Chapter 1: Hail Sithis

As she swam towards the waiting ship, Ria Verres reflected that Momma was wrong about two things.

For one, Momma had always thought that living in the land-locked plains of Whiterun meant that learning to swim was a waste. Other than knowing how to tread water enough to stay afloat, one needed no other water survival skills than a good voice to call for help; learning a more in-depth swimming practice only took time away from chores or family bonding. Ria was glad the she and Jared had snuck out long enough to swim, though, even if it did get them both in trouble; she couldn't think of the number of times she'd had to travel long distances over water. Being able to approach the moored Katariah undetected was certainly one of the better benefits of the skill.

The second thing her mother was wrong about, was that her lack of need to hear herself talk would hold her back in life. The entire sanctuary had been constantly badgering Lucian about who would get to assassinate the Emperor ever since they'd got the contract, and the young Listener had quickly grown tired of it. Ria and Jared had been the only ones who didn't try to sway him to their cases, and she suspected that that was part of the reason why he had assigned her to the job; she had a hunch that he'd been planning on giving it was to her or Jared just to spite the relentless vultures who tried to make his decision for him.

Normally the others would have let Lucian lead as he saw fit, not caring what they were directed to do as long as they got the thrill of the hunt and a good sum of gold every now and then. The assassination of the Emperor was different; this was something monumental, historical, and to be the one to deliver the blow was the chance of a lifetime. Jared had said, privately, that it was that way of thinking that should had greatly limited the pool of people Lucian could pick for this job; someone professional was needed, someone who could get in and do the deed without emotions getting in the way. By that logic, that left Jared, Ria, and the Listener himself. And Lucian could not leave the Sanctuary without a half-mad, jester-Keeper trailing him like a lost puppy. So it was down then to Jared or Ria. Neither of them had had any particular desire to risk their hides on an Oculatus-infested boat, so Lucian had decided for them who had to take the bullet; Ria got the short straw.

It had taken several weeks of preparation, sprinkling in other assassinations to draw the Emperor into Skyrim. There'd been the Emperor's cousin, murdered at her own wedding, then a Stormcloak higher-up who spoke out against allowing any Imperial force back in the country, even if it was just the elderly Emperor and acouple Penitus Oculatus agents there to attend a funeral. When Titus Mede II had finally arrived, graciously allowed in Skyrim for no longer than two weeks by King Ulfric, the son of the Oculatus Commander was the next to fall. Babette had been the one to advise that; even if Maro wouldn't take leave to attend his own son's funeral, it would wound him enough that he would be distracted, and that would allow the Brotherhood an opportunity to strike.

Instead, all it got was Maro's undying hatred, which he had clearly expressed by setting a trap for them. When Ria had posed as a kitchen servant and slipped some poison into a fake Emporer's dinner, Maro and a handful of guards had been waiting on the bridge she used as an escape route. She'd managed to get a sword away from one of the Oculatus agents, and Jared had helped pick off some of them from the ground with a bow, buying her escape. This time, though, they were sure she was targeting the real Emperor; the fact that she had to swim to reach him was a logical nudge in the direction of this assumption.

After several minutes the ship loomed over her, and she silently circled around until she found the anchor. The chain attached to it was as big around as Ria's arm, providing enough space in the individual rungs for her to find foot and hand holds. She shimmied up it until she hung out of the water, waiting for it to stream back off her body in an attempt to minimize dripping once inside the ship. After acouple minutes of dangling in the cool night air, she silently continue up the chain, reaching the hull and pulling herself up into the opening made for the anchor to be drawn in through. She crouched behind a stack of crates, taking in her surroundings.

A voice sounded from in front of her, an Imperial accent clearly distinguishable.

"And that's the last one. Alright, enough of this." he says, and Ria stiffened at his nearness, drawing her orcish bow silently and peeking around from the small mountain of crates. A lone sailor rose from his spot on the ground, turning to go up a small flight of stairs, and Ria shrank back, allowing him to exit. She counted off a minute in her head, then followed, bow still at the ready and an arrow notched. She mounted the steps and press herself against another stack of crates at their summit, ears attuned to every sound. Most obvious of these was the sound of a hammer on metal; it sounded like someone's working a forge. But she could hear no other human presence, so she crept towards a corridor slightly to the left. Ria turned down it, only to freeze in her tracks.

At the end of the hallway, a door opened up to a bedroom, and a sailor stood in the doorway, his mouth open in surprise. Had Ria been standing still, he might not have seen her in the shadow the torches threw on the wall, but he'd seen her in the movement to turn the corner. His mouth opened wider, a split-second away from raising the alarm. In that split second, Ria drew the bow back and loosed the arrow, catching him right between the eyes. The sailor fell back and to the ground with no sound other than a soft 'thump'.

That sound, however, was apparently enough to bring another man- a Penitus Oculatus agent- running; he flew into view from the left and turns into the bedroom, never once looking in Ria's direction. As soon as he was inside the room, she loosed a second arrow, sending him to the ground on top of his comrade.

She waited acouple seconds, and when no one else appeared, continued down the hallway, taking a right turn and peering into the room the Oculatus agent came from. It was a dining room, and when a quick scan revealed no signs of life and a stairway across from her, she darted for it. Above, voices floated down, and she eased up the steps. They let out with only acouple feet between until the wall in front of her, forcing one to face the same direction of the stairs to continue deeper into the ship, and when she did she once again went stock-still. A square gap had been set into the floor to provide something akin to a balcony, and it allowed a view of the dining room below. Across this balcony from her, two soldiers lounged across a table from each other. They were the source of the voices, and were so absorbed in their conversation that even the Oculatus agent facing Ria didn't notice her drawing her bow back until an arrow had been implanted in his cranium.

The other soldier was up instantly, his sword already halfway out of its sheath when a knife buried itself to the hilt in his throat. He staggered once, locked eyes with the half-Imperial assassin, and promptly tumbled over the railing to the dining table below. The crash reverberated through the air, and the sound of steel being hammered stopped short, leaving the ship eerily silent.

"Sithis help me." Ria growled under her breath, more on edge than actually afraid. Shouts quickly rang through the air, alarmed at the loud noise, and from her floor Ria could hear boots pounding the ground, coming in her direction. She looked around frantically, and her eyes landed on a door behind her.

It was locked, and with a curse Ria frantically fumbled out her picks and began working on it. The owner of those boots was drawing closer, and the tumblers were difficult. Her hands moved on autopilot while she calculated the time it would take for the man to round the corner to the stairs and see her. Ten seconds. The lockpick almost broke. Five. She was close. Three.

The lock gave up its resistance with an almost inaudible click, and Ria threw the door open, dove through, and yanked it shut. She locked it back and drew in a deep breath, turning to survey her new surroundings, only to have a soldier run smack into her.

His eyes were still clouded from sleep, having been roused at this ungodly hour of the mourning by the commotion outside his bedroom corridor. Ria saw his eyes widen as he took in her garb, the red and black leather of the Dark Brotherhood, and alertness and alarm came to his eyes. It wasn't in time, though, because as soon as he seemed to register her identity, Ria drew the Blade of Woe and plunged it into his lower neck, clamping a gloved hand over his mouth and releasing the knife to guide the soldier to the floor.

It took only moments for him to bleed out, his jugular and windpipe both severed, and Ria dragged his body into the nearest bedroom-which, thank the gods, was empty. She shut the door, leaving the body hopefully concealed inside, and continued at a faster clip through the hallways; the guards would be on high alert now, and she wagered she had only acouple moments before she was fighting off a horde of Imperials.

There was another bedroom off this hallway, one the left side this time, and she quickly silenced the two men still somehow asleep inside, picking them off from the doorway with her bow. Ria then shut the door and half-sprinted down the hallway, making a right turn where it ended and then another right turn up some stairs. The alarm had gone up fully now, and she could distantly hear the soldiers trying to open the very door she had lock-picked open only moments before. She silently congratulated herself on having the foresight to re-lock it behind her.

Silence was out the window; she flew up the stairs regardless of who heard her, frantically searching the landing for the door to the Emperor's quarters (as she knew they had to be on this floor). Her momentary excitement at finding her destination quickly vanished when she set to work on the door's tumblers.

Oh joy of joys, another lock, Ria thought sarcastically. This one took almost three times as long as the first one, but eventually it did click open. Ria quickly pocketed the picks and drew her Blade of Woe, easing the door open and slipping inside.

The Emperor of Tamriel was sitting behind a desk perhaps five yards into the room, regarding the assassin calmly. Ria drew herself up to her full height under his gaze and shut the door behind her, flicking the lock back into place with her thumb, her eyes never leaving her target. But the old man didn't make any move to flee or fight, and, suspicious, neither did Ria. After a second, the ruler spoke.

"And, once more, I prove Commander Maro the fool. He tried to assure me that he would keep me from harm, but I told him you can't stop the Dark Brotherhood. Never could."
When the Emperor spoke, Ria noted that he spoke formally, with what she had long ago deemed a 'politician's accent'; a shorter pause between sentences, and a longer pause between the first and second words of a new sentence. His tone was passive, calm, and Ria adjusted her grip on her knife, the closest she came to shifting nervously.
"Come now, don't be shy. You haven't come this far just to stand there gawking."

Ria promptly clamped her mouth shut, not having realized that it hung slightly open, and took a few cautious steps forward. Her eyes darted around the room, scanning the floor for pressure plates and trip wires, studying the corners of the room for hidden guards, looking for anything that could explain why Titus Mede II was so calm about her presence. But to her shock, she made it to the desk uninjured, standing there uncertainly as the emperor rose from his chair so that neither of them was talking down to the other.

"You were expecting me?" Ria asked after a second; she meant it to be a statement, but her confusion and suspicion produced a different result.

"But of course. You and I have a date with destiny. So it is with emperors and assassins, hmm?" The idea dawned on her then, that Titus was saying that he accepted his demise. It set Ria on edge, only reaffirming the idea that he had something planned that would kill her and allow him to get away. Mede didn't seem to notice, though, continuing on. "Yes, I must die. And you must deliver the blow. It is simply the way it is."

For a moment, Ria thought something about his words rung with the echo of comfort, but she didn't know if that were for her or himself. Most likely the latter.

"But I wonder, would you suffer an old man a few words before the deed is done?"

Ria thought the question ironically funny for two reasons: one, he'd just now decided to ask to be allowed to prattle on, despite the fact that he'd already done more talking than most of her targets; and two, a blue-blood emperor was asking a half-breed criminal for permission to do anything.

"Of course." Ria responded, voice genuinely respectful. If she had gotten one thing from her father other than skill with a bow, it was a sense of honor, and last words were a right she always granted if it were asked of her- though it rarely was.

"I thank you for your courtesy. You will kill me, and I have accepted that fate. But I ask of you a favor." This statement caught Ria's interest; last words were one thing, but last requests were another. No one had yet to offer one of the latter, probably not trusting an assassin to follow through on them. "While there are many who would see me dead, there is one who set the machine in motion. This person, whomever he or she may be, must be punished for their treachery. Once you have been awarded for your assassination, I want you to kill the very person who ordered it."

That sentence might as well have been in Elvish for how well she processed it. Kill a client? Lucian would have my hide for that. Wouldn't he? But if I got the payment first, who I kill on my free time is my business.

She shoved her shock and questions away, focusing again at the task at hand. Titus Mede, having not yet gotten a response, added, "Would you do me this kindness?"
Ria nodded, regardless of the fact that she hadn't made up her mind on that one yet; an outright no seemed cruel in a way she would not indulge. "You have my word that I'll try my best. No more."

Though I doubt the word of a cutthroat is worth much.

"Thank you. Now, on to the business at hand I suppose, hmm?"

He rose, walking to one of the windows that took up much of the room's back wall and staring serenely out of it, his back to her.

It all took her a moment to process. Her assassination jobs might have occasionally odd circumstances, but never once had her quarry, knowing of it's impending death, been so… honorable about it. Some ran, some begged for their lives, some fought, some faced death with no fear of it but hate for their killer. None of them were polite, and none of them had the foresight or cleverness to use their last request to take a sort of revenge.

Lucian did say that this would be an experience like no other. Ria was dimly aware of thinking.

She slowly made her way towards the elder man, making sure her feet caused no sound; she suspected the fear of death was worse than the actual thing itself, and the only kindness she ever provided for her victims- when she provided any at all- were making sure they died unaware and instantaneously. She stopped arm's length away from Mede, preparing herself for the actual deed.

It'd been a long time since she felt the twinges of guilt, but perhaps that was because it'd been a long time since she'd killed someone who she believe didn't deserve it.
In one swift motion, she plunged her blade into the base of Mede's skull, severing both his spinal cord and brain stem. She quickly yanked the knife out to catch the body as it fell, guiding it gently to the ground. His eyes were still open, and for once it unsettled her, so she deviated from what she normally did and closed them, then folded his hands on his chest.

May you walk with your divines, she thought, echoing, as she always did, her father whenever he had had to take a life. It was as close to praying as she usually got in her life.
Then the lock on the door turned, opened by a key from the outside. Ria hadn't even heard the guards reach the landing outside, but the minute she heard the door start to open she busted out one of the windows with her elbow and leapt through, her feet hitting the miniscule balcony outside just as an arrow, it's fletching the red and black of the Imperial Legion, came sailing out after her, thumping into the railing to her right.

Shouts erupted behind her, and Ria did not hesitate to place a hand on the balcony and swing herself over it, plummeting into the chilly waters below. She didn't take time to open her eyes before she was swimming in what she knew was towards the opposite shore, holding her breath and staying a good three feet below the surface to avoid taking an arrow from the guards.

She surfaced perhaps two and a half minutes later, gasping for breath. She could still hear the frantic guards from behind, but the sound was distant, unthreatening. Nevertheless, she drove herself forward, cutting through the water as land loomed ever closer.

The Emperor was dead, but that didn't mean she was out of danger. Now she was required to deliver the good news to the client, a man named Motierre who was a snake if there ever was one. He would give her the location of the Brotherhood's payment, which Ria had been order to retrieve.

The issue had come up that it was too much of a risk to leave one person to transport all of their promised gold; assassins were skilled, but not invincible. If something happened to her, certain brothers and sisters had argued, they would have put in much work and risk and have nothing to show with it. To answer this problem, Lucian had allowed her to select one of her brothers or sisters to escort her from Solitude, to Whiterun, to the dead drop.

The others might have called it favoritism when they thought she wasn't listening, but Ria thought her choice perfectly logical. Jared was a terror with a sword, and more suited to open combat than most of the family, making him perfect for a bodyguard. It had nothing to do, she told herself, with the fact that he was her best friend, or that they were the only two in the sanctuary who didn't openly enjoy the taking of life; the only two to whom it was just a job.

Ria was happy to have the other Imperial as her traveling companion; anyone else would have wanted to know the details of the kill, and wouldn't have understood why Ria was being so quiet. As she pulled herself out of the water and began to jog for Morthal, the inn their being their rendezvous point, she was actually looking forward to having something to eat and a warm dry place to sleep, to say nothing of having a night of drinking and merriment with her long-time friend.
An hour rolled by under her feet. She moved quickly, alternating between running and walking, occasionally taking time to skirt the more dangerous of the swamp animals. The sky was just starting to brighten with pre-dawn light when Morthal finally came into view.

She'd just looped around from the woods onto the main road, drawing nearer to the small bridge, when she spotted the telltale armor of the Penitus Oculatus.

They were standing on the bridge, five in total; one, his armor polished to the point of gleaming and his helmet absent, watched calmly while two of the others slammed a sixth man- dressed in light armor and his face hooded- down onto the bridge railing, hauling him back up roughly and forcing him to his knees in front of their captain. Ria stopped, curious about the prisoner the Oculatus seemed to have taken but more concerned about her own hide. She slunk back into the trees on the side of the road, then, safe, tried to hear what they were saying.

Whatever that sixth man said wasn't what the Imperials wanted to hear, because one of the normally adorned Oculatus agents kicked him viciously in the ribs. Ria crept closer.
The one Ria assumed to be the captain drew his sword, resting it threateningly against the chest of the subdued figure. A word from this same man and one of the other agents yanked the hood down, exposing their prisoner's face; the red dawn caught the angles of his cheekbones and jaw and threw shadows on his face. Ria's breath caught in her throat.

Jared.

"One last chance, assassin." The captain said. Ria was already moving, slipping through the forest like she was one with it, nothing more than a shadow. Jared bared his teeth in a savage snarl.

"Go to hell." she heard him snap. The captain - she was close enough now to recognize him as Maro, the pain in the ass who'd been harassing them for the last few weeks - drew his sword back, ready to stab. Ria put on speed, crashing through the trees, no longer thinking of herself.

But she was too far away. The sword came back and was thrust forward again, Jared's armor offering next to no resistance. She crashed onto the road, stumbling for an open path to her friend. All heads turned in her direction. Jared's eyes locked with hers, clouded with pain. Maro smiled, twisted the blade, and yanked it free with a spray of blood; Jared pitched forward, landing hard against the cobblestone, his head still turned so that he stared at her, the life draining from his eyes.

Maro had turned, twirling his sword in a warm-up, saying something taunting. Ria didn't hear him. Her world narrowed to one image, one person. In her mind she saw him clearly, regally handsome features and dark eyes, at her side as they ran the forest, jumping from tree to tree and log to log, feet never touching the ground as they laughed at their youth and strength and agility; at her side as they huddled in the cold, stained with blood and tears and ashes as their worlds burned in front of them; at her side as they hunted the cause of it, no thought of survival or future, seeking only the person who had taken almost everything from them; at her side as a man with sharp eyes and a sharp smile offered them a life they took because they were good at one thing and one thing only.

Eyes that had always comforted were losing their fire to the look of distant ice. A life that had committed no sin other than surviving was flowing from his chest, soaking into the stones, staining them red. Jared was a rock, a constant, there in every uncertainty, there in every moment of triumph and joy.
And now his lifeless eyes stared into nothingness.

The Oculatus charged down the stone path, not realizing until it was too late that they were running to their deaths.

Ria wasn't sure when she drew her bow. She wasn't even aware of having moved until she'd stuck two arrows into one Oculatus agent and broken the recurve across the head of another. The next thing she knew she was ripping into them, slashing, dodging, tearing them open with a pair of daggers. When there was no one left standing she staggered to her fallen brother, soaked in blood, tears in her eyes. She knelt by his side, still not feeling it, still not comprehending it in full.

She knew, dimly, that she should run. But she couldn't, couldn't leave him here, on a road in a crappy hold, lying next to the monsters who ended him. She hadn't moved in minutes by the time Commander Maro dragged himself to his feet, pressing his hand into the stab wound in his stomach and staggering towards the assassin. She still hadn't moved when he brought the hilt of his sword down on her head.

Rai woke in a cell, her armor replaced by roughspun clothes. She stood, looking around for a moment, recognizing the Solitude prisons from past experience.

She should've cared about her situation, should've tried to find a way out, but she didn't. Instead she curled up in the corner for what remained of the day. She cried, she raged, she cursed the gods, and then she slept.

In her dreams he was alive, and they smiled and laughed and reflected on days long past. She leaned forward to lay a hand on his shoulder, to assure herself of his presence, and he turned to mist and slipped through her fingers. When she woke her chest was painfully, unbearably empty.

But the cell across from her was not.