Ria and Athis had been training for almost an hour. Njada took the opportunity to repair the back of her helm where it covered her neck as the sound of practice swords striking each other accompanied her efforts. It took strength to force the sharp instrument through leather and hide before weaving it through the gaps in the chain mail liner. Njada was not sure whose hand was more cramped at the end of that hour, hers or Ria's.

It was only when the practice was concluded, the melody of the swords finally silent, that she could hear the argument that was taking place just on the other side of the wall that separated Jorrvaskr's great hall from its courtyard.

"Gods blood, will they never cease?" Ria asked as she sat across from Njada.

"It does not seem likely," Njada replied as she rubbed her cramped hand.

Ria took Njada's hand in her own and continued to massage it back to life as the two women listened to the words from within.

Skjor had received a message; that much was obvious to everyone who had been in the great hall at the time of its arrival. No one had been privy to its contents, and the taciturn Companion had consigned the parchment, and the information it contained, to the large hearth fire immediately after he read it. But it seemed that he had subsequently shared the essence of what was written in that letter with his old ally.

"Why does this continue to occupy your mind?" Aela asked.

"Because he openly defies us," was the answer given by the low rough voice that could not be mistaken for any other.

"He only defies you. It was you alone that threatened him in earnest. My threats were merely for sport. And he is doing nothing openly. The report you received has him hiding in a bunker in Gallows Rock. You act as if he sits under the Gildergreen and calls your name at the top of his voice."

Njada and Ria's eyes met as Ria continued to massage her lover's aching hand. Neither woman needed any explanation who it was that was reportedly hiding in a small fort in Eastmarch, a hold that should have been safe territory. Skjor had given Hylf a choice, flee Whiterun, and The Pale, or die. Hylf had chosen life, as any sane person would. Ria did not understand what cause Skjor had to complain.

"He is a member of the Silver Hand. They are our sworn enemies. Why is it that I am the only one who remembers that?" Skjor asked. It sounded to Ria that he and Aela were sitting only a few feet from her and Njada, while the stained glass window nearby vibrated as Skjor's fist struck the table in front of him in time with each word he spoke.

"Do you really intend to travel all the way to Eastmarch just to hunt down a man who has done exactly what you commanded him to do? How do you know that he will still be there when you arrive?"

"The report I received says that he has been placed there to guard a fragment of Wuuthrad. He has been ordered to guard it with his life," Skjor said, "I intend to relieve him of both his life and the fragment. At least one of us should remember who we are and what purpose we are called to serve."

"I do not forget who we are, Skjor; you know that well enough. And I know that, should we succeed in reforging Wuuthrad, you will be chosen to wield it. You are the strongest of us. But look you - does it seem reasonable that they would choose him to guard a fragment? He is no warrior, he is an assassin, and a spy. Would they not select someone else? Are you sure that this report is genuine?"

The argument had assumed a more reasonable tone, and the two women outside Jorrvaskr were forced to move closer to the wall so that their ears were almost touching the structure in order to hear what was said.

"They have scattered fragments across Skyrim. That much we know. If they have men guarding each fragment perhaps they begin to run short of men to accomplish the task."

"Perhaps," Aela said. Neither woman sitting at the table under the covered porch missed the note of skepticism in her voice.

The intervals of silence between the two members of the Inner Circle were growing longer as the fire of their disagreement burned itself out, but Ria was certain that the argument was not over. Like their earlier disagreements, this one was merely paused, to be continued at another date and time.

"I think it is time to visit Dralof again and see how his recovery progresses," Njada said quietly to the woman who had just finished massaging her hand. It was entirely pretextual as far as motivation went: barely two weeks had elapsed since their last visit; they knew quite well that their lover was fully functional, both in bed as well as out of it. Whatever deficiency in strength and mobility remained would be little more than a memory when winter set in again.

"What will we tell him once we arrive?" Ria asked. Whatever else was true, she and Njada were still Companions; their love for Dralof did not change that, "will we warn him of Skjor's intentions?"

The two women had never had their loyalties tested, not like Vilkas and Farkas had been tested by their attachment to Lucia and Runa, before they met Dralof. They had not experienced how one could be pulled in two different directions at the same time, as duty and love fought in opposition. They felt it strongly now. Each of them had spoken unkind words to the twins where it concerned Aric's daughters, and the attraction between them. Both of them knew that they owed Vilkas and Farkas an apology for those words, and the equally unkind thoughts that had remained unsaid.

"I do not know," Njada answered, " and I feel that I will not until I look into his eyes and my heart and brain have a conversation, and reach consensus."

Ria was well acquainted with the phenomena Njada described. Both of them, individually and jointly, had on more than one occasion arrived at the Silver Hand's still unnamed village with their minds made up only to take one look at the beautiful man whose life they had saved and allow their hearts to overthrow their minds. Except for what they felt for each other, neither woman had ever known a love as strong as what they felt for Dralof. An agreed upon course of action, which would have been reasonable had it involved any other man, was rendered useless when faced with the blond Nord, and the love that radiated from his face when he looked at them.

"I have no armor when it comes to him," Ria said, "I admit it freely. I am totally defenseless when he looks at me the way he does. I do not know what to do other than keep myself away from him, which in itself is more painful than anything I have endured."

"I know," Njada said as her hand came up to touch the face of the woman across from her. Athis observed his two friends from a short distance away and quietly found something that required him to be elsewhere.

Gwenyfe found almost any excuse to travel south in hope of catching a glimpse of her beautiful Thane. Her most frequent destination, which stood almost at the midpoint between their village and the Thane's home in the Pale, was the Vigilant's Hall.

Very few indications remained of the destruction and death that had occurred there. In the intervening years the structures had been rebuilt - not quite exactly as they were; but not so far from it either. It was the graveyard and shrine, a shrine that incorporated pieces of charred wood from the original building as well as personal items from each of the Vigilants who's bodies rested in the nearby graves, that was completely new. Gwenyfe had been present during one of the memorial ceremonies, and heard the names as Carcette read them from the sheet of parchment in her hands, though she could not remember any of them now.

"I knew all of them," Clesa said that day after the ceremony, "two of them were my age, and this was our first posting. The other four were old hands, and very wise. Both of our Healers died in the attack. They were the kindest women I have ever known. I was quite homesick in the beginning, and one of them took me under her wing. She was like a mother to me. I miss her terribly, even now."

Gwenyfe had visited the Vigilants many times since then, though most of those visits had occurred recently, after she had met Aric in person. And while no one came right out and stated plainly that they knew why she visited them so often, Carcette herself eventually began to greet Gwenyfe with some variation of Greetings, Gwenyfe. He is away at the moment, or Greetings Gwenyfe, he is at home should you wish to venture further south.

She did venture further south on those occasions, but only until she had a clear view of the house from her usual position on the road; a vantage point from which she could claim to be traveling to any number of destinations rather than standing like a lovesick maid in front of her desired lovers house, pining for his attention but not brave enough to march up to the house, knock on the door, and request that attention in plain words.

She had felt it almost immediately upon meeting him, and just as instantly she recognized that it was more than mere physical attraction. His was not the first attractive face attached to an equally attractive frame that Gwenyfe had seen. Several of those she had taken into her bed, or had been invited into theirs. But she had felt nothing like what she experienced when she finally met Aric. He was, by her reckoning, a decade older than she was, though no one would think it to look at him. Gwenyfe felt as if she was being drawn to him in the same manner that she was drawn to the ground beneath her feet; that an invisible force of attraction existed between them. She had attempted to speak with Vala about it after their brief meeting once the trio of Silver Hand had returned home, but it quickly became apparent that whatever dynamism existed between Gwenyfe and Aric was absent where Vala was concerned. She was attracted to him, there was no denying that; but hers was a more mundane form of physical desire. The same was true with Sharn. She and Gwenyfe had followed Aric at a distance for some time, and even then Gwenyfe felt the presence of that strong attraction that she could not name. She had not understood it at the time. Even later, after she had received the reply from Siobhan and learned that Aric was a Champion of Dibella, her mind did not make the connection between Dibella's gift to him and her infatuation, her obsession with him that drew her inexorably south. But now, as she sat upon her horse while the afternoon sun moved slowly across the sky overhead, she began to understand that it was Dibella that continued to guide her to this spot, and the house that stood upon it, a house that held nothing of interest to her, save for one beautiful thing.

It was her steady focus on the large house, while her mind traveled the well worn paths of the fantasy she had constructed of her and Aric, happily married with a gaggle of children running back and forth inside their imagined home, that caused her ears to miss the sound of an approaching horse until it was much too late.

"Madam, we meet again," the familiar voice with its beautiful accent said from behind her. Aric's first words were as effective as any paralyzing spell. Gwenyfe froze in her saddle, though her mind raced double time in compensation.

Merciful Gods, strike me dead, I beg you. What reason can I give for being here? Is there anything I can say that will not embarrass me to the point of suicide?

Aric could not read minds, but he had more than enough experience in his life, before and after his investiture as a Champion of Dibella and an Agent of Mara, to recognize a woman who had a particular thing on her mind.

Gwenyfe had still not turned around to look back at him by the time he stopped his horse next to hers and spoke quietly and gently to her again, her native tongue playing from his mouth like music.

"Would you like to come inside?"

The message had been delivered, setting Krev's plan into motion. It had a life of its own now, and it was for Krev, and the men he had chosen, to be ready for what followed. Half of his men were already camped within Gallow's Rock, the other half would arrive at Driftshade Refuge shortly and await their arrival after the deed was accomplished. Krev had not yet decided whether he would collect Skjor's head as a keepsake.

I can always send it to Soran, and then inform the Companions where it resides, and that it was Soran himself who had acquired it, Krev thought to himself as he crossed the imaginary boundary that separated The Pale from Eastmarch. His ability to stir up trouble where none previously existed was honed to a razor's edge, and any chance to inconvenience Soran and Hellina was too good an opportunity to pass up.

He had left nothing to chance. Enchanted silver weapons were few and far between, but Krev knew the ritual by which they were made, and while he had no magic of his own, he was more than capable of guiding any common mage through the process. They were now much poorer in the way of gold, but much richer in the way of weapons that were quite deadly to werebeasts, as well as the small pouches filled with enchanted silver, garlic, and sawdust. Skjor would walk into their trap in human form, Krev was certain of it; and it would be in human form that he died. Krev would ensure that he was present when the member of the Inner Circle drew his last breath so that he could watch the light in Skjor's eyes fade before going out forever. His face broke into a predator's smile as he imagined the sight.

I will enjoy that very much, he thought to himself.