A/N: I love my readers so much. You guys make me blush with your reviews. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Chapter 34

Rory and Aldric faced each other once Riften's north gate was in sight. She was tired after a long week of travel. The decision to get a bit of sleep in before going to Nightingale Hall was an easy one. She felt like she was dead on her feet.

"If I'm not back tomorrow, wait for me," Aldric told her. "It's likely that they'll have something for me to do before they agree to help. I'll send word if that's the case."

"Yes, I remember the plan." She rubbed at her face.

He smiled. "Get some sleep, and I'll see you soon. Tell Lilly I'll be back to see her when I return from the fort. Iona or the guards will have correspondence for me. Look through it for me, will you? Aela may have written."

He hesitated before walking away, and she knew he was debating whether or not to kiss her. She grabbed him by the buckles across his front and pulled him to her. It was the first time since Folgunthur that they'd be truly separated. She knew he was fully capable of defending himself against every possible threat he encountered, but she still felt anxious.

He murmured in surprise against her mouth at the fierceness of her kiss. When she pulled back, he smirked. "I won't be away for that long."

She stroked her hand along his hair. "Good luck."

Then she walked away, before she changed her mind about coming with him. She needed to see Lilly.

The guard at the gate raised an arm to her before she could push her way into the city. "Yes?" she asked him, surprised.

He paused. "You're not the Guildmaster, but…"

Rory raised a brow. "But what?"

"You were with him not long ago on his last visit, right?"

"That's right."

He seemed even more anxious than she felt, rubbing the back of his neck. "When will he be back?"

"He'll be away for some time," she said warily, starting to get suspicious.

He straightened up and looked at her. "Can I trust you with his mail?"

"Yes. I'll make sure he gets it." She held her hand out for the leather bundle he was holding. It was stuffed with many letters crafted from many different kinds of paper.

"Good." The guard sagged, visibly relieved. "On your way, then."

Within Honeyside, Iona greeted her with a straight, unreadable face and directed her to the food she'd prepared. After eating, Rory made her way to the bed. She pulled off her boots, making a face at how sore her feet were.

She collapsed on top of the blankets, staring at the letters addressed to Aldric. She knew she should look through them before she fell asleep.

"You can wait," she told the mail, and closed her eyes.

When she woke, she was surprised to see that it was daytime again. She ventured out onto the porch outside the bedroom. The midmorning sun was unusually warm for the season, and the lake lent a muggy feeling to the day.

She bathed quickly and ate even faster. Hair still damp, she descended the stairs of the porch and trotted to the road outside the southwest gate, looking for the path Aldric had showed her.

Rory had barely started into the brush before a smell stopped her. The breeze carried the scent of an old fire to her nose. The smoke had faded to a dusty, sweet smell, but it was fresh enough to be recent. It was coming from the direction of the Hall.

Heart pounding, she forced herself to walk calmly. She was used to immediately assuming the worst, a negative quality she tried to override sometimes. She made it approximately five seconds at the relaxed pace before her instincts took over and had her running.

Fear roiled in her gut like a living thing when she made it to the clearing. The door to the Hall was off its hinges, resting in the dirt in front of the standing stone. Scorch marks painted the ground in front of the gaping entrance.

Rory approached the Hall like she was in a trance. Leaping to the forefront of her mind unbidden, the dream she'd had about the vampire dropping Lilly into fire replayed itself.

Numbly, she walked inside. All the plant life in the tunnel had been turned into soft, blackened strings that crumbled under her feet. The stench of smoke and something sharper clawed at her nose.

She stood at the stone bridge, staring at the destruction in front of her. A curious fox nosed through the wreckage, and then perked up as it noticed her. It darted past her still form.

Fire had eaten its way into the cavern, but had been largely unsuccessful at its job. The small living area was relatively untouched by flame. One of the beds had been shoved out of place.

There were bodies on the ground. A thrill of fear went through her went she saw that there were three of them, but as she crept closer, she saw that they were all too big to be Lilly.

She ran past them, further into the Hall. The training room was empty as usual, charred inside. The bedroom across the hall had met the same fate. All the furniture had been destroyed.

The natural cavern at the very end of the Hall appeared to be the source of the fire. The tang of a vaguely familiar substance hung in the air. Judging by the singed walls of the cave, the vampires had used a manmade agent to feed the fire. Stone didn't burn.

She crossed the walkway to the glyph in the center, looking up at the ceiling. There were small, circular holes in the rock above each of the three symbols, allowing beams of daylight to pierce the dimness. The one she was looking at was more jagged than the others, and barely wide enough to admit a slim person. Looking at her feet, she saw that there were small pieces of rock and gravel scattered underneath the hole.

So this was how they'd entered. Somehow, they'd figured out the layout of the Hall and knew that they would find points of entry in this room. Rory strode back into the main part of the Hall to get a look at the bodies.

Vampires. One of them had an arrow sprouting from its throat. Rory pulled it out and examined the prongs at the tip—daedric. A blade to the chest had dispatched the other two. She flipped one of the vampires over to his back and ripped open his gray leather tunic to examine the stab wound. The flesh was partially torn near the bottom of the gash, indicating that the blade had been serrated. Another daedric weapon. The third vampire had been treated to the same blade.

Not far away, a book was on the ground. She picked it up and looked at it; blood was spattered across the edge of it. It had been used as a weapon. Turning it over, she opened it and read the title. "Fall of the Snow Prince."

Her heart leapt. Lilly was obsessed with any mention of snow elves, no matter how minute, and the book was one she'd owned at their home in Falkreath. This one was likely hers.

Her eyes swept the floor again. She spotted a lump on the ground, and when she knelt, she found it was a severed hand. The fingers ended in cruel claws—it belonged to a vampire.

The skin around the edges of the wrist was torn, not cut. Neither Brynjolf nor Karliah possessed the strength to rip a man's hand from his arm, status as Nightingales notwithstanding. Had his own comrades torn him apart?

She searched the ground for more clues, and almost missed a small, white item on the stone floor.

Rory picked it up and held it between her fingers. It was a vampire's canine tooth, one of the sharp fangs that allowed them to feed. She smelled it, and matched it to the blood on the book, and the hand.

All this was connected somehow. She puzzled it over, thinking. Her fingers brushed over the pages of the book as her brain worked. Something with the book…what was this stupid thing about, anyway? She absently remembered that the story ended with the title character being killed by a little girl.

Rory looked down at the book, covered in the same blood belonging to the owner of the tooth and the hand, and it hit her suddenly. She began to laugh when she figured it out.

Lilly. Lilly had ripped the vampire's hand off, before or after she used the book as a blunt weapon to wallop him hard enough to knock a tooth out of his head. She'd fought her attackers, fought them like a little sabercat.

"That's my girl," she whispered fervently. Pride and hope edged in around the cold fear filling her, and tears pricked at her eyes.

Taking the book with her, she left the Hall and ran to the city. Only one guard stood outside the south gate, and she went straight up to him. "That cave over there," she barked, nodding to the east.

He knew what she was talking about right away. "The Jarl has ordered all citizens to stay away from there. You aren't to be poking around in it."

"Were you on post the night it happened?"

He shifted on his feet. "We're not supposed to talk about it."

Rory narrowed her eyes. "To me, you are. Were you on post that night?"

"Who says it was at night?" he observed mulishly.

Her patience was on a string as it was, and she prayed for patience. "Did you see anyone come out of there?"

He crossed his arms. "Even if I did, I already told you, I'm not supposed to talk about them with the likes of you."

Rory snapped. She wrapped her hand around his throat and shoved him tight against the wall before pushing upward, lifting him off his feet. Careful not to crush his windpipe, she applied enough pressure to keep him from trying to retaliate before repeating herself. "Did. You. See. Anyone. Come out. Of there?"

His hands clawed weakly at her arm, and he squeaked unintelligibly. She let him struggle for a moment before releasing him. He dropped to the ground and ripped his helmet off, hacking and coughing.

He turned his head to look up at her on his hands and knees, his hair in his eyes. In between gasps for air, he choked out, "Two people. Strange black armor. Had a little girl with them."

Rory knelt next to him, and he recoiled, scrambling away from her. "Did they say anything?"

Massaging his throat, he glared at her. "The man asked for materials to write a message."

"And where is the message?"

When he didn't answer right away, she made a sudden movement toward him, and he scuttled away from her like a mudcrab. "All right, all right! He told me to give it to the Guildmaster the next time I saw him. Please don't ask me more about that," he pleaded. "The Jarl isn't the only one who fills our pockets."

"Give me the message, or you'll answer to Aldric himself," she threatened.

His eyes widened. "I gave the note to the guards at the north gate, the one he usually enters the city by. They said they would include it in the mail they collect for him while he's away."

The mail in Honeyside. "Were any of them injured?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. They were here for less than a minute, I swear on the Nine. The girl didn't appear injured—she was more concerned with some kind of toy she had."

Before she pushed the gate open, she turned to him. "I speak for Aldric while he's away," she lied. "Tell your captain that he wants the guard duty on all three gates tripled. That means six of you at each gate, do you understand?"

Looking confused, he nodded.

"The attack on the cave was the work of vampires. They may be back to inspect what happened there." She stepped away from the gate and crouched in front of him again, and she let her voice get low. "I don't care if vampires are threatening to hurt you—if you tell anyone what you just told me, you had better pray to whatever gods you worship that I don't find you. If I do, you'll wish they'd killed you."

The young man looked suitably afraid, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I won't tell."

"Good."

She rose and entered the city, making her way to Honeyside. Iona was nowhere in sight, and she was relieved that the housecarl hadn't touched the bundle of correspondence that still rested on the night table.

Rory snapped the leather strings tying the bundle shut, and scattered the mail on the bed. Some of the letters were ornate, crafted from heavy, smooth paper and sealed with pretty waxes. Some of them were plain and left open for anyone to read.

She flipped through the open ones. Surely Brynjolf had not had the time or desire to seal his note. Panic began to rise in her chest when she reached the bottom of the pile and had not found anything from him.

Cracking open the wax seals, she pulled open the remaining letters. Nothing matched anything Brynjolf would have written. Her vision swam as she double- and triple-read everything.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a torn slip of paper that had been caught inside the flap of one of the sealed letters. She pulled it out with shaking fingers and smoothed it out on the blankets. Blotches of ink stained the note, some of the letters smeared.

Aldric,

Vampires attacked the Hall. Killed three, one injured, leader got away. Lilly safe and whole, K and I as well. Leaving this note with guard at south gate, talk to him when you get this. Don't know if any more of them are coming, we have to run. Tell Rory not to worry, K is good at this kind of thing. Will write as soon as I can.

B

Crammed underneath it was another sentence, the handwriting rushed as if it had been an afterthought.

Rory, if you're reading this—you taught her well.

She blurted a laugh even as the letters blurred and distorted with the sudden tears rolling from the end of her nose. She read the message several more times before folding it and putting it in the small satchel at her hip.

Tremors shook her body as relief coursed through her. Lilly was safe—for now.

She wasn't sure of what she should do now. There was no way to track where Brynjolf and Karliah were now; even if they did send another letter, they would likely be gone from the place they sent it by the time it reached them.

Rory thought hard. Where would they think of going? Her first thought was Whiterun—the Companions were the next safest option to run to after an attack. But as she thought further, she decided against that. Brynjolf and Karliah were far too smart to go to any place or person connected with Aldric after what had happened.

There was no way to tell how the vampires had gotten the information to attack Nightingale Hall. Rory frowned as she went through the list of people that knew where Lilly had been placed.

They'd told the Companions, of course, and she figured the rest of the Thieves Guild knew at least a bit about their visit to the Hall. But none of the Guild members would know why—none of them had even seen Lilly.

Had Brynjolf told anyone? No, that didn't feel right, either.

She was certain they hadn't been followed. Vampires were cunning and sneaky, but even they couldn't mask their scent on the wind. She would have smelled them if they were anywhere nearby.

She was at a loss. Who had sold them out?