Cautiously, we crossed the room, watching the frozen Falmer and Chaurus out of the corners of our eyes. As we neared the throne, Vyrthur sneered at me, not even bothering to lift his head from his palm.

"Did you really come here expecting to claim Auriel's Bow?" His voice was as pompous as any Thalmor agent; slightly nasally and full of self-superiority. The words would have been at home with any aristocrat berating a particularly stupid thief, and it set my hackles up.

He dropped his hand from his face briefly and straightened, sneering at me across the distance that the barrier forced between us. "You've done exactly as I've predicted, and you've even brought your fetching companion to me."

Serana startled a little next to me, "Wait… is he talking about me?"

She sounded bewildered, and I couldn't blame her. What did this snow elf expect from Serana? How could he possibly know what she was? The space that separated us and the barrier made it next to impossible to see small facial details.

He ignored her soft question, and continued to me; "Which, I'm sorry to say, means your usefulness is at an end!"

There was a cracking sound behind me, and I turned as quickly as I dared on the slippery floor. I was now facing several of the frozen Falmer coming to life… loosely speaking.

I grabbed Dawnbreaker and set to work, slicing and striking the flesh-turned-to-living ice creatures to shatter and chop them into pieces. I doubted very much that these poor beings, giant insect and Falmer alike, had families or even much of a will of their own anymore.

Several Falmer and Chaurus later, Vyrther didn't sound particularly distressed as we successfully fractured our opponents into pieces. "An impressive display, but a wasted effort. You delay nothing but your own death!"

Vyrthur made a complicated gesture with his hands and there was a pulse of white light that surged upward.

'Watch out!" Serana shouted, "He's pulling down the ceiling!"

I leaped back as something cracked above me, and a part of the white stone of the building broke free and tumbled down inches away. Sunlight streamed through the gap.

"Finish them!" Vyrthur barked, and more frozen beings shook off their icy shells and joined the fight.

"Your life ends here, Vyrthur!" Serana shattered several Chaurus at once with blasts of fire and turned toward him.

The snow elf's laughter was surprisingly bitter. "Child, my life ended long before you were born!"

Another section of ceiling crackled above me and I dove to the side, rolled, and came to my feet. Hundreds of pounds of stone crashed down on three frozen Falmer, accidentally crushing them instead of me.

I beheaded another Falmer with Dawnbreaker and glanced up at the Arch-Curate briefly before spinning to stab another through the chest. They weren't undead, technically, so no flames flared up on contact with the holy blade. But it served well enough to shatter them. His life already ended? Is that metaphorical, or something else? The thought nagged at me as I took out several more opponents. The things were surprisingly breakable, considering he was using them as front-line troops.

Again I scrambled out of the way of the falling ceiling. The place was getting pretty bright, and I made a face as my eyes burned at the sudden influx of sunlight from a clear, intensely blue sky. Serana had yanked her hood over her head hurriedly and was scowling in the shadows. A Chaurus writhed before its icy head turned to steam and it collapsed beneath her onslaught of magical fire.

As the last moving target shattered, Vyrthur finally rose from his throne with fury and frustration; "No... I won't let you ruin centuries of preparations…" He was no longer looking bored and indolent.

"Surrender and give us the bow!" Serana shouted.

"Death first!" Blinding blue-white light blazed up from him. I threw up an arm to shield my eyes as massive spikes of ice began to form around him.

"Get down!" Serana leaped on me, knocking me flat on my back as a magical explosion rocked the room.

The massive spears of ice flashed outward, shattering the remains of the room in all directions. Massive pieces of the building blew outward and plunged out of sight. The very edge of the blast sent me tumbling from my back to my stomach, and sent me sliding along the floor. The world whited out around me and a rumble, that was felt more than heard, made my bones tremble inside me. Just before I felt like I was going to be shaken to pieces, the word faded back into view. I could see the shattered remains of the walls, now only waist high, under the dome of blue sky. If either of us had been standing, we would have been ripped in half.

Serana had been knocked several feet away from me. She got to her feet first and came around in front of me, extending a hand to help me up. My entire body ached in ways that no common illness could have compared to, and my ears were filled with a high-pitched ringing. My girlfriend, splattered in blood that I knew had to be her own, ignored her wounds. She pressed a bottle of red liquid into my hand, and once I could string two concepts together in my head, I eagerly drank the healing potion.

The rush of healing made it possible to push myself to my feet as her words cut through the fading ringing. "Are you all right? Come on, we can do this. I know we can."

As I found my balance, large pieces of wall that hadn't been blown outward settled with heavy finality around us.

"He's up there," she continued, pointing beyond where the throne had once stood, "on the balcony. Come on!"

I followed her, jogging once we cleared the worst of the rubble, and noting the top of yet another wayshrine. It was nestled before a pair of staircases leading up to a balcony, where the whole of the vale could be seen from our high vantage point. Eurgh, he's probably been watching us this whole time. Creepy bastard.

Serana moved ahead of me, confronting the snow elf with a thunderous expression. "Enough, Vyrthur. Give us the bow!"

Arch-Curate Vyrthur was hunched over, clutching one arm that was clearly broken. His massive spell had given him a taste of flying debris even as he had stood at the focal point of it. "How dare you!" he snarled at her, "I was the Arch-Curate of Auri-El, girl. I had the ears of a god!"

Serana snorted and rolled her eyes, "Until the 'Betrayed' corrupted you. Yes, yes. We've heard this sad story."

"The Betrayed? Heh... heh heh heh… no. Not the Betrayed. Gelebor and his kind are easily manipulated fools. Look into my eyes, Serana. You tell me what I am."

He lifted his head and struggled to stand upright, facing her down. I finally got a close look at his face, and glowing yellow irises blazed back at us.

"You're... you're a vampire? But Auriel should have protected you…" Serana breathed.

"The moment I was infected by one of my own Initiates, Auri-El turned his back on me."

"That's not how it works, Vyrthur," I interjected, and his head snapped around to stare at me.

"What do you mean, mortal?" he sneered, "Do you claim to know how the gods think and work?"

"I work for a Divine and a Daedra," I retorted, "and yes, to some degree, I DO know how they work. Your infection was a test. A test you failed."

"What?!" The single snapped word had millennia of rising fury.

"The gods don't prevent you from being infected in the first place; they leave you to succeed or fail by action... or inaction." I crossed my arms and stared him in the eyes with all the scorn I could muster. "Three days, Vyrthur! It takes three days for a vampiric infection to come to completion. Three days where you could have taken action. Three days where you could have cured yourself through a potion or prayer."

"But.. Auri-El…. He stopped speaking to me! He turned his back on me!" The vampire snow elf sputtered.

I shook my head. "No. If you had gone to one of his shrines and offered a genuine prayer, he would have answered. A prayer takes only a few minutes, and a bit of humility. You had but to ask, not pompously demand. You had the honor of being the Arch-Curate... and the very first time you were tested, you turned on him like a spoiled, selfish child."

I could see realization dawning on the snow elf's face. So many years lost in bitterness and blame, cast upon a god who had simply been waiting for his Arch-Curate to do a single, simple task.

"Auri-El didn't abandon you," I repeated, "he was waiting for you to take care of the problem yourself. And you didn't. You sat around moaning for the whole three days, not once lifting a finger to help yourself. You did nothing but wallow in 'should haves' and 'why nots,' and in the end, the infection completed its course. That was when Auri-El truly turned away from you."

Bitterness crossed his face once more and he shook his head, "It matters not, now. It's far, far too late to change what happened. And in the end, I swore I'd have my revenge, no matter what the cost."

Serana raised an incredulous eyebrow, "You want to take revenge... on a god?"

Vyrthur raised his good shoulder in a half-shrug, as his other arm began to heal, "Auri-El himself may have been beyond my reach, but his influence on our world wasn't. All I needed was the blood of a vampire and his weapon, Auriel's Bow."

Serana stiffened, "The blood of a vampire... Auriel's Bow... It... it was you?! You created that prophecy?"

Vyrthur leered at her and eased closer so they were standing face to face, "A prophecy that lacked a single, final ingredient... the blood of a pure vampire. The blood of a Daughter of Coldharbour. The purest Daedric touch possible on an artifact of power for a Divine."

"...But at the same time, all of it is true. Even the falsehoods. Especially the falsehoods." Urag's words about the Elder Scrolls echoed in my head. Vyrthur had invented a prophecy, a complete lie. Because they contained everything that was, is, and could be, the prophecy had ended up in the scrolls. From there, it was a simple act to spread rumors and wait. Gods damn it! This is why I hate prophecies! No matter how many cow flops it's made out of, someone will decide it's pure gold instead, and work to make it happen!

Serana's hands lashed out with vampiric speed, catching the snow elf by surprise as she seized him by the collar of his armor and lifted him bodily off the ground, rage on her face. "You were waiting... all this time for someone with my blood to come along! You created a prophecy that my family suffered under, just so you could punish someone else for your failings?!" Her voice rose with the rage and pain of more than four thousand years: the destruction of her family, and the terrible treatment at the hands of a Daedric Prince and her father. "Well, too bad for you…" she gave him a sharp shake as the shocked snow elf stared down at her, "I intend on keeping it!" Her slender fangs flashed in the light as her expression twisted into an enraged snarl.

The shaking seemed to snap Vyrthur out of his surprise. "Ha! You have no dominion here! I was the Arch-Curate, and you are nothing more than a tool for my use. The prophecy's end approaches, and I'll have your blood; willingly or not!"

Blazing golden light flared around him, and Serana cried out in pain as the magically created sunlight bathed her face and upper torso. Vyrthur snarled his own pain, but remained focused. Taking advantage of Serana's struggles, he lifted a booted foot and kicked her in the chest, breaking free of her grip. Serana stumbled back and dropped into a half crouch before she could regain her balance. She was burned everywhere her skin had been exposed to the light spell, and I winced in sympathy. She wasn't up to third-degree burns, but it was a near thing. She would, and could, heal from it, but she would need blood when the fight finished.

Vyrthur hit the ground awkwardly and had to struggle to regain his balance. Having forgotten that I was still around, his scream was of surprise as well as pain as my first dragon-tipped arrow punched through his armor like it wasn't even there. I felt a rush of satisfaction to see that my fletching job was perfectly serviceable, as it buried itself in the shoulder of the arm that had just finished healing.

"How dare you, mortal?!" His nasal scream was pure outrage as he yanked the arrow free and shook out the wounded shoulder, healing rapidly.

"Not used to being attacked by the lowly peasants, eh, Arch-Curate?" I grinned back at him, cheeky and unrepentant. "Or should I say, Former Arch-Curate? Because I'm damned sure that status is long extinguished."

Serana surged to her feet and blasted the snow elf with a fireball, searing half of his hair off his head as he frantically slapped out the flames. I notched another arrow, eyeing the fight for an opening as Vyrthur and Serana began fighting at vampiric speed. He was launching ice magic at Serana, who shrugged it off. She retaliated by beginning to drain his life force, interspersed with flame spells.

"Pitiful sorcery. Your pathetic powers are no match for mine!" He sneered.

But she wasn't fighting with her all, I realized. Despite the anger and pain -both emotional and physical- she was fighting to keep him busy, not fighting out of rage and lack of control. She was trying to give me an opening. Even now, her thoughts were on fighting as a team.

I didn't have a lot of time; he would heal within minutes, so I had to shoot him in rapid succession. I drew an arrow, took aim, and loosed. The dragon bone-tipped arrow shot through the air and punched into Vyrthur's shoulder again.

"Centuries of preparation will not fall to ruin because of you!" he screamed at me in rage, "I will herald the fall of eternal night!"

A second arrow hit his other shoulder, crippling that one too. Dawnbreaker was then in my hand and I charged forward to take his head in a blaze of purifying fire, but my companion got to him first.

Serana formed an ice spear in her hands and lunged with a scream of pent-up fury and pain, punching it through the snow elf's chest.

He stared downward in shock, then the glow faded from his eyes, and as Vyrthur slumped, then collapsed in a heap before the panting Serana. A dark pool of blood formed beneath his still form.

I knelt to retrieve my arrows from his body, then tucked them into my quiver. I didn't speak. Serana had needed that opportunity to unleash her emotions. She deserved time to pull herself together without me saying something stupid or ineffectual.

As I glanced back at her, I saw she was still giving Vyrthur's body a look of pure hatred. If his corpse so much as spasmed, I suspected that she was going to beat the crap out of it just to release more pent-up emotions.

It was probably a good thing for both of us that the wayshrine decided to activate and rumble upwards behind us.