Chapter XXVI: Live by the Blood...


There are people who can enthrall themselves with imagination, at the prospect of things that will or simply might happen in the future. They conjure up images of possibilities and dreams and manage to sustain their calm and happiness thanks solely to it. Azrael was not one of them. There was an unimaginable pleasure deriving from applying one's mind to a problem, a plan or a prospect, but was there ever any satisfaction if the plan was never to become real? Surprisingly, the answer was yes. He himself had entertained himself many times through thinking alone. However, he had never pretended his ideas to be real.

And regardless, the satisfaction he was feeling now, of having outsmarted his enemy and having won even before the battle begun was something that stood above most of the simple, insignificant pleasures of the world. People ate, slept, drank and reveled, but nothing of it compared to the feeling of having built in one's mind a plan so perfect and a plot so precise that victory, which is this case corresponded with the idea's soundness, was an inherent part of the plan.

His body was motionless, but he was aware of his restlessness. How much time had passed since the last time he had felt that impatience? It was good impatience, the one that brings closer to the confirmation of one's calculations. Time was on his side, both because he was no longer affected by it and because its natural course would give him victory over his enemies. He was faintly aware of Serana's presence by his side, and how she was the one who made that victory all the more satisfying.

He took a deep breath. He could, since both him and Serana had fed before going to that banquet. While the members of the Dawnguard arrived, it would have been better for the two of them to be seen eating something. The poor couple that had yielded some of their life lymph to ensure their disguise would wake up alive, if only with a headache and tooth marks on their neck, the next morning. It was thanks to that blood that some semblance of a mortal's breathing moved the Dragonborn's chest and allowed fresh air to flow down to his lungs. He rested, in awareness and in the conscience of the situation. The table was set, both the metaphorical one and the physical one.

All the people he had asked for sat around that table, and the ones who were present but had been instructed not to be seen were there as well, rigorously out of sight. The clean plate and the tableware was placed in front of him with the utmost precision. He felt a strange sense of repulsion when his skin reached for the silver of the knife and fork. A faint acre scent came from the poisoned glass of wine. Raising his eyes on the red liquid and thinking it was blood wasn't uncommon, and happened so quickly that his mind could not control it.

Serana sat quietly beside him, and he couldn't always tell how she was feeling. She changed from expressions of faint anxiety to fervent anticipation, in motions that only him and the other vampires of the Volkihar Court might have hoped to pick up. Azrael didn't quite know how to interpret the fact that she had made herself so beautiful for the night. Her hair were combed skillfully and her face, enlivened by the fresh blood, was calm and quietly disarming. Was it simply the social situation, or was it a slight hint of mockery towards their enemies? She was giving them a personal hint that the coming night would be their funeral.

The only one who knew about the plan and managed to maintain a semblance of composure, outside of Serana and himself, was Elisif. She sat at the opposite end of the table, clad in a green dress that matcher her eyes flawlessly. Thin lines of gold were sown into the fabric, which wasn't that uncommon. All her garbs, especially the green ones, had a touch of gold. She sometimes cast glances at him, smiling faintly when she felt him gazing back, and then returning to the light conversation she entertained with those that were closet to her.

Despite the formality of the occasion, it was apparent that there was something going on. The amount of soldiers and guards present in the hall was unprecedented, and the silver weapons that hung by their sides were a hint that only a few people had picked up on but that told a lot. The guards were probably the most nervous, though visibly eager. They were all volunteers, and they were Nord volunteers, which meant that many of them had accepted the task half in the desire to face the fiends and half for the desire to face their own fear.

Serana gripped the armrest tightly and leaned in towards him. 'Can you feel it, too?'

Azrael nodded. 'Indeed.' The scent of the vampires was very close, so close that it was not impossible for some of them to be inside the palace already. How ironic that their own capacity for stealth should ease the Dragonborn's plan along. If anything had betrayed their presence, all the people in the room would have been alerted to the danger and the entire plan would have failed. But there was nothing that could betray their presence. Not a sound, and not a smell.

'I thought,' Serana said after a moment, 'I would enjoy my first gathering a little more, but everything is even more dead then the last feats at the Castle. I can't say if it's me or if nobility has become even more dull.'

'When you have risked your life as many times as we have and are focused on a mission such as ours, the trivialities of the world tend to lose importance. But we have our mission. For all of them aside from Elisif, and perhaps Falk, triviality is all there is.'

'It's a calmer life.'

'And an unfulfilling one.'

Serana grinned, her lips tight, and drew away from him, sitting back in her chair. She drummed with her long fingernails on the wooden armrest. Azrael felt a strange meld of feelings at seeing how natural the tight-lipped smile had come to her. They had discussed at length what things were to be done in order to conceal their nature to all the people present, and thus far they had stuck to those rules. How they did it varied greatly, though. She was able to do it through a lifetime of adhering to social norms. Azrael could only do it thanks to his self-control.

It was late in the evening. The Dawnguard would have arrived any moment. Delphine had been quite steady in her updates on the state of their enemies, and her attention to their movements were testament to a painstaking attention at their every action. Esbern had once joked that he couldn't have slept easy ever again if he knew he and Delphine were on opposite sides, and the more the Dragonborn saw of her abilities the more he understood the old man's hyperbole. Since the Dragons were gone and she had managed to focus some of her attention on the Thalmor, her determination and precision had grown even more impressive.

Azrael had never ceased to ponder how Delphine could still be his friend. They led lives of secrecy, their goals were sometimes similar but they were very different people, and while the Dragonborn had no issues accepting some of her tendencies, she had accepted his with a strange ease. She even agreed to collaborate in situations like those, where she wasn't directly involved and where the actions were not exactly upstanding, by the definitions of common morality. Despite her heritage, Delphine had shown herself time and time again to be a pragmatist, who thought in a very precise way but could act flexibly, the way the situation required. Those were the kind of allies to never let go of.

Azrael was still busy conjuring up Delphine's face and reflecting on her traits when he spotted a man coming from down the corridor. A guard's uniform was all he could see for several moments, despite his enhanced sight. The soldier had a full helm, a regular suit of armor with the Hold's banner on it and the silver blade that all of the volunteers had. He seemed calm. His strides were relaxed, his breaths rather shallow and the faint rhythmic sound of his heartbeat was steady and soft.

Azrael knew the reason of his visit long before the guard reached the door and spoke. 'The members of the Dawnguard are here,' he said. 'They said that they accept our invitation to come in, but they have a request. They ask all you, outside of the Dragonborn and lady Serana, to leave the hall. Even you, my Jarl.'

The Dragonborn lay back on the backrest of his seat, stealing a sidelong glance at Elisif. She knew what to say, almost like an actor who knows his line. 'Tell Isran and his following that they are welcome to join us, but they're not entitled to give such orders. We will remain with here and hear what they have to say, if need be.'

The guard bowed his head and turned on his heels, walking down the corridor. Azrael grasped the armrest and cracked his neck, takin in another breath of fresh air. The first piece had fallen into place, and the cogs were turning. He kept looking at Elisif, who nodded and stood. The attention of everyone soon gravitated on her. There was a nobleman who gripped his fork tightly and had a tense jaw, while the one right beside him seemed curious at the Jarl's action. Those two were the things everyone in the hall was doing. Azrael wondered for a moment whether worrying or being curious was the sign of greater intellect.

'My kind guests,' Elisif said, folding her hands in her lap and looking down for a moment. Some of that timidity was genuine, as was her worry. 'The events that will go down tonight are important, but there is something else you should know. As the Dragonborn had told us, his plans for eradicating the vampire threat are real. However, the Dawnguard would have things done their own way, and while this is a reasonable thing, they have also done something that I believe to be out of line. They have accused both the Dragonborn and his companion, lady Serana, of being vampires.'

Azrael monitored carefully the murmur that ran across the table. There, their allegiance would have been revealed and their names would have been remembered. The hypocrites who would dissimulate or oppose the accusation with too much vehemence were those who would foolishly believe to have found his weak spot. Those who would support the claim and attack him publicly were the true idiots, not even worthy of attention after that night.

He looked, counted and committed everything to memory. The only one that was completely out of the problem was Falk Firebeard, who had been informed of the supposed rumor at the College of Winterhold's meeting, well in advance. What was strange was Serana, who in spite of everything tensed up almost imperceptibly. Azrael wasn't even too sure of how he had noticed it. Two vampires could share an immense amount of information through the means of simply being close to one another. Whether that was because they were also intimate mentally or because Serana was the vampire whose blood run in his veins was unknown to him.

Regardless, the guests had endured their strong moment of shock. Azrael had counted a lot less idiots and hypocrites than he had expected. He didn't believe that any of them could be able enough to conceal his reactions so thoroughly that he wouldn't notice, but he would have asked Serana for confirmation after that was over.

'But, my Jarl,' said Erikur, 'this simply cannot stand! We should have them brought over here and sentenced to death!' Azrael's lips twisted in a sneer. The vast majority of Erikur's income came from the Thieves Guild, and while that outburst had convincingly seemed aimed at defending the Dragonborn's person, it had really been driven by the fear of seeing his own treasury emptied of all his riches.

'Do not be so radical, my dear.' Azrael turned towards Serana, who had been the one to speak.

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'There is no need to punish these people for believing falsehoods,' she continued, her tongue quickly flowing with the considerate words she was so used to using with the Court. 'They have been clearly misguided and led astray, and since their accusations are without any basis there is no real threat made towards us. I understand the Jarl's words worried you, but there is no need to.'

'Is… Is it true?' stuttered Thane Bryling. 'Are these accusations truly false?'

Serana instinctively laid back. She had the ability to calm their worry and prevent their fantasy from feeding on those emotions, but Azrael was the one with the authority to convince them that they were in the right. It was his turn.

'Of course they're false,' he said, slowly and with a mocking hint in his voice. He let silence hang in the air for a few but inexorable moments, in which he looked directly into the Thane's eyes and left her some time to ponder what stupid of a question she had asked. Serana remembered being in the noblewoman's place, and it was nothing short of humiliating.

Thane Bryling quickly lowered her head. 'Of course,' she said, 'of course, forgive me, Dragonborn.' Serana noticed her lips still moving, as if she was trying to say something more. If she had said something more, which she shouldn't have, it would be something thought to compensate the offense she had just made. She moved her mouth without speaking for a few more moments when she finally spoke. 'I apologize for my doubtfulness. But these days, with all these rumors of vampires stalking the land no one can ever be trusted.'

Serana had to resist the impulse of nibbling at her own lips in satisfaction, which in turn would have prevented her from making a comment of her own. She quietly waited. 'No one indeed,' Azrael said coldly from her side, the vibrations of his voice carrying over to her. Bryling was out of the fight, and she had even reinforced her point. The unspoken message that now hung on the hall was precisely that no one could be trusted, aside from Azrael.

A few pairs of footsteps were coming from the hall. Only Azrael and her could hear them, but the others would soon enough. Battle boots. The survivors of Ancestor's Glade were there, judging by how many there were.

Serana listened in, but she could not distract herself from the strong scent of her own kin. They probably perceived her, too, and they were calling out to her. They crept along the outer walls of the Palace, ready to come in as soon as the enemy was near. She shivered at the thought of the bloodbath that would ensue in that relatively calm hall. Azrael had thought it through, she had no doubt, but she couldn't manage to shake off her discomfort at the unpredictability of events as well as he.

She looked at Elisif. The Jarl of Solitude appeared melancholic as ever, and this once she was also rather tense. Serana had no idea of the extent of her knowledge in regards to the plan, since that anxiety could have been just like her own fear of what would happen or a more mundane fright at how the situation would turn out. She knew something though, surely. She had been the one to give the order to equip the guards with silver weaponry. The reason why should have been apparent.

As the first of the Dawnguard fighters began to come out of the corridor, she drew a long breath. That was it. They were all there, and now everything would go down as Azrael had meant it. The vampire hunters, even the few she could see, were in bad conditions. Isran did not lead them, which could only mean that he still couldn't walk without support and he was in the back. Leading the group were two crossbowmen and the woman whose hand had been burned to a crisp by lightning. A murmur ran across those who were seated at seeing such a horrifying wound.

Fate had not been kind to them, it seemed. Their faces were tired and rough, with livid rings under their eyes. Serana looked as the fighters with the crossbows on their back, who were the only ones who didn't have any injuries, and had the distinct impression that they had lost some weight. Their vambraces were attached tightly to their forearms, as if they were just a little bit too large. Even considering that they might have stayed near the Glade for a while to recover, they had been on the move for two weeks, or more. They had never returned to Fort Dawnguard after the fight, or so the woman named Delphine had claimed, and the elements as well the people did not seem to have been kind to them. They didn't have the best reputation as of late.

She felt a little pity for them. They were men and women who had spent the last few months training and knowing each other to one day fight the vampire menace. One day, a man with a grim reputation had showed up at their doorstep, offering to help, and unbeknownst to them had become their greatest enemy. Greater than her father. So great an enemy that he had decimated them, along with his vampire companion, within the stone walls of Ancestor's Glade. And now there they were, desperate and pushed onwards by the last straws of determination, the fire of hatred and righteous fury. Had they been the heroes, their actions would have made quite the ballad. History would have forgotten the homes they burned and the settlements they had torched just to draw out one lonely vampire. History would have forgotten all of the things that had set Azrael's mind on destroying them.

As she finished tracing their tale, Isran limped in. Both of his hands rested on the shoulders of one of his fighters, and it was rather clear that he could barely keep himself on his feet. There were no debilitating wounds to his legs. He was just extremely tired. His beard had grown even longer and was filled with dirt. There was a long scratch on his forehead, and the most visible thing was the large bandage that covered the wound Serana's ice spear had caused.

He was the last of them. They were six in total. Maybe there were more at Fort Dawnguard, but there were only six of them there, four of which could fight. Such fools, Serana thought, how did they think they could come here and triumph? They must have gone mad with bloodlust to think they could come here and do something. Maybe they counted on the support of the soldiers and the other people present, but if that was the case, they had underestimated their enemy. We defeated a much larger battalion of their troops. A few guards armed with silver and four of you would not stop us. It would cause trouble enough to force Azrael to disappear indefinitely from the public eye, but would that be such a problem for him? Their next move was to attack a Castle, which would remain empty after the fact and would provide comfort enough for someone who wants to live out of the world.

There were the Guild and the Brotherhood keeping him there, however. Serana still had no idea of what Azrael meant to do with Castle Volkihar. The only clue he had was the story he had told, where the Castle was burned to the ground. But how?

She shook her head and focused. That didn't matter. The Dawnguard mattered in the meantime.

'Greetings, Isran,' Elisif said from the side, bowing slightly to their guest. 'I would like to–'

'You!' Isran howled, aiming a finger at Azrael. The Redguard lowered his quaking hand and brought it to the wound, who must have stung when he had moved so suddenly. There was a dark light in his eyes that was too close to fanaticism to be reassuring. Serana, for a moment, saw her father's face in the gaunt visage of the vampire hunter. They had both become so keen on some colossal vengeance that they had ceased to be what they had been for their entire lives. Despite their opposite motives, they had become eerily similar people before the end. 'You!' he shouted again. 'How do you have the courage to stand among these people? You, who slaughtered us!' He turned at Elisif. 'My Jarl, that man is a vampire and a murderer. We have to kill him now, before he spreads any more madness and death.'

Elisif's throat shook as if she had trouble getting out words, but she managed to speak in a rather composed tone. 'We know of your accusations against him,' she said, 'but I can pass no judgement without proof. Do you have any?'

Isran groaned and grit his teeth, turning towards Azrael. 'You, fiend, drink from your goblet. Even when fed, vampires cannot drink as we can. Grab it and empty it in one draught. Then we'll see.'

Serana could not believe it. Azrael had come up with a very good idea that Delphine had managed to implement flawlessly. She looked at the goblet, such an unassuming piece, but which was there in front of Azrael as a result of the intricate web of a thousand manipulations. No less than three people had worked so that the goblet, exactly that goblet, could be there in front of him and containing what it really contained. Someone had marked it on the bottom with a scalpel to make it recognizable, someone else had gone through the trouble of putting the poison in and Elisif had arranged the seats so that Azrael would be the first person who was offered the drink and could thus choose that precise piece.

Despite all of his sense of self-righteousness, Isran had lied to achieve what we wanted. He knew there was poison in that goblet, Delphine had told him so in her letter to him and she had the Thieves' Guild's blessing, who had been their most generous patrons. It was not liquid he was interested in, at all. If Azrael had reacted to the poison, then Isran would have been wrong, but he knew that wouldn't happen. He counted on him not doing anything at drinking it, which would be more than enough proof that he was a vampire. For them, anyway.

Isran's command had caused quite a bit of commotion in the hall. 'I repeat! This cannot stand!' Thane Erikur cried. Serana cast a sidelong glance at Azrael, who had gripped the armrests tightly and pushing himself to his feet. An old habit. A vampire couldn't notice the difference in weight.

'Silence,' he said. His voice rang clear in the hall, and everyone's head turned his way either immediately or as soon as they had finished speaking. Elisif looked at him with a barely visible smile on her lips, as if she had been reminded of something. The smile died out after a moment, and she looked at Azrael while she tormented her hands. Azrael cast a sweeping glance on the hall and continued after every other sound had died. 'Isran's idea is sound. Anyone who wants the truth should look at me until I empty this goblet.' He coiled his fingers around the goblet and held it, bringing it close to his lips. He looked at Serana before drinking. 'Death to the wicked,' he said, raising it a little in the air.

Serana smiled, although what truly came to her lips was half a laughter and half a grimace. She suppressed both, knowing that either of them would have given too much away. Instead, she put on her usual courteous smile, which didn't mean anything and couldn't have been interpreted as anything more than that. Her eyes fell to the ground a moment after though, as she thought about what was about to happen just next.

Azrael brought the goblet to his lips, inclined it and sipped from it. He brought it immediately away, holding it at some distance from his hidden face for a while. Serana stole a glance at the Dawnguard members, and they all looked at him with such hatred that their knowledge of what would happen was apparent. A pity for them that nothing of what they're imagining is going to happen.

Azrael threw the goblet to the ground, bent to the side and coughed. As the mixture of wine and poison spilt on the ground, Serana sensed the smell of venom herself, although she wasn't quite able to understand what it was. She recognized one of the ingredients, which used to grow in her Castle's garden, but not the others. It looks quite real, she thought, looking at him as he bent slightly to the side.

He coughed again. 'Poison,' he muttered.

Some immaterial happened around Serana. The scent of her nearby kin became stronger and was now tainted by a sharp note, which screamed thirst and desire to kill. Now I understand… she thought. The exact order she had given the vampire was to attack. A fit of cough. It wasn't a metaphor; it was quite literal. She looked around, but there was nothing. Not yet. She looked at the hall, where the first few people had begun to understand what had happened and the faces of four of the Dawnguard fighters had turned to incredulity.

All sounds quieted down when a screech came from the ceiling. There were large windows, and one of them had been opened wide. A lonely, small bat flew in. Black, with a leathery hide and long white fangs. It pounded its small wings and screeched with hunger and hatred, if such a thing were possible.

And then Oblivion broke loose.

At feeling the scent suddenly becoming stronger, Serana took out her dagger and breathed in one last time as all forms of torpor melted away. A rush of tenebrous energy surged through her limbs and mind, clearing it of any thoughts and priming it with the thrill of battle and danger. Her fingered tensed around the dagger and ten spells all rehearsed themselves in the palm of her hand, ready to be shot out at a moment's notice.

The first man to fall was one of the two warriors who kept Isran on his feet. From the dark corridor, a large mouth with long fangs appeared and closed around his neck. Only a few drops of blood trickled down his throat before he cried and turned his head around, trying in vain to wrestle himself free. Soon afterwards, the bite played its magic and the man went limp. Not dead, although his face was bleaching each time the vampire swallowed.

The other vampires appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Suddenly they were behind plants, doors or furniture, while yet more of them plunged into the hall from the windows above. Some of them leapt down while others turned into thin mist and smoke as they materialized inside the hall. But they had no idea of what was coming to them, the great deal of preparation that had insured their defeat at the minimum possible cost.

She followed the plan. Now the trap springs for everyone. The Dawnguard are already dead, and the vampires will soon be. They through they were the hunters, but their prey was nothing but a prop, there to lure them into a trap that was designed for them. They don't expect us to be on the mortals' side, for one.

A heightened sense of awareness descended on her, and she felt as if she had eyes that saw in every and all directions around her. She was covered behind, and was free to attack the first unsuspecting members of the Court that had dashed in. With a quick glance to the side, she saw that Azrael was ahead of her. A paralysis hex had already left his hand, and tiny flames now danced in his palm. He gripped the longsword with his right hand, and the blade seemed to irradiate faint igneous reflections.

Serana dashed on one of the vampires that had come down from the window above. He might have sensed her coming from behind and might have even guessed her intent to kill him, but it hadn't been enough. The dagger sunk in the nape of his neck, and a quick turn to shatter the vertebrae ensured that he wouldn't be surviving that wound. Dry and blackened blood came out of him. Quarter-breed, has fed in the past few days. She ripped the dagger out and moved on to her next target.

She would have to pay more attention from now on. The guardsmen had unsheathed their blades and were intent on killing as many of the vampires as possible. That was the glory they had been promised, and none of them wasted a single moment waiting. Two of them were circling around the Jarl, swinging the silver blades towards the three vampires that were trying to get close to her. They wouldn't have survived without support, though. As soon as the surprise from seeing those weapons will go away, they will attack and overwhelm them. That was where she should go, and the sight of all the enemies that stood in her way was more a source of thrill than anything else.

Noticing that none of the vampires had yet noticed that she was, in fact, against them, she slid the dagger back into its sheath in one fluid motion. She called forth streams of magicka to her hands, which flew through her arms and erupted on the surface of her palms' skin as small, purple arcs of lightning. The small tempests of electricity grew in size as she called more and more energy, tearing a rent of ever-increasing size in Aetherius. It grew until the light flashed in her hands and surge of energy spewed forth with a roll of thunder.

The stream of violet energy tore through a vampire's back and abdomen, charring the armor and disintegrating the flesh, killing him before he could even scream. The lightning bolt spread, breaking off into multiple little arcs that zapped and scorched many other fighters in its way. A shard of the lightning bolt touched the table and carbonized the wood, turning a few inches into a smoking piece of soot and ashes.

She looked around for a moment. Azrael was surrounded by a few corpses already, all of them caught unaware. His blade had reaped a few victims already, and was falling on another vampire. She was a known face at the court, the progeny of a quarter-breed, with the telltale cross-shaped lips and gaunt cheeks. She had just had the time to turn towards Azrael, but had failed to understand the threat. The flaming blade was now but an eye-blink from ending her life.

More reinforcements had also joined the fray. The vampire that had bit the Dawnguard's warrior had been impaled from behind with a long silver sword from one of the guards that Azrael had ordered to keep out of the hall unless there was immediate danger. Many more followed, and three more were running up from another way into the hall. The ones who had been in from the beginning had woken up to the situations and were striking the vampires with a boldness that their enemies were not expecting and were not prepared for. Nevertheless, four guards already lied on the floor, lifeless. One of the two that had protected Elisif had killed an opponent, but had fallen thereafter.

Serana hurried. She fired another lightning bolt with one hand and a long and thin shard of ice erupted from her other hand, piercing Fura Bloodmouth through the sternum. Serana had seen the Castle's blacksmith as soon as she had entered, thirsting after human blood. There had been a moment when the line of fire was clear, and she could not let it slide. The icy spear shattered inside of her chest and left her lying on the floor, shaking with unnatural spasms.

As more and more of both factions died, Serana knew that it was only going to get worse. The vampires had all entered, and now streams of red haze were filling the room as more and more of them directed their attention at their enemies. Some of them seemed to have finally realized that something wasn't quite right and that both her and Azrael were taking the other side in the fight. Serana saw two of them looking at her, the slightest expression of surprise crossing their tense, bloodthirsty faces. Two rolls of thunder echoed in each of her hands, dispatching of both in a single moment with a flash of light and a thunderclap.

One more turned towards her. No other vampire in the room had yet fired spells of that magnitude, and seeing those two violet arcs landing right in the vampires' chests would make some of them wonder. She recognized the one she faced. He was one of Vingalmo's underdogs. He was too slow. He would have had the time to deal with a mortal, but not with her. By the time he had managed to assess the situation, a long shard of ice had already torn through his chest and rent part of his throat as it splintered from the inside.

There was no further time to waste, however, as the other guard who stood between Elisif and the vampires had fallen to an opponent's blow. She quickly looked around, and a wild and reckless instinct assured her that nobody would notice anything in that mess, and briefly channeled the dark vampiric energies inside of her. The momentary rush allowed her to leap aside and speed through the three unsuspecting vampires that stood between her and the Jarl in a flash. She noticed only as she was reaching her that Azrael had followed the same idea and had reached Elisif himself.

She pounced to his side, at which point it became immediately apparent to all the court members present that they were defending the mortal, who they didn't probably know. Only those who went out of the Castle, which weren't a lot, might have heard of her from some lower-bred vampires. Regardless, their faces took on a vengeful and angry expression as they threw themselves at her, faithful in their numbers.

Serana struck down two on her side, but the third one had almost managed to stab her through the shoulder when a faint heat reached her forehead. A flaming blaze hissed above her, leaving a fan of fire in the air. It was Azrael's blade. The vampire that was attacking her collapsed against her, with a seared cut across his cheek and temple.

The bloodlust waned a little. Elisif, she thought. She was still exposed. The woman had curled up on the floor and was covering her face with her hands. There were no enemies on her side that threatened to attack her, and those that remained were engaging the guards, whose numbers were proving to be a challenge for the vampires. On the other side there were still many, but Azrael was on them and had already cut one down in a whirlwind of fire and steel. She bent down, but refrained from touching the frightened Jarl. She just looked at the blood-soaked sleeves of her dress. The blood was in several places and didn't come from one wound. A life-draining spell had hit her, and as life was drained from her the skin had ripped.

Serana raised her head. Now that the fighting trace was off, she was a little worried. She had always seen Azrael fight in places where there would be no collateral damage. But inside the Palace, he had to be careful. None of the complex rotating swirls that she had seen him perform with the blade could be executed, and the same went for any large spell or, worst of all, the Thu'um. He would kill an ally or an innocent bystander at best or wreak utter havoc at worst. There were many things made of wood in those interiors. If he, by accident, had touched them with his blade, the whole place would have been on fire shortly after. The corpses are going to be troubling enough.

Six vampires remained. One fell before her eyes under the blows of three guards and their silver blades, but not before sinking his teeth into one of them and ripping out a large chunk of flesh from his victim. Another one fell, struck down by more of the guards who had come from the corridor. Yet another crumbled to dust when Azrael grabbed him by the chin and sent a torrent of flames up his skull and down his throat.

My father's court, she thought, looking at them as they fell one after the other. She had known many of them since she was a child, and she could not understand how she was looking at that scene with that amount of detachment. As true as it was that they were a danger, she was amazed at how lacking in emotion she was. That was her past. It was the thing that helped her to go on, that gave her guidance. They're all going away, in part by my own hand. She had been the one to trick them, and she was responsible, and it was all on her shoulders. Responsibility isn't shared by the guilty, only multiplied by their amount.

She was afraid of her own lack of reactions, until she noticed the one thing that there was. A cold, steady feeling. It flowed through her much like her vampiric strength did, making her limbs steady and keeping her head clear, focused on what had to be done. How strange it is, she thought, looking and still being surprised as Azrael plunged his clawed gauntlet into a vampire's side and ripped out the flesh and armor. I have never been surer of anything else in my life. The extent of what she had done, of what still awaited her, was too much to take in all at once. She had learned to make one step at a time, and had learned to ignore her mind's attempts to think that easing her way through that ordeal would make her lose the meaning of it.

She watched as Azrael ensured the success of his own plan with his own final blows, leaving a wounded vampire at the mercy of the guards and thrusting the flaming blade deep into the last one's throat, despite her attempts to evade the hit. He put his hand against her shoulder and drew the blade out, as the flame that sparked from it died out. Serana stole a last glance at the corridor, because there was one last thing that should have fallen into place.

And it had. The Dawnguard members were all dead.

'What… What…' The muttering came from one of the Thanes, whose name Serana didn't remember. He had probably been stammering that single word for a while, but only now they could hear him. The last of the vampire's screeches had died out. Her hearing drew her attention to the windows, where a few lonely bats were still flying.

Elisif brought her hands away from her head and looked. She trembled as she did so, but kept looking. Serana bent down on her, gently putting her hand on her shoulder. 'It's over,' she said. 'It's all over.' She stopped for a moment. Who was I really telling it to? Her, or myself? Regardless, that was the truth, though it meant something different to every single person present there.

The hall gradually came back to life. The noblemen that had cowered in the corners and had put the guards between them and the vampires as shieldd stepped into the hall, their faces painted with horror at the sea of corpses. Serana noticed that Elisif's first gaze was towards Azrael, even before she looked up and saw who was the person who had spoken to her. She smiled, but she was shivering as if she was cold. Relief, fear, worry and a hundred other things crossed her visage every eye-blink, varying as she searched the room with her eyes. Serana followed her eyes and realized that she was counting the casualties.

One of the windows on the ceiling closed shut with a thud. Everyone turned sharply at the spot, and only Serana and a few others had noticed the small tear that had opened in Aetherius. It was Azrael. A faint orange light played out in his hands as the telekinetic spell drew the handles towards the floor and closed the windows. He closed all three while twirling the sword in his hand and sliding in away on his back. He was getting ready to leave, and as much as Serana still had to think about everything that had happened, she knew what the plan entailed and that time was of the essence.

She stopped for just a moment looking at him, noticing how strange Auriel's Bow looked on his back. That trace of white against all that black was out of place, yet strangely fitting. It wasn't the first time she put away those thoughts only to come back to them later. Something had happened to the bow since Azrael had taken possession of it. She wasn't sure what, and she didn't know if he knew either, but something had definitely happened. She could only guess, but surely a bow crafted by the alleged father of the beings which he shared part of his soul with would react in some way to his touch.

'The Dawnguard… They're all dead.'

It was one of the soldiers that had spoken. He knelt beside the six corpses, piled up in the hallway, checking to see if anyone was still alive. They're not, Serana thought, not sensing any life coming from them. She had seen the first one fall to the vampire's bite, and the others had been taken down by a bladed weapon. Slashes and thrusts. One of them was covered in this cuts from head to toe, maybe the work of a single vampire fallen prey to blind fury or many that had attacked him all at the same time.

The amount of dead vampires surpassed the number of fallen mortals. Never in her life she had expected to see such a thing happening. It could be done only by the means of deceit, because nothing could have stood toe to toe with that many vampires. Left free to roam a battlefield, there would have been no end to the devastation they would have wrought. But there? In a small, confined environment and surrounded from all sides? They had done it. They had done what even the Dawnguard could not do.

'My Jarl,' Azrael said, 'I know there are things to do, but given the circumstances it's best if we and Serana leave this place immediately.'

Part of the plan, of course. Elisif nodded and tried to get on her feet. Serana slid a hand under her forearm and helped her stand on her feet. Don't make it seem too easy, she reminded herself. The woman was as light as a feather for her, but not for others. A mage with such thin limbs such as her could have never lifted someone up that easily. She looked at Azrael again. Patience was the only thing required.

'You can leave with my blessing,' Elisif said. 'And I think congratulations are due for your foresight. There had indeed been the need for weapons that would help us fight here.'

'My Jarl,' said one of the noblemen, 'you cannot let them leave now. Everything that happened, a little convenient, wasn't it?'

'Aquillius, this is no time for you personal suspicions,' said Thane Erikur. The man was leaning against a wall, breathing heavily, and his face was still white with terror. 'Don't you see? The vampires were trying to get the Dawnguard when they were at their weakest. And they managed…' he said, looking at the corpses. 'This is no time for accusations. If the Dragonborn must go so that any more of these massacres do not happen again, so be it.'

'I agree,' said Bryling. 'All the more, the Dawnguard had fallen too low to fulfill this task anyway. Poisoning one of their allies with the pretense of proving he's not an enemy? That's unconceivable.'

This speeds up everything, Serana thought. That passage should have been done by Azrael himself, but Bryling had just shown herself to be either really gullible, really stupid or blindly devoted to the opinion of the majority. She didn't know; she knew too little about her. She looked to the side, where Elisif still held on to her arm while slowly letting go of her grip and trying to stand on her own. There wasn't any more blood coming out on her forearms, which meant that the cuts had not been deep.

'Unconceivable?' the man, Aquillius, asked. 'That sounds like something that was concocted beforehand. And how did you survive the poison, Dragonborn?'

Azrael looked behind him and knelt down upon spotting something on the ground. He rose and shoed the object to the man. 'I have an antidote for every poison recorded in common alchemy books. It would be unwise of me not to have it.' He looked at the man for a moment, as if thinking, and then offered him the small vial. 'If it served to quell your fear, have the last drops sampled by an alchemist and you will have confirmation that this is, in fact, the antidote to the poison.' The small flash was almost empty.

The man retracted his hand. 'I still do not swallow this lie.'

'Truth is not for you to accept,' Azrael said, slowly and coldly. 'It is simply the way things are.'

The man agitated and turned around, towards the fallen members of the Dawnguard. 'That's it!' he cried. 'They were in on it, too. They knew they'd be giving you a poison to which you carried the antidote! They knew, and they sacrificed themselves so that this could happen.'

'Aquillius, you're raving,' Bryling told him from the side.

'None of this makes sense either way,' he snapped in return. 'This was a setup, from beginning to end.'

'The Dawnguard,' Azrael said, ignoring the last exchange, 'probably thought I was truly a vampire. They poisoned me thinking that I wouldn't react since vampires are immune to all forms of venom. That would have been their confirmation that I was the enemy.'

'And how were you able to recover from the poison and start fighting them?'

'Antidotes work rather fast if they are drank closely after the poison in ingested. They can neutralize the effects before they even start to spread.' He looked at the man from up-side down, and that physical fact became increasingly evident. Serana remembered her mother often using her knowledge on a certain subject to highlight the ignorance of her opponent and undermine all of his arguments by showing how presumptuous the opponent was. This was practically the same.

'When,' the man said, 'did you drink that antidote?'

'I heard the scream of the Dawnguard's fighter as I untapped the flask.' He paused for another short moment. 'You couldn't have seen me. Two guards had stepped in front of you and you were looking elsewhere.'

Serana sighed and smiled faintly. This has been his entire life in Skyrim. People whisper things about him, which are logically sound and oftentimes correct, but they never have any proof of it. She had talked with people around the land as they followed each one of their objectives. People said many things and heard many rumors, but there was never anyone who had solid evidence. And as much as that is irrelevant to gossipers, it is to those who seriously think about what he was up to. As long as no evidence emerged, his word was the only truth they could accept, and his word was taken by many to be valid. We Nords have a tendency to mistake fearlessness with purity of heart. Among us they commonly come together, but not so much in other races. That was especially true for Azrael, who was part Dunmer, part Dragon and a also something else which was completely unique to him, to all his life and all the things he had and had done.

Aquillius clenched his fists and stared at the floor. He didn't say anything. Azrael put the flask with the last drops of the antidote, which he still held, on the table before casting a glance towards both Elisif and Serana and stepping towards the door.

Elisif let go of Serana's hand. The two women looked at one another in the eyes for a moment, and Serana felt her heart melting when she saw what peaceful and melancholily happy expression the Jarl had on her face. They spoke without words, and there was something deep inside that told Serana that the two of them might have even grown to be friends, one day. Elisif cast a last fleeting glance at Azrael's dark frame and the looked at her again. He's in your hands, now, she said, or that was what Serana thought she would have said if any words had been spoken.

Azrael dragged the corpses out of the corridor one by one, and then looked back at Serana. She gave him a nod and skipped to his side. He gave the hall one final look. 'Do not be concerned if we don't return immediately,' he said. 'But if we tarry away for too long, then the mages of Winterhold have detailed instructions of a course of action.' He turned, the black cloak whirling behind him and Auriel's bow glimmering with a red, hellish shade. Serana turned back, smiled faintly and followed him through the hallway.


The shores of the North Sea were dreary as ever, even under the blood red light.

Serana looked at the sky. It seemed like a dream where the Sun had been turned upside down. It felt like being in a dark and bloody reflection of their usual world. My father was mad, and is still mad, she though. Vampires do despise the Sun, but its light is what makes the world we live in what it is. This is something different. It's worse than Coldharbour. The similarities where uncanny. The Mace of Souls' realm was a mirror of the real one. The one they walked on right now also seemed a distortion of the real one.

Instead of the Sun there was a giant, red, circular wound in the sky that bled red light. A dark halo with tenebrous reflections encircled it, cutting its outlines clearly from the rest of the red sky. The light is the same as in the cathedral, with the stained glass, she thought. That blood red sky was a reflection of a vampire's most animal and supernatural nature, the one that was cherished by the lower-bred but that she hated. She suspected Azrael might have hated it, too. The self-imposed descent into instinct detached the person from both the heart and the mind. They cared about one each.

'There's something I haven't told you,' Azrael said at one point, as they neared the boat that would bring them to the Castle. 'Two, in fact. The first is that I'll not be coming with you on the tender, but I'll still be the first to reach the Castle.'

'You still haven't told me how you plan to assault a fortress like that with at least ten vampires still holed up inside. We might be strong, but we're no match for them.'

'All in due time,' he said, but he had not cut her off. The mystery was kept mostly to delight her with the surprise, rather than for one of his usual purposes. 'The second thing is that I had been thinking about the Prophecy, and I still haven't quite made up my mind about it. Each Scroll is tied to a name, and the names of those we gathered are Blood, Sun and Dragon.'

'And so?'

'Do you not think it strange that it is the Dragon that summons it?' He pointed at the gaping red wound in the sky. 'The Blood Sun?'

She slowed her pace, her thinking too intense and contrived to allow her to move at the same time. That would mean… She thought about it, but she didn't see any solution. She saw the riddle, but failed to find a way out that seemed plausible or that held true all of its premises. 'I think it is strange, but I do not understand.'

'I fear Vyrthur had meddled with things far beyond his understanding, and accidentally created a foretelling which spelled his own doom. Did we really subvert the prophecy like we thought, or did we only go down the route the events were truly supposed to go?'

'I… I don't know.'

'Neither do I, but I wanted you to know. If there is one thing I know, it is that the Currents of Time are ever-changing and unpredictable, but among the infinite futures which the Scrolls can divine, only one of them will happen, and whether that is already pre-determined or bound by the choices of those who walk the mortal realm is still unknown, even to me.' He looked at the red hole in the sky. 'Anyway, you should embark.'

Serana complied. There was no use discussing his orders now that the end to everything was so close. Her instinct to question him and defy him was always there, but there was something stronger. Just as there had been when she put her kin to the sword in Solitude, she felt something cold and hard pushing her onwards, surpassing fear and doubt and giving her a wisdom more profound that everything she had learned in the past seventy years of her life. She stepped and hopped inside the tender.

She grabbed the oars and bent outside the small boat, putting a hand against the ground and pushing away from the shore, careful that the keel didn't meet any rocks. She sat on the stern and kept pushing with one of the oars until the whole keel was in the water. She grabbed both oars with one hand and paddled once to get away from the shore. 'Be safe,' she cried at Azrael.

The Dragonborn didn't reply. His gaze was fixed to the horizon, his hands by his side and his fingers waving. He then raised his head to the sky and a roll of thunder erupted from his mouth.

'Paarthurnax! Dov, Zeymah, lahvraan!'


A/N: There are a few things to say but I'll save them for when this is really over. The final chapters should be coming in a matter of weeks, so stay tuned.