The first step out of Kilkreath nearly buckled me.
After all the screaming, after the bursts of light that seared through stone, after the weight of Meridia's commands hammering in my skull, the silence outside felt wrong. Too wide. Too empty. My lungs burned as I dragged in the cold air, as though I hadn't breathed in days. Snow crunched under my boots, and the sound was so ordinary it almost broke me.
I leaned against the temple wall, pressing my head to the stone. My arms still trembled, my body screamed in places I didn't even know I could hurt. My ribs ached with every breath, and my shoulder was stiff from the voidblade's graze. It would scar. I could feel the heat of it.
The sky above stretched gray and endless, clouds smothering the weak light that managed to bleed through. No divine fire. No booming voice. Just the wind, carrying the taste of salt from the sea. For once, Meridia wasn't speaking to me. I should have been grateful, but the silence left a worse taste in my mouth than her arrogance.
She was watching. I knew it. Somewhere. And if she wasn't, then Miraak was. Or Hermaeus Mora. Or all three, laughing, each tugging at a different corner of me until I came apart like a half-rotten rope.
I shoved myself off the wall and pulled the pack tighter across my shoulder. Supplies rattled weakly inside. Dried meat, a few bandages, a single half-empty potion. Zavir's kindness had stretched farther than I thought, but it wouldn't last forever.
One step. Then another.
I forced myself down the path away from Kilkreath. I didn't look back. I couldn't. The temple loomed behind me like a weight pressing between my shoulder blades, as though the statue itself would reach down and drag me back if I dared to hesitate.
The snow along the path was shallow, but the cold dug deep. My fingers stiffened around my sword hilt, even through the gloves. Every few steps I flexed them, needing the reminder that I still had control. That I hadn't burned away entirely inside that place.
Meridia had told me to fight, to shine, to stand as her champion. But when it came down to it, I'd thrown her Beacon in rage, used it like a weapon against Malkoran. I didn't care what she thought of it. I didn't care about her judgment. But the thought clung to me anyway. The way her voice had broken in anger, the way her silence now felt heavier than any chain.
I muttered aloud just to hear something other than the wind. "I'm still here. That's enough."
But the truth clawed behind the words. I wasn't enough. Not for her, not for Mora, not for Miraak.
The road forked at the base of the slope. East would carry me back toward the holds I knew—Whiterun, Thaumkr, the places where Zavir still walked. The thought of faces I half-trusted tugged at me. But the Beacon's light had pulled me west. And in the back of my skull, in that buried part of me that still remembered Skyrim as a game, I knew where the west road led.
Solitude.
A city that didn't sleep in shadow. Markets filled with voices instead of silence. Taverns where the fire burned loud and the ale tasted like ash but was still worth drinking. A place where no Daedra would whisper in my head—at least, not so loud I couldn't drown them out.
I clutched the strap of my pack tighter. "Solitude, then," I whispered. Saying it aloud made it real.
The wind answered with nothing.
The road wound through snow-crusted stone, sometimes wide enough for a cart, sometimes barely more than a line carved by boots and hooves. My body screamed with every step, but I refused to stop. Movement kept me alive. Stopping would mean thinking.
Still, I caught myself glancing over my shoulder every dozen steps. The shadows stretched long, curling across the snow like they had weight of their own. Once or twice I thought I saw the greenish-yellow gleam of Ulfr's eyes in the dark between trees. Once, I swore I heard the whispering tentacles of Mora brushing too close. I kept my hand near my blade, though there was nothing to strike but emptiness.
By midday, hunger gnawed at me. I stopped long enough to chew a strip of dried meat, tearing it like leather. My jaw ached by the time I swallowed. I washed it down with a swig of half-frozen water, the taste metallic.
I crouched near a boulder, back pressed to stone, and let my head rest for just a moment. My body begged for sleep, but I didn't dare close my eyes. Instead, I listened to the wind howl across the pass. For a moment, it almost sounded like laughter.
I spat into the snow. "Miraak, Mora, whichever one of you it is—shut up."
The wind didn't listen.
By the second day, I'd lost track of time. The clouds never broke, sun smothered into a pale smudge. My boots grew heavier, my breath shallower, but I kept pushing. The thought of Solitude carried me forward. People. Noise. Anything but this endless, silent hunt.
A pair of hunters passed me near dusk. They carried a bloodied elk slung between them, eyes narrowing at the sight of me. I caught my reflection in their stares—armor scuffed, cloak torn, blood dried black along my gauntlet. A stranger walking alone in the snow, muttering to himself.
They didn't speak. Just nodded once, sharply, and gave me distance as though I carried plague.
I watched them go, and a bitter laugh scraped my throat. Maybe Solitude wouldn't ease the weight. Maybe it would only remind me how far from human I was becoming.
But even then—it would still be voices. Better suspicion than silence.
The third night was the worst.
I had found shelter beneath a cliffside, fire struggling against the wind. The flames licked weakly at the wood, refusing to rise higher. I stared into it, jaw tight, and the faces came back. Ulfr laughing as he cut down his own men. Malkoran's hollow corpse. The screaming shade tearing itself against my blade.
And Meridia. Her voice, her commands, her anger.
I pressed my hands to my face, nails biting my skin. "I'm not your pawn," I whispered into the dark. "Not his either. I'm just… me."
The words didn't stick. They slipped through my teeth like lies.
In the corner of my eye, the shadows shifted. My head snapped up, hand reaching for my sword. Nothing. Just the dark, curling, moving like it wanted to breathe.
My grip didn't loosen from the hilt all night.
On the fourth day, I saw the coast.
Jagged cliffs broke the horizon, waves smashing below. The salt wind clawed at my face, raw and biting, but it smelled alive. More alive than anything I'd felt in days. Somewhere beyond, the Blue Palace and Solitude's arches stretched above the water, though distance still hid them.
My chest tightened at the sight. Almost there. A city, a bed, a moment where I wasn't a blade in someone else's hand.
But as the wind carried the sea spray to me, I felt it again—that weight. Eyes on me. Not one pair, not even two. Dozens.
Miraak's hunger, Mora's endless patience. And behind them both, Meridia's cold fury still smoldering.
I stopped in the snow, fists clenching. "Enough," I growled into the emptiness. My breath steamed in the air. "If you're watching—watch. If you're waiting—wait. But I'm not yours. Not any of yours. You hear me?"
Silence answered. But the weight didn't lift.
I walked on anyway.
That night, as I lay beside the fire, my cloak wrapped tight, the truth slipped out of me before I could stop it.
"I don't want to be alone anymore."
The flames crackled. No one answered. But saying it out loud still eased something in my chest.
Tomorrow I'd reach Solitude. Tomorrow I'd walk into a city where voices filled the air, where faces meant more than whispers in the dark. Tomorrow, maybe, I'd remember what it was to be human.
I closed my eyes, sword resting beside me, the weight of eyes pressing in from all directions. Tomorrow.