Urag looked annoyed. Of course, that was how he usually looked anyway. Except when he had looked at her.

 

“What do you mean, what am I doing here?” Urag gestured around the room with those long arms and Aithne just resisted jumping on him to try to get him to wrap them around her. “This is my suite! How did you get in here?”

 

“What?” Aithne looked around as light panic raced through her. She recognized their…his suite in an instant and flushed red. “Ah! Um. I’m sorry, I must have just pictured here by habit.”

 

“Habit? That proves we were never together. Otherwise you would know I don’t like people teleporting into my suite.”

 

“Well, yes. I usually teleported to just outside the room. You always walked everywhere.” Aithne let out a little laugh. “I wish I had done the same. I still get lost in this place.”

 

“So do I. That’s why I walk.” The orc sighed and rubbed his head the way he always did when he was working out some particularly difficult problem. “Look, crazy lady, I don’t know what you think is going to happen here, but…”

 

“No, no!” Aithne held up desperate, placating hands. This was not how she had wanted to approach him. “I know! I’m not trying to do anything. I just…”

 

She paused. Just what? Just longed to be home? Longed to have her life back? Longed, even, for the times of slavery if only it meant she could be with him again? All of that?

 

“Just…” he prompted, but then the conversation was interrupted by an unexpected third voice.

 

“Ury, where do you keep…oh!”

 

Aithne and Urag turned as one toward the bathing room, then gasped as one upon seeing Colette standing in the doorway wearing nothing but the filmiest imaginable robe. It was open at the front, revealing smooth skin from neck to her artfully shaved mound, while the sheer material teased the nipples of her shapely breasts.

 

 Colette frowned as she wrapped the robe around her (not that that hid anything). “What is she doing here?”

 

“Leaving,” Urag growled.

 

Aithne felt a wave of jealousy but couldn’t tell if it emanated from Colette or herself. She didn’t need to be able to read minds to feel the heat of his arousal. But since she could read minds, she unwillingly learned any number of things she absolutely did NOT need to know.

 

She did not need to know, for instance, that Colette had been pining for Urag for years but had been too afraid to approach him until forced into an act of desperation by the arrival of someone claiming to be his wife so had made up a false pretense to visit him then asked to use the toilet so she could change into this sheer robe. And she REALLY didn’t need to know that Urag had long held a reciprocal candle for Colette but had been too shy to say anything and was VERY amenable to being seduced by her.

 

Stuck in the very uncomfortable position between the two, a beet-faced Aithne took two steps toward Colette, whispered, “His favorite position is from behind,” then excused herself and beat a hasty retreat.

 

Upon entering her actual suite, she tossed the dinner she had begged from the kitchen into the trash, threw herself onto the bed, and sobbed in uncontrollable heaves for the next hour. Once the tears had subsided, she pulled herself up, tossed her clothes in a corner, and took a hot bath while she tried to decide what to do.

 

It was unbearable. Urag was so nearby, only steps away – the suite, as promised, was only two doors down the hall from the Arcaneum – but he might as well have been miles away. Or still dead. She would actually feel better if he was dead (not that she wanted him to die!) rather than have him back but not be able to have him back.

 

Had he and Colette had this kind of attraction before? Aithne had never got that impression from them – they had acted more like siblings than pining lovebirds. Besides, it was hard to imagine Colette giving the man she pined for a naked sex slave. So perhaps this version of Skyrim was not exactly the same as before.

 

Well, of course it wasn’t – Aithne herself had changed things by killing Borkul instead of being enslaved by him. She shivered a little at the thought, despite the heat of the tub. At this point, she would have been huddled in that little cave, still suffering from the broken ribs she had suffered in the crash and the hypothermia induced from jumping into the frigid water. Her training with Borkul would have only just begun.

 

But a change like that would not have changed the attitudes of two people who had been friendly but not…well, friendly. Would it?

 

Aithne shook her head and tried to dispel this fruitless throught process. She needed to be somewhere else, if only for her own sanity.

 

Maybe she should just leave. Go find Trendil and…well, just Trendil, since Aithne knew where she would be. Sloan had mentioned heading for Riften, but that didn’t mean Riften was where she had started. They could go to Labyrinthian again, free the mages and grab the staff, then try to find their Dragonborn doppelganger.

 

She sighed. She couldn’t do that. Not yet. She still had so much research to do. She had read some of the books on dragons before, but they had not seemed like a priority until it was too late – she had spent all her time on magic theory instead.

 

Now she knew better.

 

She sighed again as she lifted herself from the tub just as the door chime dinged. She wrapped a clean robe around herself then let in Merks, who bore with him three more books, a tray of assorted meats and cheeses, and a bottle of wine. For the first time since she had met him, Aithne felt grateful toward him. She told him so, then kicked him out, poured a glass of wine, arranged the food nearby, picked up a book, and settled in to read.

 

The sooner she finished, the sooner she could be away from this parody of the life she had lost.

 

 

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