She climbed back down from the shrine onto the road beneath and looked back toward the place where the two men stood, face to face, speaking earnestly but too quietly for her to hear. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to kneel before Talos in the temple, not after seeing him there before her; but the sure knowledge that she needed to pray, to seek Talos’ guidance, had driven her up the side of the hill to this shrine, the one that overlooked the river and the gates of Windhelm.
He’s such an unpleasant man, she thought. He had risen from his knees there in the Temple, smiling, and turned to see her staring at him. His smile had evaporated.
“What are you staring at?” he had growled at her. “Did you not realize that even the Dragonborn prays to his god? Or is it that you can’t believe a brown man can pray?” He’d made a disgusted noise and strode for the back of the Temple and she’d seen Roggi scurry along behind him, trying to get his attention.
Frina had stared at the shrine for a moment, but had turned and followed them. They had left the city together, the three of them. She kept casting glances at Roggi, willing him to turn to her and tell her that somehow this had all been a misunderstanding, that they’d just wanted to be sure she was tough enough for battle – anything but what she’d just heard and learned in the Palace of the Kings. But the farther they went, the more she realized that was just wishful thinking. Praying quietly before the shrine settled her.
Talos wants me to be strong. He is not going to give me something I can’t survive. We’re all going to fight for Ulfric, after all, no matter what else is happening. Even that man was praying to Talos.
She started south down the road next to the river, hearing the two of them laugh. Well at least someone’s in a good mood, she thought sourly. It didn’t last long.
“Dar, watch out!” Roggi’s voice was sharp and full of alarm; and Frina whirled, readying her war pick out of pure reflex. An ice wolf was hurtling up the banks of the river toward Dardeh, snarling and snapping its teeth.
“FUS- ROH DAH!”
Frina had never heard such a loud noise before. It compressed the air around Dardeh in all directions, it snapped with a loud concussion, and it echoed off all the surfaces near where they stood as well as the walls of Windhelm itself, all the way across the river. She flinched backward, even as she gasped at what she saw. The ice wolf flew far into the air, somersaulting end over end, back down over the banks and beneath her line of sight. She heard the splash as it landed in the water, and the yip that followed, and the roar of laughter from Roggi after a moment of surprised silence.
Dardeh was chuckling, too. She could hear the deep rumble from where she stood and in spite of herself she found her mouth curling up into a smile.
He has a good laugh. A friendly laugh.
“It’ll be everywhere by sunset tomorrow,” Roggi laughed. “Wolf Takes Flight, Courtesy of Dragonborn. Who needs wings?”
They turned and walked down the road toward Frina. She had to admit that the smiles they had for each other made her feel a bit more at ease.
“I needed to get that out of my system, I think,” Dardeh said. He looked at her and grinned as they approached. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard Ulfric Shout, have you? Or have you not known him long enough?”
Frina swallowed hard, and turned her head to look at him as they continued on their way. “Jarl Ulfric can do that?”
Roggi laughed, a short bark of laughter. “No, Frina. Ulfric can’t do that. He does have the Voice, though, and he knows some Shouts. He knows part of the shout Dar just did, and he does it very well indeed. I have a formerly-broken rib that aches when it rains, courtesy of his Foose.”
“FUS, Roggi,” Dardeh said, correcting his pronunciation, the energy around him thrumming even with a quiet statement of the word. “Someday you’ll get it.”
Roggi smiled. “No, Dar, I don’t have it in me. That’s as close as I can get. Maybe you can teach Sayma. But, Frina,” he said, turning to her, “he is pretty powerful, Ulfric is. He can disarm a man with his voice as well, as I remember it. The thing to remember about this whole situation is that Dardeh is so very much more powerful than he is, or anyone else is.”
“Well, we never tested out Arngeir,” Dardeh snickered. “Somehow I suspect the four of them could blow me right off the mountaintop.”
“Sure, if they worked together,” Roggi said, stopping to pluck a few snowberries off a nearby bush and popping one into his mouth. “I’m not convinced they could outdo you one-on one.”
“Who’s Arngeir?” Frina asked. She wasn’t any happier about the whole situation than she had been but it was good to be travelling beside Roggi. He looked and sounded like the big brother she remembered, and as long as she didn’t think too hard about the wedding band on his finger, maybe it would be tolerable.
“Master Arngeir is one of the Greybeards,” Roggi said. “The only one of them with a voice quiet enough to speak to the rest of us. Up on the Throat of the World.”
“A place to which, gods willing, I will never have to climb again,” Dardeh muttered, to be met by a loud guffaw from Roggi.
“They have all studied the Voice for many years,” Roggi continued. “They’re the ones who taught Ulfric.”
Frina dared a glance at Dardeh. He was smiling, now, looking more relaxed, and she had to admit that in the fading sunlight he didn’t look like a demon at all. She hadn’t noticed how blonde he was, inside the dimly-lit palace, or what delicate facial features he had. She cleared her throat and asked him a question.
“Did they teach you, too, um… Dardeh?”
He glanced at her and smirked.
“Well, sort of. They gave me a couple of words, and a bit of a short-cut to master them. They taught me the basics of how everything goes together. But I knew how to Shout as soon as I killed my first dragon. It’s how we found out I was Dragonborn, like it or not.”
She nodded. I’m going to have to think about this. I do remember the stories about the Dragonborn, and I had heard that the dragons were back not long ago. And I’m going to have to watch my tongue. This man is so much stronger than I had imagined, if all of this is the truth, and I think that flying wolf is pretty good proof of that.
They walked easily down the road. Frina listened as the two of them chattered about people she didn’t know; and she found herself relaxing just a bit. Then there was a motion. At least she thought it was a motion; it was more like a slight disturbance of the light in front of them, a shimmering, and it seemed to move from the undergrowth beside the road to just in front of them.
“There you are,” she heard, the voice unmistakably Argonian, and she flinched as the black-clad form shimmered into light directly in front of them. Assassin.
“Watch out!” she yelped, reaching for her weapon. She never got a chance to use it.
Roggi was still reaching to his back to unsheathe his greatsword as Dardeh calmly took a single pace forward and whirled. The double-edged sword he carried in his right hand sliced neatly through the Argonian’s neck, sending its head hurtling down over the banks of the roadway.
That was frightening enough, but what set Frina trembling was the look on the man’s face. It was grim, his eyes cold and hard, his mouth pressed into slim, unforgiving lines.
It’s like he didn’t even have to think about it. He just… took the Argonian’s head off.
One less Argonian in the world didn’t bother Frina in the slightest, but the looks that passed between Dardeh and Roggi after that had her stomach churning. She wasn’t sure whether Roggi was angry at Dardeh, angry at the Argonian, or both. Maybe he is a demon after all. He can make things fly with his voice and take off a man’s head with a single blow. And Roggi looks like he could, as well.
“There must be some kind of splinter group, Dar. She wouldn’t send someone after us,” Roggi was saying.
“Of course she wouldn’t. I’m beginning to fear that you’re right. After the battle is done we’re going to have to go see her and let her know.”
Dardeh ran a hand over his braids and blew out a breath. “Listen, we’re not getting anywhere near Whiterun before it’s dark. Know any good camping spots?”
“I do,” Frina blurted out. “There’s an old prison tower farther south on the river.”
Roggi gave her a surprised look and nodded. “Yes there is. It’s not level, not really, but it’s safe. I’ve camped out there before.”
And so it was that, by the time it had gotten fully dark, Frina found herself once more sitting around a small campfire in the ruins of the old Imperial prison. She mostly listened as Roggi and Dardeh talked about the assassin. Roggi seemed really worried about Dardeh, Frina thought, because of what he’d done, but it didn’t surprise her that much. She’d seen Redguard men fighting before and knew what their training and mass could do.
Dardeh didn’t really speak to her, much, in spite of being seated next to her. Instead, it was Roggi who kept up the non-stop stream of chatter as the full night settled in. She had to smile at it. Some things didn’t change, and this part of Roggi’s personality clearly hadn’t. Dardeh chuckled at him, and inserted his quiet, plain responses from time to time. He was too angry about this, he said. He thought he had solved the problem, he said. Frina didn’t know what he was referring to; she mostly sat, and watched, and had the same insistent thought over and over again.
That Dardeh. He’s dangerous. I need to watch out for him.
They’d long since spread out bedrolls and settled down for a few hours of rest when the sounds of movement nearby startled her awake. She was about to leap up to alert the others when she heard a low moan, very near at hand. And then she heard the unmistakable sound of Roggi trying to stifle a giggle.
“Shh, Dar. You’ll wake her up.”
“Sorry, Roggi, it’s just that when you…” and he moaned again.
Frina felt herself freezing into place.
By the gods. They’re doing… that.
Frina had no real idea what they were doing, not specifically, but she did know that she didn’t want to hear it or imagine it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to hear, but that was like trying not to imagine a pink horker lurching its way along a beach. It was horrible. And then she heard something else.
“I love you, Roggi.” It was a quiet whisper, but Dardeh’s voice was so resonant that she heard it as though he was whispering directly in her ear, not Roggi’s.
“I love you too, Dar. It’ll be all right. I promise. Now try to get some sleep.”
Frina found tears slipping out from behind her eyelids and down the sides of her face. The sound of Roggi’s quiet declaration left no room for doubt. He truly belonged to this man. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reconcile that with the man she remembered, the one who had joined the Stormcloaks with her sister to fight for Talos, to give Skyrim back to the Nords.
__
There was a camp set up on the south side of the road across from Whiterun’s gates, and catapults were already hurling boulders and other flaming projectiles at the city’s walls. Whiterun was returning fire, and every few moments there were bright flashes and loud concussions as incoming fireballs landed near them, and Frina jumped every time one of them shook the ground nearby. She could hear Galmar shouting, even over the chaos, and headed toward him; Dardeh and Roggi followed.
“This is it, men!” Galmar shouted. “They say that our cause is false and that we are nothing more than thieves, thugs, and murderers – but no!”
“No,” Roggi muttered behind her. “That’s for damn sure.”
“Roggi, hush,” Dardeh said. “We’re miners, right? That’s what we are and that’s good enough.”
Frina had no idea what they were talking about, and she missed some of what Galmar was shouting, but it didn’t matter. Her excitement was rising; butterflies danced through her and her grip on her war pick was tighter by the moment.
Let’s go! Let’s get on with this! Let’s take this city for Ulfric and for Talos!
“Our objective is the drawbridge. If we can find a way to drop it, the city will be ours. Everyone on me! Let’s show these Imperial milk-drinkers what true Nords look like!”
Galmar led the charge down the hillside and up the road toward the city. Stormcloaks ran past her toward the barricade. Frina could see an archer in Imperial red atop the walls so she pulled out her bow and stopped. She was lining up a shot at the archer when a huge sound filled the air.
“MID- VUR SHAAN!”
It was like the explosion of one of the flying missiles, but with a voice embedded in it, and she knew it had to have been Dardeh. She suddenly felt a surge of energy the likes of which she had rarely experienced, and looking around at the ecstatic faces of those nearby she could see that they felt it also. She caught a glimpse of Dardeh; the grin on his face just before he pulled a masked helmet down over it told her that he was the one who had done it, whatever it was. It didn’t matter; the surge of energy was apparent as the Stormcloaks moved forward. Imperials and Whiterun guards were toppling like matchsticks.
Frina moved nearer the barricades to take a shot or two at the archer. She saw him flinch backward and knew she’d caught him at least one, but he didn’t go down. A flaming missile struck the roof of the house nearest her; it caught fire and she should hear screams from inside. “Talos smite you!” she heard from nearby. It might have been Roggi, she thought, but in the confusion it was hard to say. The closer in to the city they moved, the thicker the smoke grew and the more she coughed.
She kept firing, both at the archer and at others she could see barring the way ahead.
“Up in that tower! Quick!”
“Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
“They’re up on that wall!”
Those were the Nord voices she could hear. She also heard Imperials shouting.
“I could do this all day!”
“I’ve suffered worse during training!”
Galmar was somewhere nearby and she had the absurd urge to laugh as he shouted “I’ve got something for you!” and ran forward to engage an Imperial officer.
Frina drew her pick in her right hand and a steel war axe in the left, and ran. The combat was too close now to try to fire arrows; the chances of hitting one of her own men too great to risk. Instead, she ran for a pair of men near a ramp, one of them in Legion armor and the other in Whiterun guard gear.
That ramp is going to be how we get to the drawbridge.
She sprinted past a pair of Imperial archers, a part of her mind waiting for the arrows to strike from behind; but by weaving across the width of the road she was able to avoid them and engage the first of the two men at the base of the ramp. She caught him full-force with the wicked spikes of the war pick and he fell back, bleeding.
A shape in black whizzed past on her left as she met an attack from the Whiterun guard. Dardeh rushed up the ramp toward a man taunting him. Frina didn’t have a chance to watch him fight though, as she blocked with her left weapon and swept the deadly sharp spikes in her right hand at the guard’s legs, but she heard another huge, almost metallic sound and knew that Dardeh had Shouted again.
Keep his path clear. Let him open the gate.
“Behind those rocks over there! See him?” she heard an Imperial soldier shout at his fellow and knew that they meant Dardeh. She ran up the ramp to intercept both of them, and the next few minutes were a blur of motion and bone-rattling impacts and pain as she struggled to keep the path clear so that Dardeh could reach the drawbridge. She thought she was screaming at them, but couldn’t be sure whether it was her screams she heard or someone else’s. Once the men were down she followed, just in time to watch Dardeh throw the lever that dropped the drawbridge.
“I’ve been wounded worse by better!” she heard from an Imperial as he tore a path down from the wall, with Roggi in hot pursuit. She stopped for just a second to catch a breath and saw Roggi, silent and grim, swing his dragonbone greatsword around him and up into an arc that ended with it cleaving the man completely in half. Frina’s mouth fell open for a moment, in shock; but then she realized that the battle was moving into the city and she would be left behind if she didn’t run as well.
It was more of the same, moving through Whiterun and up toward the marketplace, except that it was worse because there were civilians, some in rags, trying to find any shelter they could from the battle. It seemed as though all the soldiers on both sides of the conflict were trying hard to avoid them, but they were in the way; and worse still there was an occasional attack by someone in plain armor or clothing who might not appear to be a soldier but who had taken a stand at the last moment. She screamed at them to move aside, get out of the way, because she knew her goal was Dragonsreach and not the rest of the city; but in the chaos it was impossible to know how many of them may have fallen as well.
There were barricades at various intervals, and she helped break through those, to let Galmar and his men rush ahead. Once or twice she heard Dardeh make that piercing, metallic sound, and once she actually saw the sword fly out of the hand of the soldier he was facing. Roggi shouted and snarled as he carved his way through anyone in his way, and Galmar hurled insults as frequently as he swung his weapon.
There was so much sound. It was deafening, and overwhelming, even moreso in the confined spaces of the city walls than it had been outside. The air was thick with smoke and the stench of burning buildings and dead and wounded bodies. She could barely focus on getting ahead one Imperial at a time. She heard screams of pain, and the clashing of steel and the thuds of heavy objects striking bodies, some with meaty smacks and others with the sharp crack of bone disintegrating. She heard someone shout “the Emperor can kiss my ass!” and wanted to laugh; but there was no time to laugh.
There was one last barricade at the foot of the stairs to Dragonsreach, and she ran for it with everything she had left. A Whiterun guard stepped out just in front of her, and in an exquisite moment of horror she knew there was no way she could possibly stop in time to avoid his sword. But a familiar shape in drab armor wielding a dragonbone greatsword stepped between her and the soldier and skewered him as if he was nothing.
Dardeh – unmistakable in his shining black armor – ran past both of them and up the last group of stairs, stopping to look behind them as a woman’s voice shouted “Now you’ll pay!” His head darted from side to side as if he was looking for the source of the voice, and he shouted, “Lydia! Lydia?” But Roggi yelled “No, Dardeh! Go! Go!” and he nodded, turned, and ran to open the doors of Dragonsreach.
She stumbled through the doors just behind him, just in time to witness a thing she had never expected to see in her lifetime.
“Halt, in the name of the Jarl!” she heard from the far end of the room, near the throne. It was the Dunmer woman, she recognized that much.
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” growled a voice that she recognized as Jarl Balgruuf’s.
“Stay back, lord!”
“I’ll be damned if I let this rabble take my city without raising my own sword!”
“Protect the Jarl, with your lives!” Irileth shouted. Three of the guards rushed forward, down the stairs to where Frina and the others were waiting.
“FUS- RO DAH!”
It was the sound Dardeh had made when the ice wolf attacked, the same sound. It rattled everything in the space and pushed dishes off the tables near them, at the lower part of the keep. But when it caught the guards, it didn’t push them back.
Instead, where there had been three guards, there were three piles of ash. Shimmering, pinkish ash. They hadn’t been tossed backward. They hadn’t been disarmed.
They had been disintegrated. They were simply – gone.
Frina found herself shaking, unable to move; she stepped back behind one of Dragonsreach’s massive wooden support pillars and tried to get control of herself as Dardeh, Roggi, Galmar and the rest of the soldiers moved forward. Balgruuf rushed down the hallway, clad in steel plate armor, and for a moment it seemed to Frina that he and Roggi looked at each other as if they knew each other. Then Balgruuf raised his sword and took a mighty swing at Roggi.
No!
Frina raised her weapons and sprinted into the action, trying to get past Balgruuf’s guards. She had to do something to save this man she had cared about for so long.
“No!” Dardeh shouted, appearing from behind a pillar to slide beneath Balgruuf’s sword and taking the brunt of the blow across his back.
“NO!” Roggi screamed.
Dardeh flew forward, falling onto his face. For a moment Frina wondered if he had been killed, but his armor had absorbed most of the impact. She could see a deep groove in the back of his cuirass. There was barely a moment of hesitation before he scrambled to his feet.
Ebony. That’s not just dark armor, that’s ebony. Thank Talos.
She took a swing at the nearest guard, trying to get in closer to Balgruuf, and suddenly had the wind knocked from her by a shock. She fought to regain her breath. Her head swiveled around far enough to spy long grey ears turning toward a Stormcloak in the other direction.
That damn Dunmer has magic!
Galmar was laughing like a maniac, swinging wildly, trying his best to get to Balgruuf, when the concussion of sound that surpassed the loudest thunder she had ever heard split the air.
“MID- VUR SHAAN!”
Suddenly the remaining Stormcloak troops, including Frina, were energized yet again and rained a tremendous flurry of blows on the Jarl’s defenders. He blocked once or twice, but looked around him and saw that it was all over, and dropped to one knee.
“Enough,” he said quietly, gasping for breath. “That’s enough. I surrender. I surrender.”
His men hadn’t heard him, or refused to believe him; they kept fighting. Balgruuf stood and shouted.
“Peace! Everybody stand down! That’s an order! Stand DOWN!” Slowly, one by one, his guards dropped their swords and stood back from him, giving him space.
He’s no Ulfric, Frina thought, and he’s definitely no Dardeh, but he has the voice of authority.
Balgruuf turned and trudged heavily back up the stairs to the main level of Dragonsreach, followed by Irileth, whose magic still sparked and shimmered around her. Frina heard the doors of the keep open, and an old man’s voice called out.
“Balgruuf!”
She was close enough to see the angry sneer on Balgruuf’s face.
“Vignar Gray-mane. Your family was noticeably absent from the walls. Now I know why. Wouldn’t a dagger in the back have sufficed?”
The white-haired, heavily wrinkled older man in fine clothing stepped to within a breath of Balgruuf.
“You think this is personal? The Empire has no place in Skyrim, not any more. And you. You have no place in Whiterun anymore!”
Frina suddenly felt faint and her legs wobbled, so she made her way to one of the long dining tables and sat down. For a moment she couldn’t focus; then she saw a goblet half-filled with wine on the table just before her and tossed the drink down. While she had no wounds she hurt from a hundred blows, she was desperately tired and still shaking from the sight of seeing Dardeh’s Voice turn three grown, armored men to ash. Dardeh himself stood silently to one side as Balgruuf, Vignar Gray-Mane and Galmar argued about the future. Ulfric would spread his rebellion too thin, Balgruuf said, and then what?
“We Nords are the Empire,” he said. “Our blood built it. Our blood sustains it! You of all people should know that!”
What does he mean? Ulfric’s the one who fights for the Nords, not the Empire. Does he not understand that?
Vignar sneered at him.
“If this was my Empire,” he said calmly, “I’d be able to worship whoever I damn well pleased. You wish to see an Empire without Talos? Without its soul?” His voice rose as he went, and Frina wanted to applaud him.
That’s it. That’s exactly it. That is why I’m fighting. And I’m pretty sure that’s why Roggi is fighting, and Dardeh.
“We should be fighting those witch-elves, not bending knee to them!” Gray-Mane shouted. “The Empire is nothing more than a puppet of the Thalmor.”
Dardeh and Roggi both nodded and so did Frina, slowly. She didn’t know much about the Empire itself but if these two men agreed with Vignar she was fairly certain they must be right.
“Tell me, Vignar,” Balgruuf said, the anger on his face slowly giving way to sorrow, “was this worth it? How many of those corpses lining our streets wear the faces of men who once called you friend?” His voice caught as he spoke. “What about their families?”
Frina had a clear view of Dardeh, standing as he was next to Balgruuf, and she saw him wince. Roggi had noticed his reaction, too, and caught his husband’s gaze, their eyes sharing words that Frina didn’t understand.
“Enough, both of you!” Galmar said loudly as he clumped up the steps to stand beside Vignar. “There is a burning city out there that needs a government!”
Vignar sighed. “He’s right. Galmar, come. Let us restore order.”
“This… isn’t over,” Balgruuf muttered. “Do you hear me, you old fool? This isn’t over!”
Both Vignar and Galmar ignored him, moving to speak to their people, to start what would clearly be a long process of recovery for the city. Balgruuf, though, turned to Dardeh.
“And you,” Balgruuf said, his voice bitter. “A Stormcloak.”
“Balgruuf,” Dardeh said, his first words since the battle had ended. “I’m so sorry, my friend. I had to take a side. This has to come to an end.”
“Don’t presume to call me friend,” Balgruuf hissed. “Not now, and not ever. I had thought better of you.”
“Don’t you see?” Dardeh said quietly. “The war has to end. It’s taking as big a toll on us as Alduin was. I had to stop him, and I have to stop this. I have to at least try. Don’t you understand?”
“You’ll all come to regret this day!” Balgruuf growled. “Give me a few hours to gather my household, and I’ll depart. You have my word.”
“Sir,” Dardeh tried, quietly, one more time. But Balgruuf just sneered at him, and made his way toward the Jarl’s quarters, followed closely by two of the Stormcloak soldiers. Dardeh’s head dropped, and he stared at the floor, his hands clenching into fists. Roggi moved to stand beside him, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Frina stared at Roggi as he spoke quietly to Dardeh, and saw Dardeh nod several times. Then he patted Dardeh on the back and turned to find Galmar. Frina found herself feeling sorry for Dardeh. Whatever his relationship with Balgruuf was before, this has ended it. I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to repair it.
She saw Galmar waving her over and pushed herself away from the table, then walked slowly to where a knot of Stormcloaks were gathered, discussing next steps.
“Get over to Windhelm,” he told her, “and tell Ulfric of our victory here. I’ll be moving to our next camp once we have the city secured.”
“Yes sir,” Frina said quietly. She moved to stand beside Roggi, and hesitantly touched him on the arm.
“Are you alright?”
He smiled. “Yes. A few cuts, but nothing major. It certainly wasn’t as bad as fighting a dragon.”
Frina just stared at him. “A dragon.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’ve helped Dar kill a bunch of them now. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get back to Windhelm without seeing any, for a change.”
Dardeh was already walking slowly down the steps toward the door when a man Frina had met briefly at Korvanjund came up to him and poked him in the arm. “I’m pretty sure I killed more Imperials than you did, Dardeh. I was keeping count.”
Dardeh stopped and stared at the man, and for a moment Frina worried that Dardeh might lose his temper. But he shook his head and chuckled.
“No doubt you did, Ralof. You’ve always been a better fighter than I am. It’s good to see you again. I’m glad you’re well.”
Ralof laughed and clapped Dardeh on the back, and then followed Galmar toward the back of the keep. Dardeh watched him go and then looked at Frina and Roggi. He sighed, and nodded toward the doors.
“Let’s get out of here.”
The city was eerily quiet, save for the crackle of burning timbers and the sounds of the people fighting those fires calling out to each other. The trellis surrounding the great tree in the center of Whiterun was broken, leaning at a drunken angle. She looked longingly at the shrine of Talos, but shook her head.
Somehow it just doesn’t seem right to worship right now. Not when there are people hurt, and bleeding, and weeping over their dead.
They got past the main gates and walked down the road.
“We won,” she said, finally.
“It was a major victory,” Roggi agreed. “Ulfric will be happy to hear of it.”
Dardeh turned and looked back at the city, at the thatched rooftops still smoldering, at the newly broken places in the outer walls, and he tried to speak, but his voice cracked.
“This is where I was standing the first time I saw you, Roggi,” he said quietly. “It thought it was the most beautiful place and the most beautiful day I’d ever seen. Maybe it wasn’t, but it felt that way. And now look at it. Was it worth it? Have we made a mistake? Is this not exactly what I wanted to prevent?”
Roggi shook his head. “I don’t know, my love,” he answered, equally quietly. “Only time will tell. But at least we did something, and didn’t just sit on the sidelines.”
He gathered Dardeh up into an embrace, and the two of them stood holding each other for a long moment.
And Frina couldn’t find it in her to feel anything but sympathy.