The witchcraft started after my father died. Factory accident. She'd gone there to demand answers and they'd turned her away and she'd fallen into a black mood, so deep it was as if a stranger had taken my mother's place. She'd go to the shore and walk for a long time, in the early hours of the dawn, and I think it was there she found her rune. She carried it with her, for luck, and in time she began to forget my father. Then one morning she woke and there were marks on her hand and I was too young to question them. My brother hid all of this from me. He'd tell me stories if I ever thought I could hear the song of the rune so that I forgot it and he covered up the drawings my mother made in blood. He sheltered me from all of it and I remained blissfully ignorant.
Then they took my brother and I was left with just my mother.
I thought for most of my childhood that the Abbey took him. As I grew older, I thought perhaps he'd ran away. For after he was gone, my mother's attention turned to me. I would be her legacy. And that was when she began to hit me and while I often thought of running away myself, I could not. I was all she had left. I'd lost my father and my brother. I couldn't lose my mother too.
My mother only wanted the best for me. That is what she'd tell me, when she held me close. I remembered the touch of her fingers as they stroked my hair. Her hands always felt cold to me and that is what I started to associate with her. Cold. Distance. I'd sit there and let her console me and be the daughter she wanted me to be. I'd pretend to forgive her and the entire cycle would start again.
She'd sing. In time, I could no longer tell her songs from the singing of the runes she kept. They haunted my waking moments and I'd bear it as best I could. She'd sing to me of the future, that I was special and that she would see that I would be given everything I deserved. That the world would bow at my feet. I was her legacy, her heir. Her mark upon history. She'd tell me that I was special, that I was chosen and that I would do great things. I was her future, she'd tell me, in dreamy voice and when she sang songs to me I think I believed it. Later, reality would sink in, like the ocean water had washed away the fog she cast over my mind. My own mother, bewitching my mind. I'd cry and tell her to stop, that I hated her and wanted nothing of the things she could do, and she would lose herself in those moments and hit me until I relinquished broken at her feet. Her own child. We were strangers sharing the same bloodline.
I lived in a perpetual state of fear. My mother was almost brazen with her power. It was a relief when she finally decided to leave Dunwall and I thought that perhaps things would be different. For a time, it was. I only had to ignore the signs here and there. It wasn't until I found the altar that I realized that I couldn't run, that leaving Dunwall had changed nothing and I was just pretending that things were normal and that there wasn't this black taint in my family. I'd thought it would end when Laut tore the altar apart. I thought perhaps the singing would end, forever, and I'd ran from their argument and ran and ran until I almost collapsed in the street from exhaustion. What did the people think of this tear-stained child running like her heart would burst through their small city? No one tried to help me. I was alone.
And then when I returned home that evening... thinking that perhaps it was over... that this would end... that was when I saw her. Being led into the water. And when it was done and she was dead and he – the Outsider – looked at me, I knew. This wasn't done. Even with her dead, it wasn't done. He knew me, he'd learned my face, knew my name. And it wouldn't end, not until he willed it, not until I was in his grasp and he held me down and I breathed in water and died in the dark.
I was my mother's legacy. The world would bow at my feet. That was the song she sang to me.
I was dimly aware of both Corvo and Terrence converging on me. They took my arms and pulled me away from the painting. I was fighting them, weeping openly, but they pulled me to the couch that Emily had been sitting on and forced me down on it. Emily was about to call for help but Corvo stopped her, asking her to just wait a moment.
"Maybe we pushed her too hard?" Terrence suggested. "She was interrogated by both myself and Thomas..."
"She was looking at the painting of the Outsider," Emily said.
There was a silence between the three. I was shaking now, my chest tight with sobs, my breathing constricted. The Outsider. He'd done this. He'd done this to me, to my mother. She'd worshiped him and he gave her power and she did terrible things with it and then, when Laut tore down her altar, he killed her. I couldn't fight against that so I ran and kept running.
I wouldn't be like her. I wouldn't be like my mother.
How could I outrun the Outsider though? He'd make me into something terrible, just as he'd done to my mother, just as my mother was going to do to me.
I must have been saying something, for suddenly Corvo grabbed either side of my face and forced me to look at him. His dark eyes met mine and for a moment all I could see was his gaze locked with mine.
"Listen to me," he said, his words cutting through my terror. "You don't have the Outsider's mark and even if you did, your will is still your own. Do you hear me? He does not control you. Not now. Not ever."
"My mother-" I gasped.
"She had the Outsider's mark? Show me your hand. Show me your hand, Karissa!"
Terrence removed my gloves. He forced my hand up, my left, so that both Corvo and myself could see it. Bare skin. I flinched away from the sight but Corvo let go of my face and stripped off his own gloves. He held up his own hand and I saw the lines there, stark black, like a tattoo, like lines burned into wood. I cried out and covered my face at the sight.
"No!" I yelled. "No, no!"
"You're not marked!" Corvo said firmly. "You have nothing to fear – dammit."
"You could try hitting her," Terrence suggested dryly.
That cold suggestion brought me around somewhat, the words sinking through.
"Just get away from me," I gasped. "I need – I need air."
They moved away. I sat there, shivering, trying to bring myself back under control. That part of me – Karissa, the spy – seemed so distant now. Just out of my reach. Something had broken free inside me and it was like a wild beast now, rampaging through the hallways of my mind and throwing open all the doors, breaking all the locks. The Outsider had said my ghosts would catch up eventually. Now that they were all free, I could not seem to imprison them again.
She'd sing to me and I'd believe it. She'd sung to others, she told them what she wanted and they walked willingly to their graves. My path was paved with bones, even as a child.
"Karissa," Corvo said, keeping a careful distance. "We need you functional, so this can't last. What has happened to you?"
"My mother had the Outsider's mark," I gasped. "She did... terrible things."
"You said once that a man with black eyes killed your mother. The Outsider?"
I only moaned in response and closed my eyes. I saw it so clearly.
"But that's not possible," Terrence said. "I mean, everything I've heard from Daud – it wasn't much, granted – but that isn't-"
"I know," Corvo snapped in response. "Karissa. That doesn't sound like how the Outsider acts. Are you certain you're remembering it right?"
"I saw. I saw him. He looked at me!"
Corvo sighed and he exchanged looks with Emily and Terrence. I swallowed hard. I needed to get this under control. My breathing was growing calmer now and so long as I avoided looking at the corner that held the painting of the Outsider, I might be able to regain control. Lock all that away again. Forget for a little while longer. I just needed to get on my feet so I could start running again. This was just a stumble. Nothing more.
"It's nothing," I said, wiping the tears from my face. "I'm sorry to cause a scene. None of this is relevant, I apologize for letting it interfere with the problem at hand."
"Not relevant?" Corvo snapped. "I happen upon a spy with a history that's been touched by the Outsider, who is acting on orders from Daud – who has the Outsider's mark, while I'm searching for clues regarding an assassin that has the Outsider's mark? I cannot possibly believe this is all a coincidence."
I just sat there and shook my head. No. That was my past. I shut it away. I left it behind. I forgot it.
"If I might make a suggestion," Terrence said tactfully, "perhaps we should let Karissa rest for a bit? Neither of us have slept this past evening, well, Karissa caught some but it couldn't have been restful, and we've nothing to gain by exhausting ourselves at this point."
"I believe you're correct," Emily replied. "Corvo, we will need to tap our contacts within the Abbey. See if they have an Overseer that's broken his wrist recently. It will have to be discreet."
"That can be done," Corvo agreed. "Until we have a name, there's not much more that can be done. Terrence, go on home. I'll send for you when you're needed."
Terrence did not seem to like his dismissal, but he was hardly in a position to protest.
"Just so we're clear," Terrence said and I heard his voice go tight, "I'm serving you because I don't want you to kill me or any of the Whalers. Or ruin us, since killing doesn't seem to be your style. But after this is done, I'm done. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Corvo replied, his voice just as hard. "I don't think I'll need a powerless assassin in my employ, anyway."
The insult was accepted with only a faint grimace from Terrence. Then he bowed to Emily, and his footsteps were brisk as he walked away. I was left alone with just the Empress and the Lord Protector. I hardly felt safe.
"Now, Karissa," Corvo said, his attention turning back to me. "I will want an explanation on all this. You can give it to me now, or after you rest, but I will have an answer."
"I want to rest," I whispered. I needed time.
"Very well. I'll arrange a guest room here in the tower."
"But-"
"I fear you'll try and slip away."
He did have a point. In the state I was in, the thought had crossed my mind already. That I'd get out of here and just run and risk the retribution of my enemies outside of Dunwall. I was too exhausted and frightened to think clearly. I just nodded mutely and Corvo summoned servants.
He gave them instructions to tend to me when they arrived. He told them I'd been injured, deliberately, and was suffering from hysteria as a result. That they were to see me cleaned up, my bandages changed, and then allowed to sleep and that someone was to remain with me. They did as he ordered and I complied with their efforts, glad to be clean of the sewer and glad that my wounds were healing well with no trace of infection. Then, dressed again in fresh clothing, I was taken to a guest bedroom and allowed to sleep, and one of the servant girls volunteered to sit there the entire time and not leave me alone. I allowed her, finding this oddly reassuring. I'd always slept alone. Even when I slept with men in their beds, I was alone, for I was there to steal their secrets and ruin them. There was no closeness. Now, with a stranger watching over me for no other reason than she thought it'd help, I felt safe.
The feeling would not last. In the last seconds before sleep stole me away, I thought I heard the singing of a rune.
The pieces were falling all around me and it seemed the Outsider would have a hand in them even as they tumbled through the void.