The new Listener was aware and appalled by the atrocious nature of Lucien's execution, but what she knew of it barely scratched the surface. Once it was explained in full detail by Lucien she was set to paint the Cheydinhal sanctuary with Altmer blood.

There the two reunited lovers stood in the halls of their lair. There he saw a familiar creature at the very end near the main entrance with her back turned to them. Arquen assumed she heard the footsteps of the new recruits buzzing around as they always did.

They were within a few feet of her when she finally turned around. She saw Malkhai's face first- she gave Lucien no heed because he was dressed in the standard purple-tinted assassin's uniform. She didn't know who he was, needless to say she had no suspicions. He was dead... there was no coming back from the dead. Right?

"Listener it hasn't been a week yet... y..."

"You didn't tell me everything, Arquen." Malkhai said with eerie calmness. "You didn't lie to me... but you covered up a dark truth... darker than the fact you like to eat your victims. I don't blame you, though. I don't blame you one bit for having no intention to talk to me about it. Someone, however, did come forward with this missing detail of Applewatch.

You think it died with the other four?

Well it did. But in this world, Arquen... provided that one has the needed ambition... some people don't stay dead forever."

Lucien pulled the shadow-casting hood away to reveal his identity. It was not ( ), as Arquen assumed.

"Nuuh...n...nuuuhoo how... h'h'hoooow!" A true terror struck the very core of her being. The instant that she saw him, setting fire to her soul through his rigid glare, a wave of panick shortened her breath and brought tears to her eyes.

"Not exactly happy to see me... are you, Arquen? Why not?" He sarcastically asked.

"How? How is it that you are alive!" She didn't know how to react because she couldn't understand why he stood before her- alive and well. Alive after seeing his body reduced to an unrecognizable meaty mess.

"Answering questions with questions... not how it works.

I know why. I carried with me those memories into the afterlife.

I... know...why..."

And when he saw her face again after his return to the mortal plane... the memory was ever more vivid and disturbing.

"Banus, Mathieu, Belisarius...leave us for a moment."

"Why, Arquen? Why should you get to have all the bloody fun?" Banus whined.

"I won't. I will call you back in after I to speak to him alone for a few minutes. Just give me a while...think you can do that?"

An evil smirk stretched across Banus's face, reading the message in Arquen's vile eyes. "Oh...heh... I think I get it. Well, I don't care what you do... as long as he suffers through it."

"Wrrrrt... Whhrrr...r.!" Lucien tried to scream, but the gag muffled his words. When the other four Speakers ambushed and placed binds on him he prepared himself for all the possible ways that they would make hims suffer. But until that moment he didn't count on one thing that dawned on him when he saw the wickedly lustful look on Arquen's face.

The three Speakers left the house... left the bound Imperial alone with the Altmer, whose mind had a bubbling stew of unspeakable appetites.

"Did you ever think ahead, LaChance? Did you picture this in your future when you slipped those little love letters into their assigned place for your Silencer? The notes that ordered her to kill our bretheren?"

"Uuuue...Uuuuddrrhd-norrrt! Grrrrt drrss rrrrf've mmrrrr!"

"Shut up!" Arquen shrilled as one open hand struck his cheek. "I heard it already. There is nothing you can say to get yourself out of this. We know it was you! You were nothing but a bear hunter that was oooooh-so-saaaaad about his little brat getting skewered like shish kabob! I am the one that made you Speaker, Lucien! It is I who brought you to the sacred darkness. We are the genuine, devout, spirit-bound children of our Dread Father! You're just a boy in shroud trying his best to be! You are the traitor because someone like you never measured up to his real servants. Someone like you always breaks after a while and returns to the world of the Nine... always..."

"RRrrghhh...Rrrrqrrn... prrreesse. Uuuuii mmm nrrrt d trrrrtrrr!"

Instead of striking him again she narrowed her eyes and turned up her nostrils, giving another look that made him sick all over.

"First things first... before you die, Lucien... you will loose your place as Speaker. So you won't be needing THIS anymore." Arquen glided down to her knees as she placed her hands on his chest, giving his body a snakey glance-over before peeling his garments off with unexpected care. "We don't have a sweatshop full of children to make us thousands of these so we need to spare as many as we can!

Malkhai, despite the stupidly blind faith she placed in you, seems more fit to be a Speaker... she will need this."

"Rrrgh...grrrd...nuuuhoo!" Lucien writhed; his exposure brought a horrid crawling sensation all over his body.

"What do you think she'll say when she finds out about you, hmm? Oh what would she think of you then...I doubt she would love you anymore... I'd wager that she'll even hate me- not for killing you, but for not letting her be a part of your execution. She was betrayed by you too, you see... and what..."

Arquen paused when her eyes returned to his body from the garments she tossed aside. A slimy expression formed on her face.

"Hmmf... well... no doubt that this is a quality she loves about you."

He tried to tuck his lower body away from sight, snarling through his brown eyes alive with a burning fury.

With a clear expression of hate and sadness she grabbed him by the hair, shaking his head evey time the volume in her voice elevated. "Why not me, Lucien? I gave you so much! I brought you here in the first place- gave you all the comforts you needed to bring yourself back to sanity! I loved you! I loved you, Lucien! I'm sure you knew that! But never once... ever... did you give me a chance to prove it to you! Is it because you know I am older? Is it because I find human flesh a delicacy! Is it because your male ego is threatened by my height- what? What is it?"

Lucien flinched without a sound, adamant about keeping his eyes off of her. But that only fanned the flames of her wrath.

"Look at me!" She rumbled, tightening her grip on his hair, which was coming undone in her fists as she forced his head forward. "You look... at me, Lucien! You missed out... you missed out so much. What ever she did to make you feel good... feel like a man should I... I could've done ten times better. I... could've... .I..."

Arquen paused to catch her breath, releasing him from her grasp as she folded her hands together over her chest.

"You hurt me... it hurt so much when I heard Levik casually talk about it... but like the tough bitch I am I took it... I stuffed the hurt somewhere in a dark box and forgot about it... at least for a while."

'You lust and that is it. You don't have the soul that is required to harbor such feelings as love'. Lucien thought. 'On the contrary, you can't give half of what Malkhai can.'

"Between you and me, LaChance...evidence or not... I want to kill you for all that pain you caused me!"

Arquen saw the tears streaming down his cheek. She caught them with her dagger before they dripped from his chin. She ran her slimey tongue over the blade... and then did the same to the side of his face.

"GGRrrrrarrghhHh!" Lucien wriggled.

"But not right away."