"Hurry!"

"We're going as fast as we can, you stupid she-devil." I tried to open my eyes and investigate the voices, but darkness remained. "I don't see you helping."

"I'm not exactly built for manual labor." It was Babette. I smiled. She was alive. Cicero giggled at her comment. He was out there, too. "Now come on, you've almost got it!"

"Cicero," I begged, before another, closer voice whispered in my ear.

"You must speak with Astrid. Here, in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary."

"One more pull," Nazir and Cicero groaned in unison as they threw open the stony doors of my shared tomb. "There!" Small droplets of water rained down onto me as I bolted from the coffin. I wrapped myself around Cicero with no plans of letting go, not even to step out of the pond that we were all standing in. They must have pushed the Night Mother's coffin into the water to protect her from the fire.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. It's all right," Cicero cooed at me, knowing that it was far from it. Tears streamed down his cheeks in the same way they did mine. "You've been through a lot. Maybe you should just sit down for a bit." But that's the very last thing I could do.

"I have to speak with Astrid! She's here, in the Sanctuary!" I bolted, not without great will, from Cicero's embrace.

"She's here?" Nazir asked, patting Babette on the shoulder hopefully. They had no idea. "By Sithis, I thought we'd lost her. Let's go!" We pushed past the debris and into Astrid and Arnbjorn's room. There was no sign of her, but there was an entrance to a hall I had never seen before. An old bookshelf lay in burning pieces in front of it.

There the leader of the Dark Brotherhood lied, charred and broken. Her leather motley was missing in some places and seared into her flesh in others. She turned to face us, only to cough up a significant amount of blood. Her every move was clearly agony. I didn't stop the bile this time but turned to remove what little stomach contents I had from inside of me.

"Alive..." She croaked. "You're alive... Thank Sithis..."

"Astrid..." I didn't know what to say. There were no words written for this moment.

"Ssshhh... Please. There is much I have to say. And not much time." Her sentences were punctuated by periods of gasping for breath or coughing up blood. She either didn't notice that Cicero was alive and well or it was no longer important. "I'm sorry. So very sorry. The Penitus Oculatus, Maro," she paused, forcing the next words. "The Dragonborn. He said that by giving you to him, he would leave the Dark Brotherhood alone. Forever. By Sithis, I was such a fool. All of this, it's all my fault. You are the best of us, and I nearly killed you as I've killed everyone else. I set you up. I wanted you dead. I betrayed you, the Night Mother, and everything I hold dear. And now the Dragonborn has betrayed me.

"I just wanted things to stay the way they were. Before Cicero, before the Night Mother. Before you. I thought I could save us. I was wrong. But you're alive," she smiles genuinely at me for the very first time. "So, there's still a chance. A chance to start over, rebuild. That's why I did... this." She rolled her eyes to motion in a way her charred hands could not. Around her was a very specific set of items. An effigy of candles, a dagger, and an almost corpse. "Don't you see? I prayed to the Night Mother… I am the Black Sacrament."

"What are you saying?" I knew very well what she was saying.

"I'm saying you were right. The Night Mother was right. The old ways, they guided the Dark Brotherhood for centuries. I was a fool to oppose them. And to prove my sincerity, I have prayed for a contract. You lead this Family now. I give you the Blade of Woe, so that you can see it through. You must kill... Me.

"Oh, Astrid..." Babette cried, not bothering to wipe her tears. After too long of standing and waiting, Nazir picked up and blade and handed it to me.

"Astrid did the right thing, and now it's your turn." He was sincere. "End her suffering." I took the dagger, swallowed my doubt, and plunged it to the hilt into Astrid's stomach. She closed her eyes and smiled, whispering a few simple words of gratitude to me and only me, for death. For understanding. "Astrid... By the sands, I still can't wrap my head around it," Nazir spoke after some time, always the first to break the silence.

"If I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I wouldn't have believed it. How could Astrid have done this to us? Strangely, I feel only pity for her." Babette was composed now, knowing, as all of us did, that mourning was not an option.

The four of us wandered through the broken sanctuary, salvaging what we could, which wasn't much. I was grateful that Cicero's journals now lived at the Dawnstar sanctuary. They were the only recent records of this place to exist in all of Skyrim. I knew I should flee, the Dragonborn probably wasn't far, following the stench of his victory. But I couldn't. I had to stay and absorb what little essence was left of the first place I had ever called home. Together, we pulled the Night Mother's tomb from the pond and sat it upright. Although she had fallen thirty feet and into a pond, she remained a still, untouched beauty. I sat before her and listened, knowing that she wasn't finished with me yet.

"Astrid is dead. It is as it should be. May she find redemption in the Void. But while you live, the Dark Brotherhood lives. We must fulfill our contract. Emperor Titus Mede II must be eliminated. Speak with Amaund Motierre at the Bannered Mare in Whiterun. He will know the true Emperor's location. But first, inform Nazir of your plans. For you are the Listener and must bind this Family together." I rose to my feet. No more waiting. We still had a job to do. We still had a purpose.

"By Sithis, what a mess," Nazir sighed, finding his prized scimitar melted and warped on the floor. "I guess this is the end."

"Not exactly." I picked a sword off a dead Penitus Oculatus agent and tossed it his way. He caught it halfheartedly. "The Night Mother has spoken to me again."

"What? Well, what did she say?" His voice was solemn, but his eyes betrayed them, dancing with the fires of hope.

"I must speak with Amaund Motierre once more."

"Amaund Motierre? But that would mean..." Babette had overheard and was allowing herself to be filled with anticipation as well. I had everyone's attention, well, almost everyone. Cicero was over at the armory, investigating the body of one of the robed men he had killed. I hoped he wasn't thinking of how he had broken his oath. Cicero had a habit of punishing himself when it came to the Night Mother. I hoped he could put it aside for just a few more days. At least until the Emperor was no longer.

"The contract is still on. The true Emperor must be assassinated."

"You mean," Nazir's gears were turning. "There's still a chance? But how? Our plan has gone to ruin, everyone is dead, the Family –"

"Our Family lives on, Nazir. You have to trust me."

"All right, then. Go. Go, my Listener. Find out what that slimy bastard Motierre has to say, then send the Emperor to Sithis. Ah, but when you're done, there's no use returning here, is there? I was thinking the Dawnstar Sanctuary." So, he must have known I was lying about the sanctuary. I wondered if he knew I was lying about Cicero as well. "We could make a proper home there. When you're finished with this Motierre business, meet Babette and me there. I'll find some way to move the Night Mother, don't worry. Now go! And come back with a barrel full of gold, hmm? Babette, my girl, pack your things. We're moving."

"I was hoping you'd say that," Babette said with a smile. She must have known as well. I turned to Cicero to inform him of our new roommates. If I was being honest, I was going to miss having the place to ourselves.

"Cicero, I have news," I squatted down next to him. He was still looking through the belongings of the corpse in front of him.

"Me too," his voice was solemn as he pulled a golden chain from around the man's neck. Weighing the chain down in the middle was a large, curvy pendant. A bronze horn. The same one that Sanguine always wore around his neck. What did it mean?

"What is it?" I ask, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.

"An amulet of Stendarr. The same one's that now litter the ruins of the sanctuary I once called home." He threw the amulet to the ground, breaking it in several pieces. My nerves shattered with it.

"Cicero, I know who told the Vigilants of Stendarr where the Cheydinhal sanctuary was." Cicero looked to me for an answer he too was piecing together.

"Sanguine."