Torin's hands were still trembling as he turned the page, but he forced himself to keep reading.
The date at the top of the next entry made him pause.
14th of Midyear, 4E 170.
A kindred soul passed by today. We recognized each other with one look—there is a certain darkness that cannot be hidden, not from those who share it—and spent many an hour exchanging stories.
He told me of an incoming great opportunity to harvest delicacies. Of great chaos. A great war between the Altmer of the Summerset Isles and the Empire.
I don't know how he learned of this, nor do I particularly care. The source matters little. Only the result.
But the war is not what occupied my thoughts. Not what set my heart racing.
I have found her.
The one who shall bear the seed of my offering.
A typical Nord girl. Not exactly innocent—she has lived, has seen enough of the world to know it can be harsh—but naive enough to wish for a knight in shining armor to come by and sweep her off her feet. She dreams of romance. Of love. Of a man who will see her as special, as precious, as worth giving up everything for.
I am no knight. I am not in shining armor. But I have my ways.
The next entry was dated nearly a month later.
10th of Sun's Height, 4E 170.
Sure enough, the uninitiated are so very gullible. Make someone feel special enough, and there's not much they won't give to please you. A kind word here. A gentle touch there. The pretense of vulnerability, carefully deployed.
To her, it seems, nothing makes her feel more special than a mercenary giving up a life of adventure to be with her. She thinks she has saved me. Thinks she has pulled me back from the edge of darkness.
How utterly nauseating.
21st of Second Seed, 4E 171.
I thirst for the screams of the innocent. I crave satisfaction. The need builds within me like pressure behind a dam, and every day it grows harder to contain.
But I remind myself: all things good are difficult to attain. The vessel of my offering remains empty as of now. She is not yet with child. My patience runs thin, thinner than it has ever been, but I know this is nothing more than a test.
My dedication to the Prince of Domination will surely bear fruit. It must. I have sacrificed too much, waited too long, to fail now.
The lamb will be born. The lamb will be raised. And when the time is right, the lamb will be slaughtered.
Torin's hand trembled as he reached for the next page. His fingers, usually so steady, felt clumsy, foreign—like they belonged to someone else.
13th of Morning Star, 4E 172.
It's finally happened. My efforts have borne fruit. A beautiful, pure, and innocent fruit.
Ah... how sweet it will taste when it is ready. But alas, it is not yet ripe. It needs time to grow. To develop. To become capable of understanding agony, even if it has not yet experienced it.
It needs to understand the lessons I will teach it. The truth of this world. The nature of the Prince we serve. Only then, when its mind is prepared and its soul is at its peak, will I send it to Molag Bal as the offering it was always meant to be.
On a side, less important note: it was called Eydis.
Torin's hand shot toward the next page, desperate to keep reading, desperate to find more—
Auri's hand settled on his shoulder.
Her grip was firm, grounding, warm against the cold fury that had settled into his bones.
He looked up at her, and found her amber eyes fixed on his face, her expression dark. Murderous, even. The kind of look she got when she was tracking something that needed to die.
"There's no need to torment yourself with this... filth," she said quietly. Her voice was steady, but there was an edge underneath it—a sharpness that promised violence. "We already have all we need. His methods. His motives. His plan." She paused, her hand squeezing his shoulder. "Let's just go and kill the bastard."
Torin was very, very tempted.
The urge to stand up, to walk out of this cave, to find Hrogar and bury his axe in the woodcutter's skull—it was almost overwhelming. He could picture it clearly. The look of surprise on the man's face. The way his eyes would widen, just for a moment, before the light went out of them. The satisfaction of watching the monster fall.
But he firmly shook his head.
"I need to be sure before I do anything." He turned his gaze back to the journal, his jaw tight. "Right now, this doesn't make much sense."
Auri frowned, her hand dropping from his shoulder.
"What do you mean?"
Torin pointed at the journal, at the pages full of cramped handwriting, at the words that described a plan years in the making.
"Hrogar is clearly very meticulous." He tapped the page. "He's spent years on this. Years. Siring Eydis. Raising her. Sheltering her from the world. Keeping her pure for Molag Bal."
His expression shifted—from rage to something more complicated, more analytical. "Would someone like that lose control? Would he kill a bunch of people before the sacrifice was complete? Would he draw attention to himself, risk everything he'd worked for, just for a few extra victims?"
He shook his head slowly.
"And would he stick around afterward? After killing his own daughter—the offering he'd spent years preparing—would he just... go back to his normal life? Pretend to grieve? Sit in his chair by the fire and let strangers ask him questions about his dead child?"
Auri's eyes widened. She understood now—saw the shape of the problem, the contradiction at the heart of it.
"Come to think of it... the jounral is also strange," she said slowly. "It's very detailed with records of everything he did. Names, dates, methods." Her brow furrowed. "A man that meticulous, that careful, wouldn't leave evidence like this just lying about..."
Torin nodded.
"Exactly." He looked at the journal in his hands, at the plain brown cover, at the horror contained within. "Either Hrogar is the killer, and he made a series of uncharacteristic mistakes, or..."
"Or what?" Auri asked quietly.
Torin just sighed, running a hand through his hair. The strands were damp with sweat, matted from the humidity of the cave, and his fingers snagged on tangles he didn't have the patience to work through.
"I don't know." He shook his head slowly. "I can't even begin to guess. That's the problem. There are too many possibilities, too many variables, too many ways this could go wrong."
He looked at the journal, at the plain brown cover, at the horror bound within its pages. "And that's why I need to keep reading."
Auri said nothing.
Her expression was tight, her lips pressed into a thin line. It was clear she didn't like the idea—didn't like the thought of him immersing himself any deeper in that monster's words, didn't like the way his hands trembled or his voice cracked or his eyes went dark when he read certain passages.
But she didn't object. She just settled onto a nearby crate, her bow across her knees, her amber eyes fixed on his face.
Torin took a deep breath—steadying, centering—and resumed reading.
4E 173.
The war rages across Tamriel, but I care little for it. Let the Men and Mer slaughter one another. Let the fields burn and the cities fall. None of it touches me here, in this quiet corner of the world, where my offering grows and thrives.
I have found a strange satisfaction in watching her. She took her first steps today—wobbly, uncertain, her small hands reaching for the wall to steady herself. Is this what farmers feel, I wonder? Watching their crops ripen ever so slowly, knowing that the harvest will come in time?
The comparison is not perfect, but it will do.
Torin's stomach turned, but he forced himself to continue.
4E 177.
My little fruit is now old enough to venture outside and play with others her age. I watch her from a distance, always watching, always guarding. The world is full of dangers—not just physical, but spiritual. A harsh word. A cruel laugh. The casual cruelty of children who do not yet understand the weight of their actions.
I will not let them taint her. I will protect her from the darkness. She must remain innocent. She must remain pure.
For the harvest.
4E 178.
A child attempted to destroy my offering's purity today. He called her names. Pushed her. Made her cry. "Bullying," I believe the term is.
That will not do.
I have made arrangements. His parents will die—an accident, carefully staged. The boy will have no relatives willing to take him in. He will be sent to the orphanage in Riften, where he will learn what it means to suffer.
Perhaps, in time, he will even come to appreciate the lesson. It matters not to me. I must erase this event from my little fruit's memory.
Torin's hand tightened on the page. The paper crinkled under his fingers, threatening to tear.
4E 180.
I returned home late today. A long day—longer than most, filled with tasks that drained me in ways I did not expect. I was tired. Empty. Wondering, perhaps, if any of this was worth the effort.
Then the offering—no, Eydis—came running to greet me.
She wrapped her small arms around my legs and pressed her face against my stomach, and she said, "I missed you, Papa."
Something shifted in me. Something I did not expect. Something I had not felt in a very long time. Not since before the teacher found me. Not since before the darkness took hold.
I am suddenly reminded of my own family. Of my mother's embrace. Of my father's rough hand on my shoulder, proud and warm.
I am suddenly feeling conflicted.
Torin paused, his breath catching in his throat. He looked up at Auri, and found her watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read—part horror, part pity, part something else entirely.
"He's changing," Torin said quietly.
Auri said nothing. Just waited.
Torin turned the page.
4E 183.
Molag Bal be damned.
I will no longer be bound by his tyranny. I will no longer serve a Prince who demands the suffering of innocents. I have seen the light—not the false light of the Aedra, who abandoned us to our fates, but a truer light. A warmer light.
Eydis.
My beautiful daughter. My offering. My sacrifice.
She is full of warmth and joy. Enough to lighten even this dark world. Enough to make me question everything I have done, everything I have believed, everything I have been.
I am unworthy of her. I know this. My hands are stained with blood that can never be washed clean. My soul is cracked and broken, held together only by the will that has driven me for so long.
But not for long.
I will erase my dark past from my memories. I have studied the necessary magics—the rituals of forgetting, the spells of suppression. I will bury the monster I was so deeply that he can never resurface.
Only this journal will remember him and his dark deeds. To erase him completely would be an insult to the lives he destroyed.
As for me, I will live alongside her. In the light. As her father. Truly.
I will be the man she believes I am.
I will be worthy.
...
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