Hello and welcome to chapter 35!

I am sorry if the chapters come a little slowly. I have an unbelievable amount of work to do. Plus, I am also a major procrastinator, so you have permission to get mad at me.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Imagine it, stranger. Imagine that it was you.

Imagine that it was your lover who was drawn into a dark, ruined tomb, and murdered there in the shadows, by one he had called a friend. Imagine that you were banished from your home, and that your family spoke your name with rage and loathing, and swore to find you and murder you. Imagine that you were forced to run, to run from everything you loved, to run so far and so hopelessly that you ran away from yourself, until you lost all track of who you were. Imagine that you returned to your path and found your way again, knowing that the road you walked led either to success or death.

And imagine that you went down on your knees in front of the one who banished you, who scorned you, who manipulated and betrayed you, and begged for mercy, for forgiveness. Imagine pleading for that, knowing that you did not fail, knowing that you could not have changed or prevented what happened. Imagine making that plea to a cool, cold being who no more cared for you than she did for an insect. Imagine that you received the reply, no. No, you are not forgiven. Your failure is unacceptable. I will never forget what you did, and I will certainly never forgive it. You are not pardoned. You will never be pardoned. But you are permitted to return… if you make sure that you never, never, fail again.

Imagine that.

Would you be afraid? Angry? Guilty? Shocked?

I was. I felt all those emotions, and more.

Imagine that you had one chance and one chance only to save yourself. And to do so, you would have to venture into a pit of Oblivion, a place you had never thought to see again, had hoped never to see again. You would have to battle your way through monsters from the dark and machines that could fight and almost think like mortal beings. You would have to face a man who had once been your friend, and you would have to kill him. Your only help would be two friends and a dog. And you must all survive, or everything would be lost.

You would have to take an item more powerful and more deadly than anything else in Tamriel and return it to a forbidden temple, a place where no mortal was permitted to enter. You would have to face down the spirits of men and women who were once mortals like you, but had forgotten who they were, who they used to be. You would have to face the one you failed and tell her, I have succeeded. I fought for you and I returned the treasure that was stolen from you. Have I done enough? Can I ever, ever be forgiven now?

And you would know in your heart that the answer would almost certainly be, no. You can never be forgiven. Even if you spend the rest of your life in my service, you can never, never, never, be forgiven for what you have done.

I do not know who you are. I do not know how deeply you think. I do not know anything about you. But I do know that, unless you have somehow been through this yourself, you will never understand. It is not your fault. You cannot understand what I felt then. I could ask you to imagine it all I liked, and you could sit there and close your eyes and imagine it for the rest of eternity. But you could never feel what I felt, know what I knew, think what I thought. You could never feel all that pain, all that joy, all that rage, all that relief, all that hope, all that despair, all that gratitude, all that hatred. You could never know that burning mixture of emotions, emotions so strong they nearly destroyed me where I stood with their raw, unleashed power.

But that is what comes with a life like mine. When you are betrayed and banished and turned away from, and everything you love is lost, and then just when you think that everything is gone forever, hope returns without warning, and everything changes forever and eternity.

Over time, I have come to accept that I shall bear this pain forever. It is hard to bear, to be sure. But I can bear it. And I will. What other choice do I have, after all?

But there is light in the darkness, hope in the despair, joy in the suffering. Whenever the shadows become too deep for me to see, the pain too much for me to cope with, I focus on that. I focus on the times we shared together. I focus on the memories of his smile and his eyes, the sound of his voice, the music of his laughter. I think of the warm comfort of his embrace, and I can almost, almost feel his arms around me. I can so nearly hear his voice murmur my name.

The thoughts of Gallus, the memories I have of him, they are what keeps me going. As long as I have them, I have hope, and I have a reason to fight, a reason to survive. Better still, I have a reason to smile, and laugh, and sing.

And as long as I can smile and laugh and sing, I think nothing will ever be quite as bad as it sometimes seems to be.

I made my way down the bridge that connected my platform to the centre circle with legs that felt like they were no longer a part of me. To my left and to my right, I saw J'shana and Brynjolf slowly doing the same. I felt as tired as I had felt after my first ceremony. Perhaps it was because of the lack of sleep I'd had recently, or maybe it was something about the ceremony itself, the transaction of such a powerful and binding Oath, that had sapped my strength.

Gallus is looking at me with concern, but Mercer grins, his eyes glinting with amusement. 'Guess it's hard work, selling your soul to a Daedric Prince?' he teases me, and I nod, biting back a smile. I look at them, Imperial and Breton, the two men who are now my fellow Nightingales, and I know that I am prepared to fight until I am cut to pieces in order to defend them…

'Nightingales.' J'shana's voice jolted me out of the painful memory. She seemed to be almost tasting the word. 'We're Nightingales now.'

Brynjolf shook his head wonderingly and pushed down his hood. 'Shor's beard, lass, if you'd told us it'd take that much out of us, I'd have had second thoughts.'

'No going back now, Bryn.' J'shana's voice was weary, but carried an edge of excitement. 'We've made our Oath. We're bound to Nocturnal now.' She, too, shook her head free of her hood, and I could see the anticipation on her face.

I nodded and looked at them both. Three pairs of eyes- amber, green and indigo- gleamed in the shadows of the cave, and the three of us, an elf, a man and a beast, stood together, and I knew then that we were siblings. Despite the differences between us in age and race and past, we were all Nightingales now. We had no secrets from each other. We were the Three, the Trinity. We might as well be one and the same.

And so I could not hide the truth from them. Not anymore. I had no right. Brynjolf and J'shana had left behind everything to do this for me. They had believed me, trusted me, followed me, even given up their souls for me. I had no reason to keep them in the dark any longer.

'And now I need to apologise,' I said quietly.

Their eyes narrowed in perfect unison. 'For what?' they both said together, and J'shana grinned in amusement.

'For keeping the truth from you,' I told them. 'But now you've transacted the Oath, it's time to reveal the final piece of the puzzle to you: Mercer's true crime.'

Brynjolf looked as if my words had slapped him in the face, and J'shana's tail stiffened until it looked like a furry, striped spear. 'What?' she gasped, staring at me in horror. 'He's done more?'

'What could be worse than what he's already done?' Brynjolf was clearly gritting his teeth.

I took a deep breath before I began. 'Mercer was able to open the Guild's vault without two keys because of what he stole from the Twilight Sepulchre- the Skeleton Key.'

J'shana hissed. 'Nocturnal mentioned that. She said we had to guard it. What is it?'

'Raw power,' I told her grimly.

The Khajiit held up a hand. 'Let's get going to Irknghtand. We've no time to lose. You can explain on the way.'

Brynjolf murmured agreement. I could easily detect the hidden message in J'shana's words. Please, explain in a minute when I've had some time to cope with all this. I can't take any more right now.

We walked back to the entrance in silence. Meeko jumped up eagerly as we reached him, but he instantly became subdued, as if he could sense our exhaustion. He padded along behind us, his tail hanging low. Even the horses, when we reached them, did not pull eagerly at their tethers to get to us, or nuzzle their velvety noses into our faces or swish their tails in anticipation. They simply stood and stared at us a we untied them and mounted. They dashed forwards instantly as we dug our heels into their sides, but it seemed that they did so only from obedience. There was an impenetrable serious feeling hanging over all of us.

After a few minutes, J'shana spoke up at last. 'Go on, then. The Skeleton Key. What is it?'

I closed my eyes for a moment, then took the decision to begin at the end. 'When Mercer stole the Key, he compromised our ties to Nocturnal and, in essence, caused our luck to run dry.' I sighed. 'That was why I failed Nocturnal. Not only because I wasn't able to stop Mercer killing Gallus, but because I allowed him to take the key.'

I could see a question forming on the lips of both my companions, and I knew what it was. What exactly is the Skeleton Key?

'The Skeleton Key is what keeps open the Ebonmere, our conduit to Nocturnal's realm of Evergloam,' I told them, before they could interrupt. 'As long as the Ebonmere is open, Nocturnal's power can reach Nirn. Now that it's been taken, her influence can hardly reach us at all.'

Brynjolf's fists tightened around his reins. 'That son of a skeever! So that's why the Guild started to fall apart.'

'He didn't just steal the Key,' I said grimly. 'He stole the Guild's luck with it. He took all of the Key's power for himself.'

'It's a key that unlocks any door, then.' J'shana was chewing on her lip in a thoughtful manner.

'Well, yes.' I hesitated, a little uncertain of how to explain. 'But the Key isn't only restricted to physical barriers.'

J'shana tipped her head on one side. I wasn't sure whether she was confused, or just thinking deeply. Brynjolf muttered something that sounded like, 'No, you've lost me.'

I pursed my lips, trying to think of how to explain. Gallus and Mercer had had a relatively simple job when it came to explaining these things to me, since I'd already had first-hand experience with the Nightingales. But J'shana and Brynjolf were as ignorant as newborns.

'All of us possess untapped abilities,' I said finally, 'the potential to wield great power, securely sealed within our minds. Once you realise the Key can access these traits, the potential becomes limitless.'

Brynjolf's face paled, and J'shana's fur started to bristle. 'So he succeeds in almost everything he does,' she hissed. 'The Key makes him stronger, faster, bolder, wiser. He possesses the power to do practically everything he sets his mind to.'

'That's the idea,' I said bitterly.

I saw her talons slide out from the tips of her fingers. 'Sounds like no one should possess it. A thing like that? It's…' She swallowed and shook her head in disbelief. 'It's bringing chaos from the depths of Oblivion itself, into Nirn and into you.'

I looked at her, and for the first time, I think I looked at her properly. I didn't just take in her appearance now. I looked past the silver fur and the ebony stripes and the amber eyes, and into her soul. And I liked what I saw. She could not be far into her twenties, and yet there was wisdom inside her mind that some mortals more than three times her age could not have hoped to possess. She had her flaws- she was young, slightly impulsive, innocent and occasionally naïve, and she still had much to learn. And I could tell that she was keeping secrets from us. It was clear in her voice, in her eyes, in the way she looked at us. But whatever those secrets were, she had a right to keep them. Every mortal had secrets.

And despite her youth, she was strong, and she was dependable and true. There was something fierce and firm inside her, and her mind was as sharp as her talons. She understood the true danger of the situation, and she had taken on all that I had told her with patience and determination. And there was something else about her too, something I couldn't quite name.

It hit me suddenly, like a physical blow. She reminded me of Gallus. And she reminded me of myself.

She had Gallus's patience and wisdom, his calm and his reason. She had his firm resolve and unwavering loyalty to the Guild. And she had that fierce streak inside her that he had possessed as well. She had my inner fire and perseverance, my wariness and independence. She had my determination. And from what I'd seen of her, she was not only a skilled thief, but was a fearsome warrior, capable with both the bow and the sword. It was as if someone had gleaned the best parts of both Gallus and myself and meshed them into a different being.

Of course, she had her own traits as well. The way she spoke some things that should be questions as flat statements, as if she was already certain of the answer, was something unique to her. The slight air of vulnerability about her, and her shyness, was not something ever seen in Gallus or me. And the way she gave off an air of… I blinked. I had not noticed it until now. But there was a sense of calm confidence about her, a sensation I could only describe as an inner power.

I knew who it was who had shaped her birth. Nocturnal herself had given her these skills. I was sure of it. But that wasn't the only reason why she was the ideal Nightingale. She had a depth of soul to her, and an understanding of the world that so many other mortals lacked.

'Then you understand why this is about more than Mercer's lust for power,' I told her, forcing myself out of my thoughts. 'If the Key isn't returned to its position in the Twilight Sepulchre, things will never be the same for the Guild.'

That was a considerable understatement, to be honest, but J'shana seemed to understand. 'We'd be destroyed utterly.'

I nodded. 'As time passed, our luck would diminish to the point of non-existence. And whether you know it or not, our uncanny luck defines our trade.'

Brynjolf's eyes narrowed with determination. 'So now we kill Mercer, and we take the Key back to where it belongs.'

J'shana laughed, a bright and merry sound that somehow lifted my spirits instantly. 'First time I ever set out to return something!'

I couldn't help but grin. 'Very true. In our line of work, it's quite rare that we set out to return a stolen item to its rightful owner.'

'Desperate times call for desperate measures. Things don't always work out the way you expect.' Brynjolf shrugged. 'Talking of which, lass, I need to discuss a few things with you.'

J'shana twisted around in the saddle, reining Frost back slightly so that she could talk to Brynjolf properly. 'Fire away.'

'There's one last piece of business we need to sort out,' the Nord told her. 'The leadership of the Guild.'

So now was the time to tell her, I thought. I wasn't sure how she was going to take the news. She was the right choice, there was no doubt about it, but there was every chance that the young, fairly inexperienced Khajiit girl might not want the unexpected- not to mention difficult and dangerous- responsibility.

J'shana blinked, looking a little confused. 'What's to sort out? You're deputy; you succeed that traitorous snake.' She hissed the final two words. 'That's all there is to it.'

Brynjolf shook his head. 'Karliah and I had a long discussion while you were paying your little visit on Riftweald Manor. It's thanks to your efforts that Mercer's treachery has been exposed. After we deal with him, all that remains is restoring the Guild to its full strength.' He paused. 'As a result, we both feel that you have the potential of replacing Mercer as leader of the Thieves Guild.'

J'shana looked so stunned that it was a miracle she didn't fall out of her saddle. 'Me?' she squeaked, her eyes wide as two suns. 'But… what about you?'

Brynjolf gave her a lopsided grin. 'I've been at this game a long time, my young friend. A long time. I've stolen trinkets from nobles and framed priests for murder. I'm good at what I do-' He shrugged slightly- 'maybe one of the best. But it's all I know.'

He let out a long sigh of resignation. 'I'm not one to lead. Never desired it, never cared for it. Don't want it. I can't be the leader that the Guild leads right now. But you can.'

J'shana stared at him for a few more moments, then hesitantly dipped her head. 'I… I've never thought of myself as much of a leader. But if you think I can do it, then I trust your judgement.' She swallowed. 'I can't promise everything, but I'll do everything I can.'

'Well, we can't ask for more than that, lass.' Brynjolf's slight grin turned to a warm smile, one which I copied. 'Mind you, we have a bit of an errand to run before your coronation, so don't go getting sentimental on us now.'

I very nearly laughed, despite the sombre feeling that still lay deep inside me. 'He's right. You'd make as good a Guildmaster as any, and better than most,' I told her.

'The others might not like it. The ones who've been in the Guild longer than me. Vex. Vipir.' She grinned uneasily. 'I think Dirge might throw me into the canal.'

'He'll have to get past me first, lass. And this isn't about years. It's about being the right person.'

'You're the right person, J'shana,' I said softly. 'They'll know that.'

She smiled back at us, with a mixture of shyness and gratitude and eagerness and delight. 'Well, I hope I am,' she replied. 'And if I'm not the right person yet, then I'll make myself the right person. For the sake of us all.'

I have always hated rain. I expect I always will. I know it's necessary, to clean the land and give water to all the things that live upon it, but that has never stopped me loathing it. It tangles my hair, blows into my eyes, and soaks me to the skin. Whenever I hunt, rain smudges the tracks of my prey, making it harder to discern them. A little rain can create just the right amount of mud to make tracking a breeze, but too much can make hunting near impossible. Quite apart from that, it's such a miserable feeling, huddling into my clothes and hunching my shoulders and hanging my head to try and keep my warmth and fend of the relentless ocean pouring from the heavens.

I could tell that my companions were no keener on the weather than I was. The horses still ran doggedly onwards, but their pelts were soaked through, and they were sending water flying with almost every step. Meeko was bounding along beside Frost, but his shaggy coat poured with water, and his unhappiness was obvious. Brynjolf was faring the best of all of us, being a Nord, and therefore more resistant to the cold and the wet. J'shana, on the other hand, looked as miserable as it was possible for any mortal to be. Her fur was completely saturated, and her whiskers were drooping- both from discomfort and the raindrops that were weighing down their ends.

'I hate the rain,' she said suddenly, making Brynjolf and I glance at her. 'I grew up in a rainforest. But the rain in Skyrim's not like the rain in Elsweyr. Back home, it made everything seem richer and brighter and clearer, like the Divines were washing the world clean. But here, it just gets in the way. And it confuses all the scents. It's like being made half blind.'

'We must be nearly there by now,' Brynjolf said, glancing at me. 'I don't think any of us can put up with this much longer.'

'Not far,' I told them. 'We'll reach it any moment now.'

I certainly hoped so. Brynjolf was right. A few more minutes of this, and I might die of sheer misery.

We reached a break in the trees, and we all instantly reined back our horses to a halt. We had all seen the same sight at the same moment- the spires and towers of Irkgnthand rearing up above the treetops.

I shivered. I remembered how Gallus and I had come here before, so confident, so sure of ourselves, smiling, laughing, squabbling over who killed more bandits. And we had emerged with me half dead.

I just hoped that things would be different this time. Mercer would have gone before us; with the power of the Skeleton Key shielding from almost all harm, he might have cleared some of the opposition, making our task a little easier. And there was three of us now- four, if you counted Meeko. And we were going as a trinity- three Nightingales, delving into this gods-forsaken ruin in the name of our Lady, Nocturnal.

We would not fail. We could not fail. Too many lives depended on it.

We dismounted, tied up our horses, and slowly started to creep towards the ruins. If I had been harbouring any hopes that the outer towers were no longer a bandit camp, they were dashed a moment later as the orange glow of a campfire became visible in the dim light of the gathering dusk. I glanced up at the sky. It was beginning to turn from blue to a dusky indigo. Tomorrow, twenty five years would have passes since Gallus's murder. And tomorrow, we would avenge his killer.

J'shana breathed in deeply, tasting the air. 'Bandits,' she murmured. 'I think maybe nine or ten. I can't really tell.' She sniffed again. 'Damn this rain!'

I drew my bow and peered through the trees. There was a light breeze stirring the branches of the pines, and I didn't want to risk a long-range shot, in case the arrow was blown off course and alerted the bandits to our presence. 'We need to get a bit closer before we can attack.'

They both nodded. J'shana pulled out her own bow, and Brynjolf slid his dagger from its sheath. We crept forwards slowly, up to the foot of the ruins, all of us quivering with anticipation. I could almost see Gallus slinking silently along beside me, his eyes gleaming with excitement, his sword drawn, his whole body tensed in readiness…

I shook my head. Forget the past for now, Karliah. The present's what matters. I couldn't allow myself to become distracted.

As we reached the open space at the entrance, I caught sight of two of the bandits sitting alone, engrossed in a game of cards. J'shana glanced at me as she fitted an arrow to her bow, flicking her ears towards the one on the right, indicating her target. I nodded to show I had understood and took aim at the second. We both paused, standing still as statues for a heartbeat- then we released our arrows in unison. It was a simple shot, one that neither of us could have missed. Two arrows cut the air; two barbed tips hit home. Two bandits stiffened, blinked in confusion, then collapsed onto the half-melted snow with two soft thuds.

'Nice shot,' J'shana murmured quietly.

'And you,' I replied.

We started to inch forwards again, making our way over piles of rubble and up a flight of stairs. A Breton bandit standing on the ramparts whirled around as we reached the top, but Brynjolf lunged forwards, slicing his throat open in a swift movement. J'shana caught the Breton as he fell and lowered him to the ground slowly, making sure that the noise of him falling did not alert the others. Carefully and warily we made our way across the walltops, towards where the main group was gathered around the fire.

J'shana licked the tip of one clawed finger and held it into the air, testing the air. 'Slight breeze, blowing to the west,' she whispered. 'Should be simple enough.'

I dipped my head and carefully picked out my target- a woman who looked to be either an Imperial or a Breton. It was hard to tell in the rain. It was hard, looking at the face of the person I was just about to kill. But years of killing had hardened my heart when it came to bandits. They did not deserve my pity, nor any mercy.

I fired.

The Imperial-or-Breton woman fell with hardly a sound, my arrow embedded in her throat. Her fellows jumped to their feet and spun around, seeing us instantly. Brynjolf and Meeko ran forwards to meet them as they came, the Nord burying his dagger in the stomach of the first up to the hilt, the dog leaping at the neck of the Argonian woman who was too late to raise her sword. His teeth met in her neck, and a snarl came from him as he buried his fangs deeper. His victim let out a final, despairing scream of rage and agony before falling still.

There was a splintering sound as an ice spike collided with the wall above my head. I saw a Dunmer like myself readying another spell and fired. The wind blew my arrow slightly away from my target, and it was his arm, rather than his heart, that I struck, but as he collapsed to the ground with a yell of pain, J'shana hit him in his exposed side. The force of the shot threw him onto his back, and he gasped for a few more moments before the life was wiped from his body. Brynjolf was making short work of a Nord, whose warhammer might have had longer reach, but was slow and clumsy, and no match for my fellow Nightingale's quick, deadly strikes. A Bosmer, another Nord, and a Redguard were closing in on J'shana. Her first arrow missed the Wood Elf, albeit only by a hair's breadth, and she hissed with frustration. As they neared her, she slung her bow over her back and drew her sword- Gallus's sword. With a fearsome roar, she hurled herself upon them.

I had not seen J'shana fight before, not properly. I had seen the evidence that she could fight- she had survived the Draugr in Snow Veil Sanctum and the guards of Calcelmo's museum and Mercer's house to prove it- but I had never been witness to her skill in battle. Watching her now, I understood how she had surpassed the obstacles she had met so easily. She was like a blur of silver-grey lightning, stabbing, lunging, leaping back and swiping again, so quickly that both her opponents lay dead at her feet before either of them were able to make sense of what had happened. It wasn't just that she was skilled with a blade. She clearly was, but there she didn't fight with the grace and precision that Gallus had. No, it was something different that made her so powerful. There was a terrifying ferocity about the way that J'shana battled her foes. Her fur bristling, her tail lashing, her ears flat against her head and her teeth bared, she burned through them like fire, cutting them down as if they offered no more resistance than blades of grass. The innocent, vulnerable-seeming youngster she had always appeared to be to me was suddenly gone, replaced with a ferocious warrior who knew no fear and no mercy. There was an unsuppressed fury about the way she wielded her blade, as if she was taking out the anger she felt over every wrong that had ever been done to her on her hapless foes.

A strange silence fell as the last of them toppled to the ground. Dunmer, Nord, Khajiit and war-dog looked slowly and carefully at each other, as if they had learned new things about their companions by watching them fight.

J'shana let her sword arm drop to her side, and she placed her other hand over her heart. 'Thanks be to you, mighty Alkosh, for this victory,' she murmured. 'Bless this battle, and send the spirits of our fallen foes to the rest they deserve. Watch over us and guide our footsteps as we journey onwards in your name, towards the coming war. May the twin moons light our path.'

I looked at her with new eyes for the second time that day. Here was a warrior who slaughtered her enemies as if they were cattle, yet was so shy, so quiet, in all else. There was a mystery surrounding this Khajiit that I could not make out.

She looked up at Brynjolf and I, and I was almost certain that I saw sorrow in those flame-coloured eyes.

'I think that's all of them,' she said softly. 'Let's go.'

I decided that my questions for her would have to wait until later. Now was not the time to ask them, nor for J'shana to answer them.

We crossed the narrow wooden bridges carefully and slowly- or rather, Brynjolf and I did. J'shana bounded across them with ease, using her tail to keep her balanced. It seemed like only seconds before we were standing before the enormous golden gates, the gates that led either to death or to victory.

We stood there for a second, simply staring at them.

Finally, J'shana stepped up to them. 'It's time, then,' she murmured.

Time. Time to venture forwards into the dark. Time to find the traitor and bring about his destruction. Time to repair the damage that my failure had done. Time to save our Guild. Time for justice. Time for battle. Time for the end of a betrayal.

'Yes,' I confirmed quietly. 'It's time.'

J'shana's tail flicked. Her amber eyes narrowed. She drew in a deep, long breath- and flung open the doors.

Another chapter down! It's actually scaring me when I think about how close I'm getting to the end. I just realised that yesterday marked five months since the beginning of the story. Thank you to everyone who's read this since then!

As usual, please review and thanks for reading. Next chapter will probably be up in about four days, sooner if possible. See you then! :)