Full summary:

At the behest of Akatosh, Liv the Last Dragonborn breaks Miraak out of his imprisonment in Apocrypha using a Shout, which results in a pissed off Daedric Prince and a powerless First Dragonborn. Out of pity and guilt, Liv refuses to leave the First on Solstheim and convinces him to come with her and her brother to Skyrim, a decision she begins to regret when she realizes that even powerless he's more trouble then he's worth.

Liv's problems only multiply when she, her brother, and their troublesome new companion, return to Skyrim to find that the entire population of Dawnstar has mysteriously gone missing. An investigation leads to something more sinister in the subterranean bowels of the province. A war is coming, and it's going to take two Dragonborn and another ceasefire between the Imperials and Stormcloaks to stop it.

Greetings fellow readers and writers of fanfiction!

I have a confession to make: I'm one of those people who had no idea what the Elder Scrolls series was until Skyrim came out. I played the game last year and, like many of you, loved it in spite of its lack of good, solid characters. This story was born of that love and from the fact that, aside from Paarthurnax (who makes me wish dragons were real), Miraak (who makes me glad Dragonborn aren't real) was really the only character with potential. But alas—spoiler alert—ol' Hermie killed him. A goddamned shame. But that's why we have fan fiction, to explore the realm of What If That Didn't Happen But This Did.

Anyway, just a few things worth mentioning before you dive in:

*If you're strictly into the canon/lore stuff, this story isn't for you. There will be head-canons and creative liberties everywhere. You've been warned.

*Everything but the Civil War has been done and dusted by the Dragonborn in this story.

*I'm using the edit-as-you-go method of writing, so updates will be utterly unpredictable.

*Feedback and such are always welcome; it does, after all, feed the weird machine that is my brain.

That all being said…

Enjoy.

Chapter 1

Liv Night-Born and her brother Leif traipsed side-by-side through a forest of snow-laden pine trees, searching for a good spot, somewhere secluded where there was little chance of anyone other than her sibling witnessing what she was going to do.

"You don't even have a plan for this, do you?" Leif asked as he pulled his cloak around him more securely to keep the persistent wind from snagging it back. It wasn't really a question, but more of a rebuke masquerading as one.

"I think you know by now the answer to that is 'no'," Liv replied. She knew what she had to do and she had the means of doing it, but she hadn't bothered to plan out how to get from Point A to Point Z. She never did, really. Planning things out was more her brother's strategy. Liv preferred to play it by ear. Plans were always doomed to fail and you were going to end up having to improvise anyway, so why not just save yourself the trouble and wing it from start to finish?

Leif sighed, a sound that was half exasperation and half worry. "Well, you should have a plan. You're about to face another Dragonborn and a Daedric Prince. This isn't the time for spontaneity. You need to be fully prepared for this because your adversary will be ready too, you can count on that."

"Well, the way I see it, if I don't know what I'm doing then neither does Jumped-Up Prick."

And by 'Jumped-Up Prick' she was referring to Miraak, the first dragon to have his soul crammed into a mortal body, a Dragon Priest of some notoriety, and the great pain in Liv's arse. Bad enough the bastard had managed to control the minds of Solstheim's people while imprisoned in another realm, but ever since their first brief meeting in Apocrypha, he had been showing up in ethereal form almost every time Liv defeated a dragon and for no other reason than to taunt her and poach the dragon's soul for himself. Liv considered herself to be a calm person, composed at even the worst times, but this…oh, this maddened her to no end.

Leif stared at her in astonishment. "That has got to be the most piss-poor strategy I've ever heard. Remind me again how you've managed to survive this long."

Liv grinned. "Well, I've had you to help me for one thing, and I've improvised for another. Plus, Akatosh."

"Your god is the reason why you're in this mess in the first place," Leif scoffed, not caring in the slightest that it bordered on blasphemy. He was mostly a Talos-worshipping kind of guy, with the exception of a few old Nord gods. "This Miraak is only half the battle. Actually, he's probably a little less than half the battle. Improvising may give you an edge over him, but it won't against Hermaeus Mora, the all-knowing Daedric Prince."

That wasn't necessarily true. Liv may have despised the man, but she wouldn't dare write off Miraak as 'a little less than half the battle'. He featured as a frighteningly powerful figure in the Skaal's legends, those Nords of Solstheim and perhaps the only people in existence who'd bothered to remember him. In those stories he was referred to as the Traitor, a Dragon Priest who'd sworn his service to Hermaeus Mora for power and then used that power to turn on his dragon overlords. It was said that when Vahlok, a Dragon Priest known as the Guardian in the tales and the good to Miraak's evil, had confronted him, a battle ensued that lasted days and was so destructive it ripped Solstheim from the rest of Skyrim, which was how it came to be a large island sitting off to the northeast of the province. Whether or not that was true Liv didn't know. There were some who thought it was an embellishment or outright fantasy. Liv hoped it was, as she would prefer her adversary didn't have the kind of awesome power that could knock off a portion of her homeland.

Leif was right about Hermaeus Mora, though. As the Daedric Prince of Knowledge and Fate, there was a high probability he would know what she was planning to do. Worse, Liv could do absolutely nothing about it, could not even prevent it from happening. This was not just a task Akatosh had given her, but also a test of faith. Liv was going into this blind but for her faith that Akatosh was not sending her to her death or to share Miraak's fate as a prisoner of Apocrypha.

"Faith is my edge, brother," Liv said as she and Leif came upon a small clearing in the snow-heavy forest. "Akatosh is with me, and so long as I keep my faith in Him, I'll be fine."

Leif frowned. "You could die."

"Aye, but I don't think I will." Liv stopped at the center of the clearing and looked around. "I think this place is as good as any; no one's likely to come upon us way out here." Doing this in secret was for the sake of herself and everyone on Solstheim, or so she told herself. Her task may have been divine-given, but many if not all of the people on the island would likely view it as a betrayal. But what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, right? Liv had no idea how she was going to continue to keep it secret when it was all done, though.

"And if they do, I'll send them on their way," Leif assured her as he slung his knapsack off his shoulder and dropped it on the ground.

Liv did the same, dropping her pack beside the trunk of a tree. Then she knelt down and opened the flap, reaching inside. What she pulled out was perhaps the ugliest book she had ever seen, with the exception of the Oghma Infinium, which was bound in the flesh of people, a patch of skin from every race of man and mer. This book was thick, bound with some dark, rough material Liv could not identify. On the front there was a crude engraved image of a many-tentacled monster, an icon of Hermaeus Mora. It was one of his Black Books—what Liv had come to think of as the Black Book of Black Books. Ageless, foreboding, and infused with strange, dark magic, the tome served as a kind of portal into the Prince's realm of Apocrypha, a nightmarish 'library' where strange, macabre monsters stalked halls constructed of oversized books.

Liv straightened up, looked down at the hideous book in her hands, and heaved out a sigh. "Well…no time like the present, I guess."

A hand fell to her shoulder and squeezed lightly. Liv looked up into her brother's face, at his grim expression and serious green eyes. "I would follow you in there if I could," he told her, and Liv knew he meant it with his whole heart. They had always been inseparable as children, even though Leif had five years on her. Attached at the hip, their father had liked to say. They had learned and fought and played together, and when one found trouble the other was always there to pull them out of it. Liv looked upon Leif not only as her big brother, but her best friend, as well.

Liv smiled and nodded, patting the hand on her shoulder. "I know. It'll be fine, Leif. Stop worrying so much."

"I'm merely making up for your lack of concern, dear sister. May the gods protect you—I get the feeling you're gonna need them." Leif gave her shoulder a final squeeze, and then stepped back.

Liv took a deep breath of cold, fresh air, holding it inside her for a moment. Then she released it and opened the Black Book called Waking Dreams. She got a brief glimpse of words written on the ageless pages, and then Hermaeus Mora literally welcomed her with open arms—all black, slimy six of them. The writhing tentacles slithered out of the pages to embrace her, and then she was gone.

This spot of bother had all started when Miraak AKA the First Dragonborn AKA the Traitor AKA Jumped-Up Prick sent a pair of his inept, badly dressed cultists to try to assassinate her, and only days after Liv had learned she was Dragonborn.

She had gone up to the Throat of the World to learn from the Greybeards how to use her gift to Shout like the dragons do, and upon her return to Ivarstead, a small village at the base of the mountain, she found the underlings there looking for her. They had mentioned Miraak by name and called her rude things like 'Deceiver', right before she killed both with a two-Word Shout and a handful of magic. This 'Miraak', whom she had never heard of before, let alone provoked in any way, had apparently crowned himself the True Dragonborn and declared her the 'False', for which she must die. Liv saw this as a gratuitous affront (because merely existing was no reason to insult someone or try to have them killed) and a direct challenge, of which the former would not go unpunished and the latter was gladly accepted. Or so it had been at the time.

Liv had found the written kill order on one of the dead cultists, pointing her in the direction of Solstheim. So, after vanquishing Alduin World-Eater and some other evils (because Nordic gods of destruction intent on devouring the world and vampire lords wishing to darken the sun came before jumped-up pricks wanting her dead for being alive), she finally got around to investigating it, and uncovered a more sinister plot by said prick to free himself from Herma-Mora's realm, take over the island, and eventually all of Tamriel—because these days that's what all the villains are doing—and that only gave her more reason to see him dead.

Cue the plot twist.

While Liv had been following in Miraak's footsteps, learning what he'd learned so she could properly pulverize him, Akatosh, the God of Time, Noble Ruler of the Divines, and Maker of Dragonborn, had come to her in a dream-vision, not for the first time. Where Hermaeus Mora wanted her to kill the man and take his place as his Champion, the God of Time wanted him freed from Mora's realm for reasons He had not been forthcoming with. Divines were funny that way; sometimes merciful, sometimes merciless, and They never had to explain Their logic. Perhaps because Their logic was not meant to be understood by mere mortals, or perhaps that logic simply defied mortal understanding. This task certainly defied hers. Liv was of the opinion that Miraak had earned his spot in Oblivion, but then who was she to question her god, the god Who had made them both?

And now here she was, traveling from one realm to another, carrying in her mind the powerful Shout Akatosh had given her to do His cryptic bidding.

Liv suffered the unpleasant feeling of being taken apart and put back together again—the feeling that always came with leaving one realm for another—and then Apocrypha, Herma-Mora's little corner of Oblivion, unfolded around her. A thick, endless sea of green-black ooze and an arabesque platform made of what might have been dark steel—but could have been anything in this realm—spread out beneath her feet; a sky of sickly yellow charged through with swirling ribbons of revolting green appeared above her head; walls and towers of huge, ageless books were thrown up in every direction; and cyclones of yellowed book pages whirled across the eerie realm. As if the 'landscape' wasn't bad enough, Liv knew Mora's unholy guardians, the lurking Lurkers and the seeking Seekers, were out there somewhere, just waiting to harass her.

Four Lurkers (two of which provided a very close call for Liv), fifteen Seekers, one annoying puzzle a five-year-old could have solved, and several trips through Mora's weird chapter portals later, Liv the Last Dragonborn reached a large platform where a Word Wall sat, guarded by two more Seekers. And behind it, across that black sea and rising high into the diseased sky, was the towering summit of Apocrypha, where the nefarious First Dragonborn waited.

A part of her had always been a bit…intrigued, Liv had to admit. Jumped-up prick or not, he was like her, and it wasn't everyday you met another Dragonborn face-to-face, or at all; as far as she knew the meeting of two Dragonborn had never happened before. Certainly this would be a moment for the history books and the bard songs, always assuming they made it out of this pit alive and Jumped-Up Prick didn't kill her on the spot if they did. She was acutely aware that this could all go wrong in so many ways.

The Seekers, strange floating creatures with multiple arms, a head of writhing tendrils, and a gaping mouth of many razor-sharp teeth at the center of the chest, wasted no time attacking her, letting off their eldritch waves of vitality-sucking magic. Liv dodged the first wave and scrambled away from the second, shooting magic lightning bolts from her hands. The currents of shocking blue light hit the Seeker closest to her, but the second disappeared into thin air.

"No use in trying to hide," Liv said. "Laas Yah Nir." The whispered Words of Power reached out, wrapping a glowing red aura around anything in the area with a life force. The invisible Seeker had moved off to her far right. A crackle of lightning discharged from her hand, hitting the thing square in its chest-mouth. With her free hand, she shot another shocking bolt at the Seeker moving in on her left then she darted across the platform for the Word Wall, dodging behind it as the Seekers loosed their ripples of magic again. The waves struck against the Wall, leaving the Dragonborn mage unharmed. Liv glanced around the side of it to check the creatures' position. The Seekers had split themselves in two, and all four floated right for her. Not that it was going to matter in a moment.

Bringing her hands together, Liv conjured the Lightning Storm spell, one of the most powerful in her arcane arsenal. She jumped out from behind the Word Wall as the Seekers drew closer and threw a great blast of shocking power at them, the whole area lighting up with its electric blue glow. When the magicka emptied from her being, she felt lightheaded and weak, but the Seekers were nothing more than piles of ash now, spilling through the many slots in the platform and into the green-black sea beneath it.

"Whew," Liv breathed as she staggered over to the stone edifice. This Word Wall was unlike the others she'd come across in Skyrim. Looking at it made her feel a little disoriented. Bold black letters of some foreign alphabet scrolled and twisted incoherently upon the edifice's curved wall, and mixed within it, the more familiar written language of the Dov. A small section of the scratched-and-clawed characters flared with blue light. She focused on them, shutting those other bold alien letters out, and the Word of Power jammed itself into her head.

Qah.

As usual, the Word felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, but Liv didn't know what it meant or what power it bestowed. That was the bad part of being a mortal with a dragon soul—you had the inherent ability to Shout like any dragon, but you couldn't understand any Words of Power until you absorbed that knowledge from another dragon's soul. Like as not it was the final Word of Dragon Aspect; it was the only Shout in her repertoire that was unfinished.

An unmistakable sound cut through the air, then; a thundering roar that could only be a dragon. Lifting her head, Liv saw the great, cerulean, serpentine beast slithering through the air on huge indigo wings, coming from the direction of the summit. She recognized it immediately. The first time she had entered Apocrypha, the Traitor had ridden off on that blue monster.

"Shor's golden beard," Liv complained. "Can't you wait until I've rested a bit?"

The dragon Shouted down a funnel of frost in answer, flapping fast above Liv's head then swooping a hard right to come back around again. Being a Nord, Liv had an inherent resistance to cold, natural or otherwise; she felt the icy sting as it passed over her exposed skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake, but she was spared the frostbite it would've inflicted on others.

Liv decided against killing the beast and taking its soul to learn what power Qah granted. She was going to need a way to reach the towering summit, after all, and what better way to make her grand appearance than on the back of Jumped-Up Prick's own dragon? That'll show him.

The serpentine dragon hovered just above the platform, wings beating at the air. It drew in a breath to give her another cold blast, but Liv beat the beast to the punch this time, Shouting "Gol Hah Dov!" to bend the dragon's will to her own. Her colorful cone of influence moved through the air and engulfed the creature. Liv watched, feeling a kind of savage power and satisfaction that was both alarming and thrilling, as the dragon let loose a roar of rage and descended on the platform to submit to her.

"Hail, thuri," it grudgingly addressed her with a guttural-sounding voice. "Your Thu'um has earned the mastery."

"Right," Liv said as she approached the awesome creature. "Would you kindly drop me off at the summit? I have a bit of business to settle with your, uh, previous master."

The dragon complied by lowering its mighty hornless head to the platform. Liv grabbed hold of the spikes trailing down the dragon's neck to mount up, settling carefully into place between them. With a few flaps of its wings, they were in the air and Liv felt that same wild exhilaration she had the first time she'd ridden Odahviing, and all the times after.

"Beware," the cerulean dragon cautioned as its sleek body undulated gracefully and its long, indigo wings cleaved through the stagnant air, carrying them both ever closer to the summit. "Miraak is strong. He knew you would come here."

Liv moved her body with the dragon's motions to keep herself seated easier; she'd found that riding a dragon wasn't that much different from riding a horse, if you ignored the spikes, scales, wings and massive size.

"Aye, I don't doubt it," she responded. "But I'm not afraid of him." Well, Liv was a little afraid of him—she would be a fool not to feel some kind of fear—but she was more afraid of the Daedric Prince, and with good reason. He could kill her any time he wished, and with a mere snap of his tentacles.

The dragon banked right suddenly, making Liv gasp and tighten her grip on his neck spikes, and a ripple of magic surged by a second later. Liv looked down to see a small platform in the sea of blackness, a Seeker and Lurker moving about it in attack mode.

"Shall I destroy them, thuri?" the dragon asked.

"No," Liv replied. "They're not important. Amativ, to the summit."

"Ol hi uth."

Reaching the summit at last, a huge, round platform rising hundreds of feet from the murky sea below, Liv saw two dragons perched on the arched structure surrounding it and a single familiar figure standing below, garbed in black robes chased in gold and a gold mask that was creepily evocative of a Seeker's face. He had a strange-looking staff gripped in his left hand and an equally weird sword hanging from his left hip, both running with the tentacle theme that seemed prevalent in Apocrypha.

"Behold!" Liv announced as the dragon bore her around the summit. "The Last Dragonborn has arrived…and on the back of your dragon! Ha! How do you like them apples?"

She was ignored of course.

"Sahrotaar, are you so easily swayed?" the masked man directed at the cerulean dragon. His voice was thunder-deep and thickened by a Nordic accent.

"Easily swayed, or my Thu'um is stronger than yours," Liv taunted. Then, to the dragon, she said: "Sahrotaar, is it? Land, please."

"Geh, thuri."

"We shall soon see, Dovahkiin," the man below said, his voice cold. "You were foolish to come here again."

Sahrotaar found enough space on the platform for his bulk and came down on it with a boom. Liv slipped down from his neck, landing neatly on her feet.

"Thanks for the ride, Sahrotaar," she said as she straightened out her white robe. "You may go, but stay close to the summit. I may have need of you again." And she was fully aware that this might come back to bite her in the arse. Her influence over the dragon may only last moments or it may last hours, or the other Dragonborn could reclaim him. Anything could happen.

The dragon lumbered back away from her, then took to wing to soar around the summit.

Liv noticed the other two dragons eying her, shifting impatiently on their perch, maws stretched back from their deadly sharp teeth in a nasty rictus that seemed to say I'm going to tear the flesh from your bones, puny mortal. She noticed something else as well: disembodied eyeballs floating in the air around the platform. Mora watches. Of course he does; this is his realm after all, and I bet he's just dying to see this play out to its epic conclusion here, to gloat if nothing else.

The man in the gold mask also spared the pair of dragons a look, perhaps sensing their restlessness. "No. Not yet. We should greet our guest first." He turned his attention to Liv again and strode toward her, confidence in every step and a swelling aura of arrogance around him. "And so the First Dragonborn meets the Last Dragonborn at the summit of Apocrypha. No doubt just as Hermaeus Mora intended. He's a fickle master, you know. But now I will be free of—"

"Look, I know you love the sound of your own voice," Liv cut in as she came forward to meet him, bold as you please. "But I really don't have the patience to sit through another villain's rambling monologue."

Miraak showed her what he thought of that with a roaring Shout of "Fus Ro Dah!" The forceful magic was so powerful it felt like a battering ram to her chest, slamming her breath loose as it flung her across the platform. Liv hit the floor hard with a grimace, rolling a few times before finally coming to a stop. She huffed out an angry breath. Can't I just kill him instead?, she prayed to Akatosh. Please?

"Kruziikrel! Relonikiv! Now!"

Liv heard the fwaap of wings unfurling, and then felt the rumble of the dragons leaving their perches. She scrambled to her feet and looked up just as twin funnels of flame blasted down at her.

"Wuld!" The Word of Power carried Liv a quarter of the way across the platform, but in the blink of an eye, sparing her from the dragon fire. She was going to have to keep the beasts distracted, and she had just what she needed for that. Hopefully. "Sahrotaar, nos!"

She probably should have been more specific about whom to attack.

The cerulean beast veered from his flight around the summit, flapping straight at Miraak and opening his maw to issue a cone of frost.

"Not him, damn you!" Liv cried, waving her hands at the other dragons. "Them!"

The dragon complied instantly, swerving in the direction of his kin and barely missing the blast of fire the First Dragonborn Shouted at him. The cerulean collided into the flank of one of the other dragons, knocking it out of the air. The red-scaled beast crashed down onto part of the arched structure, which exploded into chunks of flying stone. Sahrotaar immediately set after the other, blasting it with frost.

At the same time this was happening, Miraak Shouted the Words of Dragon Aspect. Liv stared, eyes wide, as ribbons of white, blue, and orange light swirled around him, forging themselves to his person in the semblance of a dragon. And then he was charging at her, startlingly fast, swinging his freaky tendril-shaped blade toward her head.

Not good…!

Liv summoned a bound sword, threw it up to block his attack. The two weapons met hard, dark glowing purple against repulsive, squiggling green. The impact sent a harsh jolt up Liv's arm. She felt something else as well, something baffling: a vague sense of pity that was not her own, couldn't be her own because she didn't feel any pity at the moment. But then that would mean…

Oh, screw you, Liv thought, suddenly furious. She gripped her bound blade with both hands and shoved against her opponent's weapon with all her strength. Screw you and the dragon you rode in on! He could take his pity and cram it somewhere unpleasant.

Miraak hardly budged under her power. He pressed into her defense, trying to force his blade past her own (and one-handed, no less) with a strength she should have anticipated but hadn't. Liv widened her stance more to keep her balance, but she could feel her upper body tipping backwards. Growling out, she bore down and pushed back, fighting it, him, with a dragon's fury. You have to hold him back, she told herself. You must hold him back.

Miraak rumbled with a short, gruff, mocking laugh. "Your resolve is commendable, Dragonborn, but your fate was sealed the moment you stepped into Apocrypha."

"Jumped-up…prick!" Liv spat back, her arms trembling, aching from the effort to stave him off. How she had longed to call him that to his stupid masked face. "You better be…grateful...for this!" Akatosh, give me strength…

She felt him let up on his sword a fraction—a faint waver of hesitation, perhaps in confusion to her remark—and then she Shouted the words Akatosh had bestowed her: "Nahl Dal Vus!"

"What—"Miraak managed to get out just before the Words swallowed him in a blinding flash of white light.

Liv felt the force pushing against her bound blade leave in an instant, and she fell over. When her vision cleared, she saw she was the only mortal standing there and let out a breathless laugh. By the Divines, it worked.

Her laughter was short-lived, however.

While Sahrotaar still battled the other dragon mid-air, the red-scaled one he'd knocked down earlier now lumbered across the platform toward Liv, Shouting a cone of flame. She threw herself out of its path, rolling across the platform and leaping up to her feet at the dragon's left. Lightning crackled in her palms, but before she could fully summon Lightning Storm, a thick, black tentacle emerged from the pool of green-black ooze at the center of the platform. It whipped out at the dragon, catching it in the flank and with such force it knocked the great beast through the arched structure and over the side of the summit.

Liv barely had a chance to breathe before that tentacle changed direction with preternatural speed and snaked around her midsection, lifting her clear off the ground. She was sure in that moment that it would slam her down on the platform, shatter every bone in her body. Instead, it yanked her toward that icky pool at the center, where a black, seething, nebulous mass of tendrils and eyes hovered above it. The big, unblinking eye at its center was narrowed and glaring. Hello, Hermaeus Mora.

"Dragonborn!" boomed the Daedric Prince's voice. Normally a leisurely sound, it was now full of unbridled fury. "I offered you a world of knowledge and power, the honor of becoming my next Champion, and you repay me with treachery? You are no different than Miraak."

"He's gone. What difference does it make how he went?" Liv replied, struggling uselessly against the demon's appendage.

"You ask a foolish question," the Prince said. "I commanded you to kill him, to earn your place as my Champion—"

"And I told you that I wasn't interested."

"—You did not live up to your end of the bargain, Dragonborn, and now you will pay for cheating me. But before I kill you, you will give me the knowledge of this Shout that even I, Hermaeus Mora, Prince of Knowledge and Fate, did not know existed."

Liv had to laugh. There was something delightfully ironic about the Daedric Prince's obsession with what he ruled over. But again her laughter was short-lived as a long, black appendage rose up into the air before her, the end of it coiling back like a snake about to strike, aiming directly at her forehead. The one around her torso squeezed painfully tight, threatening to rupture organs. She barely got the Shout out in time.

"Feim Zii Gron!" Her Thu'um vibrated around her, turning her form ethereal. She slipped through Mora's tentacle, landing on her hands and knees.

"You cannot escape your fate, Dragonborn."

Liv ignored him as she fumbled in her pack for the book. Normally her ethereal form allowed her no interaction with the world, but since the book was on her person and basically in the same half-existence as her, she was able to handle it. Yet there was a despondent voice in the back of her head telling her it wasn't going to work, that this is where everything would go oh so horribly wrong. Liv battled that voice with faith, giving it a mental shove, and pulled the Black Book out, opening it quickly. She stared into the yellowed pages as Mora's limbs thrashed around her and through her. She felt herself being pulled through the book, and Mora's final, foreboding words went with her. He sounded himself again; unconcerned and sure.

"Go, then. But know this, Dragonborn: you have not seen the last of me. Your actions against me will reap great consequences. It is inevitable."