Under normal circumstances, Livia would have been thankful for any opportunity given to warm herself up. Even though she grew up in cold climates, she never really took fancy to them, preferring the warmth of the hearth or furry covers. Even just washing her hands in warm water was something.
She wasn’t thankful now. But then again, having one’s hands warmed from being drenched in fresh blood while desperately trying to close a rip in a grown man’s leg weren’t normal circumstances.
Aeriel, who regained her composure sooner than Livia expected her to, was currently busy stitching the said rip with a fine silken thread.
“Done!” Without much finesse, she bit off the rest of the thread before returning the needle to her pouch. Immediately, she laid her hands over the wound and started muttering the incantation. Gentle blue light illuminated the area.
Livia didn’t stay to see if it would work; she had enough confidence in Aeriel’s magic. Instead, she grabbed a handful of snow and tried to rub as much blood as possible from her hands while pacing to where Kirsten sat.
Despite being wrapped in most of their furs and fabrics, and sitting behind a small fire, the girl shivered. Livia guessed the cold wasn’t the only reason. She hasn’t spoken a word since they left the cave, instead staring at the flames as if her eyes couldn’t get enough of what they saw. That, or she was just staring ahead vacantly; Livia couldn’t really tell. She shuddered at the though of the horrors that she must’ve experienced, horrors strong enough to render one so broken. Involuntarily, she hugged her shoulders: she never wanted such a fate to anyone, especially herself.
“Kirsten,” she said quietly as she knelt next to her. The girl didn’t seem to notice her at all. She tried gently shaking her. No response still.
“We must go.” Livia stood up and turned to Aeriel. For a moment, she thought she heard wrong.
“Go?” she protested. “What are you on about, we must go back for Helena.”
“We cannot.” The coldness in her voice stung like an icicle. “Our foremost duty now is to protect the girl. And Gareth has been injured. If we leave them, they’ll both die. And even if they weren’t in danger, Helena might be dead already.”
Livia stared at the other woman. She never expected Aeriel to be capable of saying something like that, much less doing it. And yet, she looked completely serious as she started unfastening Sleipnir’s reins from the tree.
“Wait!” she cried. Aeriel turned to her. “I… I will go get her.”
Aeriel looked only slightly surprised. “I already told you that we cannot go-”
“And we wouldn’t,” interrupted Livia impatiently, painfully aware that every second wasted here meant the chances of finding Helena growing slimmer. “You’ll stay here with them. You have magic, you can take care of them for a little while more. I’ll go in and get Helena out.”
Aeriel looked like she could hardly believe her ears. “You’re mad,” she said. “I’m not letting you back in. You’ll die.”
“If you’d stop me,” started Livia, already regretting what she was about to say, “you’ll have to break both my legs. And my arms. And then you’ll have three people to take care of. And Helena will die for sure.” She felt a pang of uncertainty jolt up her spine as she spoke, realizing that Aeriel would probably be capable of taking up on her offer if it meant keeping her alive.
She felt relief as Aeriel bit her lip. She struck the nerve.
“I cannot wait for you for more than half an hour,” she said. “If you don’t return by then, I’ll have to go.”
“Don’t worry,” Livia said. “I’ll be back. We’ll be back,” she corrected herself.
Aeriel closed her eyes and waved her hand before them, as if trying to remove something. When she opened them again, Livia saw faint rings of light flash on her uneven irides for a fraction of a moment.
“I cannot sense her,” she declared. “Too many falmer still inside. Too much life.”
This didn’t particularly encourage Livia. “Let’s hope that Helena is contributing to that.” She faced the mouth of the tunnel. It seemed even less welcoming than it did before. She was just about to kneel and crawl into the tunnel once again, when an idea struck her. Despite the desperate situation, she couldn’t help but grin widely.
“Aeriel,” she started, turning around, still smiling. “Do you think you could make do with one bottle of cold resist?”
----
She moved faster this time. Having some idea of the tunnel’s layout helped, but not as much as the sense of urgency. The thought of Helena still being alive fuelled her resolve, scattering any fear that tried to creep on her. All except one: what if she wasn’t?
She shook her head, silently cursing herself for daring to doubt. Helena was alive. And she would find her and bring her back without fail.
She crawled as fast as the cramped space permitted her, the bag of potions tied to her belt clinking with her every move. It took her a minute to talk Aeriel into it, but she gave up all but one of the bottles. Last she heard from her as she knelt down into the tunnel was an expression of scepticism at the idea. Livia didn’t dignify her with a response. She couldn’t afford to question herself right now.
The end of the tunnel came soon enough. Even from the very start of the corridor, she could see the light of the fire that still burned on the opposite end. As she approached it, she couldn’t help but stand and watch for a moment. The wall of flames, now somewhat shorter, still burned where it was carved into the ground, without wood or oil or any kind of fuel to feed it. But that wasn’t the strangest part, she noticed. Despite almost licking the glacial walls, the fire barely melted them.
She only then realized she felt no real warmth from the fire.
Experimentally, she brought her arm as close to fire as she deemed safe. Still nothing. A bit closer. And then some more. About a thumb away from the flames themselves, the heat struck her fully. She whipped her hand back, stifling a pained yelp. Her palm burned like it was dipped in boiling water. Pressing it against the pleasantly cold wall, she silently cursed the stupid magic fire, before taking a moment to ponder her next move. She didn’t believe she could extinguish it, and it seemed hot enough that she couldn’t just walk through it. Maybe if she waited long enough, it would go down even further?
No! Damn it all, she couldn’t wait. Every second spent waiting was a second wasted. She had to go find Helena now!
But how?
Then it dawned to her. The fire didn’t seem as tall as she first thought. With enough start, she could probably jump over it.
And alert the entire tribe when the plates of her boots clanked on the other side.
For her whole life, Livia was told to think before she acted. She couldn’t remember a single older person who didn’t tell that to her: her mother and father, her aunt, Julius, and more recently, Gareth and Aeriel. Thinking before acting, they said, helped lessen, or even eliminate the undesirable consequences.
This time, Livia decided to act before thinking. Time for that was the luxury she couldn’t afford, especially if it meant having second thoughts. Unfastening the bag with the potions from her belt, she laid it in a small natural niche in the wall. Perfect location for what she had in mind. She then unbuckled her boots and forced them off. Her now bare feet already felt slightly numb from the frosted ground. Finally, she carefully drew her sword and took a deep breath. One step, two, three, and she leapt, over the fire, and into the cavern.
She barely held back a cry of pain as the force of her landing mashed her soles against the rough permafrost. It was so cold that it burned, and she was almost certain she scraped herself to blood on the rugged ground. She took a careful step, only to feel pain jolt all the way up to her ankle. She immediately regretted leaving her boots. Who cared about the noise: she could face the whole tribe if she had some decent footwear.
She froze mid-step. The time for thinking was finally showing itself, and she found herself frozen by more than just cold: she really was facing the entire tribe. Or at least a good part of it. All around her, the pale, withered freaks wandered, seemingly without goal, talking in their hideous, hoarse voices that held not a trace of their merish past in them. It was a wonder that they didn’t hear her. She couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if they did hear her, but she knew that she’d prefer being killed on the spot.
She didn’t want to move. It hurt to move. And yet she had to. A step forward. It was like the floor was carpeted with needles. Another. And another. And with each step she took, the desire to go back swelled stronger in her. But she couldn’t.
Her slow progress allowed her the time needed to observe and think. The elevated ground that she walked on was patrolled by a number of falmer. Most seemed to have returned to the huts, unwilling to chase the escaped prey, but there were still too many for her to take on. She avoided them well enough so far, but she soon realized it would be all but impossible to dig through the mound of crushed ice without alerting them. She needed a way to distract them. Her thoughts wandered to Helena, and she found herself wishing for a vial of Serpent’s Maw. They lost the bow and the arrows in the skirmish, and she didn’t believe they’d fall for it the second time. Still, she needed something.
Her foot stepped in something conspicuously warm, and oh the irony of all ironies, she froze in spot. She looked down and regretted it. Lost in thought, she almost stepped onto a carcass of one of the slain falmer. She stopped before it, however; but at the price of stepping into a puddle of blood that still dripped from its cleft face.
For second time that day, Livia felt the need to relieve her stomach. She didn’t want to imagine the likely nasty properties of the monster’s blood. The cold, but mostly dry floor of the cave now felt pleasant in comparison. She was just about to step back when something drew her attention, making her forget all about the disgust she felt: right next to corpse laid its axe. She bent over and picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy for something that small. It was really more of a pick than an axe, she thought, as she examined its pointed, curved head, made from what appeared to be a carapace of a giant insect. It looked solid enough, though. It would do.
She turned around and took a good look at the village. She found her target soon enough: a fence that seemed to be made out of limbs of the same giant bugs. Looked fragile enough. It would do.
With all her strength, she lobbed the axe towards the fence, hoping that she hasn’t estimated the distance wrong.
She did.
The axe fell perhaps a spear’s reach away from the fence, hitting an errant falmer female on the shoulder, immediately opening a huge red gash. The creature screamed in pain, and, in trying to back away, tripped, falling straight into the fence, cracking it like it was made of dry twigs.
Even as the falmer rushed past her to join the ones that gathered around the howling wretch, Livia stood dumbfounded. Somehow, her failure bore an even greater success.
She shook her head. She had an opening now that the falmer were distracted, searching, arguing, no doubt trying to find whoever harmed one of them. She couldn’t waste it.
She set off towards the mound at a faster pace, no longer as worried about being heard over the noise that the falmer were raising. She was upon it in scant moments. She wasted no time in trying to move away the nearest piece of ice. No use. It was too large and heavy. She stepped to side to get a better stance, and almost screamed as the ground beneath her foot gave in. She fell, unceremoniously landing on her rear. Furious, she forced herself to her knees, when her eyes fell to the source of her woe: it was a crack in the icy ground. She looked closer: it was narrow where she stepped onto it, but got wider the closer it got…
...to the mound of ice.
She didn’t dare to hope. And yet she did. Scampering to where the mound and the crack met, she peered into its depths. Even in absence of any real source of light, the glowing crystals embedded in the walls of the cave cast a ghastly blue glow that reflected off of icy surfaces. And in that glow, Livia spotted an unmistakable blot of blackness crumpled near the very bottom of the mound.
Her heart skipped a beat. “Helena!” she whispered, laying almost flat on the ground, hoping that the woman would hear her. That she could hear her.
“Livia?” She almost cried with relief. The woman’s voice was pained and tired “Livia, is that you?”
“Helena, are you alright?” Livia cast off her caution and spoke clearly now.
“I can’t move. Something’s on my leg.”
It was a chunk of ice, large enough that the weary sorceress couldn’t move it from the position she was in. Fortunately for her, Livia wasn’t in that position.
“I’ll lift it off,” she said, reaching towards the ice even as she spoke. She grabbed at the jagged edge and pulled, lifting it off by half a span, silently praying that it wouldn’t snap off in her grip. It was heavier than she estimated, and her shoulder already started protesting.
“I’m out.” Livia let the chunk fall back in its place with a relief. “Help me out of here.” She reached out to where Helena was not even clear which end was which. The hand that met her own held at a terrifyingly weak grip. Livia pulled hardly, but slowly, careful not to harm the sorceress further, hoping that the crack was wide enough.
Even weakened as she was, Helena did her best to pull herself up. As soon as she was out, she collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily. Livia involuntarily shuddered at the look on the older woman. Sorceress’ smooth skin was pale and drenched in sweat, despite the cold. Her usually impeccable makeup was partially washed off, staining her face and revealing fresh bags under her eyes. Her cheeks seemed sunken and gaunt, like it was days since she last ate. Her breathing was deep, but sluggish; the breathing of a person so exhausted she couldn’t even breathe faster. Livia vaguely remembered reading about what this appeared to be: a mage who pushed themselves beyond their limits on the tempestuous emotions and willpower alone. She remembered reading that such a feat was fairly rare and only present in those who spent years acclimating themselves to magic. But she also remembered the danger of it: when the body spent its natural reserves of magicka, it would refuse to cast any spells until the magicka recharged naturally, which usually took some time. It was possible to force the body to do this almost automatically, but the strain on the body was enormous, which is why most seasoned mages relied on far slower, but far less dangerous deepening of their magicka pool through practice and enchantments. The harmful nature of the former stood before her in full display: Helena looked like she ran for days, without stop or rest.
“Livia,” Helena started weakly, “is everyone alright.”
“Mostly,” responded Livia. “Old man took a cut to his leg. But knowing him, he’ll be up and about in no time at all.”
“Please,” whispered Helena, “take me to him. I must help him.”
“Shush,” countered Livia. She slung one of sorceress’ arms over her shoulder and tried to lift her. She was about as light as she expected, but her body’s unwillingness to stand up straight made it more difficult. “You’re in no position to help anyone now. Let’s get you out of here before more of them show up.”
They advanced dreadfully slowly. Livia’s feet started to numb from the chilling bite of the ground, and Helena wasn’t getting any lighter. The clamour of the falmer below died down and the cave was once again eerily silent. Didn’t matter to Livia either way: every step she took closer to the tunnel made her feel better. She saved Helena: now all she had to do was get out safely.
The brief glint of light from somewhere to her left stopped her in her tracks. The glow of the cave’s luminous crystals reflected off of something that definitely wasn’t there before. Something metallic. Hurrying towards the source at the very edge of the valley, she silently cursed her own carelessness. Just before her lay Gareth’s sword, still bloody from their skirmish. How could she have forgotten about it? She shook her head: not the time to think about it now. It was there before her. She should just take it and go.
Except she couldn’t take it. The one hand that she wasn’t using to support Helena was currently occupied by her own sword. As she was right now, she couldn’t sheathe it to free her hand. And even if she could, Gareth’s was too large and unwieldy for her to use with just one hand if it came to worst.
“Helena,” she whispered, “can you pick it up if I crouch?”
A grunt was all that she got in response. Good enough, she guessed.
With some effort, she managed to squat long enough for Helena to take the sword by the handle. As soon as she had it in her grip, Livia straightened up, ignoring the protests of her knees. She could worry about little pains later. She could already see the mouth of the tunnel, where fire has wavered to below her knee. She could just step over it and she’d be on her way.
As fate would have it, it wouldn’t be that simple. The sharp clang to her side almost made Livia jump. She turned only to meet the sight of Helena’s desperate face and Gareth’s sword, laying where she’d dropped it.
In a moment, the cave was filled with renewed shrieks and roars, as the falmer once again became aware of their presence. Before Livia could even try to run, they were upon them. Only about half of the survivors were here. But even that was enough to surround them with no way out.
Cursing, Livia let Helena drop to the ground. She had no time to be gentle or considerate, only to grip her sword more tightly and assume a stance. The situation was dire: she was surrounded and outnumbered. If they decided to attack, she wouldn’t survive. A single tear gathered in her eye slid down her cheek as she weighed her options. If was either death or spending the rest of her days watching the world through the same glassy eyes as Kirsten.
She decided death was better. She straightened up and waited for it to come.
But it didn’t come. The falmer who surrounded her didn’t move in to attack. They just stood, hissing at her, seemingly waiting for something.
“Helena, what’s happening?” inquired Livia nervously.
The answer arrived before it could be spoken. A single falmer pushed his way out of the crowd to her left and stood against her. He was almost as tall as a grown human and clad in what looked to be armour made out of giant chitin. Most of his left ear was missing and he had a few broken teeth.
As Livia stood there, he raised his hands in the air and roared. Silence fell over the cave. He lowered his left hand, gesturing to a point about a metre left to Livia and roared again.
Livia didn’t know how to respond.
“Helena, what in Oblivion is it doing?” she asked.
“I think… I think he’s challenging you,” Helena responded weakly.
“Challenging me?” Livia wondered if any of that ice landed on the sorceress’ head. “It’s just an animal, how can it be challenging me?”
“It’s not just an animal.” Helena’s voice became sterner. “They may not be as intelligent as us, but… that doesn’t mean they aren’t at all.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The falmer roared again.
“Fine, let’s say you’re right, and that actually is a challenge,” said Livia. “Why are they not just attacking?”
“They don’t know how many of us were there,” spoke Helena. “They can hear the two of us and they know that I’m in bad shape. They think you did all this damage to them by yourself.”
Livia would chuckle at the idea if the situation wasn’t as it was. “And what does that matter?”
“That one in front of you is probably a chieftain,” mused Helena. “He failed to protect his tribe against the incursion. My guess is that he’s trying to save face before his tribe by killing you. He must show he’s still the strongest male of them all. Or they eat him.”
Livia hoped that the sorceress was joking.
“So if I beat him,” she said, “we can just… walk out of here?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Helena. “But it’s the only chance we have.”
The falmer around them started growling. They were getting restless.
“Fine, then,” said Livia. She turned to the chieftain and took a deep breath. “Come on, then!” she screamed. Her voice almost cracked, devoid of any hint of courage or intimidation. Instead, it sounded terrified: just as she was.
Apparently, it was good enough for the chieftain. As the tribe fell silent again, he stretched his arms, brandishing a short club of untreated wood. Livia’s confidence started to waver as she realized that he likely didn’t intend to kill her after all. The image of Kirsten cowering before her flashed in her mind, uninvited and unwanted. She wiped it away. She couldn’t afford to doubt herself now.
The chieftain attacked first, closing the distance in one leap and swinging the club down left. Livia barely managed to lean away and avoid having her head cracked. Her chance to counterattack was lost in trying to maintain her balance. As she tried to raise her sword into a guard again, the chieftain swung at her again. This time, she failed to move, and the club struck her breastplate in full force. Livia stumbled and nearly fell. The thin steel protected her from likely having her ribcage cracked, but the blow still threw her off balance. When the club swung into her face, she barely managed to block.
Blocking means you’re at a disadvantage. The painful lesson taught to her by Gareth ringed in her head. When you parry, you’re breaking the enemy’s flow. Parry properly, and you can turn the tide of the duel.
Again, he was right. At the last possible moment, she lashed out, turning her block into an improper parry. The chieftain stumbled back. And Livia saw an opening.
For an instant, the world stopped. Everything around her vanished except her opponent. She was no longer afraid. Any why would she be? She was the huntress, and he was the prey.
The chieftain attacked. Again, he attacked from upper right. And this time, Livia expected it. Her parry was proper this time, catching the club mid-swing and deflecting it, throwing the chieftain off balance. As she expected, he raised his chin, exposing a singular lethal weakness in his armour. Using the momentum of the parry, Livia spun in place, putting all the motion into a stab.
It was flawless. The narrow tip of the blade penetrated the falmer’s neck without difficulty, easily cutting through his windpipe and a mess of tight muscle, and judging by the lack of resistance when it exited, right past the vertebrae.
The sound that escaped the chieftain’s severed throat was alike a poorly carved flute. The falmer gasped and choked, grasping at the blade in a futile attempt to save his life, succeeding only in drawing long slashes on his palms. Livia responded by pushing it in further, watching as the monster before her stopped moving. She pulled out the blade, letting the fresh corpse crumple to the floor.
She stumbled, almost dropping her sword. The duel was short, but she was already past tired. Her breathing was loud and fast, but she made no effort to silence it: the falmer couldn’t see that she won, but they could hear it.
“Livia?” Helena called weakly.
“I’m here,” she responded. Wiping her blade on what little cloth the corpse had on it, and sheathing her weapon. “I’m alive.” She walked up to the sorceress and lifted her up, taking Gareth’s sword in her free hand. She judged correctly: it would be unwieldable to her. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
“We’re still surrounded,” stammered Helena needlessly.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure they won’t mind letting me out,” Livia responded, trying her best to sound confident.
She was right. The falmer parted before her like cobwebs before open flame. Despite the fear she commanded, she started moving faster. She knew she had only precious little time before that fear turned into anger, and their terrified minds turned to thoughts of retribution.
“Helena,” she whispered. “Can you cast a fireball?”
“I don’t think I’ll be able,” responded Helena.
“Well, become able,” demanded Livia. “Take a potion if you have one. Or we won’t escape alive.”
Helena grumbled, but complied, rummaging through her pouch with her free hand for moments before producing a tiny vial of faintly bluish liquid. Uncorking it with her teeth, she drank the contents in one sip, grimacing at the taste. It looked as if some colour returned to her face.
“So what do you have in mind,” she asked.
Livia’s mouthed answer was interrupted by a screech behind them. The falmer were after them again.
“No time, run!” Livia picked up the pace, silently cursing that she still had to carry the sorceress. It seemed they would make it, but it would be a tight fit.
“Jump!” she commanded as they reached the wall of flames. Somehow, Helena mustered enough strength to follow, if only somewhat. The smell of singed leather filled the air as they tumbled to the other side. Livia yelped as her unguarded elbow struck the wall. But she didn’t have time for pain now.
“There!” she cried, pointing to the dark spot in the wall of the cave: the potion bag that she left there for this very purpose. “Quickly! Fire!”
With an almost palpable effort, Helena sent out a single ball of fire with a cry. It sailed through the air for what seemed like hours before striking the bag.
The effect was instantaneous. The bag and its content bloomed into a flower of filthy orange flame. The force of the explosion shook the natural arch that divided the corridor from the cavern. The fragile ice didn’t endure and crumbled, crashing to the ground in pieces as large as Livia’s torso, burying the only entrance to the cave – and only exit from it.
The dust settled before Livia’s ears stopped ringing. She tried to push herself up but her fatigued body wouldn’t listen and she fell back to the floor.
“Here.” Helena loomed over her, supporting her head with her hand, bringing a small vial to her lips with the other. “Drink.” Her breath smelled of a combination of dozen different herbs, cheap wine, and things that even Livia couldn’t mistake for herbs. She obliged, pushing down the content of the vial. It tasted like soured beer mixed with overly dried oats. She recoiled from the flavour, but felt stronger almost immediately. Almost immediately, she also wished for a drink of water to wash down the aftertaste.
“What was in that bag?” inquired Helena. She looked visibly impressed and Livia felt a gentle pang of pride.
“I packed most of our resist cold potions in there,” she stammered. The potion may have soothed her aching muscles but her breathing was still taxed. “Since they fight off the cold, I figured they’d be flammable. Light them with strong enough fire and... boom.”
Helena stared at her, stupefied. “You… figured they’ be flammable?” Livia nodded. “So you didn’t know if they were flammable or not?” Livia shook her head.
Helena looked prepared to nail her to the wall. “You mean to tell me that you risked our only chance of survival on a guess?”
Livia forced a smile. “Hey, that’s how you learn the trade, right?”
A smile crept onto Helena’s face as she struggled to ward it off. She chuckled only for a moment before leaning onto the wall. “Touché.”
Livia had no idea what that meant, and was currently too busy trying to pull on her boots to bother figuring out. She silently promised herself never to think of them as uncomfortable ever again.
“When we’re back to the castle, I’ll boil the biggest cauldron of water they have and drown in it,” she declared.
“Not a half bad idea,” Helena concurred. “But first we must get to the castle.”
Livia nodded in silent agreement. The sooner the better.
The climb back to the surface was almost enjoyable, thought Livia. For the first time that day, the nagging sense of urgency, the feeling like she had only seconds, was gone. Helena was with her, alive and well. Gareth and Kirsten were in Aeriel’s care, probably stitched up and ready to go. To her mind, it seemed that the mission would go just fine.
Of course, she was off mark. Her first sight upon leaving the cave was Gareth, laying unmoving on a makeshift stretcher tied to Sleipnir. Aeriel sat next to Kirsten, who warmed her hands on the sourceless fire, humming incoherent notes to herself. As soon as she saw them, Aeriel leapt to her feet and ran up to them.
“I heard the explosion, but I couldn’t leave them.” She eyed them with an overflowing dose of concern. “What happened down there?”
“The chieftain is dead and we sealed the cave,” responded Livia before Helena had the chance to offer a longer, more unnecessarily colourful explanation. “They aren’t getting out, and they’ll either starve or eat each other. Either way, they aren’t a threat anymore.”
Aeriel blinked in silence for a few moments. “Resourceful,” she finally concluded.
Helena was already kneeling next to Gareth, twirling her hands over his wound as if weaving some tiny, invisible tapestry. She acknowledged Livia’s approach with only a brief glance.
“Did you fix him?” quizzed Livia.
“Not as much as I’d like to,” responded Helena. “Aeri already did a pretty good job, but the axe cracked his femur. Nicked a tendon too, I think. Miracle that it didn’t sever the artery. He is in no real danger now, but it might take some time for it to heal properly.”
“Wait,” started Livia, confused, “can’t you just fix it with magic? I mean, you’re both healers, no?”
“We cannot,” answered Helena. “Neither of us is a master of the art. And even the masters couldn’t fix something like this at the moment’s notice. Too much room for errors: bones could heal wrong, not heal at all, they could get in place too fast and damage the surrounding tissue, all sorts of problems. Sometimes, we can only do so much before nature must take its course.” She finished her survey and turned to Livia. “Magic isn’t some miraculous shortcut to everything, my dear.”
Livia bit her lip. She never really considered that. For her entire life, she saw magic as a nigh-omnipotent force. It seemed she had much to learn about it still.
“Helena…” Gareth’s voice prompted both of them to turn to him. He woke up and groggily blinked a few times, his dry throat turning his voice hoarse. “Helena, is that you?”
As a response, Helena embraced him firmly, hugging him as a drowning man would hug a piece of driftwood. His eyes bulged and he seemed short of breath.
“Helena, if you keep hugging him like that, you’ll do him in worse than that axe,” warned Livia, trying not to giggle.
Helena immediately let go and backed away, redness creeping into her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she muttered to nobody in particular. Gareth laughed dryly.
“It wasn’t as bad as Livia made it out to be,” he said, “but I’d still ask you to hold off on such outpours of love for a little while.”
Helena knelt back and leaned over him. “I hope I won’t have to hold off these outpours too,” she said before kissing him deeply. He reciprocated with as much eagerness as his weary body permitted.
“No, not on those too,” he concluded, smiling.
Livia rolled her eyes before pacing over to where Aeriel and Kirsten sat. The girl still looked completely vacant, probably not even aware that a new person joined their company.
“How is she?” asked Livia worriedly.
Aeriel shook her head. “Livia, I don’t think she can be helped any more.”
Livia’s heart skipped. “What do you mean?”
Aeriel hugged the girl tighter. “I tried everything I know on her. Almost a dozen Illusion spells, and I still couldn’t get her to speak. I don’t think she even remembers how to any more. I tried to peek into her mind to find the source of this and remove it.” She broke eye contact with Livia and faced the fire. “I found it. Now I wish I didn’t.”
Livia’s shiver had nothing to do with the cold. “There must be something that can be done to help her.”
“Maybe. But it is beyond any of us. It would take a lot more time than either of us have to dedicate to her. Years, maybe. And even then, she may never be her old self again.”
Livia sat down on the log next to Kirsten and gently stroked her filthy hair. She felt nothing but pity and compassion for the girl who lost her idyllic and happy life in one faithful day, probably forever. She hugged her, not caring for the stench that seemed to come of from her entire being. Only then did she realized that she still held Gareth’s sword in her hand. Excusing herself, she ran back to where he lay.
“Here you go, old man,” she said, pressing the grip of the sword into his hand. “I brought back both of your girls.”
“So you have,” he said. He seemed on the verge of tears. “Thanks, kid.”
Livia clenched her lips. “Call me a kid again and I’ll give you a cut on the other leg to match.”
Gareth chuckled. “As you command, m’lady.”
Livia rolled her eyes again.
The journey back was the most dreary one Livia ever experienced. She was at the front, leading Sleipnir by reins. Kirsten was on top of the animal, keeping herself admirably stable for her state. To alleviate at least some weight off the horse and keep a close watch on the girl, Aeriel marched next to them, carrying most of their gears in an improvised backpack. Gareth was still laid on the stretcher, the sword he gripped giving him the appearance of a sarcophagus carving, too weak to get up and too hurt to stand on his own. Helena, who adamantly refused to leave his side, walked at the rear of the group.
They unanimously agreed to take the girl to Dawnstar, reasoning that the slightly longer trip would be worth the better conditions she’d have there. Despite being a centre of a thanedom, Heljarchen wasn’t a city by any measurements. That aside, they all needed rest, and Dawnstar was by far a better place for that.
It was deep night by the time they arrived to the walls of Dawnstar. The guardsmen at the gatehouse needed no convincing to let them in after seeing they had injured with themselves. Livia quickly thanked them before pulling Sleipnir to the stairs of Zenithar’s temple. The short, balding old woman that answered the door didn’t seem too thrilled to be woken up this late at night, but her mood changed as soon as she saw Gareth and Kirsten. Immediately, she called for the two nearby guardsmen to bring them in. But when Helena tried to follow, the priestess held her back.
“I’m sorry dear, but I can’t let you in. I need to be alone in there if I’m to give them the attention they need. Such is the folly of the old age, I’m afraid. You three dears will have to wait outside.”
Before any of them could protest, the elderly woman closed the door. Helena swore under her breath.
“So what do we do now?” inquired Livia.
“Well it seems we aren’t leaving today,” said Helena, bitterly eyeing the door. “Might as well make ourselves comfortable. I’ll go see if Hortnjolf will let us stay on the ship until we go back.
“Good idea,” said Aeriel. “I’ll go return Sleipnir.”
“Hey, what am I supposed to do?” cried Livia.
“Stay here,” commanded Helena, “in case the priestess needs you.”
Livia barely resisted the urge to give the finger to Helena’s backs. With nothing left to do, she sat at the stairs and waited. The steps, although untouched by snow, were freezingly cold, and despite gambeson offering her some measure of protection, Livia felt less than comfortable.
“So,” she started, hoping to at least shorten the wait by striking a chat with one of the guards, “night shift?”
“Yes,” he responded, not looking away from some invisible point straight before him.
“Do you like working night shifts?”
“No.”
Livia rolled her eyes. “Will someone come to relieve you?”
“Yes.”
“Will he be here soon?”
“No.”
She sighed, resigning herself to her fate. The beat of heavy boots on the cobblestone broke the silence, and Livia leapt to her feet.
Loknar was marching up to the temple door followed uneasy by the guards Livia last saw with him. His face was as frowned as ever, but this time, his eyes were piercing. The guards at the door straightened up and Livia sidestepped to get out of his way.
“Open the door,” he commanded, not even sparing them a look. “I will see my daughter.”
“My lord,” the apparently more talkative of the guards protested, “the priestess asked us not to let anyone i-”
Lokir’s head snapped to her on a swivel “What is your name?” he demanded.
“My lord?” The young woman sounded confused.
“Well what a funny name it is, ‘Mylord’. Who named you?”
“My… father,” the guard responded gingerly.
“Could your father read?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then it looks like being an idiot runs in your family. Tell me: whose authority is superior here? Me or some pruned hag in a fancy robe?”
“Yours, my lord,” she responded shakily.
“Then why do you dictate where I can and cannot go on her words?”
The guard looked a moment away from tears. “I’m sorry, my l-”
“Oh spare me your whining and open the damned door!”
“Wait!” Livia tried to stand before him. “The priestess said that-”
Showing strength unexpected from a sickly man she thought him to be, Loknar seized her by the collar of her gambeson and shoved her back. Her foot missed the edge of the step and she landed painfully on the street.
“Out of my way, girl,” he croaked.
Livia stumbled as she got up. The wrist of the hand she used to push herself up fired up in pain. She silently cursed: she landed on it and didn’t even notice until now. Leaning on her other hand, she stood up and ran towards the door, intent, against her better judgement, on forcefully dragging Loknar out. She got to the entrance just as the screaming started.
The inside of the temple was about as Livia expected it to be. In stark contrast to most temples, that looked largely ascetic, the one dedicated to Zenithar was decorated almost like an inside of a nobleman’s house. There was hardly a piece of wood that wasn’t richly engraved with reliefs, most of which depicted various trade activities. The altar cloth was woven with gold filigree that shimmered faintly in the light of a great chandelier of forged iron. The altar of Zenithar was likely made of steel, but for how polished and flawless it was, it may as well have been silver. The only things that seemed out of place were several cots, clearly made to be transportable with ease rather than comfortable, that occupied the edges of the rooms. Gareth lay on one of them, asleep so firmly that not even the commotion around him could awaken him. The cot next to him was knocked to its side.
The old priestess stood in the far corner of the room, breathing heavily and holding a hand over her heart. Kirsten was crumpled in corner closer to Livia, openly crying and desperately trying to crumple herself more. Loknar stood over her, barely restraining tears as he, in vain, tried to reach out and touch her.
“Kris,” he said weakly, “it’s me. It’s your father, Kris.”
Kirsten’s only response was trying to hide her face behind the voluminous sleeves of the robe that looked like it could belong to one of the priests, lacking only the sash with an anvil woven in it.
“Kris…” Loknar was trying his damnest to force a smile onto his face and warmth into his voice. “Don’t be afraid, my dear. It’s me.” With her eyes now obscured, he managed to come close enough to gently touch her shoulder. Kirsten responded by shrieking like a wounded animal and lashing out, slapping unprepared Loknar across the face. He backed off, and she pulled the robe over her face.
Loknar looked around the room as if trying to find sense of what just happened, and in the split second their eyes met, Livia felt a pang of pity for him. The next moment, any notion of sadness evaporated from his eyes, replaced in a blink by burning anger.
“You!” he roared.
Before Livia could back away any significant distance he already covered the one between them. His hands seized her shoulders in a vice grip and violently shook her.
“What have you done to her!?” he bellowed. “What have you worthless brigand lot done to my little girl!?”
“W-we…” Livia stuttered, failing to find words. He shook her harder.
“What is wrong with her!? Tell me! Now!”
“We haven’t done anything to her!” Livia’s voice broke as words finally came to her. “The falmer…”
The maddened hands released her shoulders only to close around her neck, nailing her against the wall. A moment later, Livia felt the unmistakable cold of steel poking her beneath her chin.
“You will fix her!” Loknar’s breathing was ragged, as if every word he spoke was a world of effort. “You will bring her back to how she was, or I swear by the old gods and the new, I’ll open your throat right here and leave you to choke in your own blood!”
Trying with all her forces, Livia couldn’t undo the steel grip around her neck. She couldn’t breathe and the world was already starting to blur. “We…” She barely recognized her own voice. “We… can’t…”
“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU CAN!” Loknar’s voice lost a last trace of his sanity. “IF MY DAUGHTER ISN’T RETURNED TO ME I’LL-”
He stopped. His grip loosened and Livia wrestled it away, clutching her bruised neck. Loknar was clawing at his chest, wheezing horribly. For a moment, Livia’s mind flashed with the sounds of the toiled breathing of the falmer. The off-task part of her mind found the sounds remarkably similar. He tried to reach for her – or maybe to just lean onto the wall – when his eyes widened and he was once again seized by a fit of coughing. This time, he didn’t raise his hand fast enough.
Livia’s world blurred again, but this time it wasn’t from the lack of air. She stared ahead of herself, deaf to everything around her. She didn’t hear the sound of Kirsten screaming, the priestess calling for help, or the guards rushing in. She didn’t even feel when one of the guards collided with her in a rush to get to the man shaking on the floor. None of it felt real, save for a few drops of blood streaming down her face.
---
“Will he be alright?”
Helena blinked in surprise at the question. Upon returning to the temple after learning that Hortnjolf intended to sail out come the morning, the first thing she noticed was how loud and crowded it was for this time of night. Forcing her way through the small throng and past the guards, she entered the temple, only to find Livia staring vacantly into the opposite wall, her face bloody, and the priestess who was desperately casting spells at Loknar who was laid out on one of the cots. Taking Livia out, she cleaned her face and tried to bring her back to her senses. When that succeeded, and after hearing what happened from her, Helena returned to the temple to offer her assistance.
“The thane, you mean?” she quizzed. Livia nodded. “No, he will not.”
Livia swallowed. “You mean he’s…?”
“Dead? Yes.” Helena leaned on the wall. “I’d say it’s a terrible waste or something like that, but it really isn’t.”
“What happened to him?” asked Livia. “Men don’t just… die like that.”
Helena chuckled halfheartedly. “True. But it wasn’t just like that. Apparently, the good thane suffered from a rather serious lung disease in these last few years. From what I’ve gathered, the excitements of these last few hours pushed it over the edge. Wasn’t pretty. When they cut open his chest to examine him, it was like an ice bomb exploded in there.”
Livia looked into the distance. “A horrible way to die,” she said quietly to nobody in particular.
“I can imagine quite a few worse ones,” said Helena. “But you’re not wrong: he may have been a dour old bastard, but he didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
“What about Kirsten? What will happen to her’?”
Helena crossed her legs. “From what I’ve gathered, the soon to be appointed Thane of Heljarchen and Loknar’s son are working out the details of covering the expenses of her treatment. It might last years if she’s lucky.”
Livia frowned. “You call that lucky?”
“I do,” responded Helena. “I’ve seen what trauma can do to a mind. Bringing it down too fast and you risk of crumbling her completely. And some wounds never heal. She might be like that for the rest of her life. So yes: I would very much call that lucky.”
Livia looked to the floor. She hoped that Aeriel was wrong in her guess. It looked like she wasn’t.
“You should know by now that this life isn’t some sort of glamour-filled adventure.” Helena’s words stung harder than she expected and she looked up to face the woman. “We won’t always succeed. People will die, or worse, and we won’t be able to save them.”
“But isn’t that our job?” rebelled Livia.
Helena smiled weakly. “If you asked Aeri, she’d tell you that it is. I love the girl, but she’s too naïve for her own good. The truth is that we are killers. Exterminators, if you would. We’re no heroes, though some may see us like that. Very few in our ranks are in it for anything other than blood and silver. Saving people is… just a fortunate benefit of hunting things.”
Livia couldn’t find any words to respond with. She understood from the moment she left her aunt’s empty house that the life she chose would be dangerous. She knew that she’d face death and resolved to spit in his face every time she did. It didn’t occur to her that death wouldn’t only be coming for her. She grew up hearing the adventures of Aesir Ice-Forger: of how he defended the weak and innocent, of his daring rescues against impossible odds. Only now did she realize that her mother probably omitted a lot of details that a little child didn’t need to hear. She wondered how much blood her favourite childhood hero had on his hands: and how much of it didn’t belong to his enemies.
“Having second thoughts about the Order?” Helena inquired. “I can understand that. We’ve had people leave us when they realized how it works. You can too, if you wish. Any time you want: you aren’t bound by any oath or contract.”
“I don’t think I will,” said Livia. “We may not be heroes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to be one. Someone has to be, right?”
“And why does it have to be you?”
Livia answered without thinking on it: “Because I want to.”
Helena smiled again. But this time, it was a true, warm smile. “I admire your resolve. I just hope it won’t lead you to an early grave.”
“I plan to outlive you all, so no worries about that,” Livia said. A smile to match Helena’s found its way to her lips.
“So,” started Helena, “still plan on drowning in boiling water?”
“Very much so,” responded Livia. “Too damn cold out here.”
“It’ll be even colder on the way back.”
“I doubt it,” said Livia queasily. “I won’t be leaving the cabin the whole voyage.”