The chamber beyond Sky Haven Temple's blood-sealed gate was vast, quiet, and ancient in a way that made even breathing feel disrespectful. Torchlight rolled across weathered stone and gilded carvings, chasing shadows over the great wall of the chamber where the dragon mural stretched from end to end like a frozen memory.
Delphine stood near the base of it with arms crossed, her face lit by fire and frustration in equal measure. Esbern, by contrast, looked almost boyish in his awe. He moved slowly along the mural, fingers hovering near the carvings without quite touching them, his eyes wide behind the lenses of his spectacles.
"Alduin," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "There can be no doubt. This mural depicts the World-Eater's return… and more importantly, the ancient Nords' attempt to stop him."
Eradros stood a few paces back, gaze moving over the wall with quiet attention. Beside him, Taviiah watched with her usual unreadable stillness, arms folded, eyes narrowing whenever Esbern paused too long on one detail. Gavhelus, meanwhile, had found a stone bench near one of the pillars and slouched across it with all the solemnity of a man attending his own execution.
Delphine glanced back at Esbern. "You said this place might have answers. I'd prefer one we can actually use."
Esbern nodded distractedly, still studying the mural. "Yes, yes, of course. This panel here—see? Alduin's dominion. The dragons ruling openly. And here…" He moved a few steps to the right, gesturing to a cluster of carved figures. "These must be the ancient Nord heroes. The ones who opposed him. This entire wall is a history, Delphine. A warning preserved in stone."
Delphine exhaled through her nose. "Lovely. Now the practical version?"
From the bench came a soft snore.
Delphine's eyes flicked toward Gavhelus, then to Eradros. "Charming company you people keep."
Eradros smirked faintly. "He's useful in… other situations."
Esbern ignored them, already moving toward a low stone table near the wall where a number of old texts and scroll cases had been stored. Time had not been kind to them, but some were intact enough to open. He carefully unrolled one, brow furrowing as his eyes raced over the faded script.
Delphine paced a few steps, then stopped. "Even if this place confirms what Alduin is, that still leaves the same problem. We need a dragon. A live one. We can't force one to land where we want, and the moment we get close enough to try anything clever, we'll be ash."
Eradros's expression shifted slightly at that. "Bhishiir seemed to think otherwise."
Taviiah glanced toward him. "Right. There was something else written at the bottom of the note."
Eradros reached into his armor and produced the folded scrap Bhishiir had left behind them. He opened it and read aloud, his voice dry.
"If one wishes to catch a dragon… one must simply reach."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Delphine's mouth tightened. "I swear to the gods, of course it's a riddle."
From the bench, Gavhelus snorted awake just enough to mumble, "Mm. Sounds like'im." Then he promptly sagged back into half-sleep.
Esbern actually smiled.
Delphine pointed at him. "Don't encourage it."
"I can't help it," Esbern said, adjusting his spectacles as he took the note from Eradros. "It is rather amusing. Infuriating, yes—but amusing. And very much Bhishiir."
Delphine muttered something under her breath and turned away again.
Esbern read the line twice, then a third time, his smile slowly fading into concentration. "If one wishes to catch a dragon…" He looked up toward the mural, then back to the text in his hand. "One must simply reach…"
Taviiah tilted her head. "You're stuck on the wrong part."
Esbern blinked. "Explain."
"The end," she said. "You keep thinking about catching."
Eradros's eyes narrowed a touch. He repeated the phrase quietly, more to himself now.
"...one must simply reach."
He looked at Taviiah.
Then past her.
Then his gaze slid toward Esbern.
Esbern had already gone very still.
Delphine huffed. "Well?"
Esbern turned slowly, his excitement returning in a rush. He moved to one of the open texts and flipped through it with trembling hands until he found the passage he wanted.
"Here," he said. "An old account from the reign of Olaf One-Eye. Most think of it as court myth, but if this is accurate…" He looked up, voice rising. "Dragonsreach."
Delphine frowned. "What about it?"
Esbern tapped the page. "It wasn't simply named for grandeur. It was built with purpose. A fortress designed, at least in part, to hold a dragon."
That finally dragged Gavhelus fully upright.
"…Come again?"
Esbern's eyes shone. "The name. Dragonsreach. Not just a hall that reaches skyward, but a place that reaches for a dragon." He held up Bhishiir's note with growing delight. "That sneaky little devil. He was pointing us here the entire time."
Delphine stared at the mural, then at the note, then back at Esbern. "You're telling me the answer was actually sitting in that lunatic's riddle?"
Eradros folded his arms. "Wouldn't be the first time he solved a room before the rest of us realized there was a question."
Esbern let out a breath of laughter. "Marvelous. Absolutely maddening, but marvelous."
Delphine shook her head, equal parts irritated and impressed. "You'd think he'd take this more seriously. And yet… somehow he keeps being present for the parts that matter without actually being present at all."
Esbern chuckled. "A rare talent."
Taviiah's gaze moved between them all, then settled on Delphine. "So. We trap a dragon in Dragonsreach. Then what?"
Delphine's expression hardened, purpose settling over her again. "Then we use it. We force it to tell us what we need to know about Alduin."
Gavhelus dragged a hand down his face and groaned. "Brilliant. We've gone from killin' dragons to bloody trappin' one. I wonder what kinda pets they make."
"Not very good ones, according to One-Eye's testimony," Esbern replied. "But that's our best bet."
Eradros gave a small, humorless smile. "At least now we know where to start."
The torchlight crackled. The mural loomed over them in ancient silence. For one brief moment, the path ahead felt almost clear.
Then, far from Sky Haven, in the cold dark beneath Morthal—
Steel screamed.
And Kin's battle with Movarth deepened into something far uglier.
Kin's blade met Movarth's blood magic in a burst of sparks, the impact so violent it rang through the entire atrium. He twisted, caught the return swing on the flat, and shoved off—only for Movarth to be on him again at once, laughing low in the dark.
Another clash.
Then two more followed.
Each strike came heavier than the last, the vampire lord driving him backward across broken stone with inhuman force. Kin's boots skidded, his shoulders straining with every block. Movarth moved entirely too fast for his size, every step predatory, grin widening each time Kin barely survived the exchange.
"Good," Movarth hissed, eyes gleaming red in the gloom. "Struggle for me."
Kin bared his teeth and met the next blow head-on.
The impact exploded through his arms.
His guard held for half a second—then shattered.
The force hurled him skyward.
Kin spun upward, cloak snapping behind him as the floor dropped away beneath his feet. He started to right himself—
A pale hand shot up and clamped around his leg.
Claws dug through leather and into flesh.
Kin sucked in a sharp breath through gritted teeth.
Movarth grinned up at him, savage and delighted. "I wonder..."
Then he swung him. "If the dragonborn..."
Once.
Twice.
The whole world became a violent blur of stone, torchlight, and red eyes.
And then Movarth let go.
"...Can fly!"
Kin went hurtling toward the upper wall of the atrium like a stone from a siege engine.
For one razor-thin instant, death rushed up to meet him.
Then his lips parted.
A whisper escaped them—small, precise, sharpened by desperation and practice.
The air bent.
His body struck the wall—
—and stopped.
Boots planted hard against the vertical stone.
A sharp crack spidered through the masonry beneath his feet, but he held.
A thin trail of breath spilled from his mouth, pale in the cold dark, curling downward as dust and grit rained past him through the shaft of torchlight.
Below, Movarth stood at the center of the atrium, looking up.
Kin slowly raised his head and stared back down at him, murder in his eyes.
Movarth's grin lingered for only a moment. Then his expression shifted. He lifted the hand that had caught Kin by the leg, dark blood glistening across his nails. Curious, he dragged one claw across his tongue.
His smile thinned.
"Hmm." His crimson eyes narrowed. "Definitely Dragonborn… but wrong somehow. Almost…" He tasted it again, brow creasing with eerie fascination. "Artificial."
Kin's body tensed.
He launched anyway—pushing off the wall in a burst of air, diving toward Movarth with his blade drawn, but his focus had slipped—just enough. The word hit him harder than the throw had. For a single, fatal beat, it caught him off guard. As he came down with a savage slash, Movarth vanished into a swirl of red mist.
Kin's blade carved through empty air.
Then the temperature behind him dropped.
Movarth reappeared at his back with one hand raised. Blood rushed to his palm from the grate, twisting together in an instant—forming the broad, gleaming edge of a crimson axe. His smile deepened into something feverish.
"Now I have to see those insides."
Kin's eyes widened. So did everyone else's.
He knew at once he could not get clear in time. He twisted and threw up his metal arm just as the axe came down with murderous speed.
The impact was catastrophic.
The blood blade crashed against his arm and drove him bodily into the iron grate beneath him. Metal shrieked. The grate bent inward beneath the force, rattling the whole chamber. Sparks burst from the point of contact in violent sprays of red and gold.
Movarth lifted his other hand. More blood spiraled to it at once, forming a second axe.
Then he began to hack.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every strike slammed Kin deeper into the warped grate, sparks exploding with each hit as the metal arm groaned under the punishment. Movarth laughed through it all, wild and manic, his eyes blazing.
"Come on, Dragonborn!" he snarled between blows. "Just a little peek!"
Minevi's eyes flashed white.
She had already been irritated by Bhishiir's detached fascination with the arm. Watching Movarth test it like some rabid scholar finally snapped the last thread of her patience.
"The arm fucking works," she growled. "Now I'm ending this."
She burst into motion.
Minevi charged low and fast, boots hammering the stone with predatory intent. But Movarth reacted before he even looked at her—like the blood itself had warned him. His smile vanished instantly.
"Don't interfere, dearie," he said coldly. "You'll lose your head."
Minevi felt death a heartbeat before she saw him move.
She dropped into a slide, shield raised.
A crimson axe screamed across the air above her—a shining horizon of death. It smashed into her shield with a shriek of tortured metal, dark red and gold sparks flying in a vicious arc as she slid beneath it.
She came up hard on one knee, planting her feet—
But Movarth was already there.
He appeared directly in front of her and struck.
Minevi got her shield up just in time, but the blow still blasted through her guard and sent her skidding backward across the floor. One of Movarth's axes flowed and narrowed in his grip, its edge reshaping into a wicked blood-red spike.
Then he was gone again.
Minevi's breath caught. She could almost feel the predatory intent creeping up behind her.
But before she could turn into the waiting blade, a shout split the chamber.
The next instant, Movarth's arm went spinning through the air.
He recoiled, more shocked than pained, black-red blood spraying across the stone as he looked up.
Kin hovered between them.
His metal arm was braced at Minevi's back, steadying her. His other blade had just sheared clean through Movarth's limb. His eyes were feral, lit by something deeper than anger.
"Don't you dare…"
The elbow of the metal arm split open with a sharp mechanical snap. Fire roared from within.
Kin pushed off Minevi into a twisting spin.
"—TAKE YOUR EYES OFF ME!"
His metal fist, pushed by the flames, crashed into Movarth's face.
The flames erupted hotter on impact, blasting outward in a violent bloom as every ounce of Kin's strength went into the strike. The punch folded Movarth's head sideways and launched him across the atrium like a cannon shot.
He slammed into the far wall with a deafening explosion, stone and metal erupting outward in a storm of smoke, rubble, and fire.
For a moment, no one moved.
Dust rolled through the atrium in great choking waves. Bits of loosened stone clattered down from above. Kin dropped out of the air a second later, landing in a rough crouch before one knee hit the floor. The metal arm smoked at the seams, heat hissing from within. In the socket at the forearm, the soul gem had gone dull.
With a sharp mechanical click, it ejected.
The spent gem bounced once across the stone.
Then again.
Then skittered off into the dark.
Kin stayed where he was, breathing hard. Every part of him ached. His ribs burned. His leg throbbed where Movarth's claws had bitten through leather and flesh. The metal arm hung heavy now, its last burst of fire spent.
Behind him, Minevi approached carefully.
"Kin…" Her voice was quieter than usual, stripped of its edge. "I was sure I was dead. But you…"
Kin turned his head toward her, still breathing through the pain.
"Are you hurt?"
Minevi stared at him for a beat, then let out something between a breath and a disbelieving laugh.
From the far side of the chamber, Passha and Bhishiir emerged through the settling dust.
"That's our line," Passha said dryly.
The haze thinned.
That's when they saw him.
Movarth hung pinned to the far wall by a jagged spike of broken metal and stone. It had punched clean through his back and out his chest, burying him in the ruined masonry like prey on a butcher's hook. Blood ran black-red from the wound, dribbling down the spike in slow streams. His remaining hand clenched weakly around it as if sheer spite might pull him free.
He couldn't move.
But he was still alive.
Blood bubbled from his mouth with every breath. He coughed once, then again, crimson spilling down his chin.
Kin rose slowly and began to walk.
His footsteps echoed through the hollow chamber.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Until he stood just in front of the monster.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Kin simply stared into Movarth's eyes, chest rising and falling, soot and blood streaked across his face. Movarth glared back through the pain, lips wet with blood, his expression still somehow clinging to that same awful amusement.
Kin's jaw tightened.
"Guess I'm the bigger monster."
A beat passed.
Then Movarth smiled.
He spat blood at Kin's boots.
"Maybe so," he wheezed. "But you don't own the right to it."
His body trembled around the spike. The strength was leaving him now. Even so, his eyes never left Kin.
"And deep down…" he rasped, voice wet and failing, "I think you knew that all along."
He gave one last painful chuckle.
Then his head fell slack.
The hand clutching the spike loosened.
And Movarth died there—impaled against the wall, smiling through blood like he'd managed one final cruelty on the way out.
The words clung to Kin's mind harder than he'd liked. He wanted to brush them away—forget about anything that lunatic said, and write it all off as gibberish.
But he couldn't.
He stared at Movarth's lifeless corpse silently, his arm still hissing from the discharge. The silence was soon broken by the sound of clapping. He turned to see Bhishiir and the others.
"This one is impressed," Bhishiir mused as his applause ended. "Bhishiir installed the rear discharge valve, but did not think it would serve so soon."
"During the fight…" Passha said, hand clutching her chin. "He called you… artificial. Is it possible Movarth knew something we didn't?"
Kin turned around, his face seeming bothered but calm. "He's dead now. Who gives a damn?"
Slowly, he started walking towards the exit. Each step he took was heavy, but he didn't complain. He didn't say anything. Passha said nothing in response either. She simply turned and followed him out.
The chamber had gone quiet now.
Movarth hung dead against the wall. Bhishiir stooped to retrieve the spent soul gem, turning it over in his claws as if the fight had ended exactly as expected.
Minevi stared at him in disbelief.
"You really just stood there," she snapped. "You watched that thing hack into him like a piece of meat."
Bhishiir didn't look up. "It was quite the spectacle."
Minevi stepped toward him, furious. "He nearly died!"
"No," Bhishiir said flatly. He tucked the gem into his coat and finally met her eyes. "You nearly died."
That stopped her cold.
Bhishiir rose, coat hissing softly with steam.
"You stepped between two monsters in full collision and almost got squashed. That was not this one's miscalculation. Nor was it the boy's."
Minevi's eyes widened with an incredulous glare, unable to find the words to respond.
The old cat tilted his head, studying Minevi's frustration. "Bhishiir said it before, did he not? This one does not gamble."
She scoffed. "Eradros may gamble, but not with our lives. What you did—"
"Oh I see…," Bhishiir interrupted. "You still believe yourself his guardian."
Minevi glared at him. "It doesn't matter what I believe. He's not one of your ridiculous experiments."
Bhishiir's ears twitched once. "No. But now he is prepared… thanks to this one's ridiculous experiments. You still believe he needs a shield. Wrong. What he needs are fangs and claws."
Bhishiir moved to leave, but Minevi's voice caught him first.
"A weapon then? Is what you plan to make of him?"
He stopped.
For a moment he said nothing. Then, without turning:
"Better that than a corpse. But until you all stop codling him like a babe… he will remain unsharpened."
He let that sit, then sighed as if having to explain it was a bother.
"As we speak, your friends are getting closer to what we need to understand our enemy," he said. "And thanks to the arm—and our little field test today—he will be ready."
Minevi's fingers tightened around her shield.
Bhishiir moved past her, steam hissing softly from his coat. "You all asked for this one's help. I have given you more than that. I made your Dragonborn whole while setting the stage for him to play his part."
He stopped just behind her.
"You would do well," he said quietly, "to ponder what yours is going forward."
Then he was gone. His footsteps faded into the darkness along with the hiss of his coat.
Minevi stood alone in the atrium, with nothing left but the silence and the bruise of his words.
[Meanwhile — Sky Haven Temple]
Back in Sky Haven Temple, the mood had gone strangely still.
The great chamber sat wrapped in torchlight and old stone, its secrets finally dragged into the open. Esbern had returned to his texts, still muttering excitedly under his breath. Delphine stood off to one side with arms folded, already wearing the look of someone trying to turn revelation into a plan. Eradros lingered near the edge of the chamber, gaze drifting now and then toward the shadows beyond the blood-sealed gate. Taviiah leaned against one of the pillars, quiet as ever.
For one brief moment, the temple felt almost at peace.
Then Gavhelus woke.
Not slowly. Not groggily.
One second he was slouched on the bench, the next he was upright with a bound axe already crackling into existence in his hand.
The change was immediate. Unsettling.
His shoulders squared. His head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring as he drew in the air. Then he began to pace the chamber in slow, deliberate steps, eyes sharp and faintly feral, like something in him had slipped its leash without warning.
Everyone watched him.
Delphine's hand dropped to her sword. "What is it?"
Gavhelus didn't answer right away.
He just kept pacing. Sniffing. His expression darkened with each pass, the axe hanging loose in one hand like he was moments from burying it in something.
Then he stopped.
"…Not sure," he muttered. "Whiffed it before, though."
That was enough.
The whole room tightened.
Taviiah straightened from the pillar. Eradros's hand drifted to his weapon. Even Esbern looked up from his books, his excitement draining fast as Gavhelus slowly turned toward the upper dark.
He sniffed once more.
His eyes narrowed.
"Orc."
A soft scrape answered him.
Leather on stone.
Every head turned upward.
And then a figure stepped into the firelight.
Perched high on the ledge like she'd always belonged there.
Yaza.
Gavhelus lifted the axe a little higher. Delphine drew steel with a hiss. Eradros went completely still.
Yaza looked down at them all with that same easy, infuriating calm, one hand near her weapon, the other hanging loose at her side. Her gaze settled on Eradros first.
Then her mouth curled.
"What?" she said. "You thought I wouldn't find you?"
No one moved.
And just like that, the peace in Sky Haven died.
Chapter End—