It's time for our daily chapter. This is the last one from Thora's point of view. Next chapter we'll be back to Ulfric. As you might imagine he's not having a good time.

Thanks for all of you for reading. It's such a thrill to look at my story stats and see how many people are following this. Remember, reviews are love.

7

I threw the boy to the side and out of range, then pushed the other two prisoners in the other direction. I could hear Aela shooting arrow after arrow, and Argis's battlecry.

Once the prisoners were clear, I reached back and yanked hard, freeing my greatsword and started running. Looking up was like looking into a nightmare. Chain lightning was pouring out of both of the wizard's hands, one directed right at Argis, the other at Aela. If the Thalmor had been surprised, he had made up for it quickly. Argis dropped to his knees as I watched, his chest convulsing, while Aela struggled to continue but was losing strength quickly. The Wizard hadn't noticed me yet, but I could see the lightning balls drifting directly towards me and knew I had only seconds.

WULD NAH KEST!

I shouted, forcing myself directly in front of the Wizard and using the momentum to drive my sword as deep as it could go. More than twenty pounds of sharpened and enchanted ebony slid savagely into his chest, breaking his ribs and piercing his organs. I twisted my grip on my hilt and pulled down as hard as I could, ripping through him. I could see the shock on his paling face that morphed into hatred as he placed his sparking hands directly onto my chest, burning me and I struggled to draw a breath as I slid down into the black.

There was something in my mouth. And voices that I couldn't understand. I turned away, trying to get away from the noise and the thing. There was a flicker of pain, that I instinctively knew would get worse with increasing awareness, so I turned away from that too.

Then I was choking and gagging. I couldn't breathe. More yelling. Someone pounding on my back.

"Swallow, please swallow!"

Swallowing seemed better than choking, so I put all my attention to the bottle in my mouth.

I must have drifted again, because the next thing I knew, Aela was pulling me up. "Harbinger," she directed calmly and firmly. "We need to move, now. Walk with me."

I was confused and disoriented, but I listened to her sureness. My hand felt wet and I looked at it to see it covered in blood. I didn't think it was my blood, but there did seem to be a lot of it.

Aela gently pushed my hand down and leaned me against the wall. "Can you stand."

Could I? I tried, "Yes, I'm okay." My voice was a harsh rasp.

Aela nodded a little dubiously and said, "Be right back."

She ducked around the corner, where I finally realized screams were coming from. Argis? I looked around, and quickly held onto the wall as a wave of dizziness passed over me. Shutting my eyes didn't help. In fact, it made it worse. But breathing? Breathing helped. I noticed now I wasn't alone. To my right were the three prisoners from the lab. They looked as confused as I was, but I soon realized it was for a different reason.

There were sounds I had heard and hadn't even acknowledged. Cries, the snapping of bones, the wet slap of flesh, a roar. Aela had transformed. I heard her growling now, and a scream that was cut off suddenly. A few more sounds of movement, at least one more fight, and Argis reappeared from around the corner.

"My Thane?" He was bloodied and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. "My Thane, I need you to see this."

I heard then the sound of Aela transforming back and knew the fight was over. I let Argis put his arm around me and with his help hobbled around the corner. I had to count heads to figure out how many were dead, since the bodies were a bit disconnected. But I counted four heads, a Justiciar and three guards. We were in a second torture room with four cells along the wall.

The smell was too much, and I stopped Argis and vomited on the ground. That's when I became fully aware of the pain. Pain flooding my chest, my throat, and my head. I could hear my pulse in my ears and hammering throughout my body. Argis handed me a cloth and I cleaned myself as best I could before he helped me up and we continued moving. The first cell was empty. The second contained a dead woman. I pulled on Argis to move closer. She was older, probably in her fifties. Not the young wife I was looking for, but probably someone's wife. I shook my head and pressed on. The third cell was empty, but I could see Aela through the bars in the fourth cell.

As we got closer, I saw she was holding a young Nord woman. The woman was crying softly, but trying to stand with the Huntresse's help. I stepped closer "Elise?"

She looked up, her breath catching. I noticed the rough and dirty bandage on her left wrist where he hand used to be.

"Elise, your husband and brother sent us to find you." My voice was not my own, cracked, broken and barely louder than a whisper. "We're going to take you to them."

I held her close as we rested against the walls of her cell while the other moved about. Argis brought us potions, green for Elise and red for me. Together we drank, letting our bodies start to heal. She starting crying in earnest now, as she realized her horror was finally over. I tried to comfort her, rocking and patting her as the tears ran down her face. And if some of those tears were mine, that was okay too.