The Blades who found me thought I was dead. The glint of gold I had glimpsed on the Lich was no trick of the light or the magic being weaved, but the reflecting shine from the golden armour of the Blades.

In a fit of worry and panic Martin had ignored the advice of Jauffre and sent Caroline and Pelagius after me. They followed the track I had carved through the ruin, and entered the room as the lich was attacking me.

I was slipping between worlds: I was seeing the ceiling of the Rose Palace and then the dark, green-tinted ceiling of the ruin. I did not recognise Pelagius' face as he hovered above me, as Caroline finished off the lich with her blade.

I fell into true unconsciousness the moment the Blades had done what they could to heal me, and did not wake up until I was back in Cloud Ruler Temple.


Lauraine was sitting quietly on her bed sheets with a leather-bound book resting on her legs when the noise startled her. It was a rustling sound she was familiar with, that of someone climbing the tree outside her window, but she was expecting no Martin tonight and the mage-lights in her room were dimmer than usual. It was not obvious to anyone outside that she was awake, due to her dark curtains and the low lights.

Placing the book on the desk, with the page of information on Azura carefully bookmarked, she reached across to her dresser and took the dagger from her drawer. With careful movements, she moved off her bed and tiptoed to the window, leaning against the wall with her eyes on the open sill. The rustling grew louder as her grip on the dagger tightened, before a plainly clothed figure tumbled through the window. Before she could grab him, he landed on the floor with a soft thud, his hood pulling back from his face. The shock of dark brown hair and startlingly blue eyes made her throw the dagger onto the bed, and Lauraine threw herself to her knees to help him stand.

"Gods, Martin, don't do that! I could have stabbed you!" She gave him a smile and helped him to his feet, but he clung to her desperately and shook his head. Concerned, she looked down at him, only to find him staring at the floor as his grip on her arms tightened.

It was only then that she noticed he was covered in blood. His plaid shirt was soaked, the dark red seeping across the fabric in large stains. His hands were covered in cuts, his forearms red from blood that she wasn't sure was his own or not. She almost let go of him in horror, but the unusual lack of fear she felt made her move him to sit on her bed instead. Lauraine knew he would never hurt her.

"What did you do?" He was still not looking at her, even as she pushed his hair from his face to check he had no facial wounds.

His silence was all the answer she needed.

Trying to hold back a sigh, Lauraine moved over to the washbasin in the corner of her room and carried it to the side of her bed. In a rush, she grabbed some old linen towels from the bottom of her dresser, using the dagger on the bed to rip it into strips before plunging them into the cold water. Lauraine paused, however, before she touched one to his hands. "I thought you'd have learnt when I warned you in Skingrad. Martin, what did Sanguine make you do?"

The look on his face was one of both relief and extreme guilt: relief because her guess meant that he did not have to speak the crime aloud, and grief because he had lied to her and murdered his friends. His face was caked with dirt, with visible tear tracks running down his grimy cheeks.

"He… Sanguine, he tried to…" He trailed off and attempted to stand up in a daze, but Lauraine planted her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down hard so he remained seated. Quickly, and not ungently, she raised her hand with the soaked towel strip and scrubbed at his face with it until his cheeks turned red. Once that was done to an acceptable level, she tossed it to the floor and picked up another strip. She turned her attention to his arms and hands, using up several strips of toweling to remove the dried blood.

"Martin, it's alright to tell me. What did he make you do?" Her voice was quiet, full of fear and dread. She knew the answer, knew what Sanguine stood for. Whilst she did not imagine Martin to be taking part in the hedonistic sex that Sanguine worship could demand, she could smell stale alcohol under the coppery scent of blood, and knew that the drugs could not have been far behind. Such a combination, at an isolated shrine in the middle of the night, could only spell disaster.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she spotted the staff of the Sanguine Rose on the floor next to the window. The Rose had wilted, leaving it little more than a useless stick of wood: Sanguine had chosen a new champion, then.

Martin's eyes welled up with tears, and they fell, warm down his raw cheeks. "We were being cocky. We had lost control of our senses, most of us were drunk and high, and some of us started to summon daedra. We thought it would be amusing, to see the Xivilai fighting each other as our champions. But we lost control of them, and then Sanguine took control of me. It was almost as if I was watching myself do it, not completely there." His voice cracked, but Lauraine kept her patience and waited for him to continue.

"He made us do the ritual. He said whichever one of us could take control of all the daedra could be his champion instead of me, but then one moment I was praying and the next I was ordering the Xivilai to murder them all. I couldn't… I couldn't stop." He was visibly heartbroken and horrified, and Lauraine herself had to feel awful for him and for the fate of his close friends. They had mostly been young, naive members of the Mages Guild, but Martin was a farmer's son and had spent years doing intensive manual labour. He was taller and stronger than all of them by far: had the Prince controlled his body, then they wouldn't have stood a chance.

"I murdered them all…"

"No, listen to me Martin." She ran a clean strip over his arms and hands again to wipe away any excess, before she dried them with a fresher, dark towel. "You did not kill those men. Sanguine did. You were weakened and caught unawares, you did not kill them."

"You warned me in Skingrad, and I should have listened." He seemed to be coming back into himself even as his eyes unfocused. His throat was bobbing up and down as he swallowed, repeatedly, though his lips were wet and he looked apt to drool. He looked nauseous in a way Lauraine had never seen before on a person, his normally tanned face so pale and ashen in the low light of her room.

Lauraine recognised the signs, and with an even greater urgency she threw the towel to the floor and grabbed the basin. She nearly sloshed the water as she rushed to her open window, and carefully she threw the blood-coloured water out towards the grass. She did not stay to hear the splash of it hitting the ground, darting back to Martin to shove the empty basin into his lap.

Half a second later, Martin threw up the meagre contents of his stomach. Fresh tears fell down his face as he vomited, and Lauraine could not tell if he was convulsing or sobbing. He looked a pathetic sight, hunched over on the end of her bed with a bowl of sick in his arms, his whole body shaking with the force of his retching. Soothingly, she ran her fingers through his hair and pulled it back out of the way, trying not to make a face at how soaked his hair was with sweat.

"I don't know what to do." Martin gasped out, his eyes red. Every word was spoken through a sob, and Lauraine felt her heart breaking just to look at him. She rubbed soothing circles on his back, and shook her head.

"I'm not sure what to suggest." And she wasn't sure, not really. He had committed murder, whether he was actually guilty or not. There was not much to be done, if he was caught.

They sat in silence for nearly ten minutes, Lauraine's hand still between his shoulder blades and Martin's eyes still on the floor. Her nose wrinkled as the foul smell from the bowl finally reached her, and she leaned across to take the basin from him.

"I will empty this. Stay here. Do not move, do not make a sound, and if you hear a step on the stairs that is heavier than my own, hide."

He only nodded meekly at her, not even seeming to take in her words, and Lauraine sighed. Standing up, she kissed his forehead gently and ran a hand through his hair, before leaving the room and shutting the door, securely locking it behind her.

Lauraine moved silently through the darkened house, making her way through the kitchen and out the backdoor. Standing in the shadowy patio, she looked around to make sure no one was around. Thief or beggar, she still did not need any witnesses to her late-night journey to the paddock in the garden.

They had the paddock for the rare occasion Lauraine was allowed to bring her horse into the city, usually when she wanted to groom him herself. It was full of stale water, but she paid that no heed as she dunked an old pewter cup into the water and then used it to rinse the basin.

She had to admit, she did not imagine she would be spending the early hours of the morning in the garden, dressed only in her nightdress, rinsing out a ceramic washbasin with a pewter cup and stale water. She considered smashing it, but knew its loss would be noted as the matching jug was in her room.

It was quiet, eerily so, but Lauraine knew that was her own nerves and suspicious behavior playing tricks on her. There were full moons, overhead, shining brightly above the spires of the chapel and sending long shadows across the houses. She spent a moment observing it all, uncertain of what to do, when an idea struck.

Once the bowl was rinsed to her satisfaction, Lauraine headed back inside, dumping the basin on the floor near the door. With careful steps she ducked into the washing room and rifled through the baskets of clean clothing, until she came across older clothes of Lord Bellamont's. A plaid shirt, much like the one Martin was wearing, was her first pick, followed by some plain but clean linen breeches.

They would do.

She made very little noise as she headed back up the stairs, slipping into her room with little fanfare to find Martin still sitting where she had left him. Her room was freezing even with the fire still going, for the window was left open, but the stale smell of illness had all but gone.

The smell of blood and sweat was still there, however.

Placing the clothes on the bed a distance away from Martin, she grabbed his shoulders and bent down so she was eye level with him.

"Did you hide all evidence that you were there? Did you leave anything at the site? A dagger, or a cloak or anything like that?"

He shook his head as a bewildered look crossed his face.

"I threw the dagger into the lake near Fort Linchal. Everything else that I possessed is here."

"Okay, okay. We can deal with this. No one else knew you were there?"

Martin shook his head again. "Good, anyone who finds the bodies at the shrine will just assume there was a tragic accident or they turned on themselves because of Sanguine. You won't be implicated."

"Am I to just forget it ever happened?" Lauraine looked at him, really looked at him and the horror and fear that emanated from him, and knew he only had a few options. He needed alibis and excuses, and she could only offer him suggestions.

"Not at all. I rather suspect you will be remembering this for the rest of your life. No, you should join the priesthood. Go to the chapel of Akatosh at dawn and pray. Give them any excuse, say you woke from a fevered dream after a night here, and knew you had to join the priesthood. It can be your alibi, and hopefully the chapel will keep you safe from any further influence from Sanguine." It was an option she never would have suggested if she did not have her own plans to flee Kvatch once the year was out, but she knew the Gods would protect him, Akatosh would have to keep him safe.

Martin simply stared at her, turning the suggestion around in his head. While he thought on it, Lauraine reached behind him for the ebony dagger and immediately started to cut away his blood-stained shirt. He started in surprise, watching her carefully as she then cut through his vest and the knot that tied his cloak around his neck.

With a flush to her cheeks, she motioned to his breeches. "Get them off."

"I'm sorry? Whatever for?"

"You need to get out of anything with blood on it. Get them off." Lauraine turned so he could remove them privately. There was nothing she had not seen before, but the situation was markedly different, and there was a finality to her suggestion he join the priests. They required up to two years of a strictly ascetic lifestyle, she knew, and by the time those restrictions would be lifted from Martin she would be long gone from Kvatch.

It was the nail in the coffin of their future, and from the silence between them, he knew it too.

Martin cleared his throat uncertainly: Lauraine turned, grabbing the clothes from her bed and handing them over to him whilst taking his discarded ones. With barely a second look, she tossed them into the fireplace, hoping they would burn easily and not too brightly.

"That should be enough to lift suspicion from you. Leave the staff here, I can dispose of it tomorrow. We'll wait for a guard to pass by the road: you should leave out the window loudly and noticeably. It will give you an alibi. But once you go, walk straight to the Chapeland start praying. Wait for the night priest to notice you and ask to join."

They were stood by the window, Martin now changed into the clothes she had provided. He looked morose, and his eyes fell onto the ring on the chain at her neck.

"You turn eighteen soon."

Lauraine rolled her eyes.

"By all means, stay here with me, and when you're executed for murder I'll allay my broken heart with the knowledge that you chose me over a brief period of chastity." Her words were a low hiss, as she brightened the mage lights around the room and looked out the window to the path in front of the house.

"What do I say to the priest?"

"You woke up, and you realised the Chapel was your calling. With any luck the bodies won't be discovered for a while and they'll start inquiring in Skingrad first. Now here's a guard. Go, and make sure you're seen leaving."

Martin looked utterly bewildered, looking out the window as the guard rounded the corner and began to walk in front of the house. He watched her for a moment, before deciding she was right and giving her a staunch nod.

"I'll… I'll go now. Thank you."

She surprised him by embracing him tightly. "Please don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known."

"I will try. Not to, that is. But I can't be certain…" He trailed off, staring at his hands with a look she couldn't interpret. Giving her a sad smile, he turned and left the way he came.

She kept the window open that night as she slept, to be sure the smell of burning, bloody clothes would be gone from her room the next morning.


When Lauraine woke, she felt as though she'd only just hit the floor in Miscarcand. Her back ached and her lungs felt compressed, and with every breath there was a painful twinge at her ribs near her back. Her eyes ached as they flickered open to the wooden ceiling of whatever room she was in, and it took her a few moments to start to look properly. It felt as though someone had poured sand into her eyes and throat.

Wherever she was, the room was finely furbished, from what she could see by darting her eyes around. She was on a soft featherbed, slightly lumpy but not itchy, and she felt suspiciously clean.

Someone had washed most of the ectoplasm out of her hair and combed it thoroughly, leaving it in a loose braid at the side of her head. Cautiously, she wriggled her fingers and rolled her ankles to see if there was any pain, to which she felt none. With that in mind, she tried to sit up using her arms as support, only to gasp in pain and fall back onto the bed.

Someone had put her in a pair of stays. They were lightly boned, and she was likely only wearing them to stop herself from moving around in her sleep and jostling whatever injury was throbbing so painfully near her back. That explained the feeling of being compressed, then.

Lauraine turned her head to look down at her arm, which had begun to ache with her movement. The forearm had been splinted and healed with magic: she could see the scars on her arm where the second bone must have broken the skin when she fell unconscious. Licking her lips, she felt a scar where her upper lip had torn from the Zombie attack, but when she lifted the sheets to press at the wound from the wraith, there was no pain. That must have been healed with magic too.

"The healer was exhausted after he had solidified the bones in your arm. You will have to wait until he returns tomorrow for your ribs to be healed properly."

Martin's voice made her flinch in surprise, causing more pain to shoot up her side. It drew her attention to him, sitting with a book in his lap off to her right, and she flushed knowing he had been watching her. She had not even seen him. He stood when her gaze met his, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to her, being careful to avoid her freshly-healed arm. He copied her earlier action, hesitantly lifting the shirt and pressing his fingers onto the sore area of her ribs, closer to her back than her front.

The pressure made her hiss in pain, though Martin kept gently pressing around the painful area until he came to a point where she did not react.

"Is this where the pain stops?"

Lauraine nodded.

"The swelling has reduced, then. We were unsure if you had broken several ribs, cracked them, or merely bruised them. The healer suggested the stays until the swelling reduced, or until he returned to heal them."

"We?" Her throat was incredibly dry, making her voice sound almost croaky. Martin stood from the bed and moved over to a bedside table, taking a pitcher of water and filling a silver cup with water.

"Myself, Caroline and Cirroc, the healer from Bruma." He handed her the cup, making sure she had hold of it properly before he helped her sit up in the bed. The stays made it nearly impossible to sit anything other than upright.

Lauraine could feel a light blush running up her cheeks, and glanced around the room as she slowly sipped the water. She realised she was in Martin's private quarters.

"How did I get here?" She asked, as Martin headed over to the window and glanced out. What he was looking at, she didn't know, as she was certain his room only faced more mountains.

"I sent Caroline and Pelagius after you, about three days after you left. I was perturbed, after what you had said about the ruin. They got there in time to see you fall from the ledge. From what I understand, they hired a cart from Skingrad and tied your horse and Caroline's up to it, and brought you back on it."

Lauraine could do nothing other than nod at that: she was running her tongue along the inner scar of her lips, and it felt weirdly bumpy inside her mouth.

"How long has it been since I got back?"

"Two days, at most. Pelagius brought you up to the temple whilst Caroline went for the healer from the chapel. You were lucky; they told me you had a fever on the road that broke just as they reached Bleaker's way."

"They brought me all the way from Miscarcand? Why not take me to the Imperial City for healing?" She was confused, and her agitation only worsened the pain in her side as she tensed. Martin frowned at her actions, but answered her question.

"It was too dangerous, Lauraine. We do not know how many spies Camoran has in the city. A healer might have been your end."

She relaxed. He had a point there.

"And the stone?"

"With the other items."

Lauraine had nothing else to ask, and Martin endured the silence for several minutes before he spoke again.

"Two worshippers from the shrine of Azura arrived yesterday carrying a chest between them. We did not open it, as they said it was for your eyes only, though Jauffre fears what it might contain." He turned Lauraine's attention to the chest that was sitting near the doorway. She was curious, and could tell Martin was also. She gave him a smile.

"Open it for me, I want to see what is inside." Her back was no longer throbbing quite so badly, and she leaned forwards to see Martin lift the lid from the chest. He paused for a moment, as though confused, and then reached in to pull out the contents.

Sucking in a breath, Lauraine's eyes widened as first he pulled out a pair of black steel boots, followed by a black pair of gauntlets and a cloak. Finally, he pulled out the black steel greaves and breastplate and placed them on the edge of the bed beside her.

Without really comprehending what she was doing, Lauraine pulled the breastplate towards her and turned it over, examining the back. It was smooth black steel, not a single knot in the armour at all, and she found her eyes narrowing. Lightly running her fingers over the spot that would be behind her heart was where she felt it, the tiny split where the dagger had penetrated her mother's armour and pierced her heart. It had been mended extremely well, and she suspected the hairline crack was still present to serve as a reminder that Azura could and would put her down if she strayed.

"That armour… it is like nothing I have ever seen before…" Martin looked stunned, but Lauraine shook her head at him.

"It's not completely unique. It was a gift from Noctural; the Nightingales of Skyrim wear the same armour, though I'm told they wear a cape with theirs. My mother wore it to rescue you from the Deadlands, and she was wearing it the day that Azura took her memories and sent her back to Nirn."

"I see. You will certainly stand out in the snow, wearing that." Lauraine held the armour gently, but looked up at Martin and cocked her head to the side in confusion.

"In the snow?"

"I am still deciphering the final item needed to open the portal, but I feel we will need to make a stand at Bruma."

"Bruma?!" She was startled; she'd only just woken up and this was information that truly was hard to comprehend. A gods-be-damned confrontation at Bruma, so close to the temple where Martin would be hidden.

"Yes, Bruma." He gave a sigh. "It will be dangerous. Jauffre doesn't like it, and Narina Carvain certainly isn't going to like it. We need a great sigil stone, and the only way we can get one of those is by allowing a great gate to open."

Lauraine watched him as he spoke, remembering vividly the ruined husk that was Kvatch. If his plan failed, Bruma would become a similar stain on the mountainside, stark black against the white snow. He was looking at her carefully, trying to gauge her reaction, as though she would have any choice other than agreeing with him. She mulled it over in her mind, before she caught on to what he was not saying.

"Wait, you haven't told the Countess?"

At the flicker of his eyes towards the duvet, she grimaced.

"Let me guess, I'm to tell the Countess."

"I would appreciate your support in this." He sounded earnest, and Lauraine rolled her eyes.

"Yes I'm sure you would, if it meant not having to tell someone you want to stick an oblivion gate in front of her city." The words were grumbled under her breath, but Martin heard them anyway. They sat in silence once more, neither sure where to look, until Lauraine cleared her throat and drew his attention back to her.

"I had a lot of time on the way to Miscarcand. To think, that is." She could see curiosity battling it out with fake indifference on his face, as his walls slowly came back up. His gaze shifted from her, back to the duvet. He pulled at a loose thread and twisted it between his fingers: Lauraine reached a hand out to still him, and took his hand in her own.

"When this is over, I won't leave. I'll stay, in whatever capacity you want me. You are my closest friend, and I won't abandon you to sneak back to the shadows." She paused, a twinge in her ribs causing her to breathe in sharply. Martin squeezed her hand gently, a genuine, if small, smile on his face.

"Thank you."

Lauraine returned the smile, feeling lighter than she had in months. It was not complete forgiveness, but it was a step she could not have imagined them taking.


Her arrow punctured the Dremora behind Baurus at the same moment that the great gate started to appear. All sound seemed to be sucked away with a whoosh. One moment there was black smoke along the ground, and the next two giant pillars flew up from beneath the snow and arced together to form an arch.

The portal formed within the giant frame, dragging in anything within its immediate vicinity. Lauraine staggered back from where she had perched herself on higher ground, a mix of awe and horror coursing through her veins. She had not been at Kvatch when the great gate appeared, and it had been long gone when she arrived.

This, this was beyond anything she could have imagined. The sheer size of it had her heart jumping into her throat as she stared up at it.

Further down the slope, Baurus killed a distracted Clanfear and turned to gaze at it, a similar expression on his face.

"That's the great gate?"

"Gods, what have we done?" Baurus was calm, but she did not begrudge him the sheer shock in his voice. She could never have envisioned the great gate being so huge.

The brief distraction from its appearance ended, the battlefield full of the sound of metal clashing once more. Lauraine found she had to shout in order to hear herself when she moved down the slope to speak to Baurus.

"Keep Martin safe! If I take too long and the machine starts to make its way out of the portal, make him leave!" She could barely hear herself over the drilling whine from four portals and the whooshing of the air around them. Baurus nodded, however.

"We already planned that!"

"Good!" She looked around the battle field: miraculously, none of the soldiers had yet fallen, but there were many daedra on the field still in fighting condition. Martin was in battle with one, with Jauffre at his back in battle with another. Lauraine gave one last nod to Baurus, attached her bow to the straps on her back, and ran.

There was the briefest feeling of weightlessness as she jumped and phased through: the whooshing sound around the portal disappeared, and she landed with a thud on the dusty, hard ground of the Deadlands.

When she looked up, her heart almost dropped at the sight of the siege engine. This was the machine that destroyed Kvatch? She felt almost hopeless, there was no way she could stop that in an hour.

Knowing she had no choice but to rush, she prayed her armour would let her blend in when in the towers and ran at the bridge. She hauled herself up onto it and ran into the tower on the right. The darkness inside let her leap onto the corpse masher before the Xivilai guarding it could notice her, and she was already ascending by the time it noticed.

Forty-five minutes later, she was slipping her way into the door at the top of the World Breaker tower. It had taken her a long time to ascend the tower, for after every arrow notched and loosed on a daedra meant another minute staying deadly still to avoid detection.

She quickly climbed the ramp in the Sigillum Sanguis, but stopped behind one of the oddly shaped pillars when she spotted a Xivilai guarding the stone. It was not yet aware she was there, for it was idly tossing its mace into the air and catching it for amusement. She attempted to slip past it, but her steel gave the tiniest of clinks as she moved that the daedra picked up on immediately.

It came at her almost blindly, swinging the mace freely towards her. She managed to loose an arrow into its leg, but it only slowed it down slightly. As she nocked another arrow it managed to punch her in the face, and Lauraine could hear the crunch it made when the fist connected with her nose. Her eyes welled up immediately, blinding her with the pain.

The Xivilai's victory was short lived, however, for she took the arrow that was meant to be in her bow and jammed it blindly in the daedra's direction. Through blind luck the arrow went through its left eye. The resulting howl of pain made her wince, but she quickly pulled it out and jammed it through the other one. Letting the Xivilai reel back as blood leaked from its eyes, she gave it a push with her shoulder so it lost its balance and fell to the floor at her feet. Lauraine gave it one swift kick before moving past it, to the sigil stone.

It was surrounded in flames that did not burn, and would only budge when she held it confidently in both hands. The stand that was holding it immediately crumbled, and the ground around her shook more violently than she had ever experienced. The platform beneath her disintegrated, and she once again found herself falling.

Lauraine landed on cold, blood-spattered snow amidst a sea of daedra bodies, the great sigil stone heavy in her hands. The gate behind her fell to dust along with the three smaller gates, leaving nothing but the bodies of numerous daedra and the scorch marks on the ground as proof they had ever been there.

The snow seeped through the gaps in her armour as she knelt on the ground, but she was quickly helped to her feet by Baurus, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere at her side. He yanked her to her feet, but then Martin appeared too and Baurus had moved away. Lauraine gave him a smile.

"I got you the stone." She tried to hold it higher than at her waist, but it was too heavy. But Martin shook his head and dragged her closer.

"To Oblivion with the stone," and in front of all those on the battlefield, he dragged her closer and kissed her.