So, this is awkward. It's been a while, I know. Honestly, there's no excuse but writer's block/laziness. I'm sorry to anyone out there that enjoyed reading the story. I've reread what I've written so far and decided to continue. I hope you all enjoy, and I promise to not wait this long again.

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LYWEL

Darkness flooded Lywel's mind and threatened to consume his sanity. Had it been minutes, hours, eons since he had been in this wretched agony? There was no sense of time in the swirling maze, no direction that offered hope at a way out. Only his memories, taunting him endlessly of the suffering he had endured and given in his life.

Occasionally a brief moment of clarity would shine through, a false beacon of light to guide his way deeper into madness. During these moments he had decided that this was his punishment for his treacherous deeds toward humanity. A cruel punishment to be sure, as he was fairly sure he was not yet dead. Hunger and thirst could always faintly be felt when he was in this semi-lucid state, and the dead did not feel such things. Although death would most certainly offer some sort of release into the hands of something far more devious than his memories, at least then he would only be a shade of his former self. The punishment might be harsher in the afterlife, but the pain would be less.

Suddenly the light that was his rationale vanished, yet he could still see into the swirling darkness. How he wished he couldn't see, for the image of the person now approaching always brought the first, and most terrible, wave of sorrow. Not for the first time in this prison he wished he could claw out his eyes and cry tears of blood for the person that now approached him.

Her.

His best friend, his first love, heartbreak, and the very worse, true regret. All could be summed up in the woman who slowly sauntered toward him. She always came to him as he wanted to remember her. Head held high, the stubborn way she held her jaw, her crooked nose from a brawl that had once ended badly, and an air that was full of life.

A sob escaped his ragged throat as her steps slowed to a halt, not a foot away from him. She looked at him in the eyes and tenderly stroked his face. Like a mother would to a child in need of comfort, but her touch was cold. Her eyes filled with pain as she stared into his soul.

"How could you Lywel?"

If a scream could escape his throat it would have done so but he was rendered mute by her voice and held paralyzed by her gaze. She had warned him. She had warned him time and time again that the forces he had once dealt with were dangerous and fickle. Never would he had undertaken such foolish endeavors if he thought that she would have been harmed, if he knew she were to be touched by such darkness. He had been blinded by his arrogance at his premature rise into power, and lured into a fall sense of security by the ones he had once called friends.

She stared into his eyes as she spoke the words that haunted his nightmares since the fateful day he had destroyed everything he knew.

"Necromancy always pays its price."

She released him from her hold and melted into the rapidly approaching shadows. It was as they were beginning to surround him that he finally was able to scream.

Lywel laid still and cold on the bed as Danica Pure-Spring gently bathed his face with a cloth. These were the ones she hated the most. This one was only newly a man, yet his chances of waking from this sleep were dwindling by each passing day. Nearly two weeks of little water and no food had given him a drawn and withered appearance of a corpse but he continued to breathe as if in a deep slumber. Sighing heavily, Danica began to leave to tend to her other patients, stopping only to gaze sympathetically at Lywel once more.

"May Kynareth guide you," Danica murmured softly to Lywel before turning away.

As she walked to tend to others a new sense of calm suddenly rushed over her. She was still not happy to have to tend to a man close to death but her sadness was gone. She felt grounded and resolved to care of her other patients to the best of her ability. Whether they lived or died was up to Arkay but she could at least ease their passing or help them back into life.

As she walked away, with a new spring in her step, a man with a commanding gaze and a short, well-trimmed beard watched her pass from the doorway before stepping inside. Tall, and imposing, he filled the room with a decisive nature that commanded attention yet no one seemed to notice his presence. The man walked over to Lywel and knelt beside his bedside, staring intently at the young man's emaciated frame before he dropped an amulet on his chest and gave him a quiet whisper.

"You have much to atone for young mage, I have decided your time here is not yet done. Expunge your crimes from this life by completing the tasks fate has assigned you to play. Live your life to balance the weight of your former deeds."

With that the man stood and gently touched Lywel's brow, before walking away and disappearing into nothingness.

Later in the night the acolyte to Kynareth, Jenssen, was making his rounds on the patients of the temple. Lately he had been stopping at Lywel last. The man gave an air of impending death that made Jenssen uneasy. He had seen a few patients in such deep sleeps before, but they usually did not wake up and died soon after their eyes closed. Instead of dying, this man seemed ready to wither away to nothing.

He reluctantly started to tend to the young mage's fragile body before he noticed an amulet on Lywel's chest. Frowning, he quickly recognized it as an Amulet of Arkay.

It was strange to see the amulet in this temple. If patients asked for an amulet for prayer, Danica would give them an amulet of Kynareth. Jenssen supposed that one of the young man's companions could have come in and given it to him, but he had only seen the crippled one stop by to ask for his condition before quickly leaving.

Wanting a closer look, Jenssen reached out to pluck the amulet off his chest before a bony hand shot out and closed over his wrist. Letting out a shout of surprise Jenssen broke out of the hand's grip and jumped back in fright.

The formerly comatose patient eyes were now open and the offending hand that had closed over Jenssen's wrist was now tightly clasped over the amulet. His dark eyes, intently focused on Jenssen's, looked like dark pools that one might fall into if they looked too long.

"I'm afraid," Lywel's voice rasped, unused to speaking for so long, "that this belongs to me."

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Lywel's awake, yay, with the help of some divine intervention. I love the lore of the Elder Scrolls universe and I especially always liked the idea of Arkay. For those not too well versed on him, he is the God of the Cycle of Birth and Death. His priests are strict opponents of anything to do with Necromancy, wonder what he wants to do with Lywel then since he has such a shady past? Constructive criticism always welcome, hope you enjoyed and there is definitely more to come.