There was silence at the table for a long moment—the kind of silence that stretched and thickened, pressing against the ears. The fire crackled in the hearth downstairs, and somewhere below, a drunk let out a loud belch. No one laughed.
Aela was the first to speak.
"Disregarding how ominous the words you just said sounded..." She trailed off, her amber eyes narrowing. "Do you think us easily swayed? Milk-drinking children, who would so easily discard their resolve simply because we grew older?"
Torin gave her a blank look.
"Is that what you secretly think of Kodlak?"
A chuckle escaped Farkas—a quick, involuntary sound—but the glares of Vilkas and Skjor were enough to stifle it. The big Nord ducked his head and busied himself with his mug.
Torin sighed.
"Only a fool speaks in absolutes. Nothing is certain." He turned to Skjor. "Especially faith."
Skjor's jaw tightened.
"There was a time when you believed in the Empire. Believed in its strength, its justice, its future." Torin shrugged. "And now you don't."
He tilted his head. "Would the Skjor who believed in the Empire ever have stopped to consider that he'd leave the Legion and become a mercenary? That he'd end up in a mead hall in Whiterun, fighting for coin instead of the empire?"
Skjor's face darkened. His hands, resting on the table, curled into fists. He didn't like what he was hearing—that much was clear—but he didn't refute Torin's words.
Torin turned to Aela.
"And what about Kodlak?" He leaned forward. "Do you think you're more resolved to follow Hircine than he was? When he was younger? When the blood first burned in his veins and the hunt felt like the only thing that mattered?"
Aela's expression flickered—just for a moment, just enough.
"Is he someone who would do something he didn't believe in wholeheartedly? Who would take a path he thought was wrong, just because it was easier?"
Torin scanned the faces of everyone at the table—the twins, Aela, Skjor, Ghorbash. "Is he someone who would let you become werewolves if he wasn't convinced it was the right thing to do?"
No one said a thing.
The fire crackled downstairs. The drunk belched again.
Torin pointed sideways—toward the floor, toward Jorrvaskr, toward the Harbinger's quarters where Kodlak was most likely sitting in his chair by the fire.
"That same Kodlak now thinks the beast blood is a curse. He's told me so himself. He wants to be cured before he dies—wants to go to Sovngarde with a clean soul."
Torin's voice was quiet, but it carried. "So unless you think you're wiser than the old man... unless you think you're more capable of enduring the trials and tribulations of this life than he is..."
He spread his hands.
"I suggest you keep an open fucking mind and listen to me."
The silence returned, heavier than before.
...
Several weeks later. Jogging behind the prison cart that held a chained and muzzled werewolf, Torin couldn't help but groan in annoyance as Auri rode past him on her horse, giving him a smug smirk.
He'd be riding a horse himself, if not for the fact that most horses would look him up and down and suddenly appear very sad and tired. Just the thought of carrying this mountain of a Nord on their backs seemed to physically and spiritually drain the poor creatures.
Torin had always had a soft spot for animals, so he opted to jog. He didn't lack the stamina required for the ordeal either. Years of hunting bandits and trekking across Skyrim's frozen wilderness had seen to that. And the cart had to move slowly anyway.
They needed to be careful with the werewolf, lest it escape and harm someone. The chains were strong, the muzzle was secure, but the creature was still dangerous—still stronger than any normal man, still capable of breaking free if jostled too much.
There was also the fact that they needed to take less-traveled roads. Parading a captured werewolf in front of Nord peasants wasn't exactly the brightest idea. What they were doing was legal—the High King's seal was on the paperwork, the Arch-Mage's signature was on the permits—but that wouldn't stop the local Nords from frowning on it.
Or worse.
Still, if Torin had one complaint about the entire process, it was how long it took.
Waiting for news of werewolf sightings. Confirming the reports weren't just drunk farmers seeing things in the dark. Tracking the creature through woods and mountains, sometimes for days.
Capturing it—the hardest part, the most dangerous part, the part where people could die.
That was already exhausting. But it was the easy part.
The hard part was hauling the captured werewolf back to Winterhold. Into the frozen wastes that surrounded the College. Through the caves that connected to the Midden near the shore. Because of course they couldn't just walk it through town, past the suspicious stares of the townsfolk, past the Jarl's guards who were just looking for an excuse to cause trouble.
Then they'd take the creature to the dungeons near the lab itself, a maze of stone corridors and iron doors, all while making sure it didn't escape or harm anyone.
Torin wasn't the only one doing it, of course. Aela, Skjor, Ghorbash, and the twins had agreed to help, though some were more reluctant than others.
Aela and Skjor, in particular, had made their feelings known. They clearly weren't convinced. They'd argued for hours about how futile and pointless Torin's actions were—how the beast blood was a gift, not a curse; how Hircine's favor was not something to be discarded lightly; how even if a cure was possible, seeking it would be an insult to the Prince who had blessed them.
Torin had argued right back. He'd pointed out that Kodlak—their Harbinger, their leader, the man they all respected—considered it a curse. He'd pointed out that Hircine's "gift" came with strings attached, strings that led straight to the Hunting Grounds. He'd pointed out that wanting to choose your own afterlife wasn't an insult to anyone.
In the end, they'd had no choice but to agree to help. They were still worried about losing Hircine's favor—that much was obvious in the way they looked after delivering the werewolves they caught to the lab.
But they owed Kodlak too much to not be a part of this.
In any case, with this one—the fifth werewolf they'd captured, the largest yet, a beast that had been terrorizing the farms of the Rift—they should have enough test subjects to start experimenting. Everything else was ready.
The lab was complete. The equipment was in place. Svanhild had been preparing for months, her notebooks filled with protocols and procedures, her hands itching to begin.
Torin jogged a little faster, the cart rumbling ahead of him, Winterhold's distant walls just visible on the horizon.
Almost there, he thought. Almost there.
...
Six weeks later. In the Midden's dungeons.
Torin's face was dark as he watched the last werewolf go limp, the chains the only thing stopping it from falling face-first onto the stone floor. The creature's chest stopped heaving. Its eyes, once wild and yellow, stared at nothing. Its mouth, still muzzled, hung open in a frozen snarl.
Galiono Mald—the second-best Conjuration wizard after Phinis, and the foremost expert on necromancy in the College—turned around and shook his head as the werewolf's faint spirit literally went out, the procedure failing catastrophically.
The old man stepped out of the cell and stopped in front of Torin.
"This is proving much more complicated than we first thought." Galiono let out a long, weary sigh. "The aspect of the beast has merged completely with the soul through the power of Hircine. I can see that now—now that I've managed to identify the parts that needed to be excised."
Torin frowned.
Their process, so far, was short but very complicated. First, Drevis Neloren—the resident Master of Illusion—or one of his top students, would induce the feral werewolf into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Then, through a sophisticated, ritualistic spell, Galiono would extract the soul of the werewolf without killing the body—a delicate operation that required hours of concentration and left the old man drained for days afterward.
Whatever Illusion expert was on hand would then cast another spell to numb even the soul to any pain.
Only then would Galiono proceed to study the soul, mapping its contours and identifying where the beast's essence had attached itself.
The problem was that the spell hadn't been used for centuries. Mistakes were bound to happen.
The first werewolf had died five minutes after its soul was extracted—its body simply giving up, the connection between flesh and spirit severed too abruptly. After a lot of research with Svanhild's help, Galiono had been able to identify his mistake and correct it.
He'd even extended the duration for which they could keep the werewolf alive with its soul outside its body.
Of course, repeatedly extracting the soul and studying it had severe side effects. The process would ultimately afflict the soul with tainted magicka sickness—a condition Galiono had warned about from the beginning—and cause it to dissipate due to exposure to the unfiltered magicka that saturated the air in the Midden.
The College was built on a convergence of magical leylines, after all. The very stones hummed with power that was useful for casting spells but deadly for souls removed from their bodies.
That much was expected.
With time, they'd find ways to lessen—or maybe even remove—the possibility of infection. Better containment fields. More efficient warding. Perhaps even a way to filter the magicka before it touched the exposed spirit.
What Torin didn't expect, however, were those words.
He frowned.
"How much more complicated?"
Galiono let out a thoughtful hum, stroking his chin.
"This isn't something I can quantify, young one. It's not a matter of numbers or measurements. It's a matter of... understanding." He shook his head. "I can say with certainty, however, that a cure for lycanthropy is possible. The soul can survive the extraction. The beast aspect can be identified. In theory, it can be removed."
Torin looked at him calmly. "But...?"
Galiono shrugged.
"We'll need many more test subjects."
Torin ran a hand through his hair. The strands were greasy, tangled—he hadn't had time to wash properly in weeks.
"How many do you need?"
Galiono looked at him blankly.
"How many can you get?"
Torin opened his mouth. Then closed it. He just stared at the old Breton for a few moments, the words hanging in the damp air between them.
Then he let out a very long, very tired sigh.
...
Sitting inside his personal section of the workshop on the roof of the College, Torin slowly browsed the letters on his work table. The stack was tall—taller than it had been last week, taller than it had any right to be, given how few people actually knew how to reach him up here.
One was from Savos Aren, inquiring about the status of his various research projects. The Arch-Mage had been patient—more patient than Torin had expected—but even patience had its limits. He wanted results. He wanted timelines. He wanted to know when the College's investment would start paying dividends.
Several more were from the other masters, each inquiring about the research that might relate to their own studies.
Phinis Gestor was still very interested in the lycanthropy cure—specifically the soul extraction aspect, which he believed could be adapted for certain Conjuration rituals he'd been developing in secret.
Tolfdir wanted to know if the twins had made any progress on Skaldrfong's teleportation enchantment.
Colette Marence had written a very long, very rambling letter about the potential applications of Restoration magic in the separation process.
There was also a letter from High King Torygg, reminding Torin of his impending trip to High Rock. The winter was almost over, and the sea giants would soon be returning to Daggerfall's shores. Torin needed to be ready to leave within the month.
The letter also inquired about the lycanthropy cure research—Torygg's interest was more than academic. He wanted to know when he could expect those cured werewolves to start filling his ranks.
And then there were the others. Several letters from people Torin wasn't acquainted with—mostly people with complicated problems they wanted to hire him to solve.
A merchant in Markarth whose caravan had been haunted by something in the mountains. A minor noble in Riften whose son had gone missing in the sewers beneath the city. A farmer in Falkreath whose livestock had been disappearing, and who had heard that the Storm-Caller was a man who got things done.
And then there was the occasional bored Imperial noble or merchant who'd heard about Torin's reputation and wanted to hire him for some trivial task—escorting a carriage, finding a lost heirloom, attending a party as a "security consultant." Just so they could go back to Cyrodiil with stories to tell their fellow milk-drinkers.
Torin wasn't interested in either type. He wasn't a circus monkey, trotted out to entertain the wealthy with tales of his adventures. And his life was already complicated enough with other people's real problems. No amount of gold would be enough for him to entertain these people right now.
Shaking his head, he decided he didn't feel like going through any more letters for the day. He pushed back from the table, stood up, and headed toward the exit.
As soon as he opened the door, both Malin and Melina—busy with their work at their own desks, transcribing runes and cross-referencing texts—instantly perked up.
They exchanged a glance—that synchronized, twin thing they did—and headed straight toward him.
...
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