Dardeh looked around the Skaal village in disbelief.
How long was I in there?
People were coming and going, greeting each other, chatting about mundane issues like food and wood. But there was no look of tension on their faces. Frea was seated on the steps of the shaman’s hut, just as her father had been wont to do.
Frea looked up at him, for a moment puzzled and then with recognition. She rose and approached.
“I can feel it,” she said. “The Tree Stone is free again. The Oneness of the land is restored. Does that mean… is it over? Is Miraak defeated?”
Dardeh nodded, grimly. He felt something odd, though, and reached up to find his hair, longer than he remembered ever having worn it, hanging loose in wiry curls around the back of his neck. He absently tied it into a knot in the back and, as he did so, his hand brushed across his beard, grown long.
I couldn’t have been in there for months. It would take months for my hair to grow this long. Maybe time flows differently in there.
He met Frea’s gaze. “How long was I there?”
“Long. You came and went many times. Tell me. Was my father’s sacrifice in vain? Did he need to die?”
Dardeh sighed and closed his eyes.
Storn Crag-Strider had agreed to exchange the secrets of the Skaal for Hermaeus Mora’s assistance to Dardeh. He hadn’t known he was going to be a sacrifice. Or perhaps he had. He had told Dardeh “There comes a time when everything must change.”
I wanted it so much. All I could think about was whatever needed to happen to kill Miraak. I didn’t even think about Storn.
The night before Storn took the Black Book from him, he had brought Dardeh before the fire and had him meditate. Dardeh wasn’t sure whether he had been in a trance, or whether Storn had burned some special incense on the fire. He wasn’t sure what the shaman had done. All he knew was that he saw a young woman, a Nord. Beautiful, dressed in armor, blonde with eyes the color of honey. A voice, oddly familiar but muffled, as if from far away.
“Take care, Dardeh. You travel a dark path. Do not lose your way.”
Dardeh had blinked and looked at Storn.
“Who was that?”
“I do not know. But it is the shaman’s task to bring the living closer to the spirits of those who have gone before, that they may learn.”
And then Storn had sacrificed himself to Hermaeus Mora, giving up the secrets of the Skaal to the Daedric Prince at the cost of his own life. Dardeh stood and watched as one by one the Skaal approached Frea, kneeling in grief over her fallen father, and expressed their own.
How long was I in there?
It had gone on and on. The book led him to Apocrypha and he had rushed forward, the fire burning hot in him, wanting only to kill Miraak. Tentacles rose from pools of the green liquid to slap at him. Lurkers leapt from other pools, stomping to spray tendrils of poison at him, raking their claws across him, draining his energy so that he could barely approach them to slash with his scimitars. And the Seekers, always the Seekers, floating aimlessly until he fired an arrow at them and then bursting into motion, firing a spell that drained his health, cloning themselves whenever he had one nearly defeated so that instead of one there were two or three to defeat.
Several times he had nearly fallen from the narrow latticework pathways into the sea of green beneath him. Many times he had been driven to his knees, blacking out for a moment only to find himself at the edges of the Skaal village, as if in a dream; and he would open the book and fling himself back into Apocrypha again only to find that he must re-travel the same pathways he had already trodden.
There had been more books. Four of them, that unlocked the entrance to a space, open to the sky of Apocrypha, holding a word wall; and as the final word of Dragon Aspect flowed into Dardeh the dragon Sahrotaar, Miraak’s dragon, had approached to attack.
This is why I needed Bend Will.
He had Shouted Sahrotaar to the ground and ridden him to the summit of Apocrypha, where Miraak was waiting for him.
I will defeat you. I am stronger than you. I am better than you. I will surpass you.
Dardeh had fought Miraak long and hard, dodging his fire and frost attacks, burying as many arrows as he could fire into Miraak’s body, then rushing forward to attack with his father’s swords, screaming the deep roar he’d known since he was a boy with a hatred the likes of which he had never felt before, blind to anything other than the need to kill this being before him. On and on the battle had gone, Miraak slaying his own dragons to absorb their power and renew himself, until suddenly Hermaeus Mora himself had appeared.
“I have found a new Dragonborn to serve me,” he had told Miraak.
And Miraak was no more.
Dardeh opened his eyes and looked at Frea. I don’t know what to tell her. Miraak is gone, but Hermaeus Mora still exists. And so do I.
“I could not have defeated Miraak without Storn’s help,” he said.
I did not defeat Miraak. Not entirely. Herma Mora did. But this is the kindest thing I can think of to say.
“Then it was the All-Maker’s will,” she said, nodding. “May I offer a word of advice? Of warning?”
Dardeh nodded. I need all the help I can get.
“As shaman of the Skaal, I am charged with the spiritual well-being of my people. While you are not of the Skaal, you are Skaal-friend, and so I give you this warning. Herma-Mora forced you to serve him in order to defeat Miraak. Do not let him lure you further down that path. The All-Maker made you Dragonborn for a higher purpose. Do not forget that.”
“Thank you, Frea,” Dardeh said, nodding, and began the long trek back to Raven Rock.
For much of the journey back, Dardeh was numb, thinking of nothing, just looking at the volcano-blasted landscape, watching the ash still pouring from the Red Mountain across the water on Vvardenfell. One foot before the next, down from the snow, down to the waterfront, along the ashy shoreline. Then the thoughts began to come.
I didn’t want to kill Miraak because of Roggi. Not after I met him.
I was angry at him for looking down on me. For telling me I was not powerful.
I was angry when Neloth told me I would be the second most powerful Dragonborn ever.
He stopped at a pool, by the mouth of a stream flowing into the sea, and caught a glimpse of his own reflection. Leave it, he thought as he saw his changed appearance. It’s the thing I’ve become.
All I wanted was power. And Herma Mora gave me power.
There were creatures rising from the sands, tall, lanky creatures like draugr but the color of the ash, hurling fireballs at him. He fought them, growing ever more weary, but only half in the moment. His mind was elsewhere.
I used your swords, Father. I hope you were pleased. I don’t know what it accomplished. I have Miraak’s sword now, as well, and I don’t know what that accomplishes either.
I was wrong. It is not an insult to be the second most powerful Dragonborn who has ever lived.
He arrived back in Raven Rock and looked around, speaking briefly to people who thanked him yet again for reopening the ebony mine, for clearing out the Reavers, for freeing them from the curse that had been on the standing stone. And what he saw in his mind’s eye was the bodies of the people who had died when he Shouted Bend Will at the stone, and he shook his head.
He booked passage back to Windhelm and stood at the bow of the ship, looking out at the sea as they prepared to leave.
It is not an insult to be the second most powerful Dragonborn who has ever lived. Because the greatest Dragonborn who has ever lived wasn’t Miraak. It was Talos.
It is an honor. And it is a misplaced honor.
Talos guide me.