Ok everyone, so this has officially been the most difficult chapter to write to date. It took four complete rewrites and a few days of quarantine to get this done. But for all of you that are possibly stuck at home as well because of the pandemic, I hope you enjoy reading this extra-long update (it ended up being over 3000 words long), even though it's way overdue.


Asgeir had the other Nord pinned down with enough force to bruise, held her with the forcefulness of an interrogator but the closeness of a lover. His accusations echoed in the air around them —in the space between their bodies and the dangerous proximity he'd forced upon them—, and her pulse throbbed in response to it.

There was something cruel about this. About the fact that Asgeir could feel the assassin's body heat and hear her heartbeat and see her fill her lungs with air, while Vittoria was dead and buried somewhere deep into the ground.

To have the woman guilty of his wife's death in his grasp was… infuriating, maddening. Satisfying. Confusing.

There were many things he wanted but not enough that he could put into words.

Asgeir didn't realise that he'd leaned closer until he felt the Last Dragonborn's breath against his mouth. A ghost of a bite. Or a kiss.

The Dragonborn's breath hitched at the closeness, a vulnerable sound that she stifled immediately, but he didn't pull back. She exhaled but did not speak. For once, she had no handy reply to throw at him. No insolent quip or jape.

There was a definite sense of power in knowing that he's managed to render the prophesized Last Dragonborn speechless, but the Nord was too agitated to take any pleasure in it.

Asgeir had lived without any real answers or explanation for what the assassin had done to Vittoria since the day of the wedding, mulling over the events at night as he failed to fall asleep. And while he knew that there was nothing that anyone could ever say that would justify Vittoria's murder, he still wanted to see the assassin try. He wanted to hear her speak. To witness her inevitable failure.

"You murdered my wife." He articulated carefully, hating her for making him say it. Hating her more for having made it real."You poisoned her, and you stabbed her, and you pushed her off the balcony." Asgeir felt feverish, but the only thing to show it was his flushed skin. His eyes were focused. His voice was clear.

The Dragonborn's gaze hardened and her lips thinned, no longer putting on that vulnerable, innocent mask that had thrown Asgeir off so many weeks ago. "There's not much I can respond to that." She said, and her tone might have been calm, but the way she started fighting his hold betrayed her agitation. "You need to get off me. Our dinner is going to burn." Her arms tensed and flexed, and she tried to push him away with her legs as she spoke. It was all to no avail, of course, his weight was unmovable on top of her, and all she achieved with her struggle was to aggravate Asgeir further.

"Is that it?"A growl made its way past Asgeir's lips almost on its own accord as he adjusted his grip on the other Nord. "Is there nothing you have to say on the subject?" He secured both of her wrists with one hand, slamming them hard against the stone at her back as if to punish her. That resulted in her trying even harder to free herself from under him, and she manoeuvred the leg that he'd not trapped between his thighs to try and knee him in the face. Once again, it was a useless effort; Asgeir used his freed hand to clasp her right leg and push the limb down before it could make contact, holding it forcefully in place.

"Fine!" She yelped. "Fine, I did. I—"Asgeir ignored the assassin's pained hiss when he pressed his knees closer together, squeezing her left thigh in a vice-like grip. She tried to twist away from him, but his hold on both her legs remained equally unforgiving.

"I did kill her." She said one final time, agreeing far too easily to something so horrid. "The nature of my profession is secret no longer. You made sure of that." She smiled at him in an acerbic way. "I am an assassin, as you take great pleasure in reminding me."

In the face of her unapologetic brazenness, Asgeir felt his patience grow ever thinner.

"And is that it?" Asgeir repeated himself, no less forceful the second time. "Do you take pride in your work? In trading your soul and those of others for coins?" His words were more of an accusation than a question.

Her back arched upwards and she twisted in place, like a snake trying to wiggle its way out of a hole. "To say that I take pride in it is a bit far-fetched—" she started to justify herself, but Asgeir didn't allow it.

"The Divines reward all that are gifted in their profession, even the murderers." He interrupted, not bothering to hide the disdain in his voice. "Those were your words, were they not?"Asgeir pointed out, and the assassin's reaction, with her frowning lips and fugitive eyes, was telling enough.

"Who was it?" He suddenly wanted to know. "Who hired you to kill her? Was it the Stormcloaks? The East Empire Company?" Asgeir's eyes darkened further. "Was it my family?"

But the Last Dragonborn only shook her head stubbornly in response. "This was not a crime of passion or greed!" She debunked. "I was not asked to do it by a former lover or a scorned business partner." She met his gaze head-on, making a show of baring her emotions on her face. "Nor any kin of yours." She clarified as if it would reassure him; as if she cared. Asgeir believed nothing.

It would be easy to be fooled into thinking that she was being honest, that she was being human, but the man has seen how skilled the assassin was at camouflage. He had been tricked by her masks before and had paid the price for it several times over. Never again, he promised himself.

"Someone wanted her dead. If it wasn't you, who was it?"

The Last Dragonborn merely watched him, lips pressed tightly together, a hint of frustration in her gaze. As if he was the one being unreasonable in this situation.

The nerve of this woman was unbelievable.

Asgeir pushed her arms higher above her head in a painful stretch, and it did not last long before she broke her silence. Not that she decided to truly cooperate.

"This was not a regular contract." The Dragonborn denied giving him a straight answer once again. Her breathing was already laboured from all the twisting and shoving and kicking. "Vittoria died because her death was deemed useful! Because it served a greater purpose." She said it so earnestly, as if it was simple and understandable and it made all the sense in the world, and Asgeir felt his blood boil in his veins. Saw his vision going blurry at the edges.

"How dare you!" He roared, voice tight with anger. "There is no greater purpose in killing a good woman. You murdered her in cold blood because you wanted to get your share of gold." He called her out on it.

"A blade does not choose its target." The assassin panted out, her fingers trying to claw at his hand. "Vittoria Vici was marked for death, and she would be dead today even if not by my hand." She deflected, and Asgeir sneered at the weak defence.

"Yet, it was by your hand." Asgeir told her, in a quieter voice this time, still brimming with emotion. Disgust, and hate, and grief. " She's dead because of you."

"I was given a name, not a choice." The woman spat, pushing back hard against him, all bared teeth and dark eyes. Nevertheless, for all her bravado and ancient prophecy, Asgeir looked down and saw a cornered animal: a wounded, feral thing. It sickened him to think that the gods found this creature fit for power, when Vittoria was only deemed worthy of an early death.

"Everything in life is a choice!" Asgeir shot back. "To poison, to stab, to push her off the balcony— those were all choices that you made."Asgeir dug his fingers hard into the skin of her leg, and Edna released a rasp exhale, brows furrowed in pain. The Dragonborn gave it another attempt to yank herself free, bending her spine violently in the processs, but Asgeir still did not budge. Finally, her body grew lax, the woman momentarily abandoning her futile strive for freedom as she caught her breath.

Asgeir was almost disappointed.

"It was out of my hands!" She insisted, but with the way her gaze kept jumping around looking for ways to escape Asgeir was not convinced of her innocence. "Vittoria was picked for her blood." She claimed. "Her name was whispered in my ear by the undead bride of Sithis herself." Was her cryptic explanation.

For a moment, Asgeir was unsure what to make of her words. Then, he felt the sting of anger, as powerful as it had ever been. "Do you think that uttering nonsense will do you any favours?" He asked, but the assassin started to shake her head even before he could finish his question.

"Nonsense, you say!" She barked a laugh, but the sound conveyed no humour. "You think I lie? I admit to killing your wife but you think me embarrassed to tell you why I killed her?" She snapped at him, her body vibrating with tension in his grip, but not fighting him. Not yet. "I am, or was—" she corrected herself, "—an agent of the Dark Brotherhood."

"Lies, again!" He bellowed, tightening his hold on her to the point that she was probably starting to lose feeling in her limbs, and Edna strained against it instinctively. When that only made the pressure worse, the woman consciously relaxed her body in an effort to get Asgeir to loosen up. It was a good strategy, and it might have worked, was she any other woman in the world but the killer of his wife. As it was, the man showed no leniency.

"It's the truth!" She choked out. "Do you know who the Dark Brotherhood is, oh, noble fellow Nord?" Even so brutally subdues, she dared hide mockery behind her words.

"Murderers." Asgeir hissed for an answer. "They are vile murderers for hire! An extinct and evil guild of Deadra-worshipers and assassins."

The Dragonborn tilted her head to the side and challengingly lifted her gaze to meet his. "Not extinct." She countered. "Not in Skyrim, at least."

"Just like the Blades?" he asked in a dangerous tone. "Am I also expected to believe this on the sole basis that you claim it to be true?"

She tipped her chin up in another display of reckless imprudence. "Believe what you will, but I was their Listener. I was one of their bloody hands." Her voice grew in volume with every word, echoing in the space around them. "And your precious wife–" She stopped herself, got her voice under control. "Vittoria Vici was a stepping stone in the eyes of the Dread Mother. One part of a far larger puzzle." She spoke the words as if she was confessing a secret.

"Vittoria was a person, not a puzzle piece!" Asgeir corrected her hotly, his blue eyes darkened by loss, his hands trembling with rage. "She was my wife and my partner and you stole her from me!" His voice had turned loud to match hers, and he took a moment to compose himself. He inhaled deeply and continued in a tightly controlled tone. "I suggest you start making sense, or not even your status as The Last Dragonborn will save you again."

"Does it even matter why she died, when your bed will still be empty come the morrow?" She tossed at him with a wry smile, and Asgeir found his self-control sorely tested.

He pressed the assassin harder against the stone wall, flashing a warning look down at her.

"Speak." He commanded.

Edna just watched him at first, pushed into a corner, with her arms stretched and held in place against the damp stone and fresh bruises blossoming on her flesh. She didn't look afraid, but she looked nothing like a legendary warrior either. Too human and broken for that; too many shadows dancing behind her grey eyes.

Eventually, she lifted her gaze past him, staring absently at the stone ceiling above them."Did you know that Vittoria was a cousin of Emperor Titus Mede II?" She asked, but did not wait for an answer. "A fine bride you've picked for yourself."

Asgeir knew better than to rise to the bait, and after a beat of silence, she continued.

"Her noble Imperial blood was what got her killed." The Dragonborn told him flatly. "And it was not–" She elaborated before he could cut in. "– about the rebellion, even though that played a part in it."

She lowered her gaze, looked him in the eye when she said:

"Four months ago, the Dark Brotherhood agreed to an impossible contract!" There was the slightest pause, a crazed look in her eyes, but that was not warning enough for what she said next. "A contract to kill an Emperor."

Asgeir didn't know how to react to such a statement. Edna seemed to expect that, as she pressed on without any need to be prompted.

"Do you realise–" She said with a bat of her eyelashes. "–how difficult it is to bring the head of an empire to you?"Another rhetorical question.

Asgeir could see where the conversation was going, and he did not like it.

"A blood relative to the most important man in the Empire, holding a public wedding in the middle of a civil war…" She trailed off, started again. "Not many things would do it, but her death– the Emperor's cousin dying in such a public way at the hands of a Nord assassin? It was sure to warrant a visit from her dear kin." Edna's tone was feverish, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Asgeir had accepted that the Gods were cruel, but to hear that Vittoria had suffered such a fate for such twisted reasons— that she'd been sacrificed in a useless ploy to benefit cultist of the most despicable kind. It was too much. It was enough to break his heart again.

"No." He refused her words immediately. If he'd known that all the murderer was going to do was taunt him with cruel words, he would not have asked to hear her explanations in the first place. "That cannot be it." He denied, but the woman acted as if she couldn't even hear him.

"Vittoria Vici was the lure to bring Emperor Titus Mede II to Skyrim." Her voice flowed as if a floodgate had been opened. "And it worked, too." She claimed. "I hear that The Emperor's visit is scheduled for next week. Not that it matters any longer. Since I got caught." The look she gave him was significant."The Brotherhood has no other Listener. And without a Listener, there can be no grand scheme to topple the Empire."

'Pointless.' He found himself thinking. 'Vittoria's death was pointless. This monster had killed his life partner over illusions of grandeur. Over dust.'

"Daedra cults, and assassins, and plots to kill the Emperor?" He asked, his voice hose with emotion. "This is your answer for why Vittoria had to die…" And the woman nodded, as solemn as Asgier had ever seen her.

"It is. It's the only answer I have." She sounded unhappy, resigned –it made her seem believable in a way that was difficult to dismiss. "And you may drive yourself mad looking for a more fitting explanation for something neither of us can change, but I cannot give you one." Her tone grew softer as she spoke, though no less frenzied.

"You could still give me a name!" He pointed out, but the assassin scoffed.

"The one to commision the murder is not a person you can chase, and my part in this is already over." She told him.

Asgeir shook his head slowly from side to side. "You would say anything, wouldn't you?" A conclusion. "You would say anything to avoid admitting to yourself that Vittoria didn't have to die, and that you chose to kill her. "

That seemed to spark a response out of her. "And what do you know of killing?" The assassin lashed back at him. Her shoulders shook and Asgeir could read real anger on her face. "Tell me, Asgeir Show-Shod, how many people have you murdered? How many times were you commanded to kill?" She jerked in his hold, and if she was an animal, she was a predator with its leg caught in a trap. Dangerous and ready to pounce on anyone getting close to it. "How many times did you say no?"

Edna shoved against him until he was forced to let go of her leg, so he grabbed her waist instead to hold her still. She howled in pain once his hand squeezed her injured side with too much strength, and Asgeir felt something wet and warm on his fingertips.

The smell of copper and juniper spiked into the air around them. It mixed in with the smell of burnt meat, adding to the uneasiness Asgier could feel growing in his gut.

"Perhaps you know more than I give you credit for." The assassin hissed from behind clenched teeth. "You sure have the strength for it, though you need to work on your technique. At this rate, it will take almost an hour until I bleed out."

He denied the immediate instinct to look down and asses the damage he had done; refused to show the assassin that she had disturbed him.

"You would deserve it." He reminded both her and himself, and the woman looked visibly surprised for a second. She made a wheezing sound. Almost a laugh.

"I would, wouldn't it?" The corner of her mouth twitched. "But I bet you've never killed someone slowly before, right?"

The stare she gave him was impossible to read, and Asgeir resisted the urge to look away.

"I could teach you how to end it quickly." She offered, much to his disbelief, and Asgeir couldn't tell if she did it on purpose, but the shock had him loosen his hold on her wrists.

If she noticed, she didn't act like it. He expected that she would fight him for her freedom as soon as she gained any leeway, but the woman surprised him again by pushing herself closer so she could talk into his ear in rushed whispers.

"If you want to learn, of course." She spoke the words as if she was issuing a challenge, and Asgeir wondered about her mental sanity. "You will never get a better chance than now. Nor a more suitable victim." He wondered if she even cared that she could easily die at his hands. He wondered if there was even any point in this entire exchange.

He finally lowered his eyes, and he saw his palm stained bright red. And it shouldn't have fazed him, but it was strange to be reminded that she was as human as he was.

"You would not need to do much, I'm already weak from blood loss, and it will be easy to slam my head against the stone." She told him, and Asgeir wished she would stop talking. It was fitting, perhaps, that the assassin seemed to finally return to her default insensitive attitude once she started to bleed. "It will be messy, but quick. Effective." Briefly, the assassin's mouth stretched once again into that horrible empty smile, and Asgeir decided that he'd had enough.

With a disgusted grunt, he pushed back, freeing both of them from each other's hold.

She exhaled slowly as she blinked at him, shuddered as if she missed the warmth of his body. The thought made his stomach churn.

For a few seconds, they stared at each other in silence, and the man found himself deeply dissatisfied with the entire conversation. It was an outcome he'd expected, but it disappointed him all the same.

"I am not like you." He told her coldly. "You are a snake that sinks its teeth and venom in everything it touches." And she was: everywhere she went, ruin followed. "Do not speak to me again. It was a mistake to think that there was anything to gain from this."


Thank you for reading, please review, and stay safe and healthy!