A/N: Remember two chapters ago when I said updates would be shorter? Yeah … (ducks under table)

Anyway, as with Chapter II, a large part of this update is rife with many intentional grammatical errors. Also, a number of passages contain content of a sexual and possibly taboo nature, depending on your culture. Consider this your only warning.

This is probably the toughest piece I've ever written, not least because of the aforementioned passages; it's my first attempt at anything remotely approaching the sexual or sensual—and I'm worried that all that hard work has turned out to be little more than stool-water as a result.

But enough on that; let's get to the story. Rate, review, or recommend if you wish, and I hope you enjoy! - K

VIII

Eastmarch

Malys stepped out of the ruins of Mzulft with a less-than-cheerful look on her face. She'd anticipated that there wouldn't have been much left to search for if J'zargo had been there before as he'd said, but surely he'd had to have left a few corners untouched. But even a cursory look inside the ruins had turned up nothing—even the large ferns that overgrew the carved rock walls in places seemed to have a few cuttings missing from them.

As she entered the courtyard of the ruin, shielding her face from the mid-morning sunlight, she saw another building far off to her left, independent of Mzulft proper, and decided to investigate. Perhaps J'zargo had overlooked this building on his expedition inside; even if the wily Khajiit had been here, she could not take the risk.

It turned out to be little more than a storeroom, and looked rather clean for a Dwemer ruin. But Malys' heart rose when she saw the gates behind it, and the treasures contained within. Entire ingots of the strange Dwarven metal were locked away alongside several items of jewelry and Dwarven weapons propped up on shelves. But it was the object behind the gate in front of her that had captivated her.

The bars of the gate didn't afford much of a view, but from what the Dunmer could see, it was flat and shiny, and glowed an eerie blue. She peered down at the lock, and frowned; it too was glowing slightly, which was strange for a lock. Was it trapped? Enchanted? She caressed it with a single finger, directing a small amount of her frost magic into the keyhole.

The effect was immediate; whatever enchantment around the lock deflected the cold air completely—apparently it had been enchanted to where it could only be opened by physical means—most likely by a particular key, and Malys couldn't be bothered with finding that. She huffed under her breath in frustration, and then again when she realized she'd forgotten to bring lockpicks.

But all was not lost; there appeared to be another way inside, and through the adjacent gate no less. Moreover, closer inspection revealed that this lock was unshielded against Malys' frost magic, and she forced her way through after only a minute of rusting the mechanism. The second door in her way was more or less the same, and took even less time to corrode.

Heart rushing in enthusiasm, Malys ran toward the pedestal where she'd seen the glowing blue object. Now that she was much closer to it, she could make out a sort of half-moon shape, with a strangely carved shape jutting from the middle. It was intricately detailed, and Malys instinctively knew that only the dwarves could have produced something like this.

She pocketed it without a second thought, along with all the other trinkets she'd passed. Most of them she could sell; Malys was sure there was a blacksmith in Shor's Stone that would take the bulk of her haul. Perhaps if she were lucky, she'd find some more ruins along her journey southward—and who knew what lay within those?

Malys grinned as she left the now-empty storeroom, and a faraway part of her brain pondered if this was how J'zargo felt every time he entered a ruin or a dungeon.

This must be my lucky day, she thought.

"This is not my lucky day," Malys grumbled four hours later.

She'd scoured almost all the Velothi Mountains that bordered Eastmarch, and not one of them contained a single cave or clue that the Dwemer had ever carved a single stone there. Perhaps those ruins were all on the other side of the range, she thought. She hoped that wasn't the case—there were very few passes from Skyrim to Morrowind—and surely none of them would have been routed through these infernal mountains.

She came upon a bend in the road at length—the same one where she had encountered the bandit called Gjavar, she realized—and she shuddered at the memory, though she could not tell whether it was out of fear or … No, she thought hurriedly, shaking her head. Get out of there.

Mercifully, a figure came up from behind her, distracting Malys from her thoughts. Small and nimble—a Bosmer, she saw, judging from his brown pointed ears. She was taken aback at his primitive armor; it reminded her of the chitinous armor that was sometimes worn in Morrowind, and looked like it had cut from the hide of some huge, spiky, purplish-blue insect.

Now that she saw him closer up, she decided the wood elf looked rather imposing despite his size—even with the armor, he was still several inches shorter than Malys. A nasty-looking gash ran across his face, and his scarred muscular arms had seen more action than even her suit of elven armor.

"What are you looking at?" he said irritably.

Malys fumbled over her tongue—she was still too busy taking the sight of this Bosmer in. "What kind of armor is that supposed to be?"

"Chaurus chitin," the Bosmer said smugly. "All my weapons are made from Chaurus chitin, too." Malys noticed the spiky twin swords hanging either side of his waist—somehow they looked even heavier and even more brutal than Cosette's Forsworn blade. An equally nasty-looking bow and quiver of arrows hung over his back as well.

"Name's Gadriath," continued the wood elf as he introduced himself. "Mercenary and exterminator for hire for nigh on ten years, and I've earned my keep across half of Tamriel."

Mercenary? Suddenly Malys felt her good luck returning. Her frost magic wouldn't do any good against those damned Dwemer golems; if she was going to encounter any of them, she would definitely need some help. "Are you offering your services to me?" she asked, concealing a smile at her own double-entendre.

"There was word of some trouble around here," Gadriath said stiffly. "I was on my way to take a look. If you want more than that, it's going to cost you."

Malys raised an eyebrow. So that's how it is. She opened her pack, and extracted some of the heaviest trinkets she'd purloined from that storeroom near Mzulft. "I have"—she made a quick count—"ten ingots of Dwemer metal, and a dwarven sword." She inspected the blade. "Barely used, looks like a … magicka-draining enchantment."

Gadriath considered this. "Not a bad haul for a greenhorn," he said. "Dwarven treasure's a big commodity in some circles." He suddenly crossed his arms. "I am not a part of those circles. You want in, you pay me in gold."

Malys resisted the urge to roll her eyes—she had figured he would say that. "There's a blacksmith at Shor's Stone," she said. "Whatever he gives me for all this is yours."

Gadraith mulled this over in his head for the longest few seconds of Malys' life. Finally, he nodded. "Deal."

Outside Shor's Stone

All told, Malys' dwarven haul netted the Bosmer close to four hundred septims. Even better, their destination—something the local population called Tolvald's Cave, according to Gadriath—was located only a short distance eastward of Shor's Stone.

The inside of the cave looked rather unassuming, although there were remnants of a campfire were strewn about the ground, and the freshly dead body of a hunter. His effects were littered among the embers of the fire; Malys could see a journal and a set of lockpicks among the trash. She picked them up, brushing the ashes off them.

"So what was this 'trouble' you were called in about, Gadriath?" she asked, inspecting the contents of the book.

The wood elf didn't answer, and there was only a faint chewing noise. Worried, Malys turned to look back. "Gadri—augh!"

She recoiled at the sight of Gadriath sinking his sharpened teeth into the dead hunter's neck. There were already a few suspicious-looking bites in various places on the body. "What are you doing?!" she whispered, too surprised and disgusted to raise her voice any higher.

Gadriath looked at her in surprise. "I'm from Valenwood—it's my religion," he said simply, spitting out something hard and unmentionable. "I follow the Green Pact; I don't eat fruit or vegetables—only meat. Cannibalism is fair game—just like every other animal." He swallowed whatever was left in his mouth, and Malys had no idea how she wasn't sick all over the cave right then and there.

Her expression must have irked Gadriath in some way. "I figured you knew," he said defensively. "Most of my clients come to me for help because they already know I follow the Green P—watch it!"

Before Malys could say anything, Gadriath had notched an arrow, drawn his bow, and fired directly at her. The arrow sailed mere inches past the surprised elf's ear, and she heard a strangled yowl from directly behind her. Malys turned around, and immediately felt her anger and disgust drain from her mind at the giant sabre cat that had been preparing to pounce on her—and would have torn her apart if not for the arrow in its skull.

Gadriath effortlessly plucked the arrow from the feline's carcass, and lazily flicked the remains of the eye he'd shot from the missile. "You're welcome," he said to Malys, a faint smirk upon his face.

Malys tried to say something, but no words came out, and she found herself opening and closing her jaw repetitively like a fish. " … Okay, you win," she groaned, kicking the slain sabre cat disdainfully. "But the next time you're feeling hungry, let me know so I don't have to watch, all right? And try to keep it quiet," she added.

She peered behind a natural column of the cave, and something familiar caught her eye. "Gadriath, look at this," she said, motioning him over. "There's ruins in this cave—Dwarven ruins; I recognize the stonework on this archway. Maybe we should take a closer look."

The Bosmer straightened. He didn't look happy to hear that news. "I hate Dwarven ruins," he grumbled.

"Why?" Malys asked. "Those machines of theirs can't be that bad, can they?"

"It's not the machines I'm worried about," Gadriath said ominously, but he did not elaborate.

Eventually, he shrugged. "All right," he said heavily. "I'll go with you; I have a hard time repairing this armor as it is—but this is going to cost you a lot extra."

"Take what you want as we go," Malys said. "I'm only looking for some particular Dwarven artifacts, and I'm not entirely sure I'm going to find anything like that in a cave like this. So unless I say otherwise, you can take everything that isn't tied down for all I care."

Gadriath grunted skeptically, but eventually nodded his head. "Fair enough," he said, as they crossed under the archway into Tolvald's Cave. They encountered several more sabre cats along their way, as well as more bodies of ill-fated hunters, and Malys made sure to cover her eyes and ears while Gadriath sated his strange appetite.

Eventually, they reached a low-hanging cave that forced Malys to bend nearly double to cross it. More of the glowing mushrooms she'd seen in Rkund festooned the cave walls, and surrounded a small dwarven door. Behind that, a large semicircular chest rested on a table. Shadows thrown from the gas-powered lamp above it dominated the cave walls like some gigantic black spider.

"Wait," Gadriath said as Malys approached the chest. "It's too easy a target—that chest has to be trapped somehow. Let me take a look at it."

He drew out a lockpick from a pouch near his sword, and inspected the chest at length. "Ah-ha," he said triumphantly. He fiddled with something Malys couldn't see for a few seconds, and then there was a twanging noise. "There—that should have disabled the trap," a satisfied Gadriath said as he pried open the lid of the chest. "Now to—"

twang

Gadriath leapt back suddenly as the chest—which they both belatedly realized had been double-trapped—was suddenly pelted with tiny darts. A number of them hit his armor, and a few more dug into his flesh. A few of them ricocheted and hit Malys as well, ripping through her robes, and she hissed through her teeth in pain.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, several perfectly camouflaged sections of the cave—one either side of the duo—heaved upwards. Three shadowy figures emerged from the secret alcoves, blocking all possible ways out.

Malys had no idea what these … things were. They walked like men bent double, looked vaguely like elves from what little she could tell by their silhouetted forms—but they didn't sound like either; the only noise they made was a wet, labored breathing. The only other thing she knew about them was that they would definitely be hostile.

But before Malys could think to attack them, Gadriath clapped a hand over her wrist. He shook his head imperceptibly at the Dunmer, then motioned to the figures, and finally drew a finger across his neck.

He skulked away from Malys then, weaving his way behind the figures and leaving the Dunmer to wonder what was stranger: that his heavy-looking armor didn't make any noise, or that the figures didn't seem to notice he was sneaking behind them—until it was too late.

The Bosmer drew his sword, and—once, twice, thrice—slit their throats in rapid succession. The man-things fell one by one, and Gadriath laid them silently to the ground in calm, practiced movements.

Malys let out a breath in relief as the Bosmer strode to her, wiping off his brutal-looking blade on the cave floor and looking rather annoyed. "Who were they?" she asked.

"The last remnants of the snow elves—the Falmer," Gadriath answered, picking darts out of his body. "Have a look for yourself."

Malys cast a candlelight spell, and promptly gasped in horror as she saw the Falmer clearly for the first time. It was like she'd flipped over a rock and seen something disgusting wriggling underneath, only a hundred times bigger.

"Mm-hmm," agreed Gadriath wearily. "After the ancient Nords drove them underground, the Falmer came to the dwarves for help. But the Dwemer tricked them—blinded them first, then turned them into nothing more than feral savages. Slaves. After the dwarves disappeared, they left the Falmer behind to breed like skeevers in their wake."

Malys felt her dislike of the Nords and the dwarves deepen even further. To condemn an entire species like that …

"Since the Falmer can't see, they hunt by sound and smell instead," Gadriath continued. "That's why they didn't notice me sneak up to them—I had my greaves doubly enchanted by a Telvanni wizard after I cleared a nest of scribs from his tower. Helps my stealth and muffles my footsteps, too. Saved my life more times than I can count."

Malys was too busy staring wild-eyed at the Falmer and their primitive armor and weapons—which she noted looked suspiciously like the effects Gadriath was carrying. "Where exactly did you get your armor?" she asked.

"Some Dwarven ruin in the Pale—I forget the name—and guess what it was filled to the rafters with," the Bosmer said dismissively. "But I'd like to know how they didn't detect you. A novice of Winterhold doesn't know enough magic to escape detection by a whole nest of Falmer."

Malys shrugged. "I … guess I just stayed really quiet," she said lamely.

Gadriath didn't look too convinced. "Well, at any rate, I'll definitely be earning my keep in here," he said, drawing out his bow. "One thing I've learned in my time about the Falmer and the Dwemer—the bigger the mountain, the bigger the ruin … and the bigger the hive. And we're right under one of the biggest mountain ranges in Tamriel."

Malys felt a sudden fear rising up in her insides.

Gadriath tested the string on his bow, and adjusted his quiver. "So I really hope they taught you well up at that College," he said. "Dead men tell no tales, after all—and they don't pay any dues, either."

And with that, the mercenary crept into one of the passages revealed by the fake walls, Malys following behind him.

There were indeed more Falmer in the next few chambers; two of them were crouched over the mangled bodies of a hunting party. Gadriath felled them with one arrow each—one to the head, another to the heart—with the practiced arm of a Bosmer who'd clearly spent most of his life holding a bow; he wielded it like an extension of his own body.

Three more Falmer came to investigate the commotion, squeezing out of cracks and holes in the cave that would have crushed any other man or mer, and Malys killed them with a quick volley of ice spikes. One of them got so close to the Dunmer that she applied a little too much magic out of panic, and her attack went straight through the Falmer's heart and into the chest of the companion behind him, earning an appreciative nod from the wood elf.

They took several moments to catch their breath, and inspected the Falmer camp they'd just cleared out. The remains of several ill-fated adventurers lay inside a tent; one of them was clutching a spellbook, judging by its cover (Flesh, Bone, and Metal: An Apprentice's Guide to Defensive Magic). Malys pried it from the man's dead fingers, and leafed through the smudged pages.

"Flesh spells," she murmured—a colloquial term for layering the body with a dense, armor-like shell of magic. "Could be useful against these Falmer."

Gadriath made a noise of disapproval as Malys leafed through the tome. "You need more than magic to clear out a Falmer hive," he said. "They live and breathe poison, you know; they soak their weapons in whole vats of the stuff. One scratch is all it takes—even wards and 'flesh spells' won't do you any good."

Wonderful, Malys thought dryly, pocketing the spellbook for later as they squeezed through a crevice filled with moss that glowed as bright as day. "And I suppose you know how to fight them?" she asked with a wry smile.

"Hit them," said Gadriath, "before they get close enough to hit you. If you want to beat an enemy, you have to think like him first. Study him, both up close and far away. I've spent half my career building up a resistance to that poison of theirs, and I've learned to watch for even the tiniest hole where one might be able to fit. There is no one in Skyrim better equipped than me against the Falmer," he finished, crossing his arms boastfully.

Malys, meanwhile, had to wonder how much of his talk was just that.

After groping around in the pitch-black darkness for a long while, the two elves eventually encountered an underground river. There were crevices in every direction, and Malys could see some tents on the opposite ledge, illuminated by glowing fungi of every shape and size.

"I don't like this," she said, after scanning the entire chamber and noticing a distinct lack of Falmer. It reminded her too much of that double-trapped door in Rkund—an ambush waiting to happen.

Gadriath had already nocked an arrow. "Agreed," he said. "I'll draw them out—see what we're dealing with."

He fired the arrow, which clattered off one of the far-off tents. Instantly, the scene exploded into activity; dozens of Falmer emerged from their hiding places all around the cave. Most were a fair distance away, and were separated by a drop of ten, maybe fifteen feet. Others, however, were far closer—close enough to have detected the sound of Gadriath firing his bow, and close enough to engage.

Malys saw a half-dozen Falmer making their way up the ledge towards them. She quickly charged more ice magic, and impaled one of the cave-elves through his neck, sending him tumbling down into the river below, where he was promptly swept away by the current. Gadriath shot a second Falmer between his shoulder blades before unsheathing his twin swords. Malys readied some healing magic in her other hand; Gadriath was the only chance she had against those dwarven automatons, and if those Falmer got close enough to rush him en masse—

Rip them apart.

Malys stumbled—her stomach had seized up without warning, as though she'd suddenly become very hungry, and several things happened at once. Her fists clenched of their own volition, and she felt her nails digging into her palms. They became very cold, like she'd plunged them into the Sea of Ghosts; she did a double take when she saw the jagged, lethal shards that had formed over her hands.

How did I—?!

And then she felt her body twisting, contorting like an acrobat into the midst of the Falmer—her icy hands-turned-blades scything among them, tearing into their wasted flesh—

—the nord lay beneath Her on the bed, naked but for his loincloth; Her hands—frozen into jagged claws—caressed him, slapped and jabbed at him, bringing him both pleasure and pain as the blood trickled from his wounds—

Malys' stomach convulsed again, and the image was gone; she dropped to her knees and gasped for breath, not even noticing Gadriath's expression, or the dead Falmer around her. She could not quite believe what had just happened.

Who was that? Her thoughts ran wild as she desperately searched for an answer. What was that? I've never … I …

I don't remember …

Malys jumped when she felt the wood elf put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine," she said hurriedly, before he opened his mouth. "I just—I had some stomach cramps, that's all."

"For good reason," Gadriath said. He was pointing at Malys' forearm, and looked shaky. Malys followed his finger, and blanched when she saw the sizable gash that had been opened up in her arm. The wound ran from wrist to elbow-going clear to the bone at its deepest—and was covered in reddish-black splashes.

Her blood, she realized—and Falmer blood.

Quickly as she could, Malys pulled out a restorative potion from her bag, drank it, and used her magic to finish the job. But Gadriath still looked very uneasy.

"That blade was poisoned," he said, when Malys asked him why. "Remember when I said one scratch was enough? Well, you had a lot more than a scratch, and you don't look like you've been affected at all."

"Maybe the poison was old," Malys shrugged—but even she wasn't convinced. Whatever she had seen in her head couldn't have been some bolt-from-the-blue recollection. Was it some kind of hallucinogen? It was possible that the Falmer could have used some sort of fear toxin—though she had to admit, they were terrifying enough as it was.

"All the same, we can't just rush in like that," Gadriath said. "We got lucky last time; do that again, one of us is going to die." He looked pointedly at Malys. "Best way to approach this is to take them out one at a time. Slow, but steady. We'll attack, hang back for a while until they decide we've gone, and repeat until they're dead. Falmer aren't the smartest creatures in this cave—but they're close up there, so we need to be very, very careful."

Malys swallowed. "I'm right behind you, then," she said. Keep this elf alive, she thought, instinctively preparing more healing magic.

The Bosmer didn't seem to really need her help, though. As they continued going further and further into the labyrinthine network, Malys began to notice more and more just how adept Gadriath was at dealing with the Falmer. The musty smell of the cave was stronger in some places than others, and the wood elf used them to his advantage: he would maneuver himself so that a freshly rotting carcass of an animal—or a dead Falmer—sat between himself and his target so as to conceal his own scent. Malys also suspected that the elf's weapons and armor, being of Falmer origin, had the same pungent smell that pervaded this cave, and therefore masked his scent further still.

Sometimes Gadriath would also fire more arrows at no particular place for any particular reason. But Malys soon came to learn that this was useful for distracting the cave-elves into locating the sudden disturbance—at which point he would down them all with such ease that it might as well have been target practice for an archer of his caliber.

After many hours' worth of these guerrilla tactics, Malys and Gadriath came upon another large cave, where several more Falmer were stationed. Strange chitters and clicks echoed off the rock walls, and Malys heard a sharp intake of breath from the Bosmer.

"Chaurus," he whispered. "Big damn bugs. The Falmer breed them for just about everything. Weapons, armor, all their poisons, all their homes—even their waste disposal."

Malys thought of the remains of that hunting party she'd seen earlier in the cave, and felt a wave of nausea pass over her as the implications sank in.

"I once cleared out a hive where their chief actually used a chaurus as a steed," Gadriath went on. "Toughest job I ever had to do."

Malys looked for any telltale cracks or holes in the wall, but found none. The cave was larger than any they'd been in thus far, however, and she could not see the space in its entirety. Unless—

"I want to take a closer look, maybe try to draw them towards us," she said under her breath, charging more ice in her hands. "Think you can cover me, Gadriath?"

Silence.

" … Gadriath?"

Again there was no reply. She turned around, and her heart sank into Oblivion: the Bosmer was nowhere to be seen.

He left me here! Malys thought, fear and anger clutching her lungs like twin vices. That little n'wah abandoned me!

She turned back the way she came, thinking she could catch up with him and give him a piece of her mind. But immediately the more rational part of her mind began to wonder why Gadriath would do something like this. He'd been promised a very fetching reward, and he'd not offered any sort of alibi for running off on Malys like this. Resignation and reluctance, maybe—but not outright rebellion!

Malys trudged back into the cave with the chaurus, but tripped over a loose rock—a rock that hadn't been there before, she thought. She looked at her feet, reaching blindly towards the object—and that feeling of fear tightened its hold on her yet again when she saw its familiar insectoid shape, small enough to fit snugly over one's head.

Gadriath's helmet.

Malys craned her neck upward, her spine digging against the collar of her elven armor, and noticed a fairly wide fissure under where the two elves had been standing not a minute ago. Three feet long, maybe one wide, she surmised, large enough for a man to fit inside, if he was willing—or unwilling.

The clicking noises were growing louder.

Malys felt her feet rooted to the ground in terror. It was looking less and less likely that Gadriath had left under his own power. She felt a cool, pungent wind rush over her face—and she smelled the telltale metallic odor of blood.

It was coming from the fissure.

Malys knew she was dead if she stayed where she was. If she retreated, she was almost certainly dead. And if she pressed on … The Dunmer gulped. There was only one solution she could see—and she wasn't too happy about it.

And so, throwing all sense of stealth and caution to the winds, she charged forward.

Not a moment too soon, either: as she sprinted into the cave, firing ice spikes wherever she saw movement, she heard something large and heavy impact the ground behind her. She did not check to see if it had followed her, and frankly, she did not care—she was too focused on killing everything inside this musty, Daedra-forsaken cave.

The Falmer were first to go—Malys wasted no time in turning them into giant pincushions with her ice magic. She cast them from her fingers this time; the shards were smaller, but thinner and faster, and more spread out as well. She didn't know why the idea had occurred to her, but Malys wasn't about to take any chances with—

—she was naked, spread-eagled against the wall, and struggled against her bonds in pretend terror while needles of ice caressed her, guided by Her expert hands; the redguard moaned as She marked the taut flesh with Her magic—

They are beneath you—all of them.

Before Malys could process this, her stomach gave another searing twitch; more violent this time, like a red-hot knife had sliced through her chest, and she screamed in pain. That drew the attention of the chaurus within the cave; they were enclosed in some kind of pen, but without any Falmer to keep it shut, the chaurus were free to roam where they wished now—and they wished to feed on this new, unwelcome arrival.

Out of the pen they crawled; three of them, each as big as a dog, and spitting gobs of black slime at Malys from their hideous jaws. The Dunmer threw up a ward too late, and the goo spattered against her clothes, burning through her robes and corroding her elven armor even further. Some of it landed on exposed flesh, and Malys felt a stinging sensation as the venom bubbled against her gray skin.

Damn!

But somehow, the venom wasn't doing what it was supposed to, which struck the Dunmer as odd. Perhaps they were domesticated, these chaurus; was it possible that the Falmer had removed the poisonous parts of their body to prevent any danger being done to them—?

The lead chaurus suddenly lunged at her, jaws wide open, and Malys thrust both hands at the monster and fired one giant ice spike into its maw. The insect was propelled away from her, and thrashed in its death throes; the two remaining chaurus retreated to a safe distance, and snapped their jaws threateningly at her.

Malys knew using her regular ice magic was suicide. She needed something more potent than that—a single attack, but one that could hit multiple targets, like what Vinye could do with her lightning.

She thought of the desolation of Molag Amur, and the churning ash storms that had ravaged the region. Malys willed the icy magic in her hand to swirl like those storms, concentrating it into a single point, and then molding that point, rotating it through force of will until it felt like she was holding a tiny tornado in her palm.

She released that tornado at the exact moment the chaurus charged again. The swirling white clouds of the ice storm grew and grew as they traveled outward to meet the insects, until it had enveloped them both. Their chitinous bodies froze solid in the extreme cold Malys had generated, and shattered into thousands of pieces under the combined weight of their bulk and the ice that coated them.

Malys let out a single breath in relief, but she knew that she had nothing to be relieved about at all.

Her guide had disappeared without a trace.

Her only defense against the Dwemer was gone.

She had absolutely no idea where in Skyrim she was.

And yet, against her will and all better judgment, Malys felt her legs carrying her forward once again, towards a goal that she wasn't even sure had existed in the first place. She swallowed; whatever lay ahead of her—Dwemer, Falmer, or worse—then she had no other choice but to face it head-on.

Alone.

The path took her alongside the same river as before, and led up a steep incline. At its crest was a single bridge of grated metal, which Malys took as a sign of good luck; the Dwemer had been here, and the thought of them laying a bridge here of all places suggested that there might be a sizable ruin nearby.

A single armored Falmer patrolled the bridge, masked by the glowing mist of an underground waterfall. Malys dispatched him with another overcharged ice spike, sending him plunging into the bottomless depths below.

Her spirits rose further when she saw the paved footpath beyond the bridge—the dwarves had actually taken the time and resources to make an underground road! Whatever this road led to, Malys knew it was something big—and that it was most likely heavily guarded.

Suddenly, Malys' boots brushed against a loose part of the road, and she looked downward. It was a journal, so faded it was almost unreadable. She could only make out snippets of writing amongst all the torn pages:

—another dream of Red Mountain erupting. People running as flaming rocks the size of cantons fell from the sky—

—can still see my brother's outstretched arm, as he tried to reach the silt strider and walked right out into the boiling waters—

—not just Vvardenfell, all of Morrowind was hit by the rocks. There's no work and no food will grow under the ashes. We are going to try for Skyrim—

Malys bowed her head as she closed the faded diary. The hell that had been the Red Year was one of the few memories still fresh in her mind. Vvardenfell had been completely destroyed in the cataclysm, and her homeland was nothing but a wasteland now.

—the sky was thick with ash, and She held a cloth over her mouth to protect Herself from suffocating—

It had been the only time in her life where she could remember being so helpless, her senses being overloaded by light and sound and the stench of decay.

—She ran for the city gates, and heard men, elves and beastfolk alike wailing in Suran's streets as their parents, their children, husbands, and wives, and all their loved ones choked to death in front of them, and Her heart ached as the crowds' own cries were suddenly silenced without warning by the lethal clouds and burning rocks—

This journal must have been written by one of the survivors, she thought. He'd joined up with a caravan of some sort, where there was food and water to be found, and companionship as well—perhaps even love.

—the wind whipped at Her face as the boat sailed from Balmora, towards a future She knew not where—

And Malys had survived it, too. But her memory was incomplete; how she had ended up going from Suran to Windhelm was a mystery she had never been fully able to solve—

Malys felt the hairs rising on the back of her neck suddenly, and her body tensed. She sniffed the air cautiously; as if she could detect a smell she could not quite place. But the smell wasn't so much physical as it was mental—her mind was buzzing in alarm.

She was not alone.

She quickened her pace along the winding Dwemer road, checking over her shoulder periodically to make sure she wasn't being followed, but always finding nothing.

The remnants of a smashed carriage lay before her, its previous occupants now nothing more than skeletons. One of them clutched an old staff, carved in the likeness of a dragon. Malys sensed its power as soon as she touched it, and she slung it over her shoulder; this staff might come in useful. Another skeletal hand clutched a journal more tattered than the one she found earlier, and almost as illegible:

—hearing things in the darkness, every sound seems amplified and it is hard to sleep over the sobbing—

—Madras has started hallucinating from hunger. Says she saw a white elf peering out at us from the dark corners of the tunnel—

—used to be a battlemage and tried to hold them off—

—caused a cave-in … some of them escaped, but we were trapped with these things—

—now hold us prisoner—

—given up hope of escape—

Malys frowned as she read the faded words. Somehow the caravan had managed to find their way inside this cave, and they had run astray of the Falmer inside. How, though? Had there been a way under the mountains at that time?

And that name … Madras … it sounded familiar to her for some reason—

—the caravan slowed to a halt as She cried out to the figures on board, and Her spirits rose; they had heard her voice. She was safe …

"Where are You headed?"

"Windhelm," She replied.

"Well, myself and the rest of us are heading the complete other way for Riften, but you're welcome to take what you need to get there—within reason, of course," said one of the elves, a female—and expecting, judging by her swollen belly. "I'm madras."

"Malys Aryon, House Hlaalu." The two women shook hands—

She stiffened again. Whatever she had sensed earlier had returned; she could feel that malevolent presence close by—a cold, savage evil.

And it was getting closer.

She stopped only to empty the chest the carriage had been transporting among its long-spoiled food and worn clothes; a sizable purse of gold and some lockpicks were all that could be salvaged. Then she continued on, her pace faster than before; she almost sprinted to the next cavern in her efforts to escape whatever was behind her.

The entrance to a Dwemer ruin lay at the end of this cave, flanked by collapsed passages and more ruined wagons. Dozens of decomposing corpses of both Falmer and chaurus littered the area, along with more skeletons of unfortunate dark elves. The nearest to the door of the ruin held yet another ruined trailbook, and Malys frantically leafed through the ripped pages:

—map we traded a glass dagger to get is a fake. We can't find the pass marked over the mountains—

—should have tried for The Rift—

—took shelter from the storm in the ruins … stepped on a pressure plate and trapped us inside—

—Gildryn said there's dwarven roads that lead under the mountains … have to try—

Malys stopped dead in her tracks as the words sank in. The map had been forged, or perhaps incorrectly read, and the poor elves had found themselves hopelessly lost. In an act of desperation, they had fled into a dwarven ruin to seek shelter from a storm, and tried their chances at breaking through to Skyrim under the mountains instead …

But what had grabbed her attention was the name in the journal. Gildryn.

Gildryn … that name sounds familiar, too …

"—this is all we can give you," said the dunmer, clutching the precious knife carved from gleaming malachite in his hand, as though he couldn't bear parting ways with it …

"gildryn," said his companion, "we can't afford to be sentimental right now—that map is our only hope of finding our way to Skyrim. i know that dagger belonged to your da, but your da's dead now. our families are all gone … all dead … "

"not yet," said madras, stroking her bulging chest lovingly. "not yet … "

gildryn finally relented, and as She gave him a crudely sketched map of the Velothi range, he pressed the handle of the knife into Her hand, stifling a sob as he surrendered his most valuable treasure—

Malys felt a terrible chill descending down her spine as the memory emerged from the depths, like some long-forgotten sea monster. Gildryn had traded her a glass dagger for a simple map that turned out to be worthless, and she had given him that map.

She was the reason they were here, the reason they had died for nothing.

She had doomed them all.

Her voice was a hoarse whisper. "Oh, Azura help me."

… But where had she found the map? Malys thought amongst her pangs of regret, trying to think of a rational reason to do something so inexplicable. Had she drawn it herself? No—no, surely she couldn't be that callous, to knowingly lead them to their deaths—

"—Here." She handed the furled piece of parchment to the pregnant elf. "It's an older route, so I'm told, but it should still be there. Most will try for the Rift, or the path west of Blacklight—that's where I'm going … "

"Azura smile on you, friend." madras kissed Her on the cheek, and turned to her companion to discuss payment—

So close …

Malys whirled around at the sound—had she been hearing things? It was only a whisper—an echo—but it was right there, like it had whispered into her ear. She felt the air freezing inside her lungs, robbing her of breath.

She had to get out of here.

I'm coming …

Without any second thoughts, a terrified Malys ran for the ruin, sprinting as fast and for as long as her body was able. She threw aside the golden doors frantically, nearly tripping over her own armored boots as she desperately tried to outrun whatever was coming after her—

—Her body shook with pleasure as the ashlander shifted his position behind Her, continuing to thrust inside Her without missing a beat while She writhed and moaned; She wished desperately She could repay him in kind, and show him something different, a better kind of pleasure, but an even greater desperation had led Her here—

The hall opened up into a large atrium, and split off into a number of smaller hallways up ahead. But Malys did not care about them—she had just noticed the objects in the center of the chamber: a pair of armored, golden hands resting on a plinth, reaching skyward as if in prayer to some forgotten god. She gasped in recognition as an image of a carved podium in the Reliquary of Rkund swam into her vision—

—the ashlander added some finishing touches to the map, and laid it into Her hand as She stripped off her clothing inside the lean-to, giving him a perfect view of Her lithe, supple body; She placed it inside Her pack before the ashlander forced Her on all fours, removing his chitin armor as he did so—

Suddenly the Dwemer ruin, and the podium in front of her, disappeared from her sight, and an unending deluge of images washed over Malys' mind. Memories long since forgotten appeared in her mind's eye for only the faintest moment of time, only to be replaced by another, equally transitory mental picture.

What's happening to me?!

—She was screaming at the ashlander to ravish her faster … She was almost over the edge, almost ready to come … and then Her neck flared with pain as he bent over and bit Her; it was surprisingly painful for something so brief—

And then, without warning, Malys felt her face burst open in agony. The pain was intolerable, choking; she could not even scream—and even if she had the option, she never had the time. Her eyes rolled into the back of her skull, her body became limp, and she tumbled to the stone floor at the foot of the pedestal, and her face continued to blaze in torment as darkness clouded her vision, and she knew nothing more …

she awoke with searing pain in her neck. her body was immobile—she could not even move a finger; she stood spread-eagled in the center of the chamber, arms raised high, eyes front, her paralyzed body forming a large X.

I told you I remembered.

malys felt her terror augment another notch. It was her. The same voice she had heard outside Rkund … the same Malys that had tortured the bandit called Gjavar.

"What do You want?" she called out. her voice echoed off the walls of the chamber.

I want you. I want you … to remember—remember everything I do.

"Why?" malys shouted. "You and i are not the same. Haven't i told you already? You. Are. Not. me!"

The chamber echoed with an evil laugh. Oh, but I am you. I've been part of you for two hundred years!

malys' breath caught in her throat. Two hundred years? But … that meant …

Yes. That evil laugh echoed in her ears again, and she felt a brief gust of wind brush her face. That ashlander was where everything started—and he was only the beginning.

you were so desperate to find a way out of the hell that Morrowind had become, not-Malys whispered in a sneer. So you offered yourself to him … you filthy little slut.

malys felt her head twist violently against her will. A stinging pain flared up on her cheek, like a giant palm had just slapped her very hard.

"i am not a slut!" she screamed at not-Malys.

Tell that to Helviane Desele, you lying bitch. her other cheek split apart in agonizing pain once more; that palm had struck her again, and her eyes were burning with tears. Tell that to all the business you brought to her doorstep. All those happy little people … and it was all thanks to you, slut.

—the dunmer howled as Her horsewhip lashed his naked backside over and over again, and She paused for only a moment to hear his sobbing, his gratitude to Mistress as the bruises blossomed on his body—

All those unhappy men you pleased … and even …

—the wood elf lay face down on the bed, bound by silken ropes while She planted a knee on her back, thrusting Her fingers inside her most sacred place; another hand kept the bosmer maiden's head against the pillows as she screamed for Mistress to give her more—

"Stop … "

they gave themselves to you … and after you were finished with them, their own fingers, their hands … even the real thing just wasn't enough for them anymore …

"Please stop … "

—She allowed the argonian to bite her lovingly, gasping at the tiny twinge of pain as his fangs made contact with the nape of Her neck; and then it was his turn to feel the pleasure that came with impending pain, as She pulled out a sharpened dagger and ran the very tip from his groin to his scaly neck, poking just a tiny bit to make him squirm—

"Stop it!"

Not-Malys slapped her again, that invisible palm striking malys hard enough to make stars dance in her eyes.

Oh, I don't think I will, slut, the evil voice snarled in her ear. We're not in your little playground anymore. I'm not going to stop—not now, not ever. Not until you remember what I do—not until you tell me what you are!

her tears splattered on the stone, and the sound of her sobbing echoed throughout the dwarven halls as the pain finally subsided. If that was all it took, then there was only one thing she could do.

" … i'm a whore … " she squeaked through the tears, somehow feeling even smaller inside the Dwemer chamber than before.

What was that? Not-Malys' voice was a sibilant hiss.

"i'm a whore."

Again, Not-Malys purred.

"i'm a whore!" malys burst out, directing her fury at the malevolence that was and wasn't there. "i'm a slut—a filthy little slut! Is that enough for You?!"

Not-Malys laughed in satisfaction. I'm glad you're so honest with Me, she cooed. malys felt the invisible hand stroking her hair. Such a good little girl …

And then it struck her on the base of her skull, harder than ever, and malys closed her eyes instinctively to ward off the pain. She felt her head being pressed downward, forcing her to bend over. But that's not what I wanted to hear.

malys felt her eyes fluttering open, independent of her will. I want you to take a look at yourself, slut, Not-Malys hissed. I want you to tell me what you see.

The dunmer had no choice but to obey, and so she focused her vision between her feet.

The podium behind her was surrounded by a circular sheet of golden metal, smooth and cut with geometric, curving patterns. Four thousand years of solitude had not tarnished it in any way; it was a gigantic, flawless mirror.

And what malys saw in her reflection was more horrifying than all the denizens of Tolvald's Cave put together.

It was her face, and yet it wasn't. The face she was staring at was the one she had always remembered—to a point. What had been ashy gray skin was now waxy and pale; the nose was flatter, though it didn't feel broken, and her brow was much more angular and pronounced. A large cleft divided her face down the middle from chin to nose.

But most terrifying of all was her gaze. No living man or mer had eyes that glowed as brightly as these—not even the mysterious eyes of Solyn. They burned like dark suns, and felt like they would burst into flame at any moment.

What am I?!

malys opened her mouth, intending to ask not-Malys just what in Azura's name had happened to her face, and in doing so unwittingly answered her own question: she stared, transfixed, at the wicked fangs that filled her mouth by the dozen. Then she felt her lips curl up—again against her will—into the evilest smile she'd ever seen.

No.

No. That simply was not possible.

"And yet, here I am," not-Malys crowed triumphantly, now speaking with malys' own voice—colder and nastier than she'd ever believed her voice could be. "Against all possible odds, I have survived."

And then it was gone, for only a moment, and malys took the opportunity to get a word in edgewise before that evil presence came back. "But … how?" she whispered. "The priest of Meridia—his blade—he should have killed me!"

"Hah! It would have taken more than Meridia's pitiful magic to force me out," not-Malys gloated. "My own memories were sealed too far inside you for a simple sword to kill the real Malys."

Memories? Sealed? The dunmer's head was spinning every which way at this news.

"Maybe you'd like a taste?"

malys was about to say no, but not-Malys had already begun assaulting her with yet more memories of the life she had once lived. she saw the snowy streets of Windhelm in her mind, and felt a hunger gnawing at her stomach—

—She held out Her tin, starving and begging desperately for septims, but the nords either ignored her or shoved her out of their path; it had been a slow day today, She had not had company in so long, and She constantly wondered how She had been reduced to this—

The dunmer felt a stabbing pain in her chest, and resisted the urge to cry out. she did not want to be weak—she did not want to give this monster any sort of satisfaction in her torment—

—one of Her regulars came up to the slum where She made Her home that night; the nord had brought a companion: a kinsman, whose slick black hair shone in the torchlight. He was not of the city, But She didn't care; She wasted no time in seducing the young, handsome man—

malys closed her eyes, trying her damnedest to avoid seeing the memories being replayed in her head, but all her efforts were for naught—

—the black-haired nord overpowered Her at Her highest point of pleasure, at the moment when She was ready to come, and for the second time in her life She felt a stinging sensation in Her neck—

she stared wild-eyed as this last memory faded from her mind. How had she been bitten twice? Did that vampire know she had already been turned long ago? Or—

—She was unpleasantly roused from Her sleep by all manner of weapons in the hands of dozens of people; every one was pointed at Her, and every face flashed with hatred—

"No … "

—"Go back under the ash where you belong!" … "Get away from my children, you gray-skin slut!" … "Gonna run you through like a pig on a spit, filthy elf!"—

she wished desperately that she would just curl up and die right now—she did not want to relive that night; she cried out silently, wishing for something, anything but the hour when her life had turned into hell—

—How long She ran, She did not know; Her legs carried her out of the slums, out of the city, and westward along the frozen River White, all the way to Lake Yorgrim. Only then did she stop to catch her breath, only when the signs and sounds of the angry mob had faded away to nothing—

"he didn't know you'd already been turned," not-Malys sneered in her voice, taking obvious joy in belittling malys as much as She could. "But he didn't care. Once he'd defiled you even more, he threw you to the wolves like a dirty washrag. you were nothing to him … just another means to an end—"

—There was a cave nearby, a refuge for animals from the snowstorms that constantly buffeted this region of Skyrim; it was empty now, unoccupied … the perfect place for her to hide—

"But you did more than hide from those bad boys and girls," not-Malys crooned, almost congratulatory in Her delivery. "you lived. you survived on the barest scraps. Then, you slept. And then … you were transformed."

malys didn't want to believe Her; she tried convincing himself that not-Malys was somehow lying to her—and yet she could feel the truth in Her words. But, if not-Malys was indeed the truth, then why, she wondered, had she not discovered this sooner? Why hadn't that magic sword, Dawnbreaker, worked on her at Rkund? Why?!

But for all the questions in her turbulent mind, the fact of the matter was still frightfully clear.

Vampire.

i'm a vampire.

"No," smirked not-Malys. "I'm a vampire. You're just a mistake—a story that should never have been told. You should never have happened. malys aryon of house hlaalu was simply never meant to exist for this long."

Her—malys'—smile grew wider. "And I will make sure of that."

malys suddenly felt an iron vise tighten around her throat; her own hand had latched onto her neck of its own accord. Then the hand squeezed around her windpipe, and she began gagging for breath.

If I kill you, we both die, said not-Malys matter-of-factly as she strangled malys with her own arm. But if I can make you weak enough, then I won't have to worry about any more … rude interruptions for a very long time.

malys tried to beg for not-Malys to stop, but the words would not come out. her limbs would still not move.

That's it, not-Malys cooed as the dunmer continued to throttle herself. Don't try to fight it. Just let it happen, and I promise it'll be over before you know it.

Only then did it sink in for malys. she was helpless—lost and alone inside one of the forgotten places of the world.

No one knew she was here.

No one was going to save her.

And as that one final truth hit her, as her vision began to turn gray, malys finally resigned herself to her fate. she would die here, in this forsaken ruin, and Vinye, Cosette, and everyone inside the College would be none the wiser.

The last thing she heard before darkness consumed her forever was not-Malys crooning gently in her ear.

Good girl …

For the last time, malys aryon of house hlaalu went to sleep.

And after nearly two centuries of slumber, Mistress Malys awoke.

She clambered to Her feet uneasily, and took several gulping breaths of the stale air inside the ruin. Her undead body was more powerful now that the seal had been broken, but all the time She'd spent sleeping away the years had not been kind to Her health. She stretched Her arms and legs out for a long while, testing out the flexibility of Her joints; then, when She judged Herself ready at last, She turned to the armored gauntlets behind Her.

Of all of Kagrenac's Tools, Wraithguard was perhaps the most mysterious. No one had ever really agreed on what it looked like—or even if it was only the one gauntlet. Now, however, as Mistress Malys slipped the armor over her hands, it looked as though those questions had finally been answered.

To Her slight annoyance, though, only the right gauntlet appeared to be enchanted. The left was only a look-alike; it was meticulously crafted all the same, but little more than the blacksmith's equivalent of Wraithguard's bastard son.

As Malys finished equipping the gauntlets, something rumbled within the ruin, and there was a shriek of metal against metal as several gates around the chamber burst open. An enormous centurion stepped out from each one—but these were vastly different than the automata inside the Reliquary; these centurions looked more like the guardians of the ruins that had once dotted Vvardenfell. Their right arm ended in a spiked ball, almost as big around as she was tall; their left arm, a heavy, three-fingered claw.

It wasn't long before the two golems noticed Malys standing there. One of them promptly charged, raising its claw high as if to swat Her away, while the other hefted its mace. There was a burst of steam from its shoulder, and the heavy metal sphere launched itself at Her like an arrow from a bow, connected by a thick length of golden chain.

Malys dodged the attacks easily, and she noted with pleasant surprise that the physical prowess of Her body had been amplified significantly; She was faster now, stronger—but by how much was a question yet to be answered.

She concealed a smirk as the twin Dwemer titans prepared another attack—they would be the perfect benchmark.

Both centurions fired their flails this time; they swept them back and forth, destroying the stone columns around the chamber and tearing holes in the wall and the floor. Several times, they came within inches of crushing Her.

She fired one ice spike after another at the centurions, though only for effect—the golems were resistant to all manner of magic, but frost most of all. However, these centurions were not as well armored as the guardians found in the ruins of Skyrim. They were slightly faster and more maneuverable, but their joints and inner workings were also more exposed, and therefore more susceptible to damage—both physical and magical.

So it came as another surprise that one of Her errant spikes, by sheer luck, had lodged itself inside the neck of one of the golems. The construct plucked it out with its claw, but the ice had punched a sizable hole in the machinery in the process. Steam and oil leaked from the hole like blood, and the disabled centurion crashed to the floor.

The remaining centurion swiped at Her with both of its heavy arms, but Malys was too small, too agile—and thanks to the newly awakened abilities of her vampiric body, it didn't even feel like She was wearing armor anymore.

But She was still weaker than She had any right to be. She needed more strength—two hundred years of sleeping within that pitiful mind had drained Her severely. Perhaps this last centurion would be a willing feast …

She reached out with her mind, and listened for echoes within the casing of the centurion. It was common knowledge that the dwemer were masters of enchanting, and they found uses for soul gems that other races could not even begin to grasp, even today. She thought briefly of the falmer, and wondered how many of their souls had been consumed to fuel the machinations of the dwarves.

Within moments Malys found what She was listening for—a faint, tinny screaming, as if a very tiny creature was being tortured day and night without end. She focused Her concentration on that voice, and subconsciously raised Her hand. Vivid, poisonous red tendrils erupted from Her fingers, reaching inside the soul gem housed inside the centurion—its own imitation of a brain and a heart at the same time—and pulled.

The trapped soul screamed as Malys extricated it with Her newfound magic, the tether of energy disintegrating the essence of both it and the automaton it had been powering. The screams faded away, and the golden metal crumpled and corroded as She absorbed the soul into Her own body; She did not dare to waste any of that energy, and so She took it all into Herself, restoring a little more of the strength She had lost during Her long slumber.

Then She stood there for a little while longer, admiring the scrap metal that had once been the two guardians of this nameless ruin, and idly flexing Her armored fingers, taking in the view of Wraithguard from every angle. She did not even care that another of kagrenac's ancient tools was in her possession—the chance encounter of that doomed caravan had been fate, surely. She was destined to come here, destined to wake up once again.

Destined to be stronger.

But the essence of the soul inside the centurion had not been enough, Mistress Malys knew. She needed more.

Her only hope was that there would be enough falmer between her and Winterhold to sate Her appetite.

Malys set out from the dwemer ruin, then, in search of more falmer to feed upon. She hoped that would give them some closure after the hell the dwemer had put them through for centuries, and the thousands of years they'd had to fend for themselves in the wake of their disappearance.

they would die, of course—but surely if they were sentient, they would agree that death would be the better option.

She stopped for only a while to strip the caravans, the chests they had carried, and their long-dead guardians of all their worldly gold and belongings; one of the chests carried a flowing black robe, and Malys donned it over Her damaged armor. She could sense the strength of the enchantment woven into the individual threads, how it enriched the natural restoration of Her magickal reserves—or was that merely yet another byproduct of Her vampiric powers?

There were more falmer, more than She had yet encountered before, in the caves beyond the ruined convoy. Malys wasted no time in slaughtering them all—She had nothing to fear from them anymore. She understood now why they could not hear Her, or smell Her—or even why their poison had no effect on Her body. The vampires were creatures of the night; some could even become one with the shadows to avoid detection. They were not among the living, but neither were they dead; the falmer, in spite of their superhuman senses, had become too primitive to understand the fine line that separated the two.

And finally, their poisoned blades hacked and slashed away at Her, only for Malys to heal them without any adverse reaction to the foul agents. Because She was undead, Her blood did not circulate as in a normal, living body, and therefore could not spread the poison to the rest of Her system. All it could do was sit there, mixing with Her blood until the wound was healed. However, Her blood could not replenish itself naturally—and normal healing spells could only go so far. Even Her vampire magic—devastating as it was against the falmer—wasn't a perfect solution.

There was only one real solution to that problem—and She seized Her opportunity as a supercharged ice spike thudded into a falmer's shoulders and staggered him. Malys pounced on him, holding his pulped shoulder in one hand, and his head in the other—and without a second thought, She sank Her fangs into the falmer's neck.

The cave-elf shrieked incoherently as Her teeth punctured through his wrinkled flesh with impunity. The blood tasted sour, and Malys almost spat it out then and there—but She needed to reclaim her strength at any cost. If the falmer had even one sliver of sentience left in their mutated bodies, then that blood, however disgusting it tasted, would bring Her that much closer to full strength.

And sure enough, She felt a warm, pleasant sensation flowing through Her body, slowly but surely—like a roaring hearth in liquid form, but ten times more satisfying. She closed her jaws tighter shut, making sure to drain every last drop of blood, moaning a little in satisfaction as the warmth of the falmer's blood spread throughout Her system.

The other falmer backed away at this brutal show of force. Their fight-or-flight responses kicked in only moments too late; Malys, newly rejuvenated from drinking Her fill, shoved aside the dead husk that had been Her first meal in two hundred years, and eradicated the four remaining creatures in less than a minute—two with the same ice spike.

She meandered through the tight passages of the cave without pausing to savor her victory. She was very close now—she could feel it—the outside world was within her grasp, and she would finally see Skyrim once again.

Eventually, one more cave lay before Her—several falmer tents occupied the space, surrounding a dwemer bridge that spanned a fast-flowing stream. The rush of water was deafening—but soft enough that Malys heard the clicking of the chaurus' pincers a split second before She actually saw it from across the rapids.

The chaurus was huge—easily the size of a young horse, it stood as high as the heavily armored falmer that flanked it, and it was over twice as large as the bugs She'd shattered with Her frost magic. It was oblivious to Malys' presence; currently, it was crouched next to the largest tent in the cave, tearing into the remains of a body.

A body covered in suspiciously spiky armor.

Malys felt a lead weight drop into Her stomach as the mystery of gadriath's disappearance was finally solved. This giant chaurus had somehow snuck in from that chasm above Her in that one cave, snapped him up in its jaws, and retreated back into its lair without a sound. She couldn't help but feel a shudder of horrified shock: She had come very close to dying in that cave, and by something She couldn't even see coming, no less! And that scared Her—because She didn't know if being a vampire would have made the difference in avoiding that chaurus, or even killing it then and there. To creatures like those, food was food, living or dead.

The feeling passed soon enough, though; that was then, and this was now—and now that Malys could see what She was dealing with, She had a plan for how to deal with this monstrous insect.

She strode onto the dwarven causeway, and clenched Her fists to form the same icy arm-blades She'd utilized earlier. Only one falmer guarded this end of the bridge, but the only trouble he presented to Malys was his spine; the Dunmer beheaded him with both blades, crossing and uncrossing them across his neck like a giant pair of shears. Black blood spattered everywhere, and ran into the rapids. The chaurus must have sensed the blood somehow, whether by scent or by some form of taste, as it immediately lumbered across the bridge—straight for Malys.

The vampire was ready. Shattering Her ice blades by tightening Her fists, Malys called on every last ounce of Her strength, and—right as the insect opened its jaws wide enough to grip a wagon wheel—She reached out, and grabbed the chaurus by its pincers, one in each hand. The giant bug screeched and clicked, and flailed about like a worm caught by a bird, but Malys held on for dear life. She had little to fear from the chaurus now that it was trapped; Wraithguard protected Her from the sharp pincers, while Her vampirism protected Her from its poison.

There were still the two remaining falmer, though, and they would have to have been blind and deaf to not notice what was going on. She saw both of them coming towards Her, intent on killing Her while She grappled with the chaurus. One of them was a shaman, judging from the cloak of blue lightning surrounding her body.

With a loud war cry, Mistress Malys heaved and twisted Her body, physically lifting the chaurus off its four spiky legs. She hefted the protesting beast in both hands like a giant flail, and slammed it sideways into the falmer chieftain with an adrenaline-fueled roar. The armored cave-elf was swatted aside, and he hit the cave wall spread-eagled with a shriek of surprise and pain. Her second swing came from above, and physically crushed the falmer shaman into pulp beneath the chaurus' spiky mass. The repulsive bug screeched in agony as the still-electrified remains of the shaman roasted it alive.

The falmer chieftain, meanwhile, had managed to recover from the shock of being bulled off a bridge by his own pet, and he now clutched a heavy, curved axe in his claw, growling at Malys and slashing wildly. He was clearly still addled in his mind, whether from anger or injury; all his attacks were hitting nothing but air—but the movements were so fast and unpredictable that they actually ended up deflecting most of Malys' ice spikes out of sheer luck, which annoyed Her to no end.

After about five shards bouncing off either the falmer's axe or his armor in rapid succession, the Dunmer had had enough. She charged another ice storm in both her hands, and released it just as the falmer leapt to strike at her. The chieftain was flash-frozen in midair, armor and all, and shattered into pieces as he hit the bridge.

But though Malys was finally victorious, Her thoughts could not be further away from victory. As the adrenaline rush from the battle finally wore off, She crossed over to the mangled body of the bosmer, kneeling at his side, and gently stroking what little unspoiled flesh was left.

gadriath had been so horribly mutilated that only his armor gave him away; his face in particular was so badly shredded it was virtually unrecognizable. One arm was simply gone, his right leg was nothing but a crushed mass of flesh and bone, and large chunks of his torso had been physically ripped out by the chaurus' pincers.

Malys regarded gadriath's body for a few moments longer before She repositioned the arms and legs, and tilted his head only a little. She then searched for any sort of linen or cloth; none were available that were clean enough, but there were several burlap sacks scattered around the area. She emptied their contents, and split their seams, turning them into long, unwrapped pieces of burlap; She laid these over gadriath, covering him head to foot in the sackcloth.

She had only known the bosmer for just this one day, and had merely taken him along on a passing whim. The old Malys might have blamed herself for this, and insisted that if she hadn't been so impulsive, this would never have happened. But the old Malys was gone now—She knew there was no use blaming anyone for an event that neither of them could ever have foreseen.

And yet, She still felt a pang of regret. She knew nothing about bosmer burial customs—and so she whispered a brief prayer to Azura, asking her to intercede for the slain mercenary. Hopefully, it would suffice.

At length, She finally stood up from gadriath's covered corpse, and made her way out of Tolvald's Cave—to Shor's Stone, to Whiterun, and to her fellow classmates. There would be no other eulogy, nor would there be any other marker or tomb to commemorate the bosmer's memory—there was only a tacitly spoken, but no less wholehearted,

"Farewell, Gadriath."

Outskirts of Whiterun

Two nights later

Mistress Malys dismounted from the carriage with a spring in Her step that She had not felt in a long time—perhaps even before the night She had first been turned. She had slept while the sun was out—covering Her body under Her black robe to protect against its rays, leaving Her more fit and alert during the night. It was early evening; the sun had just disappeared behind the mountains, and She felt a sort of surge within her body as the last bit of light disappeared below the horizon.

After leaving Tolvald's Cave, she'd made her way back to Shor's Stone, intent on selling as much as she could—even with her vampiric strength, lugging around so much treasure took its toll on her physique. But the blacksmith hadn't cared for most of her trinkets, and so she'd trudged south to Riften in broad daylight, as laden as she'd come. By the time She'd boarded a carriage, She had nearly dropped dead from sheer exhaustion, and only just now—after sleeping for most of the journey from Riften, excepting a very rare side of venison in Ivarstead for her lunch—had She been able to fully regain Her strength.

She looked up at the city of Whiterun, growing bigger and bigger with every step she took. The walls of this city had once been imposing fortifications indeed, towering dozens of feet above the plains. But its history of harsh winters and bandit attacks—to say nothing of the Stormcloak rebellion at the turn of the century—had left it a shadow of its former glory. Still, even a shadow could still inspire some measure of pride and fear, Malys knew, and many Nords still viewed this city with pride—and Whiterun's walls still stood high enough to inspire fear in all but the bravest of thugs.

Malys felt only a little uneasy as She crossed the drawbridge leading to the gate. This wasn't Windhelm, but now that her memories were wholly restored again, she still felt like they were looking at her out of the corner of her eye, as if they, too, knew the truth behind the Dunmer striding past them.

As She approached the gate, one of the guards took a few steps towards Her. "You there!" he called out.

Malys froze at the guard's no-nonsense tone. "What is it?" she said uneasily.

"You're that dark elf from the College," said the guard. It was not a question. "Someone's been wanting to speak to you inside. Go on in, but keep your wits about you, or Dragonsreach dungeon will be the last thing you ever see."

He stepped aside, leaving a confused Malys to force open the wooden gate to Whiterun. Who wants to talk to Me?!

Her answer waited in the street before Her, leaning alongside the house of the town blacksmith. When the cloaked figure noticed Malys making Her way into Whiterun proper, she strode forward, purpose in every step—

—and fired a blinding lightning bolt that exploded mere inches away from Malys' boots. The Dunmer leapt back with a cry, and several nearby guards brought hands to arms.

"What in Dagon's name is your prob—?!" Malys started to shout heatedly, but Her voice faltered when the figure lowered her hood, and revealed her face.

"vinye?" Malys was so confounded She forgot to be angry. "you'd better have a good reason … for … "

Malys trailed off as the high elf marched up to Her, and only then did the Dunmer see how angry vinye was. The expression on her olive face looked more severe than ever, and her vivid green eyes sparked with rage.

"You have not been honest with me, Malys Aryon of House Hlaalu," vinye snarled, an uncharacteristic sneer on her face as she emphasized the name with venomous fury. "You lied to me.

"Now tell me the truth, right now … or I will kill you where you stand."

Next chapter: Things come to a head in Whiterun, and blood will be spilled before the day is done.