After a moment of exasperated silence, Torin finally spoke.
"You're right." He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I did let it go. On purpose."
K'hila's tail flicked behind her, but she said nothing. Just waited, her yellow eyes fixed on his face, her ears swiveled forward.
"But it's better that way," Torin continued. "Trust me."
K'hila jumped down from the branch, landing in front of him with barely a sound—just the soft crunch of frost under her small feet. She regarded him with a raised brow, her arms crossing over her chest in a pose that was almost comically adult.
"Better how?" Her voice was flat, skeptical. "This one wonders."
Torin held back a chuckle. Barely.
"Well." He settled back against the tree, making himself comfortable. "Even if I killed it, it wouldn't actually be dead. Not the way you think. Daedra don't die like mortals do. They just... go back. To Oblivion. To whatever pit they crawled out of."
K'hila's eyes widened slightly, but she didn't interrupt.
"And when they go back," Torin continued, "chances are Something else would take their place. Something that would be bigger and meaner."
He shrugged. "You don't solve a problem like this by killing the creature. You solve it by finding whoever summoned it in the first place and cutting off their head."
K'hila narrowed her eyes, her arms still crossed.
"Go on," she said.
A little chuckle finally escaped Torin. He couldn't help it. This child—this tiny, fierce, impossibly composed child—was standing there interrogating him like a Jarl questioning a suspect, and she was actually making him work for her approval.
"If I let it go," he said, "it'll be too busy licking its wounds to chase after you. That thing lost an arm. It's hurt and scared. It's not going to be hunting anyone for a while." He raised a finger. "And while it's recovering, I can use that time to track it down. Find out where it's hiding. Where its lair is."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"Well," he amended, "Auri would track it. The Bosmer I'm traveling with. She's... she's something else. One of the best trackers I've ever met. If anyone can follow a blood trail through these woods, it's her."
K'hila let out a low hum, the sound thoughtful, considering. Her tail uncurled from around her legs and began to swish slowly behind her.
"This one understands now," she said. Her voice was softer now, the edge gone. "If you're lucky—if this bosmer is as good as you say—the monster might even lead you to its servant. The one who brought it into this world."
Her yellow eyes met his.
Torin stared at her.
He'd thought she was perceptive before. But this? She'd taken everything he'd said—the bits about Daedric banishment, the tracking, the summoner—and she immediately connected the dots and came to the right conclusion.
This wasn't just a clever child. This was something else entirely.
He wondered, not for the first time, how someone had managed to trick her. To lure her away from the Khajiit caravans, to separate her from the only family she'd ever known.
Whoever had done it must have been very good. Very patient. Very convincing. Because this little cat was not easy to fool.
"Speaking of the servant," Torin said, pushing himself off the tree and crouching down to her level. "Did you remember what they look like? The one who tricked you."
He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Maybe even their name?"
K'hila's ears flattened. Her tail stopped moving.
For a long moment, she didn't say anything. Just stood there, her small hands clenched at her sides.
"This one already told you all there is to tell." K'hila's voice was quieter now, her earlier confidence fading into something more fragile. She licked her lips nervously, her small pink tongue darting out and disappearing just as fast.
Torin let out a low hum, thinking.
"Are you sure?" He kept his voice soft, careful. "You didn't notice something like a scar? War paint? Long ears?" He paused, ticking off possibilities on his fingers. "Big fangs? Something about the way they walked, maybe? The way they talked?"
K'hila shook her head firmly, her ears flattening against her skull.
"He had no fangs." Her voice was adamant. "And no long ears." She gave Torin a pointed look, her yellow eyes sharp. "He didn't have furs or scales either. He was... he was just a man. A man, just like you, with kind eyes and soft words."
Torin nodded.
"Alright, alright." He held up his hands in surrender. "I didn't mean anything by it. I'm just trying to refresh your memory. Sometimes people forget things, and then later they remember, and that little detail ends up being the thing that breaks the whole case open."
K'hila considered this, her head tilting.
"This one does not forget things easily," she said finally. "This one remembers almost everything. Every word. Every look. Every smile." She shivered, her fur ruffling. "This one wishes she could forget. But she can't."
Torin's smile faded. He reached out and placed a hand on her small shoulder, squeezing gently.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "You shouldn't have to carry that."
K'hila said nothing. Just looked at him with those innocent, knowing eyes.
Letting out a sigh, Torin pushed himself off the tree.
"Anyway." He brushed frost from his trousers. "I need to catch up to Auri. She's been tracking the harvester, and if I don't find her soon, she'll probably try to take it on herself."
He shook his head. "She's brave and strong. But it's better to be cautious."
He extended a hand toward K'hila, palm up.
"Come with me. I'll take you to the guards. They can take care of you while I'm gone. Get you somewhere warm. Somewhere with food that isn't bread from a priest's back door."
Much to Torin's surprise, K'hila shook her head.
The motion was small but firm, her ears swiveling forward, her tail uncurling from around her legs.
"This one doesn't need care," she said. Her voice was steady now, the earlier fragility gone. "And you shouldn't waste time." She pointed at the fog, at the darkness beyond the graveyard. "The monster awaits."
Torin gave her a strange look, his brow furrowing.
"You might not need care," he said slowly, "but there's a warm meal and a soft bed waiting for you back in town. Runil would be happy to—"
"Do you take this one for a foolish child?"
K'hila's voice cut through his words like a blade. Her yellow eyes blazed.
"This one will not be tempted by such things twice." Her small hands clenched into fists at her sides. "This one learned that lesson. This one paid for that lesson. This one will not forget it."
Torin's mouth closed.
He looked at her—really looked—and saw something he'd missed before. Not just a clever child. Not just a survivor. Someone who'd been hurt. Someone who'd trusted the wrong person and paid for it. Someone who'd learned, in the hardest way possible, that kind eyes and soft words could hide something monstrous.
She pointed firmly at the mist, her small arm straight, her finger aimed at the darkness like a compass needle pointing north.
"Go now, big and brave one." Her voice was fierce. "Defeat the monster. Find its servant. End this." She paused, and something softer flickered across her face. "This one will be watching. This one will be waiting. This one will be safe."
Then she turned and bolted.
She was fast—faster than he'd expected, faster than anyone that small had any right to be.
Her grey dress blurred in the fog, her black fur blending with the shadows, and within seconds she was gone, swallowed by the mist as if she'd never been there at all.
Torin stared blankly at the spot where she'd vanished.
The fog swirled. The trees creaked. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called out once and fell silent.
He shook his head slowly, a rueful smile tugging at his lips.
She's been evading the harvester for months, he thought. Living in the woods... If she could survive that, she can manage a little more.
And with that damned Daedra on the run—wounded, bleeding, terrified—she was probably safer now than she'd been in weeks. The harvester wasn't hunting anymore.
It was hiding. Licking its wounds. Trying not to die.
K'hila would be fine. She'd proven that.
But once this was over—once the harvester was dead and its master was dealt with—Torin was going to find her. He was going to make sure she was fed and warm and safe.
He was going to figure out what to do with her, where to take her, how to give her something resembling a normal life.
She deserved that. After everything she'd been through, she definitely deserved that.
But for now?
For now, the best thing he could do was what she'd asked. Find the harvester. Kill it. Find the servant, and end him too.
He turned away from the graveyard, away from the tree where K'hila had been hiding, and started walking toward the tree line where Auri had disappeared.
The fog parted before him, then closed behind him, swallowing his footsteps, his breath, his shadow.
...
Torin crouched low, his eyes fixed on the ground, and began to move.
The tracks were easy enough to follow at first—a thick smear of purple blood across the frost, the deep gouge of a serpentine tail plowing through dead leaves, the occasional imprint of a three-fingered claw digging into the earth for leverage.
The harvester had been panicked when it fled, careless, leaving a trail that even a blind man could follow.
It led northeast. Toward the mountain.
Torin recognized the shape of it looming through the fog—Shriekwind, the locals called it. An old peak, riddled with caves and crevices at the bottom and an old ruin at the top, the kind of place where things could hide for centuries without anyone knowing.
It was the perfect place for a wounded Daedra looking to lick its wounds in peace.
He moved as quickly as he dared, his axe in his hand, his eyes scanning the ground, the trees, the mist. He wasn't nearly as good a tracker as Auri or Aela—both of them could read signs that he'd walk right past without noticing—but he could follow a blood trail. He could follow the path of something big and scared and desperate.
For a while, it was easy.
Then the tracks started to fade.
The blood became sparser, smaller drops, further apart. The tail gouges grew shallower, less frequent. The claw prints appeared only where the ground was soft, avoiding the patches of frost and stone where they might leave evidence.
The harvester was calming down. Thinking clearly. Taking precautions.
Torin's jaw tightened.
The trail was still there—just barely—but he had to work for it now. Had to stop every few paces, crouch, study, decide.
He was losing time.
Luckily for him, he didn't have to do this alone.
The first symbol appeared on a tree about a quarter mile from where the tracks had started to fade. A simple carving—the mystical eye of the college, rough but recognizable, cut into the bark.
Torin's lips twitched.
He walked on, and soon found another. This time an axe—Jorrvaskr's symbol, or close enough. Carved into the trunk of an old pine, the sap still weeping from the cuts.
Then a shield. Then another eye. Then a staff, crossed with something that might have been a bow.
He followed the breadcrumbs, his pace quickening now that he didn't have to keep his eyes glued to the ground. The symbols led him through the trees, up a gentle slope, around a cluster of boulders, and finally—finally—to the foot of the mountain.
The fog was thinner here, swept away by the wind that howled down from the peaks. The moon, hidden behind clouds, cast a pale, milky light over the rocky ground.
And there, crouched behind a bush at the base of a sheer cliff, was Auri.
She was motionless, her bow in her hand, her eyes fixed on the rock face ahead. Her ears were swiveled forward, her head slightly tilted, her whole body coiled with the tension of a predator waiting for its prey to move.
The Bosmer heard him coming. Of course she did—her ears were too good, her senses too sharp. She didn't turn around, didn't look away from the cliff, but her voice cut through the silence like an arrow.
"You sure took your time."
Torin grinned, settling into the bush beside her. The branches scratched at his armor, the leaves cold and damp against his face.
"All for good cause," he whispered. "I assure you."
He stopped beside her and turned to look at the wall of jagged rocks ahead. It rose up into the mist, sheer and dark, its surface cracked and weathered by centuries of wind and rain.
"What's this, then?" He kept his voice low, barely a murmur. "I thought you'd have found the creature by now. Maybe even fought it."
Auri's lips twitched—not quite a smile, but close.
"I thought so too while following the tracks," she said quietly. " They led me straight here."
She pointed at the wall of jagged rock with her bow, the motion sharp and precise. "A perfect dead end."
Torin's brow furrowed. He stepped closer to the cliff, his boots crunching on frost-covered scree, his eyes tracing the cracks and crevices in the stone.
Auri continued, her voice dropping even lower. "Something is playing tricks on my senses. Something magical." She paused, her nose wrinkling. "It's either here, or somewhere along the tracks I followed to get here. I can't tell which. The scent is... muddled..."
Torin hummed, low and thoughtful.
He hadn't felt anything on his way here. No tingle of magicka, no shift in the air, no sense that the world was bending in ways it shouldn't. He'd walked the same path she had, followed the same blood trail, passed the same trees and boulders and patches of frost. If there was magic here, something strong enough to mislead Auri's senses, he would have felt it.
Auri herself was extremely sensitive to shifts in magicka. More sensitive than most in the college actually.
For something to evade both of them—to slip past his magical senses and her almost supernatural awareness—it would have to be hidden by something advanced. Enchantments, maybe.
That was the kind of layered, sophisticated work you couldn't throw together while running through the woods with a severed arm.
Torin stepped toward the cliff, his boots scraping against the stone. He reached out and placed his palm flat against the rock, feeling its cold, rough surface beneath his fingers.
"This is definitely the place," he said, his voice certain. "You did well, Auri. Better than anyone else could have."
She said nothing, but her ears swiveled toward him for a moment before snapping back to attention.
He began to study the rocky surface, his eyes tracing every crack, every shadow, every subtle shift in color that might indicate something hidden.
His fingers followed his gaze, pressing into crevices, scraping at patches of moss, feeling for seams that shouldn't exist.
"Now," he murmured, more to himself than to her, "we just need to figure out a way to get past whatever this is."
The wind howled down from the mountain, cold and sharp.
It carried the faint scent of blood and something older. A presence that had been sleeping in these rocks for a long time—and was only now beginning to stir.
...
I'm motivated by praise and interaction, so be sure to leave a like, power stone, or whatever kind of shendig this site uses, and more importantly do share you thoughts on the chapter in the comment section!
Want more chapters? Then consider subscribing to my pat rēon. You can read ahead for as little as $1 and it helps me a lot!
-> (pat rēon..com / wicked132)
You can also always come and say hi on my discord server
-> (disc ord..gg / sEtqmRs5y7)- or hit me up at - Wicked132#5511 - and I'll add you myself)