Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-24225299-20140110165516/@comment-25047024-20140111112722

Allright, time for a lore lesson. @MeadDrinker, If you want to know my theory about the major and minor shards, then read the discussion between me and Dovahsebrom in this Thread: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:511853

'what i was thinking is that maybe the guys at the soul cairn have no power over the souls of dragons/dragonborn. and if alessia actually had the "soul of a dragon" maybe her soul wasn't send to the soul cairn but to some other place. '

Well, no. We know from TES III: Morrowind that Soul Gems need to have a certain capacity to capture a soul. If the player, for example, wants to kill Vivec and capture his soul, the player needs Azura's Star, which is the Soul Gem with the highest capacity in the game. In theory, every soul can be captured.

The CHIM EL-ADABAL, the Amulet of Kings, was back in it's Ayleid days just a Soul Gem. And the Soul Gem with the probably highest capacity on Nirn.

The Amulet of Kings seems to be able to absorb a Dragonborn's soul when the person dies. It is possible that the Amulet actually holds many Dragon souls at the same time.

Anyways, when Martin broke the Amulet, he mass-absorbed all Dragon souls in it and became an Avatar of Akatosh. This means that all souls in the Amulet became part of the "Martin-shard", the shard became so big that it took the Time Dragons form.

And the souls aren't in the Soul Cairn.