"Anything?"
I awoke without startling, hardly realizing I'd been asleep at all. Warm and lost in the dark, blue shadows cast over the inside of the cottage from frost-laced windows. A vivid contrast the red-gold hearth, casting a long, wavering shadow from where Lucien sat.
I didn't stir but listened. Maman, walking over. Her boots sounded wet. She must have gone out, circled the cottage at some disturbance to make sure we were still safe. They took turns in their vigil, always prepared.
"Just a hunter."
"Too close for my liking. I assume you took care of it."
"Naturally. Sithis' sake, Lucien, do you honestly think I've gotten so soft?"
I curled up tighter in the bed, swallowed at the wrenching knot in my stomach. Maman's voice was – strange. Amused and elegant in a whisper but cold, cold and sharp. Lucien's chuckle, the same.
"First tied to a healer, then some pampered noble in his manor, throwing parties and raising children – yes, Abelle, I rather think you have."
"If we get out of this alive, I'll make you eat those words."
Go back to sleep. You don't want to hear this. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath in my chest. Not this side of her. I knew it was there, I knew it was why we were here in the first place but I didn't want to have to –
"Do we have a corpse on our doorstep, then?"
"Don't be ridiculous. There's a lake North aways. Weighed him down with stones and tossed him in – he won't be found until Spring, at the earliest."
I gaped there in the dark like I'd taken a blow to the gut. Too close for his liking. Gotten soft, stones -
Lucien's whisper in turn, darkly amused. "Still with your garrote wire?"
"I have my bootknife, but I thought it better to leave no trace."
It was like I was watching myself, but not in myself. Seeing the blankets pushed away, seeing the floor in front of me as I lurched out of the bed. The blast of wind, the slam as I launched out the door into the night. The blanket of snow, the shadowed pines. Maman calling after me, barely heard over the roar in my ears.
The snow was cold, so cold it burned on my bare feet but I couldn't bring myself to stop. It seemed to cut as I ran, from the front of that quaint little cottage barreling into the woods, stumbling, catching myself on all fours until my hands were scraped red, crystals of ice clinging to my clothes.
Garrote wire.
Some innocent man at the silt bottom of a half-frozen lake. Did he have a family? Loved ones, who would wait and wait and never see him again. Maybe he had a daughter, a girl who'd wake up dreaming of him, never able to totally understand why he'd gone.
I sank into the snow, my teeth chattering between sobs.
I can't do this I can't, that's not her, that's not my mum in there. Flashes of images, new and old. In her study, composing a letter to that distant friend in Cyrodiil I now knew to have been Vicente. That drunken night she was made Speaker, cradling my hot face with cool hands and telling me she loved me, that she didn't regret leaving her old life for us even if she'd come back…
The time I used her good perfume, wore her jewels and pretended I was her, leaving her teary-eyed with laughter. The night after my engagement, convincing my stepfather to give me the freedom I so dearly craved. The secret smiles, the quiet scoldings. A key from her hands into mine, giving me my home and my purpose again. An anchor as I was set adrift in the echo of the life she'd lived.
Her, but not her. Not that woman who spoke so coldly of such horrible things. It couldn't be, could it?
Yes. Yes, it could. I inhaled raggedly through my teeth in a mirthless grin, raking my hands through my hair. And that made it so much worse. Knowing she could be both in the same skin, and I had no choice but to accept it. My breath came out as mist, each lungful freezing me inside out.
I can't do this.
I can't not do this.
I could run. Run for Bruma, run away from all of this. I could abandon them to the fate that had cast its shadow on me. Except, even as I sat there hating her, I knew I couldn't.
Because I loved her just as much.
Be sensible. For once in your godsdamned life. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the last tears free to freeze on my cheeks. You can't run. You wouldn't even if you could. Go back inside and ignore what you heard and do what you have to do.
"Okay." I whispered to myself, rubbing my arms up and down and looking behind me, back to the faint glow of the cottage through the brush. I hadn't gone far, thankfully. Who knew what could be out in the woods this time of night -
A sound, sharp, crunching like teeth. The cracking of boots through the frozen crust of the snow.
I stiffened. Like a hare crouched in the woods, suddenly remembering the danger of it all. A traitor was looking for us, the Black Hand out for our blood and I'd just run off into the woods alone. It could just be maman, following. Or…
I acted on instinct from there. Barefoot, weaponless, grabbing the first thing I could think of and whipping it hard, scrambling to my feet as the shadow moved in from the trees -
"Your aim is off."
The tension, the adrenaline left me all at once. Lucien. I dropped the second handful of snow I'd scooped up, watching as with a dry look he wiped the bits of ice off his chest.
"Is that your idea of a defensive maneuver, pet? Throwing a snowball?"
I gaped a long moment, searching for words. My voice came out a croak. "… I wasn't thinking."
"Clearly." Dry as tinder the look he gave, that drawl. "I assume that is why you've run out here with the clear intent of losing toes."
I glanced down at my bare feet, my reddened hands, felt the burn on my cheeks. Alright, yes. This has been a remarkably stupid way to handle this. Something between laughter and a sob burbled up. I sank through the jagged frozen crust into the powder beneath as I staggered and oh, every step was painful now with the adrenaline sapping.
"Come."
I didn't want to go back there. Not back to that little room knowing she was waiting, knowing what she was and having no choice but to see it. But neither could I walk away.
No, it wasn't my fault I was here. It wasn't my fault she was what she was, and that her past had swept me up in it.
But I couldn't let her face it alone. Even for what she was, she wouldn't do that to me. I wouldn't abandon her.
Besides, as I stumbled through the snow hissing with every footfall I realized I very likely wouldn't be able to walk away if I wanted to. Lucien rolled his eyes, barely visible in the moonlight. I gasped when in an easy motion he scooped me up off my feet, almost slinging me over his shoulder like the night we'd met.
"I can – "
"The last thing we need is to be weighed down by a self-made invalid," came the curt reply.
He had a point. It was too much of a relief for me to be up off the snow to fight it much, anyway. I let him walk us the short distance back to the cottage, breath held cold in my chest.
My mother, mine. Jade earrings, mint perfume. A boot knife, garrote wire. But she held neither as Lucien shouldered past the door, putting me unceremoniously back on my feet. I hugged myself tight and dared a glance up.
Somehow, it was still her. Not a nightmare twin or a dark mirror, just her. My maman, her hair high and tight in a bun even now and her face so graceful, her voice so tempered as she pressed the hot mug in my hands.
"Here, darling. Go sit by the fire."
I was helpless to do anything but obey. My toes stretched almost instinctively to the hearth, the tea a welcome burst of heat spreading through me in shivery warmth. Relief, exhaustion thawed me. I didn't turn away as she sat beside me, sliding a cool hand to my cheek.
I met her gaze, mine flickering over her expression. Lips pursed, brow furrowed. A soft-as-snow sigh leaving her as she thumbed the stain of tears from my cheek. I felt my jaw shake, my breath shiver as I whispered.
"Who are you?"
A tautness came over her, tightening even still as she drew herself up. "I am – many things. But to you, mon chou? I will always be your mother." A fragile smile. "I can't ask you to accept me, darling, but I need you to know that. I may be what I am, and you may hate me for it. I can live with that."
She shifted in her chair, moving closer to take my face in both hands as I choked back silent tears. "But because of what I am, I can protect you. And I always will, Dusty." A strange fierceness in her voice, a strength behind her eyes. "I am not a gentle woman. I am not like you. But I would drench my hands in blood to keep you safe and happy. She pulled me closer, held me tighter still. "That is all I can offer, but I offer it gladly."
A horrible reassurance and more horrible still that it meant something to me. That while a quiet part of me recoiled in disgust, I couldn't pull away.
"What if he had a family, maman? What if someone will miss him?"
"Then they will mourn." So cold, a cold not even the fire roasting me now could thaw. "He was a threat to our safety. To your safety. I didn't do it out of malice, or hate. I did it because I place greater value in my Family and in you than anything else. I kill for Sithis, and I kill because it means we will live. And we will."
"Even if it makes me hate you?"
The subtlest of winces in her furrowing brow, that soft breath. But she stayed focused on me, gaze never leaving mine. "Even then."
Silence reigned. The fire crackled, Lucien sat in a dark corner watching us with hooded eyes. There was a moment I pictured myself rising. Slapping her hands away, spitting rejection at her. Rejecting all the wrongness in everything she said.
But I didn't.
I tilted my brow to the crook of her neck and nestled in as she stroked my hair, whispering. "I don't hate you." Some part of me spat with it, yes, spat and screamed at the unfairness of it all. But I didn't hate her. How could I? "I just don't understand you."
"You don't have to, chérie. I don't need your acceptance or your love. All I need…" That steel behind her voice again. "All I need you to know is that I love you. And no matter who you see me as, who I was or who I become, that will never change."
We sat there together, in the dark and quiet, for a long few moments. Then sudden light bled in, almost blinding in gold and peach as it spilled across the grooved wooden floor.
"Dawn." It was Lucien who broke it, glancing over to us, to mum. "Time to change watch."
"… Alright." She stood, laying a kiss on my brow before turning away. I wanted – I didn't know. To grab at her and pull her back, to demand words that would make all of this better. For her to explain…
But how could she?
I watched her until she had settled in the bed herself and even after that, as morning flooded in. Only when I saw the motion of her breathing go even and steady, her small form rising and falling, did I dare look away.
Who are you?
And who am I, that I can accept you? That I don't want to lose you even now?
I hugged myself tight, hunching over and pulling in my now thankfully thawed feet. "I'm still tired."
"And whose fault is that, I wonder?"
I shot him a glare, but there was no venom behind it. A deep breath, filling me, trembling out. "… Thank you for carrying me back."
A low sound of acknowledgement, but nothing more. I sank into the chair and closed my eyes, even knowing I needed to keep watch. But gods, I was tired. Tired and tired of being tired, tired of trying to find answers where none existed, tired of trying to understand it all…
Just tired.
Later. All that can come later. I squeezed my eyes shut now, gripped the arms of the chair white-knuckled. Just focus on getting through this, right now. We were out here until Lucien's Silencer came with proof of our innocence. Until then…
What could I do but accept it?
"You might as well sleep."
I cracked open an eye, frowning at Lucien as he moved to put on a kettle. "It's maman's turn. Mine just finished."
"Should we be found, you'll be no more use awake than you would asleep." I bristled, but it was true. Compared to him and maman, I stood no chance against the looming threat. "If you can manage…"
"Mmn. I dunno. Hard t'sleep, sitting up…" And yet my eyes were so heavy. All I wanted was to let what would happen, happen. I was powerless, or at least I felt it. Against the traitor and the danger we faced, against the truth of my mother, against everything that had swept me up and away from the life I knew. I was powerless, but I wouldn't leave her anymore than she would me.
Maybe another time I'd want to fight, want to find my freedom again, own my life again but for now…
For now, finally warm again, it was all too easy to drift back into the embrace of sleep.
