Blood trailed the length of the sword, contrasting against the light, steely green of refined malachite, until it finally dripped off the tip and onto the wooden floor. Other drops followed suit until a substantial puddle of crimson formed beneath the blade. The owner cared not; it wasn't his concern to cover up the evidence of death—only cause it.
He didn't look particularly menacing, for being an agent of such harrowing circumstance.
Aventus had always had an earnest face, sincere-looking eyes, and a boyish smile. It was easy for him to gain the trust of those who had never met him. His marks never saw how truly cold he could be until seconds before they died.
The body of the latest target lay on the floor just an arms-length away from their own blood puddle. It drew no guilt nor remorse from him.
He often wondered where or how he had become so calculating and uncouth but he was kidding himself and knew it happened when he was forced to return to Honorhall Orphanage when he was twelve years old.
After his Black Sacrament failed, after the guards of Windhelm evicted him from his home yet again, and after Grelod the Kind had nearly beaten him senseless and refused him food for three days—he had stood in doorway of her bedroom with a rough-sewn pillow, quietly sniffling back tears while fresh bruises spotted his sides. In one decisive movement he shoved the pillow over the old woman's face and held it with all his might. She struggled but his fury gave him strength and he held fast. He was doing this not only for himself but for Hroar, Runa, Samuel, and Francois. They all had suffered enough under Grelod's cruelty and he was rightfully ending it then and there. He didn't let up until her arms stopped clawing at him and dropped limply over the edge of the bed.
After he removed the pillow and saw her vacant eyes—cruel-looking even in death—he went back to his cot and had the most restful sleep since his mother had died.
He swiped his sword across the bed covering to cleanse it, as best as it could be cleansed until he found a water source to truly wash it. He never liked the sight of black dry and crusted blood on his weapon. It seemed sloppy.
Movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned fully but couldn't ascertain any form—human nor animal that could have caused it. The sun was setting and the light was becoming scarcer as thin traces of it came through the window.
It could have been a trick of the mind's eye too.
Another shadow shifted and he raised his sword, ready for an attack—spinning around.
Nothing.
He gave a sigh and pushed back the hood of his cloak, rushing a hand through his dark, neck-length hair in mild frustration. Now he had a full peripheral view of the room and nothing seemed amiss.
Sometimes his imagination got the best of him.
As he grew, he became more cautious and found he would often imagine the worst of scenarios he found himself in. There was the time, when he was seventeen and contracted to dispatch a merchant traveling through Falkreath. He anticipated the merchant to have guards—from what Nazir had told him— several guards, in fact and Aventus wasn't entirely sure he could kill them all but knew he would die trying. However, once he spotted the wagon, it was just the merchant and his mistress, and the visions of a small battle were clearly only in Aventus's head. The mark was easy and died quickly, but it wasn't until Aventus was heading back to the sanctuary that he saw there was a group of guards who must have been dallying behind. They did not see him but he could hear their cries of alarm down the road when they found the gruesome scene. A battle with them would have been thrilling, but logic, and sheer math dictated he wouldn't have survived, and since the guards were not witnesses to his crimes, he continued on.
The shadows of the room moved again. Of course shadows would shift as the sun settled in the west. However the way they moved seemed unnatural as far as shadows went. He had to remind himself they were only shadows to halt his imagination from taking off and making him paranoid.
With his sword sheathed, and the current mark eradicated—the only thing left to do was find something to prove to the brotherhood that the deed had been done.
Nazir had said the mark owned an enchanted ring made of rubies set in gold. Aventus kneeled next to the body and lifted an arm, searching the fingers for the jewelry.
Nothing.
He checked the other hand and it was the same outcome.
His eyes swept over the room with consideration—there on the desk was a lock box. He plucked a lock-pick form his pocket and went to work on it. After a few turns, the lock was forced open with a click and revealed what was inside. There were gold coins, rare jewels, but no actual jewelry.
By Sithis, where could it be?
His window of opportunity to get the job done and escape was closing, and Nazir had been adamant on Aventus obtaining the ring. They never usually were required to bring tokens of a kill back, and it struck Aventus odd that this time it was part of the contract.
A sudden shine of red reflected off the wall and Aventus turned to see a last ray of sun, hitting through a piece of jewelry atop a small wardrobe. He grinned at his luck of finding it near the last moment.
As he reached out for it, something quick and forceful flew into the floorboards past his hand and splintered the wood there. He reeled backward—keeping his balance and unsheathing this sword in anticipation of a full-on attack. His mind wasn't playing tricks on him after all.
It had been an arrow, shot so precise that it had meant to miss his hand and only act as a warning.
He viewed the length of the darkening room to see no one. He looked again to the arrow, the fletching pointed at a near vertical angle and he slowly looked toward the ceiling where he saw a figure clad in dark leather, sitting in the rafters and holding a bow—another arrow knocked and pointed straight at him.
"That's not yours," they said, matter-of-factly.
The voice was distinctly female, young, and Nord-accented—muffled slightly by a cowl.
Her figure was crouched, and most of her face was covered except for her eyes—beyond that detail, he couldn't see much besides that she was built to sit in the shadows.
"Neither is it yours," he replied coldly, "and since I dispatched the owner, it is now mine."
"The brotherhood doesn't steal objects. It only steals lives."
He wasn't wearing anything that identified him as a part of the brotherhood and had to wonder why she assumed it. He preferred to wear normal clothes when doing contracts because nothing tipped a mark off more than someone coming at them in the telltale black and red shrouded armor. There was a long pause, and after a moment he asked, without trying to make it sound so obvious it were true, "What makes you think I am in the Dark Brotherhood?—I could just be a simple mercenary. "
"I have never seen a simple mercenary dispatch so neatly—you kill with an assassin's skill."
He smiled slightly, appreciating that his careful work made her take notice, "Thank you."
"You're welcome—but no matter, that ring is already spoken for."
"Who speaks for it?" Aventus demanded to know.
"The Thieves Guild."
He should have known that's what she was, though he was expecting her to give a name. She rocked back on one heel without taking aim off him, "And to be honest I am a bit upset you killed the poor soul. Hopefully I won't be blamed for that," she gestured a finger toward the lifeless body below.
"Yet you threaten my life," he frowned.
"If I stick an arrow through your hand you won't die," she said in a lighter tone that almost betrayed laughter, "Though you may not be able to hold a sword or pick locks for a while. Now pick that shiny up and throw it to me."
"Come down here and get it yourself," he taunted. He sheathed his sword to show he wasn't going to attack her with it if she should try.
The room was darkened now; the sun had fully set. It was hard to actually make her out as she blended so well with the twilight. She withdrew her aim and returned the arrow back to the quiver fastened behind her.
He could hear the creaks of the rafters as she descended, gracefully even, and landed onto the bed. There were sounds of shifting leather that she wore as she bent over to feel for where she thought the ring was on top of the wardrobe.
As she moved, he had been thinking of why the two guilds were going after the same object. It may have been that the person who initially made the contract with Nazir was also a client of the guild and had booked the same job. Perhaps the Thieves Guild was the back-up in case the Brotherhood failed. He inwardly scoffed at the thought of failing—he was too thorough to let that happen—then again here was this thief trying to take something he was told to obtain.
Unfortunately for her, she knew he was in the Dark Brotherhood, so she must have also known the brotherhood's policy. There couldn't be any witnesses to a contract kill, that much was clear and any denizen of Tamriel knew it.
Aventus leaped forward and plowed into her, knocking her backward and her bow from her grasp. She gasped and gave a shout of surprised outrage. He put all his weight into her, a knee into her chest and reached for a glass dagger in his boot—intending to end it with a swift blade slice across the throat. She struggled violently, hitting him in any way she could with her free hand. He managed to grab her wrist and pin her arm above her head so he had an unobstructed path to her neck. He let the dagger fall.
In a movement that only spoke of how agile and capable the young woman was, she swung her hips up and wrapped her legs around his torso, forcing his arms tight at his sides. The position caused him to lose balance and tip backward until his back had fallen against the floor and she, in turn, was on top of him. The dagger clattered out of his hand and across the floor. He tried to move his arms but her thigh muscles were drawn tight enough they wouldn't budge. It was a complete reversal of power and it had never happened to him before.
"How dare you—" he hissed but was pulled up with a vicious tug by the neck of his cloak and he felt her lips brush against his.
Kissed?
For once, he was too stunned to speak. The thief laughed at his reaction and did so heartily, causing both of them to quiver slightly. He was briefly caught in the memory of the last time someone had kissed him so long ago.
"I have a secret," he confessed in a whisper as the Riften Guard carried away the body of Grelod the Kind the next morning. All the adults had determined the headmistress had expired due to natural causes. He didn't know why he whispered his crime—perhaps just so it was out there in the world. The only person near enough to hear was Runa Fair-Shield, a fellow orphan that bore a black-eye from when Grelod threw a bowl at the child days prior when she had asked for more gruel. Runa was standing against the wall trying contain a smile at the passing body. His words caught her attention and she stepped closer, curiously.
"What did you say, Aventus?"
"I smothered Grelod to death last night," it wasn't an apology—just a fact.
He didn't know what to expect but certainly didn't expect the little blonde girl two years his junior to lift up on her tip-toes and peck him on the lips in gratitude.
"Aretino."
His surname, spoken in a laugh by the same woman restraining him, brought his mind back to the present at once.
She spoke it as if she knew him, but he certainly didn't know her. He couldn't even see her with the cowl obscuring her features. Before he could even ask who she was, she hauled back and punched him the face so hard that all consciousness left him and the last thing he could hear was her laughter ringing in his ears.