I watched the flames swirl and billow in the dark sky as I sat upon the stone chair in the destroyed palace, resting my temple against my armoured fist, the freezing wind biting at my bare skin as it rushed and howled through the windows.

The ground was coated with thick black sludge; It was spattered across my bare thighs and over the knee-high metal boots I wore; It stained the long, ornate mail loincloth hanging between my legs, held up over my hips by thin black chains.

I stared at the bodies of the mutilated Mer at my feet; Their skin was white like my own. But I did not know where they had come from. They had not died by my hand.

The wind carried screams of agony from the distance.

This place, this building; It was almost familiar to me. But I could not remember anything except being here, in Cold Harbour.

I turned my head to gaze out of the window again at the scene which kept drawing me back; A crumbling wall carved with strange words, resting on top of a stone island in a frozen lake. The bones of two huge skeletons lay scattered on the ice around it; What had once seemed to be dragons.

Why did the sight of them make me feel so restless?

I watched the dremora roam the frozen and fiery wastes, leaving trails in the black slime as they searched for mortal souls to hunt. Hideously deformed creatures only slightly larger than my foot scampered through the crumbling halls and ruins around me, hiding in dark corners as they chewed on scraps of sinew and bone.

The screams of the suffering, the roar of the flames outside, the hiss of the brutally cold wind; It all faded away. It was ambience.

I had no memories beyond the here and now. I felt as though I had always been here, waiting to be repeatedly summoned and ravaged by my Father and master, Molag Bal; But it still seemed so raw. I was not adjusted; I accepted it because it was all that I knew.

I did not even know my own name.

And as I ran my armoured fingers over the huge, raised scar which ran down the length of my belly, I had no memory of how I had come to bear it.

The hunger for blood and bloodshed was too strong to allow me to dwell on such things for long. The euphoric thrill I experienced from ripping open the throats of the lost mortals who fond their way here, or venturing out to instigate the unprovoked slaughter of groups of dremora, was all the bliss I needed to keep me pacified. And it often aroused the lust of my master; I could predict his visits based on the level of slaughter I had accomplished.

Maybe I had never been anything but what I was now; A daughter of Cold Harbour, and my Father's champion.

I longed for the time when he would unleash me upon the plane of Nirn, as he had promised me; when he would allow me to display all of my power. Rivers of blood and masses of weak and aggressive mortals; It was like a dream.

'Arise, Daughter. Greet your father as you have been told.'

The sound of his voice sent a dark thrill shivering through me as I stood from the broken throne, a faint smile breaking upon my lips; My hair fell about my face around the sides of my black crown as I kneeled on one knee, casting my eyes to the ground.

'Father.'

I could hear his heavy footsteps slowly thudding through the sludge as he came to stand before me; I saw the gleaming blackness of his ebony skin, the clawed nails of his feet as sharp as daggers. His long, serpentine tail curled in the sludge like a snake as he stood.

I was not allowed to look him in the face; A ripple of excitement coursed through me as I anticipated what was coming next.

'You stare out of that window, moping like a sick dog. You feeble wretch.'

The heavy blow struck the side of my face like a warhammer. Blood spat from my mouth as I felt my cheekbone fracture, and then begin to instantly heal; the exquisite pain rippled through me like a wave of heat as I smiled lecherously beneath the curtain of my hair.

'Forgive me, Father. I am a weak and pathetic creature.'

A low, rumbling laugh began to issue from him as he snatched my throat, his talons breaking into my flesh and sending trickles of blood running down my neck as he lifted me up.

'Yes. Weak. Unworthy.'He brutally ripped away the metal crest supporting the armour which barely covered my breasts, throwing it across the room and sending it crashing against the wall. 'You need to be disciplined.'

Oh, yes. This was what I needed; No matter how many times he visited me like this, I could never get enough.

'I will dominate you as you dominate those unfit beasts roaming the plains; Only I have the power to make you whimper and beg like the dog you are. Only I may break you, Daughter.'

I held my breath in excitement as I braced myself for the next blow; but it never came.

'...But not now. You have been summoned by my children.'

My mind went blank.

Summoned? I didn't understand.

'They are in need of your fury and power. Go to them.'