As always, the most excellent 16DarkMidnight80 looked over this, fixing typos and some of my bizarre wording.

-B-

Change is the nature of the Daedra—they do not create. Be wary. Change is the province of Mehrunes Dagon—in this he exercises greater capacity for change than any other Prince. Handle his objects carefully and never with bare flesh.

~Excerpt from the Vigilant's Primer

-B-

I stopped, collapsing onto the ground. The Razor still gleamed, its edge as malevolent as Dagon's laughter and frightening as his screams. I put the Razor's sheath between my teeth and, with one vicious movement, yanked the Razor free of my left hand. A tiny part of me was grateful I'd used my off-hand—imagine if it had been my sword-hand!

New blood gushed even more freely, my scream stifled by the sheath between my teeth. The stifled scream was followed by whimpers as I looked at the damage to my hand. I'd never felt pain so bad before; it was as though I'd pulled tendons out of my hand or wrenched out the very bones without deadening the hand first. The blade had cut deep, worked its way into the bones, severing muscle, tendon, anything there. There was a good chance I could lose the use of that hand—and whatever else happened, I didn't doubt there would be a lovely scar.

Still gasping around the sheath, which was like stiff leather but tasted utterly foul and loathsome, I swung my backpack off and found the small healers' bag in my pack. I dressed the wound and wrapped it. It was impossible not to hesitate. Heal it wrong and I could be in for some horrific trouble. But if I didn't do anything…I might just bleed out. The wound was already seeping through the bandages and the pain was so bad it was nauseating.

I stopped, wondering, then dug out my book about the speech of dragons. It took time to find the words—bloody time smeared and dripped all over the pages—and more time to string them together. The thu'um is mine, however, like an arcane form of magicka not widely practiced nowadays. If the school of Restoration is not my specialty maybe the thu'um, which is, will help.

After all, I know it isn't all for combat.

"S-slen ahran ag." The words that should have cauterized the wound came out as gibberish. I let off a scream laced with thu'um that rattled the air and sent any remaining wildlife running for their furry lives. Pain leaches everything out of a person and the wound hurt almost more than when the Razor had been biting in. "Dammit! SLEN AHRAN AG!" This time, pain, fear, and anger gave the Shout the strength it needed.

I ended on another thu'um-laced scream as my hand seared from fingertip to elbow. The smell of cooking meat perfumed the air for a moment.

I must have passed out, for I had to pick myself up out of the snow what seemed moment later—it could only have been a few moments. I was cold, frigid, but my hand did not hurt quite as badly and, although there was blood all over the torn-up snow around where I lay, nothing dripped off my hand when I held it up.

The wound was closed, but the flesh was badly burned, blistered and pink. The burns were nothing compared to the agony of the Razor's bite—a bite which had left an ugly, vividly crimson scar across my palm. I don't think I could get a glove on over it, the injury was so tender. I pulled what energy I had into a spell to heal burns, but I had only a little magicka in me, so it seemed, and Restoration was never really my specialty.

My fingers quivered when I tried to flex them, but did not respond to my attempt to make a fist.

I swallowed and picked myself up. The Razor lay quiescent, and played me no tricks when I tried to maneuver it into its sheath. With another deep breath, I looked around, amazed the thu'um had not attracted every dragon in the Hold.

There was only one thing I could do: I swung my pack back on and began looking for the nearest road.

-B-

If I expected the Mysteirum Xarxes to still be in Silus' home I would have been disappointed. As it was, I wasn't sure what to expect so I simply accepted that the page was gone. All the robes, the banners, the Commentaries were still there, but the pride of the collection—the Mysteirum Xarxes and the Razor—were gone. I had one. I felt sure I knew who had the other.

I sighed as I looked around, then clumsily put the Commentaries in my backpack. They're rare and Esbern will probably go crazy over something new to play with. Or maybe they'll just be a nifty piece of history to grace a library with.

Come to think of it, the Mages' College in Winterhold might pay quite a bit for a full set. Especially a set in such good condition.

I had a stroke of good fortune: there was an apothecary in Dawnstar, Frida, who ran the Mortar and Pestle. She could do very little about my hand except put a salve on it and wrap it well. She did, however, have a paste that would hold me together—so to speak—until I could reach the Hall of the Vigilant.

She didn't actually know that was where I was going, she merely said 'until you can find a decent healer.' I had the impression from her tone that she was not entirely sure anything anyone did could do anything to alleviate the damage.

At the very least, the compound eased the pain, and the wound no longer bled or wept.

I stayed in Dawnstar for the night but left before dawn.

Well, I left before dawn and after lighting Silus' house up like a bonfire. It seemed a fitting end: a place like that consumed by fire so strong it gives even Dremora pause.

-B-

"Blessings of Arkay upon all here," I announced as I was admitted into the Hall of the Vigilant.

"Bellona!" the cry came from Simon and Simone, who looked ready to head out on a mission.

"Blessings of Stendarr, little sister," an Argonian I didn't know hissed, his tongue flicking the way Argonians do when pleased or feeling pleasant.

"I need to speak to Keeper Carcette—and if there's anyone who's good with Restoration, I've got a rather bad injury." That was an understatement.

Despite Frida's paste, I couldn't feel my hand anymore. Despite it being only part of two days and one night—or, roughly, a day and a night—the damage continued to worsen. The tips of my fingers had gone pruney and were beginning to whiten. The nails had begun to turn papery. The veins and blood-bearing vessels near the wound had turned an unpleasant dark red and looked horrific.

A tough-looking Redguard hurried over, then towed me to a bench near the fire and pushed me down on it. We both sat astride the bench while he took my hand and began unwrapping it. The Vigilants packed in around me, and I wasn't the only one to wince and gulp at the damage.

"Stendarr's grace!" the Redguard quipped before clearing his throat, "what did you do to it?"

"Mehrunes Razor," I answered, ignoring the intake of breath. "It bit me. I have it—it's in my bag." I shrugged out of the shoulder straps, the Redguard allowing me use of my hand long enough to do so.

Simone opened the bag and, carefully, dug out the spelled oilcloth around the Razor. "Oh," she breathed, shiddeirng as though sickened. "Where did you find it?"

"There was a museum—OW!" I roared, shaking the whole room before cutting off my own voice through sheer effort that left me gasping. The Redguard's experienced fingers had found the point at which I could feel pain again. "In Dawnstar—" I panted, wishing I could just get the painful part over with before I had to answer questions.

"We were there," Keeper Carcette announced, arriving on the scene with a frown. "He was a fanatic with more hair than sense."

"Then it was brought after you looked around!" I snarled, "He had a page of the Mysterium Xarxes, too—but it wasn't there when I got back from Dagon's Shrine. I looked."

Keeper Carcette, a tough Breton with eyes that had hardened over her years of fighting Daedra, pulled up a stool so she could observe the Redguard as he worked. She may be tough, but not to the point of ignoring damages. Especially ones caused by Daedric artifacts. "You will need to tell me, but after we get this fixed," she motioned to my hand.

Thank goodness. If this hurts much more I'm going to pass out.

"I don't know what she's done—the initial injury is plain but…" he shook his head.

I sighed, feeling an unusual blush on my cheeks. "I tried to Shout it better."

"Since when did anything ever heal because you shouted at it?" Keeper Carcette asked deploringly, but as one who knows her charge could not have been thinking quite right at the time.

"I meant Shout, as in 'thu'um.' Yes," I added testily, made more irritably by the fact that I'd already rattled the rafters. It should have been obvious I meant Shout with a capital S. "I'm that one. I thought I could use it to cauterize the wound until I could get it looked at. It-it didn't really work."

The Vigilants courageously ignored my testiness, the words I used, and the implications. To their credit, they worried about my injury first and the story second.

The Redguard let go of my hand and hunched over, his elbows on his knees, fists knotted under his chin, eyes closed.

"Is it safe?" Keeper Carcette asked, looking past me.

"Yes, Keeper," Simon answered. "All locked down."

"I need to think about this," the Redguard said. "In the meantime, we'll treat it like a burn." With that, he got up and vanished.

"Thank you!" I called after him. He raised a hand before disappearing, as though to say thanks were unnecessary between comrades.

I pulled Frida's paste out of my bag only to have one of the Vigilants I didn't know present me with a bowl full of water that was a strange soapy green. "Just soak your hand in it," the Nord said, setting the bowl on the bench before me.

I put my hand in the liquid, which sent cold shooting pains up my arm. Then again, I could feel the cold whereas I hadn't been able to feel anything at all moments before, so I bore the pain with grace. "Thank you."

"Since it's going to take K'avar some time, do you feel up to telling me what happened?" Keeper Carcette asked earnestly.

So I did.

I explained about Silus, about his claim that my family had been involved with the Mythic Dawn and my own need to set things right.

I explained about the Mysteirum Xarxes, and the Razor, and assembling the pieces. There were mixed feelings about the reassembly, but it balanced out to 'best know where it all is.' That it had been broken and scattered about Skyrim when there was a chapter of the Vigilants of Stendarr present rankled them all.

I explained how Silus and I had gone to Mehrunes Dagon's shrine, and how it had, apparently, been an attempt to kill me.

"I didn't think Dagon would take an interest in the Dragonborn," Keeper Carcette said, frowning.

"I know someone we can ask about that. But I'd better finish." I'd been thinking about Kathutet and how hard I'd tried to keep him in the dark. I hated the idea, but apparently, all along, he'd been feeding information to Dagon or whichever of Dagon's flunkies he reported to. Part of me wanted to just wash my hands of the whole thing; part of me needed to hear what had happened and why from his own lips. Every time he came up in my mind, I got this horrific, cold, sick feeling. It was like guilt and shame and confusion. I had to know, so he would be called to account. Eventually.

It didn't take long to finish, to detail how I'd escaped—effectively answering any 'you're the Dragonborn?' questions for anyone who didn't need all the little details—how I'd gone back to Dawnstar, found the Mysterium Xarxes missing, and burned the museum to the ground for surety.

By the time I finished, the bowl of liquid in which I was soaking my hand had turned lukewarm and clear.

"You said you had someone you could ask," Keeper Carcette prompted, when it became obvious I had nothing else to say.

"When I returned Azura's Star," I said slowly, "she gave me a ring. It was—is—a powerful binding for one particular Dremora. He's been…helping me. Or so I thought."

Keeper Carcette's mouth went thin. "Dremora aren't helpers, Rester," she said sternly but not unkindly. Obviously I'd learned that. "Even when bound."

I closed my eyes, feeling inexplicable tears prickle in them. The reproof was just—and just what I could expect to hear from everyone back at Sky Haven Temple—and I had to take it gracefully.

But more than Keeper Carcette's reproof were Azura's words to me about Kathutet, which came back to me with new and horrible meaning: Not all who serve have the master's best interests in mind. The worst trouble a mortal can find is often that to which she leaves herself open…or which she invites, herself.

And hadn't I done just that? The miserable snake. He'd had me bracing for all the wrong avenues of attack. I felt…dirty. Almost…used.

"We need to talk to this Dremora. Can you…can he be put in a binding circle?" I asked. "The ring should hold him, it always does, but…"

Keeper Carcette's smile was gentle, but not without a sharp-edged quality. "He'll talk, and it will take more than his master can muster to silence him or call him away before we're through. I promise. Just give us a little time. Do you think you can stomach anything or are you in too much pain?"

-B-

I stood with Keeper Carcette, Simone and Simon—the latter two flanking me for moral support. I felt nervous, tense, keyed-up as I lifted my good hand with the ring back in place. "Kathutet."

The Dremora appeared inside the narrow circle that would effectively keep any Deadlands-side influence to a minimum. The circle kept his smoke from clearing properly, so it took him a moment of snorting as he fanned it away. He didn't look surprised, just disgusted. "I'd heard you yet lived. And I see you kept your hand, also."

My tongue seemed to swell in my mouth, hatred and confusion warring in my heart until the bile came up in my throat. That answered any questions I had about whether he'd been interrogated or just…gave me up. "Why?" I asked, voice come out more hurt and whispered than I would have liked.

Kathutet smiled, a wicked leer of someone who had an opportunity to rub something into someone he was not at all fond of. "What did you think we were, little fool? Fellows? Comrades? Friends?" His tone suggested even I—fool that he always called me—ought to have known better. "You're a bigger fool than I credited you for being."

"Perhaps." I glared at him and he smirked right back. "Keeper Carcette—help me word this order so he tells all the truth without… fiddling with the perspective."

Keeper Carcette smirked, thought about it, then had me parrot back the appropriate wording—and it had to be appropriate for Kathutet's smirk turned to a sneer, then to utmost disgust.

"Now. Yes or no: were my ancestors Mythic Dawn?" Not a good place to start, but as something that had bothered me so badly…I had to hear it from him.

"No. Never." The words came out as if torn from him against his will.

My mouth dropped open. "You said—" I began.

"I implied," the Dremora snapped, taking a step forward—or trying to, the binding circle got in his way and shocked him warningly. He stepped back, tone all the more savage for being so confined, "You're the one so eager to fall on your own sword, to have your destiny or whatever you want to call it be the result of some punishable offense. You're the one who must believe that there is fairness and balance in the world. The fact is that there is neither, no grain, no speck, no mote: you're in this mess because you're the unlucky bitch walking around when Alduin finally cropped up." He seemed to take such perverse pleasure in saying all this.

"Don't be sour because I wouldn't get handsy with you," I answered darkly.

"Believe me, it would have been less pleasurable for me than you seem to imagine," he answered with unbridled contempt.

Well…good.

"Does all this…does it have anything to do with Alduin?" I asked.

"The world does not revolve around the dragon," Kathutet answered smoothly.

"Ask him this way: do the events into which you led me, that culminated at the shrine of Mehrunes Dagon, have anything to do with Alduin or my status as Dragonborn?" Keeper Carcette interjected.

"Tell the truth: do the events into which you led me, that culminated at the shrine of Mehrunes Dagon, have anything to do with Alduin or my status as Dragonborn?" I parroted back.

"No…and yes," the Dremora answered after wrestling with the question. He sighed, then waved his hand, armor disappearing to be replaced by his usual black clothes, which gave him a little more room within his confinement. His whole general air was 'this could take a while and the time will not be well spent.'