The horse's hooves echoed against the stone as I crossed Dragon Bridge for the last time. The river below churned with white foam, carrying ash downstream like black veins cutting through the water. Behind me, the village smoldered in silence. A dozen survivors picking through ruins. Captain Aldia's voice shouting orders in the distance. Daric's hollow eyes watching me leave.
I didn't look back again.
The road east stretched wide, cracked and worn from years of war wagons and merchant caravans. But now it felt empty. Too empty. The kind of silence that makes you check over your shoulder every mile, just to be sure no masked figure is stalking you from the treeline.
The pack at my side felt heavier with each step. Inside it, wrapped in cloth, was the black stone tablet I'd pulled from the cultists. Even through the fabric, I could feel its presence. It was like carrying a heartbeat that wasn't mine, steady and relentless. Once in a while, if I let my mind wander, I swore I could hear the faintest scrape of words just beyond hearing.
Hermaeus Mora.
I adjusted the straps and forced my eyes back to the road.
By midday, I stopped on a rise overlooking the Karth River. The view was wide—mountains rising like jagged teeth, forests bending in the wind, clouds dragging shadows across the ground. It should've been beautiful, but all I saw were hiding places.
I pulled out the dried bread Aldia had given me, chewing without tasting. I remembered the inn back in Solitude, the warm food, the laughter from Endarie when she'd teased her sister. That felt like another world now. And maybe it was. I wasn't from here.
That thought dug deeper than I wanted to admit. Back home, in my world, roads like this didn't exist. No dragons overhead. No gods whispering through stone tablets. Just highways, phone signals, and glowing screens to drown out the silence.
Now, silence was all I had.
I caught myself clutching the amulet at my chest again. Taarie's gift. It radiated warmth, a reminder of a promise that seemed so small compared to what was looming. Yet it kept me moving. That, and the image of Miraak's masked followers burning villages in the night.
The second night on the road, I shared a campfire with a pair of hunters.
They looked rough—furs patched with old stitches, bows worn from years of use—but they welcomed me with nods. The older one, a woman with streaks of gray in her braids, passed me a skin of mead.
"Not many travelers out these days," she said. "Too many bandits. Too many shadows."
"Shadows?" I asked.
She spat into the fire. "Cultists. Damn things crawling all over Skyrim now. Used to be the Stormcloaks we worried about. Now it's masked lunatics screaming about some old dragon priest."
Her companion grunted. "World's never quiet long."
I didn't answer.
The hunters didn't press. They told me about a bear den near the river, about rumors of an Imperial patrol gone missing on the road to Windhelm. They didn't talk about the Civil War much—maybe it was too close, too raw. Or maybe everyone was too tired to care anymore.
When I lay down that night, staring at the stars, I realized something that chilled me more than the wind: the hunters hadn't spoken Ulfric's name once. Not to curse him, not to mourn him. Just silence. Like the war had ended, and he'd been buried with it.
And maybe, in a way, he had.
On the fourth day, the road bent close to the sea. Salt air mixed with pine, sharp in my lungs. I dismounted and walked along the edge of the cliffs, looking out at the gray waters.
That was when I saw them.
Three figures, walking single file along the rocks below. Black robes. White masks.
My chest tightened.
They didn't look up. They didn't need to. Somehow, I knew they already knew I was there. The lead one paused, head tilting slowly as if sniffing the air. Then, without a word, they kept walking east, vanishing behind the curve of stone.
I stood frozen long after they were gone, sweat cold against my back.
I wanted to follow. Wanted to cut them down before they found another village. But my feet stayed rooted. The memory of Dragon Bridge burned too clear. I wasn't ready for another massacre. Not alone.
Instead, I mounted up and pressed on.
By the time the spires of Solitude were just a faint shadow on the horizon behind me, I knew there was no turning back.
This road was pulling me deeper, toward Windhelm, toward Miraak, toward something I wasn't sure I was ready to face.
But if the cultists already knew my name—if Hermaeus Mora already had his eye on me—then maybe it didn't matter what I was ready for.
The only choice left was to keep moving.
And pray that when I reached the end of this road, I'd still be myself.