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Wind worries at them like a living thing.
It has teeth tonight — needle-fine snow driven sideways, the kind that finds the seams in a cloak and the wet edges of hair and makes a mockery of anything called “waterproof.” The world beyond the torchlight’s weak circle is only moving white. Sound is swallowed and returned in strange pieces: the roar of the sea somewhere to the east, the scrape of ice against rock, Lilli’s breath coming too fast through her teeth.
They should not be here.
They should have been an hour farther south before the sky turned vicious. The detour had been necessary — an interruption in the road that neither of them had wanted to look at too closely in the dark, a wrongness in the wind, tracks where there should not have been tracks. Something that made them choose speed over pride and take the nearest cut through the mountains.
Now they are paying for it.
Lilli moves like she is stubborn enough to bully the weather into behaving. Chin tucked, shoulders squared, hood up, stride shortened to keep balance on ice she can’t quite see. She is taller than he is by a head and the wind takes full advantage of it, catching the extra reach of her limbs and tugging at her like she’s a sail.
Normally she would laugh at that — make some sharp comment about Skyrim trying to steal her. Tonight, she does not waste the air.
Miraak could camp. They could dig down through the snow and make a hollow in the lee of rock, light a fire with magic that the wind would hate but fail to kill, wrap himself in his cloak and sleep like he has slept in far worse. The cold would be a familiar companion, not an enemy.
Lilliandra cannot.
He does not need to look at her hands to know it. He can hear it in the slight hitch of her breathing, the way she keeps her fingers curled too tightly inside wet gloves as if pain is something that can be squeezed smaller. He can see it in the way her steps have shortened, just a fraction — conserving, conserving, conserving. When he reaches for her pack, she lets him take it without protest. When he angles them east, she follows without comment.
When the shape of the cottage finally appears through the storm, it looks less like shelter and more like an apology. A squat little thing half-buried in drift, roofline low, windows shuttered tight, the door a dark line in the white.
Lilli’s pace does not quicken. She does not perform relief. She simply angles toward it as if this was always the plan. That, more than anything, tells him how close she is to the edge. She reaches the door first, then fumbles the lock once. Twice. Her gloves soaked through, fingers clumsy inside them. She huffs, breath fogging, and hands the key to him without comment.
He unlocks the door, then gets his shoulder into it. The wood is swollen with cold, the frame crusted with ice. It resists him as if offended he would ask it to do its job. “Of course,” he mutters, and shoves again. Something gives with a crack like a knuckle.
Without a word, she slips past him into the dark. She ducks instinctively, too tall for the low lintel, and in that small fold of her body he sees it — how much effort it costs her to keep moving.
Miraak hauls the door shut behind them and slams the bar into place. The sound is thick in the stillness. The cottage is nearly as cold inside as out, air unmoving, stale and sharp. Their breath fogs immediately, ghosting in front of their faces. For a heartbeat, neither of them moves. The storm presses at the walls, impatient.
Then Miraak drops their packs and goes for the hearth. It’s small, stone-lined, choked with last season’s ash. There is a stack of kindling and logs, neat and dry, beside it and a low iron box with tinder. Lilliandra’s preparedness is always a little insulting; he respects it anyway.
Behind him, there is the sound of wet cloth being peeled away. She works at the clasp of her cloak with hands that have stopped obeying. He hears the tiny fumble, the pause, then movement again. He can picture it without looking: the way her fingers struggle at simple metal as if the clasp is mocking her.
“Sit,” he says, not raising his voice.
“I’m—” She clears her throat, as if the cold has put something rough there. “I’m fine.” Her pride is still present. It is simply… quieter than usual.
Miraak casts a flame spell; sparks catch on wood, bright and warm. “Sit,” he repeats. He expects her to argue. To make it a contest, a conversation about autonomy and stubbornness and the indignity of being treated like she is breakable.
Instead, there is a soft shift of weight.
He glances over his shoulder and sees her on the narrow bench by the hearth, shoulders drawn in, cloak half off, hair dripping down the front of her. She looks annoyed at herself, not at him. Her jaw is clenched, the set of her mouth too controlled for comfort.
That compliance lands in him like a stone.
“Good,” he says, because it is the only thing that sounds remotely like what he means.
He feeds the hearth more kindling and coaxes flame into being. It takes, grudgingly; the wood damp, stubborn, sulking like the weather outside. The chimney draws wrong for a moment, smoke curling back into the room, then the draft finds its path and the fire settles into a low, hungry burn.
It will not be enough fast enough.
Lilli’s fingers twitch as if she cannot stand the idea of being idle. She murmurs something under her breath — Altmer syllables clipped by cold — and lifts a hand toward the hearth, as if to encourage the flame further with magicka. The spell sputters. A faint shimmer of heat appears and collapses before it can take hold.
Lilli freezes, not from cold this time. From humiliation.
Miraak watches her swallow whatever sharp comment she might have made about the realm, about her own tiredness, about anything that would turn this into something she can control with words.
He crosses the room in two steps and catches her wrist lightly, more a claim of attention than restraint. Her pulse is fast under his thumb. The skin is cold enough that it startles him.
“You are done,” he says.
“I’m just—”
“No.” He releases her wrist and reaches for the hem of her soaked gloves. “Hold still.” She does. Again. Too quickly.
He peels the gloves off and the sight of her hands makes something ugly tighten behind his ribs. Her fingers are startlingly pale, nails stark against skin once golden. The tips are white — too white.
Frostbite is not a dramatic thing. It does not announce itself. It arrives quietly, in inches.
He rolls her hand between his palms, feeling for sensation, for warmth that should be there and is not. Her fingers are stiff. When he presses his thumb into the pad of her index finger, the skin barely yields.
“Lilli,” he says, and for once her name comes out without bite. Her gaze flicks to his face, then away, as if she cannot bear to see whatever she expects to be there. “How close?” he asks.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Tries again. “I… lost feeling about ten minutes ago.”
Ten minutes. He does not let his reaction show. He has worn worse injuries in silence. He will not bother her with his anger; anger is useless here.
He turns toward the bed nook — a narrow alcove with a low frame and a thin mattress. The blankets on it look like they have never known warmth. “Up,” he says, and puts a hand at her elbow.
She rises without protest, and for a moment he tilts his head to look up at her as he guides her toward the bed, watching eyes half-lidded. She lets him lead, sitting on the bed with deep exhaustion she doesn’t bother to hide anymore. That’s almost worse than if she fought.
He strips his own cloak off, water shedding from it in a dark line on the floorboards, then shrugs out of his wet outer layers with swift efficiency. He digs into the supply chest — because of course there is a chest — finds furs folded and wrapped in oilcloth, finds spare socks and dry clothes. He tosses a tunic to Lilliandra.
She catches it clumsily; her fingers don’t close right. She stares at the cloth for a second like it is a puzzle for a moment.
Miraak swears quietly and steps in. “Arms,” he orders, and lifts the hem of her damp tunic.
She raises her arms obediently. The fabric pulls over her skin with a wet sound. He gets it off and immediately wraps her in furs — thick, heavy, smelling faintly of pine and smoke from some prior, less miserable night. The fur itself is cold, but it’s a barrier, a start.
Her hair is damp against her back. He rubs it with a towel until the towel is useless, then twists it up and binds it loosely so it isn’t freezing against her skin.
“Your feet,” he says.
“Fine,” she mutters drained, but it is the wrong word. It’s reflex. It has no teeth.
He crouches and takes her boot in both hands. The leather is stiff with ice along the seams. He works it off carefully. Her sock underneath is soaked through, clinging. When he peels it away, the sight makes his stomach turn. Her toes are white at the tips, the colour wrong, skin slick and waxy-looking from cold and wet. Not black, not dead but far too close to the line.
Lilli inhales sharply, as if she has only just realized her feet exist.
“Tell me if you feel pain,” he says, not unkindly.
She gives a humourless laugh. “Pain would be… reassuring.”
He does not dignify that with an answer. He cups her foot between his hands and breathes out slowly, warming his palms first, then her skin. He rubs gently, not hard — he knows enough not to treat frost-numb skin like a stubborn knot. He watches her face for reaction, for flinch, for anything that means sensation returning.
Nothing.
He moves to the other foot, repeats the process. Her ankles are cold, but they are still hers, still alive with pulse. Finally, after a long minute, she makes a small sound, sharp and involuntary, and jerks her foot half an inch.
There.
“Good,” he says, satisfied.
Lilli’s eyes narrow at him, half offended by the praise. Half… relieved.
He pulls dry socks on her feet and keeps his hands there a moment longer, holding the warmth in place as if he can bully heat back into her body by sheer stubbornness.
The fire behind them has strengthened, crackling louder. The cottage is still freezing, but the air has begun to shift. Their discarded wet clothes ever so slowly begin to warm and dry.
It’s not enough.
Lilliandra is wrapped in furs now, sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched. She looks smaller than she is, long limbs folded in on themselves, and the sight is wrong. She should take up space. She usually does.
Miraak drags the blankets back and climbs in behind her.
She doesn’t ask why. She doesn’t make a comment about him ordering her around. She simply leans back into him the moment his chest touches her shoulders — fast, boneless, like a cat dropping full weight onto a warm stone.
The ease of it punches a quiet breath out of him.
On normal days, when she wants him, she takes him like that — draping herself over him while he reads, crowds his space in a way that is infuriating and familiar. Leaning full weight against his back while he studies. She claims warmth and attention like they are hers by right.
Tonight, she does it without performance. Without any of the sharp edges she uses to protect herself.
Miraak wraps his arms around her middle and pulls her close, pressing her back flush to his chest. He tucks one hand under her ribs, the other over her stomach, anchoring her there. He pulls the fur and the blanket around them both, sealing the heat in. Her feet tuck between his calves.
Lilli makes a small sound — almost a sigh, almost a whine — and melts. “You’re… absurdly warm,” she murmurs into the fur at her collar.
“Yes,” he agrees, flat.
She huffs a laugh, weak but real. “Must be nice.”
“It is.” He shifts slightly so his mouth is near her ear, breath warming the damp hair at her temple. “Now be quiet and steal that same warmth.”
That earns him another soft laugh, sharper this time. A scrap of her usual self.
Her hands — those hands — tuck against his, held so his heat can seep into them. He rubs her fingers one by one, slow and patient, watching for the first signs of colour returning. Her skin is still cold, but it is less wrong. Less terrifying.
She shivers once, a full-body tremor that ripples through her, and he tightens his hold instinctively, as if he can physically stop the cold from touching her.
“You should have said something sooner,” he says, because the thought has been gnawing at him and he hates unspoken things.
Lilli is quiet for a moment. Her head tips back a fraction, resting against his shoulder. He adjusts, settling his chin against the top of her head. “I know,” she says, voice thin. “I knew we’d get to the house… eventually.” A pause. Her pride twitches. He feels it like a muscle trying to flex. Then she exhales, long and honest. “I hate Skyrim. I couldn’t have slept out there.”
The admission is simple. It costs her anyway.
Miraak presses his mouth briefly to her hair — not a kiss, not really, more like a seal, a promise he does not intend to examine.
“I know,” he says, and means: and I would not let you.
The fire pops. The cottage creaks as the wind slams a gust into the wall. Outside is still a white howl. Inside, there is only the slow work of heat returning.
Lilli’s fingers twitch again, and this time when he presses his thumb into her palm she reacts — an involuntary curl, a faint squeeze.
“There,” he murmurs. “Good.”
“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.”
He says nothing and shifts to tuck her hands deeper under his palms, against his skin.
Minutes pass. The fire warms the room in reluctant inches. Her breathing slows. The tension in her body unknots, strand by strand.
She dozes in the silence, wakes, dozes again — each time her body re-finds him like a compass needle returning to north. Each time she settles faster, her body turning inch by inch towards him, rolling to her side.
At one point, her head turns slightly and her cheek settles against his collarbone. Her eyes are half-lidded. “You’re annoyingly good at this,” she murmurs, the words slurred by sleep.
Miraak huffs a laugh into her hair, surprised by the sound coming from him at all. “Survival is an old habit,” he says.
Lilli’s mouth curves, barely. “Mm.” And then she finally goes still.
Her weight is heavy against him, trust an absolute. He keeps his hands around hers until he can feel warmth in every fingertip, until the last of the frightening pallor is chased away by blood returning.
Outside, Dawnstar’s cold howls and rages and tries to make itself important.
Inside, Miraak counts her breaths until his own begin to match them, and the storm — at least in this small, stubborn room — loses.