Chapter V: A Princess in the Wrong Castle

Azrael's foot stuck on the ground. He lifted it with more strength, feeling a great deal of resistance. As soon as the entire sole had risen he brushed it with his hand, channeling a small flame and making the gauntlet sear just enough to liquefy the mushy layer of spider venom that had got jammed to his boot. The goo was everywhere, no way I could have avoided it. The spider had died with its back turned to the wall, and the killing blow the Dragonborn dealt had slashed the poison-filled part of the abdomen. The venom had covered the whole path leading to the wooden door he had just walked through.

To be fair, thought the Dragonborn with a sneer taking shape on his lips, that went as well as it possibly could. That vampire looked powerful, but no amount of strength in the world will protect against a threat you're not aware of. Upon entering the room, Azrael had stumbled upon the huge spider and the vampire fighting. The spider was already wounded when he had reached them, and the vampire was slowed down by the amount of venom the creature had spit right in his face. The spider had sensed the Dragonborn coming in, but the vampire hadn't. Azrael had quickly lurked up to him and sliced his throat. Surprisingly enough, the fiend had been able to somewhat recover, but it hadn't taken much for Azrael to change the grip and dip the whole dagger into the enemy's gorge, severing all the blood vessels and cracking the vertebrae. Not even an undead could survive that. They are painfully hard to kill with conventional methods, though. The spider, injured and slowed, hadn't been much of a challenge. The thick and sticky venom left behind by his torn carcass was more difficult to deal with than the actual creature when it was still alive.

Neither the fight nor the venom managed to keep the Dragonborn's interest for long after he entered the new room. He slowly rose, distractedly. All his focus was on the ancient shapes of the arches that held the ceiling. Those were very old, and not a style that was common in most Nordic ruins. Very little of Dimhollow crypt followed the standard layout of Nordic burrows and vaults. There were the Draugr and the structure was recognizable, but certain elements had been changed. This chamber is an example, the Dovahkiin said to himself, his gaze shifting from the arches to the stony statues that guarded the way outside of the room. They were brutal creatures with lean, clawed arms and legs, bat-like heads with massive horns coming out of their temples and a pair of withered wings. The stone was chipped in a few places on both the statues, but other from that they both looked very well preserved, and they must had been there was as long as that place had. There's always an eerie vibe to these vampires, isn't there? Lastly, in the middle of the chamber stood a small pillar that could have been something like a bookstand, but Azrael couldn't think of any clear explanation as to why it was here or what had been its purpose.

A sound coming from somewhere below his current position caught his attention. It was a moan of pain. A human. A man. How did he get here? He crept forward, crouching again and passing in between the two statues. He heard a fit of wet cough, probably coming from the same individual.

'I'll never tell you anything, vampire.' The voice reached his ears muffled. Whoever uttered those words was in a lot of pain, but had still some resolve to oppose the cause of such pain. Azrael could think of a few things, but for the moment he preferred to listen and reach a vantage point as soon as he could. Meanwhile, the man continued speaking. 'My oath to Stendarr is stronger than any suffering you can inflict on me.'

'I believe you, Vigilant. And I don't think you even know what you've found here.' This new person's voice was gruff and croaking. All the vampires I've heard the voices of talked with this strange squawking tone, thought the Dragonborn. Befitting the role of the merciless torturer, the vampire's tone was firm and rather presuming. 'So go meet your beloved Stendarr.'

The sound of a blade piercing flesh. Right at that moment, Azrael moved a last step and reached the stone parapet. The narrow balcony where he stood overlooked a place that was magnificent in a sinister, ominous way. The cavern was somewhat circular, probably artificially created to have that shape. There was no floor, for there was a lake below. The water whispered and glimmered, reflecting the light coming through from a crack in the mountainside. We're still close to the surface, observed the Dragonborn, slightly impressed at the mastery of those ancient architects. Evoking the circular shape of the cavern, the central structure was a stony disk with arches decorating it and further reminding of the circles. Stone bridges linked the disk to both sides of the cavern. It was hard for Azrael to catch every little detail because of the white mist that floated in the entire place, surely raising from the water below. But even without seeing everything, the disk still gave off a very grim vibe. He could tell it just by looking at its design, and his assumption was further reinforced by the sheer amount of magical power that flooded the stone, following undecipherable paths. It's as if… Something's holding it back. There must be some way to release that magic, and maybe that will unveil this place's secret. But as much as he'd have liked to keep speculating and problem solving, the most immediate danger was directly below him.

'Are you sure that was wise, Lokil?' asked a female voice, most likely a vampire too. 'He still might have told us something.' The Dragonborn immediately shifted his gaze on the area directly below him. The floor was made up of stone slabs with a parapet preventing anyone from falling into the water, much like the balcony where he stood. There was a pillar standing on the corner of that lower level; around it were a brazier and a corpse. The two vampires stood near the corpse. 'We haven't gotten anywhere ourselves with—'

'He knew nothing.'

By the Three, did you really have to interrupt her? the Dragonborn thought, grimacing wryly. He found situations like these more humorous than many jokes told by the people always living on the surface. There was a strange irony to them. He took his time to look more closely at the corpse. He couldn't see much from there, but the man had a bare chest disfigured by wounds and cuts. The work of that Lokil, I'd imagine. That vampire back at the entrance mentioned his name, too, he remembered. Tolan didn't mention a Vigilant going this deep inside the crypt, though. He either didn't know or that was the thing he was hiding from me. He knew there was backup further ahead and hoped to defeat me with the help of this poor sod. Whatever might have gone through the Vigilant's mind, there was no way of knowing in that moment. The only thing he needed was a way to deal with the two vampires. He had dealt with one strong vampire before or two weak ones. Never had he faced two strong ones at the same time. He needed a plan. He kept listening.

'He served his purpose by leading us to this place. Now it is up to us to bring Harkon the prize,' Lokil said, walking across the bridge and advancing towards the stone disk, looking at the vampire behind his back. 'And we will not return without it. Vingalmo and Orthjolf will make way for me after this. You have no idea what the Lord has promised to those who bring back what he wants.'

'Yes, of course, Lokil,' the other vampire replied, submissively but firmly. 'Do not forget who brought you news of the Vigilant's discovery.'

A rough chuckle escaped Lokil's mouth. He rested a hand on the column standing near the edges of the disk, staring into the water below. 'I never forget who my friends are,' he said cryptically. He let the phrase hang in the air for a moment, and Azrael found it painfully clear that he intended to continue. And he did. 'Or my enemies…'

The Dragonborn wrinkled his eyebrows and exhaled. There was stairway that led from his position to the level where the two vampires stood. He needed to reach the stone disk before his enemies could do anything with the vast quantity of magic flowing inside the rock. He might have had little time, so he hurried. He descended the stairway nimbly, keeping his head down to prevent direct rays of light from reaching him. It wasn't completely pointless, but then again, vampires see almost perfectly in the darkness. Crouching down was more habit than an actual strategy, but it still didn't hurt his progress. He couldn't organize his thoughts well. His mind was sizzling with energy and ideas, facts and theories linking and seemingly resolving themselves in a chaos so intense Azrael perceived his mind as if it was on fire. He focused first on understanding the full content of what the vampire had said, which was important information.

Lokil had mentioned two important things. Firstly, he said that the Vigilant had led them to that place. That quickly clarified the identity of the dead man. It was almost certainly Adavald, who had in fact led the vampires to the place he claimed they needed to protect. It's one of those moments when it seems like someone's playing mean tricks on you, the Dragonborn thought. Tolan had mentioned his researches into the crypt, and somehow the vampires had snuck the evidence from right under their noses. Lucky thing very few of the Vigilants are still alive. The shame would unbearable. Nevertheless, the vampires were there and that corpse was presumably Adavald's.

Secondly, that Lokil had clearly given two distinct names to one person. He called him first Harkon and then Lord. It was rather evident that it was that Harkon who had commanded his minions to search for his so called prize they had also mentioned, but there was something else. The mention of the Lord filled Azrael's mind with hundreds of unfathomable theories and he had something that helped him narrowing those down. And yet it allowed for even more to be created. The vampire we reanimated at the Hall of the Vigilant, he mentioned a Lord but also a daughter of such Lord. This does help, but it opens a universe of possibilities. There was one thing that hammered on his conscious flow of thoughts like a mallet, but he didn't really want to acknowledge that option. But there was a chance. What if this artifact that is hidden here relates in some way to that woman? What if the woman is hiding here, too? He didn't like it. An artifact could be broken, drained of all its power, defiled or reduced into splinters. A sentient being, whether living or undead, was a completely different matter to deal with.

He breathed in deeply. He quieted his thoughts. A newfound clarity made his way in his mind. The theorizing and planning later. Now the killing.

The Dragonborn walked down the final few steps of the stairway and turned around, lurking towards the stone bridge. He always kept his back and head lower than the parapet in an attempt to stay hidden from immediate view, but there was little need for it at the moment. He noticed while traversing the little space between the previous set of stairs and the new one he found, which brought him on the platform were Adavald's body was, that the two vampires were very absorbed by the center of the stone disk, apparently a simple prop that came out of the floor. There was a man with them, a Nord, wearing some light leather armor. He stood behind them, his limbs seemingly numb. He could be one of those thralls mentioned in the files. Even lower vampires can influence someone just by biting them, though only for a time. But if Lokil is as powerful as I think he is, that slave might be his for eternity. He shouldn't have been a problem. He didn't look too alive to the world around him to be responsive enough to be a threat.

Azrael sighed deeply. The more he looked at the disk, the more he was puzzled by the presence of that piece of architecture. That construction didn't have anything in common with normal Nordic constructions, which meant that entire section of the cave must had been created later, probably by making the previous tunnels collapse into the water below and making the necessary room to house that magnificent structure. The arches were also carved, creating small and sinuous lines that gave the building an even higher splendor. A very disturbing splendor, but still something old Nords wouldn't have given much attention to. The style, the attention to detail and the overall feel of the building wasn't like anything he had ever seen in Skyrim. Moreover, the things Urag had told him about the history of the College of Winterhold suggested him that the smooth stones that made up the disk, which looked in some ways similar to the slabs the College was built of, had been worked with the same tools. Tools that still hadn't yet been invented when the Nordic crypts came to be.

The Dragonborn stepped on the bridge. Since the vampires weren't looking, he decided to stand up and just walk very carefully. He had a plan in mind, one that just might work. There were many elements that influenced its outcome, but the most important was the temper of his enemies. If anything, he could count on their reaction. He had realized with time that the best way to kill a vampire is to give the right stimulus, and they would blindly follow it. Those quick reactions were useful, but easily exploitable. The ones he faced didn't seem any different from their kin. Lokil, on top of those things, looked both arrogant and overconfident. His fellow vampire, although more cautious, would have followed his orders. The thrall wasn't a problem. If they had decided to stay far away, the plan would work. If they attacked him, it would work too. The only possible scenario where it could fail was if they approached the situation with careful thinking, something he didn't see them do.

He stepped on the edge of the construction and took a deep breath. 'Don't move,' he breathed out. As fairly predictable, the two vampires did exactly what they had just been forbidden to do. The thrall did too, turning slowly and swinging his limp arms around. The Dragonborn saw the vampires looking at him and a mocking grin making its way on their lips. Good, he thought. 'What are you doing here?'

Lokil's wicked smile widened as he sniffed the air. White fangs blinked in the faint light coming from the crack in the ceiling. 'A mortal, here?' he said, taunting but also clearly confused. 'Demanding to know why we are here? It should be us asking you how you got here.'

'Through the entrance,' Azrael said, coolly. A grimace appeared on Lokil's skinny features. His haughty look went well with the hooked nose, very slightly compressed, and the eyes flashing like burning coals. A white turf was all that remained of his hair and a thin silver beard veiled the lower portion of his face. As with all vampires related in some way to the Volkihar, his appearance wasn't overly affected by his vampirism. He donned a black suit of armor, but not quite the elaborate one the transforming vampire wore. His fellow wore a red suit. Her deformed traits were warped in a horrific expression of anger and tension. She clearly wasn't so comfortable with the new guest her leader was entertaining. The thrall had a neutral expression and kept staring back at the female vampire, probably a sign that it had been her to abduct him. Unimportant. They're playing along. That's all that matters, Azrael thought, abandoning his observations and returning with his feet firmly on the ground. He breathed again, and this time he moved his fingers a little. 'Now,' he continued, 'I'll ask for the last time. What are you searching here? Where do you come from? Who is this Harkon you were talking about?'

He was fully aware that that much meant crossing the line, but deep inside he hoped they would actually continue to play their own game, and thus playing his without them even knowing. But that wasn't going to happen. The two acted impulsively. They didn't even share a glance and yet both of them readied an attack at the same moment. Lokil pulled his sword out of the sheath and the other vampire her axe, a bright red light sparkling in her other hand. She attacked first, running towards him with the weapon slightly behind her. She was ready to swing at him and unleash a deadly blow. Lokil sprang towards him too, but a moment later. He rose the blade in the air, keeping it in a position from which he might have initiated both a thrust and a cut. He wasn't the daftest of fighters, but even that wouldn't have helped him.

The Dragonborn wouldn't have had the time to reach for his weapons and defend himself. Maybe he would, but it wasn't a safe option. He had other plans. His called for strength, and it answered him. He felt the very substance of his body being drained of its vigor to fuel the power core that gave form and force to empty air. Right as he opened his mouth his body started to feel lighter, as if hearing the distant echo of the Thu'um taking shape and executing its command, slowly abandoning reality.

'Feim Zii Gron!'

That which had been started reached his conclusion. Azrael felt his essence disperse, losing itself in the Void and straying far from reality, kept together only by the ineffable strength of his immortal soul. His body became translucid, ghostly. The vampire's blade went through it without encountering any resistance and bounced back against the ground. Lokil's thrust, carefully aimed at his throat, drove him directly past his evanescent figure. The Dragonborn's eyes caught glimpses of the bewildered gaze of the female vampire, which were frantically shifting at different parts of his body without understanding what was happening.

Azrael touched the other scroll he carried. The power contained in it, albeit different in form, was similar to the one of the other he had used. And, much alike that time when he reanimated the vampire, he channeled the ethereal power contained inside the folds of paper and guided it. He felt it taking the same shape the scroll had forced it to take. He repeated the exact same moment with his hands, but this time he finished by bringing them together very close to his chest. Lokil tried to stab him again, but as before he just walked through him. As the Dragonborn had considered, the female vampire understood what was happening.

'Lokil, run…'

Azrael opened his hands.

The disjunction that split his body away from the present world ceased to sustain itself. Azrael felt his material body returning to reality, feeling at once all the feelings that had for one moment halted. He felt the weight of the armor and the flesh itself burdening him, all the little and insignificant bothers coming back to plague him. There was some solace in thinking what would have shortly befell to the nearby vampires. He was feeling the power being released and rushing into the ground.

From underneath his feet, inferno raged. The fire flashed more bright for a moment, and the started expanding. The flames blazed ten feet up into the air, drawing a growing ring of searing death as they moved. The vampires were too slow to react to it. Burn, fiends. The fire touched them and embraced them, enclosing their undead bodies in a flaming cage that collapsed and consumed their frames as well as their lives. They screamed. They shrieked. No mortal could cry with that strength. Smoke and cinders hovered near their shapes as they vanished into the spirals of the fire. The thrall stumbled back, his skin scorched but not entirely burnt to ashes. Azrael felt the magic starting to fade, and moments late the flame ring stopped expanding and finally dissipated in a cloud of grey mist and black, smoldering cinders.

A pile of smoking embers was all that remained of Lokil and his fellow.

Azrael swept his gaze around him and breathed in deeply. The chilly and humid air was very welcome. He leaned on one foot and grazed Lokil's cinders with the tip of the boot, scattering them. The ash was so thin that it rose into the air and hovered midair carried by the weak breeze seeping through the crack above. And to dust return… the Dragonborn said to himself. He was surprised by how well the scroll had worked. It was better designed than most. The usual pattern charges the scroll in a way that forces the user to release all the power in one, uncontrolled burst. This had the incorporated form of the expanding circle, which worked better in situations like those. He raised his hand and took a look at the tattered paper, and channeling a small amount of magicka into his hand he burnt what remained of it. He threw the ashes in the scattered heap of the female vampire's remains. He briefly thought that he had almost used all of the extra equipment the mages had given him. The two scrolls were gone and Enthir's gold had too, mainly in food. He had forced Tolan to sleep outside and water was one of the sole things which wasn't scarce in Skyrim. The only remaining item was the potion Colette had given him. And like she had said, it was better if it never came to be needed.

Azrael stepped forward towards the stone pillar he had seen back when he was going down the stairs on the other side of the bridge. Finally, he thought with an amused grin, I get back to investigating. Fighting is fun, but poking around and tinkering is always better, for some reason. That thought traced all the way back to one of the conversation more engaging conversations he had fallen into with Babette. They, without any rational reason, had started discussing each other's traits and overall characteristics. Babette had initially had trouble describing Azrael, but in the end she had reached a point were the concepts of nihilist, observer and outlander became the predominant ones. The observer was maybe the one the Dragonborn had put less thought about in the past, and it had really engrossed him for a time. He started noticing his inquisitive instinct, his inner curiosity and ability to pierce through simple things to reach more complex ones. He became aware that, as much as killing was his life, his favorite pastime outside of conceptualizing and thinking was observing. Especially when he was presented with something new and mysterious. His two pursuits seemed at first to clash with one another. At times he interrupted a convoluted reasoning to examine something that had caught his attention, and some other times his careful studying of his surroundings was harshly hindered by a strong tendency to get into his own head and start reflecting. However, the two went hand in hand, in a way. With time, he had gotten the hang of it.

In that moment, they were peacefully coexisting. The eyes and every other sense that had active access to the environment was keeping track of every new element while his mind was busy contemplating the various options regarding the vampire presence. And yet, in that mental activity that might seem chaotic at first, he had managed to put an order. And order which rendered his whole mind quiet and still. But, for the time being, he chose to abandon those thought. I need to focus. The self-awareness rationalizing later.

He moved two finals steps which brought him next to the central stone pillar. It was pentagonal, which didn't have any meaning on its own, but there was something else. Its top had the shape of a low dome with a flat top portion. The edges of this last part were very slightly separated from the round parts, which suggested they could move. Maybe this isn't a magically activated apparatus but a mechanically activated one. Smart, and crafty. I wonder what triggers it, though. He put a hand on the flat portion, brushing it with his fingers. He grazed it with his thumb, applying a very small pressure. The stone seemed to lower.

Azrael turned his whole body in the pillar's direction. This is the trigger. He laid two fingers on it and applied a greater pressure. The section sank down and slid to the side as a sharp spike spurted out of the rock. The edge of the barb hit the Dragonborn's finger, carrying it upwards and grazing it. Azrael looked at the scratch left on the metal and shifted his gaze on the pillar once again. The spike had retracted. A blood seal, he guessed, not overly different from the one at Sky Haven Temple. This should open with any kind of blood, though. I hope mine works. Seeing what Dragon Blood does to the vampires it could just as well interfere with this kind of sigil. And I need to find a way to activate it without destroying my entire hand in the process.

He took off his left gauntlet, clenching and opening his fingers to stretch them. The armored glove's fingers were flexible but he couldn't pretend they weren't there. As far as comfort was concerned, he missed the days when he wore fingerless gloves. He brought his palm to the button, distancing his digits and positioning the side of his middle fingers where the spike would come out. He didn't do it immediately, but studied the positioning further for a few more moments. Had the wound been too large, not only he wouldn't be able to handle the sword with two hands but magic would prove difficult to cast for a while. With the pain distracting him, the magicka could bleed through the wound in a similar way to blood. He needed to be careful.

He leaned his fingers down and pushed. The spike burst out again, injuring the second phalanx of the Dragonborn's middle finger. As planned. The red droplets fell inside the small cavity, sizzling as they reached the bottom. A purple smoke rose from inside the pillar, but that haze was imbued with powerful magic. From the lower portion of the pillar, five streams of violet mist surged through the fissures in the ground. There was an outer circle, carved in the smooth stone, and upon reaching it the streams stopped and flashed. A curtain of a nightmarish, purplish color rose from the ground and surrounded Azrael. He looked around. That lilac mist was impressive, but it was a mere phase of a larger ritual that needed external help to proceed. There was surely something that hinted at how that might have had to continued. There was something, in truth. The misty wall was irregular in a single place, in correspondence to one of the many lines whittled in the stone. The purple stream flowed in it too, reaching the very ridge of the disk. In between, but not positioned on the ridge, was an unlit and heavily decorated brazier. A conduit, the Dragonborn thought, putting his gauntlet back on his forearm and hand. The power to activate the entire thing is too much for a single object to handle. It need to be redistributed, channeled. That was what he had learned in the days when Phinis was teaching him the complicated rituals necromancers and dark mages across the eras had created. This one's very powerful, and very old. What ever they hid here, it's something of incalculable worth.

He didn't feel anything as he went through the purplish barrier. The misty wall was a mere reflection and there wasn't any magical force imbuing it. Azrael looked down at the fissure in the floor as he pushed the brazier on the edge of the disk. The line was saturated with that hazy substance. Meanwhile, the brazier moved smoothly, as if there was something below it that fit into the fissure and helped it slid back and forth. Upon reaching the spot where the violet stream ended, its empty top vessel sparkled with a spectral fire of the same color. It's working, the Dragonborn thought, nodding and following the stream of purple mist as it flowed into another fissure and joined with the straight line connecting to the second brazier. There were five in total, one for each of the angles of the pentagonal shape of the central pillar.

The Dragonborn walked over and pushed the second to its correct position. The same process of the mist showing him the way repeated itself. The menial task temporarily allowed him to retreat into his mind and pick up all the unanswered questions he was working on solving. The question which was occupying his thoughts just before he unsealed the blood sigil, about his mixed desire to observe and also conceptualize, could wait for a moment longer. For the moment, he thought about everything that had happened and what to exactly do after discovering what that blood ritual hid. Depends on the hidden object, I guess, he thought, in an attempt to discard every option that was too daring to be considerable without further insight into the situation. He pushed the third brazier away to its place with a deep breath. Well, I suppose I could return to the Dawnguard. I haven't learned anything extremely useful. This Lord called Harkon, the fact that his daughter is somehow involved and so on are more theoretical information that practical ones. In retrospect, he hadn't really learned much more about the vampires than he previously knew. He still had no idea on what they were searching, although that was probably going to get answered in a moment, or what they wanted. It was obviously very important, but that was it. And who knows what could be important to those fiends. There could be a trite bottle filled to the brim with blood hidden here, who knows. He pushed the fourth brazier. There was so much left to the imagination, although everything seemed to come back to the object he was about to find. Hopefully. They had put a lot of effort into its recovery, after all. it could have revealed their true motivation. Probably not in a straightforward and direct way, as I'd like, he thought while repositioning the fifth and final brazier, but no matter. Now… He stepped back and looked at the area, overflowing with plum haze. The light grew stronger and stronger. Let's see what this did.

The circle of greyish stone surrounding the central pillar began shifting, splitting into smaller pieces which spaced out to form a pentagon. Its edges were hollow, bristling with magic and glowing of an outlandish bright. The purple mist was getting thinner and thinner, giving way to a strong light that was painful to the eyes of the Dragonborn. From the fragmented floor rose spirals of blue energy which dispersed into the air above them. Azrael could feel the enormous amount of magical energy being quickly cast out of the strict pattern where it had been contained for so long. Despite looking so magnificent and sinister, the apparatus was hemorrhaging force. Maybe it had been damaged, or maybe it hadn't been set up in a perfect way. Maybe the one that had created in was in a hurry. Too many options and none of them was completely illogical. There was, the Dragonborn noticed, a very confined flow of magicka which was flowing into him even. The energy seeped out from every breach it could find.

A tremor shook the whole construction. Azrael felt one of his feet lowering, but the other one was going down even faster. He looked around and realized that the floor was sinking, forming steps in correspondence of the circular lines wrinkling the disk. More energy was still escaping the mechanism, halting its functions. The Dragonborn understood at once that the disk where he had walked was just the work of that magical device. It wasn't the real shape of the building. The real shape of the building was the one to which the whole construction was reverting back to. The remaining power still held in the stone burst out at once in a powerful flash, and then only a very faint flame still lingered around the central, and most sunk, part of the floor. Amidst the blue flashes, Azrael noticed that the central pillar was built upon a larger pentagonal monolith.

There was an empty space underneath one of the sides of the pillar. This should be it. Azrael put his hands on the stone and hinted at the movement. The weak magic was enough to guide the piece in its descent into the ground. But that wasn't important. There was something else.

Azrael's heart missed a beat.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Something shifted, twisted and warped.

Slowly, very slowly, a forgotten sensation reached the blank void, flaring with all the colors she could remember. The void spun and twirled, whirling in a hurricane of confusion. Of dreams, and nightmares. A blinding and deafening chaos, shimmering in her mind and streaming away at her whole essence. A frosty grip rose up to it, trying to contain the flow but unable to do so. The flow was continuous and too strong to be stopped. The ice, incapable of stopping the turning tides, reached out for her. It grabbed her, sealed her way from all that hazardous movement, paralyzing her. There was no way to escape, in that moment. Trapped in there, there was nothing stronger than the icy grip.

The chaos started to glisten with a dark, grim light. It was a greyish, glaring bright. There was something familiar about it, and yet she couldn't tell exactly what it was or what it meant. The colors were merged, confused, as if filtered by something. The light was distorted, alternatively taking the shape of lines and circles, spirals and nets, odd and curved threads and other undistinguishable forms. Two quick flashes. They hadn't been completely haphazard. She felt something move the moment the rays hit and penetrated her.

Something else still began to stir. Gradually, a cool sensation started to trace lines in the invisible. She did remember what they were. They irradiated constantly, flowing thanks to obscure forces that permeated the same shape that sensation was marking out. Going down from the spot where the flashes hit her, they traced a smaller area and then widened, splitting and going down still. Splitting again, the reached a dead end from where they curved and turned back the way they came, slowly but surely outlining that oddly familiar frame.

A very simple and yet incredibly hard realization hit her. This is my body. The shimmers and glimmers of the twirling chaos lost some of their bright, the icy grip lost some of the strength which was holding her and the entire pandemonium cracked in two. Two horizontals gaps opened, letting in a light so strong she believed it would ultimately force her into submission.

But it didn't. The frost always protected her because, if not, she would vanish. That didn't happen however. The light pierced her, but she didn't lose herself. She gained the light. The gaps opened more broadly. The shape defined by the cool streaming into the frame of her body was getting more precise with every single passing moment, although that could have corresponded to any amount of time ranging from a few fractions of a second to a day or maybe a week. Those very concepts were something distant from her, as if not part of her anymore. Only now they seemed to regain a certain degree of clarity.

Then, seemingly without any reason, she sensed a lost awareness surging through her frame, gathering vigor and feeling as it rushed upwards. The mind and flesh linked, vibrating strongly at the recovered connection. Another flash of light struck her, this time with the strength of a thunderbolt. The shimmering chaos fractured, torn asunder, and then exploded into uncountable glimmers and lights. The blinding light took over, occupying her vision. But by that point, it could be called sight. She felt something floating, a marvelous and very odd sensation. I live… And I don't. The only thing able to defeat the frost was precisely that. Reality. Something she hadn't felt in forever. She didn't know for how long, but it felt like an eternity.

That moment realization filled her with a strange joy. It didn't last long. Sounds started to reach her ears, but there was just the moan of the wind, a welcome noise buried in sleep and oblivion. But that wasn't worrying. There were no particularly strange hums. Her hearing was sharp and receptive, even when still lived. Nothing worrying. The problem was that, with sound, she felt her poor balance. The shapes of her feet were intertwined. Not that they were fused together, but they were in a rather odd position, and her equilibrium wasn't stable. Before she could do anything, she was falling forward. Her body, thought awake, wasn't responding to her. She visualized her hands moving to her face to protect it, but they didn't move. They awaited the crash, the pain on her head.

It didn't happen.

She felt herself being stopped without anything of her touching any surface. Am I still falling? She didn't feel any air rushing along the naked portions of skins. Maybe… Her thoughts were cut sharply by a sudden movement that made her lose every sense of direction. She had probably been flipped, and something was pushing her down.

Moments later, her back crashed against cold, hard stone. Something else, slightly softer, pushed strongly against her chest. A flat object. The shape glimmered, but she could see the outlines of the object going upwards and forming a solid, black shape, darker than the everything around it. She quickly recognized the shapes. The thing standing over her was a humanoid and it was its boot pinning her to the ground. The frosty grip suddenly grasped her again in that moment of understanding. She even remembered the name she had given to the ice. Fear. She was entangled by it.

'Stop moving.'

The frost clenched her even tighter, but then immediately withdrew. She almost hadn't paid any attention to the voice by itself, but the message they were meant to convey was important. Upon giving it attention, she notices all her limbs were moving in a frenzied series of convulsed motions. She was acting on impulse. She hadn't even realized that her arms and legs were moving. She locked up every muscle tight, and gradually the tension reached her hands and feet, stopping them in their tracks. Her legs were twisted and spread, her arms threw almost behind her head. The muscles sprang again, contorting. Out of control. She felt a strange clasp on her gut. Not fear, not the ice. Something else. She wasn't completely flat on the ground. There was something on her back which prevented it. The memory struck her. The Elder Scroll…

'Nevermind,' said the voice. The boot pressed harder, hindering her movements. 'Who are you?' This time it was less the meaning and more the sound of those words that hit her. The voice was cold, alert, emotionless. The person speaking was a male, a very deep bass. His voice was sonorous and resonant. It echoed and reached ears very clearly, even thought it was little more than a whisper.

Seemingly irrationally, something surged through her mind and all the way to her mouth. Her own name. 'Serana.' She tried to move, but he pressed even harder against her chest as a response. She felt her sternum ache. Slowly, her limbs were being filled with a ravenous frenzy that caused them to move even more. She almost tried to breathe out, but there was no air in her lungs.

'That doesn't tell me much. And…' She saw the figure's arm darting down and grabbing something on her back and pulling. The familiar touch of the Elder Scroll lightened on her back as the quick fingers snatched it away from where it hung. Her shoulder fell down. Now she was flat against the ground. No… Not that… she thought, her hand trying to scrape his forearm but failing to do so. Not that it would have done much. The figure was protected from head to toe in a dark suit of black and dark grey armor. She couldn't make out the details, but she could guess it wasn't that easy to damage. Still, the instinct to bite him was very strong. Her mouth was drying and snapping involuntarily. '… This is mine.' The white shape of the Elder Scroll appeared on the side of her head and rose to the figure's waist. 'I don't know what you were supposed to do with this, but it's safer this way. Now, who are you?'

Serana remained silent, half confused and half uncertain of what she could say to him to escape that situation. She looked up at the figures face and didn't manage to find his eyes. In their stead there was a black void hiding his entire face. The boot laid on her abdomen pushed very strongly for a second, so much so that she feared for her bones. A surge of pain rushed through her whole body and a moan of pain escaped he mouth while a rush of pure strength almost got the better of her.

'Who are you, I said,' repeated the figure, his voice deepening and assuming a threatening tone.

The ice was gripping her again. Her mind was clouded by a red haze and she had trouble focusing. He's going to kill me if I don't tell him what he wants to know, she realized. He had put together enough to understand everything. Or has he? She wasn't even sure what was happening. As far as she knew, there would be nothing to understand. Her mother should have been there rescuing her, not that man clad in black. Is he even a man? The accent seems elven, but of no Mer I know of. There were two things that made his voice so peculiar. The depth of the tone and the hollow sound were probably his alone, but the harsh and vibrant note was determined by his accent. She had never heard anyone speak like that. I'm diverting… What do I say to him? I don't what him to hurt me again. 'I… I'm a Volkihar vampire. I'm the daughter of the king.'

The pressure on her sternum decreased very slightly. 'So you're the mysterious daughter of the Lord.' The voice was utterly unemotional, but it sounded strange. As if curious, but not quite.

'Yes…' she replied hurriedly, struggling to control the spasms twisting her body. 'Yes, I could be. Was the Lord's name Harkon?'

'It was.'

'It's him. I'm his daughter. Did…' She trailed off, two sides of her mind clashing. The opposite instincts of trusting him and distrusting him were both strong. She had been slumbering for so long that the prospect of trusting someone was incredible. It was too good to be true, however. She couldn't understand anything of that man. He could have had all the hidden reasons in the world to be there. He didn't even look that surprised, so he might have even known she was there and the only thing unknown to him was her identity. If I get him to release me and accompany me home. By the Mace of Souls, I don't even know the year. He called my father a lord, so he isn't a king anymore. She decided to go a little bit further, give him enough information to trust her. 'I apologize, did someone also tell you about a woman being with the Lord?'

'No. Who is she? What's her name?'

'Valerica. She's the Lord's consort.'

There was a brief silence. An ominous one. The air around her seemed to fill with tension, ready to burst at any moment. The red haze started to take over. She locked up her belly's muscles, fearing a new painful push might come.

'You're not telling me the whole truth.' The silence was broken. Nothing had happened, but the figure's voice carried the strength of the absence of sound with it. 'Is this woman merely the Lord's wife or is she your mother?'

She could finally settle on one trait of her savior and capturer. He was very sharp. Too much so to be toyed around with using simple omissions. He was very actively listening to what she was saying and linking together everything he knew. There seemed to be very few ways of getting out of that situation.

Her eyes focused on the figure very intensely for a moment. A baleful character, this one, she said to herself. Not only he was more suspicious than she'd ever been, but he had a very imposing presence on top of that. While flat against the ground she obviously saw him bigger than and more frightening than he actually was, but even with her feet firmly on the ground she imagined little would change. The figure was tall and broad-shouldered. The armor covered him completely. There wasn't a sliver of his skin exposed. Nothing that aided her identify his race. Only hard, dark metal. The suit of armor was an impressive piece of craftsmanship, especially the cuirass. It was almost completely made of thin plates of what she could guess was treated ebony. It didn't look that heavy, but indeed durable and sturdy. The plates were of different shapes and created very complex and intricate weaves by overlapping with one another. The whole piece ended with a tasset, made of a very fine looking scalemail on the front and back and black fabric on the sides. The dominant color was a very dark grey, although there were shades of black and red. The ebony loses its opaque black during the treatment, turning into something closer to a slate grey rather than its original color. It had also been bathed in Daedra blood; the cracks left by the use of that forbidden craft were visible under every overlap, where they left a subtle red trace.

The rest of his armor followed a similar theme. The gauntlets were also made of ebony. The slim, overlapping coatings followed the precise shape of the forearm and the hand. The fingers were extended, with sharp ends. They resembled the shape of a claw or a talon. Same went for the boots, although they were reinforced with black fabric under the sole and the calf. It was clearly designed to walk without making any kind of noise. She could see those more clearly by looking at the one pressed on her chest.

Her gaze wandered again and rested for a moment on the cloak. The figure was bent to the left, and the cape fell down slightly beside him. It complemented the general dark appearance very well. It was probably made of refined pelts, and it was also black. It covered both shoulders and hung all the way down his back, floating above the ground by one foot maximum.

'I won't repeat it a third time. Is she your mother?'

His voice brought her back to his face. Or rather, the general area of the face. The last and perhaps most threatening thing about that mystery man was his headpiece. A flowing hood made of soft cloth, as black as it could possibly get. It seemed to absorb the little light that came in contact with it. Furthermore, it wasn't just dark on its own right: it completely obscured the wearer's face with the shadow it casted down. The result was as absurd as it was intimidating. She surrendered to the simple fact that there was absolutely no way to understand what her enigmatic redeemer looked like. His face was a hollow, black abyss.

The last thing she would do was contradict someone like that.

'Yes…' she whispered at the end. 'She's my mother. I don't know whether she's still with my father or not, and that is why I asked you.'

There was a moment of silence. 'Go on,' said the figure.

'I'm…' she mumbled, unsure of how to proceed that phrase. The mist was blurring her thinking. 'I don't understand…' She looked up at the hooded figure. The words poured out of her mouth thoughtlessly. 'What's happening? Who sent you? Who are you?'

The figure sniggered sinisterly and mirthlessly. Its sound was dark and vibrant. 'Focus, fiend.' His voice, at first still filled with the sound of his laughter, quickly drifted back again into complete frostiness. 'Tell me who this Valerica is. And be brief. You're losing your mind.'

What? She didn't understand what he was referring to. She managed to get in contact with every sensation for a moment, but the dominant feeling was still instilled by the red mist. It permeated her body and caused all that movement. The figure's boot wasn't there to keep her pinned down, but to prevent her from moving around. You're losing your mind… His words rang loud in her head without him uttering it again. I'm losing my mind… I'm losing my mind…

She recognized it. The bloodthirst. She was indeed losing her mind.

Now she knew. Her mind was slowly slipping away from her body, the sliver of surviving conscience was once more being secluded in his condition of helpless witness. She couldn't bear it. Her mind slowly dissociated from her flesh and her instinct until it was nothing more than a meaningless fraction of self submerged somewhere that wasn't the dead flesh which craved blood on its own, demanding fuel for its strength.

Her last focused efforts gave her enough willpower to utter a few words. 'I… Please…' They were unclear and stammered. The red mist was completely clouding all her senses as the sense of presence vanished into a bottomless void. 'Help me…'

And then, nothing. Her hands darted to the legs of the figure, not considering the extreme pain the movement caused as her chest pushed against his boot. Her fingers attempted to sink into the flesh of the mystery man. Blood… Fresh… Small snaps followed by a strange sensation signaled the failure of the attempt. Her long and strong nails had inevitably cracked and shattered when scratching the metallic grieves of the figure. Her head sprang upwards and her teeth snapped very near to the upper part of the boot, but the pressure applied on her torso was too much.

A hand swooped down, gripping her strongly and turning her over. She almost didn't feel the hit against the ground. No cold, no pain. Nothing. A slight sense of orientation loss when the armored fingers gripped her waist strongly once more. Some thoughts raced, extremely far from there. She didn't sense them. It wasn't a language she'd be able to speak in that moment. All she could do was slash aimlessly with her bleeding fingers and snap her teeth like an animal. At times, her mouth reached for her arms as if trying to bite off her own flesh. Something reached her from very far away.

'Drink.'

She could guess that she was on the ground again. Her hands were touching something, but a different thing completely took away her field of vision. Dark red lines, dripping crimson droplets down on the blurred, indistinct grey of the rocky ground. The shimmering shape of a blade retracted from her vision. An airless groan rushed out of her mouth and made her throat vibrate. The hands clawed the blackened neck and her teeth sank deeply into the dead flesh. It was black, and a taste of smolder and smoke seeped down her throat. She drank and drank, feeling the life essence draining from the old host and fueling her. The red mist grew thicker and thicker before stopping its flow. The more she swallowed, the more she liked it. That was the way it was. The predator and the prey. The substance numbed her senses even further, giving her back some satisfaction while claiming her concentration.

The blood was becoming less and less. Soon it would finish. She pulled her mouth away, satiated, her lips dripping red. A louder thought echoed very strongly. No… Not again…

Something cold grabbed her chin. A flow of the purest of tranquilities and the deepest of calms streamed in her.

'Sleep,' whispered a cold, emotionless but somehow soothing voice. 'Sleep, Serana.'

A/N: And here we are. The final piece needed to began the journey in full force. I don't think I need to spend any words on the point of view change. If you've read everything carefully up to this point, you know the narrative style and you can imagine what changes this switch brings.

A quick note for Lammen Gorthaur about his review on chapter three. Back then, the thought of the "grand entrance" made me laugh a little, because in literature this would be defined as very "low" entrance, with instincts and violence playing such a large part. It's still "grand", but not very heroic.