Lena kept receiving ridiculous amounts of mail. Everyone seemed to want to congratulate the new Champion of Cyrodiil, or to meet her, or to get acquainted, or solicit her patronage of their shop, or, or, or. She instructed the Black Horse Courier to keep back the mail in their office and not try to deliver it to her in person, unless the package was sent by a premium service. She knew that the Blades and the Mages Guild would use it, and she didn’t expect anything else of importance. The Blades never contacted her again, the Mages Guild did call her for one or the other assignment, but otherwise she seemed to have been left alone. In particular, there was no word from Lucien, and after a while she started to worry.

It is for this reason that she didn’t get Lucien’s card until a while later, when she finally took the time to go through all the fan mail accumulating at the Black Horse Courier. She was to investigate Anvil then, in particular the lighthouse.

“But why use such an uncertain and insecure method of communication?” She wondered, turning over the card and kicking herself for not checking the fan mail earlier. “He must be in trouble. I should see to him first.” She didn’t know how exactly she could “see to him” as he was still her Speaker and it was not her place to “see to him” in any way… and yet she felt that the circumstances justified a breach in protocol. She went to Fort Farragut without delay.

As soon as she descended the rope ladder, she knew that something was wrong. The room that Lucien normally kept very tidy, was in disarray, with clothes, weapons and potions out of place and the alchemical lab a mess. Some of the clothes seemed to have been ripped into strips, too. “He’s being hunted,” she realised. “He’s on the run… What do I do..?” With all the mess around, it still looked like Lucien kept coming back to the fort, and when Lena found no evidence of it being compromised, she decided to simply tidy up and refill his supplies, brew some potions, restock the cupboards… She couldn’t think of anything else to do. Between Borba’s shop and the Mages Guild, she got all she needed, returning to the fort for an extended session of alchemy.

She was barely in when she heard the trapdoor open – Lucien was returning home. She stood up, ready to apologise and explain her presence when she saw him fall, not able to stand. He seemed to have noticed her though, turned towards her, tried to get up… but he could not. “This is bad..!” Lena rushed to his aid, but he had already blacked out. Things were much worse than she had thought.

When she removed his blood-soaked clothes, she realised that many of the wounds weren’t fresh. The hunt had been relentless, and he had not been taking enough time to allow the wounds to heal before going out again. Lena blushed to the roots of her hair thinking of how she wasted precious weeks simply because she could not be bothered to check her mail often enough. “He could have been killed in the meantime,” she swore at herself. “How could I be so careless..?” But lamenting it wasn’t going to help, and so she took a deep breath, steadied her hand and proceeded cutting out necrotic tissue from some of the festering wounds on Lucien’s body. She knew it would hurt, but she didn’t think he would notice, considering the amount of pain he must have been in already. Finally, she bandaged him up and moved him to the bed, making sure to add lavender to the dressings to prevent him waking up too early. “Let’s just hope he won’t be fighting the wraith as well this time,” she watched him, but his breathing was calm.

…

Lena decided not to leave Fort Farragut until Lucien woke up and she had a chance to change his dressings. She busied herself brewing more potions and set up a stew, only leaving briefly to fetch coal and firewood from a disused passage by the city wall. And there she saw it – three assassins were clearing vermin, they were a distance away and hadn’t seen her yet. “They are going to have a run at the Sanctuary,” she thought. “I’ve got to stop them.” What was she thinking, exactly? There were three of them and one of her, and unlike them, she wasn’t even properly armed or armoured… But she didn’t think of that. She was a vampire and a mage, and she was going to press home her advantage.

Standing behind a column and out of sight, she summoned a wraith and shot a frost ball at one of the assassins. He spun around, gasped and leaped towards the wraith. The others weren’t surprised – dark disused passages often housed undead, and in fact they were battling some zombies already. Lena’s wraith backed off, leading the assassin past the column where she was standing. It was too easy – she slit his throat from behind.

Noticing their comrade fall, the other two assassins became more careful. “There’s someone here,” one said to the other. “That wraith had been summoned.” They quickly finished the zombies and turned around, walking slowly towards Lena.

“Careful now, one at a time,” she told herself, allowing them to come close. When they were nearly upon her, she summoned a clannfear, cast invisibility and ran towards the other end of the corridor. The clannfear shrieked, jumped and rammed one of the assassins, but the other assassin shook his head and ran towards Lena instead. He could not see her, she was sure of it, but the corridor only had two ends, and he simply deduced her maneuver. She stepped further back and felt her shoulder ripped by a zombie…

“She’s here!” The assassin cried, seeing Lena’s invisibility cloak dispel. “Forget the clannfear! The mage is here!”

Although the second assassin could not very well forget the clannfear, he stopped trying to kill it and focused on evading it instead, hoping it would be dispelled soon enough. They had both seen Lena now, as she was forced to fight the zombie.

“Not good,” she quickly looked around, twisting away from the zombie that tried to grab her. “What was I thinking?!” Casting invisibility again, she jumped towards one of the assassins, not trying to attack him but instead trying to shake off the zombie. It worked – the zombie switched its focus engaging the assassin. “What now?” Lena wondered. “Another wraith? Or perhaps something more exotic?” She grinned, ran back to the front of the corridor and summoned a lich.

The lich appeared behind the column hiding it from view of the assassins, one of which was fighting the zombie and the other was trying to locate Lena. He thought he had seen a spell being cast and moved towards her, but the lich had already summoned a skeleton that ran towards the assassin.

“A skellie?” He grinned. “Why, that is too easy!” Perhaps he had been expecting a novice skeleton cast by beginners, but this was a skeleton guardian, with a much better sword and a power to knock out through force of impact alone… The assassin reeled, his armour colouring red. “What the..?” He was surprised, but quickly collected himself, ready for a counter-offensive.

“Forget the skellie, go for the mage!” The other assassin shouted, seeing what had occurred. He was still battling the zombie and could not help.

“The mage, right,” the assassin redressed himself, now trying to avoid the skeleton’s attacks and looking for the mage instead. He ran past the column and faced the lich. “Is that… Is she a necromancer?” He was taken aback for a moment, then pulled out his silver sword and struck the lich.

“Arrhhhh…” The lich let out a hollow sigh but recovered and shot a spell from its staff in response. The assassin staggered and dropped to his knees, his strength suddenly failing him.

“The lich is a summon!!” The first assassin bellowed, having finally killed the zombie. He ran towards his friend, helping him up. “The mage must be here somewhere! We must find her!”

The lich shot another bolt of pain from its staff and vanished. Lena had no more magicka for an advanced summon, she had to keep some in reserve for invisibility… She lunged at one of the assassins, breaking her cover. The fight was brief but her tactic gave her an edge and she landed a few hits before jumping back to avoid getting wounded herself. The assassin wasn’t dead, but after his fight with the zombie the extra wounds made him weak. Still, it was two against one.

“No where to run now, mage!” The assassin got up and the two of them started walking towards Lena, their swords extended, blocking the corridor and backing her into a wall. “No more summons? Why, getting tired, eh?” They taunted her.

Indeed, summons were out. She was wounded and the fight with the zombie before that stunted her magicka flow. Zombies were cursed. No more summons… but perhaps…

Searing pain and overwhelming weakness hit one of the assassins, his blood seemed to boil. “What was that?” He wondered, watching the other assassin land a blow on Lena, yet she did not seem to be hurt. Red mist engulfed him as he fell to the ground, he saw Lena circle around him, absorbing the mist, resisting the blows from the other assassin, even lunging herself with a cut or two of her own. Yet she seemed to be growing weaker too, despite all her efforts the two of them would still prevail somehow, he was certain.

Gathering all her strength, Lena leapt at the one assassins still wielding a sword. He was prepared to block, but there was nothing to block, for Lena was not wielding a sword herself. Instead, she grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist, pushing him against the wall, then buried her fangs in his neck. She was hungry, she drank in big gulps, and soon the assassin fell to the ground.

She let go of him and got up. Both assassins were still alive but unable to move or fight. Their wounds were severe, they were no threat to the Sanctuary any longer. The first one propped himself on an elbow, looking at her in the dim light of the passage.

“You are Wolf, are you not?” He said with an effort. “There’s a contract on you as well.”

“I know,” Lena nodded. “Brother.” She paused, looking at them both. “I won’t kill you two, you might still survive. We’ve lost too many Brothers to this madness already.” She turned to leave, then changed her mind. “You’ve seen what a vampire can do,” she spoke again. “Think well before visiting the chapel to cure that souvenir I gave you to remind you of this encounter… You’ve got three days to make up your mind.” Then she finally walked away. “Thank you, Great Uncle, that was most effective,” she said under her breath, climbing back out into the daylight with firewood under her arm.

Back in the fort Lucien was still sleeping. Lena added logs to the fire, stirred the stew and resumed brewing potions. Her feeding in the passage came in handy, although it did dull her senses somewhat. She was engrossed in her alchemy and didn’t hear Lucien wake up.

…

“I seem to be still alive,” it was the first thing that Lucien thought when he woke up in his bed in Fort Farragut. His whole body was hurting, he was sure he hadn’t sustained quite so many wounds… But wait… someone was waiting for him there, was there another struggle? Then why was he not dead?

He tried to sit up, but it was too painful, making him grunt. He tried to pull himself up instead, he had to see what was going on…

“Be careful, or your wounds will reopen again,” he heard Lena’s voice as she approached. She helped him sit up, propping some pillows behind his back. “You need to be watchful, Speaker,” she smiled. “Someone could have been waiting for you in your fort.”

“And someone was,” he smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“No,” Lena shook her head. “You cannot continue like this if you are to survive. You need to make sure your wounds heal before getting new ones.”

“Who am I to argue with the Champion of Cyrodiil,” Lucien grinned. “Did you get my card?”

“I did,” Lena nodded and blushed. “Just a few days ago… I was ignoring my fan mail.”

“I should have known,” Lucien laughed, cringing at the pain. “It isn’t that urgent. Anvil is the key.”

“The lighthouse.”

“You understood it then.”

“I shall go when you can stand up,” Lena nodded. “There’s been another attempt to Purify the Sanctuary today.”

“It won’t stop until we find the traitor.”

He fell silent, and Lena got up to bring him some stew, then insisted that he should rest, that she would be fine on the floor. “Vampires don’t feel the cold,” she shrugged. “Our hearts don’t beat.” She adjusted his pillows and added some logs to the fire, then returned to the alchemy station to prepare more dressings and remedies.

“You don’t fool me,” Lucien thought, falling asleep. “My apprentice…”