Undone with the taste of his blood, the Nightkiss shuddered in my hands like a wounded animal as the original blade began shining through. Even as he began to combust with death the Light of Dawn sent his soul screaming into oblivion, stripping away flesh, muscle and organs and blasting his bones with waves of purity. I was forced to close my eyes as the light built to a silent crescendo, but the intensity of the light was so great that afterimages of Volmyr's twitching skeleton through my eyelids remained long after his echoing scream faded. I was left the last survivor in the ruins, the blasted remains of my would-be-killer tumbling on me and at my feet in a jumbled pile of ruined armour, burnt clothing, fire-blackened bones and grey-black ash.

  I fell flat on my face in his remains, feeling the choking ash of his demise force its way into my lungs and sinuses with every hacking breath as I struggled to rise. The warmth of blood from my shoulder trickled its way down my chest and back, sticking the leather underlayers to my skin that somehow managed to annoy me with how uncomfortable it was. The spreading feeling of numbness and the slight chill coursing through my limbs as mild blood loss set in finally began sinking into my exhausted mind. Using nothing more than my good arm I pushed up into the kneeling position and took stock of my situation.

  Volmyr was well and truly dead, there would be no coming back for him even with some of the more outlandish stories and superstitions that surrounded our kind. The Nightkiss had died with him, being reborn from his ashes figuratively and literally once more as the gleaming Light of Dawn. Where the blade had once drunk from the light and consumed it within its depths it now shone with a faint intensity that only the corrupted blood of vampires could release. Swirls of faint light, like the faraway hints of stars on a cloudy night blinked within the metal of the blade, now revealed in its pure silvery-blue sheen of a metal rarely seen throughout Tamriel. There was a similarity between it and Sunchild where the two Blades were compared, but it was almost like comparing an iron training sword with an Ebony honour blade in terms of quality and craftsmanship. The only thing that hadn't changed with the loss of its corruption was its sheer cutting edge, which if anything had somehow increased with the rejuvenation as the ultimate vampire slaying weapon.

  Groaning and jamming the hem of my blood-stained cloak between my teeth I pressed my fingers into the tiny slit in my armour. Barely three fingers wide, and slicing between two daedroth scales and separating and section of chainlink, the wound in my shoulder was close to where the crossbow bolt had struck me in the Mythic Dawn's ambush. Weeping with blood it was an unnaturally clean wound, the nature of the Light of Dawn making it hundreds of times more efficient in cutting and slicing but stabbing wounds were almost self-sealing.

  With burning heat I closed the wound with bursts of magicka, knitting the flesh and muscles together again in the depths of my shoulder to ensure I wasn't going to finish bleeding to death. The pain was extraordinary, but it was only through the urgings and rising assistance of the beast that allowed me to lurch to my feet, retrieving Sunchild and my dagger from their places on the floor and stagger about the hall as though drunk. The priceless scabbard was pulled from the filth coating the floor, somehow being the only item other than Sunchild that the blade wasn't able to cut through effortlessly. Blinking with the effort to stay conscious I scavenged through the room, finding yet another tiny collection of baubles and trinkets from the numerous victims of the vampires that soon found a place in my pouches. Grave robbing wasn't something that I could bring myself to do, but in the darkness and depravity of that place leaving a small fortune in gems, coins and jewellery behind didn't even cross my mind.

  The pain of my wounds was almost crippling and after stuffing my pouches with everything I could get my hands on I again ran my hands over everywhere I could reach, healing as much as I could with risking mutation and cancers. It would be a few days until I would be fully fit, but I knew that it was far better than being dead. Gently rummaging through my ingredients pouches I ground up a fine paste like that I had used at the base of the waterfall, smearing it into my gums and sighing as the pain slid away into waves of euphoria. The paste was stronger than what I would've usually utilised but with at least several hours of solid marching to return to Glenvar ahead of me I wasn't going to cut myself short on the painkilling ointment.

  I left the bloodstained ruin of Nornalhorst behind me, walking out and into the sunlight and feeling the layers of gore strewn ash crackling in the winter sun. After the first kilometre through the forest, the blood had begun to flake and fall away in a maroon-grey dust. After the next six, the sweat cleared streams down my face and stung the eyes despite the makeshift bandanna I had wrapped around my forehead. By the time I had returned to the village in the shadow of Glenvar Castle the sun was dipping into the horizon at my back, lengthening my own shadow into a hunch backed colossus striding over the land in a determined, if somewhat inebriated gait. Dusk had set in when I felt the worn cobblestones of the village streets under the soles of my boots, and pushed open the door to the inn to the gasps and exclamations of those within.

  Clothing ripped and torn in places, a combination of my blood and that of several vampires and the dust of their fiery deaths covered almost every centimetre of my body. Upon crossing the threshold and successfully ducking the garlic and hourglass door arrangement I smiled wearily at how everyone in the room jolted from their seats. Several made various signs to the Nine Divines; the most common was the brief crossing of the chest invoking Talos' protection and at least two of the patrons rose to their feet with hands falling to the weapons by their sides. One of them, a brutish man-at-arms from the castle in his grubby surcoat and mail grasped the military pick at his hip threateningly until he realised that challenging someone such as myself mightn't be the smartest idea.

  Bone-wearingly exhausted from an entire day of marching, several hours of fighting and the closest call to death I had ever experienced I was ready to find the nearest open space of floor and fall unconscious. At that point however, there was only one thought churning through my mind which had forced me to step one foot in front of the other for the previous hours.

  "Is she still here?" I asked Abhuki, the Khajiit innkeeper who looked over me with suspicious eyes at my dishevelled appearance.

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  "The dark skinned one is, yes." Her ears folded tight against her skull and there was hint of a snarl in her expression. "Been scaring away this one's customers all day. Last I saw her, she was upstairs in the room."

  "So, you have a free room available then?"

  There was a narrowing of eyes from the Khajiit as she stared at me. Viconia's mood had obviously not improved our relations with the village. "You have rented a room already."

  I slid a coin from the depths of my pouches across the surface of the bar which she picked up in a clawed hand and stared at suspiciously. "I want a separate room for the night, a mug of your strongest alcohol and a bath. Not necessarily in that order either."

  She experimentally bit into the coin and I watched as she realised that the coin was indeed gold. "That can be arranged" she murmured, and turned around to open a bottle from the others arrayed on the shelves behind her.

  "Master Desin?" there was a timid voice from behind me and I saw how a group of the locals had edged forward, afraid of the state that I was in and concerned for what it foretold for their community.

  "Glenvar is safe." I said simply, nodding my thanks to Abhuki as she gave me a mug of spirits distilled from local potatoes. From the smell alone, it was extremely effective as cleaning wounds, and probably paint as well.

  I gulped down the fiery spirit in one go, feeling the way that it burned all the way down and washed the taste of blood and my painkilling paste from my mouth. "There was a coven of vampires nearby."

  The ripple of fear through the group was obvious and once more they made various signs of the Nine. "Vampires?"

  "The key term here is 'was'. I killed all that I could find and I don't think that I missed any."

  There was a lot of suspicious glances between the group as they considered my words. Without solid proof of the vampires they were inclined to disbelieve my claims, but I drew out the enormous length of the Light of Dawn and placed it on the surface of the bar alongside a skull I had carried with me. Lord Volmyr's blackened cranium regarded the room with sunken eye sockets and everyone withdrew from the sight of the four-centimetre-long incisors propping it up.

  "There's a bag just outside filled with another dozen or so skulls just like this one." Abhuki returned another mug of spirits as she stared disdainfully at the burned skull on her bar that had shed the tiniest amount of ash from within its cavities. The second mug emptied as quickly as the first and I felt the warmth flow through me, moving away from the bar and raising a questioning eyebrow in the innkeeper's direction.

  "Up the stairs you must go, to the first door on the right. I'll send someone to you once the bath is drawn."

  I nodded my thanks, flipping a silver coin in her direction and acquiring the rest of the bottle of distilled spirits before climbing the stairs. The Light of Dawn in its priceless scabbard was dragged off the surface of the bar, leaving the haunting skull of the vampire lord to gaze accusingly at all who remained.

  In my new room I dumped my excess equipment, hauling off my travelling pouches and pack and leaving me dressed in my armour and clothing. For a moment I hesitated after leaving the room, standing before the room that Viconia and I had been sharing and feeling even more terrified than what I had when Volmyr had pinned me to the wall.

  Breathing heavily, I rapped my bloodied and bruised knuckles on the doorframe, hearing the sounds of movement within and opening the door anywhere when no response came. Viconia was alone in the room, sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, reading some mouldering book that had spent too many years within the inn.

  "You made it back I see." She stated bluntly after several minutes of awkward silence. Annoyance flashed in her eyes for a moment as she met my expression, but it disappeared just as quickly.

  "And you stayed." I replied, stepping inside and feeling her eyes travel up the length of my body and take in the signs of battle and death that covered every centimetre.

  There was a snort and the book clapped shut. "Like I have said several times before wael, where else would I go?"

  "Anywhere you liked I should think." The chair creaked as I sat on it, placing the Light of Dawn on the table on top of the pile of armour arrayed on it. "And the way things seem to have been going recently you'd have a higher chance of not getting injured or killed."

  "It would help if your battle strategy didn't rely on getting stabbed or punched all the time."

  The corner of my mouth curled and I could see the hints of humour returning to her expression. However, it was still filled with immeasurable melancholy, and the mood that had gripped her earlier in the day had not subsided by much.

  "Were you successful?" She asked after some time, and I nodded, lifting the Light of Dawn and handing it over to her by the hilt.

  "The Vampires are dead; the skulls are downstairs as proof of the contract and this is the Blade that Threnodir was seeking."

  I could see the way her eyes light up in amazement as she slid several centimetres of the blade from the scabbard, gazing into the gleaming metal as it swirled and flickered faintly like stars on a moonless night.

  "And judging by your appearance, I am to assume that you got yourself injured again?"

  Trying and failing to hide my sudden nervousness I could feel my heart racing faster as I remembered how close I had come to death and how it was only through luck that I had survived Volmyr. "It was a close-run thing." My admission did little to change her expression as she stared at me and handed the blade back. "I managed to get some new scars to add to the collection."

  Another moment of silence stretched the evening chill and the sounds of muted conversation and renewed drinking began echoing up from the ground floor. She sighed, looking elsewhere in the room, anywhere but my eyes.

  "I... I apologise, for earlier this morning." Our eyes met each other's for a heartbeat and I felt the familiar pangs of desire as I gazed into their yellow depths. "You must remember that I still have not been on the surface long and I'm still finding it hard to adjust to it all."

  "I'm also sorry." She looked at me with a strange expression at my words that left me chewing my lip nervously. "I know that my words caused offense, and I'm also sorry for my loss of control."

  The expression that she suddenly wore was indescribable as she shifted through several emotions before looking at me with the slightest hint of confusion.

  "We're two or three days at least from Bravil." There was no change to her expression as I nervously attempted to change the topic, continuing to look at me with her predatory gaze. "Once morning arrives we can go and collect the contract and be on our way well before noon. That is, if we continue travelling together."

  She thought for a moment and somehow that made me feel better than her having already come to a decision during the day. While she had obviously been doing little else but considering her options while I was killing vampires, now that I was standing there in person she was rethinking them once more.

  Finally, she looked me dead in the eyes once again "This arrangement is satisfactory." There was a muted hiss to her words after she mulled them over in her mind before speaking.

  "For now..."