When Aphina opened her eyes she only saw a dark void, but she could hear so much more. "She's here! Hold on." The more she heard, and the less she saw, the more she doubted she was awake at all. It felt like her soul was still disconnected from her body.

Soon, however, there was a face that she recognized against the black void. His scales were black, and his face was made more angular by the red, but there must've been light somewhere because in this light that shined from nowhere his black scales turned a greenish hue. "Is she waking?" It was Ja-Ree, but the face disappeared into the void.

"No, she's not fully there." It sounded like Rasha.

"What does that mean?"

"It's a reflex." It sounded like the Healing Mother.

Aphina swam in the void toward the voices, hoping to get closer. A cold washed over her and wouldn't allow her to move forward, and the cold laugh of Molag Bal filled the emptiness, but she did not shake in fear or anger. She had accepted her fate. When did that happen?

"You have given up your once luxurious life for one filled with torment and suffering." He mocked. "You are mine now."

"Yes, I know. I understood the terms when I told your demon…when I told your demon I would keep the disease if the Hist was cured."

"You mean my Dremora." He continued to cackle in the darkness. "It's only as much of a demon as I am, girl."

"The king of demons you are, master," Aphina mocked a bow. The cackling stopped, replaced by a low growl of an angry beast. "Did you think I was a scared little girl who would quietly submit so easily to your will? You didn't think I had a sharp tongue, did you?"

"Too sharp for my liking. For now, I will release you back into your mortal realm, but mock me no more."

The black void retreated from a light that shined too brightly. She had to cover her eyes. When she opened them again, she was in darkness, but she could see shapes as if there was a little bit of light somewhere in a corner. It appeared to be The Stranger's Room, and next to her she could hear the pulse and rushing blood of another sitting just next to her bed. She could make out the shape of Ja-Ree clearly but saw no other aspect about him. She didn't see the color of his scales or his eyes, but she knew that it was him.

She reached out her hand but stopped herself short of his and pulled back. Did he know? Would it change anything between them?

Aphina got out of bed as quietly as a mouse, but now she could hear the mice that scurried along the floor, something she never heard before. She could hear the low murmurs of the few brothers that were awake.

"I heard she died and that the Hist suffocated her when it was healed." A young boy said as they passed her room.

"That's not what I heard, stupid," this sounded like an older girl. "I heard she was turned into a vampire. Dreekius, which one is true?"

They stopped by the door, and she could her Dreekius sigh with annoyance. "Go to bed. Idle gossip is for women in the market and children who are still clinging to her skirts. I see neither of you clinging to any skirts, so go. Tomorrow Rasha will give a brief announcement and all of your questions will be answered there."

The children sighed and the handle turned. Aphina jumped away while Dreekius slipped in with a candle. It half blinded Aphina, and she manuvered what shadow her hand cast on her eyes in an attempt to see better.

"The Healing Mother said you might be more sensitive to light for a while." Dreekius moved the candle to the far side of the room so that it only emitted a soft glow, enough not to blind her as long as she didn't look directly at it. "How do you feel?"

Aphina took a long time to answer. How could she answer? Did Dreekius know? "Cold," she whispered.

"Don't make a mockery of me, Aphina. We know."

The words 'we know' hung in the air around her and wrapped tightly around her chest. "Who knows?"

"I know, Healing Mother, Kal-Ma, Rasha…" He nodded toward Ja-Ree, "Ja-Ree too. Only us."

Aphina sat on her bed. She felt sick. There was a hollow feeling in her stomach that neither churned nor was painful, but it left her wanting to vomit all the same. Dreekius continued, "We pushed back the Thalmor forces. They knew Stormhold would be mostly emptied of soldiers. Word has it that soldiers from Akavir landed in Archon the same day they attacked, but nobody knows what's become of Archon yet. We're too weakened now to send scouts out. When the battle was over, we couldn't find you. One of the archers had seen you lying against a tree and feared you were wounded, but then when he had turned around, he said you were gone. By the time we found you there was a pile of ash and the Hist had been revived."

Aphina smiled and looked up. "This Hist is revived?"

Dreekius nodded, "What did you do to revive it?"

She blinked back cold tears. "Ocato was a vampire. He paralyzed me and bit me and tried to drag me to the other side of the battlefield, but I escaped. I killed him, and when a servant from Coldharbour took his spirit he promised I would be cured but…I asked him to cure the Hist instead." Her hands and voice shook as she spoke the words aloud. She hardly believed it herself.

Dreekius put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly, "The Dark Brotherhood won't forget your sacrifice, even if Argonia does. You have saved our race, sister."

Aphina shook her head, "Am I really much more of a sister now than I was before I was a vampire?"

Dreekius shrugged. "In our line of work, race matters as much as disease or crime. As long as you don't harm a brother then we will always recognize you as a sister." The words did little to comfort her. She felt as if she lost something, a connection to a realm full of warmth and life and was plunged into a dark cold pit. Never again would she be able to see the sun, and the hollowness she felt in her stomach she feared would never be satisfied.

"You have restored Argonia, but I fear the battle is not over yet."

Aphina gave him a quizzical look.

He continued, "It appears as if you were right to worry about the An-Xalil. Something is going on and they have not told everyone. Possibly only the citizens of Archon know."

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"This time, we will do nothing. We have been waiting for you to wake up to move what is left and abandon this sanctuary. We are going back to the ones abandoned long ago and rebuilding some of them. The only ones left to move out are myself, Kal-Ma, the Night Mother's keeper, and, of course, Ja-Ree, and a handful of others that will assist the keeper in the move, and of course the Healing Mother."

She nodded and looked down at her hands. "Unless you are found out, you won't get involved with war. You guys were never supposed to be part of this one."

Dreekius nodded, and quieted his voice as Ja-Ree stirred, but never woke. "That's correct. We feared that they would find the hideout, so we took a chance."

Aphina chuckled, "I think that's the excuse you're using, anyway. Deep down, everyone wanted to protect their homeland."

There was a faint smile to Dreekius' lips, but he neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement. Instead, he said, "What will you do? Would you want to join the Dark Brotherhood yourself?"

Aphina looked at Ja-Ree, and touched his warm forehead, and followed the red that outlined his face with a smile. The ring on her finger glittered in the faint light. "You have seen enough death," he had told her once. It felt like a lifetime ago now. "No, I will see enough death."

"Then, I am sure you will be welcomed at the sanctuary." He walked toward the door and stopped.

Aphina asked before he could say anything, "Does he still love me? Has he…is he not disgusted by my disease?"

She swore she could hear the smile, and a small chuckle, "Just the opposite. When the Healing Mother claimed to not know a cure, nor diagnose the type of vampirism you had so that she could consult with you on a change in lifestyle, he volunteered his own blood to restore you." The chuckle grew into a quiet laugh. "We had to forcefully take away all of his sharp objects and lock him in the coffin with the Night Mother for a few days before he cooled down. It is not a good idea that our leader should be doing any sort of bloodletting. Rasha did it instead." He nodded toward a cabinet. "There are a few flasks in there full of blood. We took turns filling them."

She nodded and smiled, "Thank you all…for everything."

"Good night, Sister."

"Good night."

Dreekius left the room.