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Right, like any kind of Hell beast compared to—

Oh. Oh—

“Ohm?”

Daedra nodded, and everything inside Fenrir went cold.

“Ohm is your glorious enemy.” It wasn’t a question so much as a clarification. “Ohm, Hell’s Fist, his whole damn army, that’s your enemy? The one the Myrkur have spent generations fighting? Who Orpheus summoned and—”

“And who I came to your cursed world to hunt down and slaughter? Yes. That is right. And I would have, if you’d not stolen the kill from right under my nose.”

“That’s why you came after me? Because I stole your—your glory?”

“My opportunity,” Daedra clarified. “I came to kill Ohm here in your world, where he was weak. You may have stolen that glory from me, but I lost something far more—” she choked off, whatever she wanted to add to her list of grievences lost to a muffled sob.

“Daedra,” Fenrir breathed, lifting his hand like he could calm her with a touch. She heaved in breath after wet breath, skin going somehow paler, eyes glassy with an unfocused stare that set the little hairs at the back of his neck on end.

This wasn’t good. Nothing about this was good. He didn’t have every piece of Daedra’s puzzle, but he had enough to frame in a picture and what he saw made his blood run cold.

“Daedra, Ohm isn’t dead.”

Across the cell, Daedra went stiff. “What?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Fenrir said, voice soft but his words a riot inside the suddenly suffocating room. “When the chasm closed, he went back to Hell. Him and Lore.“

A beat of silence, then a shriek tore open the quiet, a ragged, bellowing roar that ripped through his ears and set his nerves afire. And Fenrir knew, in that moment, something was terribly wrong.

Hell, sealed away, with Lore at Ohm’s helm—united together, in an eons-long fight.

“My people,” Daedra wailed, voice cracking. “I have to get to my people!”

“But what has changed? How is this different from before?”

“You fought him, Ama,” Daedra hissed. “Ohm is but a dog, a feral rabid dog, but now he has a master.”

Oh. Oh shit. “Ohm’s a general,” Fenrir said from what sounded like a great distance. “But he’s not a strategist.”

“It’s why we abandoned Sanctuary! It was meant to withstand a siege but in a war of attrition against Ohm, it was nothing but an easy target. We scattered across Hell, making it harder for him to find us and attack.” Daedra's hands shook when she pushed them into her hair. “Now he has someone who conquered an Empire to lead him into war and my people—they’ll—they’ll have to—they need me—I have to go!”

“To Hell?” Not Sanctuary. Sanctuary wasn’t Daedra’s home. Of course it wasn’t. But how was she ever going to get back? “The chasm is closed, Daedra.”

“But that’s their plan!” Daedra lurched towards him. This close, he could see the panic in her eyes. “Sanctuary needs Netherflame. A spell won’t do. A single mage won’t do. It's why Gwen wasn’t enough. They want him to reopen the chasm and restore the pathway into Hell.”

“But he can’t,” Fenrir insisted. “He doesn’t have the power to.”

Daedra met his eyes, “But what if he showed her how.”

Her. Gwen. The child Orpheus had chased after. The little girl who still had…magic. And if they ripped the chasm back open, even a portion, enough to power Sanctuary again, Lore would be there. Waiting. Ready, with the full might of Hell behind her, because if there was one thing Lore would want, it was revenge.

“Shit,” Fenrir breathed. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“I have to go back,” Daedra pleaded, pulling at her chains for the very first time in all these weeks. Desperate to fight. To save who she loved. Just like him. “I can’t let them all die.”

“I can get you there, to Sanctuary. Then we can figure this out together. Help you and Sanctuary, like should have happened from the very start.” Fenrir said. “Show me the way, and I’ll get you there.”

Chapter XXXVIII

Emergency