She felt strange and disoriented as she woke suddenly. Barenziah's outer chamber was pitch black and utterly silent. Beside her, Julan's head lay on the table, his back rising and falling in slumber.
Fen slowly lifted her head, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. Something had woken her. She quietly alighted from the chair and felt a shiver rush up her spine. Something moved in the room beyond. Fen knelt low and went to the screens, peering through a crack at the dark outer room. Three humanoid shapes, blacker than the room around them, moved silently, catlike, along the walls. Curved, silver blades glinted in their fists. Fen's heart thudded in her chest. Though she had dealt with them before, the Dark Brotherhood assassins still gave her an uneasy feeling.
"She's supposed to be in here somewhere," one of them whispered. "Behind the screens…"
Fen squeezed her eyes shut. Still trying to kill me, Father? She turned and touched Julan's arm once. He started awake, giving out a sharp intake of breath as he did so. Fen clamped her hand over his mouth and held stock still. She felt the assassins halt as well. Julan glanced at her, and she removed her hand slowly and nodded at the room beyond the screens. Silently, Julan stood from his chair and they went to the edge of the screens, waiting.
"I heard something," one of the assassins murmured, and there was a sharp sound, like someone sharply smacking someone else.
"Quiet," a second assassin hissed. "You heard nothing." They made it only a few steps closer to the screens before they were almost parallel, and Fen and Julan took this as their cue.
Fen attacked first, letting off a powerful detonation that made the room light up and the assassins stumble in surprise. She drew her staff as Julan pulled his blade, and they attacked together. Julan quickly took down the first assassin with a well-placed slice, and Fen knocked one to the ground with a crack of her staff. The third, however, was quicker, and he darted around and made to seize Fen from behind.
Before he could grab her, Fen cast a glamour at him, a spell that looked like a long sinewy shadow that curled around his legs and forced him to stumble. He turned back to them, and a glint of silver hissed through the air towards Julan. He dodged it, moving forward and grabbing the assassin's arm, throwing him down away from Fen. She aimed a potent shock spell straight at him, and he was reduced to a foul-smelling scorch mark upon the ground.
The second assassin that Fen had knocked aside had regained his footing now, and he lunged toward her, his dagger poised for her throat. Fen deflected his blow with a swift shield spell, reaching past his arm to spread her fingers on his chest, casting a disintegrate armour spell. The spell took hold at once, and his black Dark Brotherhood cuirass smouldered and melted away in a hiss of smoke. He looked down at his exposed chest in surprise, but had no time to act before Julan's sword point split through his middle. Julan yanked the sword out, stained with dark blood, and the last assassin fell to the tile floor.
Fen heard the door behind them open and she turned to see Barenziah in a dressing gown with her clouds of white hair loose around her shoulders, standing in the doorway, staring down at the bodies, her expression troubled.
"Are you both all right?" she asked, looking back up at them, but Fen barely had time to reply before the front door into the chamber burst open. Fen managed to pull Gildan's scarf over her head just as a whole host of guards in Palace armour ran in immediately swarming around the room. One of them managed to pull Fen and Julan aside and have them follow a page to the Throne Room to meet with Helseth again.
The Throne Room was dark, its candles all extinguished, all the intricate stonework coloured the same deep, nighttime blue. Helseth sat, covered by a dressing gown, his hair disheveled and surrounded by several attendants, upon his throne, watching as they approached.
"You were able to hold off the assassins," he said, his voice echoing on the high walls. There was a faint note of disappointment in his voice. The acoustics of the room felt off with only a few people occupying it. "Interesting. Perhaps the threat was not as great as it seemed. We commend you." Helseth inclined his head ever so slightly, and Fen repeated the gesture. "We are impressed with your efforts so far.
"Now, ah – what did you call yourself again?"
"Fedura Rindal, Your Highness," Fen told him, remembering the name she had used when she and Julan had posed as potential guards.
"Fedura, then. I require all those close to me to be powerful, able to defend me from any adversary. Perhaps you have met my personal bodyguard, Karrod?" Helseth gestured to his left, and the broad-shouldered, silent Redguard man Fen had seen most of her life nodded once and bowed his head. "Karrod is a perfect example: the finest fighter I have met in all my travels, and loyal to me to the death. I met him many years ago, a deaf and dumb child wandering the streets of Wayrest. The boy actually had the audacity to try and rob my stepsister, Elysana." A faint smirk played upon the king's lips. "I marveled at his courage, and took him into my employ. When a dog has been beaten, Fedura, it will lick the hand of one who feeds it even the most meager of scraps. Now he is my most loyal of servants, and one of my most deadly. I wish for you to fight my champion."
"Fight Karrod?" Fen repeated, careful to keep her voice low.
"That is correct. I have come to know you a bit, Fedura. I believe you can be of some use to me. But the plans I have will require someone of great strength or wit. Perhaps both. The time has come for you to prove this to me. You will return here at dawn, and you will duel Karrod. If you are able to defeat him, we will discuss my plans for you." Helseth's eyes darkened and he glanced to Fen's right, as if noticing Julan for the first time. "And who is this with you?"
"My brother, Athaso, Your Highness. He helped defeat the assassins that attacked Queen Barenziah."
"I don't care who he is. You realize he will not be allowed to aid you in the duel, yes?"
"I understand, Your Highness."
"Good. Then be back here at dawn." With that, Helseth waved them out of the dark, eerily quiet Throne Room.
To Fen's relief, Julan did not mention the fact that the assassins had been after Fen rather than the queen, though one glance at his face and it was clear he knew.