III - Dovahkiin

The cavernous stone hall was dark and quiet save for a maid sweeping near the door. Merill ascended to the main hall, lit by a low-burning fire pit in its centre, and moved around it, making for the Jarl’s throne, her footsteps echoing on the high, shadowed walls. Nerves twisted in her gut despite herself – she had seen Markarth’s jarl on occasion, and had once passed Falkreath’s in the street, but never any more than that. She was more accustomed to stealing and running from fur-swathed nobles than speaking to them at their thrones.

“What is the meaning for this interruption?” The Jarl’s great seat was empty, but the irritated inquiry came from a Dunmer woman who had met Merill with her knife drawn, eyes dark with suspicion. “The city is supposed to be closed.”

“I have news from Helgen,” Merill told her, crossing her arms. The Dunmer scanned Merill’s haggard appearance, her eyes flicking from Merill’s scratched and bloodied face with a single eye to the torn and blackened rags she wore. The woman reluctantly sheathed her blade, her eyes still narrowed in mistrust.

“That explains why the guards let you in,” she muttered. “Come, then, the Jarl will want to speak to you personally.” Merill followed the woman across the hall to a side-room, where a blue-robed man leaned over a table laden with books and scrolls and gems, speaking animatedly to a man Merill could only assume was the Jarl of Whiterun. He was a short man, though built heavily, his sleeveless fur ruff revealing muscled arms and his stern face set with and a thick, square jaw. He looked up as they entered, his pale eyes half-hidden under bushy, stern brows.

“My Jarl, this girl claims to have come from Helgen,” the Dunmer was saying. Balgruuf straightened, ignoring the glances thrown to him by the court wizard and the steward near the map at the back of the room.

“Are we so wrapped up in this war that we’ve forgotten Nordic hospitality?” Balgruuf snapped, turning to his steward. “Someone get this girl a healer, then we will talk of dragons.”

“Come this way, then, miss,” the steward said, quickly coming over and laying a hand on her back.

“I don’t need a healer,” Merill shot back at one, stepping away from the steward. “I’m fine.”

“Can you see out of that eye, then?” he asked her scathingly, and Merill instinctively touched the scar over her cloudy eye.

“That didn’t happen at Helgen,” she told him darkly, and the Jarl stared at her a moment before he shook his head to the steward, who stepped away. Balgruuf stepped closer to her, and Merill stood her ground, staring up at him with her arms crossed.

“How old are you, girl?”

“I’m nineteen.” She felt a small bit of pride at the barely-concealed surprise on the Jarl’s face. Merill wasn’t tall, but she was stocky with muscle, her freckled skin lined with scars.

“And what’s your name?” he asked.

“Merill.”

“So, Merill, you saw this dragon with your own eyes, did you?”

“It flew off toward Whiterun. That’s why I came here.”

“But you saw the beast? You knew it was a dragon?”

“There was nothing else it could have been,” she responded, crossing her arms again.

“By Ysmir, Irileth was right,” he murmured, scratching his beard concernedly. “What do you say to this, Proventus?” Jarl Balgruuf said to his steward, who had retaken his position on the Jarl’s right side. “Shall we continue trusting in the strength of our walls? Against a dragon?”

“My lord, we should send troops to Riverwood at once,” the Dunmer, called Irileth interjected, crossing the hall from the wizard’s lab. “It’s in the most immediate danger, and if that dragon’s lurking in the mountains –”

“The Jarl of Falkreath will see that as a provocation!” the steward interrupted, and they locked eyes, angrily. “He’ll assume we’re preparing to join Ulfric’s side and –”

“Enough!” Balgruuf snarled, rising from his chair. All sound in the grand hall deadened save for the crackling of the great fire. “I’ll not stand idly by while a dragon destroys my hold and slaughters my people!” He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Irileth, send a detachment to Riverwood at once.”

“Yes, my Jarl,” Irileth muttered, casting the steward a dark look and turning to leave. The steward returned the sour gaze and crossed to the other side of the room, muttering about returning to his duties. The Jarl turned his searching eyes back to Merill.

“Now, girl, I’d thank you. You’ve done my hold a great service.” He nodded to a nearby steward, who counted out a few coins and passed them to Merill. “Did your family die in Helgen, girl?”

“They died a long time ago.” He gazed at her a moment, his eyes searching.

“I am sorry then. I hope you get where you need to go.”

He waved in dismissal, and Merill turned away, letting out a relieved sigh. She slid the coins into the pocket of her leggings and moved around the fireplace, taking the side route out of the hall. As she neared a smaller side room, voices drifted out into the main hall, a man with a heavy western accent and another woman.

“…finally taken an interest, so now I’m able to devote most of my time to this research,” the wizard was saying.

“Time is running, Farengar, don’t forget.” Merill neared the doorway into the lab and paused just outside it, glancing back to be sure no one was watching. “This isn’t some theoretical question. Dragons have come back.”

“Yes, yes, don’t worry,” the wizard muttered, and the sound of a book closing reached Merill’s ears. “Although the chance to see a living dragon up close would be tremendously valuable…Now, let me show you something else I found. Very intriguing. I think your employers may be interested as well –”

“You have a visitor,” the woman said, and Merill’s face grew hot. She quickly made to move past the doorway, but a word from Farengar stopped her, holding what appeared to be a heavy stone tablet.

“Very brave, what you did for Whiterun,” he said with a smile, and Merill saw the woman with him standing behind a table, a leather hood covering her face. “I’m sorry to hear that your home was destroyed. If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word.”

“You’re studying dragons?” Merill asked as the hooded woman turned to study an open book on the table.

“Ah, I’ve been studying them for years,” he told her. “Fascinating creatures, although I had long believed them to be a sort of metaphor for some other kind of evil the ancient Nords faced. I would die for the chance to meet a living one, though.” He raised the tablet, showing her the dark, age-stained stone scratched with incomprehensible markings. “I’ve only just come across this,” he said excitedly. “It seems to be some kind of artifact from the dragon age. These markings here…” he continued on, but Merill’s attention had been caught by one of the scratches on the tablet that seemed to almost…glow.

“Farengar,” the hooded woman snapped, and he quickly jerked out of his reverie and lowered the tablet, turning away and joining the woman at the table. Merill watched them poring over the book for another moment before she turned and made her way down and out into the dim light that had begun to leak through the thick blanket of cloud. A faint wind stirred her hair around her face, and she stared around at the small city spread out before her.

A bow. She had to get herself a better bow. She could make one, but something from a shop would be quicker to get. She reached into the pocket of the frock and counted the coins they’d given her. Five hundred drakes. Merill gave a sharp intake of breath. This was more than she’d ever owned in her life. On Markarth’s bridges, this was a fortune. That should be plenty.

She descended back into the city, glancing up at the wooden signs that swung from shop awnings. The market square was busy, vendors hawking their wares at passerby and beggars watching from the alleys as people hurried by. Everywhere she turned, Merill heard whispers.

“…utterly destroyed, just a smoking ruin now…”

“…something else, surely. Dragons, how ridiculous…”

“…heard no-one got out alive…”

“…cousin told me that they had Ulfric Stormcloak there and no-one’s seen him since the attack…”

“…there are loggers from Riverwood coming in, too scared to stay that close to Helgen. But can you blame them?”

Merill passed them by, glad that no-one seemed to notice her as the bloody girl that had come into the city an hour before. When her walk brought her to the front of town again, a guard directed her to a shop just inside the gate, a faded wooden sign brandishing the name The Drunken Huntsman just outside. It would have been easy to rob, but Merill felt the coins burning a hole in her pocket, and a sudden desire to spend money freely, for once in her life, overtook her.

The tavern was quiet and nearly empty, the Bosmer proprietor dozing at the counter. He started awake when the door opened and smiled as Merill approached. She felt a twinge of regret at the sight of him – he wore a long ponytail down his back and his face was creased with laugh lines. He looked like Brelin.

“Ah, good to see you, friend. What can I help you with today?” Merill pulled the bow from Helgen off her back and laid it on the counter.

“I need a better bow. And more arrows, if you’ve got them.” The man lifted the longbow carefully, testing the bowstring with a practiced hand.

“Cheap and weak, but I suppose it would do the job,” he muttered. “I can give you thirty Septims for it. Are you a hunter?”

“Something like that,” Merill murmured.

“You’ll want one of these, then,” the shopkeep said excitedly, turning to take a bow off the rack on the wall. “Our finest hunting bow. Black walnut, with a silk and linen bowstring. Has a good balance to it, makes for a quick, light shot.” He passed the bow over the counter to her and Merill shifted it in her left hand, twinging the bowstring. She drew it back, angling it toward the wall.

“Good weight,” she agreed, loosening the string. The shopkeep handed her an arrow and she nocked it, drawing back the bow and aiming for a straw target on the other end of the room and automatically correcting her aim to account for her one blind eye. Merill loosed the arrow and it struck just below the center, annoying her. Her shooting still wasn’t as sharp as it had been before the fire. Perhaps it never would be.

 “You’ve got a good eye, though,” the Bosmer told her enthusiastically. “Better than most of the hopefuls that come trekking in here thinking they can buy a fancy bow and down an elk with one shot. How long have you been shooting?”

“A while,” Merill told him, lowering the bow onto the counter. “How much?”

The shopkeep had recommended she stay at the Bannered Mare, an inn at the end of the market district that frequently hosted travelers. She paid for a modest room through the end of the week and bought a chunk of bread and a flagon of ale, sitting in the corner to eat it and avoiding the conversation around the fire, though she listened intently as the dinner crowd came trickling in.

“These beasts sound to me like trolls with wings,” one particularly brutish man was shouting. “Give me a good thick hammer and I’ll crush in its skull, good as any.”

“I think dragons are a touch different from trolls, Sinmir,” the Redguard barmaid chuckled, passing him another flagon.

“Ah, what do you know of dragons, woman?” the Nord called, taking a hearty swig of mead.

“How do we know the thing’s even real?” someone else said, and those around the fire twittered uncertainly. “The Imperials could have made the whole thing up to cover up Stormcloak’s escape.”

“I saw Helgen myself just an hour past, it’s a great smoking ruin,” a shabbily dressed man called out, and someone clapped him on the head.

“An hour past you were passed out on my stoop, Brenuin,” the barkeep called, and Merill shoved in the last bit of bread and started up the stairs, unable to take the conversation any longer.

It felt like years since she had slept. Even in The Bannered Mare’s dark upper room with the noise from the bar below shut firmly out, she could feel her anger roiling in her gut, rimmed with something like…loneliness? No. She’d been on her own long enough.

Merill turned onto her side, staring at the pool of wax that had formed below the dark candle. Brelin and Nalimir, now Kiseen, she thought bitterly. My fault. My own fucking fault. The comforts of a real bed were lost on her she rolled onto her back, glaring at the ceiling as if it had done her a personal offense. I’ll start over here, she told herself. Start over, with no thoughts of fire or dragons. She ran a finger along the thick ridge that passed through her eye and closed it, trying to will herself to sleep.

Merill rose before the sun, donning a dark cloak and a simple cloth chestplate that she had bought alongside her new bow, which she strung across her shoulders as she quietly left the still-sleeping inn. Brelin had taught her that the early morning was the best time to hunt, when the sun had not yet peered over the horizon and the game was just waking and venturing forth to find food for the day. It had been years since she had hunted game, but the plains were cold and open, and she needed something else to focus on.

The streets were empty save for sleepy-eyed guards, and Merill proceeded out into the plains without hindrance. She had never hunted in the plains before, but here it was easier to see the game and simple to hide in the thick orange bushes that coated the ground.

She got far enough away from the city so that the lights were shrouded in darkness and scanned the horizon for movement. When her eyes had adjusted to the dimness, they caught sight of a solitary elk grazing near the road – a female, small, but good practice. Merill crept closer, staying low to the ground and stepping softly, barely making a sound as she slowly drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it. She pinched the arrow’s nock between her first two fingers, slowly drawing the bowstring back to the corner of her mouth. She drew in a breath, squinting to focus, and felt time slow and the air quiet as she angled the arrow just below the elk’s head. Then, quick as light, her fingers opened and the arrow sprung free, barely making a sound as the fletching brushed her skin, spiraling through the weeds until it struck the elk squarely between the eyes.

Merill let out her breath and lowered her bow, smiling. It had been too long since she had hunted purely for the sake of shooting. She crossed the plains and knelt beside her kill, brushing her hair out of her face as she pulled the arrow from the beast’s head and cleaned it on her cloak before tucking it back into the quiver. She had learned how to strip an elk when she was eight, and the steps came back to her easily. Even so, the sun had already begun to rise as Merill took down three more elk and a solitary wolf. It had to be nearly noon by the time she returned to town and started circling around all the stalls, selling off pelts and antlers. The day was brighter than it had been yesterday, and Merill spent the afternoon beneath the dead tree, flipping through a torn and dog-eared book she had found at one of the stalls. I can do this, she thought to herself, laying the book down and staring out at the city that moved leisurely around her. I can live like this, however long I have to. Hunting in the mornings and selling the game, just like they used to do in Falkreath. It would last her a while, at least, help her save some money. Then onto another city. South, maybe.

One cloudy morning nearly a fortnight since found Merill on the plains once more. She was hunched over a wolf carcass, skinning the beast for its pelt and imagining that this would be her last kill of the day. She was nearly done when a hauntingly familiar sound forced her to break from her work.

A bone-shattering roar, echoing off the walls of the mountains that guarded Whiterun’s plains.

Merill slowly raised her eye to the sky, hardly daring to believe it. Since the dragon’s flight from Helgen, there hadn’t been a single whisper of the beast’s whereabouts. She had begun to wonder if the whole thing had even been real.

But no, it was there, a great black shadow high above, half-shrouded by clouds, its roars matching the thunder that reverberated through the valley. Merill rose slowly, tucking away her skinning knife and wheeling around. The plains were silent and empty, as if every living being had fled when the dragon’s scent hit the wind. She shouldered her kills, shoving her bow back into its place across her chest, and began to run, sprinting back toward the city fast and light as a hare.

The city was eerily quiet and calm, as if no one could feel the sheer panic that seemed to have permeated the air. She could hear the dragons screams renting the sky, but the people of Whiterun paid it no mind, passing it off as the thunder that beckoned. Merill shoved through the midday market crowds and pushed past guards that tried to stop her as she flung open the great doors of Dragonsreach and skirted the fire, coming to a sliding halt before the Jarl’s throne.

“It’s here,” she breathed, and Jarl Balgruuf rose up at once, calling his guard captain to his side. “It was flying in from the south. Fast. Toward the watchtower on the plains.”

“Irileth, take your best swords down to the watchtower. Now,” the Jarl told her, turning the Merill. “There’s no time to stand on ceremony, girl. I need your help again.” There was a beat in which they all stared at her, waiting for her answer.

She gave a curt nod.

“Go with Irileth. Put an end to this beast and the havoc it means to unleash upon my city. You have more experience with dragons than anyone else here. We need you.” Irileth touched Merill’s shoulder, and they started toward the entrance. “One more thing, Irileth,” Balgruuf called, and the Dunmer turned. “This isn’t a death or a glory mission. I need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Of course, my lord,” Irileth said, nodding to him, and she led Merill from the hall. “You said this beast was moving toward the watchtower?”

“It looked like it,” Merill said as they jogged down the stairs of Dragonsreach. The roars were gone now, but people were staring skyward, worry on their faces as guards hurried through the streets. “It was circling when I first saw it, but then it started moving west.”

“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, girl,” Irileth said sharply, pushing civilians that blocked the way aside. I don’t, Merill thought, but she stayed silent. What the hell am I getting myself into?

They were met with a small troop of twelve city guards at the gates. The rain continued to threaten as Irileth led the way down into the plains and west, toward the watchtower. The dragon was nowhere to be seen, but a column of smoke was rising slowly into the air from the tower’s stones. Merill glanced at the guards alongside them, their eyes flicking uncertainly up to the thundering sky.

“The brute’s been here,” Irileth said as they drew nearer. She pulled her blade from its sheath, staring around. “Spread out. Search for survivors.” Merill drew her bow and nocked an arrow, keeping her fingers ready on the bowstring as she moved closer to the smoking ruin, the crackle of flame filling her ears. The watchtower looked as if it had been two towers connected by a stone bridge, but fresh rubble and broken stone and ash coated the tall grasses, leaving one tower intact with a shattered bridge. Merill carefully navigated the fallen rubble and moved up the bridge to search inside the tower. Sudden movement made her start, but it was only a Whiterun guard, holding his bow aloft and looking terrified.

“No,” he whispered hastily as she drew near. “Get back! Hroki just got grabbed when he tried to make a run for it! It’s still here!” As he spoke, another earth-shattering roar split the sky, and Merill sharply drew the arrow back, aiming it skyward. It was there, a black bit of shadow soaring in from the mountains.

“Kynareth preserve us!” someone shouted, and Merill slid off the bridge, angling her arrow toward the great beast’s head. She was about to loose it when it stretched open its great jaw and screamed out fire, blistering, searing fire that melted the very stone of the watchtower. It wheeled its head around, sending the blinding pillar of heat burning through the grass toward them. Merill let the arrow go and dove to the side, taking cover under a broken chunk of stone. Hunting was never like this, she thought, wiping sweat from her brow. The dragon screamed again and the air cooled, and Merill somersaulted out from under the cracking stone to avoid being crushed.

The other guards also had their bows, but they were shooting blindly, not taking travel distance into account and subsequently missing the beast by great lengths. Merill nocked another arrow and closed one eye, breathing in as she readied the bolt. At the last minute, she switched her shot, aiming for the dragon’s wing rather than its scaly head, and the arrow shot upward, piercing the leathery skin. The dragon screamed in frustration, losing its balance and crashing into the watchtower, sending stone and flame flying.

“Aim for its wings!” Irileth called out. “Try to ground the beast!” The dragon regained its balance, pumping back into the sky and letting out another deafening roar. Irileth had taken up position on the east flank, shooting streams of lighting at the dragon while the rest of the men tried unsuccessfully to down it.

Merill climbed one side of the ruined bridge and took careful aim, loosing nearly six more arrows in the dragon’s wings before it careened past them and slammed into the grass, sliding nearly the length of the city and sending up a spray of dust and rock.

Irileth had beaten them to the front and had her blade out, hacking at the beast’s head while it tried to bypass her shield and snap her spine in half. The other guards followed suit, drawing blades and trying to surround the creature. It turned once, sweeping its lethal spiked tail around and sending the guards stumbling back in a spray of blood. Merill shot an arrow at the creature’s underbelly, and suddenly, it turned its sharp gaze straight at her.

The dragon screamed again, but this time it sounded like a word echoing through the hills. It swung its great head around and moved toward her, frighteningly fast for a creature of such size, and Merill moved backward, firing as many arrows as she could seize as the creature sped toward her. It screamed another word, a different one, and she stumbled backward, overtaken by the sheer force of the roar. The dragon breathed in a great breath and Merill dove behind a stone as flame shot out, turning everything it struck to ash. The dragon was still moving, wailing fire as it trundled toward her, so Merill darted around the stone behind it readying an arrow as she did so. When she was behind the beast, she shouted once, and it turned its great, terrifying eyes on her. Merill loosed the arrow, and in a split second it had buried itself in the beasts left eye.

The dragon screamed in frustration, leaving Irileth free to rush forward and put a sword through its head. It jerked upward suddenly, sending Irileth’s blade flying, and its wings and tail seemed to droop as it crumpled back down to lie motionless upon the torn and scorched earth. As the dragon died, Merill thought she heard a voice carrying on the wind.

“Dovahkiin! No!”

Merill lowered her bow, breathing hard, and realized the rain had started. Her hair was plastered to her face and the fires hissed as water struck them. She could hear Irileth speaking, but her eyes stayed trained on the dragon’s, a strange feeling overcoming her. Dovahkiin. No.

Merill moved forward slowly, reaching for the shaft of her arrow that had buried itself in the creature’s eye. Dovahkiin. No. As she touched it, a great hissing seemed to emanate from the beast, and Merill stepped back, alarmed. Dovahkiin. The dragon’s scales turned brighter and brighter until Merill could feel the heat searing off them, the flames that burned and melted off the creature’s very bones. Dovahkiin. A loud wind seemed to fill the air, deafening all other sound. Light emanated from the creature’s burning flesh, so bright it drowned all else from sight. Dovahkiin. Then, all at once, Merill’s knees felt weak and her head swam. She felt herself collapsing, but the light was too strong to understand what was happening. Dovahkiin. She wanted to close her eyes, but couldn’t. It was as if she were floating, with no control over anything, just floating in the light and the wind that blinded and deafened her…

Dovahkiin.

At first, she could only hear the rain, pouring down around her, soaking into her hair, her clothes, her very skin. Then the voices came, the guards shouting in disbelief, the echo of Dovahkiin fading in her mind. Merill realized she was on the ground, soaking wet and covered in mud, and she slowly rolled into a sitting position, yanking her bow out of the slop.

“I don’t believe it,” one of the guards was saying as Merill got shakily to her feet. She stared at where the dragon had been moments ago, now merely a colossal skeleton, meat and scale and muscle clean from its bones. She turned back to the guards, who were all staring at her with a sort of reverence.

“What?” she murmured, trying to mop the mud off her cloak. None of them spoke. Even Irileth stood silent, watching her with a sort of resigned wonder. Merill turned to look at the dragon skeleton again, lying with its wings spread out, as if it had been shot down in flight. She started back toward the guards, and several of them took sudden steps back. “What?” Merill snapped again, shouldering her bow. One of the guards took a half step forward.

“You’re…you’re Dragonborn.”

Silence permeated the air, broken only by the patter of rain on mud and the occasional boom of thunder overhead.

“I’m…what?” Merill asked, the strange feeling blooming in her chest again. She had never heard the word, but it made something stir deep inside her, that hot, primal feeling that rolled in her gut, no way out.

“You had better get back to the Jarl,” Irileth said suddenly, as if coming out of a reverie. “We’ll stay here. Got to write a report for this mess.” She turned to the rest of the guards, who were still staring at Merill. “Enough gawking. Start the body count.” When they didn’t move, she slapped the nearest one over the head. “Now!” she snapped, and the guards scattered. Irileth turned to Merill, an unreadable expression on her face. “You. Get back to the Jarl. Now.”

The rain began to lighten as Merill followed the road toward the lights of Dragonsreach in the distance, the sun peering halfheartedly through the clouds and the thunder’s boom growing less and less. She was soaked through and shivering, but she didn’t care. Her mind could only echo what had just happened. You’re Dragonborn. Dovahkiin. No.

The plains felt oddly still and quiet as she neared the city. It felt as if the whole world had quieted for a bit to take a rest, to pause and breathe. Merill slowed before she passed through the city gates, and something drew her eyes up to the Throat of the World, the mountain that dominated all the world with its sheer height. As she watched, the sky seemed to light up, and a great crashing shout echoed throughout the world.

“DOVAHKIIN!”

The noise faded, and the sound of the weakly falling rain gradually returned. Merill stared up at the peak of the Throat of the World, rubbing rain from her eyes. It was too much. This scream from the mountaintops, the fallen dragon, the light and the wind, the words that echoed so strongly in her ears…

It was similar to her first day in the city, when every eye had watched her push through the crowds to get to Dragonsreach. They had seen her with Irileth on the way to the watchtower, and they saw her now, coated in mud and soaked to the bone, with cuts on her face and hands. Merill ignored them, climbing the stairs of the Jarl’s palace with the whisper of Dovahkiin in her ear.

Everyone seemed to already know what had happened. The guards watched her from their posts as she climbed into the hall and around the fireplace to where Jarl Balgruuf sat, his searching eyes keeping a steady gaze as she came to a halt before him, breaking the eerie silence in Dragonsreach’s hall.

“The skies are quiet,” he said finally, and Merill nodded.

“We took it down. A few guards were lost, I couldn’t say how many. You’ll have to wait for Irileth’s report, I guess.” The Jarl’s studied her, his eyes searching.

“There’s something else. About your business!” he roared suddenly, and Merill turned to see nearly everyone in the hall watching her. There was a great scuffle as the servants and guards went back about their duties. Merill looked back to the Jarl.

“We defeated the dragon. That’s all.”

“Don’t lie to me, girl,” the Jarl said firmly. “We heard the call from High Hrothgar. All of Skyrim did.”  She felt her face grow hot as the Jarl leaned on one hand, waiting for her answer.

“After…After it died, something…happened.” The Jarl nodded, inviting her to speak further. “I think I…absorbed some kind of power from it. Its flesh went up in flames and I lost my sight for a minute and fell.” Balgruuf sat back in his throne, rubbing his beard and shaking his head in slight disbelief.

“So it’s true. The Greybeards really were summoning you.”

“The Greybeards,” Merill repeated to herself in a murmur. She had heard of the reclusive monks that lived atop the Throat of the World, even heard rumours that Ulfric Stormcloak had learned his infernal shouts from them. “What do the Greybeards want with me?”

“The Dragonborn is supposed to be uniquely gifted in the Voice – the ability to focus your vital essence into a Thu’um. A shout. The Greybeards are masters of the Way of the Voice. If you really are Dragonborn, they can teach you how to use your gift.” Merill crossed her arms, her head pounding.

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Dragonborn? What, your father didn’t tell you of your own ancestors?” Merill didn’t answer. “It’s the name for a mortal born with the blood-and-soul of a dragon,” the Jarl went on. “They’re said to be extraordinarily strong-willed, able to master the dragon language and use it to unleash Thu’um – Shouts – same as dragons. Men can learn the Thu’um as well, but it takes years of focus and meditation. Legends say a Dragonborn can use it at once, as if he were a dragon himself.”

“Sounds like a story,” Merill replied defensively. “There’s no truth to it. Mortals have never been born with dragon’s blood. It’s a bed-tale for boys that dream of glory.”

“Tiber Septim was Dragonborn, and others too,” Jarl Balgruuf told her firmly. “They may not have been seen for years, but they have existed. And the Greybeards are calling for one now. You had best get yourself to High Hrothgar, lass. It seems you may be able to play a role in the return of the dragons, whatever it means.” Merill made to retort, but he waved her away, and she strode from the grand hall of Dragonsreach, the Jarl’s words echoing in her head.