[Current Day — Hours after Chapter 6]
How did I end up like this?
Can someone please tell me what this is? I'm scared!
Am I dead? When did I die? I don't want to die... I'm not ready!
Please! Can someone help me? I just want to go home to my family. I don't like this place. It's frightening!
All I remember is being hunted by a hooded man. Did he kill me? Am I dead?
It was still a quarter till sunrise in Windhelm.
The city had gone eerily quiet, its streets stripped down to little more than the sound of patrolling guards and the restless breath of the cold northern morning. But inside Candlehearth Hall, one guest was being tormented by something far louder than the silence outside.
Gavhelus had not slept a wink.
Not for any ordinary reason, anyway.
The voices had been relentless.
They swarmed through the city like a storm of grief, the cries of dead souls echoing in his ears with such force that even several tankards of mead had failed to dull them. Normally, the dead were quieter than this—distant, scattered, little more than a murmur beneath the living world. But not tonight. Tonight they were louder than ever, sharp with fear and confusion, crying out all at once until the noise became unbearable.
Gavhelus had finally retreated into the corner of his room, curled in on himself like a wounded animal. Sweat clung to his brow despite the cold. He sat trembling on the floor, hoping the chorus of suffering would fade with time.
It didn't.
It only grew worse.
At last, with a strangled curse, he hurled the bottle in his hand across the room. It shattered against the wall in a spray of glass and stale drink. He clapped his hands over his ears as if he might somehow tear the voices out of his own skull.
"Blimey, why me?" he rasped. "I can't... take this yappin' anymore. I've got to do something before I lose it."
He braced a hand against the wall and forced himself shakily to his feet. His gaze landed on a tankard still sitting on the table, mead sloshing faintly inside. For a brief moment he considered it.
Then he waved the thought away.
"No... drink's not going to help me now." He swallowed hard. "These souls are suffering. I should be able to follow the sadness and get to the bottom of it."
He staggered toward the door, trying desperately to make sense of the voices clawing at his mind. They were all sorrowful. All frightened. But more than that—they were concentrated. Not spread through the city like the dead usually were.
No.
They were gathering in one place.
And Gavhelus intended to find out where.
Inside Windhelm's prison, the atmosphere buzzed with talk of the city's newest prisoner.
He had only been behind bars for a few hours, but word had already spread that he was the one responsible for the chaos in the square. The guards talked. The prisoners listened. Rumor moved faster than truth ever did.
Kin sat alone in his cell, staring blankly at the floor.
He felt hollow.
Defeated.
Stupid for ever thinking he could have done anything to stop the Butcher.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
The sound of metal greaves striking stone drew nearer, measured and deliberate. Kin heard his cell door unlock and creak open, but he was too deep in self-loathing to look up right away.
A pile of clothes landed on the floor in front of him.
His clothes.
"Get dressed," said a voice. "We still have a job to do."
Kin lifted his head.
Minevi stood in the doorway, and she looked anything but pleased.
He didn't know what to say to her. Not really. His reckless actions may have compromised everything—the talks between the Empire and the Stormcloaks, their purpose for coming to Windhelm in the first place, maybe even whatever fragile patience Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak had left for outsiders tearing up his city.
Slowly, Kin rose and stripped off the rough prison rags. Once he had dressed himself again, he stepped out into the corridor, where Minevi stood waiting with her arms folded and her patience clearly worn thin.
"I'm sorry..." he said.
Minevi let out a slow sigh. "I know, Kin."
He looked away. "I... I couldn't save them."
Her expression tightened, though not entirely with anger. "Why did you run off into the night like that?"
Kin swallowed. "I thought I could stop the Butcher... and save the girl from the inn." His voice lowered. "I failed to do both."
Minevi studied him for a long moment. "So what exactly happened out there?"
Kin's jaw clenched. "He's been using necromantic dolls to do the work for him. It took everything I had to bring one down." His face darkened as the memory hit him again. "But I was too late. He'd already murdered her... and several others." He looked sick just saying it. "That's how he made the doll."
Minevi noticed immediately that Kin could not seem to look at anything but the floor.
Even back in his own clothes, something about him looked diminished. His posture had gone slack, his shoulders heavy, as though the weight of the night still clung to him. The longer she studied him, the more she noticed the fresh damage—new cuts, new scars, little marks of yet another reckless brush with death.
It frustrated her.
Not because she was angry, not entirely, but because she felt increasingly powerless whenever it came to keeping him out of danger.
"I see," she said at last. "We'll deal with it later. Right now, the Jarl wants a word with us." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "More specifically, with you. It's the only reason I was allowed down here to collect you."
Kin's voice was small when he answered. "Have I messed things up for you?"
"Possibly," Minevi said with a weary sigh. "But that is the nature of politics." She pushed herself off the wall and straightened. "I know your intentions were good. For now, all we can do is move forward."
She turned and began walking down the corridor without waiting for him.
"Come," she said. "Our High King awaits."
Kin followed after her slowly, feeling guilt and relief at once.
Part of him had feared she would resent him for this—for the trouble, for the damage, for the complications he had likely dropped into an already delicate political mess. She was upset, that much was clear, but not with the coldness he had braced himself for. If anything, her presence still carried the same familiar warmth it always had.
Minevi had become something like the aunt or older cousin he had never had.
That only made disappointing her feel worse.
Outside, Windhelm's streets still wore the scars of the night.
Broken glass glittered in the frost. Splintered wood and scattered debris littered the alleys and the main square where the fighting had torn through the city hours earlier. It looked as though a storm had ripped through the stone streets and left chaos in its wake. The disturbance had stirred up no shortage of fear among the townsfolk, and most had been ordered by the guards to remain indoors until further notice.
But not everyone obeyed.
A hooded man moved carefully through the city, keeping to the shadows.
He carried something heavy over one shoulder—a body, by the look of it, wrapped in cloth. His movements were furtive, quick, but not calm. There was a frenzy to him, an agitation simmering just beneath the surface. As he made his way through the quiet streets, he muttered to himself under his breath.
"They think they can stop my work..." he hissed. "Why can't they see that this is for the best?"
He shifted the weight on his shoulder and kept moving.
"These women will never reach the potential I can give them. Why let such fine bodies go to waste on ordinary lives when they might serve as vessels for something greater?" His voice twisted into something almost wounded by the idea. "They should be grateful."
He glanced down at the bundled form.
"Especially this one. She will do nicely."
At last he reached a house that looked abandoned.
It had once belonged to one of the Butcher's victims. Now, with its former resident dead, the place stood vacant and forgotten. The man slipped inside quickly and shut the door behind him.
The interior was bare.
Most of the furniture had long since been removed or shoved aside, leaving spare chairs, broken tables, and old barrels stacked in corners beneath layers of dust and cobwebs. The air smelled stale and dead.
Once inside, the man laid the body on the floor and grabbed it by the legs.
He dragged it through the house toward a back room, the cloth scraping softly against the floorboards behind him. At the rear of the house stood a tall wooden closet. He opened it, stepped close, and pressed one hand against the back panel.
A click sounded.
Then the wall began to retract.
Behind it lay a hidden room.
And it was a nightmare.
Bones and blood were scattered throughout the chamber. Black-robed bodies hung limp from the walls like grotesque decorations, their limbs mottled with bruises and stitched together with crude, careless seams. Many of the parts did not match. Arms belonged to the wrong torsos. Skin tones varied. Everything about the corpses suggested force, mutilation, and failed attempts to create something unnatural from stolen remains.
One of the worktables bore strange markings scratched into its surface—symbols that looked like the remnants of some blood ritual. Another table stood at the center of the room, its purpose horrifyingly clear.
Whatever was being done here had not begun recently.
This place had been in use for some time.
The hooded man hauled the bundled body onto the central table and carefully peeled back the cloth from its head.
His eyes lit up at the sight of her face.
Taviiah.
Unconscious.
Sedated.
Alive.
The man smiled.
Then he reached up and pulled back his hood.
Calixto Corrium.
Owner of the House of Curiosities.
The Butcher of Windhelm.
Excitement brightened his features as he turned to a nearby table cluttered with bloodied surgical tools and an open journal. He began sifting through them with eager, trembling hands, muttering joyfully to himself as though preparing for some long-awaited masterpiece.
"Soon, sister," Calixto whispered, his voice trembling with anticipation. "We will be reunited."
He hovered over the tools like a man standing on the threshold of a miracle.
"This time, you'll have a better body than the one that failed you. This one will be perfect." His eyes shone with feverish pride. "I've gathered the finest limbs and organs I could find in this town. All for you."
He ran a hand lovingly over the edge of the table.
"I have failed many times trying to make you the perfect vessel. Most of them were only fit to hunt for me." His smile widened. "But this next one..." He exhaled shakily. "This next one will be my masterpiece."
Calixto was so consumed by his work that he never noticed the large figure standing silently in the far corner of the room.
Not until he spoke.
"If only I had caught on sooner."
Calixto jerked as if struck by lightning. The tools clattered from his hands onto the bloodstained table. He spun around slowly, and there—half-shadowed among the hanging corpses—stood Gavhelus.
Calixto's eyes widened. "How did you—?" He swallowed. "What are you doing here? No one is supposed to know about this place."
Gavhelus was drenched in sweat, his breathing uneven. Even now, the strain of hearing so many lost voices pressed on him like a vice around his skull. In this room, their cries were strongest. Loudest. Almost unbearable. Only his fury was keeping him upright.
"I followed the trail of lost souls you left behind," he said.
He stepped toward the central table and planted both hands against it. The moment he saw Taviiah lying there—unconscious, helpless, pale beneath the candlelight—his expression darkened with a colder kind of rage.
Calixto mistook the pause for uncertainty.
"You don't understand," he said quickly. "I have to bring my sister back. She deserved a longer life... a better one." His voice softened, almost pleading now. "She was born weak. Sickly. Always one illness away from death. In the end, it took her from me." His face twisted with old grief and fresh madness. "I cannot live knowing I did nothing to give her a better chance."
It was a bid for sympathy.
A pathetic one.
And Gavhelus saw the hole in it at once.
"Tell me something," he said, his voice low and cutting. "Did you ever stop to wonder whether that's what your sister would have wanted?"
Calixto's mouth tightened.
"Dozens of young women butchered like livestock so she might walk again," Gavhelus went on. "After all you've done, I'm sure you could live with that." His gaze sharpened. "But what about her?"
Calixto's lips curled into a sinister smile. "At this point," he said, "I suppose we'll find out when she gets here."
Gavhelus stared at him in disgust.
"You still don't understand, do you?" he said. "The very fact that I'm standing here means this is over. The murders. The rituals." His eyes flicked toward the sewn corpses hanging from the walls. "Whatever the hell these things are. All of it."
He straightened slowly.
"I don't know where you got power like this," he said, "but it ends here."
Calixto's expression hardened, all trembling grief now stripped away to reveal the rot underneath. "And what now?" he asked. "You're going to kill me? You think I'll let you stop me after everything I've sacrificed?"
Gavhelus's jaw clenched.
"Those lives were never yours to sacrifice, arsehole."
The room seemed to pulse with grief around him.
"The souls of those women are screaming against you," he said. "They can't move on. Not after dying like this. Their cries have filled my head every waking moment I've spent in this city."
For the first time, genuine confusion crossed Calixto's face.
"You... hear their voices?"
Gavhelus gave him a humorless stare. "To put it simply, mate..." He lifted one arm.
A bound greataxe erupted into existence in his hand, glowing with summoned power.
"You're giving me a headache."
He took another step forward, axe humming in his grip.
"And I'm going to kill you to make it stop."
Calixto's eyes flicked nervously to the conjured weapon. Slowly, carefully, he slid one hand backward across the table behind him.
"That's the problem with the living, you know," he said, voice slipping back into its manic calm. "So very limited by their flesh." His fingers found something etched into the wood. "Let me show you what happens when those limits are removed."
Then he slammed his palm down.
A glyph carved into the table flared to life in a burst of vivid purple.
The whole room shuddered.
Gavhelus shifted his footing and raised the greataxe, muscles tightening as he braced for whatever came next.
Then the corpses on the walls began to move.
At first it was only twitching—small, jerking spasms in fingers, shoulders, necks. Then more. Limbs pulled taut. Heads twitched. Bodies strained against their bindings as the glyph's magic surged through them.
And then they screamed.
The sound was ghastly.
Not human.
Not fully.
A chorus of dead throats dragged back into motion by something foul and unnatural.
Calixto smiled as he watched the confusion flicker across Gavhelus's face.
At once, all of the hanging corpses dropped from the walls.
They hit the floor together in a wet, sickening chorus and rose into crouched, waiting stillness—like hounds awaiting their master's command.
"Kill him."
At Calixto's command, the dolls shrieked as one and launched themselves at Gavhelus with monstrous speed.
He barely got his greataxe up in time.
All three hit him at once.
The impact blasted him backward through the wall of the hidden room and into the main chamber beyond in a spray of splintered wood and dust. Gavhelus rolled hard across the floor, came up on one knee, and found one of the dolls already airborne above him, blade poised to strike.
He leaned sharply to one side as the slash came down.
The blade missed his face by inches.
In the same motion, he caught the doll on the hooked end of his axe and used its momentum against it. With a brutal twist of his body, he spun once, then hurled the corpse-thing into the nearest wall. It struck with a sickening crack.
Before it could recover, Gavhelus spun again and released the axe.
The bound weapon flew end over end and buried itself square in the doll's chest, pinning it to the wall. A warped soul gem embedded in its ribcage shattered under the impact.
The weapon vanished in a burst of fading light.
Another attack came immediately from behind.
Gavhelus summoned a second bound axe into his hands just in time to block it. Steel screeched against spectral edge. He turned his head and found himself staring directly into the face of the thing pressing against him.
Its expression was ghastly.
Not empty.
Not mindless.
There was horror in it. Confusion. Rage. A trapped, twisted hatred that seemed barely able to fit behind the dead thing's face.
Gavhelus bared his teeth and forced more strength through his arms, shoving the doll away from him.
"So this is it," he growled. "This is what's been torturin' these souls." His grip tightened around the axe. "Bloody sick experiment, this."
In the corner of the room, Calixto was already scrambling together supplies, snatching at tools and books with frantic hands as he prepared to run. He had believed the dolls to be unstoppable, the perfect killers. Watching Gavhelus hold his own against them made his confidence start to crack.
"Protect me!" he shouted at the two remaining dolls. "At all costs! He must not interfere with my work!"
One of them shot forward almost too fast to follow.
But Gavhelus was ready.
He ducked beneath the low blade as the doll raced past him, then turned just in time for its return assault. It came back with a flurry of swipes, each faster than the last, trying to carve him apart before he could reset. Gavhelus dodged, parried, and shifted with surprising speed for a man his size.
Then the third doll sprang at him from across the room.
He was still occupied with the other one.
This time he could not fully turn.
The blade cut across his back.
But Gavhelus did not flinch.
He only turned his head slowly toward the attacker.
Something in his stare must have reached them. Both dolls backed away at the same time, circling now instead of rushing in.
"That's it," Calixto said, voice tightening with desperation. "Wear him down, my pets. It's only a matter of time now."
Gavhelus widened his stance and let the greataxe hang low at his side.
He was a large man, yes, but not a slow one. There was a terrible steadiness to him now. His red eyes tracked every twitch, every feint, every shift in weight the dolls made as they circled with their blades twirling.
They were being cautious.
That annoyed him.
"Well?" Gavhelus barked. "What're you waitin' for? Surely you're not afraid. Let's get this on with, then!"
"They are not mindless dolls," Calixto said, a smugness creeping back into his tone. "Smarter than you think. The ultimate killing weapons. They learn. They adapt." His smile returned in a thin, ugly line. "And I'm afraid you've already given them too much time to study you. They won't fall for any tricks now."
Gavhelus glanced toward him and smirked.
He heard it in Calixto's voice—that note of confidence, the belief that the fight was already won.
"You know," Gavhelus said, "you're not the only one who knows how to play with the dead."
He lifted one glowing hand, violet light curling around his fingers.
"My way's just faster... and a hell of a lot more badass."
Calixto's smug expression broke into confusion.
Then the floor beside Gavhelus lit up.
A matching purple aura spread across the boards, bright enough to flood the house with eerie light. Something began to rise from the ground itself—bones first, then armor, then the whole figure taking shape in a steady, unnatural ascent.
A skeleton emerged from the floor clad in tattered armor and old chainmail, clutching a worn great axe in both hands.
Once fully formed, it took up a battle stance beside Gavhelus.
Or rather, opposite him—facing the other direction, covering his blind side with uncanny precision.
Gavhelus grinned. "Now let's see how they hold up in a fair fight."
Calixto's panic returned in force. His escape had just become far more difficult, and he knew it.
"End this!" he screamed at the dolls. "Now, damn you!"
They obeyed.
The dolls rushed in together, swift and erratic, blades flashing from impossible angles.
Gavhelus and the skeleton met them without hesitation.
Each blow was blocked cleanly. Each rush turned aside. The dolls darted in and out, trying to exploit speed and confusion, slashing from new angles whenever they switched direction. But Gavhelus and his summoned companion moved like they shared one mind. When one doll shifted targets, Gavhelus and the skeleton shifted with it. At one point they even traded opponents mid-exchange without missing a beat, the skeleton taking over Gavhelus's fight as naturally as if they had planned it in advance.
The room filled with the crash of steel and the hiss of bound magic.
Then the dolls broke off.
They sprang onto the walls and began racing along them, blades out, trying to disorient their prey with frantic movement.
Gavhelus and the skeleton stepped back to back.
They waited.
Watched.
Listened.
The dolls blurred along the walls, hunting for an opening.
Then Gavhelus roared, "NOW!"
Both dolls launched themselves at once.
And both were met halfway.
Gavhelus and his skeletal companion stepped into the attacks, ducked beneath the incoming blades, and swung their axes wide in perfect unison. Each completed a full rotation through the swing, the blades carving brutally through their targets.
Both dolls were cut in half.
Their ruined bodies crashed to the floor between the two warriors, cleaved apart before they could land a single blow.
But still they moved.
Still twitched.
Still fought to drag themselves forward on mangled limbs, driven by magic too foul to care whether the body remained whole.
They felt no pain.
Gavhelus and the skeleton raised their axes high over their heads.
Then brought them both down.
The blades smashed into the dolls' chests and shattered the gems within them, killing them instantly.
At last, the corpses went still.
The skeleton straightened, then began to fade, its bones breaking apart into violet ash as the summoning unraveled.
Gavhelus let out a satisfied breath and turned, searching the room for Calixto.
Nothing.
The butcher was gone.
He had slipped away in the chaos.
"Sorry, mate," Gavhelus muttered, starting after him. "Not gettin' away that—"
He broke off abruptly.
A spike of pain lanced through his skull.
He dropped to one knee at once, his greataxe flickering as his concentration wavered. The voices had returned in full force—worse than before. Panicked. Frantic. Their cries slammed into him all at once until they became a storm of screams.
His vision blurred.
The disruption tore through his senses so violently he could not take another step. He clutched both hands to his head, teeth grinding together as the dead poured their terror into him.
There were too many voices to distinguish.
Too many at once.
Yet somehow, through the noise, he could still feel it clearly:
their dread,
their confusion,
their desperate fear.
"I... hear you all," Gavhelus rasped. "And I'm... trying... to help you. But I need..."
The words fell apart under the pressure.
The noise was too much.
He could feel himself slipping. His vision blurred and doubled as he stared at the floor, both hands clamped tightly against his head. The dead were screaming through him now, their fear pouring into his skull in a flood too violent to endure for much longer. Another few moments of this and he would black out.
Then, through the haze, he saw someone step into his line of sight.
A pair of brown legs.
Fresh scars along the skin.
"Taviiah?"
Her voice sounded distant at first, then sharpened as she knelt in front of him.
Taviiah had only just woken from the drugged sleep Calixto had forced on her. One moment she had opened her eyes on a bloodstained table in a room out of nightmare, and the next she had found Gavhelus folded in on himself, shaking on the floor. She looked around in confusion, but the more details she took in—the hanging corpses, the blood, the ritual markings—the faster the truth came together.
Then she looked back at Gavhelus.
And remembered what he had told them when they first came to Windhelm.
"The voices of their souls..." she murmured. "After seeing all this... they must sound like a painful symphony to you now."
She placed a hand on his shoulder.
He was trembling under her touch. His muscles were rigid with strain. Sweat poured down his face and through his hair until the dark strands shone like black silk in the dim light. He looked like a man on the edge of collapse.
At first, Taviiah had no idea what to do.
Then she decided to try the only thing she could think of.
She drew in a breath and shouted into the empty house.
"Would you all just shut the hell up?! Can't you see you're hurting him?!"
Her voice rang against the walls and died.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Taviiah sat there, uncertain, feeling faintly ridiculous for yelling at ghosts she could neither see nor hear. But when she looked back down at Gavhelus, she noticed something had changed.
His breathing had eased.
Only slightly.
But enough to notice.
She stared at him, then slowly placed her other hand on his opposite shoulder.
Was it working?
Had they actually heard her?
Taviiah took a steadying breath and tried again, this time more gently.
"I know you're scared," she said. "Confused. Angry." Her voice softened with each word. "I can't even imagine where you all are right now. You might still be trying to understand what happened to you. Maybe..." She swallowed. "Maybe some of you don't even know yet that you're dead."
She paused.
The words ahead would hurt, but there was no kind way around them.
"Your lives were stolen from you," she said quietly. "And then your bodies were used in your killer's twisted attempt to bring back someone he loved."
Her throat tightened, but she pressed on.
"I know it isn't fair of me to ask this. I know it probably feels impossible." A tear welled in her eye. "But please... don't punish Gav for your pain."
She looked down at him as he knelt there trembling.
"He's only trying to help you. He's the only one who can hear what you're feeling. The only one who can hear your pain at all." Her voice broke slightly. "But he can't help you find peace if you keep drowning him in it."
Another pause.
Then, softly:
"So please... let him help."
She stayed there with both hands resting on his shoulders, her head bowed toward him.
A tear slipped free and fell from her cheek onto his hair.
And slowly, something changed.
The death grip Gavhelus had on his own head began to loosen.
One hand slipped free first.
Then the other.
The tension in his body eased by degrees, as though some great storm inside him had finally begun to pass. He took one deep breath. Then another. His shoulders lowered. His shaking dulled to a faint tremor and then, at last, to stillness.
When he lifted his head, Taviiah was still kneeling there in front of him.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then smirked.
"Glad you finally decided to get out of bed," he said hoarsely. "Sorry our adventures are such a snooze-fest for ya'."
Taviiah let out a small, relieved smile at the joke. That was enough. If he could joke, he was still himself.
Together, they rose slowly to their feet. Taviiah stayed close, watching him carefully to make sure he could stand on his own.
After a moment, Gavhelus glanced at her sidelong.
"They heard you, ya' know."
"The girls?"
He nodded. "The girls."
Taviiah was quiet for a moment. "Strangely enough..." she said, "I think I already knew that." She looked back toward the hidden room. "I'm just glad they calmed down. I know this kind of transition can't be easy for them."
"It almost never is," Gavhelus said. "Especially when death finds you the way it found them." His expression darkened. "But I think they understood you."
His hand slowly curled into a fist.
The anger came back hard now that the pain had receded enough to let him think. He could feel the depth of what Calixto had done more clearly than ever—the violence, the fear, the violation of it all. It made his blood burn.
He took a breath, then looked upward as if addressing the dead themselves.
"I'm sorry this happened to you girls. Truly." His voice was low and steady now. "I wish I could do more for ya'. I wish I'd listened harder to what you were all sayin' sooner."
His jaw tightened.
"It's not fair," he said. "Losing your life to a coward like that. I know this won't bring any of you back..." His eyes hardened. "But I'll hunt him down and make him pay for every bit of it."
He nodded once, as though sealing the promise.
"You lot get some rest now. I'll take it from here."
Taviiah looked toward the door. "Are you sure we can catch him before he gets out of town?"
Gavhelus gave a grim little smile. "He couldn't have gotten far." He rolled one shoulder, steadier now. "I'll sniff him out, trust me. He's a monster wearing human skin, but he can't hide what he is forever."
He started toward the exit and jerked his head for her to follow.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get this over with, aye?"
Together, Gavhelus and Taviiah left the house and stepped back into the cold streets of Windhelm, now hunting the man who had turned so many lives into a charnel prayer for his own selfish grief.
Calixto Corrium was running.
But not for much longer.
One way or another, he would answer for what he had done.
Chapter End—