A/N: This chapter is dedicated to bhen. x

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Burning Heart And The Burning Building

The Dren Manor comprised far more than the outside walls lead one to believe. Below the respectable upper levels, an extensive network of cellars and passages ran far into the ground.

Caius crept along, cursing his jingling chainmail. He should have worn leather. Not that it seemed to matter – the dark corridors appeared deserted, and lamps were lit only at junctures. Doors punctuated the darkness at regular intervals; whenever he passed one, he opened it a crack and checked inside.

He hadn't had much luck so far. He'd made a cursory sweep of the top floors before taking Solon's advice and heading downstairs. Morgiah had implied there would be an extensive collection of spy reports somewhere in the manor, but these rooms seemed to hold anything but paper. Once he opened a door on a grisly chair-like contraption with pincer attachments. Shuddering, he moved on.

Just when he had decided the cellars were a dead loss, he opened the last door and came face-to-face with the fruition of his search.

His heart skipped a beat with despair. The room was vast and crammed full of shelves, every one piled to the top with sheaves of paper. He'd been expecting perhaps a deskful; this was more like an ocean. How the hell was he supposed to root out reports on Morgiah from this mess?

Steel slid on leather behind him, and his Blades training kicked in like a steam centurion. Drawing his shortsword in one fluid motion, he whirled round and felt the clash of blades sting all the way up his arm.

Two of them. Oh Stendarr, there were two of them.

He should have known Dren would never be so foolish as to leave the place unmanned. The two guards were masked, covered in supple boiled leather from head to toe. Caius was suddenly acutely aware of his aging chainmail and the gaps it left around his neck and arms.

One of them lunged at him and he parried instantly, noting with relieved surprise that his reflexes hadn't suffered too badly from his long respite. The guards fought methodically; they were well-trained, but seemed unimaginative and predictable. They were evidently complacent in their advantage of numbers, and perhaps he could use that to his benefit. His thoughts flashed to a brawl that had broken out in the South Wall Corner Club a few years ago…

The first guard yelped in surprise as his supposedly tired, over-the-hill opponent grabbed a nearby chair and brought it down over his back with the speed of a demented nix hound. He crumpled to the floor, and then Caius was on the second guard like a terrier.

The shelves of paper muffled the fight – Caius could hear the ragged panting of his own breath, the grunts and thumps and clashes of fists and swords, but the sounds fell flat in the claustrophobic space. Taking full advantage of his bar-room experience, he slammed a mailed elbow into a masked face and was rewarded with a smothered cry. A white-hot trail burned along his left arm; he'd left himself open. Ducking and spinning round, he thrust his sword under the remaining guard's reach and into his belly.

The ensuing silence was abrupt, broken only by the steady drip drip drip of blood.

Caius fell against the wall, gasping. Red stained the chainmail of his upper arm, and the knee he'd injured years ago in service was sending darts of pain up his leg. The two bodyguards lay sprawled at his feet, one run through, the other's head bloody.

As he stood panting, the second guard's hand moved to grasp feebly at Caius' ankle, the bones of her cracked skull moving grotesquely under her skin. "Wait–" Her voice was lost as she choked, a trickle of red running down her chin. "Finish–"

Caius understood, and knelt to cut the mer's throat. His heart felt heavy in his chest.

He looked around the room. This mission had taken a severe turn for the worse; he'd killed two people, and there was no time to search laboriously through these shelves for any mention of Morgiah. It would take days; weeks, even.

By any means necessary, the Princess' voice echoed in his head.

He lifted the lamp from the bracket on the wall, took a last look at the bodies on the floor, then smashed the glass into the shelves and watched the flames engulf them.

As they escorted him to the top floor, Solon felt something odd. If he had to put a name to it, it would be nervous anticipation.

He was used to enjoying people's company, of course. He enjoyed it in a very methodical, precise way, finding pleasure in observing their habits, their cadences. He was not, however, used to these things affecting him in any meaningful manner.

He thought back to before he had left the Manor with Nenya. Admittedly, he could have been guilty of… encouraging Dren. Perhaps. Slightly. They had talked together on a number of evenings, and he had found the Tong leader intelligent and interesting. There was an intensity about him that piqued Solon's interest.

In his deepest darkest thoughts, he admitted that he may have begun to respond in kind. At the time, this notion had been so disturbing he had convinced himself that attention from Dren was an unnecessary risk to his career. Nenya had given him the perfect excuse to turn tail and disappear. Pretend it had never happened.

Now though, with the situation inescapably before him, he couldn't help feel a twinge of fascinated expectation despite the niggling survival instinct that was whispering trapped, caged, snared. Perhaps, for once in his life, it was acceptable not to be fully in control…?

"Leave us," Dren commanded his men, who retreated at once. "You've been running for a while," Dren addressed Solon when they were alone. "Urgent business of your own, or are you just sampling the fugitive's life?"

Solon shrugged. "A free agent may go where they will, or so I understood."

Dren's gaze burned into him like a brand. "You left without a word. If I were an unreasonable man, I'd take that for an insult."

Solon's excitement began to fade. Dren's voice contained the same passion he remembered, but there was an edge to it that hadn't been obvious before. Something unpleasant.

He opted for neutrality. "That's a rather personal reaction to a simple parting of colleagues."

"And a Princess' protection, too," Dren said very softly. "That was clever. I wonder exactly what service you are performing for her?"

Solon was stymied; what could he possibly say? 'I'm here to ransack your headquarters'?Alarm bells were ringing in his head insistently now.

Dren glared. "I expect loyalty from those in my employ."

"I am no longer in your employ."

The words had hardly left his lips when Dren pushed him so hard that the breath was punched from his chest. Solon crashed against the wall, splintering the table behind him. The physical sally was so unexpected that his mind went blank with shock.

"Why? Why aren't you? Do you have some complaint about the way I treated you?"

Solon could only stare, blood beginning to ooze from a gash in his arm.

"If the Princess forced you to work for her you should have told me. I could have hidden you. What made you go to her?" He lunged forward and grabbed Solon's wrist, twisting it in his grasp. Solon could only gape soundlessly.

The truth hit him like a fireball: he had gravely misjudged Dren. He, with all his precious dispassionate observation, had been duped. And now he was going to pay for it.

"You work for me," Dren snarled. "For me. You are mine."

He slammed Solon against the wall and crushed their lips together.

Solon could taste blood in his mouth. His arm was pinned above his head, and a dull ache blazed in his wrist. Dren's other hand came up and wrapped around his throat, digging his nails in. Solon choked as his air ran thin, and his body finally came alive in sheer panic. He wedged his good arm between them and elbowed the other mer viciously in the solar plexus.

Dren staggered away, gasping for breath. His eyes were like pits of fire, but a smile was starting to form at the corners of his mouth.

Solon raised a hand to his neck, checking methodically for damage to his windpipe. Calm… at all costs he must stay calm. He may not be stronger than Dren, but he was faster. It was only the shock that was debilitating him. Calm, calm.

Keep him occupied, his survival instinct whispered, beginning to function at long last. Keep him distracted. For Dagon's sake keep him talking. You stupid, you stupid… "How did you know I was in the capital?"

"Some of my employees still make an effort to oblige me, Galos, especially when it comes to information I offer a considerable reward for." He began to advance again. "Or is it Dram Saryoni, or Solon Gothren? You've lied about so many things, it's hard to keep them all straight."

Keep him talking. "You put a bounty on me."

"Of course."

"And who was lucky enough to claim it?"

The smile was wider now. "Someone gave me what I needed all right, but I wouldn't call her lucky. Pleasant, was she?"

Solon made no reply, waiting for him to explain.

"What, you don't remember your little whore in Almalexia? We caught up with her just outside the city. She seemed reluctant to impart information, but fortunately I am a persuasive man."

Dread crawled under Solon's skin.

Slowly, Dren drew something out of his pocket and held it up, something that glinted like copper silk in the lamplight. His face full of vindictive triumph, he tossed the thing aside and reached out, hands closing around Solon's arms like pincers, pressing into the wound made by the broken table.

The object was a lock of hair, torn as if pulled from a head. Solon thought of Felara Ules' mischievous eyes, the confident toss of her curls and the wicked passion in her voice, and his heart felt like a dead weight.

Dren was leaning in. In the wreckage around them, Solon's fingers found a foot-long splinter that had broken off the table in his fall. Numbly – but he had been numb all his life and it had never mattered before, had it? – he reached his arm around the Tong leader's back. Dren thought he was moving to embrace him, and a thrill of triumph crept over his face.

When the wooden spike found its mark, Solon knew he would remember the rage and betrayal in Dren's eyes for a long, long time.

In the light of the hearthfire, Goldenflower gazed at Crassius like a plaintive angel.

"I never wanted it to come to this," the lady whispered, tears brimming from her blue eyes. "It is a necessity. I – I am so afraid…"

"Now now, my dear," he soothed, kneeling before her chair. He took a slender hand, fingers brushing her ornate ring. "No tears; we can't have that! No one will touch you in the house I've put aside for you. My guards are on the door day and night. It is an unpleasant business, sweetling, and I lament that you insisted on arranging the particulars yourself – I would have done it all for you, had you allowed me."

She glanced at him with shy gratitude. "I felt I could not hide behind champions to do this deed. Though I owe my husband little, honour dictates that if I must truly do this thing, the order should come from me alone."

"Ah, so noble a maid!" Crassius extolled, rising from his position to retrieve a bottle of deep crimson liquid from his cabinet. "Sweetling, you are weary and your heart is in pain. Take a little of this plum brandy; it will calm your nerves." Pouring a glass for her, he gestured her to a more comfortable seat by the fire.

"Now," he pacified, "Drink deep, my blossom, and let go your worries."

She obeyed him, visibly trying to master herself. It seemed natural to put a comforting arm around her shoulders. When she turned to look at him, eyes full of vulnerable trust, he simply couldn't resist.

Crassius tilted her chin up and discovered what the plum brandy tasted like.

News of the fire at the Dren Plantation spread fast, and the workers panicked as the blaze crept from one building to the next. Only very few had the presence of mind to send for help or organise a water-chain from the docks, and by the time the first buckets arrived it was already too late.

One of the more sensible workers was herding the rest behind a cluster of cork-stores away from the smoke, while another group futilely doused the flames. A huddle of Argonian slaves stood some way away, their eyes reflecting the flames without a trace of remorse. An overseer stood as close to the burning buildings as was safe without catching alight, waving his arms and shouting "The manor isn't empty! We must help! Come back!"

Caius was nearly out of the gates, but the shout hit him like a bucket of ice. Don't be an idiot, he told himself roughly, He's got it wrong. No-one was inside, least of all Gothren. He'll be at the docks like we planned. But then who? Dren was away, and the only other people had been the two guards he'd killed.

He caught the arm of a mercenary making hastily for the gateway. "Hey! You know what he's talking about? Who's in there? I thought Dren was out til Mourndas?"

The mercenary spat on the ground; he had a split lip, possibly from the crush to get away from the blaze. "Came back early, didn't he? Saw him drag some mer up to the second floor, poor bastard. Canny looking thing – dark hair, crossbow. Dunno whether they're out." He shook his arm roughly from the other man's grasp, disappearing towards the docks.

You fool, Caius thought, horror washing over him. You stupid, damnable fool – you should have checked the building!

He turned back, running towards the flames that now reached twenty feet to the darkening sky.

The main entrance was impassable. He sprinted round the back to the flimsy walkway that lead to the first floor balcony, feeling it creak under his feet. The door was mostly glass. He smashed it with a mailed fist and immediately shied away at the cloud of smoke that billowed out, choking on blackness.

"Gothren!" he shouted, his voice cracked and rasping.

Squeezing his eyes shut against the smoke, he blundered through the first floor. "Gothren!"

Along another hellish corridor, feeling into the blackness with outstretched hands, tripping on some stairs, crawling up them, into another room… this was hell, this was utter hell…

There was a dark shape on the floor.

"Gothren!" barked Caius, stumbling and half-falling on the mer. There was something terribly wrong – Solon was sitting hunched over, and sprawled on the floor beside him was… surely not? Dren – with a stake in his back?

"Solon!" Caius snapped, grabbing the Dunmer's arm and trying to drag him to his feet. "Get up – we've got to get out of here – what's wrong with you, for pity's sake? Come on –"

But Solon was a dead weight, though he was alive enough – his eyes were open, but numb and glazed as if with shock. Caius hauled at him until his protesting knee screamed out and the two of them fell. The floorboards creaked ominously; smoke was filtering through the cracks, and they were hot to the touch.

Caius heaved at Solon once more, but the mer seemed incapable of independent movement.

"Get up, you stupid elf!" Caius raged, fear shooting through his voice. Solon looked up at him with blank eyes.

Caius hit him. Hard.

Solon crashed back into the wall and seemed to come to life; he spat out a mouthful of blood and limped to his feet. "Bastard," he croaked, his voice coated with smoke.

"Shut up!" gabbled Caius, almost sick with relief. "No time! Got to get out – come on, come on, you idiot –" He grabbed his arm and yanked him upright. Solon did not look back into the room. Behind them, Dren's silent body had begun to smoulder.

They staggered into the dark corridor, supporting each other in turn. Caius' knee was in agony. Tension lay like an iron bar across his neck and shoulders. It's alright, he repeated like a mantra, it's alright, we're nearly there… nearly there…

He felt the floor give.

There was an awful moment when the sounds around him tuned out, and he realised exactly what was going to happen, and that there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Then the sounds came back in a roar, and the floor collapsed.

A/N: Thank you again for your reviews. Clodia, thank you so much for commenting yet again - and you encapsulated perfectly what I'd hoped to achieve with the family banquet with the "optimistic flower". I'm so pleased you thought it was poignant. Oh and Will... don't miss a trick, do you? :)