I looked down at Shadowheart, at the tear-streaked face turned up towards mine, the newly revealed green eyes wide with a desperate, fragile hope mingled with terror. The fury had burned itself out, leaving behind the raw, exposed nerves of a spirit stripped bare. Her entire being screamed for an anchor, a solid piece of reality to cling to in the wreckage of her world. And she had turned to me, the accidental catalyst of her unraveling, to provide it.

  The weight of the moment pressed down on me. To speak the truth now felt like wielding a surgeon's scalpel – necessary, perhaps, to cut out the poison of Shar's lies, but inevitably causing profound pain in the process.

  Could she handle it?

  For that matter, could handle delivering blows that might well shatter her completely?

  The temptation to soften the edges, to offer half-truths, to delay the inevitable, was strong. It felt like the kinder path. …But kindness, I suspected, was a luxury neither of us could afford right now. Her pain was already immense; drawing it out with comforting falsehoods would be an even crueler act in the long run. She had demanded the truth, raw and unvarnished, and, looking into those desperate eyes, I knew I owed her nothing less. My earlier reluctance, my attempts to gently guide Shadowheart towards self-discovery, felt like a patronizing folly in the face of her current agony. The time for subtlety was over.

  Taking a slow breath, I gently helped her rise from the lushly-carpeted ground, guiding her back towards the chair I had vacated. She moved stiffly, mechanically, her limbs seeming disconnected from her will, but she didn't resist. I remained standing before her, the fire of an enchanted brazier crackling softly nearby, casting flickering shadows that danced across her pale, drawn face.

  I took a moment to consider our surroundings. We weren’t in just tent; it was, in fact, an Aldmeri Mage-General's field quarters, once proudly belonging to the leader of the Altmer invasion of Skyrim. I had... it, along with much of everything else their Army possessed, after my character crushed their invasion forces. The thick canvas was reinforced with alchemically treated leather, and the interior was a blend of practicality and surprising comfort. Enchantments woven into the very fabric not only ensured a constant, pleasant temperature, but also muffled any sounds from the outside world, using cutting-edge Illusion magic to block out any would-be spies – magical or otherwise.

  I gestured towards the entrance, towards the heavy, reinforced canvas flaps.

  "We should... have some privacy for this."

  I raised my hands, and, with a subtle shift of my will, the flaps swung closed, the thick material sealing shut with a soft, muffled thud. No one would hear us in here. The privacy enchantments would see to that.

  "Alright, Shadowheart," I continued, my voice low, steady, deliberately stripping away any hint of evasion. "You want the truth. I will give it to you. But understand… it will not be an easy truth to hear."

  She flinched slightly at my tone but nodded, her gaze fixed on mine, unwavering now, braced for impact.

  "The name," I started, choosing the most immediate, the most personal anchor point. "Jenevelle. It familiar to you, isn't it? Because it your name."

  Her breath hitched, a tiny, almost inaudible gasp. Her hand flew instinctively to the Shar pendant at her throat, fingers tightening around the cold silver as if seeking refuge in the familiar symbol of her supposed identity. But her eyes… her eyes betrayed a flicker, a spark of pained recognition warring with years of conditioned denial.

  "You were ," I continued, watching her closely, pressing on before the ingrained defenses could fully reassert themselves. "As a child. Snatched away from your home, wrenched from the arms of your family."

  "My family?" she whispered again, the words thick with disbelief, her head starting to shake almost involuntarily. The ingrained denial surged upwards, raw and reflexive. "I… I no family," she insisted, her voice trembling, cracking under the strain of uttering the lie that had defined her existence. "I was raised in the cloister. An orphan…" The statement hung in the air, recited like a catechism learned through pain and repetition, yet the words sounded hollow, brittle — probably even to her own ears—a shield riddled with inconsistencies, barely holding against the onslaught of doubt. Even as she spoke the words, a flicker of conflict crossed her face, as if some deeper part of her recognized the falsehood for what it was.

  "That's what they you believe," I said, my voice hardening, the cold anger I felt towards her so-called goddess and mortal manipulators alike tightening my jaw, making the words come out clipped and sharp. "A convenient fiction they hammered into you until you couldn't see past it.”

  I leaned forward, looking her in the eyes.

  “But it's a , Shadowheart. Just another layer carefully constructed around the cage they built for your mind. You

  a family. Parents who love you more than life itself. Who prayed every night for your safety, whose lives revolved around you."

  I paused, letting the image settle before delivering the next blow.

  "And they were devout followers… of . Worshippers of the Moonmaiden, sworn enemies of the darkness you were forced to serve."

  The name of Shar's most hated enemy struck her like a physical blow, the sound itself seeming to carry a venomous charge in the enclosed space of the tent. She recoiled as if burned, physically pushing back in her chair, shaking her head with violent negation. The denial wasn't just intellectual now; it was visceral, a full-body rejection born of years of conditioned terror.

  "No!" Her voice rose, becoming shrill, cracking under the strain. "That's impossible! It can't be! Lies! All lies!" Her eyes darted around wildly, seeking escape from the words, from the implications.

  "You're trying to trick me! To poison me against Her! To break my faith!" The accusation felt automatic, another pre-programmed response triggered by the blasphemy of hearing Sel?ne's name associated with herself.

  "Am I?" I countered gently, holding her gaze, refusing to let her look away, forcing her to confront the dissonance. As I held her stare, I focused slightly, letting a thread of my awareness touch hers through the tadpole connecting us. It wasn't a forceful intrusion, more like a gentle pressure against the walls of her mind, seeking the cracks in her denial I knew must be there. I felt the immediate resistance, the conditioned recoil against any questioning of Shar… but beneath it, there was turmoil, a chaotic sea of suppressed pain and fragmented images. She gasped, her eyes widening slightly, not in anger this time, but in confusion, as if feeling an echo of my presence within her thoughts.

  And then, unintentionally, uncontrollably, fragments began to bleed across the connection. I caught flashes – the suffocating cold of dark stone, the terrifying emptiness of a black mirror reflecting nothing, whispers coiling like smoke, the sharp, searing agony behind the eyes, the feeling of

  dissolving… It was disjointed, nightmarish, the raw sensory data of trauma and violation. My own breath hitched for a moment, the shared fragments sending a chill down my spine, solidifying my resolve. She to see this, to understand what lay beneath the lies.

  ", Shadowheart," I urged, my voice softer now, imbued with the weight of the fragments I'd just glimpsed. "Think about the flashes you saw during the Revel. The mirror. The voices. The pain. Does that feel like the work of a benevolent deity to you? Does that feel like choice?" I leaned in slightly, lowering my voice further. "Or does it feel like something being done

  Something being ripped away without consent?"

  "The memory wipes," I continued relentlessly, knowing I had to dismantle the entire structure of lies, brick by painful brick. "They weren't a willing sacrifice you made for a mission, Shadowheart. The truth is, they were inflicted upon you. Repeatedly. Forcibly. Every time a fragment of your true self, of Jenevelle, threatened to surface, they dragged you back to that dark room, back to that mirror, and they

  it out of you again. They systematically erased who you were, replacing your genuine memories with Shar's dogma, conditioning you with pain – that mark that to be on your hand, it wasn’t just a wound, was it? It flared when your thoughts strayed too far. A leash, forged in agony. A tool to train you. To condition you not to think the wrong ."

  Through our connection, I felt yet more memories come out from the fog of her shattered mind – horrific flashes of countless years of abuse and violation. She was trembling violently now, tears streaming down her face again, but these were different tears – not the hot tears of anger, but the cold, desolate tears of grief. She hugged herself tightly, rocking back and forth slightly, her gaze distant, lost in the horrifying landscape of her reconstructed past.

  "My… my parents…" she whispered, the words barely audible. "Are they…?"

  "Alive," I finished for her, delivering the final, most painful truth.

  "Yes. They are alive. But they aren't out there searching for you, Shadowheart. They're prisoners. Held captive, even now -- languishing in a lightless, hidden chamber deep within the foundations of the very cloister where you were raised." I let that sink in, the image of their hopeless confinement, before twisting the knife Shar herself had implanted.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "And Shar… Shar, in her boundless cruelty, devised a particularly twisted torment, not just for them, but for ." I watched her face, saw the dawning horror begin to fight with incomprehension.

  "Yes. She made their torturer. As you were growing up, they brought you to them. And they made you inflict unspeakable pain upon them – the very people who gave you life, who loved you beyond measure. Then, each time, after the act was done, after you had broken them, and yourself, just a little more, Shar's magic wiped your memory clean. Wiped the memory of them, of what you'd done. Only to be repeated once more. Again. And again. A perfect loop of violation, designed to shatter their Sel?nite faith by using their own beloved daughter as the instrument of their suffering, while simultaneously corrupting your own soul without you even knowing it."

  I watched her face crumble then, the comprehension hitting her like a physical blow, making her gasp and clutch at her chest as if her own heart was breaking. As her conscious mind reeled, the weakened barriers in her psyche seemed to fray further, and more fragments—sharper, more visceral this time—bled across our connection. I felt an echo of cold dread, smelled the coppery tang of blood mixed with stale incense, heard the faint, muffled sound of weeping – both hers and theirs? – saw flashes of blurred figures strapped to stone, felt the phantom weight of some cold, sharp instrument in

  hand… The psychic backlash was brief but intense, a nauseating glimpse into the abyss Shar had crafted for her. It confirmed my worst fears about the purging of Shar's influence; the memories were surfacing, raw and unfiltered, triggered by the horrifying truth.

  "Imagine their agony, Jenevelle. Watching the daughter they loved become… something else. Something twisted. Something that hurt them. Unrecognizable. Lost to Shar's darkness, over and over, year after year."

  That broke her. A low, guttural moan escaped her lips, a sound of pure, animalistic agony. The carefully constructed facade of Shadowheart, the Sharran cleric, shattered completely, leaving behind only a lost child, weeping for a life and a love she couldn't remember but now knew, with devastating certainty, had been stolen from her in the cruelest way imaginable.

  "" she choked out, the single word encompassing a universe of pain and bewilderment. "Why would… why would Shar…?"

  "Because she ," I stated bluntly, letting the cold, ugly truth land without adornment.

  "I could lie to you. Tell you there was some higher, divine purpose behind all that suffering. But the truth is, there was no grand prophecy behind this, Shadowheart. There was no special destiny for you. You weren't chosen for your strength, or your growth potential, or anything unique about . You were chosen… simply because your parents were Sel?nites. Because you were a convenient target. Because Shar, in her infinite cruelty and vanity, wanted to ."

  I saw the understanding dawn in her eyes, quickly followed by a wave of revulsion so profound it made her physically shudder.

  "She wanted to demonstrate that even the child of her hated rival's most fanatical followers could be twisted, broken, and reforged into Her most fervent disciple. It was merely an experiment. A . A display of power aimed at hurting Sel?ne and amusing Herself. Your life, your identity, your suffering… it was all just… entertainment for a bored, sadistic monster calling herself a goddess. You were her vanity project."

  Shadowheart made a small, wounded sound deep in her throat, pressing a hand to her mouth as if fighting back nausea. The sheer, callous randomness of it, the utter lack of meaning behind her torment, seemed to strike her harder than any accusation of malice could have. To be a pawn is one thing; to be a pawn in a game with no stakes beyond the player's sadistic, perverse amusement… that was a different kind of hell altogether.

  She didn't speak, didn't move, just sat there, consumed by a grief so profound it seemed to suck the very air from the tent. I watched her, my own heart heavy, the weight of the truths I'd unleashed settling upon me.

  I had indeed given her what she asked for, but the cost was terrible to behold.

  What remained of Shadowheart’s faith, her identity, her purpose? It all lay in ruins around her. And standing in the rubble, was a young woman facing a terrifying, empty future, armed with nothing but the agonizing knowledge of her own violation, and the horrifying realization of what she had been forced to become.

  I let the silence stretch for a moment, allowing the full weight of the horror to settle. Then, I knelt beside her again, my voice low but fierce with conviction.

  "It's monstrous, Jen. What was done to you, to them… it's an abomination beyond words." I gently placed a hand on her trembling shoulder.

  "But listen to me. They are . That means they can still be saved. Hope is not lost. Not yet."

  She looked up at me then, her green eyes swimming with tears, confusion, and… a dawning sense of disbelief.

  "Saved?" she whispered, the word catching in her throat. "But… She's a , Harald. A Greater Deity. How could we ever hope to…"

  As she spoke those words, something shifted within me. An energy, vast and warm, but, somehow, strangely familiar – not Magicka, not the Thu'um, something – surged outwards from my core, unbidden, instinctual. It wasn't a spell I cast, but an emanation, a presence reaching out. Through the lingering connection of the tadpole, amplified by this new, unknown power, I felt my… brush against hers, not just mind-to-mind, I realized with a start, but… deeper.

  The world around me seemed to thin, the physical reality of the tent receding into a muted backdrop. My perception shifted, expanding beyond the confines of normal sight. It was as if a veil had lifted, revealing an underlying stratum of existence composed not of matter, but of pure essence, light, and thought. The air itself seemed to shimmer with faint, interwoven threads of energy. Living things – the moss beneath my knees, the distant trees outside, my own body – glowed with an internal luminescence, their physical forms merely translucent shells around vibrant cores of essence.

  My own physical form seemed to dissolve into a constellation, a humanoid shape composed of countless points of starlight, each one blazing with intricate, shifting patterns of unimaginable complexity. Deep within that stellar map, alien geometries of power pulsed — among them, I spotted the cold, dominating stillness of Vampirism, the ancient fire of countless Dragon souls, and, overlaying it all… a warm, transcendent, all-encompassing golden radiance I couldn't even begin to name. Was the reality behind the abstract interface I saw in my mind? Was this the true shape of my being?

  Beside my own cosmic vastness, I perceived what I knew instinctively to be Shadowheart’s soul – a flickering flame of what felt like moonlight and resilience, tragically scarred and almost entirely engulfed by oppressive, clinging shadows that pulsed with cold malice, yet stubbornly refusing to be extinguished. It felt wounded, terrified, yet possessed of a strength she herself likely didn't recognize.

  The first thing I felt from her at that level was not grief… but . A burning, incandescent rage directed solely at the architect of her suffering: at Shar. It wasn't just anger; it was a pure, cold, absolute that felt like jagged shards of obsidian scraping against my own essence, a black fire consuming her from within, cold and suffocating in its intensity. It was the absolute hatred of the utterly betrayed, the utterly violated.

  Then, as my presence—this strange, warm, golden light that felt more than anything else ever had—made itself known, something shifted in her. Overwhelmed by the torrent of hatred and grief, her soul instinctively reached out, not consciously, but with the desperate reflex of a drowning swimmer lunging for a lifeline. I felt her essence latch onto mine, fragile tendrils seeking purchase, seeking anchor in the storm. And as they connected, she began to upon the power radiating from me, pulling it into herself with a desperate, aching need. It wasn't a gentle merging; it was a raw, almost frantic siphoning of solace, her soul sucking greedily at the warmth and light I provided like someone starved for centuries finally finding sustenance.

  But the instant my light touched the clinging darkness within her, the shadows moved in a violent frenzy.

  “ I realized.

  Indeed, those soul-shadows became a very active – and very -- void that actively fought back against my intrusion. I felt a chilling emptiness radiate from them, trying to the warmth, to

  the light, to pull both her soul and even my comforting presence into a vast, infinite void.

  The flickering flame of her soul wavered precariously, threatened with utter extinguishment by this sudden,

  counterattack from the darkness she had carried for so long. Sensing the challenge, feeling the shadows clawing not just at her but at our connection itself, something ancient and possessive awoke within me. The inner Dragon, the soul of the Dovah, roared to life, refusing to surrender.

  Refusing to yield ground.

  A primal fury surged through me, no longer just comforting warmth, but a declaration. the thought rose in my mind unbidden, not spoken in words, but formed of pure, transcendent will – the true language of the world.

  

  And with that assertion, golden energy erupted forth, no longer just a gentle tide, but a blazing flared, waxing dramatically, becoming many times brighter in an instant. Its light fully permeated the clinging Sharran shadows, infusing and saturating them. The darkness didn't vanish completely – how could it, forged as it was from decades of trauma – but its nature fundamentally changed. The cold malice of Shar’s active presence fled, the oppressive weight lessened, the shadows softened, taking on faint golden and silvery hues from the light now woven through them.

  The darkness was still part of her soul’s tapestry, a testament to Shadowheart’s past, but it no longer defined her existence. It was darkness now -- integrated, accepted, no longer Shar's suffocating void but the simple darkness of her own nature, now embraced fully by the light. The internal war tearing her soul apart ceased, replaced by a complex, unified whole.

  Back in the physical world, Shadowheart’s body gasped with a sharp intake of breath, and a shudder ran through her entire frame – not of cold or fear this time, but of profound, unexpected . It was the pleasure of release, of finding respite after unimaginable torment, the deep, resonant fulfillment of a soul starved of light finally tasting warmth, of feeling and in a way that defied her shattered memories. She seemed to melt into my presence, the tension draining away completely, her muscles unknotting, her ragged breathing evening out into slow, deep sighs. Her head tilted back slightly, eyes fluttering closed, lost in the stunned tranquility and the overwhelming sensation of feeling – perhaps for the first time -- truly .

  I had no idea what that power was, where it came from. It wasn't a skill my Skyrim character possessed. It felt… innate. Intuitive. Like remembering how to breathe after forgetting. I realized, with a jolt that was both fascinating and deeply unsettling, that I was her , comforting it directly.

  I tightened my grip on her shoulder gently, anchoring her as she absorbed the influx. "I will stand with you," I repeated, the words now imbued with a strange, powerful resonance. "I will help you reclaim what was stolen. We will find your parents. We will free them. And if we have to tear down Shar's temples brick by brick, if I have to fight the Goddess of Darkness herself to do it… then so be it."

  My voice resonated with a power that felt ancient, absolute, a decree issued not just by will, but by my very nature.

  "After all, I made a promise, didn’t I? I don't leave anyone behind. Especially not you."