CHAPTER FIFTEEN

~DO NOT LOSE THE MELODY IN THE RAPTURE OF ONE TRIUMPHANT NOTE ~

"And remember," warned Aela the Huntress, as they climbed the final flight of stairs to the Arcanaeum door, "do not touch anything. The College librarian doesn't bluff."

Vilkas waved a careless hand. "Aye, woman, we heard you."

"How many books can this place have, anyway?" Njada scoffed.

The answer, Rayya thought, was beyond conception. Aela led them into the famed library of the College of Winterhold, and though Rayya had braced for it, she alongside Vilkas and Njada were still overwhelmed at what they saw. It was a large circular room, well-lit and almost cosy, full of shelves that stretched to the ceiling, every available space packed with books. Books – every size, shape, colour, thickness, quality, some heaped tidily on tables, most standing erect on their shelves, protected by glass cabinets. Rayya was amazed. Solen was a big reader, and he'd amassed quite a library in Breezehome from his travels, but this was comparing a fork with a greatsword. "Ysgramor's hairy breeches, this is a lot of books," Njada murmured, and actually seemed intimidated.

Aela cast an amused eye over her gobsmacked comrades and nodded to the counter across the room. "Come on, slackjaws. Urag!"

An old white-haired Orc, thickly-bearded, long in the tusk, and severe in nature, appeared noiselessly from the shadows of a bookshelf. He was clad crisply in mage robes of honey-gold and maroon, and cast a jaundiced green eye over the windblown assembly trekking snow into his beloved Arcanaeum. "If I see so much as one mead-stain?"

"Relax, Orc, they'll mind their hands," Aela assured him, then glanced sternly over her shoulder. "They will, won't they?"

Njada and Vilkas both stared. They'd been forewarned, of course, about the formidable librarian of the College of Winterhold, but in many ways no one was really prepared for Urag, who defied every Orc expectation that existed in the minds of Nords. Then again, everything about this place challenged preconceived notion. Rayya hid a smile. It was her first time visiting the College of Winterhold as well, and she'd been impressed and intimidated from the moment she'd lain eye on the imposing fortress; perched on a lonely cliff far, far away from the rest of the Winterhold plateau, connected by a long narrow bridge that had no business staying up. Despite being buffeted ceaselessly by the frigid gales that blew from the ice-ridden Sea of Ghosts below, it was unusually warm and comfortable inside, and not remotely draughty. Magic, Rayya guessed, though she and the Companions knew nothing of such things.

Still, Vilkas and Njada had insisted on coming north with her and Aela after she'd explained her mission. Two was hardly enough to escort an Elder Scroll across the map. Besides, they'd been genuinely curious to visit a mages' hall, if only to scoff and be unimpressed at it. Rayya was fond of Vilkas and Njada, but she really had to roll her eyes at a warrior's thickness sometimes. What had they expected, some stuffy little study in the corner of a tavern? This was the foremost school of mages in northern Tamriel, of course it was going to be a spectacle!

Aela was no more magically inclined than the rest of them (except in the way that she was), but she'd visited the College several times during the months of the Dragon Crisis when she and Solen had travelled together, and Urag gro-Shub remembered her. "Huntress, wasn't it? Why are you and your companions here?"

"I think you know why." Aela leaned on the counter. "The Elder Scroll."

"Safe and sound." Urag nodded to the cabinet against the wall behind him. A faint gold glow emanated through the glass. "Don't tell me you're looking for another one." He peered between Rayya, Vilkas and Njada, and then realized, "The elf's not here, is he?"

"The elf is not," Rayya agreed. "He's sent us in his stead. I'm his wife, Rayya at-Mafurah. You know Aela, and this is the rest of the Circle, Vilkas and Njada Stonearm."

Vilkas studied a tome lying open on a table with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion, muttering about why anyone would subject their minds to unravelling such nonsense. Njada gripped the hilt of her weapon and eyed the bookshelves as if anticipating (or hoping) the numerous tomes to leap out and attack at any moment.

Urag arched his brow. "Right." He returned his attention to Aela and Rayya. "You're not here looking for another one, are you?"

"No need," said Aela. "We need to borrow the one you've got."

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you that an Elder Scroll isn't a library book. I don't let just anyone who walks in here look at it, let alone touch it."

"We're not anyone," said Aela, narrowing her silver eyes. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that Solen donated the Scroll after he no longer had need of it. He has need of it again."

"Then why didn't Solen come and fetch it himself?"

"He's occupied with matters of state." Aela had picked up quite a few handy turns of phrase from her hours spent in Whiterun's court. "He's on his way over even as we speak, but time is imperative."

Urag combed his beard thoughtfully. "Where are you taking it?"

"Fort Dawnguard," Rayya answered, "a stronghold of vampire hunters down by the south border."

"Baah. An Elder Scroll is not a weapon."

"We know. We're taking it there for a reading."

"You have a Moth Priest in Fort Dawnguard." Urag arched his bristling brow. "What's stopping you bringing –" Abruptly he thrust his arm between Rayya and Aela, a nimbus of rusty-orange magic aglow in his palm. The book Vilkas had just picked up abruptly zoomed out of his grip and into the Orc's, who cracked the tome shut and growled, "I didn't see you wash your hands."

Vilkas planted them on his hips and muttered something about it being 'just a book'. Aela quirked her brow. Urag pulled a soft rag from his sleeve and carefully wiped the tome clean of all traces of handling. "As I was saying, what's stopping you bringing the Moth Priest here instead?"

"Time," said Rayya flatly. "I'm sure the esteemed College will have heard of the vampire menace. Not only would it take months for a Moth Priest to reach Winterhold, he'd risk being found out and kidnapped by the Volkihar every step of the way north."

"The Volkihar clan? They're behind this nonsense? Just what use would they have with a Moth Priest?"

"What other reason? To read an Elder Scroll. They have one too."

"They what?" Urag dropped the tome on the counter. "Are you serious?"

Rayya and Aela shared a glance, as if coming to appreciate how Solen turned so many heads whenever he declared that he was Dragonborn. Reveals certainly get their attention. "I don't joke," said Rayya, "my husband does enough of that for the both of us. Urag, we need the Scroll. There's a prophecy we need to find out before the Volkihar does."

Urag gusted a sigh and drummed his fingers on the countertop. Rayya opened her mouth to continue her argument, but Aela stopped her with a slight shake of her head. Rayya held her tongue and waited.

Finally, Urag lifted his head. "When you finish your reading," he said, "the Scroll comes straight back. That's my condition."

Rayya smiled in relief. "Solen wouldn't have it any other way."

They gathered round the counter and watched in a mixture of amusement and fascination as Urag dispelled a considerable assortment of protective wards, triggers and magical traps over the Elder Scroll's cabinet. Finally he opened the glass casing and withdrew the object. Rayya had never seen an Elder Scroll before, and frankly she didn't immediately think much of it beyond it was going to be a pain to travel with. It was enormous, its casing somewhere between four and five feet in length, lightly gilded with a gemstone of ever-changing hue affixed in the centre like some eldritch seal. A soft golden light emanated from the object.

"So, that's an Elder Scroll," said Njada, tilting her head. "Most powerful object in existence or something, right? Dunno what all the fuss is about. I can see it just fine."

"It's shut," Aela explained. "Open it and you'll scramble your brains, if you're lucky."

Vilkas grimaced and took a cautionary pace back. "And you carried that thing across Skyrim, shield-sister?"

"Solen, mostly," Aela shrugged. "But we took turns."

Urag set it down on the countertop and procured a tailor-made sheath of unremarkable black fabric to wrap the object of immeasurable, unfathomable elder power in. "I'll take it," Rayya offered, since the others' backsides were occupied with shields, greatswords and bows, and scooped the Elder Scroll into her arms. It was much lighter than she'd expected, and was pleasantly surprised if a little unsettled to have the Scroll strapped across her shoulders.

"Anyone asks, you don't tell them," Urag growled. "I'd better not hear about you losing it, understand?"

"Crystal," said Aela. Drawing their cloaks tight around them and raising their hoods, they departed the Arcanaeum and stepped back out into the eternal winter of the north.

Rayya had only been up to Winterhold about three times in her life, and she could soundly put off a fourth visit for the rest of it. Besides the College, it was the coldest and most wretched corner of Skyrim. Almost no trees and growth, snow all year round, a miserable, pitiful populace and a township that barely counted for what it was. The Imperial reoccupation had seen them build some fresh cottages and invest in a rudimentary snow-ranger training outpost, which had tempted a trickle of life back into the wasteland, but the city still didn't amount to much more than the Jarl's longhouse, a merchant's shop and the tavern. At least the inn was warm, the tavernkeeper pleasant and the food surprisingly good, although the rooms were small and there were only two available. Vilkas, ever the gentleman, gave Rayya the bed and slept on the floor in his bedroll, fully-armoured. Njada all but had the second room to herself. Aela was a very light sleeper, given her condition, and didn't do much more than doze, practically on watch. At least it meant Rayya could sleep undisturbed through the night, swaddled under every fur blanket she could muster. She'd been more tired than usual these last weeks, and blamed the gloomy weather for tempting illness. The Elder Scroll stayed beside her, offering nothing in the way of warmth.

They set off after dawn the next morning, clinging to the backs of their shaggy horses. Rayya rode a different mare; she'd pushed Starfire so hard to Whiterun that the mare had split a hoof, which Rayya still felt guilty over. She'd left Starfire to rest and heal in the city stables with the promise of sugar-lumps with her every meal for the next six months. Her replacement, which the stablemaster called Ffrolde, was a much more stubborn creature, an old battle-scarred destrier who fought the bit at her every opportunity. Rayya supposed all horses did that with riders they didn't like, and Ffrolde disliked the cold immensely. "We're going back to warm Whiterun, you stupid nag," Rayya groused, as she scrambled to reclaim the reins yanked from frost-numbed fingers yet again. "Just calm down and walk straight!"

Aela rode at her side on a speckled roan, and couldn't help but grin wolfishly at Rayya's struggling efforts. "Still squabbling?"

"When did we stop?" Rayya lashed the reins around the saddlehorn and gave Ffrolde her head to pick out her own path. "I don't know why yours handles so well. You rarely ride."

"Likely why I got the easiest beast." Aela patted her gelding's thick, shaggy neck.

Rayya glanced back at Vilkas and Njada, who brought up the rear, then remembered that the Circle's secret was hardly a secret, and there was no one else but them upon the desolate Winterhold road. "Don't the horses smell it?"

"Aye," Aela nodded, "if I'm not wearing this." She produced a small fistful of purple flowers from a pouch on her hip. Even in the icy wind, Rayya caught a whiff of their strong, pungent scent. "Monkshood," said Aela. "It's an old Companion trick to disguise the smell of the wolf. When Solen and I still hunted together, he always packed some under the metal on his gauntlets and boots, so he wouldn't upset his horse."

Rayya chuckled. "Of course he did. Solen loves that animal."

"Is Ember the first he's owned?"

"Third. The first was a real Alik'r windracer – Tava, I think he called it, after our goddess of the sun and storm. Rode all over Hammerfell on that one's back. Sold it, I think, when he reached Cyrodiil, to help fund a new ship for his uncle."

"His uncle – the sailor, right? What happened to his old ship?"

"Sunk. The fool went after the Sea Elves, which left the Wandertern at the bottom of the Topal Bay, and him destitute in the Imperial City. Solen spent years hunting the Cyrodiil wilds trying to raise money for a new ship. His uncle didn't take to – oh, what did he call it? Landlubbing – as well as he did."

"Did he manage it?"

"Yes, eventually. Took out a loan, got his uncle back on the water. Unfortunately not long after, the hides and meat he was bringing in lost a lot of their old value. Some sort of new tax they imposed in the City that year. Anyway, that was when he started crossing the border to poach elk. They're worth small fortunes in Cyrodiil."

"Aye, that I know," Aela mused, and shook a scattering of snowflakes from her russet hair. "Done some trading with Imperial meat-merchants myself, when the jobs get light in Jorrvaskr. Still, Solen almost lost his head over it all, stupid man. Did he ever pay off that debt?"

Rayya shrugged. "I think we've been ambushed by a thug sent by a debt collector? The note was a bit vague, but it was only one thug, and by then Solen was a wholly-fledged Dragonborn, so you can imagine how that turned out."

Aela flashed her teeth in a grin. "That I can, Rayya." After a moment she realized, "Huntsman's eyes, we got distracted. What was the second horse?"

"Can't recall anything about it. Mustn't have been remarkable. Anyway, he's freely admitted that Ember's his favourite."

"What about you? Your horse... the black, wasn't it?"

"Starfire's a dependable creature, can ask for no better beast under the saddle in a fight; but my favourite I've ever ridden? My father's stallion, Fmeerhad. Silver and black, a spirited beauty. Riding him at full gallop was like riding silk, and he was smarter than any horse had a right to be. We all wept like babes when we had to put him down. Harpy scratch went bad and festered."

The day passed slowly. There was nowhere sheltered to stop and rest. They ate their rations on horseback and pushed on through the gloomy day. It was impossible to gain a sense of time in a sky permanently darkened by flurrying snow. Rayya's cloak felt frozen against her, and the awkward bulge of the Elder Scroll strapped fast to her back. "We ought to consider some shelter soon," Njada called, at some indiscernible point in time. "I've no intention of getting frostbit over this delivery mission."

"We can find a cave or something in the foothills," Vilkas shouted, pointing to the dark mass they kept ever-present to their right shoulders. "Worst comes the worst, we'll dig us a den in the drifts."

Snow caves. Rayya shuddered. Definitely her least favourite form of shelter, but a necessary one in this kind of barren landscape. But no sooner had she reached to retake command of Ffrolde's head when the mare jerked and halted, stamping and snorting. "Oh, come on," Rayya snapped, lunging for the reins. "We're finding a rest point, you daft nag."

Still Ffrolde fought, whinnying and stamping, and it was then that Rayya noticed the signs that went beyond a rebellious mare; ears pinned, eyes rolling, nostrils flared, hooves chopping anxious circles in the snow. Ffrolde was not the only horse shying at something only they could sense. "They smell something," Aela warned, turning her own nose to the wind. Her senses were far more acute in her other form, but still considerably sharper than a human's in her Nord skin.

Njada spotted them first, and her hand shot to her axe as the dark figures manifested from seemingly nowhere in the snow. "We got company."

Even in the poor daylight and the thick snowy conditions, it was easy to see their sudden company wore black, and their eyes glittered with uncanny hunger. Rayya cursed softly under her breath and reached for her crossbow. Her hand bumped the Elder Scroll, and she remembered she'd strapped her crossbow to a pack in her saddle, now awkward to reach.

Talk about being caught off-guard – we should've expected to be attacked. They'd been ambushed already on their journey north, two days out of Whiterun, quite by chance, by a roaming trio of young, feral vampires who'd mistaken the four travelling warriors as easy prey. Every one of them had been corrected on that error. That ambush had been a welcome reprieve from the monotony of travel. This one wasn't. Rayya only had to meet the watching eyes of the twelve vampires encircling them to know that this was premediated.

But this soon after leaving Winterhold? How did they even know to lay their trap here? Rayya gripped the hilt of one of her scimitars as she backed Ffrolde up to brush flanks with her companions' horses.

The vampires surrounded them, silent and watchful. But their hands stayed by their sides, their teeth stayed under their lips. Nothing like the savage trio in Whiterun Hold, who'd attacked the instant Aela had sniffed them out in the long grass. "What're they doing?" Njada muttered, unslinging her shield. "What are they waiting for?"

"My order," came a voice, smooth and light, almost courtly. A thirteenth vampire manifested just within the ambush circle. He wore close-fitting black leather and a cowl that completely shrouded his face. His short black cloak fluttered around his ankles. He held a gleaming silver blade in one hand, almost lazily. All the ensemble, coldly familiar.

Rayya drew her scimitar in one sweeping motion. "You."

Aela's bow was long drawn, an arrow's vanes pressed to her cheek. "You know him?"

"From Dimhollow." Rayya felt horribly conscious of the precious burden that rested on her back. "The Scroll thief."

The black-clad vampire laughed. "Is that what you've been calling me? How quaint. But I'm afraid that won't do at all."

"What do we call you, then?"

Rayya hadn't expected a response, let alone a name, and yet an identity was what the vampire gave her, as if he couldn't care less about it. He pulled off his hood and tugged down his mask, revealing a Bosmer's visage, coldly handsome, silver hair pulled in a tight knot at the back of his neck in a short rogue's tail. His face wasn't pinched into a predatory bat-like leer, as the lesser vampires' faces twisted to become; indeed, it looked perfectly normal, save for a thin blood-stripe across his lips, and the molten light that flickered in his dark, deep-set eyes.

"Gendolin," he declared, "champion of the Volkihar. An unexpected pleasure to make your acquaintance once again, Rayya of Hammerfell..."

He grinned, baring his long teeth. "But a pleasure, nonetheless."

"That's enough," growled Aela, and her arrow flew forth.

Gendolin moved almost faster than the eye could follow; he twisted, raised his arm, just enough for the arrow to whistle harmlessly past and nick a hole in his cloak. He grinned up at them. "That was lucky."

His hand moved, a deadly blur. Aela was already rolling out of the saddle, her monstrous instincts as quick as his. It was all the signal the battle needed, and in a dark rush the vampires converged.

Vilkas and Njada were off the saddles and on the ground before the first vampires reached them. Vilkas's greatsword moved, masterful strokes of Skyforge steel, and a vampire fell away screaming, striped with a fatal wound across the chest and a severed stump for an arm. Njada caught an incoming foe on her shield, her booted feet somehow finding purchase in the soft snow; she hardly wavered from her adversary's powerful charge, and when she pushed back, it was her foe that went sprawling. Her axe rose and fell once, mashing in the creature's face. "Rayya!" Njada snarled, as their horses took panicked flight into the snowstorm. "You'd better have your arse in this circle!"

"Where else would it be?" Rayya snapped back, leaping off Ffrolde's saddle. The old horse did not flee, and ignored the belt on her rump Rayya dealt with the flat of her sword. When Rayya's first vampire engaged her, hissing like a sep adder, the destrier reared with a fearsome whinny. Rayya's scimitars flashed, quick enough considering how cold and padded she was, and sent her opponent stumbling – right under Ffrolde's churning hooves, which mashed the vampire's back to paste. For just a moment, their eyes met, horse and rider; something they agreed on at last.

Then Ffrolde gargled with a tortured whinny; the next vampire manifested alongside her, and in one swift and decisive movement had disembowelled her. In the same fluid motion it rushed Rayya, deflecting the bite of her scimitars on its own light blade, and seized her wrist in a grip tight enough to buckle the metal plating of her gauntlet. Rayya yelled in pain as her arm was bent behind her, glimpsed a once-human face twisted horrifically with hunger move past her eyes, felt the claws wrench powerfully at the Scroll sheath on her back – then Aela's arrow spitted it through the neck with the Huntress's signature keen-eyed precision. Rayya wrestled the corpse off her and fell back tighter into the defensive knot the Companions had formed.

Then Rayya glimpsed, in the darkening mass of flurrying snow, Gendolin's black silhouette, poised in an archer's stance. "Aela!" she shouted, and knocked the Huntress off-balance. The arrow sang off her pauldron instead of locking in her heart. Aela swore and whirled for her attacker, just in time to watch Gendolin vanish like mist. "Coward!" Aela roared, and took her bow by the ends and smashed in the face of a vampire that had not even finished manifesting from invisibility in front of her.

"You expect these bloodsuckers to give a fair fight?" Njada snapped. She was fending off two at once, her shield badly buckled and bent, a purple bruise lashed across her face.

Vilkas snarled with pain as a distant vampire siphoned his strength with a life drain. He pushed through it with a warrior's dogged endurance and finished off the vampire he battled in front of him. Aela's arrow whistled for the life-drainer, who cut its channelled spell to vanish out of the arrow's path. "How many is that now?" Vilkas growled, panting for breath.

"Five," Aela answered. "There's still –"

Njada yelled with pain as Gendolin's arrow found her thigh. She lost her footing and crashed to the snow. Instantly three vampires manifested in front of her and lunged for her neck – Rayya and Vilkas leapt in their path, scimitars and broadsword flashing with strength and speed. Two retreated, wounded and hissing. One did not.

"Forget it," Njada gasped, snapping the arrow shaft as Rayya pulled her up. "Get out of here. We all know why they're here."

"Get out with what?" Rayya gestured to Ffrolde's cooling corpse. "We split and we're all dead."

"Not necessarily." Gendolin reappeared, poised upon the horse's body. "If you know why we're here, and how this will end, why draw it out? Surrender the Elder Scroll and we'll leave you with your lives."

"And some life that'd be," Rayya snarled, "as cattle for you vermin!" She bared her ivory scimitars in the dune-lion stance. "We are warriors of Skyrim, Gendolin of the Volkihar, and we will not surrender to malice and fear!"

Gendolin grinned. "Dear, dear. Won't your husband be disappointed."

He seemed to disappear, but into himself; the very light seemed sucked into his blackening body, which warped and twisted into something that wasn't remotely mer. Then Gendolin was gone – replaced by something else. Something tall, iron-grey, stretched, packed with steel muscle, the face warped completely into a bat-like visage – long ears pulled back to sharp points, the silver-white hair twisted in a braid of bronze ornament. Long claws stretched from long-fingered hands. It stood poised on the balls of its talon-like feet. Upon the taut grey skin of its chest rested a golden pendant that pulsed gently with the burnt amber light of its dark, pitted eyes.

But no... it wasn't an it. It wore Gendolin's smile, and when two lean, hooked limbs arched over its shoulders and snapped open into two-fingered wings, and lifted it hovering into the air, the vampire lord spoke with Gendolin's voice. "Kill them."

Aela shot. Her arrow splintered harmlessly over his heart. Gendolin's grin widened and he raised his left hand, wreathed in necrotic blue light. The fallen vampires stirred, cobwebbed in the same azure radiance. "Oh, Ruptga," Rayya swore weakly, as the slain vampires silently resumed their feet.

"Now or never, Aela," Vilkas murmured. Aela growled assent, and the whites of her eyes went black. Njada wore a crooked grin, and Rayya raised her blades. The enemy converged, and the Companions shouted their battlecries to Ysgramor –

Then Rayya choked as the air was crushed from her lungs, clenched by an invisible hand. In Gendolin's right palm glowed a rusty-orange light. Head spinning, Rayya hardly felt the ground vanish beneath her feet; Gendolin dragged her to him, as swiftly as that book had been pulled across the Arcanaeum; she could do nothing but struggle, weakly. Her neck settled into a very real hand, which crushed so tightly she felt her windpipe scrape against her spine. It was all she could do to keep her faltering eyes open as the Elder Scroll was torn from her back.

Not that that was going to last much longer. Gendolin's eyes, fathomless pits of terrible hunger, ate up her dwindling sight. He wanted to watch her die, the life crushed from her flesh and blood, inch by agonizing inch. The unbearable pain reached her bones as a drowning flood of silence engulfed her ears. Like the waves of the Far Shores... Rayya's eyes slid shut.

Suddenly freezing snow was pressing into her face, and she could breathe again, in fitful, ravenous starts. Dimly Rayya was aware of some unearthly creature screeching above her head, mingling with the throaty roars of some other demonic denizen... Breath by wheezing breath she filled her starved lungs, and the blackness lost its grip over her eyes, which she forced groggily open. Two immense shapes grappled and wrestled with terrifying speed and savagery over her body.

Gradually they resolved, and Rayya's stifled battlefire reignited. Her scimitars had fallen beside her; jerkily she grabbed them, dragged herself up against Ffrolde's cold, stiff haunch, draped over the horse's body when her shaky legs would not hold her. Gendolin and Aela locked claws and fangs and fought like the beasts they'd become, the vampire lord and the werewolf whirling in hurricanes of feral primality. Rayya had only seen Aela transformed once before, but never beheld her like this, in her element; this seething russet-furred mass of indestructible, howling wrath. She matched the vampiric abomination blow for blow, and it was her brute force that sent him staggering. Her maw was red, her fangs stained; Gendolin's arm was savaged, oozing blood. He fought one-handed, the other tightly grasping the Elder Scroll in the torn remains of its obscuring sheath.

Get it back, Rayya thought, staggering upright, though her head pounded and her lungs still burned. Must get it back... Solen...

A mighty blow sent Aela tumbling across the snow, but like a kickball against a stone wall she rebounded, and her talons lashed across Gendolin's bare torso, splitting the grey skin like parcel paper. He shrieked and sprang backwards and upwards; his wings beat once, carrying him into the air where he hung suspended by his own fell magic. Floating above the battlefield, his eyes burned into Rayya, who convulsed in horror at the remembered pain. His empty hand moved, began to glow...

Aela leapt between them, and suddenly Rayya felt herself upended onto the werewolf's back, face-down on a broad pelt of thick red hair. She yelped and clung to the seething, buckling bulk, terrified of falling off. Beneath her Aela was in full sprint. The ground lurched in sickening swoops beneath her powerful loping strides.

"Aela!" Rayya's voice rasped from her in a strangled whisper. Every word was a fresh agony. "Aela... stop!" Where was she going? She was leaving the battle behind! Gendolin had the Elder Scroll! Rayya looked back, saw the vampire lord poised in the air, unfollowing, withdrawing the Scroll from its tattered black case. Beneath him, Vilkas and Njada went down in a black tide of claws and red light. "Aela! They need us! Aela!"

"It's too late." Aela's voice was a whisper of what it was, darkened and distorted in the baritone of a beastly growl. "We lost."

The battlefield vanished in a swirl of white mist. Rayya tugged weakly at Aela's shoulder-fur. "Turn around! Dammit! We can't let him win, not again! Solen will –"

"He will never forgive me if I let you and the baby get torn apart," Aela snarled.

It took a moment for Rayya to realize what had just been said. "What?"

"You didn't know?" Aela didn't dare slow down or look back at her passenger, but her gravelly growl softened. "You have too many heartbeats, sister. I heard it the second I turned."

Rayya felt as if she was being choked all over again. Suddenly she couldn't breathe.