BLOOD FAMILY

CHAPTER ONE – FROSTED BLOOD

Sissel was bleeding, and she hated it.

It hurt, for one thing. Of course it hurt. It was a cut. Cuts did hurt. But there was more to it than that. It meant that she had to stop and sit by the roadside in the pitch dark, tugging her skirt up over her knee and squinting through the blackness to try to examine the damage. It meant that she had to press her hands over her knee to stop the blood, and since she'd not had time to properly clean her hands… well, she might be only ten years old, but she knew about infection risks. But more important than that, it meant that she'd be home late. Not that her father ever batted an eyelid if she was home late.

And that was the problem. Because she'd come in late, hours after night had fallen, with bloodstains on her hands and a tear in her skirt. And her father wouldn't even look up from his mead, except to order her to bed. She'd have to curl up beneath the blanket and press her face against her pillow to stifle her tears, because nothing good would come of Britte hearing her crying.

She couldn't help it. Any reminder of how little her father cared tended to bring on tears.

Sissel tried to swallow back the sudden tightness in her throat. She couldn't dwell on that now. She had to stop the bleeding. It didn't feel like a bad cut, but whenever she touched it, her hands came away wet. If only she had something to hand that could staunch it – a cloth, even a scrap of parchment, something – but she was crouched on a rock beside the road that ran parallel to her family's vegetable garden, and the only things around were the trowel she'd been using to tease out the weeds, and some cabbages.

Sissel was young, she was the first to admit that, but she understood the theory of cause and effect. Jouane had introduced the idea to her, during one of their unofficial magic lessons. She'd asked him why he thought it was wrong to use black soul gems, since the souls had already been caught, and he'd explained that when people used black soul gems, the dark wizards who ensnared the souls decided that it would be profitable for them to continue doing so. 'Supply and demand,' Jouane had said. 'Cause and effect.'

Some of that explanation had gone over her head, but she'd taken away the basics: one thing happening led to something else. For example, an overly rainy summer earlier that year had led to twice the normal amount of weeds springing up among the vegetables. This, in turn, led to an increased need to head out into the farm, to dig them up. This led to Britte becoming sick of the amount of work they had to do, which led to her shirking her duties, then lying to their father when he asked if the weeding had been done. And this led to him eventually realising that the crops hadn't been weeded at all, and turning to the nearest of his daughters and ordering them out to get it done. Sissel knew better than to argue, so she'd collected the tools and headed outside. There was no use in protesting that Britte had been the one originally charged with the task, and if she tried it, she'd be sure to get a beating from her sister later. And equally, there was no point in asking if she could do it in the morning, since she'd never get it finished before sundown, because she'd get a beating from her father there and then. Even as it was, he'd thought it necessary to hit her across the room towards the door.

Of course it rankled that Britte was left inside to the easy chore of washing the potatoes they'd dug up the day before. Not even a scolding directed her way for lying. But there was nothing to be done about it. One day, maybe, Sissel would be old enough and strong enough not to be scared of her sister, or her father, but it was hard to picture.

So she'd stayed up past sundown, ignoring the mud smears on her skirt and the ache in her shoulders. When it became too dark to see, she made use of the Candlelight spell that Jouane had taught her – there were so few people out on the streets now that it couldn't hurt to risk it, much as she wanted to keep her magic lessons a secret. The only people who might notice were the town guards, but there weren't many of them, and they never did much at night anyway. Certainly, she'd not seen the golden-orange flare of their torches in all the time she'd been outside. Most likely, they were in the inn, warming their hands and filling their stomachs with food and mead.

But she'd had to extinguish the spell when it became time to head back towards her house, so that her father didn't see. She'd thought that she knew the way well enough not to have to worry about making it there in the dark. She'd been wrong. She'd tripped on the steps, and been sent sprawling to the ground. That was how she'd ended up tearing the worn fabric of her skirt, and cutting open the gash in her knee.

There was another chain of cause and effect that had led up to it, of course, and it was far shorter. She'd been ordered out late because her father didn't like her. Her father didn't like her because he wasn't a kind man. And her father wasn't a kind man because his wife had died. Sissel's mother. And Britte's mother, too. Their mother, who had barely lived past seeing them into the world.

'It put a bitterness into your father's heart that can't ever be drawn out,' was how Jouane had described it to her. And she understood that. She thought she did, at least. She didn't have much chance to read books or listen to stories, but she knew a few tales that had lovers in them, and from what she'd heard, she knew it must be hard to lose someone you loved.

But what about me? Sissel thought, and suddenly she was fighting tears again.

'Hurt?'

There was no thud of boots on stone to alert her, no rustling of clothes or whisper of breath. One moment, there was silence, and the next, there was the voice. Very quiet, slightly husky, and absolutely out of nowhere.

Sissel lurched backwards with a quick cry, forgetting in the midst of the fear that gripped her that she was sitting on a flight of steps and that moving backwards was possibly not the best idea. In a second, she was sprawled on her back, half on and half-off the steps, a new burst of pain spreading through her shoulders.

The man who had appeared in front of her, ghosting out of the night as if it had given birth to him, looked down at her for a second. Then he bent down and held out his hand.

Sissel didn't take it. Her father had never really paid her enough attention to teach her about the dangers of talking to strangers, but Jouane had, and… well, it was common sense, really. When a man appeared out of thin air in the dark, she decided, the natural thing to do was to be worried. And more than a little scared. She scrambled to her feet, wondering if she could run fast enough to beat him to her house. Her father might not care for her, but she was fairly sure she'd stand up to a stranger who tried to hurt her.

'Won't hurt you,' the man said, as if he'd somehow overheard her thoughts. 'Sorry.'

He took a few steps backwards, but didn't walk on, and Sissel let her curiosity take charge of her for a moment. It was hard to get a close look at him, because everything he was wearing was black – no doubt, that was how he'd been able to approach out of the night without her seeing him. A black… thing that Sissel didn't have a name for, longer than a jacket but too thin and short to be a coat, was tied loosely across his chest, its hood hanging half across his face. Though the gloom, and the extra shadow cast by the hood, it was hard, but just about possible, to make out a pair of dark eyes, brown skin, and some streaks of what looked like white warpaint. A Redguard, then, Sissel guessed. He was tall, but not as tall as most of the Nords she knew, and beneath the tail of the jacket-coat-thing she could make out the hilt of a sword. Her eyes followed the blade downwards; it was curved. Yes, definitely a Redguard. One of those warriors from Hammerfell that the guards never stopped talking about.

There was a lengthy silence, as he looked at her and she glanced between him and her home. The he dug a hand into a pocket of his jacket-coat and brought out what appeared to be a small glass bottle.

'Hurt?' he said again.

It took Sissel a moment to think through what he was saying. 'I – I tripped,' she said at last. 'I cut my knee.'

He nodded slowly, and held out the bottle. Sissel leaned back slightly, away from his hand.

'To help,' he said.

Sissel stared at it. 'What is it?'

'Blisterwort. Wheat. Blue mountain flower. Heal the cut. Deaden pain.'

He was an alchemist, then. That was enough to pique Sissel's interest. Alchemy wasn't considered to be a school of magic, but the potions it created could have magical properties, and Jouane had taught her the properties of a few basic herbs and reagents. Not that she was allowed to use them, of course.

She stretched out a hand towards the bottle, then hesitated. She didn't know this man. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to take anything from him.

He sighed, crouched down, and placed the bottle on the ground. As he straightened up, he took another step backwards. Cautiously, keeping her eyes on the stranger the whole time, she reached out and plucked up the bottle. The cork came free easily, and Sissel lifted the rim of the little flask to her nose. It certainly smelt like a healing potion. Jouane had made one for her father, once, when he'd been ill, and she remembered the scent; pungent, and somewhat fruity.

The Redguard gestured towards the bottle, and then towards her knee. Sissel glanced up at him, and underneath the rim of his hood, she could just make out that the look in his dark eyes was a tender one. It was the same kind of look that Jouane sometimes gave her, the look that had been on the face of the dragon in her dream, and she decided, at last, that while the stranger was someone she should be wary of, he probably wasn't about to hurt her.

She pulled her skirt up to just above the cut and held the bottle over the graze, carefully tipping it until a few drops fell onto the cut. There was a faint hissing sound, and a sharp, stinging sensation shot through the skin - only to fade into a delicious feeling of non-pain. That wasn't a word, but Sissel couldn't think of any other way to describe it. There had been pain, and now there wasn't, and it felt beautiful.

A soft golden glow arose from the place she'd let the drops fall as the ingredients did their work. In the dim light thrown up, Sissel watched, captivated, as the edges of the wound pressed themselves together, the blood fading from sight. In a moment, it was as if she had never fallen. Now all that remained to remind her of her fall was the rip in her skirt – but that could be mended later.

Biting back a grin, Sissel plugged the cork back into the bottle and passed it back to the Redguard. 'Thanks.'

His only response was a short nod. He took the bottle lightly from her and tucked back into whichever pocket it had come from. 'Your home?' he said, and from the way the sentence rose at the end, Sissel could tell it was a question – where is your home? - even though he seemed to have cut out all words from his speech that weren't absolutely vital. Maybe he didn't speak the common tongue very well – or maybe he just didn't like speaking.

'It's over there,' she said, pointing.

She could just about make out his brow furrowing. 'Out late. Why?'

'I had to weed the vegetables.'

'Your family?'

Sissel tried, and failed, to work out what he meant. 'What about them?'

He let out a quiet huff, as if irritated that he was going to have to use more words. 'Why not them?'

'They were busy.' Sissel shrugged; she wasn't sure she wanted to share the difficulties she had with her father and Britte with a man she didn't know.

A silence fell, and Sissel wondered if she should say that she had to get home, but somehow it seemed rude to just walk away from the man who'd helped her. She clasped her hands together awkwardly, and scuffed the ground with her shoe.

The roar split the night, an echoing, screeching sound that made Sissel's skin prick and her eyes widen. The man's head snapped up towards the sky, and she thought perhaps she saw his lips move, heard him whisper something, but there was no way to be sure.

'Dragon,' he said. His tone was fierce, but not worried. It was the sort of tone she'd heard the town guards use to describe troublemakers who were irritating but harmless, people who angered them, but who were beneath their notice.

Suddenly, Sissel was glad to be in the presence of a man who carried a sword, and, she noticed now she looked again, a bow and quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder. 'Is it close?'

His eyes scanned the sky, though Sissel had no idea why he expected to be able to see anything. 'No. Beyond the mountains.'

Sissel's breathing steadied slightly. 'It sounded closer than that.'

'Still night. Little wind. Sound carries.'

Except for the sound of you sneaking up on me, Sissel replied silently. Out loud, she said, 'Will it come over here?'

'Unlikely. Dragons know repercussions of attacking settlements.'

It was the longest sentence she'd heard from him so far, and unfortunately it was also the first one containing a word she didn't understand. 'Repercussions?'

'Consequences.'

'What are the consequences?'

'Death.'

Sissel stared at him. 'Who kills the dragons if they attack villages?'

He tilted his head slightly, looking down at her with his expression – what she could see of it – unreadable. 'Your thoughts?'

The answer came in a flash. 'The Dragonborn!'

'Yes. And others.'

'But what if that dragon isn't afraid of the Dragonborn? Would it attack Rorikstead?'

'Maybe.'

The roar ripped through the air again, but to Sissel's relief, it sounded further away this time.

'What do we do if a dragon attacks us?'

'Go underground. Basements. Dragons burn houses on the surface, smoke rises upwards. Risk being trapped by debris, but safest option.'

'Can we fight a dragon?'

He folded his arms. 'How many guards?'

'In Rorikstead?'

His only response was a nod.

'Four. I think.'

The Redguard shook his head. 'Too few.'

'How many people do you need to fight a dragon?'

'One.'

'But you just said –'

'One who knows how to kill dragons.'

Sissel glanced at his sword. 'Have you ever killed a dragon?'

Another nod.

'Really?'

Nod.

'How big was it?'

'They vary.'

'You've killed more than one?'

He raised and lowered his shoulders. 'Matter of knowing how.'

'Do you shoot them?'

'Sometimes. Prefer ambushes with blade. Eyes and tops of heads vulnerable.'

'Are you afraid of dragons?'

Another shake of the head. 'You?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

Wasn't it obvious? 'They're big, and they breathe fire, and they kill people.' Sissel sucked her lower lip. 'But I did have a dream that there was a good dragon. He was old and grey, but he wasn't scary.'

The Redguard stared at her for a moment, his lips slightly parted. Then he gave her another nod. 'Do you believe your dream?'

'I don't know.'

Another roar, this time even further away from them. The stranger glanced towards the sound, then back at her. 'You should be inside.'

'But you said it wouldn't come here.'

'Probably won't. Besides, warmer inside.'

That was certainly true. Sissel sucked in a breath. 'It was nice talking to you,' she said, as Jouane had told her she should when she said goodbye to someone. And then, because she was curious, she added, 'Why are you here in Rorikstead?'

'Passing through. Heading to Markarth.'

'Are you going to stay in the inn?'

He shook his head again. 'I'll keep moving.'

'At night?'

He nodded. 'Sometimes safer than day.'

Sissel wasn't sure she believed that, but she nodded. 'Good luck, mister.'

He inclined his head a little way. 'Thank you. Take care.'

Tugging his jacket-coat a little tighter around him, he turned towards the road. For a few seconds, as he started walking, his figure was just discernible, a moving, bulky patch of black against the deeper black. Then the night closed upon him like jaws, and he was gone.

Sissel stood for a few moments, looking after him. Then she rubbed her hands together to fend off the cold, shook herself, and headed off towards the door to her home.

It didn't surprise her, when she got inside, to see that apart from the lump under the blankets that was Britte, the house was empty. No doubt their father had slunk away to the inn. He often did that, and sometimes he didn't return until late at night, when Mralki finally threw him out. Sissel had been woken up many a time by the sound of Lemkil stumbling through the door and cursing and stamping his way to bed.

Sissel knew that she had to be much, much quieter, if she was going to avoid waking Britte. She made her way over to her bed on tiptoe, and moved slowly as she pulled off her shoes and pushed back her blanket. With any luck, Britte would stay asleep –

'Have fun out there?'

Careful not to turn in her sister's direction, Sissel clambered into bed. 'No.'

She'd long ago learned that it was easier to respond as simply as possible to Britte's jibes. Every word Sissel spoke was an arrow in her twin's quiver, something that Britte would collect and fire at her. The less she said, the less ammunition Britte had. Maybe there was something to that Redguard stranger's odd habit of saying as little as possible. Maybe he was trying to avoid getting hurt, too.

Though she doubted anyone would try to hurt a man who walked around with a curved sword and a bow and who could kill dragons. If she were grown up and had weapons to kill dragons with, maybe Britte and her father would leave her alone.

'You know why Pa made you do it?'

Sissel slumped down onto her bed, keeping her mouth clamped firmly shut.

'It's because he knows you're not brave enough to stand up to him.'

You don't stand up to him either, Sissel wanted to say, but she was too tired to want to risk starting an argument. That would keep them both awake, and all she wanted to do now was just stop. To be asleep and away from everything. Besides, if they were both still awake and arguing when Lemkil returned… there'd probably be another beating, if he was sober enough to land a blow.

'You're lucky he's still at the inn.' There was a trace of annoyance in Britte's voice, as there always was when Sissel failed to rise to her. 'Or he'd have hit you for taking so long.'

'It didn't take me that long,' Sissel muttered.

'I'd have got it done quicker.'

Britte must be as tired as Sissel – she could usually come up with more imaginative insults. 'I was talking to a man who walked without making any noise and had a curved sword. We talked about dragons.'

She only said it to see if she could manage to take her sister aback, and indeed, there was a slight pause before Britte's reply. 'You're an idiot.'

Sissel closed her eyes, and decided against replying.

Sometimes – no, a lot of the time – she wondered what it would be like if Britte were on her side. Then they would both share their unhappiness and their tears and play together in the happier times. They'd be a… what was that saying Jouane had used? A united front, that was it. Their father would be their enemy and they'd be allies against him.

Instead, Britte tried to make up for the fact that her father made her feel bad by making Sissel feel bad too. So Sissel had only enemies in her home, and no friends except Jouane. Though there was Erik from the inn, who helped on the farm sometimes, and who was always friendly. And there was that one town guard, the one with the big dent in his shield, who was always arguing with her father and who had once threatened to fine him for assault when he'd hit Sissel in the street. They weren't really friends, though, just nice people.

She wished she knew more nice people. The man with the curved sword had seemed like a nice person, even though he'd been a bit frightening at first, appearing out of nowhere like that.

She hoped he got to Markarth safely.

She wondered if she'd dream about the dragon again tonight.

She fell asleep.

There wasn't anything worrying, exactly, about waking to find that their father still wasn't home. It happened sometimes – he fell asleep in the inn and Mralki wasn't in the mood to deal with the trouble of throwing him out, and he would appear later in the day in an even fouler mood than usual. Sissel knew better than to go to the inn to look for him, and she and Britte both knew better, too, than to take more than a minute amount of food for breakfast, or he'd come back and accuse them both of taking more than they deserved behind his back, even if they'd had the usual amount.

The other rule of thumb for a morning where Lemkil wasn't home was to be working by the time he got back. Britte didn't always, and she paid for it, but Sissel never took the risk. She'd head back out to the vegetable garden, she decided. See if there were any weeds she'd missed. Pick the snails off the leeks and crush them under rocks to make sure they couldn't come back. Pull any large stones out of the soil to make digging easier.

She found herself walking through clouds of her own breath as she made her way outside, and the path was shining in its new coat of frost, as if it were made from moonstone. She smiled at the way her feet left dark gaps in the silver ice layer, puffed out a few clouds of breath and spent a few moments pretending she was a dragon, and then headed for the earth she'd spent so long digging through last night. They'd have to be careful; the frost might kill the crops, and then they'd be in trouble.

From out in the garden, a scarf wrapped around her head to keep her ears warm, Sissel watched Rorikstead wake up, just as she'd seen it fall asleep the previous night. The guards began their patrols. Erik emerged from the inn with a bucket swinging from each hand, heading in the direction of the well. Jouane smiled and waved at her as he walked by towards Rorik's house.

A patch of deathbell had taken root among the potatoes. Sissel knelt down to dig it out. She wondered whether her father had decided to eat in the inn that morning, where it was warm and where there was mead on hand. He'd been late home before, but never this late. Maybe she should go inside and tell Britte to help her, or she might be in trouble when he got back –

A yell, sudden and sharp as the dragon's roar last night, sent a couple of crows flapping upwards from the room of Sissel's house, adding their harsh cries to the sudden explosion of noise. Sissel paused in her work, glancing up from the deathbell patch. She knew Erik's voice, she knew it had been him who shouted, but she'd never heard him sound so… so frightened before.

A moment later, she spotted him racing towards the entrance to the inn, his buckets apparently left behind him, wrenching the door open and vanishing inside. A minute, perhaps, passed; then he appeared again, this time with his father following. The two men headed in the direction of the well again, and for some time, neither reappeared. Then both returned together, parting when they reached the road, with Mralki returning to the inn, and Erik heading towards Rorik and Jouane's home.

Sissel watched, frowning. Something must be wrong, very wrong.

She bent down again and shoved her trowel into the frost-stiff soil. The deathbell's roots were deep – it would take her a while to tease them out. She kept at it, keeping one eye on the road so that she could see if Mralki and Erik returned. Rorikstead was so small that news travelled fast – she'd soon learn what had happened. Maybe she could ask Jouane later. Mralki appeared again from the inn, a couple of the town guards following.

Gods, these roots were stubborn. Sissel grasped the top of the plant, pulled it upwards as far as she could, and swung the side of her trowel at the roots, severing them through. She knew that it was always better to dig weeds up at the very root, but the ground was too hard, and her father wouldn't notice if she just covered them up with some soil. She rose to her feet, scanning the ground for a place to throw the uprooted plant, and noticed Jouane standing at the edge of the garden.

'Sissel,' he said.

She tossed the deathbell aside and hurried over to him. 'Hi, Jouane. What's wrong with Erik? Did he tell you? I saw him coming out from behind the inn, he seemed worried.'

Jouane pressed his hands together, his fingers clasping and unclasping. 'Sissel, where's your sister?'

'Inside.'

Bending down, Jouane placed his hands on her shoulders. 'Stay here. Wait for me. I think Rorik will want to talk to you both.'

'Why?'

He looked at her for a second with an expression she couldn't read, then said, 'We'll explain soon.'

That was no answer, Sissel thought crossly, as he made his way over to the door to her home and pushed it open. Dropping her trowel, she turned her gaze across the village, to where Erik had been when his cry had risen above the rooftops. Whatever was wrong, whatever Jouane had refused to talk about, was over there.

She glanced back at the house. No sign yet of Jouane returning. She set off at a run.

There was no way of telling what she was running to, only that it was important, and she wanted to see it. That was who she was – she always wanted to see things with her own eyes. And now she was going to see whatever it was, and she wouldn't stop running, because she wanted to understand.

So she didn't stop when she heard Jouane shout from behind her – 'Sissel, no! Wait! Come back! – or when Erik, as she passed him, tried to flash out a hand to stop her, and, when he missed, yelled after her – 'No, don't look!' He tried to run after her, to catch her, and she knew he would catch up, because he was older and taller. But by the time he managed to grab her, to firmly but not roughly clasp hold of her arms and pull her back, it was too late, because she'd rounded the corner of the inn and seen what he'd seen, the thing that had made him cry out.

She didn't get a good look before Erik was turning her around, turning her away, whispering, 'Don't look, Sissel, you mustn't look.' And she did as he said, because the brief glimpse was enough. It was enough to see the figure lying sprawled out on the grass.

He was on his side, as if he were asleep, a fine layer of frost clinging to his clothes. Sissel knew that she'd have seen ice crystals in his moustache if he'd been facing her, but his back had been to her, so she hadn't seen them. She had, however seen the mark on the back of his neck. The red mark as long as her thumb, a dark red, a shade of red that could only be called blood-red, because that was what it was. Red with blood. There had been a red smear down the side of his neck from where the blood had trickled down after he'd fallen on the grass.

Some of the blood droplets had solidified in the frost. They looked like what she imagined rubies would look like, but they weren't rubies, they were iced blood and they were melting in the morning light.

They were her father's blood.

That one quick glance was enough for her to know that it had not been an accident, because accidents didn't work like that. Accidents didn't leave clear, open wounds in the backs of people's necks. That one glance was enough for Sissel to know that someone had murdered her father, and it terrified her that she didn't feel the least bit like crying.

She felt relieved, and she knew she shouldn't.

Erik walked her back towards the path with his arm around her shoulders. She let him lead her. Jouane was hurrying towards them, Britte trailing behind her with bewilderment on her face, and Sissel breathed in deeply and tried to prepare herself for reaching them. Because once she had to talk to them, once it was said out loud that Lemkil was dead, it would become real. Her father's death would be a fact, she and Britte would be orphans, and nothing, nothing, would be the same again.

Somewhere beyond the mountains, the dragon roared.

And the first chapter has stayed within 6000 words, which is a good sign! Let's see if I can keep that up for the rest of the story. Unlikely, but I'll try. It's been interesting trying to write from the perspective of someone as young as Sissel, but it's been fun so far. And soon things will get a bit more exciting than vegetable farming, I promise.

I didn't know all these details about Rorikstead's residents until I looked them up, so for those wondering, Jouane is an elder inhabitant of the village who seems to be teaching Sissel some magic in secret. And yes, Sissel does talk about having a dream about an old, grey dragon. It's part of the reason I think she's something special - and why this one of my Dragonborns did, too. Who is he? Why does he speak so little? Well, anyone who wants to find out more about him right now could read my story 'Vulkun,' or alternatively just wait a chapter or two when I will reveal a little more about him.

I'll try to get the next chapter up in a week or so. Thanks for reading!