The Last Dragon Priestess

Introduction

I have known the travelling spellsword, then known to me only as Sahrek, for many years. The first time our paths crossed, she'd come to the College of Winterhold seeking lore on the legendary Elder Scrolls, badgering Urag for any tomes he'd had on the subject. Her strong nordic accent had an alien hint to it, harsher than most of the Nords I'd become acquainted with. As if she'd been long used to a rougher tongue.

She was a powerful woman, blonde, muscular, scarred, face creased by a taciturn frown. In her mossy eyes, I saw a look of furious determination. So furious, in fact, that I dared not speak to her; her warpath was not worth obstructing. It wasn't until a few months later, after she'd ended the Dragon Crisis, that I saw her again.

Whenever she chanced upon Winterhold in her travels, she stopped to take in the knowledge of the Arcaneum. Learn the secrets of Aetherius once more, she'd said. I hadn't paid heed to that wording at the time -- again, I later thought. How on earth could she have forgotten?

As the archmage of the College, it is my duty to welcome every student and visitor to the grounds. And so, incredibly curious about this fabled Dragonborn, I joined her in her readings. At first, I was worried she'd just be another brute -- her husband, a shaggy, dark haired Nord certainly looked like one, although I rarely saw him anywhere but the Frozen Hearth -- but by Auriel's grace, I was pleasantly surprised.

Her voice may have been a deep, sonorous threat, but her words were astute and genuine. Within the first minutes of our meeting, we were chatting away, as if old friends. Her straightforward nature was refreshing. And her knowledge about magical theory, surprising.

With every visit, throughout every year, we became closer friends. Our husbands got along well enough, and we often supped together in Winterhold or her home in Falkreath. We traded tomes, talked of our respective adventures throughout Skyrim, and I even had the pleasure to meet their newborn daughter, Idunn, on one of my trips to the south. I hadn't expected to call a nordic warrior such as herself my dearest friend, considering our people's histories. But it wasn't as if she was a Merethic era Atmoran. There was no logical way she would've known my true race as a Falmer; most men believed my husband and I to be high elves. Only a select few mer had been able to discern our true identities.

Again, incorrect on my part. It was nearly a decade after we had met that Sahrek had told me the truth of who she was.

Sahrekkaan. She is Kyne's Spirit. Or so, that was how she'd first interpreted it. These days, she saw the name more literally. She is Kyne's Phantom, a shade of her vengeance. And so she had been. Against Alduin, Miraak, and anyone else who had abused the sacred Thu'um.

She had been one of the last dragon priests, one of the few women to claim such a title. She had held dominion over Skyrim long before it was the land we knew today, before the Dragon War had scarred it so brutally. She had been of Atmoran blood, and of towering stock. Most of all, she had brokered peace between dragons and men.

You can imagine my own perplexion -- what nonsense was this? I tried to tell myself this was all insanity, but I couldn't shake it; her words held the truth, her eyes filled with honesty. After all, was my own story so normal? No. I asked her if she'd known any snow elves in her time, creeping up to the major question cautiously: did you help kill my people? "No," she had said, "that was my grandfather's time. I cannot tell you much of those days, for I had never met the man. But I can tell you of my own. Of how I ruled these forests, of how I took council from dragons and men, and of how I betrayed them all."

I grew silent. What else could I do but listen?