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Not all that which fades into the shadows of ancient Nordic ruins are agents of darkness. I’ve learned as much, though the lesson has been a long time coming. Peace is not, and has not been, my main priority—not with the prophecy, or death by dragon hanging over me wherever I go. It is, perhaps, the reason I am called to do this thing—to put to rest two souls whose hearts have been apparently keening out across all of Skyrim for time out of mind. Not that I can hear them. Perhaps the quest came to me because I cannot—and had ought.
Dinya didn’t say as much, but I imagine the thought was in the back of her head.
Then again, Mara’s voice was not one I’d sought. Not after everything I’ve been through in this regard. But those are stories for another time. My pain, as far in the past as it lingers, can wait another day.
I had decided to make my way toward Rorikstead on my own. This is not a complex task, and my associate could do more good back in Riften than out here in the woods. She, of course, did not see it that way, but promised she’d look after Dinya while I ran this errand.
And so here I stand—alone and freezing—out in the wilderness.
It is rather fitting.
Ahead of me, I can only see those aforementioned shadows in the light of a single quarter moon above. Secunda is dark, of course. The stones, though crumbling, bear the familiar scrawl of Nordic knotwork I’ve recorded a thousand, thousand times since Bleak Falls Barrow. They feel like home in a way I can’t explain, regardless of the fact that I am a stranger to these lands. The grasses, hardy against the frost, grow untamed. Mosses crawl over the dark grey of the stones, filling in the cracks that have been weathered in over time. When I place my palm against them, they still seem…alive in a way that the presence of spirits doesn’t quite cover. There is deep history lost to time. Maybe it’s simply melancholy pressed into the stone that I feel. I can’t be sure. I would linger under ordinary circumstances and feed the ruins Magicka until their stories unfolded for me.
Instead, pulled by the spell—if it is a spell—placed on the amulet Dinya gave me, I move on, drifting not unlike the ghost I have been called to follow. The pale blue cast of the spirit’s movement illuminates the ruins as she passes, still in the form of an orb. But this is the one. I can feel it. I’ve been tracking her for two full nights now. In certain places, she can manifest as she might have looked in life.
I don’t think she realizes she has died.
Part of my heart breaks at that realization, but I tuck away the sorrow for now. I have a task to accomplish. Becoming emotional would only serve to muddle my senses and hinder progress. Funny how that works in times like these.
I wait and listen to the soft whisper of wind as it weaves itself between the ruins. Crickets chirp and frogs croak. Torchbugs hover over nightshade and other flora. Rorikstead sprawls far in the distance, under the gaze of Gjukar’s Monument. The settlement sleeps while I crawl between deteriorating pillars, seeking the exact moment a ghost chooses to manifest. I would not change this. I am most at home when I do not have to focus on hefting the weight of the world on my shoulders. I never thought of myself as anyone other than a person who breaks things. How can I hope to save the entire world if I could not even save—
But no. No. This matters little in the grand scheme of things. For now, the task at hand must be my focus. For now, these two souls who have already passed must keep my attention, instead of the millions whose lives count on my strength.
Strength I still do not see.
With a sigh, I cast an instance of Candlelight, tossing it over my shoulder. I pull away a thread of Magicka from it so that its light shimmers a myriad colors and then dims to a soft white glow. It need only be bright enough so I do not catch my feet in wild tufts of grass as I crouch along the edges of the ruins, watching and waiting.
The ghost does, as predicted, manifest in her full form near the center, just ahead of where I am perched. The form she takes is that of a warrior, complete with scars that cross a ruined eye. Her shield—wooden surface rife with deep gouges—falls to her side in hands that seem to lack strength. Her back remains bent as she moves listlessly between pillars—not unlike I had just done. Only, the despair she carries is visible in a way I never allow mine to be.
Not anymore, at least.
I hold my breath for a beat and wait until she stops moving. Her figure flickers before she turns her face to the sky.
“You were supposed to be here…”
Her voice comes out in a whisper. Its echo sends a chill down my spine. I have seen ghosts before, but this one—if only she knew just how much we have in common, or how hard it is for me to approach her.
Dinya knew. Gods, but she knew, though I cannot fathom how.
I grit my teeth and make my way into the clearing. The ghost gasps and turns to me, good eye fixed on a point somewhere over my shoulder, past the candlelight spell still bobbing there. Is it just me, or does the wind blow her braids? Is there wind at all? Her gaze snaps to mine. I feel another chill and do all I can to suppress the resulting shiver.
“Fenrig?” The voice is so full of pain, it is almost palpable.
I swallow hard against an unexpected wave of emotion as my own grief resurfaces. “No, I’m sorry. That isn’t my name. Perhaps I can be of assistance regardless?”
“My husband…I’ve turned over every single body on this battlefield and I—I cannot find his.” She pauses and looks up at the sky again. A single silver tear slides down her cheek. “We were separated before the fighting began. When I returned here…the losses…I…I have never seen such devastation.”
I know she speaks of the battle here which the monument commemorates. The event is almost lost to time—it was lucky Dinya and Maramal had an account of it at all, for the bards no longer speak of it. But then again, Skyrim was founded on the skeletons of its warriors and its enemies. I can still smell the mustiness of the parchment in the tome which recounted the event. It was a massacre—a trap set despite how open these plains are and how far a scouting party would be able to see. From the way the ruins feel to me, my only guess is that the Nords did not have defenses against Elven magic, and thus were slaughtered.
My throat feels tight, but I form words for the ghost despite my discomfort. “Tell me what he looks like. As I said, I may be able to help.”
The ghost turns her gaze my way, but this time, the way she looks at me feels as if she can see straight down to my own soul. I know there are no bodies here. She does not. I have been told by my betters that it is best to play along so that a spirit can find its peace. Best not to agitate them—the kind of magic by which they still walk Nirn is still not well understood, regardless of what necromancers would have you believe.
“His hair and beard are bright red,” she concedes with the smallest of nods. Perhaps she has judged me worthy of this task, despite the fact that this does not help me at all. I cannot count on both hands how many Nord men I have seen in the last two days with bright red hair. I watch as she turns from me and stoops over unseen remains, sighing as she goes.
The amulet around my neck vibrates faintly. I feel a strange warmth, as I had before. Then something seems to tug, and my feet almost move of their own volition. The last time this happened, the amulet led me here. I know I must follow, though I am remiss to leave the warrior ghost behind. I let myself be moved by Mara’s will. I still cannot hear Her and am still unsure if, indeed, the power coursing through this conduit is, in fact, divine. But I have promised to see this through, and so I move on.
I cross the field and for a moment I am transported to a different time, a different field—a different war. Now, as then, all I can feel is the cold, though then it was not the cold of weather. It was the first time I realized I was alone in the world, in a way I never expected. All because I could not—
No. No, tonight is not the night I invite the ghosts of my past back into my head. I have something to accomplish. Someone relies on me to bring them their peace. I walk across the grasses, blades coated with the whisper of frost, following the pull of a power I cannot quite place.
Though the scenery does not change much even as I cross the pass through the foothills here—it is not the way of things in this part of Skyrim—I can feel something shift in the air. It reminds me of that moment before a spectre manifests. I felt it before in the ruins, like a scrape of ice against my skin. I am not bothered by it. Mara guides me, I suppose, toward the spirit of the warrior’s dead husband.
I wonder, not for the first time, how things could have been had I listened for Her guidance all those years ago.
Now, however, is not the time for wallowing.
With a sigh, I recast my Candlelight spell, tossing the glowing orb over my shoulder. This time I do not pull threads of Magicka from it. The light dances over the open field in gentle waves of cool color. Not far from me, an orb in that same pallid blue from the ruins drifts toward me. Before my eyes, it manifests as another warrior.
I can see the wounds this one died from—a gaping hole in his chest where a sword had been, theoretically, shoved through his spine and out through the front. The man does not seem fazed—only sad in a way I’m uncomfortable realizing I fully understand.
This is the sorrow of being so lost for so long one becomes unable to find a way forward.
“Are you Fenrig?” I ask. The ghost’s attention snaps to me. He makes to walk toward me, but instead dissipates into a pale blue fog and reforms mere feet away. I suppress another shiver.
“Aye. Who asks?” He is confused and tilts his head to the side, regarding me with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. I adjust the hood of my Archmage’s robes just in case my appearance provokes him, all things considered.
“I am sent by your wife. She’s been looking for you.”
“Ruki? Why would she be here? I requested…” The man pauses to swear colorfully and pinch the bridge of his nose. “I asked Gjukar to keep her away from this place, off the front lines.”
I hadn’t known the warrior woman’s name. It settles strangely as I turn it over in my mind. It feels like a weight.
“She…she is okay. She’s back west, in the plains over the mountain.”
“Safe,” Fenrig sighs. “Thank the Gods.” He pauses and tilts his head again. “Why is she looking for me? Gjukar set us to camp here for the night—I don’t much care for this location—but our skirmish will be there where you describe tomorrow. Will Ruki clear out before dawn?”
“I am not sure,” I answer, puzzled. “Though…why not camp here? Plenty of even ground—comfortable as far as wilderness goes.” I know why not. I have read the tales. Still, indulging the man’s story is as good a way as any to tether him to this plane long enough to return his spirit to his wife. Getting spirits to follow a person is delicate business. It can fail spectacularly, no matter the grief, and no matter the power behind the attempt.
I should know.
“Our fires can be seen for miles. It sets my teeth on edge thinking about it,” the man answers, kicking at the dirt. “Ah, but, if Ruki is looking for me, there must be something important she’s trying to say. I would speak with her, so long as I return to camp before I am missed. Can you take me to her?”
I listen close as the soft buzz of energy softens and melds with the choir of nighttime noises out in these plains—insect chirps and the soft padding of prey animals in the undergrowth. There won’t be risk of his spirit dissipating and reforming back at his site of death now, not with Ruki involved. The amulet I wear is warmer now against my skin than it had been before. I brush my fingers over it absently.
“Of course,” I say with a nod. “It’s not far.”
I focus on the amulet—not that I need guiding back to Gjurkar’s Monument, not after everything the last few nights—and let it pull me in Ruki’s direction. I am almost willing to let myself believe it is, after all, Mara. The power feels…insistent, somehow. I cannot explain it.
Fenrig does not stay silent as we walk through the open field and back through the pass which leads to the site of the infamous battle. Most of it I tune out, unwilling to listen to his explanation of proper battle axe techniques, or the squabbles between soldiers that occurred whilst most of them were drunk. War is on our doorsteps here in Skyrim, and the news that couriers carry gives me plenty to worry about without listening to the egregious mismanagement Gjukar was capable of in his time. The man was memorialized in more ways than one. Funny, that, how those least deserving are often the most commemorated.
My mind drifts to the statue of Shalidor at the College of Winterhold and I allow myself a small grin. Sometimes, I suppose, there are exceptions to those rules.
We walk, and the ghost trailing behind me morphs in my mind in ways I try to ignore. It takes on the shape of someone whose face I’ve tried so long to forget. There’s a sharp stab behind my sternum. I let myself feel that pain fully, then let it pass, refusing to turn to remind myself of who actually follows. I focus instead on the man’s voice and the inane recollections. And then—
“Do you want to know how I met Ruki?” Fenrig asks. His voice softens in a way that could be construed as charming to anyone else.
I think back, and cannot recall the last time I felt anything other than empty.
I’m not sure what compels me to answer, but I do. “Of course.”
“Would you believe it wasn’t during wartime? Though we are both soldiers, it was during a Harvest’s End festival in Whiterun. I saw her in the market square—the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life. Seems like such a long time ago now.” He sighs contentedly and laughs to himself. “She wore her armor to the festival. Carried her shield. Did the warpaint. Braids, too. So strong and staid—almost as if we would be marching the next dawn. I saw her and I just…knew. Seems she did, too.” The amulet I wear grows warmer still as the man speaks. “Do you know how that feels? Like the Gods decided long ago we ought to meet.”
I do know—or at least…I did. Once.
“Alas, I don’t,” I lie. My voice does take on a heaviness I can’t keep behind my teeth. I decide it isn’t the worst thing to garner sympathy from the dead, though the chill of him patting my shoulder is less than pleasant.
“One day the Gods will see fit to show you that light,” the ghost says, almost to himself. “If they did it for me—and I am nobody, to be sure, and more than fine with that—then someone like you won’t have to wait long.”
“Someone like me?” I ask, a strange melancholic amusement taking over. This isn’t the first time I’ve appeared as something other to the average onlooker.
“Aye. Anyone can tell there’s something more to you. I’m no mage, no Jarl. But you hold yourself like…hmm. Like a legend. And I have seen my share of those in passing. Fought alongside them plenty.”
“Thank you,” I answer. I don’t elaborate, and Fenrig doesn’t press. The Dragonborn situation grows more tired to talk about the more it crops up. I can’t help what I am. Nobody can, really, least of all legends.
We approach Gjukar’s Monument in much less time than I thought it would take. The air feels colder here. More spirits congest this area—this makes it hard for one such as Ruki to manifest in full. But still, she manages. She always does.
This time, she exits her orb form as if she is running over the threshold of an open door. Her feet do not flatten the grass, instead passing straight through.
“Fenrig! You’re alive. You’re alive!” Ruki throws her arms around her husband, who laughs and wraps her in a tight embrace.
The amulet buzzes almost audibly as I take in the scene before me.
“Of course I am. What brings you here?” He holds her by the shoulders as he backs up to ask his question.
“I’d heard…there was a massacre here. That the battle ended up a trap. That Gjukar’s men were wiped out, one by one.”
I am almost moved by the sadness and relief in her voice. Almost. Instead, I shove that down, too, and watch the scene unfold before me, just as Mara wished.
“We’re not expected to fight until dawn, Ruki. How could you have heard this?”
“Everyone…everyone knows.”
“That cannot be. Ruki—what’s happening?”
“I—I’m not sure. I’m confused.”
I look on in wonder as Fenrig and Ruki’s spirits begin to take on a golden shimmer. The air warms considerably. There is a strange whisper as the wind blows across the plains.
Fenrig shakes his head with a brilliant smile. The gold light grows stronger, as if in an imitation of the rising sun. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, pressing a gentle kiss to Ruki’s cheek. “We’re together now.” He takes both her hands in his, and she matches his smile with a soft laugh. He looks skyward toward the fragment of moon that deigned to observe this meeting. “I expect we’ll be forever.”
“It’s what we promised, after all,” Ruki sighs. The pair embrace again and both laugh—Fenrig’s deep and rumbling in a way I can almost feel in the ground below my feet compared to the light bells of Ruki’s voice. “It’s all I wanted. War, glory, legend—none of it matters if we’re apart.” She places a hand on his cheek. “With you, I’m home.”
Something seizes in my chest at the words. I do not tear my gaze away as the pair kiss, and then begin to drift upward. The whispers crescendo as the strength of the wind picks up. The golden light grows too bright for me to see anything more. I refuse to acknowledge the tears that blur my vision.
When I look up, at first I think I see a spirit—the one I had been trying to forget. The one I could not protect when it mattered most. The love I lost, not of my own volition. The one death that eventually set me wandering into Skyrim to get caught up in a destiny that never felt like mine. The tears burn my eyes and fall unbidden. I do not have the strength to stop them.
This is unlike me. I do not deserve to mourn, not when all I’ve lost was the result of my own actions.
Or lack thereof.
The amulet around my neck all but burns as I watch the spirit continue to approach. But no—the air remains warm. This is no spirit. The shape of the figure seems familiar, but the tears make it difficult to tell exactly who it is. All I see is the blue-grey of their skin, and the deep ruby of their eyes—colors blurred, of course, and washed out in the poor lighting.
“I was wondering how far afield you’d gotten.” A quick hiss of Magicka, and another Candlelight spell joins mine, better illuminating the field. I scrub my eyes on my sleeve. Brelyna Maryon situates herself beside me, arms crossed over her chest. “Maramal and Dinya told me you’d be back shortly, but as you well know by now—I was never one for patience.”
“No, you never were,” I agree. I smile, though I know it’s wistful. I let the moment stretch on. We’ve been stuck side by side since the disaster with the Eye of Magnus—she was instrumental in surmounting that particular obstacle. After everything we’ve been through, the silence has ceased to feel awkward around her.
“I hadn’t expected you to cry,” she says after a moment and briefly brushes her hand over my hair. “But their story was beautiful, in a melancholic way.”
“Struck too close to home,” I manage, though my voice feels strangled. She knows my past. I told her of it when I thought for sure we’d die in that Nordic ruin, facing down an undead dragon all on our own.
She sighs and presses her shoulder to mine. Her black hair blows in the wind. She tucks some stray strands behind her pointed ear.
“I’ve told you before that you can’t keep blaming yourself for that,” she says, soft spoken and tone gentle.
“I know.” I absently place my palm over the amulet. It’s still buzzing, though I thought for sure the job I was sent to do has been done. “It feels like I can’t move past it, regardless.” I look skyward, as if that will prevent the tears from falling. It never does. “I’m not unlike a ghost, I suppose.”
Brelyna looks over at me, a thoughtful expression crossing her brow. “You know what they told me while I was waiting around for you in the Temple of Mara?”
“What?”
She laces her fingers through mine and holds tight, as if she might lend me a modicum of strength and pats the back of my hand. Then she lets go too quickly. “We accept the love we think we deserve.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She exhales and nods in my direction. “You don’t believe yourself worthy of moving on. Or of finding good again.” She pauses and shrugs. “Or love.”
The amulet around my neck may as well pass for fire at this point. It burns, but doesn’t. Very strange.
“Well, that’s obvious,” I answer. “I don’t.”
She shakes her head and steps from her place beside me. The way she holds my gaze is not unfamiliar. It feels like we’ve almost had this conversation before. I must have shut it down at the time.
“Oh, but you do.” She smiles. I don’t know why. She whispers the next phrase, but I can still hear it. “You do.” She clears her throat and reaches out a hand. “Come on. We should go tell Dinya how this all went.”
I take her hand, and for a moment—though I could be wrong—I swear I see the same glimmer of golden light return to surround us instead.