The castle glowered down at me.

I gulped, clenching and unclenching my hands repeatedly until I finished my ascent up the hill. My mind kept repeating the same word. Over, and over again.

Ring. The ring is gone. You lost the god-damned, ugly ring.

Hopefully, Terren was none the wiser. I finished my ascent up the hill, digging my nails into the seam of my pants before pushing into the large, heavyset doors. The castle was stiff today. Chilled winds heaved me inside, the door slamming shut behind me before silence returned.

I had to find Caius. More than anything else, I had to find him... if but once more before I vanished for good.

My eyes twisted down each winding corridor, peered into every alcove I passed, and searched for any servant or guardsman to help me. But it was empty.

I let out a shallow breath before banking right, hastily advancing until I eventually picked up into a jog and stopped at the stairwell that led to the basement. Looking down either side of the hallway, I waited for a guard to pace by and demand to know my business, to scurry me away and tell me that the king had no interest in my presence today, but it was quiet. I sucked in a breath, grabbed hold of the rusty door handle, and pushed it open. It creaked and ached, but when it was open, I was left staring at the darkness.

Usually, when Orios was here, there were lanterns with flickering flames that lined the walls, and the gentlest hum of his songs as he walked around, wasting his days away in those shadows. More than anything else, though, he was always waiting for his next vision. Now, though, it was still—only the sound of water that dripped from the ceiling, plopping onto the same corner.

Plip. Plop. Plip. Plop.

I stepped down the stairwell, dragging my fingers across the moist stone before letting them fall back by my side when I reached the bottom. There were papers scattered everywhere, some picking up with the breeze that blew through one of the open hopper windows, and others torn to shreds.

My breathing picked up. With a trembling hand, I moved further into the room and grabbed the journal that rested atop the wooden table. Many of the pages were torn out, surely lost in the winter winds, but one was stabbed clean through with a knife.

I was trembling. Utterly still, it felt impossible to move forward again. The tips of my fingers fidgeted, but whenever I reached for that paper, my bones failed me. From where I stood, through the debris left over top of it and dim sunlight, was my portrait.

It was elegant, and old—strands of silver hair that slithered past my shoulders and behind my back depicted on a small, torn canvas. Stormy, gray, pupilless eyes were masterfully crafted as if the artist knew me personally, and peeking right past my hair were Dragonborne ears...

Nothing could be mistaken for them. No other creature had ears the shape of dragon wings, and no other person had eyes as striking as mine. And, to make matters worse, the crown adorned overtop my head indicated I was royalty.

Something I swore to never see again.

I lunged forward, tore the knife from the page, and picked up the portrait. This was supposed to be gone—if somebody found such a dangerous relic of my past, then I was better off dead. My fingers singed the thick parchment, embers crawling toward the eyes that stared helplessly back at me until a flame erupted and ate it whole.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

It was gone. I watched the soot float to the ground, coating the piles and piles of papers and debris that lined the room. It looked worse than my home had been, and I had no doubt that Caius was behind this torment, too.

That said, it was unlikely that he scared an entire castle's worth of servants and guards away with nothing more than his charm and weak magic. I knew he had to be behind it, but how... that was the question that rang throughout the air like a thunderclap. Rage brewed beneath my veins, warming my face and making my blood pulsate with each heartbeat. I drifted my gaze downward, landing on the smaller pages that had rested beneath my portrait.

I picked them up. They were smaller, and thinner—pages of my diary. I sucked in a breath and started to sift through the papers, throwing the useless ones aside and setting ones of importance back on the table.

When only three pages remained, I lined them up together and choked on a sob. Yes, my messy and panicked handwriting littered these pages—ranting on about my mistakes, and what I would do to fix what I had done—but scratched across the three pages was an abyss.

Flakes of charcoal covered my fingertips when I dragged them across the page, blinking away the tears and hoped this, too, would drip away... that it was nothing more than a bad dream. But it was real. Too real.

Dark smudges formed The Gate, a place occupied by ruined souls and creatures I locked away. The very place that should have been my end. The place that all Dragonborne went to die—under my control... under my magic.

A voice slithered around me and throughout the shadows. We will be waiting, it whispered. I do not forget the promises made to me.

I turned my head to look over my shoulder and cried out. A portal blocked the stairwell, one that ebbed in and out with each gust of wind. On the other side of it was the blurry vision of an inn.

Hurry up, darling, the voice cooed again. I am an impatient man.

And, with a gust of wind that was stronger than the storms outside, I was swept into the portal and fell face-first onto the splintery, old wooden floors of that inn.