John's preparations for his journey continued well into the early hours, the faint orange light of the dawn creeping in from the edges of the gray horizon. With his pack replenished and heavier than before, he felt the familiar weight of obligation pressing on his shoulders. Not as much as he had initially packed when heading from Whiterun, but if the maps were correct, then the Hall of the Vigilants should be a fairly short distance, maybe a day or so from the fort.
Though, he mused, this wasn't just a trek to the Vigilants anymore. It felt like he was walking into the jaws of a storm.
Quite literally, he might add. The snowstorm may have abated, but that didn't mean it would stay that way, knowing his luck.
Adjusting the strap of his pack, he tightened his grip on the hilt of the Daedric artifact at his back. As much as he wanted to keep it wrapped, he had found the initial wraps had frozen over from the weather, brittle enough that a slight touch had made them crumble into shards. He had thought of buying more wraps, only to stop himself.
Not because he couldn't find them. The quartermaster had plenty of spare cloth, burlap, and leather strips to offer for a price. No, John had stopped himself because, deep down, he knew it wouldn't matter. He could lie to himself, say it was practicality that stayed his hand - "What's the point? It'll just freeze again." - but he'd seen through that excuse before he'd even finished thinking it. It wasn't about the cold. It wasn't about the cloth. It was about control.
The Ebony Blade didn't want to be wrapped. That much was clear.
He knew how it sounded, superstitious nonsense, magical paranoia, but after everything he'd seen, after everything he'd done, it was hard to deny the truth staring him in the face. The Blade wasn't just a tool. It wasn't steel and leather and edge alone. It had…presence. Not like the weapons he'd used back home, not like the clean, efficient tools of his old trade. Those guns, knives, and garrotes were quiet. Practical. Predictable.
The Ebony Blade was none of those things.
Even now, with the sun creeping higher and the frostbite air gnawing at the edges of his scarf, he could feel it. The same way he could feel eyes on the back of his head in a crowded club. The same way he'd once known that Perkins had broken the rules and was coming for him at The Continental. Instinct. Awareness. The knowledge that something unseen was paying attention to him in the same way a predator watched a wounded animal.
He could feel the Blade doing that now. A low thrum beneath his ribs. Not a sound. Not a vibration. Just…existing.
He'd never been one to give in to fear. Fear made you hesitate, made you slow, and a slow man was a dead man. But this wasn't fear. It was something sharper. The awareness of something just a little too close, too focused, too quiet. It wasn't looking at him. It was waiting for him. For the right moment. For the moment he slipped.
He didn't like that. Not one damn bit.
If the Blade had a response, it didn't offer one. It never did. It simply was, a quiet weight on his back, heavy as sin and twice as stubborn.
The comparison he instinctively made to himself made him feel disgusted.
John's boots crunched steadily through the snow, every step a slow, deliberate rhythm in the vast, hollow quiet of the Pale. Frost clung to his cloak like cobwebs, brittle, and the sharp scent of pine and cold iron filled the air.
He kept his eyes forward, locked on the road ahead, but something gnawed at the edge of his mind. Not loud. Not urgent. Just there, like a stone caught in the tread of his boot. It had been there since he left the fort, since the gates creaked shut behind him.
'Should've said something to the Legate.'
His eyes narrowed, jaw tightening as his gaze stayed fixed on the path. He didn't stop walking, didn't slow down. But the thought kept pulling at him, steady as the weight of the Blade on his back.
'You should've said something. A nod, at least. Maybe a thank you.'
Legate Rikke had, after all, allowed him to stay the night. No real interrogation. No drawn swords. No questions sharper than a soldier's usual suspicion. And that wasn't nothing. Not here. Not now.
She could have sent him away. Could have left him to freeze in the storm outside the walls like some wandering beggar. Instead, she'd let him stay. Let him sit by the fire. Let him eat.
That wasn't something you ignored.
The voice wouldn't stop.
Soft, persistent, and far too familiar.
"Should've said something, John. You're better than that."
He flinched, barely noticeable, but it happened. His boots dug into the snow a fraction harder than necessary. His pace didn't slow, but something about his steps felt heavier. Sharper. His brow furrowed, and he glanced to the side, as if expecting to see someone walking beside him.
No one was there. Of course no one was there.
But the voice didn't leave. It wasn't the voice of a soldier. It wasn't the voice of the Blade either — that thing didn't speak in words. It didn't need to. Its intent was felt, not heard. This, though? This was something else. Quieter. Softer. Not an order, not a threat. Just a suggestion.
"Should've at least nodded, John. You know better."
His jaw set tight as he exhaled slowly through his nose, letting the fog of his breath curl in front of him like smoke from a dying fire. He hated that voice. Hated the familiarity of it. Not the sound of it, but the weight of it. The shape of it. He knew this voice like he knew the sound of his own heartbeat.
He thought he'd killed that part of himself a long time ago. His conscience. Buried it under piles of broken bones and spent casings. But here it was, rising up like frost creeping back onto warm glass. Back then, his conscience had been nothing but noise. Static he'd learned to ignore. Now, it felt more like a whisper from something too stubborn to die.
"Don't pretend you don't hear me, John."
He stopped walking.
When had it become dark? Just minutes before, the sun was still high in the sky, though the cold hadn't abated. More than that, where the hell was he? Before him was a ruin of some sort, circular in nature. Whatever this was, this hadn't been on his map when-
His breath caught in his throat, sharp and shallow. His fingers curled tighter on the strap of his pack. His heart didn't race - not yet - but it beat harder, slower, like it knew it had to be ready for something.
There. In the center of the ruin.
A figure.
It wasn't there a second ago. He was sure of it. There had been nothing but frost and shadow. Now there was someone. Someone standing where no one should be. She stood in the center of the broken circle, her figure hazy like smoke rising from a snuffed-out candle. Her features were hard to see, just an outline at first, but as John's eyes narrowed, the fog of her shape took form.
His heart stopped.
It wasn't possible.
'No. No, no, no.'
Her hair moved like it was caught in a breeze he couldn't feel. Her eyes were soft but sharp, the way he remembered them, filled with all the warmth the world had stolen from him. Her smile was small, just the corner of her lips curling, the same smile she used to give him when he'd walk in after a long day, beaten and tired, and she'd just say, "Welcome home."
Helen.
His breath hitched, chest rising like he'd taken a punch to the ribs. His legs locked, feet planted, frozen in place like they'd been fused to the ground.
She tilted her head at him, that same tilt she always did when she was about to tease him. Her hands folded in front of her, graceful, calm, gentle. The snow didn't touch her. The cold didn't reach her. She didn't belong in this place, but there she was.
"Helen." He whispered, his voice raw and broken. His lips barely moved. He hated how his voice sounded in that moment, too soft, too exposed. He didn't like hearing himself like that.
Her eyes found his, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought maybe this was real. Maybe, somehow, some way, this wasn't another cruel trick of a world that had already taken too much from him.
He took a step forward. His breath caught. He didn't realize he'd done it until his boot touched the ground.
Another step.
His chest felt tight, and not from the cold. His throat felt raw.
"Helen?" He said again, louder this time. His eyes flicked over her, scanning for some sign, any sign, that this wasn't just his mind playing games. Her eyes met his, and she blinked slowly, just like she used to when she was tired and still tried to stay awake long enough to talk to him.
He took another step forward, his breath shallow, his hands hanging loose at his sides. His fingers twitched, like they wanted to reach for her but didn't quite believe they could.
"John." She said softly, her voice like distant thunder on the horizon. Her smile widened just a little.
He stopped. The snow crunched underfoot, sharp and loud.
His eyes stayed locked on hers, his breath coming out slow and shallow like he was afraid of making too much noise. She looked at him the way she always had, steady, patient, like she was seeing through him rather than at him. It was everything he wanted and nothing he trusted.
"No." He muttered, his voice barely a breath, but it cut through the silence all the same. His eyes flicked down to her hands, still folded, still calm. Her eyes. Her smile. Too perfect. Too familiar.
Not real.
His heart slowed, each beat deliberate, like a metronome counting the seconds before the storm hit.
"Don't." He said, louder this time. His hand twitched, fingers flexing toward the hilt of the Ebony Blade strapped to his back. The warmth was subtle at first — a dull heat against his spine, like a fire just beginning to smolder. But it didn't stay subtle for long.
It grew.
Hotter. Angrier.
Not like the warmth of a campfire or a hearth. No, this was a different kind of heat. It crawled up his back, burned along his spine, not painful but demanding. Urgent. The kind of heat that made you move whether you wanted to or not. His breath came shorter, sharper.
'It's not her. You know it's not her.'
The weight of the Blade shifted, just slightly, like it was pressing itself into his back, digging in as if to remind him it was there. He'd felt it before, that faint hum of awareness, like a watchful gaze. But this wasn't a gaze. This was a snarl.
The heat curled into his chest, and he knew, knew without a doubt, that it wasn't just reacting to the figure in front of him. It was furious. A cold, seething kind of fury that didn't come from him. It came from it.
The Blade didn't like this.
Not the snow. Not the ruin. Not her.
He saw it now. The way the snow didn't touch her. The way the wind didn't shift her hair. The way her smile was just a little too perfect, like something imitating a memory rather than living it.
"John," She said again, her voice lower now, breathy, like air slipping through a crack in a door. "You don't have to be alone. I'm here now. We're here now. You've carried so much. So much weight. Just set it down. Just for a little while."
John's eyes stayed locked on her, his grip tightening instinctively around the strap of his pack. The warmth from the Ebony Blade behind him surged, spreading like wildfire along his back and into his arms. It wasn't a warning. It was a command. Move.
"No." He said firmly, his voice cutting through the frozen air like a dagger. His breath fogged the air in front of him, steady and deliberate. "You're not her."
The smile on her face twitched, her head tilting again, this time further than before, unnaturally far, like a broken doll. Her serene demeanor fractured, the illusion crumbling. Her form rippled, shifting as the fog around her thickened, coiling at her feet like restless serpents. The smile twisted into something grotesque, her sharp features elongating, the softness of her face giving way to a skeletal, angular countenance.
"You dare reject me?" She hissed, her voice splintering into layers, sharp, echoing, inhuman. The gentle tones that had mimicked Helen were gone, replaced by something ancient and cold, a voice that scraped against the air like ice cracking under pressure.
The figure erupted in a swirl of mist and frost, her form shedding its human pretense entirely. What stood before him now was otherworldly, a ghostly, ethereal being of icy light, her translucent form billowing like tattered silk caught in an eternal wind. Her face was sharp, alien, her glowing eyes cold and hollow. Long, jagged fingers extended from her hands, their edges shimmering like frostbitten blades.
John's muscles coiled as the air around him dropped to a biting chill. The ruin trembled faintly beneath his boots, the sound of the wind rising to a piercing wail. Orbs of cold, pale light began to materialize around her, small, glowing spheres that pulsed with an eerie rhythm.
John didn't know what they were, but he knew enough to keep his focus sharp. The orbs moved too deliberately, too fast, circling her like sharks scenting blood. His instincts screamed at him to move, to act, but he stayed grounded, watching, waiting.
"You will regret this." The apparition snarled, her voice no longer layered with false warmth. Her arms stretched outward, her misty form elongating as the orbs spun faster, glowing brighter. "You should have embraced the quiet death I offered. Now? I will make sure you suffer through every single moment."
Even in the approaching darkness and cold, John scoffed. Against someone who dared to take the form of his wife?
John would make sure it suffered a hundredfold.
…
Commissioned by: brutalcrab
A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.
And a special thanks to: FireRogueWolf25, brutalcrab and Tassimo.