A/N: Apologies for my slow updates, readers-paid work has taken up much of my attention, and I expect that to continue. However, I will keep updating, if at a leisurely pace, and in honor of the buzz created by the Dishonored 2 leak let me present the last chapter of part 2. Hopefully it hits like I mean it to.
/
She could already hear the shouting by the time she reached the stairs.
The fabric of her train wrapped to straining around her arm, strands of hair flying in her face and coif forgotten, she took the library stairs two at a time, cursing the instability of her shoes. She stumbled over the top stair, the voices booming now as she rushed around the corner. She was just in time to see Cole lift Sokolov by the front of his jacket and slam him against the wall.
"—and I'll be damned if I let some slimy ice tongue anywhere near him, d'you understand me?"
He shook the man, pressed him harder against the paneling. Sokolov gripped Cole's wrists, held his composure though his eyes widened and feet dangled inches off the floor. He was just beginning to open his mouth, words careful on his tongue, when her voice cracked through the corridor air. "Cole!"
The protector turned as she dashed up to them, heels clicking angrily on the tile. "What are you doing?"
Certainly only she saw the minute darting of his eyes, down briefly as his grip slackened. He lowered Sokolov to his feet, folding his arms across his chest, gaze finding the ceiling as Sokolov brushed at his coat. Neither seemed willing to look at her.
"What happened?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two. "What's going on? Where's father?"
They were quiet a moment longer, and Jessamine was staring to bristle when Cole cleared his throat. "He fell."
She had gotten that much out of Marta, through the woman's nearly impenetrable sobbing. Her father falling on the stairs, being carried to his quarters, the physician being called—it was absurd. She had nearly laughed at the thought of it then. But now, if haltingly, Cole kept speaking. "He started acting strange. Holding his arm and not talking very well. And . . ."
He trailed off with a wave of his hand, turning to stare at the window. The knot of Jessamine's insides tightened.
"Was he poisoned?" she asked faintly.
"Not likely," Sokolov supplied. "Though I could make a clearer determination if I—"
Cole whirled like a storm, rising to his full, formidable height. "They not teach you how to listen in whatever ice cave you crawled out of?" he spat. "You aren't getting in that room, or do you have to learn the hard way?"
"I merely wish to offer my expertise," Sokolov said, raising defensive hands.
"The doctor's in there already," Cole shouted, thrusting his finger like a sword toward the royal apartments, though its sharpness turned on Sokolov soon enough. "And I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you."
"I have seen the newest science the Academy has to offer!" Sokolov cried as his own anger bubbled up. "I can—"
"You can shut your mouth before I rip that rug off your face and shove it—!"
"Stop it!" Jessamine shrieked, viciously stomping her heel and making the hallway ring with both. "Both of you, stop it!"
They did, to their credit, heads swiveling toward her as if on pivots, three wide eyes staring at her. Their captivation didn't last long, Cole grunting dourly and looking back to the hall drapery, Sokolov clearing his throat. "What has the doctor said?" she asked.
"Hasn't come out yet," Cole answered, nodding at the great double doors flanked by Tower guards.
"How long has it been?" she pressed.
"Not long," he said. "They sent for the both of you right after it happened."
"And you're a doctor?" Jessamine said, turning to Sokolov.
The man was quick to catch on. "Not a physician, no," he replied seamlessly. "But I am aware of the symptoms of many maladies and the affected humors."
"So you can help find out what's wrong?"
"Possibly. I can certainly assist in—"
"Go. Right now," Jessamine said, and the words had barely left her mouth when Cole jerked violently to face her.
"What?" he barked, an instantaneous thing, tone laced with disbelief.
"He can help, Cole!" she snapped.
"He's a painter!" Cole snarled, pointing so viciously at Sokolov that the man stepped back a pace. The protector breathed in deeply, seemed to steel himself even as fury plucked at his brow. "Your Excellency," he hissed, "humoring him with lessons is one thing, but on my father's burnt bones I will not allow some filthy-blooded cretin to perform his witchcraft on the Emperor—!"
"Lord Protector Griggs," Jessamine shouted, echoing about the hall, arms shaking with the curling of her fists, "by the order of Heiress Jessamine Kaldwin, you will allow Mister Sokolov entry, or you will be labeled insubordinate. Do you understand me?"
Cole didn't speak. He barely moved. Only his lip twitched as it fell, his eye wide in his face, body and out-held hands frozen like a bizarre oil painting. She pursed her own lips and tilted her chin, staring at him from beneath her lowered brow. Soon enough the disbelief melted from him like wax, mouth warping into a sneer over gritted teeth. He ripped his gaze from her and cast it to the walls, harsh breaths pushing from his nose like steam.
The world paused for a long moment before she heard the cautious beat of boots behind her, guards approaching from the door. "Sir?" one said.
"Do as she says," Cole replied gruffly, waving a hand before running it over his face, not once looking up. "Let him in."
Jessamine let out a slow breath, shaking in her throat. Her eyes drifted to the floor, her fingers curling and uncurling as the guards murmured nearby, Sokolov answering in kind. A glimpse of a jacket tail caught her eye as the steps receded, and the great doors creaked open and knocked closed. Then it was the two of them left in the quiet, repelled as if by some angry magic.
She lifted her eyes. His hand was pressed to his forehead, back hunched, gaze fixed somewhere she couldn't see. Her mouth opened, slight sounds and hints of murmurs tumbling from her lips. They will help him, Cole she wanted to say. Sokolov can only help—please listen—you're being a fool—please don't—please don't be—
He lifted his head. Slowly, he turned toward her, eye sharply catching the light as he looked her up and down. His brows tilted, and his mouth turned in a frown. "What are you wearing?" he asked, brow drawing in.
She felt a bolt to her chest like he had plunged a blade into her. Looking down, she took in the colorful patterns draping her form, flowing fabric disheveled and strung around her like twine. She felt her hair tugging in odd ways as it fell from its careful arrangement, could only imagine how her make-up had smeared or the smell of drink had eeked into her clothing. She lifted her head (tottering slightly; she'd broken her heel), made to speak, and found nothing to say.
Cole shook his head in earnest this time and turned away. "Go get yourself cleaned up," he said, and marched down the hall without another word. Lip fallen, she watched him go, wanting to shout after—to scream, yell, demand him back. Instead, she stood quiet, feeling the vast silence of the hall around her.
/
Her face stung with the force of her scrubbing, punctured by her own whines and shivers that she refused to heed. Your Excellency, she heard, we will certainly bring you hot water if you would—but she didn't want to stand idle where thoughts could find her, so she flung ice cold water against her face and scoured viciously with the cloth. She rubbed until the skin had gone red, stopping only to turn the bristle brush on her arms. Clean away every hint of paint and scent, so she wouldn't have to see it, wouldn't have to think that she was, when—she scrubbed harder.
The servants eventually goaded her from the mirror, into proper clothes and to her quarters. She had hardly settled on her bedside to brush her hair (absently, running the thing over the same spot ten times without noticing) before a knock came at the door.
"Lady Jessamine?" a muffled voice came through the wood to meet her. The door opened a crack, spreading wider, until she saw a hint of lavender and a great, drooping petal peeking through.
"Delilah?"
"Lady Jessamine!" Delilah cried, sending a jolt up Jessamine's spine as she pushed the door open. Streaks of dark mascara were splashed down her cheeks, her beautiful outfit bedraggled, and she hiccupped pitifully as she limped into the room on still-heeled feet.
"Delilah, what—"
"I'm so sorry," she said, coming across the room to Jessamine's side. "I—I thought you—I didn't know why you left and I was, I was so angry and I—" she sniffed and rubbed at her eyes, spreading the black paint across her face. "I didn't know, I didn't—oh my lady, I'm so sorry!"
With shaking hands the girl grabbed Jessamine and pulled her into an embrace, fingers finding the back of her head. Jessamine listened to the sobs and sniffs beside her ear, blinking soundlessly, and wrapped her arms around Delilah's shoulders.
They sat together for a while, Delilah brushing and braiding her hair and neither of them fashioning a word. She sent Delilah away after a time, telling her to prepare for bed and not to worry—Jessamine's smile of assurance was small and weak, but it was the best she could do. When Delilah's sad sniffs had wafted down the hall into quiet, Jessamine sat in the wake of it all, silent and unmoving.
The minutes blurred. She drifted from bed to desk, back and forth again, wringing her fingers as she stared at the parchment layering the wood surface. She glimpsed scrawls in Corvo's hand, brushed other pages aside so she could read his salutations, news of preparations, lighthearted talk of the rainy season. (Three days, she suddenly realized, until his arrival—what she wouldn't give for less, for him to be sitting in her chair at this very moment with downturned brow and anxious fidgeting but listening, always—) But even that did not keep her for long, and she took to wearing tracks in the rug with her pacing, gnawing her lip, wringing her hands.
She felt has if weeks had flown past by the time a knock finally came at her door, her head snapping about like a whipcrack. There was a servant there to escort her, all quiet and shuffling, another to meet her at the study door and guide her through the adjoining entrance to the royal apartments. Then there was the physician, looking particularly solemn as she stepped into the room.
He said something unimportant and fleeting, gone from her mind in an instant as he gestured toward the bed. The four-poster stood imposingly, all great dark wood and drawn curtains. She sensed the physician's words, barely heard them as she reached with twitching fingers to pull the velvet aside.
Her father lay still in the sheets, ashen pallor swathed in purple blankets. He looked slight, a bruise on his cheek, one eye and the corner of his mouth oddly set as if his face had gone slack around them.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked with half a voice, the physician fading back into existence beside her.
He cleared his throat. "My apologies, your Excellency," he answered most professionally, "but we can't be entirely certain. As I said, apoplexy is a complicated condition . . ."
He went on a moment longer, a drizzle of words that left Jessamine the instant she heard them. Her eyes trailed back to her father's pale face, carefully arranged form, the shallow rise and fall of his chest. She wasn't sure if the physician was still talking or not when she spoke up. "Can you heal him?" she asked.
There was certainly quiet then. Jessamine lifted her head, fixed the carefully-arranged man with her gaze. His eyes drifted to the walls, the floor, everywhere but her and her father. "Can you heal him?" she asked again.
"I will do everything I can, your Excellency," he said in earnest, bowing. "That I promise you."
She stared at the top of his balding head, hearing nothing but the creak of her father's breathing. That was what followed her back to her chambers as dawn light fell across the hall floor. It accompanied her as she cloistered herself in the library through noonlight to dusk glow, pouring over medical almanacs in the eerie quiet of the Tower. It followed her still, plucking at her mind as dark fell and she took to the garden overlooking the waterlock, sitting heavily at a table graced with shivering lamplight.
Sokolov, shaken from a revere on the table's other side, actually seemed wary.
"I suppose I know why you're here," he said, turning to tuck his flask into his coat. Jessamine thrust her hand out toward him, gaze locked on the river beyond, seeing him pause out of the corner of her eye. "Perhaps not," he said, and she felt cool metal against her palm.
She wordlessly unscrewed the cap and put the thing to her lips, but even stone-faced as she tried to stay she couldn't hold back the gagging. The repulsive liquid burned as it trickled down her throat and pooled on her tongue. Still, she swallowed it down through the coughing.
Sokolov, wise man he was, didn't say a word, so it was she who spoke first. "Is it true?" she asked. "What the physician said."
"You mean the diagnosis," he said after a beat of quiet. She nodded. He sighed. "Yes. I recommended it, and we agreed that the symptoms were consistent."
Jessamine took another pull that was little easier to swallow. Bleeding in the brain. A fist to her lips, she choked back the awful taste.
They sat in silence as the sky darkened overhead, only the sloshing liquid sounds passing between them. She caught him staring once, and the world shifted oddly as she turned and narrowed her eyes at him. The feeling came again when she lifted her hand to the sky and finally spoke, asking the name of a consolation she thought she recognized, the words wavering like overfull water glasses in her mouth.
Sokolov answered like he had not heard, once or twice more before he asked for a drink himself. Jessamine handed it over reluctantly—it had become less and less vile with each swallow—and he extracted a folding cup to contain his portion.
"Will he be all right?" Jessamine asked as she watched him pour, listened to the odd tinny sound of liquid on metal, and felt it the right time.
"That is . . . hard to say, my lady," he answered, tipping the flask back to cap it. "Apoplexy is an odd affair."
"So he may die," she said stonily, "or he may live as a lesser man."
"Or he may recover and live as he has always lived," Sokolov responded. "It is . . . complex."
"Whoever would have thought you to be the optimist," she mumbled, slouching in her seat.
"I like to remain open to all possibilities," he answered. "And what are you then, my lady?"
"I am angry," she said long before she comprehended his question, if she ever did in the way he meant. Her nose wrinkled and lips pursed, and she gestured insistently for the flask. "My father is dying, our protector is a brute, I'm surrounded by beasts of people"—the canteen found her hand and she took a swig, quick and vicious—"and the one person I want with me isn't here!"
The pang of the flask hitting the table reverberated through the courtyard like a ship bell through fog. She left it standing upright there, folding her arms over her chest as she stared into the darkness. "And if you tell anyone about this," she said, turning to Sokolov, "you'll wish for the Yaro prison wastes."
"Naturally," he replied, pouring himself another thimble. "You can be sure I'm nothing if not discrete."
"Good," she said, but as they lapsed into silence she fidgeted anxiously, thought through the haze of drink. "And it's . . . not to say I don't appreciate your company."
"Such kind words, my lady," he said, sliding the flask over to her and raising his tin. "Best drown them before they cause you trouble."
She let out a puff of a laugh—a small, weak thing—took the flask up and said cheers. To health she thought bitterly as she sucked the drink down, and to the Kaldwins.
/
Her head ached viciously when she awoke the next morning, and when Marta came to call the nurse put it up to grief—which was certainly true, in its way.
After a strong brew and a bit of lavender to her temples, they let her in to see her father, still as stone beneath his blankets. He had woken briefly in the night, the physician told her—not long enough for the maids to retrieve anyone, he assured when Jessamine turned narrowed eyes on him—and had spoken strangely, as if it were a struggle for him. Normal, the physician said as she put a hand on her father's shoulder, normal, and when anything changed or he awoke again she would be the first to know. Of course.
She tried to write, but her fingers stood dumb, gaze blurring as she stared at the page. Restless feet carried her about the Tower and she got lost in its corridors, coming to herself far from where she remembered being. Once she ran directly into a frazzled maid, the first she had seen in days. On another occasion she almost didn't recognize the east wing. A third she heard the foreign sound of voices as she awoke in the corridor overlooking the foyer, looked down to see Marta speaking to a well dressed man as indistinguishable as any other.
"—ready to accept the delegation?" she heard him say, echoing through the great and empty expanse. "She must be prepared to perform these duties if—"
"The Royal Protector can serve well enough for now," Marta answered, voice hard. "And if the Serkonans can't appreciate the circumstances, then . . ."
Jessamine did not hear the rest, footsteps carrying her to the garden stair, mind supplying a quiet never of its own.
/
Her mind had just grown calm enough for sleep—her exhausted body yearning for it, her bedroom candles hours since snuffed out—when a sharp crack split her misty dreams.
She jerked at the sound, rolling over as it came again, clearer this time: a knock at her door, swift and insistent. "Yes?" she called hoarsely, sitting up in bed. The door opened instantly, and as she squinted against the sudden light she found a maid looking in, candle clutched tight in one hand, looking pale.
"Lady Jessamine," she said, "the physician has asked that you come right away."
What little sleep had eeked into her mind vanished in an instant. She scrambled out of bed, dressing quickly and clumsily, a wave of dread spreading through her chest as if to smother her.
The maid escorted her to the study, and near the adjoining door with the royal chambers they found the physician, hovering and fidgeting. "He asked for you, your Excellency," he murmured as Jessamine approached. "Or spoke your name, rather." Clearing his throat, he seemed unable to meet her eyes, gaze locked on a spot of nothing to her right. "He is not well."
A wave of burning cold washed over her shoulders and pooled in her belly, a pitiful sound pulling from her lips as if she were losing air. She looked past him into the room, moving without feeling.
She saw someone kneeling at the edge of the bed, broad shoulders holding back the four-poster's gently shifting curtains. Cole. She heard him murmuring, indistinguishable, broken with soft pauses where he seemed to be listening to what she could not hear. In a better moment she might have thought to sit, grant him proper privacy, but instead she stood dumbly in the center of the room, watching through a break in the fabric. She saw something move inside and breathed in, lips pursing to a thin line.
After a time Cole took notice of her, glimpsing back before turning in full and meeting her eyes. Slanted brows, a set jaw, something in his gaze that was so strange and yet clear—a hopeless knowing. An affinity.
He did not linger long. Starting, he quickly turned back to the confines of the bed, leaning close. The curtain shifted further and she could see her father's face cloaked in shadow, Cole tilting his ear close to listen. His gaze slid to the ceiling, drifting as if on a current, frown deepening. Eyes closed, brows turned down, pained lines etched into the grooves of his face. He nodded.
Another pause, perhaps a few words, and he rose as if lifting a blood ox's burden on his shoulders. Jessamine stood still as he approached, clearing his throat when he stopped at her shoulder. "He can't speak very well," he murmured close to her ear. "Best not to upset him. Say what you need."
His steps were heavy as he moved, echoing far, far away. She stared at the gap in the curtains. Her legs seemed not to exist, but they moved her still through the empty white world, depositing her at the bed's edge. Her hands found the mattress, the dark cover, curled in it as her head pressed past the curtain.
Her father turned toward her, small and weak. He blinked with sunken eyes in a pale face, a mist to his gaze as his brows furrowed. For half a moment and a swift, violent jolt she thought he did not recognize her. Then a small smile came to his mouth, his fingers shaking as he lifted them toward her face. "Love," he rasped, and she quickly took his hand.
"I'm here, father," she said, kneeling beside him, a tightness in her chest.
He squeezed her fingers, if weakly. She pressed on a smile of her own, and held his hand between her two as his gaze drifted to the shadows spilling from the canopy.
"Mustn't worry," he said.
"Yes, father," she replied, feeling the softness of his aged skin against her palms.
"Your mother," he said. "Tell her. Love."
Jessamine felt as if she had swallowed a stone. "I will," she answered, a burning behind her eyes.
They sat in silence for a time—she didn't dare stop to measure it—as he gazed sightlessly overhead. She let her own eyes fall, dry and stinging, to the rivulets of fabric on the sick bed, her world the shallow sound of his breaths and the wrinkles under her touch.
In the midst of her mental fog his grip tightened, stronger than she would have thought possible. Her gaze jerked to him; his lips had fallen open in a pant, eyes wide and darting.
"Father?" she said, a sharpness piercing her chest. His eyes snapped to her face, shining with liquid light as they locked there. She felt pinned by his gaze, his lips quivering as if speech eluded him.
"Don't—" she said, and for what little it was worth, held his hand tighter, "it's all right. Just, please, it's okay—"
"Love," he croaked, an urgency to his voice, as if he meant to say something of great importance. Her hand shook with his heavy breathing, and by instinct she pressed her fingers to his forehead, as he had done for her when she was a child.
"It's okay," she said, pushing back his lightened hair, "it's okay."
He grew calm after that, lying back against the pillows as his breathing evened and eyes lidded. She was only just noticing the slowing rise and fall of his chest, the way he sank into the bed, when he weakly rubbed the skin of her knuckles, head lolling toward her. "Love," he said once more. "Be . . . good."
She stared at him in the quiet, blinking as her mind supplied nothing. She tried to understand, watching as he turned again toward the canopy. His eyes drifted open as if he were no longer as tired as he seemed—and then, slowly, his hand loosened in her grip.
For a moment, time ticked by without either of them. Then she rejoined the world, her grasp tightening hard, harder, making up for his lost strength. "No," she whispered to nothing. A sob pressed at the inside of her lips, her own body quivering as she shook the flesh and bone gone limp in her hand. He didn't look away from the shadows. "No!"
Something heavy fell to her shoulder, curled firmly, and with a whimper she turned, still holding tight. "Cole," she bleated, staring up where he stood beside her.
Cole said nothing. Strong against her brittle-feeling frame he lifted her to her feet, her father's hand sliding from her own. The protector murmured something Jessamine barely heard—take her to bed—and there was a servant at her arm, whispering and sniffling. Cole leaned between the curtains, pulling them closed as Jessamine was led through the study door.
Dawn light misted through the windows to touch her shoulder as the servant led her down the hall. The woman kept saying something—I'm sorry my lady I am so very sorry—that Jessamine barely heard, and in a few moments' time she found herself in her quarters, sitting heavily on the edge of her bed.
The servant, through a sniffle, said something and waited silently for a response. Jessamine looked up—moving strangely, she felt, twitching like a tin toy—and the woman shifted anxiously before excusing herself. Or Jessamine supposed she did, saying something and then edging out the door. Silence sat around her, neither heavy nor light. So suddenly and in so organized a fashion, she was alone.
It was a while before she noticed something out of place on her desk: a silver platter, neatly placed. She was not certain what compelled her, but numbly she stood, shuffling across the room. A humble envelop greeted her, warped and weather beaten, rolled and unrolled as if for a hawk's bearing. However, it was the scrawl on its front that caught her eye: Her Excellency Jessamine Kaldwin, it read in bleeding ink, in a hand she instantly recognized.
She plucked the letter up and pulled it open, the paper sticking where water had formed it in bulges and wrinkles. Bending it flat, she held the parchment up to the meager candlelight and read its words through the dried trickle of ink. Slowly her eyes moved down the page—slowly, her hands began to shake.
The floor reached up to strike her knees. The letter, crinkling beneath her clenched fingers, fell away as her hands flew to her face. A horrid sound tumbled from her mouth, like the cry of an animal being torn apart, and tears burned her palms like fire. She tried in vain to breath, every pull for air a shuddering tremor in her chest, and as the desk groaned with the collapsing of her weight she felt she would sink into the ground, swallowed, alone.
As a faraway peel of great bells sounded throughout the city, reaching through the walls of Dunwall Tower, Empress Jessamine Kaldwin curled in, and wept.
/
Dearest Lady Jessamine,
As I write, I hope you are in good health and spirits, despite all that has happened. News of the Emperor's illness has reached Serkonos, and I send my deepest, most sincere condolences. I have no doubt that your heart remains strong, and I hope you find courage and kindness to uphold you during such troubled times.
I am deeply sorry to send unfortunate news, but our entourage has been delayed due to dangerous weather, as naval passage beyond Serkonos has become impossible. We have been forced to dock north of Bastillian, and await clear skies to continue our journey. I apologize sincerely for the delay, and please know that I will do everything in my power to have us back to sea with great haste. Know that there is nowhere I would rather be than by your side, and I will be there soon to help see you through the hard days of your father's trials.
Forever yours,
Corvo Attano
