M'Alga's not after the Emperor!"

All three mages gawked at him, J'zargo's neck swiveling fiercely from one door to the other in utter confusion. Brelyna could only stammer. "W-what about—?"

"Never mind them," grunted Grimnir impatiently as he bolted out into the courtyard. "We have to move—now!"


Elsewhere, M'Alga finally felt his claws scrape against smooth rock.

He did not know how long he had been climbing for. So absorbed had he been in the task that he hadn't even bothered to tell when the sun had set, and risen once again. All he had seen—and cared about—was rock, slightly darker rock, and the rocks immediately above him.

Every inch of the monster's scaly skin was wet with perspiration, streaking the needle-like spines on his forearms, streamlining them into menacing, blade-like shapes that glinted in the noontide sun. Every fiber of his bulging muscles screamed for a respite, but the importance of M'Alga's task could not be denied him. There would be time to rest later—it would have been reckless to abandon his concentration at such an important time.

But at long last, here he was. M'Alga felt the salty breeze invade his nostrils as he took in a deep breath. He flexed his muscles, partly to ease the pain that tore through the flesh like a thousand tiny blades, partly to admire the construction that had gone into creating this body.

M'Alga knew that to think that he had accomplished the one specific task he had been bred for was folly. He knew this was only the beginning—he knew he and others like him could be capable of so much more. But deep inside, he knew that whatever his ultimate fate, he knew he would stand out among the rest of his kind—if any ever dared to exist in this world. M'Alga was the first—perhaps even the last, the only one. But he would still be the greatest.

He praised his master for preparing this vessel—not his masters; to think he served the inferior sorcerers of the Black Worm was the most extreme folly imaginable. No—though M'Alga deified the Worm God, he would never become a slave to it; he was far more than a simple puppet at a necromancer's disposal. M'Alga had chosen to place his devotion in the hands of something else entirely—and that something had put its trust in him as well.

And for that reason, M'Alga knew he had to succeed.

Bringing himself out of the depths of his mind, the abomination slowly moved toward the smooth stone he'd encountered before—a simple wall. No less harder to climb, but M'Alga knew what lay beyond this one wall.

High above him, he could see a window—just big enough, he thought, to allow him to squeeze through. His elven eyes narrowed, and a nightmarish smirk twisted his reptilian face as he began to climb towards his goal …


A/N: Hooray for cliffhangers! Muahaha.

(Man, this took way too long to finally flesh out. Interpersonal drama's still exhausting for me to write.)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy! - K