'Pronounce it with force. Feel its resonance and power.'

The hard, pinched face of the high dragon priest bore a stern frown as he glared down at a disinterested Serenwen, her palms resting on her knees as she kneeled on the smooth marble floor in front of him in her training robes. She sighed heavily as her body slumped and she rolled her eyes.

'I know, I know.' Her tone was droll and infused with boredom. 'We've done this already. Fifteen times. I get it. Come on, I want to go to sleep.'

High priest Lysanthir's nostrils flared in indignation as he moved his gaze up to Sahren, his expression wrought with suppressed offence and outrage. 'My king...' He began, folding his arms as his muscles tensed.

Sahren sighed gently, his large pale blue eyes flickering between Lysanthir and his disengaged sister, now idly scratching the bald patch on her head as she sat on the ground. His silvery white hair cascaded over his shoulders as he kneeled down next to her, the delicate crown on his forehead preventing it from obscuring his face.

'Come on, Seren.' His voice was smooth and calm, gently imploring her. 'You know how important this is for the Vale. For all of us. At least try to cooperate.'

'Oh, be quiet.' Serenwen stood up lazily and stretched, yawning loudly as everybody watched her in irritated indignation. 'You're not the one who has to go through it. Easy for you to talk, your highness.'

Lysanthir pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.

Sahren turned to give me a baleful glare, inviting me to intervene as his guards stood by him in rigid silence.

I had expected her to be uncooperative. She had never taken well to structure or discipline; the fire of youth she bore within her did nothing to help her attitude, and neither did her Dunmer blood. I frowned at her sternly as I folded my arms and chided her, Virdanyis quietly standing by my side and watching on.

'Murjhul. You either continue your lesson, or you endure a stern lecturing from me. Either way, you will be forced to sit and listen. I would accept the wiser choice if I were you.'

'Dad...' She whined, wiping her hand over her face as she closed her eyes. 'I've been here all day. Don't do this to me.'

'Just do it.' I pierced her with a serious glare as her big, mauve eyes slowly opened to give me an irritated glance. 'You could have been finished hours ago if you'd listened.'

Lysanthir nodded at me in righteous approval before focusing on her again, his arms crossed over his chest. 'You should listen to your father.'

'I am so tired of hearing that.' She muttered through gritted teeth. Sahren grinned ever so slightly and gave me a brief glance as he watched on, flanked by the royal guard.

'Well, my dear,' I spoke in a sarcastically soothing tone, 'if you merely learned to follow instruction, you would have to endure it far less often.'

A small,subdued smile passed across the lips of both Sahren and Virrdanyis in almost perfect synchrony as they watched Serenwen scowl at my words. As noble as they were, they still took a small measure of satisfaction in watching her being made to do as she was told. It didn't happen often.

Sahren had changed since I had seen him last. It was almost indefinable; but the trepidation and doubt he had borne when he had first taken the throne had left him. He was so much like his father, despite the facial features he had that reminded me so much of Nysteris. That quiet and tempered restraint that I so respected in Virdanyis was shining through as he skilfully managed the hectic task of ruling a kingdom, despite his young age; and, in the same way his father would have, he had greeted me with heartfelt and unrestrained warmth when I had returned to meet him in The Vale. The pride and joy I had felt when I had first seen him was like ambrosia to my troubled soul.

My affliction was as yet unknown to him, and Virdanyis and Serenwen had sworn to keep it that way. There would be time for revelations; but that time was not now.

'Lysanthir,' Sahren said in a smooth, calm tone, his voice echoing throughout the icy hall. 'Allow her one more trial. There is ample time for her to learn another word. She may leave after that.'

'Yes, my king.' Lysanthir bowed politely to Sahren as an acolyte summoned a passive frost atronach behind him to serve as a practice target for Serenwen's thu'um. I grinned as she stood up and moaned loudly.

'There you go, sera,' I said to her smugly. 'What a gracious king you have.'

Virdanyis chuckled quietly and shifted his weight onto his back foot as he folded his arms and lowered his eyes to the ground; Sahren stepped toward me with a benevolent smile as he began to speak.

'I'll need to talk to the priests here to ensure that Serenwen is being... Educated correctly.' His noble smile slowly widened and became a warm, broad grin. 'I hope I'll see you in the palace shortly.'

'Of course, your highness.' I smiled and gave a small bow as I spoke to him. 'We have a lot to talk about.'

Virdanyis slowly followed Sahren at a respectful ten paces as I glanced back at the scene before me and turned to exit the hall.

I knew that I should savour this moment of relative peace and unity.

As I stepped outside and lit the long silver pipette with a little flame summoned on the tip of my finger and slowly drew in the perfumed smoke, my mind wandered into thinking about all of the possibilities the future held. The cold, biting vale breeze gently ruffled my hair as I exhaled a dense cloud into the night air, briefly gazing up at the stars as the black fur lining of my jerkin tickled my neck; it was unhelpful to dwell on such things at times such as now. I tried to focus on more helpful thoughts as I idly pressed the tip of my tongue against the sharp, hot points of my canine teeth.

It was a strange sound which roused me from my musings.

An offended, angry, vicious hiss; a deep, rumbling resonance, a bestial noise, familiar yet unknown to my ears. The whoosh of a flapping wing; the seething, dark purr of a dragon.

A hot ripple of shock coursed through me at the sound.

Naslaarum and Voslaarum were roosting atop the great hall as they normally did. It was no surprise to hear them. But this noise; it wasn't one of bored contentment or idleness as it usually was.

'Teldryn.' The calm, familiar voice of Virdanyis sounded behind me as his footsteps crunched in the snow and he came to stand by my side; I absently extended my hand toward him as he leaned forward and lit his pipette from the flame on my fingertip. 'You're coming to the court banquet as the king's honoured guest, I assume.' He slowly exhaled a thin plume of white smoke from between his lips. 'It will begin soon.'

'Sssh.'

Virdanyis froze as we both heard the growl become louder and higher in pitch, followed by the dull, heavy snap of a dragon's jaws slamming shut.

Something was wrong.

The smell of blood suddenly flooded my senses and caused a flare of hunger and alarm to rush through me.

Blood? Here...?

Virdanyis quietly drew his side-arm as his eyes squinted and strained to see through the darkness. He couldn't make out the shape standing before the Avatars on the roof of the great hall.

But I could. As clearly as if it were in broad daylight. And the sight of it filled me with pure fear.

It was Nysteris.

'Oh, Gods... No...'

The words escaped from me in a low breath before I realised I had spoken them.

Naslaarum was rigidly perched upon the roof, his muscles tensed as his huge eye stared catatonically ahead. Voslaarum hissed and growled in impotent anger and hesitation, his huge tail waving wildly behind him as he threatened and snapped at Nysteris, attempting to taunt her but too confused to strike.

And Nysteris herself stood by Naslaarum, her favoured avatar, licking the thick, dark red blood from a clean, shallow cut in his neck.

Rarely had I beheld a sight which inspired such terror within me.

Her skin was as white as the snow around it, barely covered in places by tattered ethereal black cloth which warped and shifted like a magical aura. Time and time again, the unnaturally long, pointed tongue unfurled from her mouth, dark crimson from the life drenching it, and slowly pressed itself against the bleeding wound; her red, black-rimmed eyes were half-lidded, her white fingers resting against the dragon's scales, her glassy, clear fingernails caked with dragon blood.

A small sigh escaped from her as she closed her eyes, and the scarlet ribbon of her tongue probed the wound on Naslaarum's neck; her form seemed to warp and fade as she savoured the sensation of it, a fresh flow trickling from the cut as she stood, suspended in the throes of gratification.

My heart thundered in my chest. I knew that she must have known of our presence.

'Where?' I heard Virdanyis whisper as he struggled to see into the darkness.

But I was momentarily lost for words.

Our children, my daughter and her son, were only a stone's throw away, separated from this grotesque and inconceivably dangerous turn of events by no more than a stone wall.

The time to act had arrived.