A/N: Happy Monday, all! And happy almost two weeks until Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! I'm so ready to spend some time at home. Anyway, here's chapter 29. I apologize for what happens in it, especially to DARKLORDVADER who reviewed chapter 21. No notes really, so just go ahead and hop on down and get to reading! As always, many thanks to my beta reader (and sister) GrowlingPeanut. Reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Softworks and George R. R. Martin.
Rating: M for violence and death stuff and rape and abuse.
The book was heavy. Though it was a thin tome bound only in leather, it had a weight that dragged her down with each step. Even so, she kept it at her waist, for she knew what she must do. There was no other way to save her child. To save herself.
Her footsteps pounded as they fell, thumping against the wooden floors below as she descended to the court wizard's chambers.
Wuunferth was at his arcane enchanter when she entered, and he raised his head when she cleared her throat.
"Lady Sansa," he greeted cautiously, peering over her shoulder before continuing. "Are you feeling well, child?"
She nodded calmly, though inside, her heart was beating frantically. "Yes." When he acknowledged her answer, she continued. "As a young girl I studied alchemy at the College of Winterhold, along with Restoration magick, and I thought I might try my hand again and see what I remember. I was wondering if you might have any potion recipes."
Nodding, Wuunferth left his work behind and moved to a bookshelf cluttered with pieces of parchment. "Everything I have is here on these shelves. If you're looking for Restoration and potions that's like to be..." He pulled one from a higher shelf and looked at it for a moment, absently tugging on his beard before grunting and nodding again. "Yes. Up on these shelves here. Below the third is what I have on poisons so stay above that and take whatever you need."
Smiling and thanking the old wizard, she moved to the bookshelf and idly flipped through the area from which he had pulled the recipe.
Fortify health...cure disease...regenerate magicka...
She feigned interest for several long moments before looking over at Wuunferth. As she had hoped, he was bent back over his work, carefully focused on whatever was before him.
Taking a deep breath, she cast him one final glance before kneeling and riffling through the recipes on the bottom shelves. Though she had no intention of doing what she was planning herself, nor did she think that she could, she could certainly assist those who would.
Quickly, she flipped through the pages, reading each recipe title as they passed until she found something of use.
Damage health...slow...weakness to fire...paralyze...
Her fingers closed around the last and pulled it from the shelf, slipping it beneath her cloak. If she remembered enough of her alchemical training, then she could render him unable to fight, unable to move, helpless, and completely at her mercy.
Gathering a few of the restorative potion recipes, she moved back to the door, thanking Wuunferth with a smile as he bid her farewell. Preoccupied, she ran into a soldier making his way down the hall, and the book tumbled from beneath her gown. Hastily snatching it up and avoiding the man's gaze, she muttered an apology and hurried away.
As she walked from the palace, she removed the sheet of parchment once more and scanned the listed ingredients.
Canis root, imp stool, and swamp fungal pod. All fairly common ingredients. Hopefully, she would be able to purchase them at the White Phial without any trouble.
Quintus was absently cleaning off the counter with a rag when Sansa entered the shop and when he saw his customer he looked up with a smile.
"Good day, Lady Sansa. What can I do for you today?"
"Looking for some ingredients," she replied honestly. "I dabbled in alchemy as a child and was looking to try my hand again."
"Did you have anything particular in mind?" Quintus asked, poised to retrieve whatever she requested.
"Yes," Sansa said, scanning the shelves. "Do you have..." She pretended to search for a moment before continuing. "Canis root...imp stool, or...swamp fungal pods? I remember working with those before."
The alchemist looked about for a minute before nodding and removing a few ingredients from the shelves behind him. "You're in luck, my lady," he said cheerily, turning and dumping them on the counter between them. "I have them all. And that's a good memory you have. These can make a rather effective restore health potion when extracted correctly."
Sansa smiled softly and nodded, but said nothing.
"No need to pay, my lady," Quintus continued when she reached for her coinpurse. "If news spreads that Lady Stormcloak has an interest in alchemy our business will soar and we'll be more than compensated for these few things."
Nodding her thanks, Sansa began gathering the ingredients when he stopped her again.
"Please, use our equipment here, Lady Sansa," he urged. "There's no need for you to haul those all the way back to the palace."
Sansa hesitated only briefly before nodding once more. "Thank you. You and your master are kind."
Upstairs, Nurelion gave a rattling cough and Quintus winced slightly, casting a worried look toward the ladder to the upper floor.
"Yes..." he said absently. "I should go see how he's doing. Feel free to use whatever you may need."
As he hurried upstairs, Sansa approached the table in the corner and began her work. The art came back to her more quickly than she had imagined and she tirelessly grinded the plants to a thick pulp in the mortar and pestle before distilling them through the glass alembic and funneling it into an empty bottle. Though pale brown and slightly bitter in taste, it would be well hidden in the bottle of heady red wine that sat beside her bed.
Gripping the bottle tightly, she cast a glance toward the upper level before moving back to the counter. Laying in plain view was a pale violet flower, delicate, and deadly. Lifting it by its stem, she concealed it in her sleeve and hurriedly ducked out of the shop, making her way back to the palace.
So far, everything had gone as she hoped it would. Now, all that was left was to wait.
Ulfric came to her that night just as she had expected, slipping into her chambers just after sunset. He had returned from his victory at Whiterun only a few days before, and he had visited her chambers every night since, his bloodlust fading to desire in the wake of the battle.
"You look positively ravishing in the colors of mourning, my love," he said snidely as he approached. "It's a shame that the last person you loved is dead. Unless you're closer to that half-brother in Winterhold than you've let on."
Sansa stayed silent, watching as he moved toward her and steeling herself for what was to come. Though it had been over a moon since their wedding, it never felt like any less of a betrayal when she allowed him to take her, and she still spent the hours after he left her crying and retching into her chamber pot.
"Get on the bed," he ordered, discarding his tunic and moving to join her. Obediently, she rose and stripped down to her shift before lying on the bed. Taking only a moment to enjoy her form through the thin fabric, he slipped it from her trembling frame and settled between her thighs.
Closing her eyes, she recited the words from the book as he grunted and sweat above her, her hand falling over the side of the bed to feel the wicker of the basket beneath. Within it, she had all that she would need to finally be free.
Sweet Mother, sweet mother...
"Look at me when I'm fucking you," Ulfric growled, his hand rising to her throat. Ever the dutiful wife, her eyes snapped open, clear and bright in a way they hadn't been since she had first arrived in Windhelm.
Send your child unto me...
She could feel her pulse pounding beneath his thumb as he tightened his grip. Though she was still numb, she felt strangely alive.
For the sins of the unworthy have been baptized in blood and fear.
Finally, he released her and rolled to lie beside her and Sansa watched in silence as he reached for the bottle of wine he had left the last night that he had chosen to abuse her. The liquid poured thickly into the silver goblet and he swirled it absently before draining it in one long drink.
Turning on his side, he traced the lines of the scars that he had given her and though she had to suppress a shudder, she did not pull away.
Though the poison was not swift, for she was still a novice in the alchemical arts, with time, it took its toll. His breathing had already grown deep and a steady snore vibrated from his open mouth as his limbs began to harden and grow rigid. Sansa watched as he grew motionless and when he stilled completely, she rose.
Calmly, she moved from under his grasp, pulled her shift back on over her head, and retrieved the book from beneath her pillow before turning back to her husband.
"This is the last night I will be forced to endure your touch," she said evenly to his sleeping form, her eyes glowing eerily in the moonlight. "You've done your harm, but now you'll never hurt me again."
The streets were cold beneath her bare feet, but she hardly noticed. All she knew were the words that bounced around her skull, repeating over and over as she walked. The Black Sacrament, darkest of all magick known to man.
Though her eyes scanned the graves as she passed them, she knew that his name would not be there. To bury him would have been too high an honor for the man who had kidnapped and raped the future High Queen of Skyrim.
The door to the Hall of the Dead was heavy, and its corridors were dark, cold, and damp. It was a chill that sank bone-deep, and a shiver ran down the length of Sansa's spine. In the heavy silence of the empty hall, her footsteps echoed loudly, hitting the cold marble floors in time with the beating of her heart.
Carefully, she drew a torch from one of the iron rings along the walls, using it to guide her way to the depths of Arkay's mortal realm.
The basket was heavy in her other hand, dragging her down as she shuffled in the darkness, her torch throwing long shadows against the walls that stretched and reached for her with each shift of the flames.
For Sandor, she reminded herself, her free hand following the slight swell of her stomach. For our child.
The last victim of the Butcher of Windhelm lie on a table in the main chamber, slashed to pieces, hardly recognizable as its pale, bulging eyes followed her across the room. Had Ulfric not allowed Robb to be buried in Winterhold, it would have been his body on the table, reeking of embalming fluid, cold and stiff.
Sansa did not know where Sandor's body had been taken by Arkay's priestess after his execution, but her heart told her to keep walking, and so she did. Deeper and deeper she went, following the winding halls under the watchful eyes of the dead.
Finally, she stopped. Far to the back, in the lowest hollow of the stone wall, he lay. Dropping to her knees, Sansa set the torch aside and began to work.
Create an effigy of the intended victim, assembled from actual body parts, including a heart, skull, bones, and flesh.
The body was heavy as she dragged it from its shallow tomb to the ground before her. In the light of her torch, his eyes looked more blue than grey, his hair shorter, shoulders narrower. Her heart clenched as she realized that she had already begun to forget the face of her lover.
Breathing deeply, she looked around for a moment before catching sight of a bleached skeleton resting atop a nearby table. One bone at a time, she carried it over and pieced it back together, meticulously and patiently. Once it had been reformed, she withdrew the crown from her basket and placed it atop the grinning skull. It had been simple enough to slip it from Ulfric's chambers as he bathed, and now it would seal his demise at the hands of Skyrim's most gifted killers.
Encircle that effigy with candles. The ritual itself must then commence.
Silently, she circled the bones with candles, and then drew out the thin blade that she had taken from the guard barracks. It glinted in the circle of light thrown from the torch and made a sickening squelch as she gripped it in both hands and plunged it into Sandor's chest.
As the dagger tore through his flesh, the smell of death filled the air, a stench that not even the best embalming could disguise.
Proceed to stab the effigy repeatedly with a dagger rubbed with the petals, while whispering this plea:
"Sweet mother, sweet mother," Sansa chanted softly, her hand disappearing into the gaping hole of his broad chest. "Send your child unto me." Dark red blood, nearly black in the shadows of the crypt, trailed sluggishly down her arm from the heart grasped tightly in her trembling fist. "For the sins of the unworthy have been baptized in blood and fear."
She laid the heart inside the skeletal ribcage and breathed a spark to her fingertips, lighting the tallow candles that surrounded the macabre effigy of her lord husband. With ironic delicacy she lifted the Nightshade from the frozen ground beside her and drew the dagger along its petals, her breath slowing as her palm opened and leaked a steady stream of blood across the pale, brittle bones.
As she opened her fist, the broken petals fluttered to their resting place, stained crimson with her blood. Her hand throbbed in pain, and as the shadows flickered, the heart appeared to beat in time, pulsing rhythmically in its cage of bone. It set a tempo as her chant continued, echoing through the halls.
"Sweet mother, sweet mother."
"I love you, but you have to move on."
"Send your child unto me."
"Be happy."
"For the sins of the unworthy,"
"Please."
"Have been baptized in blood and fear."
Tearing a strip of flesh from the corpse's gaping wound, she placed it across the brittle ribcage and then grasped the dagger in both of her hands, plunging it deep into the heart. As she spoke she continued the movement, stabbing the heart of her lover once for every night that she had been forced into another's arms.
"Sweet mother, sweet mother, send your child unto me. For the sins of the unworthy have been baptized in blood and f—"
"Stop."
The words died on her lips as a strange voice spoke from the shadows, and she froze, dagger still gripped in her bleeding fist.
Then wait, child, for the Dread Father Sithis rewards the patient. You will be visited by a representative of the Dark Brotherhood. So begins a contract bound in blood.
"Don't do it, Sansa," the voice said quietly, almost gently. "I know you think it's your only choice, but you don't want to do this. Once you've killed a man, there's no going back."
"I have to," Sansa whispered back, her eyes welling with tears. "He'll hurt me again…" Her hand drifted to her stomach and she choked back a sob. "He'll hurt my baby."
"No he won't," the voice replied fiercely, and for a moment, Sansa almost thought she recognized it. "So long as I live, I swear to you, I'll protect you. You'll be free of him one day."
A long silence passed and finally, Sansa spoke again through her tears. "Who are you? Why do you care about me?"
A deep sigh was her only answer, and after a moment, a figure separated from the shadows, grey eyes filled with tears as they met her gaze.
"It's me, Sans."
A sob tore from Sansa's throat and the woman rushed forward to catch her as she collapsed to the ground, babbling unintelligibly through her tears.
Stroking her hair, the assassin sighed deeply and pressed a kiss to her sister's forehead. "It's Arya."