Hello all! Finally got this chapter edited for you all, and I hope you guys enjoy it. This is my favourite chapter so far, and I'd love to hear your opinion of it! Thanks for reading:)

The room was empty, except for the Speaker. The warm red light from the stained glass flickered along with the fire. Thérèse stepped in. She knew he was aware of her. Even if she was trying for stealth, she had a feeling that he would be able to pick her out.

She moved to the back of the room, and sat herself in a meditative style on one of the large stone medallions that rose from the ground.

She observed him silently from behind. His hands were clasped loosely at his back, and he stood straight, though not rigidly so. Each consecutive time she saw him, she thought of him less as a shadow, and more of a man. How had she not recognized him? It seemed to fit now that she knew who he was. His face and his voice, though aged, still belonged to him.

"May I have a word, Speaker?" She asked, voice filling the cavernous room.

He sighed. "Yes, of course, Initiate." He did not turn to address her, but his posture seemed more…open, somehow.

She narrowed her eyes as she thought. What could she say, other than what was on her mind. "You sent the letter." She stated softly. She did not need to be loud to let her voice carry in this room.

"Logically, yes. I am the Speaker of this Sanctuary. I recruit possible Initiates." His head was tilted slightly to the side to speak over his shoulder, but he did not turn around.

Her lips quirked gently, knowingly, and the action lent its tone to her words. "That's not what I mean…Terenus." She exhaled, exasperated. "Fasion Terenus." The silence blossomed in the air between them. "I heard Hildegarde mention your name." She sighed and frowned slightly. "I should have recognized you sooner."

"Should you have?" He said slowly, darkly.

Thérèse hummed to herself. "Your eyes. Like steel. I thought it when I saw you in the lighthouse, but I didn't connect it. I've only ever met one other person with eyes like that."

"Such flattering words, Initiate." His words were softer, though still as dark.

She slipped off of her perch and walked over to him, footfalls barely making a sound on the stone floor. Taking her place beside him, she looked up at the stained glass. It was a beautiful masterpiece depicting a heart, pierced by a simple blade. It could mean many things, but to Thérèse, it meant closure. Closure, certainty, and penance. Those who's lives are taken from them get their due, and their blood washes clean their trespasses. "Can I see it?" She inquired lightly. Behind her voice was a veiled strain, something beyond pain, and rooted in nightmare. She was certain he heard it. Her pale hand stretched in front of her.

He deposited the coin lightly into her palm, and she pulled it closer to her. She'd handled thousands of coins in her life, but this one? This one she would remember. She would feel it cold against her bones any day. She frowned. "Beyond recognizing you, I should think I would have remembered this, when I saw it at the lighthouse. The way the fire glinted off of it…" She trailed off, jaw clenching around her words. She held it back out for him to take. "Well, it seems to work." She sighed. "You remembered me, at any rate."

He pinched the coin between his middle finger and forefinger, and twisted it in the light of the brazier. "Hmm…I didn't need the coin for that, Initiate."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" She asked, eyes like flint, still trained on the coin. 'Here, for your trouble.' His voice still followed her, through nightmare into waking hours. "You had no hope of keeping your name from me."

He chuckled. "A game, Initiate. Perhaps I wanted to see if you'd recognize me." He finally looked at her, eyes sharp as ever. "Or perhaps I tire of introductions."

Her eyebrow rose. "Introductions were made long ago."

"Yes. As I recall, my father was writhing pitifully on the floor of my family's basement when I first saw you." His lip quirked. "Such an artfully vicious death…"

Her jaw clenched and she looked ahead of her. The screams and moans of Galen Terenus had been etched into her mind, perhaps even what would have been her soul. Where once they had been sweet music, they had soured over the years. What good was it that his death was painful? His pain hadn't taken what he'd done away. It didn't change that she was alone, and angry, and short a family. Well, maybe not short a family… "It was a miracle the spell worked." She murmured absently, eyes unblinkingly observing the stone wall before her.

He cast his eyes down at her, observing her posture, her icy gaze. "Disintegrated him from the inside out. It was an intricate spell, for one so young. And the Sermonizer got a taste of it too, it seems." So that's why he was so interested in the way she had killed her.

She blinked and met his gaze, all silver and cold and full of thought. If his father hadn't had such a taste for underage girls, she never would have had to use it. She could see it there, in the set of his jaw, and the lines of his face. He bore a trace resemblance to his father—to the monster that had taught her what hatred truly was. "Come with me, Initiate."

Startled out of her reverie, she frowned and trailed after him. "Where?"

He didn't even turn around to address her. "Somewhere more private to continue our conversation."

When she was younger, words like that would have made her freeze in her tracks like a hare. She was older now, and more sure of her abilities. It wasn't like she expected the Speaker to accost her, but she knew that being prepared was never a bad thing to be. So she followed him, having to walk a little faster than normal to keep up.

He walked into the pool at the foot of the waterfall, but he didn't sink in like she had expected. When she arrived at the edge of the water, she saw that there were little rounds of rock that rose up from the bottom, mere inches from the surface. Stepping carefully, she continued after the Speaker, wondering where they were heading. When she looked up, he was gone.

She frowned. He didn't seem like the type to pull a joke on her. Following the underwater pathway, she only saw the camouflaged entrance to the cavern when she was a foot away. The stone curved around itself in a way that hid the entrance from view at almost any angle. "Interesting." She found herself murmuring as she slipped through the opening.

Candles clung to the sides of the room, but it was by no means bright. She wiped the thin layer of water off of her face with a sleeve.

"An office of mine, as it were. I use it when I am here for business." He turned to her with two empty wine glasses, and gestured for her to have a seat in one of two armchairs.

"I see I get a proper chair this time." She said, studying the room. It was simple, and plain. A small bed was pushed up against the wall, and a desk littered with papers and stained with ink occupied the other corner. It was quaint, but not exactly how she expected a Speaker of the Brotherhood to live.

"Perhaps because there is no dead woman to occupy your seat." He said, voice that mix of shadow and calm. The air was cut by the sound of a popping cork, and Thérèse smiled as the smell wafted towards her.

"Cerisier Doux?" She asked, a laugh in her voice. "I'd have thought that was just to charm me in the lighthouse."

"I've developed quite a taste for it myself, in fact." He murmured duskily, filling both of their glasses. "Very sweet for Breton wine."

It seemed altogether strange for this shadow-cloaked man to be pouring wine and having casual conversation. "It's why I like it." She smiled, sitting primly in her own chair.

He took his seat and threw his hood back, and it took all of her control to hide her surprise at the gesture. He had quite a normal head, to be sure, covered in short, pepper grey hair, but she just hadn't expected to ever see him without shadow around his neck. She supposed she would get tired of being hooded all of the time, too.

He leaned over and looked at her, a crooked smile just barely touching his lips. "You still sit like that, after all of these years."

She blinked and frowned. It was such an odd thing for him to notice, and to say. Why would he care? It was his job to case people, but why remember how she sat when she was fifteen? "I suppose I do." She said stiffly, taking the wine glass into her hands. She was aware now, even more, of how he studied her, how he talked to her.

"You expressed an interest in learning more about the Night Mother." He stated, swirling the wine in his glass as he studied it, eyes narrowed. "What did you want to know."

She frowned, thoughts disjointed and overlapped. The feeling from the lighthouse came back, the feeling of being ungrounded and loose, like something inside her had snapped. "I…I suppose I wanted to know where she came from." She asked, trying to forcefully ground herself. Yes, that was a reasonable question to ask.

His lips pressed against the glass, and he sipped the wine, savored it with his eyes closed. It may have been her imagination, but his lips were a little redder when he turned to her. "That question," He murmured, "I can answer, thoroughly, if you wish." She nodded, unable to find any words to say. Was that a brief smile before he turned his face away from her? Her mind was playing tricks.

"The Night Mother was once mortal, like you and I, and she was chosen by Our Dread Father to fill the Void with souls in his name. He beget her five children, and when he demanded it, she sent their souls to the Void as well."

Thérèse nearly choked on her wine, but she managed to swallow it and avoid coughing by a near margin. "She killed her own children?"

He looked at her as if her surprise was the odd response. "Of course. She sent them to their father in the comforting embrace of the Void, where no evils could harm them, no weapons touch them. Where they could know only the love of their father, and of their mother." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back in the armchair. "The Void, where we will all rest one day."

But she wasn't listening, not intently. In her mind's eye, she remembered that day, sixteen years ago. Oh, to hold her child in her arms...Only once did she see her before they took her away to be someone else's.

Those little, tiny hands—fingers thinner than a flower stalk. Eyes just open to the world, and cheeks as soft as down.

"Monet?"

At first she hadn't heard it, or at least, she didn't register it. It was someone she used to be. Then, she blinked, and turned to Terenus in confusion. "What?" She jerked her head side to side. "I don't go by that name anymore."

He half nodded, eyes locked in hers. "Yes. Yes, of course. Initiate."

Something wet moved on her face, and she closed her eyes in horror at the realization that she'd been crying. In front of the Speaker. With a shaky hand, she wiped the single tear away. Her hands never shook. Why were they unsteady now? What had he said earlier in the lighthouse? The weak deserve their apportioned reward.

"You know the love of a mother, Initiate." His voice, deceptively soft, met her through her closed eyes. "That is the love the Night Mother feels towards you, and all of her children. One day, we will take our place next to her in the Void."

Did the Night Mother love her? Well, right now was not the right time to do soul searching. Hmm. Soul searching. She was clearly affected by something, the wine, probably. "If that's all, Speaker." She rose, hands folded at her stomach.

He rose too. "Actually, I have a task for you, if you're interested." His eyes glinted with something close to cruelty. "A contract."

She took a breath to rally her nerves. There was no need to run and hide like a startled deer. "I'm interested."

He nodded. "Good. But before we proceed, I offer you a challenge. Two, in fact." His voice dropped even deeper, into the depths that spoke of murder. "Consider it a bonus—a chance to demonstrate your skill. If you succeed, I'll reward you. If you fail?" He paused. "So be it. As long as the target dies, the Sacrament is fulfilled." She nodded to show that she was listening. He turned from her, arms folded behind his back. "Your target awaits in the Smuggler's Den. It's a damp and torchlit cave—the perfect hiding place for fugitives and witless thugs."

"And the challenges?" She inquired, intrigued by the strange stipulation.

"True followers of Sithis are like wraiths—only visible when they wish to be." He expounded. "Show me that you are a master of stealth. Complete your task without alerting the residents of the Smuggler's den to your presence." She began to respond, but he continued. "The work of an assassin demands secrecy, certainly, but also speed. With that in mind, I challenge you to finish your dark work before the tunnel's Overseer arrives."

"It will be done." She responded swiftly. Two challenges. Be silent, be swift. She turned to go, but he continued further.

"It seems that our target has a taste for the fouler things in life. We should give them a taste of their own bitter medicine, don't you agree? Use poison to kill your prey."

Wasn't that three challenges? "Is there anything else?" Thérèse intoned, not very successful at filtering the irritation out of her voice.

"I'm glad you asked." He replied silkily. "Apparently these smugglers have unearthed an object of some value. A Kwama Queen Egg. Rumor has it that they're quite beautiful. The promise of a new, industrious colony contained in a single vessel."

Did he want her to steal it? They were large, weren't they? How would she carry it?

"Destroy it." He growled, voice steel and sharp.

She had to bite her lip to keep herself from repeating his words in shock, and clenched her jaw. Of course. He was a murderer, not an acclimated member of society. Of course he wanted it destroyed. And yet, with all of this, she realized she didn't even know who she had to kill. "Who is my target?"

"A chef named Daynil Uveleth. She was called to prepare a great feast for House Hlaalu. Alas, she used sour kwama eggs in her famous soufflé. Dark Elf nobles are not fond of parties that end with relentless vomiting. Kill this cook."

Even irritated at her task of destroying the egg, Thérèse had to smile at the way he said those words seriously. "Her soul will fill the Void by the end of the day." She responded. What all did she have to do again? Not be seen, leave quickly, destroy the egg, and kill the cook. Oh, but she had to kill the cook with poison, as well. A laundry list of challenges. Why on earth was he so interested in challenges?

Deep in her thoughts, she had not noticed him turn. He walked towards her, only a few inches taller, but towering all the same.

She held her ground, swallowing absently. From this distance, she could smell the cherry wine on his breath.

"Do not dally." He murmured. "A throat awaits your blade's sharp kiss." If his eyes flickered to her own throat, it was so quick that she couldn't be sure.

Her eyes wanted to flutter, but she held them to a simple blink. "Yes, Speaker." She turned and walked out of the alcove as slow as she dared, and breathed in the misty air with ferocity once she was gone from that room. Never had she been more thankful for clear air in her life.


He sat down roughly in the chair and growled, jaw clenched tightly. He barely resisted the urge to throw his glass against the stone wall, but set it down in favor of filling it up again. He was a fool, may Sithis curse him a thousand ways.

It was folly bringing her here, he had always known that. But the coin in his pocket, heavier than it should be, weighed against his better senses.

He couldn't get his father's body out of his mind, no matter how many other deaths piled themselves on top. When Galen had stilled and gone cold, Terenus had seen the aftermath of the storm inside his stomach. The damage it had done, the ruthless pain the sorceress had caused…

It was a beautiful, haunting kill.

Not like his first kill. The Nursemaid's body had been clumsily strung up from the rafters, to hide the strangle marks on her neck. It had been a gods-send too, that the city guard bought the forged suicide note.

He had hated her, but it hadn't been the elaborate, all consuming, body rending hate that filled the fifteen year old form of Monet Rienne. He'd been the one to lock the windows of course, and he'd been lucky she hadn't had the slightest notion of how to pick a lock. He chuckled. "She still doesn't." His murmur held too much warmth when it met his ears. He was not supposed to be warm. He was a Speaker, the manifestation of Sithis' spoken word!

And that, that was the trouble with her. He told himself that he had tracked her down because she was interesting, because she possessed skills that the Brotherhood coveted.

He needed to continue being interested in her, nothing more.

He froze as the wine touched his lips. The flavor of sweet cherry mixed with the sour musk of alcohol in his palate. The glass lowered subconsciously.

Deep, dark red, like the subtle calm of her mouth. Cherry, like the reddish tint to her dark hair. Rich, like the hazel of her eyes.

She had enchanted him when he was younger, with her poise and cold hatred, and the spring years of his life had painted her like a flower.

He let out a breath and shook his head, hopeless to the battle strung up inside his bones. Only now did he know that she was nothing like the limp petals of a plant. No, she was like vintage wine.

The glass shattered in his grip, sending red droplets along his skin. They pooled in his palm and dripped to the floor, and with silver eyes, he watched them fall.


It was beautiful. Amber with little veins of gold…it shimmered with life. She had no trouble slitting a throat, but this gave her pause. It was a kwama. A giant insect. She didn't really like bugs, so why did this bother her?

Maybe it was because it was helpless, and because it was thousands of lives, not just one. At any rate, he'd ordered her to destroy it.

But did she have to?

She could merely mention that it was surrounded by guards. Or that the Overseer was arriving and she wanted to be gone before he came. She sighed. But he'd know. He'd read her like a book. It would probably get around the Sanctuary too, one way or another. Then, in Venom's journals, deep in the pages marked with her name, he would write: 'Weakness—loves kwamas.'

She grabbed a rock, held it above the fleshy shell, and dropped it. With a sickening squelch, the shell broke and fluid rolled out like melting moon-sugar-cane.

Thérèse grimaced and stepped away into the shadows, hoping Sithis didn't mind bugs. She'd already cased the route to the target, and studied the movements of the guards. There was a moment where Daynil was very alone, and she would make her kill then.

Dark Elf nobles are not fond of parties that end with relentless vomiting.

She caught her breath and froze at the remembrance of his voice in her head. All the way from the Sanctuary, he had been haunting her. That dark, serious voice. His breath that smelled of cherries…his lips red with wine.

She narrowed her eyes and would have cursed herself, was she not hiding in a barrel waiting for a warden to pass by. She needed to get the Speaker out of her head.

It was just the way he had been acting….it was strange. And the wine? He had remembered that all these years too? Why bother with her? Why now?

She crept along the wall and into the shadowy alcove, and the cook was in sight. She pulled out a throwing dagger and poured her vial of poison onto it. Better make this count.

She frowned, confused at how much she wanted to complete Terenus' challenges. It didn't matter, did it? But…she wanted to make him proud, she knew that. The trouble was, she didn't know why.

She thought of him, leaning back in his chair, throwing off his hood…his hair was already half grey, and he was only a year older than her.

"You!" A voice hissed. Dread and horror clutched her.

Daynil had seen her. The spry Dunmer cook threw a rock straight at her, and she tried to roll out of the way. It clipped her head and sent the world reeling. The poison dagger clattered somewhere on the concrete.

The cook lunged with a knife, and Thérèse rolled, and rolled again, trying to escape its edge. Still dazed, she tried to grasp the cooking knife. She didn't dare try to feel for the poisoned dagger on the ground, lest she cut herself with it.

She caught the Dunmer's wrist, and wrenched at it with all of her might. She felt the bone twist out of place, and the cook gave a hollow gasp of pain.

Her pocket. In her pocket she still had a second vial of poison.

She fought to hold back a scream as the cook bit down hard on her neck, but she knew it was her chance.

She grabbed either side of the cook's mouth and pressed hard, forcing her jaw open. The second vial of poison was already in her hand. She shoved it in the open mouth and closed her jaws down, hard.

Muffled sounds of breaking glass met with muffled screams, and it was all Thérèse could do to hold her down and keep her from making too much noise until she finally stilled.

Either the guards had heard her, or they hadn't. Regardless, she had to make it out of there quick.

"The overseer should be here soon, a few minutes." Came the voice of a guard.

Thérèse saw them coming from the shadows, and she darted into the dark corridor, hoping against all hopes that she could make it to the mouth of the tunnel before the second guard made his rounds.

Just barely. She dove into a barrel as lithely as she could, and waited for his footsteps to pass. When they did, she curled out of the container, and made it to the tunnel entrance.

As she snuck away behind some boulders, she heard the sound of horse hooves.

"Overseer, we're so glad you arrived safely."

Despite her aching head and bleeding neck, she smiled.


She made her way to his room first, expecting him to be there. Only, he wasn't. On the table was the bottle of wine, still uncorked, and on the floor was a broken glass.

Her forehead creased as she stepped towards it. She crouched and reached out a finger to touch the broken glass, and it came away with a droplet of rosy wine.

"Have you dispatched your victim, Initiate?"

She spun around, cheeks warming even against her will. She stood on legs far more unstable than she would have liked. "The target has been eliminated, Speaker." She pushed out despite herself.

His eyes flickered from the broken glass to her face, and his lips formed a thin line. "Well done. What about the challenges that I posed for you?"

The egg, the poison, the stealth, and the speed. "Yes, I completed all of them." Just barely, and not thanks to him…But it wasn't his fault she'd been too distracted by the thought of him to complete her kill cleanly.

"Performed with all the care befitting the Night Mother's sacred work. Your devotion to this task has not been overlooked." He stepped forward, and his eyes trailed down to her neck. He raised a hand towards her.

Unwittingly, she took a step back. It was enough to make her want to snap at herself. She prided herself at keeping calm, staying reserved, staying collected. Yet today she couldn't do anything without letting herself get caught off guard.

His eyes flickered up to her face, as if to gage whether or not he could safely continue his advance. His fingers rested briefly on the curve of her neck, where the cook had bitten her. When his fingers left her skin, where they'd rested still tingled slightly. "The kill didn't go as cleanly as you'd hoped, Initiate?"

She hated the question in that voice, hated the insinuation. But it was true, wasn't it? She hadn't set her mind to the task. What was she doing, letting her emotions get the better of her?

She sighed. "No, it didn't, Speaker."

He lifted his chin and regarded her though intense eyes. "No matter. You did well today. Get that cleaned up before it festers."

Inside, she was relieved that he hadn't said something worse. "Thank you." She stepped out of the room and squared her shoulders, setting out for her portion of the bunkroom.

The only one there was Mirabelle, and her crystal eyes snapped to her as soon as she entered.

"Ah, my dear Monet, what's gotten your face so red?" She asked, voice smooth and low.

Thérèse pulled a robe out from her drawers and turned to fix her friend with a frown. "What do you mean, Mirabelle?"

The enchantress just fixed her with heavy eyes. "You're flushed. Don't make me jealous now. I might think there's someone else." She winked, and the older woman just smiled.

"Must be arterial spray." She shrugged, taking a page out of Elam's book. "I'm going to go get washed up."

"Want me to join you?" Mirabelle joked, giving another wink.

"No, thank you." Thérèse laughed, turning the corner.

She could just make out Mirabelle's reply, "You're loss," as she walked away. It was good that she was getting over Cimbar's death, at least on the outside.

Was she right though? Were her cheeks flushed? If anyone could spot that sort of thing, it was Mirabelle. Today had just been…strange. She'd probably had too much wine.

The bathing pools were made out of several underwater springs that seeped up from below, and the cavern was dark and only lit by a few candles in the corners.

"I wont look if you don't." Chuckled Elam as he sauntered by, wearing only a towel around his waist. Moments later, she heard a splash at the left corner of the room.

She sighed, but decided Elam was no harm. She took the opposite corner, and was pleased by the darkness that encircled her.

"Back from a contract?" He asked, voice disembodied in the darkness. "I saw the Speaker lure you into his lair."

It felt good to get the grime out of her hair and off of her skin, but her neck stung terribly as the hot water touched it. "Yes, I had to kill a crazy cook and destroy a kwama queen egg."

"Now that sounds like a story." He said dryly. "But kwama queen eggs are immensely valuable. Who wanted you to destroy it?"

With gentle fingers she washed the dried blood away from her wound, but the grooves in her skin made her queasy. They were the grooves of Dunmer teeth. "Speaker Terenus." She replied, her voice tinged with pain.

"You all in one piece over there?" He asked.

She laughed, though she still hurt. "Yeah. As I said, the cook was crazy. She bit me."

He let out a low whistle. "How'd you off her?"

Thérèse dunked her head under the warm water to rinse off her hair. "Well, I was trying to catch her with a poisoned throwing knife, but she spotted me. I had to shove a whole vial of poison in her mouth, in close quarters."

He laughed. "Brutal. Well, I'd say that was payback for the bite, wouldn't you?" There was some loud splashing, indicating he was getting out of the pool. "Better heal that wound up after you wash it." He said, voice moving further away. When he reached the light of the corridor, she could make out his retreating form.

Now the dark, warm waters were her own, and she sank down into them, closing her eyes against the world. The events of the day passed through her mind, and one by one, she noted them and folded them away. With each passing moment, her shoulders grew more and more limp, and her muscles unwound their stresses.

The warm glow of restoration magic covered her shoulder, and then the bump on her head, knitting the swollen flesh back together. With the pain mostly gone, she felt truly relaxed.

She'd been imagining it, hadn't she? The tension between her and the Speaker was just normal awkwardness, that's all. She smiled at the simple revelation. Tomorrow would be more normal, and so would the next day.

But then, in the dark, a thought occurred to her. It was just a tiny, unimportant question, but it bothered her all the same.

How could Speaker simply drop his drink? Had the broken wine glass been an accident at all?

"What else could it be?" She murmured to herself. The hollow cavern had no answer for her.