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The Keeper's Lullaby

Chapter Three

Severia looked out over the Riften marketplace, pondering the new information she was given the night before. She could see Brynjolf at one of the stands trying to distract a gathered crowd while one of his subordinates stole from one of the other stalls. The average guard and citizen would miss it, but she knew exactly where to look and when. She knew a scam when she saw one.

Brynjolf caught her gaze out of the corner of his eyes, and he spared her a quick wink before going back to his bogus speech. She allowed the small smile to grace her lips before pushing thoughts of the night before away from her.

The Dark Brotherhood was definitely active here in Skyrim.

And from what she'd heard last night, this was the only place they were active after the destruction of their bases in Cyrodiil a decade ago. But if they hadn't been active in Cyrodiil for that long, then that must've meant that there never was anyone down in that old place under the well.

Allowing herself a moment of respite, Severia pushed back the gray hood on her head and ran a hand through the thick mass of brown curls. She preferred her shoulder-length hair to be pulled back into a bun or tied, but the constant pulling gave her a headache. She scratched at her scalp gently, the slight grease reminding herself to find somewhere to bathe in the next day or two.

But that would have to wait. Information on the Brotherhood was far and in between, and even asking about them to the wrong people made you a target. Brynjolf had been a special case and found her interest in them fascinating. She had an inkling that he knew more than he let on, but what he shared was enough.

"Nobody finds the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood finds you."

It didn't take much imagination to figure out what that meant. A group of assassins won't be found by somebody just looking hard. If they didn't want to be found, they wouldn't. And, not surprisingly, not many people went around looking for them.

But how exactly does one get a group of assassins to come to them? She could try pissing someone off enough to hire them to have her killed, but she doubted the notorious assassin's guild would stop to hear what she had to say. She could try contacting them herself, but that apparently involved a type of religious summoning. Severia wasn't completely adverse to that idea, but one only summoned the Brotherhood when they wanted someone dead. If she didn't want someone dead and she did their little sacrament, she was sure they wouldn't appreciate it and would suspect her of having ulterior motives. Also not good.

So if you aren't a victim or a client, you must be an asset.

If they were to recruit her on their own, that would put her in a much more trustworthy position. She'd probably get more honest answers to the outlandish questions she had to ask.

But did she really want to join up with a group of religious murderers? Not particularly. Did she have a problem with killing someone for money? Again, not really. She hadn't dabbled much in the past, but that was mainly because starting a business like that on one's own tends to leave you vulnerable. With a notorious group of talented murderers at your back and a terrifying legacy to boot, there's not a lot that can come after you.

But it didn't go unnoticed to her that the Brotherhood was dying out. Their sanctuaries were being rooted out one by one, albeit slowly, and Severia didn't want any part in that.

But their presence in Skyrim was strong, and from her month of digging for information on them, nobody knew much about them. Some still only believed them to be a bedtime story to tell naughty children so that they behave.

A sharp gust of wind pulled the young woman out of her reverie, causing her to pull her gray hood back up again to shield her face.

So she needed to kill someone. Make a statement, but not get caught. There was no way around it.

Severia thought she should've been more disturbed by that. She shrugged and pulled her cloak tighter, turning to walk through the back alleys of the town.

It wasn't like she hadn't killed before.


Severia had decided on her first target rather quickly.

The bitchy old woman who ran the Riften orphanage was as mean as they came, and nobody would miss her. This was a target she was sure somebody would pay to have killed.

And if she made it look like the Brotherhood, then it would no doubt attract the Brotherhood.

She'd heard rumors of the awful woman and how she abused the children left in her care. The young woman who worked for the hag, Constance, was too scared to speak up. Grelod the Kind, they called her ironically. People in Tamriel sure loved their clever sobriquets.

She'd waited until after dark to enter the establishment, only mildly surprised to see the young woman who worked for Grelod sitting near the front door. The young woman, roughly Severia's age and slightly taller, quickly walked up and tried to shoo her out.

"The children aren't up for adoption. Please, Grelod will be furious if she sees you here."

Well this wasn't going exactly as planned. Not only did she regularly torture the children, but she kept them here instead of giving them the chance to find loving families? Evil woman. She'd be impressed if she wasn't so disgusted. Severia wasn't the epitome of "law-abiding citizen", but she didn't care much for people who hurt children unnecessarily.

Severia kept her feet firmly planted where she stood, a fake smile lacing her lips. "I'll only be here for a minute. Are you the only one awake right now?"

Constance nodded quickly, obviously trained to answer any and all demands without fail. That was good.

Severia gasped at something imaginary behind the young worker, and when Constance whipped her head around to start her apologies to the old matron that wasn't there, the shorter brunette pulled her dagger and hit the base of her skull with the hilt. Severia quickly caught the other woman, and looked up to find a small, empty bedroom with the door wide open. She counted her steps as she walked towards the room, dropped the girl gently on the floor, and closed the door. It wouldn't be good if someone walked in just to find a girl knocked out on the ground while she was… preoccupied. After closing the door, she peered into the large room to her left filled with shoddy beds and tiny children sleeping in them.

She smiled quietly to herself, knowing that when they woke next their lives would be much more interesting.

She admittedly had a soft spot for orphans. She knew what it was like to be hated by her family and cast out. Granted, she had her sister with her. But as far as their father was concerned, the cursed Siren was now an orphan.

Severia locked her eyes on the only other door in the small building. Another bedroom, she assumed, right next to the one that kept her knocked out victim. She tested the doorknob, found it was unlocked, and let herself in.

The old woman was fast asleep, a serene smile gracing her wrinkled face.

The brunette couldn't help but grin to herself as she felt the blood begin to pump harder through her veins. There were multiple people in this building, fast asleep and unaware. And here she was, ready to slaughter the poor woman in her own home.

Severia drew her blade and stepped up to the bed. She stared down at the hag for just a few more painfully long seconds before gripping her victim's face over their mouth and sliding the dagger roughly across her throat.

Grelod's eyes shot open in fear, but they started glazing over almost immediately. A muffled gurgle erupted from the old woman's throat, and then there was silence. Severia watched with intensity as the thick globules of blood poured out from the wound splitting her victim's skin. She couldn't see through the pools of the thick syrupy fluid, but she was sure she'd split the bitch's windpipe nearly in half.

Severia let out a breathe she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her whole body tingled with adrenaline, and her self inflicted asphyxiation left her light headed and woozy. She slowly removed her hand from the hag's slack jaw, using the edge of the bed's quilt to wipe the blood from her blade and hands.

It was done.

It was the first time she'd killed since the well had given her life.

And damn, was it better than sex had been.


Severia hadn't lingered in Riften. She'd left the night she killed old Grelod the Kind, running into the shadows of the town, dark and unseen like a plague on the wind. Her adrenaline took her halfway to Ivarstead before she slowed to a walk.

She laughed. A grin split her face to reveal two rows of white teeth, and bated breath became visible vapor in the air.

She felt so alive.

And she did the first thing her body felt like doing.

She sang.

She burst into her song, feeling every word and praying that her Enigma could feel it from wherever it was. She screamed out into the nighttime wind, not caring if anyone heard her. When her song reached its peak, she ran her fingers through her curly hair, not caring that there was probably still blood on them. As her song ended, she dropped to her knees in the middle of the old country road.

Why hadn't she done that sooner?

Gods, how her sister would hate her.

Footsteps through the grass made her lift her head and look to her left. There stood two men, obviously bandits, and they were slowly approaching with swords raised. They were whispering among themselves about how lucky they were to stumble across a beautiful woman all alone, crazy as she might be.

Oh, lucky indeed.

"What's a pretty little thing like you doing all the way out here?" The first man said. They walked shoulder to shoulder, attempting to make themselves look more threatening than they were.

Severia didn't move until they were right up on her. As one of them blinked, she pulled the still-stained dagger from her sleeve, letting the weapon slide across two throats in one speedy swipe.

The force of her blinding stroke stopped the men in their tracks, and hot, sticky blood showered over her, staining her from head to toe. They fell, lifeless, to the ground below her. She stood over the bodies, the cold bite of the wind feeling wonderful against her wet and heated face. She dropped the dagger to the ground, looking down at the life essence coating her bare hands. She could feel the hot liquid quickly cooling on her skin. She was shaking and she was breathless.

And she was in the middle of a public road.

Severia rapidly whipped her head around, taking in the empty space of the night around her. Her senses were on high alert, and after a few moments of silence, she decided that she was safe for now.

She let out a rattling breath, stooping slowly to pick up her dagger.

Well that was fucking sloppy.

As a thief, Severia never let herself get this caught up. The thrill of stealing was nothing compared to this, and she was scared. For the first time, Severia realized with a huff, she was scared of something.

The adrenaline rush that came along with killing was tenfold the rush he got from stealing. She was unprepared. She'd been so caught off guard, that she hadn't been able to control herself.

Severia shook away those thoughts temporarily as she started walking to the river's edge, which was thankfully close by. As much as she wanted to just completely submerge herself in the cool water, it was the middle of the night.

In the middle of winter.

She removed her heavy cloak, leaving herself in only a pair of leather pants, fur boots, and a long sleeved white shirt that pinched at the wrists. Her clothes under her cloak had survived most of the damage, but there were small spots where the blood had gotten itself on her white blouse.

Sloppy.

She washed her cloak as best she could in the river, knowing that if it had been daytime she'd see the blood flow freely down the stream. After her cloak, she splashed her face and hands with cold water, the residual adrenaline keeping the young imperial from freezing to death.

Three hours and she'd killed three people.

The first was fine. That was planned. Executed with all the stealth and precision she had gained from her years of thievery. But the last two had been unplanned.

The irony wasn't lost on her. She had been singing in the night, and that song had attracted those two men here.

Her song had lured them to their deaths.

Maybe there was a little bit of truth to those childhood nicknames.

Granted, they were just your everyday bandits. Thankfully nobody would think much about their deaths. They had approached her first with weapons drawn, and she had only defended herself. Severia shook her head, knowing that was bullshit. The Severia she'd been yesterday would've run. She definitely could've gotten away. She could've outrun them easily, and if that didn't work, she could've lost them in the shadows of the night.

No. She was lucky they were bandits.

She was sure that if anyone else had approached her in that moment, she would've slit their throats as well.

She had to get this shit under control before the Brotherhood came for her. Who knew what kind of temptations she'd face surrounded by murderers just like her.


Two days later and Severia was in Ivarstead with a clearer mind and a new set of clothes. Her brown leather pants had been salvageable, but her new fur boots and white blouse had been a little more blood-stained than the average Skyrim citizen's clothes. Her favorite gray cloak was completely unusable, and so she had reluctantly tossed it long before entering the small village. She knew that the cloak most likely made her look suspicious, but less-so because it was winter. She'd replaced her heavy fur boots with a pair of lighter, black leather ones, and her white blouse was replaced with a newer, thicker model. For added warmth, she decided on a thick brown leather vest with a black wool hood attached to it.

With her large purchase, the girl working the front desk of the shop had thrown in a pair of black leather gloves that clung to her hands and wrists like a second skin. Severia flexed her hands a few times before thanking the girl with a sincerity that surprised herself.

She stopped by the local woodcutter's shop with the intention of only window-shopping, but a beautiful handcrafted dagger caught her eye. Though the place sold mostly wooden products, it seemed they picked up the stray non-bow weapon here and there.

The dagger was made from one solid piece of black steel, and it was thinner and slightly longer that the one she currently carried. The black leather strips that hugged the hilt were knotted professionally to avoid fraying. The faint glow that danced on the edge of the blade suggested that it was enchanted. The poor woodcutter most likely had no idea.

Severia had bought the new weapon for a mere 50 septims, which she was glad for. If the man decided her offer was too low, she was just going to come back later to steal it.

She tucked her new blade into her right boot, deciding to keep it as a backup. Her everyday steel dagger drew less attention than her new enchanted beauty. She had to remember to find a mage to identify the enchantment later.

The Vilemyr Inn hostess had been kind enough to draw her a bath the night before, so Severia was feeling immensely refreshed and clear-headed. Her thick brown curls were cleaned and tamed, and after brushing them out she realized that they had grown an inch or two longer since she had last inspected it. She pulled it back into a loose braid, only a few hairs straying from the leather strip that bound it all together.

Severia sat on the river's edge alone now, listening to the rushing water. She sat there humming softly to herself, enjoying the moment of peace. She didn't often enjoy mornings, but today felt new. She felt new.

The last few days had changed so much. She realized that she had passion in her blood, and if left unattended, that passion could be the death of her. She had killed before, but it hadn't given her the rush it did this time around. She should've seen this coming, honestly, because the way she felt about a lot of things changed after her Enigma in Cheydinhal opened her up. Most of the time, Severia couldn't predict her own reactions to new situations.

She had to be more careful. No more getting lost in the thrill. If she wanted this to continue, she had to remain calm and collected at all times, especially during her fits of newfound passion. She didn't have her Enigma around to keep her emotions in line, so she had to avoid risky situations like that until it was found.

But the deed was now done. There were no witnesses, but Severia had left a hell of a mess.

How long did she have to wait before the Dark Brotherhood took notice of her? If they didn't contact her soon, should she kill again? How long did it take for information to reach the notorious assassin's guild?

Her thoughts were interrupted when a courier approached her, waving a letter in front of her face. His fake workplace grin made here wary of him, and she didn't take the outstretched letter.

He swallowed a lump in his throat, unnerved by her glare. "Uh, I have a message. Your eyes only."

Severia looked at the man in disbelief. No one in this god-forsaken country knew who she was. Or where to find her for that matter. "Not mine."

"Well, I was told to give it to you. Didn't say who it was from, but they said it was urgent. Even paid a little extra to get it here quickly." His hand stayed in it's place in front of her face.

"Tch," She snatched the offending letter out of her face. "Don't come asking for it back when you realize you delivered to the wrong person."

He didn't respond, and instead turned on his heels to walk as far away from the intimidating imperial lady as he could.

Severia looked down at the folded parchment, turning it over in her hands looking for the name of who it'd been addressed to. Upon finding nothing, she curiously peeled the plain, red wax sealant off the paper.

Inside was the black hand print that consumed her thoughts, and two simple words.

"We know."