[A/N] And here's the moment you've all been waiting for...
[DISCLAIMER] I do not own The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or anything related to it; that's Bethesda's deal, not mine (sadly). I also do not own Sithia Dupre; that grumpy little darling belongs to Child of Sithis. However, any miscellaneous OCs not found in-game belong to me.
The silence in the chamber was like a shroud: stifling, deathlike quiet. For a moment, it seemed as thought nothing moved in the still – not the loose papers on the desk, not the drapes framing the open window, not the two women staring at each other from the shadows that hid them.
The cold breeze brushed a stray lock of hair across Elenwen's forehead, and it brought her out of her stunned state, a thousand different questions assaulting her mind. How did she know where I would be? How could she even get this far into Alinor on her own? How did the Palace's guards not notice her by now?
But there was no doubt in her mind what the assassin was here to do.
Distract her, she decided, the cunning honed during her Justiciar training kicking in. Find her vulnerabilities, and then strike. It will be over quickly.
"Hello, Sithia," she finally said, with all the gentility and calm she could muster. "Do come in, my dear. You must be tired after your journey."
Sithia did not move from the window, though Elenwen noted some slight movement underneath her facial mask that might have a sneer.
The Altmer sighed. "Where are your manners, my dear? Is that how you, an honored guest of mine, react to my hospitality?"
"I know what your... hospitality is like." The assassin's words came out like a whiplash. "And what you do to your 'honored guests'."
Keep her talking. Get her to reveal something before her unfortunate demise. "I meant no offense, my dear," Elenwen said, giving her a placating smile. "In fact, you are in very good company." Reaching for the decanter and the goblet at the corner of her desk, she uncorked it and poured herself a drink. "I have entertained noblemen, priests, generals... even the High King of Skyrim himself."
It was difficult to tell in the gloom, but Sithia's eyes widened for an instant.
"It was Ulfric, was it not? The one who gave you the contract on my life?" Cradling the goblet in one hand, the Altmer took a dainty sip, watching the other's reactions closely. "Or his wife, perhaps?"
No reaction, beyond the deepening of the glare on the assassin's face.
"My student did good work with the High Queen, but I fear he did not go quite far enough." Elenwen sighed. "Orthorien inherited his teacher's unfortunate tendency to... become attached to playthings."
"I am not your plaything," Sithia snarled, lunging forward. "And I'm not anybody's fool. I came here myself."
Elenwen raised an eyebrow. "By yourself? What a feat, my dear." She finished her drink, a slight tingle of energy beginning to course through her veins. "You always did work alone, as I recall... a blessing and a curse."
The assassin said nothing.
Putting down her goblet, the magicka potion now blazing in her blood, the Altmer smiled. You keep making the same mistakes, my dear Sithia. "Of course, that just means that you have no one to help you now."
With that, she thrust out her hand and sent a bolt of lightning coursing towards the figure in the open window.
Finverior scanned the stacks from under the pointed edge of the hood of his Justiciar's robes – the second set he'd pilfered off a corpse this night – and watched closely for any sign of movement around the towering shelves and in the gaps between them and the ledgers they held. Fortunately, this particular section of the Palace Archives was as still as a graveyard.
No interruptions for my search, then. The Bosmer picked an aisle at random and started down it, scanning the spines of the ledgers as he went; his efforts were largely useless, as the only marks on the leather bindings were etched numbers with unknown meanings. I'll need all the time I can get, anyway.
Despite his time spent as an army scout for the Dominion during the Great War, Finverior had little knowledge of what actually happened with his reports once he'd handed them in to his superiors. He'd supposed at the time that they were mostly destroyed – after all, the Thalmor prided themselves on the stealth of their operations – but seeing shelf after shelf of ledgers had changed his mind about that.
As much as those bastards fancy themselves spies, they're accountants at heart, he thought bitterly, turning the corner and pacing down another aisle. Everything needs to be documented and everything needs to be in its place.
On a whim, he pulled out one of the thinner ledgers and opened it up. It was a minor operation, detailing the "subjugation and elimination" of a second-rate bandit clan nearby Bruma (that close to Cyrodiil's northern border, they were likely Nords and Talos-worshippers, Finverior noted dryly). The date was 4E 169 – only two years before the Great War began.
The Bosmer grinned to himself. If these operations accounts are in chronological order, what I'm looking for should be a little easier to find. He closed the ledger and carefully replaced it. For once, the Dominion's sense of meticulous organization will be used against them.
Reaching to the facing shelf, he took out another ledger and checked the date within, not even bothering to read what the operation was. Six years before the last one he'd plucked out.
Sliding it back in its place, Finverior continued to the end of the aisle and turned left, summoning a ball of magelight in one hand as he walked. This far away from the magelight bobbing in the brackets by the doors, the Archives were substantially darker; with the lack of windows shutting any moonlight out, they were darker still.
He counted nine shelves stuffed with ledgers before he reached the very last shelf in the room. Leaning up against the stone wall, darkened wood groaning under the weight of bundles of faded parchment, this shelf seemed as if it would fall apart if he so much as breathed on it.
Grasping one of the bundles, the Bosmer carefully removed it from the shelf, undoing the cloth wrappings around it. The parchment crackled as he lifted the first sheet up, trying to make out the date inscribed on it. It was 4E 22.
I'm in the right place. Finverior coaxed the ball of magelight a little closer to illuminate the spidery writing on the page. This operations account dealt with the assassination of an Altmer lord "in grave opposition" to the then-new Thalmor policies.
Typical Dominion. Join or die. Wrapping the report back up and putting it back in its place, Finverior scrutinized the top shelf. It contained several bundles of parchment, then bound together into larger bundles; there were also several thinner folders of cracked leather that stuck out at a precarious angle from the shelf.
Standing on his tip-toes, the Bosmer snagged one of the folders and opened it up. There were few words on these papers, as they were mostly taken up by detailed, painstakingly labeled diagrams – diagrams of the sewage systems underneath Alinor.
Finverior grinned. I'm definitely in the right place.
As soon as she saw the sparks on Elenwen's fingertips, instinct kicked in. Tucking her limbs in, Sithia did a quick roll forward, off the windowsill and into the chambers; the lightning sizzled over her head and into the night outside, barely singing the back of her cowl. She lept up into a crouch, plucking the dagger from her belt and hurling it at her target.
The Altmer instantly conjured a shield and batted the weapon away from her chest, sending it clattering to the ground. "You always were difficult, my dear," she said tightly, her dignified facade slipping. "And it seems you continue to be."
Drawing her sword and rising to her feet, Sithia smiled viciously. "Good." She lunged forward, blade angled at the other's heart.
Elenwen brought her shield around, deflecting the blow with one hand and conjuring an ice spike in the other. "That was no compliment," she hissed. "You have been a thorn in the Dominion's side for long enough – to say nothing of the trouble you've caused me." She released the ice spike, burying in the Imperial's side.
Grunting at the sudden rush of pain, Sithia staggered back, but still slashed out with her sword. Elenwen's shield held against the blow, but then it snapped out of existence, sending the blade slashing across her torso. The Altmer gasped in shock, bringing both hands up to the wound, blood mixed with a viscous midnight liquid dripping on her hands.
"You're not the only one with a few tricks up her sleeve." Grabbing her dagger from where it had fallen on the floor, Sithia drove it into Elenwen's shoulder, throwing her whole weight into the motion and sending them both falling back onto the rug.
The Altmer tried to scream, but her jaw seized up as it opened halfway, leaving her with a horrified look frozen on her face. She struggled in vain, trying to summon a spell, but the thrashing of her limbs ceased as the paralysis poison locked her joints and the magicka poison drained her energy.
She didn't have much time before the poisons worked their way through her blood. Crouching over Elenwen's chest, breathing hard from the freezing wound in her side, the assassin planted her feet on both of the Altmer's wrists – just in case – then lifted her sword high above her head.
Elenwen stared up at her, eyes wide and filled with an emotion that Sithia would never have thought to see on her face: fear. It might have been her imagination, but it almost seemed like she was pleading with her.
Pleading for mercy... well, I know what I got out of that.
"Oblivion's too good for you," she muttered to herself. "Go to the Void – and fucking stay there."
A rattling breath escaped from the Altmer's throat, and one of the wrists trapped under her boot flopped feebly.
Face like stone, Sithia brought the blade down, and silence fell once more.
When Finverior entered the chamber, he found Sithia sitting on the floor with her knees tucked up to her chest, staring at the corpse lying next to her. Judging by the corpse's blonde hair and bloody Thalmor robes, the assassin had completed her mission.
Shutting the door behind him, he cleared his throat as loudly as he dared.
Her head snapped up. "What?" she snapped, but her voice didn't have the same sharpness that it usually held.
"Well, for one, I'm back," he offered.
"Really?" she said sarcastically, standing up. "I didn't notice."
The Bosmer noticed the frost-rimmed gash on her side instantly. "Not sure if you noticed yet, o Lady Fair," he started slowly, "but you're... slightly wounded."
"It's nothing," she muttered, wincing. "My leathers stopped most of the damage."
"Still: it wouldn't do to have you pull off the assassination of the century, then get caught because of your blood trail." Finverior approached her, summoning a golden ball of light in one palm. "May I?"
Sithia tensed for an instant, then nodded. The Bosmer directed the healing spell to her side, breathing steadily to keep the spell's momentum going as the golden light knit up the muscle and skin, then faded into a faint glow as the damage healed.
"Thanks," the assassin said curtly, bending down to pick up her sword and wrench her dagger out of Elenwen's shoulder; both gleamed with traces of poison. "Did you get whatever Kajsa wanted?"
Pulling his stolen Justiciar robes over his head and tossing them onto the desk chair, Finverior gestured proudly to the leather folders strapped to his stomach. "All that I could without arousing suspicion for my unusually toned physique."
"What are they, anyway?" Sithia grabbed the corner of his discarded robes and started wiping off her weapons.
"Mostly architects' plans for the city of Alinor – including a very painstaking map of the sewer system. Even snagged some blueprints for the Palace of Justice and some other government buildings. All of them were filed alongside this –" he reached down and tapped a scroll that had been tied to the inside of his thigh "– which happens to be one of the very first operations accounts in the Archive."
"And that is?" Sithia sheathed both sword and dagger at her side.
"Operation Summer Dawn," The Bosmer intoned with no small amount of disdain. "The Thalmor's takeover of the Summerset Isles and the coup of its government."
The assassin frowned. "Do you think that Kajsa's plotting an invasion?"
"Gods, I hope so. The Dominion can't come down fast enough." Finverior nudged Elenwen's body with his toe. "Might be too late to undo the damage they've done, but..." He tried to smile encouragingly. "Tamriel will be better off without them."
Sithia was silent for a moment. Then: "I used to dream about killing her," she said quietly. "I must have killed her a thousand times in my sleep: stabbing, poisoning, drowning, strangulation... all of it." Her mouth curled, giving her expression a sour cast. "To see her dead now feels... unimaginably underwhelming."
The Bosmer nodded. "I know that feeling." Sometimes, death just isn't good enough for some people.
"Wish I could have made her suffer a little more." The assassin knelt by Elenwen's body again, pulling out her sword. "But at least it's over."
Sometimes, that's all you need. An end. "What are you doing now?"
Sithia smiled, a vicious white slash in the near-darkness. "You give Kajsa her papers. I'll give her husband something else."
When the Palace guards finally broke down the door to Elenwen's offices and moved the desk that had barricaded it from within, they found two things. One was the former First Emissary to Skyrim, lying on the rug in a pool of blood and poison – and missing her head.
The other was the piece of parchment on her chest, held in place by an ebony dagger driven between her ribs. Under the image of the black handprint were four words:
We're coming for you.
THE END
[A/N] And that's a wrap, folks! Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!