Takes place 10 years before the events of Dishonored. AU: Daud is Emily's father.
Dunwall Tower looked as austere at it ever had, especially up close. Although its windows shimmered in the light of the moon, its dark stones and severe angles did not contribute to making the Tower any more welcoming.
Security was lighter than what Daud would have expected, but after all, why would it have been otherwise? The Empire had been at peace for years, and the Empress was beloved amongst smallfolk and nobility alike – although it was not the case for Daud's target, an advisor to her Majesty. Daud slipped inside the walls easily, first climbing the water lock before hiding in the shadows of the courtyard. With a well-placed blink or two, he reached a ledge, where he pushed open a shuttered window, disappearing inside the Tower before any of the guards in the courtyard even knew someone was lurking about.
At 32, Daud looked far older than he was, aged too young by harsh training and difficult choices, although the Knife of Dunwall cared little for his appearance. A scar ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth on the right side of his face, a reminder of days long since passed, and his short brown hair were already threaded with grey. His weathered face and hard black eyes did nothing to make him seem younger.
The guards patrolling the Tower's halls were more bored than vigilant, and Daud flew above them, from ledge to ledge to chandelier, without difficulty. He had heard rumours of the Royal Physician developing new technologies that would make intrusions such as his harder than they already were, and Daud was grateful they had not yet been perfected.
As this thought crossed his mind, he blinked, although he must have miscalculated, for his fingers slipped on the edge of the chandelier he had been aiming for, sending him plummeting to the carpeted floor. He landed and rolled without a sound, quickly activating his Void Gaze power. A guard was rounding the corner, leaving him no time to blink away. His eyes darted to the side, revealing a seemingly unlocked door. His Void Gaze revealing the room to be empty, he quickly slipped inside, silently closing the door behind him just as the guard arrived in the hallway. The sound of nonchalant whistling reached his ears through the thick wood, coming closer and closer before the guard seemingly settled on the other side of the door he had just closed. Daud could not contain a quiet groan. There would be no leaving this room the same way he had come.
Turning away from the door, he scanned the darkened room, a smirk tugging at his lips as he realized it to be filled with valuables. Sweeping a few coins from where they rested on a low table before the hearth, he tucked them away into the pouch at his waist, doing the same with a rather ugly wolfhound statue he was sure no one would miss, and a few medals that lay on a nearby dresser. He could fence the goods later.
Once again activating his Void Gaze, he saw with irritation that the soldier was still guarding the way to the corridor. However, there was another door on the other side of the room, and the power revealed someone to be sleeping in the next room, alone. It actually seemed to be a shortcut to the advisor's apartments. Excellent. Daud approached the door, carefully turning the handle. Locked. It was little trouble for Daud to pick the lock, and as he pushed the door open he entered a chamber of pure white marble. It was rather bare, having for only furniture a desk next to the grand window, a few armchairs positioned before the hearth and a four-poster bed pushed against the middle of the far wall. A folding-screen revealed the occupant of the room to be a woman, a rich, heavy dress having been negligently thrown over the screen to be collected later by the servants. Daud stepped further into the room, pocketing valuables as he came across them. As he slid past the bed, a sound he had not heard in many years caught his ear. He had collected enough of them in his travels through the Isles to know exactly what he was hearing.
The peculiar singing of the bone charm made the Outsider's mark on the back of his hand pulse with longing, and he could almost feel the pull of the artifact as, for the first time, he looked at the form laying curled up on the bed.
Daud had seen many strange things in his travels. He had seen whales and witches and creatures no other humans had ever set eyes upon. He had walked the streets of ruined city on the Pandyssian coast, and had been marked by the Outsider himself – but never would Daud, the Knife of Dunwall, have thought that he would one day be standing before the Empress of the Isles as she slept in her bed.
She must have felt his eyes on her, or maybe the insistent singing of the bone charm under her pillow disturbed her slumber, for her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up with a gasp, not allowing Daud the time to hide, so suddenly did she wake. She clutched the crisp white sheet that had been covering her to her chest as she stared at him, standing at the foot of her bed, and he did the same as he wracked his brain for a solution. He was not here for her, and even then he doubted he could ever harm her, the Empress, beloved of the people. She had done more for the needy in her short reign than all of her predecessors put together, and he respected her for that, him that crawled daily through the filth that were Dunwall's poorest districts. And so, although he did not want to harm her, he would have no choice but to use a sleep dart on her. He flexed his fingers, ready to shoot as the crossbow at his wrist spun quietly into place –
"I know you."
She had whispered, and he thought that, as heavy as the silence of the room was, speaking any louder would have seemed almost obscene. He did not answer.
"You're Daud. The assassin."
He stayed silent.
"Are you here for me?"
Daud was surprised to hear that she did not sound frightened, and he allowed himself to answer.
"No."
"Then who?"
This time he was silent again, and despite this she seemed to be comforted by the assurance that she was not his target. She lowered the sheet she had until then been holding before her, revealing a shift of white silk. Daud almost let his eyes wander, but he mastered himself, instead focusing on her pale green eyes. They were silent for half a heartbeat before he spoke:
"Aren't you going to call your bodyguard?" he asked, and he could see her eyes flit to the ornate rope next to her bed that he knew rang a bell in the Lord Protector's chambers down the hall. Her eyes settled back on him quickly, and a smile formed on her lips.
"You already said you were not here for me," she said. "And your reputation precedes you. I know that, should I decide to pull this rope, I would be dead before Corvo even jumped from his bed. I will not call him. He cannot stop you."
Not dead,he almost wanted to say, but he held back. Better let her believe she should fear him. He stepped away from the foot of the bed, prowling closer to the Empress.
"It may be so," he breathed, "but it may be that you do not wish for him to see – this?"
Lunging forward, Daud swept the bone charm from under her pillow, and she gasped, grasping his free hand as he extended the charm behind him and out of her reach. The clean smell of her skin and her grip on his weathered leather glove made something stir inside him, but he paid it little heed.
"It would be unseemly for the Empress of the Isles – "
"Daud!"
"– to be discovered with an object of heresy."
"Daud, I – "
Shaking free of her hold, he pulled the glove off his left hand, displaying to her his mark. She was suddenly silent, her hand flying to cover her mouth, a quiet Ohall he heard from her. There was wonder in her eyes, but also, he could see with a hint of perverted satisfaction, a bit of fear now.
"Your secret is safe with me, Your Majesty," he said, "the Outsider is a bastard, why anyone would willingly worship him is beyond me, but – "
His voice trailed off as her fingers left her mouth to trace the brand on his hand, the mark stirring at her touch, a blue glow following her fingers as they trailed over every line they could find. The assassin felt a shudder course through him, and it seemed to him he could hear the faint echo of the Outsider's laugh, far, far away.
"The Overseers are wrong," he heard the Empress say. She was looking back at him now, the fear in her eyes gone, replaced by something he, too, felt boiling inside himself, although he did not want to admit to what it was. "Magic is not destroying our civilization. Magic is what brought us upon this Earth. It is the beginning and the end of all things. The Outsider watches us all, and we are but playthings."
There is more truth in that than she knows, Daud thought, but as he was about to speak she curled her fingers around his, bringing his hand to her mouth and reverently kissing the brand etched into his flesh. He felt the symbol shudder as if alive at the touch of her lips, burning and singing, spreading a foreign warmth from the tip of the assassin's fingers to his chest. The pulse of the bone charm in his hand seemed louder and stronger than before.
As the Empress worshipfully kissed the mark again, he broke from her grip, allowing his thumb to brush over her lips for half a moment before he cupped her cheek, and she shivered at the touch of his callused fingertips. He leaned forward, and felt himself smile as he heard her sigh, her eyes fluttering shut. Daud was not a vain man, but he knew that his scar did not make him especially pleasant to behold. To elicit such a reaction from the most powerful woman in the Empire was, however, a pleasure he would allow himself to remember later. Stopping but a hair's breadth away from her lips, he pressed the bone charm into the palm of the hand she had let fall into her lap.
"Keep it hidden," he whispered quietly, and as she leaned forward to close the distance between them he moved away, drawing a quiet groan of protest from her throat.
He did not allow himself to stay a moment longer, slipping out the room even as his brand pulled painfully at his blood toward the lonely figure that sat still in the bed, staring after him. It had taken him all of his willpower to not give in to the primal need toward which the mark seemed so intent on pushing them both. He wondered what the Outsider wanted with him now.
Before the end of the night, the advisor had met his end, and Daud had slipped back out of Dunwall Tower like a ghost, taking care to avoid the Empress' chambers as he left. This did nothing, however, to ease the memory of her lips on his skin, and the singing of his blood as the mark burned and pulsed still with every hour that went by.
