There is an extra-long chapter for everyone reading for a few reasons: one, I'm going to be a high school graduate in less than forty-eight hours! :-D Two, because of said graduation and following activities, like getting ready for college, I will have less time to write for the next week or so. There's also my own take on learning spells in this chapter, because I always found it strange that you just read a spell book once and suddenly you're the master at it.

Anyway. Onwards!

The night was clear and cool, not cold enough to make me wish for a fur cloak, but cool enough to raise slight goosebumps on my skin. Masser and Secunda were both out and in their full phases; it was a bright enough night that I could see across miles and miles of tundra, starting to turn into the scrubby, rocky land of the Reach and the distant Hold of Hjaalmarch. A few hours passed, and an aurora lit up the sky in shades of orange and blood-red. It almost felt prophetic for some reason, and I shook myself out of it, rising to my feet and stretching slightly.

Solian was still asleep, face relaxed into a position of dreamless slumber. I was ready to wake him up so we could keep moving, but it was still several hours until the sun would rise. I was restless; I decided to make a circle around our small camp and check for any outside threats. I didn't expect anything, but I found in my experience that the greatest threats came when you least expected them.

My paranoia turned up nothing, and I returned to my lookout rock, legs crossed and bow balanced between my knees. I looked down at Solian's pack, laying next to his bedroll, and saw the edge of the journal sticking out. I wondered if he would mind me taking a look at his sketches again and decided on the side of caution, forcing my curiosity away and focusing on gazing out at the vast, moonlit land. It was the kind of night that was usually considered most magical in the fairy-tale stories I had read as a young girl. Now, of course, I was far too bitter and realistic to believe in such things as happily-ever-afters. Happiness, true happiness, never comes without cost.

I yawned and shifted on my perch, leaning back against an adjacent rock. I ensured my bow was clenched tightly in the fingers of one hand and that the other was halfway between my dagger sheath and the arrow I had laid down next to me. If we were ambushed, I would be prepared for anything, a skill born of necessity. I'd had to be on my guard for a very long time, and suspected that I would be for most likely the rest of my life.

As soon as I had the thought, I almost felt even more exhausted. Would it really be too much to ask for some peace and safety one day?

"Odiana?"

I turn my head to see Solian awake, sitting up with the disorientation of someone who has just woken up after deep sleep in his eyes and demeanor. "Solian." I nodded in acknowledgement. "Feeling restless?"

"Somewhat." Solian almost looks disturbed, and I can't help but think that his supposedly deep and easy sleep wasn't as deep and easy as I thought. "If you'd like to sleep, I think I am awake enough to take watch."

"You look distracted." I replied briskly. "Distracted watchmen are not reliable watchmen."

Solian huffed with something that was probably supposed to be a laugh. "Fair enough."

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes, myself continuing to scan the horizons for threats, and Solian perhaps waking up or falling back asleep. I heard him shift around, and then the flipping of parchment pages. I assumed he was looking through the sketches in his journal, and turned to ask him if I could see it when he was done before the question died in my throat. My sketch journal. I was sure I'd put it back in one of the pouches on my jerkin, but it must have fallen out.

"My..." I trailed off.

Solian looked up and said, "Oh. I was just looking for your sketch of the snow elf ruins."

I opened my mouth, conceivably to tell him to get his hands off my journal before I cut them off with the dagger placed conveniently by my hand. I took a deep breath and was about to snap my command, but instead what came out was, "It's the last one, at the very back."

"Ah, that helps. Thank you." there was a flipping of pages, then silence again. I turned back to the landscape and shook my head at myself. There was no point being angry at Solian when it would just roll right off his shoulders. Besides, all he'd wanted to do was look at my sketch of the ruins to see what he'd be getting into. It was harmless.

Perhaps half an hour passed before Solian said, "Tell me about Darkfall Cave."

"It leads to the Forgotten Vale itself." I began automatically, still ultimately focused on my guard duty, even though there was nothing out there and there hadn't been anything out there for the entire night. "It's a Falmer den. Or, at least, it was the last time I saw it. I haven't been there in months."

"So we should prepare for a fight, then." Solian deduced.

I turned my head briefly to him to respond, "Always prepare for a fight. Especially where the Forgotten Vale and Darkfall Cave are concerned."

Solian ponders this for a moment before he suddenly asks, "Do you know any spells?"

It's a surprising question, and it catches me momentarily off-guard. "Really only a little fire spell that I use to light campfires or as a very small torch." I move my thumb and index finger in such a way that my tiny flame is summoned, and then I extinguish it.

"Spells are a good way to be prepared for a great deal of situations." Solian explained his reasoning behind his sudden question. "If Darkfall Cave is as bad as you say, perhaps a few extra spells might help you?"

"I've survived just fine without spells for over fourteen years now." I retorted crisply. "Not to mention I've already made it through Darkfall Cave before."

"And if you are somehow disarmed?" Solian raised an eyebrow.

I grumbled with slight frustration, but I did set my bow down, getting to my feet in the same motion. Learning a few spells couldn't hurt, and Solian brought up a valuable point. No matter how hard someone tries, they can't disarm a mage of spells unless they have a poison that depletes magicka. "Fine." I replied curtly. "Got some spell tomes?"

"I have one." Solian reached into his pack and pulled out a firebolt spell tome. "Do you know how to learn spells?"

"I read the tome, yes?" I held the book like it was a foreign object, even though it wasn't much different than a regular book. Except for the fact that when I finished reading it, it would disappear and I would know a new form of magic.

"Yes." Solian nodded with a slight grin. "I'll let you read."

I opened the spell tome. At first it seemed like the thing was written in a foreign tongue, and I was about to irately throw the book at Solian when it suddenly became as clear as though I was reading a child's book. Knowledge soaked into my head and I read lines faster and faster. I can't say how much time passed before I finished the book, and as soon as I closed the cover, the book vanished, gone to Meridia-knew-where.

Solian's head jerked up and I wondered if he had been napping. "You're finished?"

"Yes. I think so." I looked at my lap, where the book had been laying just a few seconds before. "Do you know where the tomes go when they vanish?" it almost sounded like a childlike question, but I was absolutely serious. I wanted to know where they went.

Solian shrugged. "Who can say? No one seems to know where they go."

"And no one is curious about that?" I demanded, rising to my feet slowly and stretching my stiff legs again.

Solian rose to his feet as well and said, "As far as I know, no one has needed to know until you came along." Solian grinned a bit more widely, more in keeping with his usual expressions. "Perhaps you can ask the gods someday."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "With my luck, I'll end up in some sort of purgatory state for all eternity with Meridia and Akatosh fighting over who gets to keep my soul. But I'll worry more about my soul's destination when it becomes relevant. Let's work on this spell."

Solian pointed out to a rock not far away. "Try casting the firebolt at that rock."

I glanced at him incredulously. "You don't have any instructions? Any advice?"

"That's what the spell tome is for." Solian informed me, crossing his arms. "Just try it."

Exhaling heavily, I turned to the rock and raised my right hand, trying to remember the instructions the book had given me. It was almost instinctual; I moved my fingers in a certain way that was similar to the way I would conjure a small flicker of flame from my thumb and index finger, but on a larger scale. Feeling slightly more confident, I attempted to shoot the energy out in the form of a firebolt.

Surprisingly, an explosion tossed me off my feet and made me land hard on my back with a grunt. I felt heat, but I didn't think I'd been burned, remarkably. The next thing I heard was Solian laughing, and I shot to my feet angrily. "You could have told me that would happen!" I snapped.

Solian was still laughing, but he got it under control enough to say, "I didn't tell you because I've never seen a firebolt spell cast that way before."

I started to feel a bit inadequate; Solian was an expert with Destruction and he was trying to teach less-than-novice me how to cast spells. But I'd never felt inadequate in the prescence of someone else before. I never had any reason to. I was safe in the knowledge that I was a damn good archer and an even better sneak. I didn't need magic.

I must have had a put-out expression on my face, because Solian, still smiling, said, "Come on. Try it again."

"There's no point." I grumbled, plunking down on a rock and glaring at my hand for failing to cast the spell properly.

Solian raised an eyebrow at me. "That's it? You're giving up? On a spell?"

"I'm no mage!" I retorted, glaring at Solian for a moment before scowling at the dirt between my boots. "I've never needed to cast a spell in my entire life."

"I would expect more from you, of all people, a vampire hunter who stopped the sun from being put out by a crazy vampire lord, who then discovered she was Dragonborn with a destiny to save the world." Solian cocked his head to the side. "And you're going to let a Destruction spell get the better of you."

When he put it like that, it made it seem ridiculous. "Hell, no." I got back up and closed my eyes, trying to remember the words in the book again. I slowly moved my hand and fingers in the motions I remembered reading about, concentrated fiercely on it, and attempted it for the second time, eyes still closed.

"Well, there was no explosion this time, so that's progress." I heard Solian's thoughtful voice. He had to be hatching some idea to teach me this confounded spell. "But for some reason, you can't seem to project the energy from your hand."

"It's a sign." I stated. "My body is telling me I'm not meant to be a mage."

Solian chuckled. "Or it's telling you that you need more practice. Here, I'll help." Solian stood at my left and cast a firebolt too quickly for me to see the motions. He cast it more slowly the second time, and I attempted to mimic his movements. My third attempt was no more successful than my second, and I gritted my jaw. Solian switched sides, appearing at my right, and before I could stop him, laid his hand on top of mine.

It was lightly calloused with writing callouses from perhaps writing down an entire book's worth of journal entries and notes, and it was warm, strangely and pleasantly so. I was normally averted to being touched, but I decided I would allow it for the purposes of learning this spell. There was a light fluttering in my stomach that refused to go away. I chalked it up to my rare use of my limited magical abilities.

"Like this." Solian directed me how to move my hand with his own, and repeated the pattern several times before he drew away and let me try it on my own. The absence of his hand on top of mine was strangely noticeable, the pre-dawn air markedly more chill than I recalled from earlier in the night. I took a deep breath and, face fixed into a scowl of concentration, moved my fingers into the motions Solian had demonstrated, which I had now memorized by heart. One last time, I attempted to shoot the bolt of fire from my hand.

And, miraculously enough, a small ball of fire emerged and sailed into the rock with a small flash of heat against my hand and wrist. I felt inordinately proud of myself, and indulged a smile, looking back at Solian. He appeared to freeze for a minute and then shook himself out of it, saying, with his regular expression of amiability, "Nice work."

I lowered my hand and glanced at the sky. It was light gray, tinged pale yellow at the horizon where the sun was just starting to rise. Time to get moving. "Thanks." I replied, leaning down to gather my bow and the unused arrow. "But we should get moving. We'll make it to Darkfall by evening if we make good time."

The second leg of our journey was much more enjoyable than the first. We knew we had our goal, to make it to Darkfall by the evening, but it didn't stop Solian from occasionally stopping to take small sketches of the wildlife we encountered. I would take the opportunities that these little breaks provided me by dozing in the sun, letting its warm rays wash the cold of the night before from my skin. Whenever Solian was finished, we'd pick up and keep going. Neither of us really seemed to feel like talking; I suppose there wasn't much that needed to be said.

There was something about today that had me a bit disgruntled, though. I had been wrong. I hate being wrong.

I had misjudged Solian.

When I'd first met him, and even up until recently, he'd been an annoyance. But I had been making a lot of my judgments based on the fact that he was Altmer, a fact he could not control any more than I could control being a Nord. I hadn't been looking at him as Solian, the person. I'd been looking at him as Solian, the Altmer. And I had been wrong.

I knew I owed him an apology, a rather large one, and I was terrible at making apologies. It would have to wait until we'd taken care of my arrow-gathering trip. Lost in thought, I nearly ran into Solian in the middle of the road. I stumbled backwards a few paces before regaining my balance. "Solian?" I asked. "What's going on?"

"Is that Dragon Bridge up ahead?" Solian pointed towards an indistinct outline of what appeared to be a stone bridge.

I peered forward."Yes. Come on. If we hurry we can make camp outside Darkfall Cave and push through first thing tomorrow morning."

Solian nodded and shouldered his pack a bit more securely before we started off again. Red, orange, and violet streaked across the skies as the sunset dominated the land, casting shadows twice as long as whatever subject felt its light, be it myself or a nearby tree or the Dragon Bridge.

We were about to come into sight of the village's guards when I heard the sound of a sword being unsheathed. Less than a second later, I had an arrow in my bowstring—a regular elven one, I couldn't afford to use my Sunhallowed ones unless it was an emergency—and I looked around slowly. Solian had his glass sword in his right hand and some form of fire spell in his left. There was silence for a split second; even nature itself seemed to pause.

And then all hell broke loose in the sun's dying rays. Soldiers in dull bronze armor, some wearing black robes lined with gold...

Thalmor!

Instead of shooting the arrow in my bowstring, I swung my bow like a bludgeon, catching one of the soldiers across the face. He reeled backwards and in his moment of distraction, I shot a single elven arrow into the exposed area of his neck. I saw another bolting away from the battle towards the nearby river, his armor ablaze, undoubtedly with one of Solian's firebolts. But where two fell, four more took their place. I was a ferocious whirling dervish, eventually having to abandon my arrows and using the bow itself as a club-like tool, pulling my dagger from my belt.

I whipped around and watched one Thalmor wizard approach a distracted Solian, who was fighting blade-to-blade with one of the foot soldiers. I grasped the dagger by the blade and narrowed one eye, getting a better sense of where the wizard was—and making sure I wouldn't hit Solian. I threw the dagger with lethal accuracy, and the wizard fell with a slight gasping, choking noise.

I wanted to retrieve the dagger—it was the only one I had, and it had been expensive, dammit—but I clearly had much bigger things to worry about. It was then that the full scale of this hit me.

They found me. I've been running for fourteen years—seven with Jarek, seven on my own—and they found me. This was too convenient. They had to know we'd be here. Someone tipped them off.

But who? Surely it hadn't been Beryn or Sethys, unless...I had told them to give me up if their lives were in danger. If that was the case, I had brought this on myself. Perhaps a part of me had wanted me to.

Solian had more skill with the sword than he'd let on; as more and more Thalmor rushed us—how many did they send after us, anyway?—he simply blasted them with firebolts or swung his sword in graceful, deadly arcs.

Even with our combined skill, eventually we were overpowered. There were simply too many, and we'd been boxed in from all sides. Finally, in a fit of frustration, something burst from me that I had all but forgotten about.

"Fus, Ro!" the most extensive dragon Shout I knew, and it barely did more than stagger the incoming wave of troops. But it had succeeded in surprising them, I could tell that much. I was out of tricks, though. I'd run out of every regular elven arrow I had, and if I tried to shoot off a Sunhallowed arrow here, it would kill all of us. They are not precision weapons.

I felt my wrist be roughly grabbed, and there was an explosion of pain in my chest and head. My limbs turned into water, and I fell to the ground with a groan of pain.

"Stand down!" came an order, called from nearby me, but my ears were still ringing with the pain in my skull. Whoever had incapacitated me was the leader of this attack. Abruptly the fighting stopped, and I weakly raised my head. My hair was yanked back, and I grunted with the sudden burst of pain. I was looking into an Altmer's face. It took a second, but just like that, memories flashed through my head: the raid on my parents' home when I was fifteen, the sketch in the book I had given to Sethys, the owner of the voice that haunted my nightmares.

I did not know his name. I did not need to.

"Odiana Sky-Born." the voice sends fearful chills down my spine. "It has been a long time."

"Not long enough." I growled; even in this situation I can find the wherewithal to retort something back.

A laugh, filled with cold satisfaction. "I take no pleasure in this, Sky-Born, truly. But you are a...detrimental element. So you must be contained."

"I'll die before I'm your prisoner." I manage to say through tightly clenched teeth.

"Ah, see. You have it backwards, Odie." the nickname sends a bolt of terror and apprehension through me. He shouldn't know that name. "You will be our prisoner. And then you will die."

I turn my head to look for Solian. He has been subdued as well, but the expression on his face is blank. I can't even imagine what's going through his head right now.

"Tie them up and put them in the wagon." the raid leader, the voice of my nightmares, orders briskly. "They're expected."

Expected? The question is my last thought before everything suddenly fades to black.

I open my eyes to complete darkness and shoot up to a sitting position with a gasp. Thank Meridia, it was all a nightmare. A very vivid nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless. I was still in my room in the Bannered Mare and it wasn't yet morning. I could get some food and then go back to sleep.

Except in the Bannered Mare I hadn't slept on a floor that reeked of human waste and the stench of burned flesh.

There was a clank and a jingling of keys. I automatically pressed myself into the wall at my back, trying to control my breathing. I looked down at my wrists and couldn't see them, but I moved them experimentally. They were tied, unsurprisingly. I moved my ankles and found them to be free, but without my hands and arms to balance or steady myself, kicking my captors would likely do more harm than good.

"Solian." I hissed quietly, still looking around. I wriggled my hands slightly and managed to move my thumb and first finger enough to generate my tiny flame. I rose to my feet and used my small finger-flame to get a better idea of where I was. There is a cell next to mine, and I shift over to it, trying not to be noisy. I hover my fingers by the bars and see a flash of red hair and light golden skin.

Solian. So he's here. But is he alive? He'd better be, I think to myself furiously, because I'm going to need his help to get out of here.

On the inside, I was panicking. I had been found by the Thalmor, despite my best efforts at covering my tracks and staying low. Even if I escaped now, they'd be on my trail for the rest of my life. At the very least, I'd have to try and make sure Solian got off totally free. I could lead the Thalmor on a wild-goose chase for as long as I needed to ensure his safety, as well as Sethys and Beryn's, since they were undoubtedly in danger as well.

"Solian!" I whisper-shouted. "Damn you, answer me!"

At first, he doesn't stir, and then his green-gold eyes open. Relief floods through me as he raises his head. "Odiana?" his voice is tired and afraid. "Where are we?"

"I'd guess the Thalmor Embassy, but there's no way to be certain." I replied. "How are you holding up?"

Solian almost glared at me. Almost. "How do you think?" he demanded. "I've been captured by the Thalmor and possibly taken to their impregnable embassy."

It brought a small, sad smile to my face. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

Solian shook his head. "It's not your fault, Odiana. It's not your fault."

"But if I'd been traveling alone, they only would have captured me." I pointed out. "I suppose my point was correct after all: we've both been captured. Who's going to know?"

We locked gazes for a moment, absolutely certain that we were each willing to do whatever it took to get the hell out of here alive. I stuck the fingers of my hands through the bars as best I could while still holding my tiny fire, and Solian pushed himself up to touch my fingertips. I could barely feel the slight callouses from years of traveling and writing journal entries and sketching the outdoors. I only could have been inside for a few hours at most, and I wanted nothing more than to see the open sky with its multicolored auroras again.

"We'll get out of here." I tried to sound confident, but I'm afraid more fear showed through than I'd like. "Or at least you are."

Solian shook his head; a few dark red strands bounced around his forehead. They must have come loose during the fight and our capture. "It's both of us or neither."

"Well, how very loyal." I heard The Voice, the voice from my nightmares, and I whipped my head around. "I'm glad to hear the both of you are getting along so well. I'm even happier you're planning escape. You're only proving how much you can't be trusted. How dishonorable you really are."

I clenched my teeth. I didn't know how long he'd been there or if he'd been waiting for us to awaken, but I still was able to shoot back, "Says the coward standing in the shadows."

"I see you've changed little in seven years." I receive a sly grin that looks more like a predator baring his teeth, dripping with malice. "But perhaps it takes a...closer connection to make you listen."

"Closer...?" despite myself, I asked the question, and I saw a hooded figure step from an adjoining room with a torch in hand. Obviously male, likely Nord. He placed the torch in a sconce and stepped closer to my cell. I backed up instinctively against the wall. The figure threw his hood back to reveal a face pale with exhaustion, a red goatee adding a splash of color to the pallid face I knew as well as my own, a scar trailing down the left cheek...

My stomach dropped to the floor and if I could've, I would've laid my hand across my chest in shock, in agony, as the wound over my heart was ripped open yet again.

"Hello, Odie." Jarek said quietly.