Chapter 6: Heist Games
I broke my kiss with Dagny so suddenly that she gasped. She looked up at me, worried.
"Aventus," she said in a hurt voice. "What's wrong? Did I…"
"It's Nelkir," I said, looking past the top of her head. I looked down at her, seeing the confusion on her face. "He's watching us," I explained. Pavot growled low in his throat, but I put a light hand on the ice wolf's muzzle to make him be quiet. Chastised, my companion backed away a few paces and laid down on the stone, but he never took his intense blue eyes off the Nord boy.
"That little creep," she huffed, her pale face turning bright red in frustration. Dagny turned on her heel and began to stomp her way toward the edge of the veranda. When I looked back up to where Nelkir stood, his face was more relaxed—almost amused. I blinked rapidly, trying hard to retain the image of his furious expression.
"About time," the boy drawled as his sister stalked up to the railing. The two of them were almost ten feet apart, across the small gap between Proudspire Manor and the rear porch of Jarl Balgruuf's home. "I swear, big sister, I was beginning to think that you might be destined to become an old maid."
"I'm fifteen, you ass!" she hissed at him, her hands clenched white on the railing. I had a feeling that if Nelkir were any closer, those delicate hands might be wrapped around his neck.
"Women aren't like wine," he laughed, pulling a metal flask out of his pocket and taking a long drink. "Let them go too long, and they spoil." He laughed again, a slightly uneven noise that made me shiver. "Of course, we don't have to worry about you getting any more spoiled than you are already. Isn't that right, Princess Sweetroll?"
"I told you not to call me that!" she yelled, and began to clamber up onto the railing. If I hadn't caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder, I really think she would have tried to make the jump, bustle and all.
"Cheers!" Nelkir shouted when he saw me restraining his sister. He nodded and took another liberal swig from his flask. "Good to see you again, Aventus."
"Really?" I asked, trying to hold onto both the chubby girl in my arms and my dignity. I was succeeding at the former, but mostly failing at the latter. "From where I was standing, it looked like you weren't too happy."
"Just a little surprised," he replied, tucking away the flask with a hurt look on his face. He seemed so sincere that I couldn't help but question what I had seen before. "And I was a little upset to see my sister smooching on some idiot—until I realized it was you, of course." I nodded slowly. That sounded reasonable—and it was more likely than Nelkir harboring some murderous grudge that he was suddenly able to hide completely.
"Who else would it be?" Dagny huffed, finally relaxing in my grip a bit. "We're on the porch of Aventus' house!"
"You could have just come over here to be out of Frothar's sight," Nelkir responded. "Not really necessary, by the way, since he's out for the day." He paused, a slightly addled look on his face "No, I suppose I really didn't think that one through very well. Suffice to say, the fault is all mine." He gave a mocking half-bow with a devilish smile and Dagny sighed in frustration before going slack in my arms.
"You little idiot," she said, shaking her head. She shook me off her arm and leaned on the railing, clearly still annoyed but no longer frothing mad. "So, are you going to tell Frothar about this? Or Father?"
"Of course not," he replied at once. Dagny seemed taken aback. "Why should I have all the fun in this family? I'm thrilled that you finally have a boyfriend."
"He's not my-" she started, only to have Nelkir cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand.
"So you were just sucking face for your health?" Dagny and I both turned red this time, and Nelkir laughed long and hard. "Please forgive me, sister. But if you could see your expression right now, you'd laugh too."
"I somehow doubt she would," I muttered, drawing another burst of laughter from Nelkir and a sharp look from Dagny. I rolled my shoulders and wondered if every noble was required to take a big dose of crazy on a daily basis, or if it was just Balgruuf's children.
"I was just stepping out for a sip of courage before dinner," Nelkir said, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. "I take it you're still joining us?"
"Is Father coming home for dinner?" Dagny asked, seeming cheered by the prospect.
"Sadly, no," Nelkir informed her. Her shoulders slumped and she frowned. "Irileth tells me that he is in deep counsel with the jarl and her advisers. I wonder if said counsel will involve mead and dancing girls. I might be more interested in politics if that were the case." Seeing Dagny's face become stormy again, he chuckled and shrugged. "I'm just saying that I don't know what sort of planning can be done with General Tullius out of the city and winter coming. No one can move troops in the winter time."
"No one but Ulfric Stormcloak," Dagny hissed. "Or have you forgotten the night he took our home from us?"
"I've forgotten nothing," Nelkir said in a low, dangerous voice. His face dropped all pretense of courtesy and pleasantness, becoming dark and pained. "I will never forget the night the Stormcloaks came to Whiterun—or the things that happened then." Nelkir turned on his heel and stormed off.
I could see the family resemblance. How many times had Dagny done that same dramatic exit when she was done explaining herself?
"What happened to him?" I asked softly once he was gone.
"Nothing happened to Nelkir," Dagny said, not looking at me. "Nothing more than happened to the rest of us. We all lost important things that night—and important people."
"I thought the Stormcloaks preferred to take members of the court alive," I replied.
"Preference doesn't always mean getting what you want," she said softly. "Our court wizard was killed, and a lot of our house guard."
"Your court wizard?" I asked. "Farengar, right?" She nodded, still not looking at me. "My mother spoke kindly of him." Dagny laughed bitterly.
"They argued all the time, as far as I know," she said, shaking her head. "But he and Nelkir were close. I think that Nelkir might have been interested in becoming a mage himself, before the Stormcloaks attacked Whiterun. He was always a little jerk, but after we fled the city he became downright vicious." She sniffed and ran a hand discretely across her cheek; I hadn't realized she was crying.
"Maybe he just misses his friend," I offered.
"We all miss Farengar," she said in a thick voice. "We all miss home."
And then the floodgates opened and Dagny began to weep openly. She turned to me and buried her face in my chest, sobs wracking her body. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head, as I had seen Cicero do for Hecate on more than one occasion. It had seemed to help Hecate, and I didn't know what else to do.
In my heart, I cursed Nelkir for turning what had been a very pleasant evening into something ugly. I knew it wasn't his fault—he was probably just as hurt as Dagny was—but it didn't stop me from being angry.
It was well after sunset by the time Dagny left for home. All at once, her crying had stopped, she composed herself, thanked me, and left without another word. I stood there in the gathering dark for long moments, trying to understand what had passed between us—wondering if Nelkir had somehow spoiled it, wondering how I actually felt about her. Pavot senses my disquiet and nuzzled up against my leg, finally breaking me from my reverie.
I shrugged it off as best I could and went inside Proudspire Manor. The place was lit up so I gathered that Jordis, Diana's housecarl, was in attendance. I really had no idea what the woman did when either I or my adopted mother weren't in residence, but she had always been at the mansion whenever I stopped by. As I stepped inside and rubbed my arms to get warm, I could smell something wafting out of the kitchen.
I suddenly realized how hungry I was. It had been my intention to just grab something from the pantry and head out; between being cold and confused, I decided that it would be worth my time to see if Jordis minded me using the kitchen once she was done. As I walked in, I saw her crouching next to the fire, keeping the coals under it banked. When she saw me, she stirred them with a metal poker to bring them back to life, bringing more heat under a large covered cook-pot.
"I didn't know how long you'd be," she said, "so I kept dinner warm while you were busy."
"Jordis…" I started. "Have you been in here this whole time?"
"Well, I didn't want to eavesdrop or anything," she said with a slight blush, looking back at the fire. "You're here so rarely, I thought it was the least I could do to make dinner."
"That's… Thank you," I finally managed to get out. It touched me that someone I barely knew would be so nice to me. Thinking back on it, I realized how often I had been the recipient of kindness from strangers; in a very real sense, I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for such acts.
When you're an assassin, it's easy to forget that there are good people out there too. You start thinking about the world in terms of clients, targets, and killers. But there are other kinds of people—decent people. It was good to have a reminder of it from time to time. I had planned on just stopping in and grabbing some food before rushing off to steal from Erikur, but the sincere, almost pathetic look on Jordis' face convinced me to stay a while.
"What are we having for dinner?" I asked.
"We?" she responded, seeming confused. "I figured that I would just get whatever you left behind…" She paused and looked up at me with sad eyes. "I'm used to getting other people's leftovers. It's not so bad. Once you get used to it." I paused, taken aback by the old pain I saw in her face. Finally, I made a decision. Maybe it was time to start giving back some of the kindness that people had been showing me for years.
"Jordis, do you serve my mother?" I demanded.
"Of course, Aventus," she said in a slightly hurt voice.
"So you serve me too, right?"
"With my life, if need be," she responded.
"Then I order you to have dinner with me," I continued. Her face slowly lit up like a warm spring morning. She might not be as stunningly beautiful as her cousin, Elisif the Fair, but she was far from ugly. "If I'm going to be here at Proudspire Manor, I can't feel like the place is empty. And… I'd very much like us to be friends."
"Friends?" Jordis said in a small voice. "I've never had very many friends before."
"Neither have I," I told her. "So it's a new experience for us both." I held out my hand to her in the Imperial style, offering a friendship that I would never have thought to give only a few months before. Maybe Ataf was rubbing off on me after all.
I was only a little surprised when she ignored my hand and wrapped me in a full-on hug, crushing my arms to my side in her powerful embrace. I guess being a sword-maiden gave you good upper-body strength. The hug seemed to last forever, with Jordis babbling into my ear about how grateful she was and how she wouldn't let me down and how she'd be the best friend ever.
"Jordis…" I finally managed to choke out.
"What is it, Aventus?" she asked.
"You're choking me."
"Oh!" she exclaimed as she released me from her bear—like grip. "I'm so sorry!"
"No problem," I told her with a smile, worried that she might get upset enough to bolt away. "Now, what do we have to eat? I'm starving."
She smiled at me and turned back to the fire, eager to show me what she had laid out. I smiled to myself a little too; I might not get to hit Erikur's house tonight, but the lute would still be there tomorrow.
"What do you mean, she doesn't want to see me?" I said with far more hurt in my voice than I'd intended to let out.
"Just what I said," Irileth replied, shutting the door behind her and crossing her arms. The message was clear: I wasn't welcome in Jarl Balgruuf's home right now. "Dagny said she doesn't want any visitors, and she didn't make an exception for you."
"I just don't understand," I sighed. The morning sun was doing nothing to drive away the cold, but the weather was less frigid than the reception I was getting from Balgruuf's housecarl. "Have I done something wrong?"
"It's not my place to say," the Dunmer woman said in a voice that dripped with venom. Clearly I had done something to offend Dagny; I just didn't know what it was.
"All right then," I finally said. "If you get a chance, please let her know that I stopped by. And give her my thanks for all the help." I started to turn away, then paused because of the slightly incredulous look on Irileth's face. "What?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said. "Just surprised that you're not throwing a tantrum. Young men thwarted by a girl often do."
"It's her life," I said with as much dignity as I could muster. "If she doesn't want to see me, she doesn't want to see me."
"Do you really want to see her?" Irileth asked, with what sounded like genuine curiosity.
"I wouldn't have come here if I didn't," I replied.
"That's not what I asked," the housecarl returned. "Do you, Aventus Aretino, want to see Dagny? Or does the son of the Dragonborn want to see the daughter of Jarl Balgruuf?"
"Why does everyone bring it back to politics?" I asked, unable to hide my resentment. Irileth seemed taken aback by the rancor in my voice. "I don't know what I did to piss Dagny off, but let her know I'm sorry about it, okay? Wish her the best from me."
"Hold on," Irileth said before I could leave. I sighed in frustration and crossed my arms to mimic her stance. She leaned in to speak more quietly to me. "Dagny isn't angry at you. She's just not feeling well today."
"Why didn't you just say that then?" I demanded.
"I wanted to see what kind of person she was getting involved with," she responded. "I've seen young lordlings throw a fit in public if they can't see their lady friend right away, and it embarrasses everyone. Still, it's better than a young lady winding up with boy who would shame her more in the long run. You seem to actually care about Dagny, and not just her position. That's… refreshing."
"She's done a lot for me," I said, cooling down a bit. "And thinking about position isn't something I'm used to."
"I suppose not," Irileth allowed. "Come back tomorrow, and hopefully she'll be feeling well enough to see you."
"Thank you," I said with a small bow.
"Gods know you still need her," Irileth chuckle. "That bow was terrible." My face flushed as I straightened up, which only made Irileth laugh more. I shook my head and started to walk away, and Irileth let herself back into the house.
Before I had gone more than a few steps, I heard a tapping noise coming from above me. I looked up toward the source of the sound and saw Dagny at a window on the second floor. She looked pale and drawn, but she was smiling wanly. She pressed one hand up against the glass pane and made a small wave. I smiled back and held up my hand. Her mouth moved; only because of my training with lip reading could I make out "Sorry."
"It's okay," I mouthed back. "Tomorrow?"
She nodded, her face brightening up slightly before she winced and put a hand to her stomach. She waved goodbye and moved away from the window.
I shook my head as I began to walk across the district. Nobles and their housecarls and their damnable games. Irileth seemed more straightforward than most people I had met through the court—Dunmer tended to be pretty vocal about their opinions, in my experience—but even she couldn't resist testing me. I didn't like playing games. I wish she could have just said "Dagny's on her period. Come back later." That, I could have dealt with.
It's not like I hadn't lived around women before. Even back when I was living with my mother in Windhelm, I had realized she wouldn't work for two or three days each month because she was "feeling poorly"; she didn't tell me about it specifically, but the regularity of it wasn't something that you could miss. The female humans and mer in the Brotherhood had made something of a joke about it with the beast-kin, since Argonians and Khajiit didn't suffer the same cycle. Now that I thought about it, I had a lot more sisters than brothers in my adopted family.
Hecate was worse than most, actually. She only seemed to get her period every three or four months, but it was like battening down for a storm whenever it happened. She spent a lot of time sequestered, and everyone else got out of Sanctuary as much as possible because of how miserable she became to be around. Cicero even installed a warning bell to let everyone know they should find a rock to hide under; he called it "the doom bell." A little dramatic, I thought, but the Fool of Hearts was given to grand gestures.
Truthfully, I was surprised at how upset I was at not being able to see Dagny. She had been a royal pain in my side for weeks, even as she prepared me for the harsh realities of courtly life. I knew that I liked her as a friend, but her kissing me had come out of left field. I hadn't disliked kissing Dagny… Actually, it had been very pleasant. Still, I knew that people outside the Dark Brotherhood had different ideas about what that sort of activity implied. Stuff about long-term relationships and courting and things I didn't really understand all that well.
Could I have a relationship with someone outside the Brotherhood? Did I even want to? It was all so confusing.
Still, not seeing Dagny gave me a little more time to scope out Erikur's house during the day. I had been by the place before, of course, but it never hurt to give your target one last look before committing to a mission. Especially since I was acting outside of my core training—that training being "kill everyone in my way." No, this task called for more stealth and less murder than I was used to.
Erikur's stately home was only a few blocks away from Proudspire Manor, in the same district of Solitude. This part of the city catered to the wealthy and the high-born. Erikur's home might have been newer than many of the buildings in the district, but it was no less well-appointed. A narrow three-story manor near the district wall, Erikur's house was clearly built on a plot of land purchased between older, more venerable homes. Its walls and gables were fine stone and clean slate, and it even had a small veranda on the side. It was a short walk from both Castle Dour and the Blue Palace, the twin beating hearts of the city's political life. Perfect for a social climber like Erikur.
As I walked down the street, I glanced at the veranda; that would be my point of entry. There was a terraced outcropping off to one side of the house from a higher level of the city. From that, I could toss a line across to the veranda and make an approach from a part of the house out of the eye of any random guard patrol. If I was especially lucky, it wouldn't be locked. Since I didn't believe in relying on luck, I would be bringing along a crowbar to force the lock.
Scanning across the house, I happened to notice a young woman on the opposite end of the street. She was brown-haired and tall, probably a Nord, wearing the garb of a serving maid. She was looking at the house too; her pensive expression indicated that she might be considering looking for work there. I didn't envy her the task. Erikur seemed like he would be as much of a boor to work with as he was to deal with in court. Any house maid of his was probably signing up for a working experience full of random groping and drunken leers. I considered warning her off before deciding that it was really none of my business.
Something about her struck me as unusual, though. It finally hit me that a serving maid normally didn't wear finely-crafted leather boots with her tattered, patchwork dress. I started walking toward her, not really sure what I would do when I caught up to her, when she noticed me and abruptly turned away. She began walking directly away from me at a brisk pace, which only heightened my interest. People with nothing to hide didn't run from random strangers.
I picked up my pace and she picked hers up too, making a sudden turn into the alleys just off the upper district. I paused for a moment before following. It could well be an ambush. Finally, I decided that anyone stupid enough to try and jump me for my coin purse probably deserved whatever happened to them, and I followed.
I managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of her scarf as she turned the corner ahead of me, and I sped up into a jog, For a moment, it seemed like I would catch up to her. But as I turned the next corner, I found myself in a dead-end alleyway, with only rats and pigeons for company. I slowly turned around, scanning up and down the alley for any sign of her. I braced for any possible attack that might come.
Nothing.
Somehow, she had lost me. I wondered who she might have been, and where she could have gotten the skill to lose a trained assassin who was trailing her. More than that, though, something about her had been familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I was certain that I had seen her somewhere before. I searched around for a few minutes, seeking some sign of her, before I finally gave it up and decided to head home for lunch. I had things to do today, after all. Little mysteries like this one could wait.
As I left the alley, I was sure that I felt eyes on my back, but I didn't bother looking again. If she had evaded all of my efforts to find her, I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of me being spooked by it.
It was time.
Cold winter night had fallen across Solitude, and the streets were empty enough to give the city cause for its name. Even the guards were patrolling thinly, preferring to huddle around coal-filled braziers to keep their gloved hands from going numb. I had taken the opportunity to switch into my Dark Brotherhood leathers, something I got to do only rarely these days, but had taken the practical addition of a woolen cloak and muffler. As I'd been forced to repeatedly remind my friends at the Bards College, I wasn't a Nord, so I had to take more precautions against the cold.
As I closed in on Erikur's house, I circled the area through neighboring alleyways to get a good look at the place before breaking in. None of the lights were on inside, so the couple of guards Erikur had left in the house were probably sleeping. As long as I didn't get too noisy, no one would have cause to even leave their beds. The moons were hidden behind clouds, and a light snow was falling from the sky. Fortunately, I wouldn't have to worry about leaving any tracks that anyone could follow, since I wouldn't be making my approach from the street.
I walked around the far side of the block to break line of sight with anyone that I might not have noticed, then paced back around to my elevated position that overlooked Erikur's side porch. A quick toss of my grappling hook and line secured it in place, then I tied it off on my end and shimmied across, hanging from the rope by my hands and ankles.
Once I reached the porch, I dropped silently to the ground and looked over the edge. Unless someone walked right through this side alley and looked directly up at the right angle, my line would be invisible—which was good, since I didn't want to risk leaving through the front door, and a two-story drop off the side of the house would probably wind up with me twisting an ankle if I was lucky.
I pulled my crowbar out of the slim pack strapped to my back and made ready to pop the door off its catch. Before I did, I checked it just to be safe—and found it unlocked. I smiled under my muffler at my turn of good fortune. No sense looking a gift horse in the mouth. I stowed the crowbar back in the pack, secured it, and slipped in through the door as quick as I could while keeping quiet.
Now I was at the point where I was operating off of guesswork and observation. An inquiry with one of the maids a few weeks before had gotten me a vague sketch of the interior layout, including a locked room which she believed was Erikur's study. Even the cleaning staff weren't allowed in, which made me strongly believe it was where Erikur kept his most valuable possessions—hopefully including Finn's Lute. If I had to search the place top to bottom, I would do it, though it wasn't my first choice. I didn't like to think about what I would do if it wasn't here, but I would bet good septims that Erikur was exactly the sort of arrogant bastard who would keep his illicit gains within easy access for gloating.
I moved through the house as quietly as my training allowed, blending with the shadows and ducking below windows to avoid even the chance of notice by any passerby. The house was silent save for the groaning of the wind outside and the occasional creak of the foundation settling. From my quick glances outside, it seemed like the moons were occasionally breaking through the clouds, filling the city with a gentle silver glow. I crept up to the second floor, to the door that was always locked.
It was standing open, just an inch.
I froze in front of the door. Generally, when your luck seemed too good to be true, it was. I pulled out my collapsible mace and kept my thumb on the catch that would release it to its full length. The heavy ebony gave me some reassurance in case of trouble. I slowly pushed the door open, peeking through to see if anyone was waiting for me. Once the entrance was wide enough to put my body through, I snaked inside and pushed the door back to its almost-closed state.
There was no one inside.
A quick scan of the room confirmed my initial glance. The place was empty, save for a desk covered in neatly-stacked papers and several shelves and display cases. The shelves were covered in valuable-looking trinkets, most of them quite gaudy as befit a man of Erikur's venal tastes. In the middle of the room, in a place of honor, was a tall glass case with a gold stand, on which sat Finn's Lute. I smiled under my muffler, pacing toward the case.
I paused a moment, thinking about the culmination of my weeks of effort to find this historical treasure. It was a piece of interesting memorabilia to me, though I didn't feel the same sentimentality about objects that some people did. Somewhere along the line, though, I had become obsessed with Finn's Lute. At first, I thought that returning it could get me some amount of freedom from the gilded cage I was living in at the Bards College. Then it had become a reason in and of itself, a hobby to keep me occupied and distracted from dealing with the reality of my new life.
As I looked at the ancient musical instrument, I realized that now I could let go of all of that. Maybe now, after I returned the lute to its proper place in the collection of the Bards College, I could actually start moving forward with my life. I could try to figure out what my relationship with Dagny was turning into—if I really cared about her, or if she was just a friend. I could think about having real friends who weren't hired killers, about my studies…
For the first time since I had come to the Bards College, I felt truly free again. The moons broke through the clouds outside, spilling light into the window on the far side of the room. As the light passed through the glass case, it turned the glass reflective. I could see myself clearly in the mirror-like surface.
And I could see someone creeping up behind me.
I spun, flicking out the mace to its full length and taking a broad swipe at the approaching figure. My opponent rolled backward out of the reach of my attack, then darted back in to deliver a series of quick rabbit punches to my stomach. The reinforced leather armor kept the worst of it from me, but it still staggered me a step and slowed me down. I was barely able to block my foe's uppercut toward my jaw with crossed wrists, but then her hands closed over the top of mine and she head-butted me hard enough to make me see stars and drop my mace.
I suddenly realized that I was thinking of my opponent as a woman. As I shook my head to clear it, I saw that my assessment was correct. She was nearly as tall as me, broad-shouldered like a Nord woman, wearing dark brown leather armor with a hood that hid her hair and eyes from me. The lower part of her jaw was distinctly feminine, though, and the body that was under the armor spoke of both curves and muscles. The armor didn't look like that of a normal city guard; maybe she was a mercenary that Erikur had hired to protect his house while he was gone.
She didn't slow her assault as I assessed her, pressing forward with a series of forward jabs and snap kicks. I parried everything I could, but her hand to hand skills were at least as good as mine, and the element of surprise had put me off my game. I was also better with weapons than bare-knuckle brawling; losing my mace tilted the fight out of my favor. Not to mention that I was a lot more used to killing people who weren't aware of me, and I was months out of practice with fighting real opponents. I cursed losing my sparring partners more than ever. If I survived the night, I would have to find someone I could train with.
I realized I was making excuses while I was getting my ass kicked, and I quickly focused my mind on the fight.
I let a couple of jabs through to my armored body so that I could shoulder-check my enemy back a few feet. She stumbled, almost crashing into a glass case on the far side of the room. She dropped her guard for just a second to check her fall and avoid breaking anything. While it could have been the conscientious action of a good employee, it struck me more as the desperate maneuver of someone who was trying to avoid drawing attention. I suddenly realized that she hadn't called for help either; the two of us had been fighting in near-silence, save for our heavy breathing and the occasional thud of impact.
She was a thief, not a guard. And a pretty good thief too, to hide from me in a room this small. I had heard Hecate mention the Thieves Guild before, but she had never spoken of them with anything but contempt. To see this level of competence from one of them was shocking.
I capitalized on her moment of hesitation to put a low display stand between the two of us. Cicero had always said that nothing was a good substitute for a sharp knife and a bad attitude, but anything could be turned into a killing implement by a skilled assassin. As she darted toward me, I picked up a heavy vase and chucked it at her, forcing her to catch it to avoid making any noise. She spun and put it down, then turned toward me just in time to catch my crowbar across her stomach.
Her hair flew out around her face as she gasped heavily, all the air knocked out of her lungs. The brown strands flew in the air and her hood fell down as she tried to straighten up. As I locked eyes with her, I recognized her as the "maid" I had seen in the street earlier in the day. She must have been scoping the place out too; it certainly explained how she had managed to get away from me before. I considered asking her who she was—that sense of familiarity was haunting—but I decided that practicality had to win out. I would feel a little bad about bashing her brains in with a crowbar, but I doubted that anyone would miss a common thief.
I lifted the crowbar above my head to deal the coup de grace, but she dropped into a crouch and quickly stood up, recovering faster than I would have expected after taking a metal bar to the gut. Her outstretched hand took me in the throat and sent me reeling back. The crowbar dropped out of my numb fingers and clattered to the ground.
"What was that?" came a voice from the hallway.
The thief and I looked at each other with wide eyes, then at the door and back to each other. We had gotten so wrapped up in our fight that we hadn't heard the house guards begin their patrol. We dove in different directions, seeking cover in the small room. She snatched up my crowbar as she went past, tucking it into her belt, and I scooped up my mace, collapsing it back to concealed mode. She rolled under a display table, pulling the decorative fringe closed in front of her hiding place. I had a moment of admiration for how completely she had vanished before finding my own hiding place.
The door opened, admitting two burly guards just as I finished settling into place. They scanned the room, looking for whatever had made the noise.
"I told you it was nothing," said one of them.
"Mister Erikur never leaves this door unlocked," said the other. "And I tell you, I heard something."
"Probably just the house settling," the first one said. "Half the time, when the wind blows, it sounds like someone crying upstairs."
"Maybe the place is haunted," grumbled the second guard.
"Place is too new to be haunted," the first countered. "No one's ever died in here."
I strained to keep my arms and legs stiff, holding myself in place in the rafters a few feet above their heads, not daring to breathe lest they look up. They wandered around the room for a minute or two, chatting about whether or not a new house could be haunted, before finally giving it up and leaving, closing the door behind them. The thief and I both waited for almost another minute before we came back out of our hiding places, wary and alert in case one of us started up our fight again.
I held out my hands in a gesture of peace, hoping to resolve this before drawing the guards' attention back. If I got an easy opportunity to kill her, I would certainly take it, but my time in the Bards College had already started me thinking about how to turn enemies into opportunities with conversation.
"You're no guard," she hissed.
"Neither are you," I retorted.
"The Guild doesn't take kindly to scabs," she warned, edging toward the case with the lute in it. "When Guildmaster Frey hears about you, he'll have you hunted to the ends of Tamriel."
"And who will do the hunting?" I asked viciously. "The Dark Brotherhood?"
"That's right," she replied.
"Little difficult to get them to hunt one of their own," I told her, pulling back my cloak to show the Black Hand emblazoned on my red-and-black armor. Her brown eyes widened, and I smiled under my muffler again.
"Are you here to kill Erikur?" she asked, apparently not shocked by the idea. My estimation of how cold these thieves could be went up again. "If so, he's out of town."
"I'm not here for the thane," I told her. "I'm here for Finn's Lute."
"What does an assassin want with an antique lute?" she asked.
"None of your concern," I growled.
"I'm afraid it is," she shot back. "I'm here for the lute too. I think since my organization handles stealing, and yours kills people, you're the one out of your element here."
"Fair enough," I allowed. I paused, thinking of what she had called me earlier. "The Guild doesn't take kindly to scabs, right?" She nodded. "That's why you're here. Erikur went around you for the lute so that he wouldn't have to pay your cut. Now you're here to steal the lute back and punish him. That about right?"
"Pretty clever for an assassin," she smiled. She paced toward me, grinning. I paused, ready for an attack. "I bet you're pretty handsome under that cowl too," she purred, running a hand toward my face. I grabbed her wrist, catching her short of my muffler.
"Don't," I warned.
She pulled her wrist free and spread her hands in the air, gesturing as though it didn't matter to her. While she held my gaze, and without ever losing her wide smile, she suddenly slammed her hands onto my shoulders and brought her knee up into my crotch with bone-crushing force. I slumped to the ground, struggling very hard to not throw up into my scarf while she put a square-toed boot into my stomach. As I rolled on the ground, trying to catch my breath and get the spots out of my vision, she dashed to the case, pulled it open, and snatched the lute out by its neck. I groaned, partly from the pain and partly at the horrible offense of seeing a historical relic so mishandled.
"It's been fun, handsome," the thief whispered to me before pacing toward the door.
"No, it hasn't," I managed to choke out as I held out my arm and thumbed the catch on my mace. It sprung to its full length and she stepped on the ball at the end, slipping comically with her hands thrown into the air. She tottered backwards as the lute arced across the room. I rolled onto my back and caught the lute by its body as she crashed into a glass display case, shattering it into a million glittering fragments.
"What the hell?" came a startled shout from somewhere on the first floor.
I scrabbled up to my feet and ran for the door, pushing out into the hallway with the thief close on my heels. A quick glance back showed that her hair was full of glass and her face was twisted into an ugly grimace. We were both slower than usual from our injuries, but quick enough to make it to the side veranda before the guards came up the other side of the house.
Once we were both outside, I tossed her the lute and snatched my crowbar from her belt. She was so shocked at the switch that she didn't even have time to fight back. I turned away from her and jammed the crowbar into the door frame.
"That'll hold them for a minute if they come this way," I told her. "What was your plan to get out with the lute anyway?"
"Hole up until morning, then leave with the cleaning staff," she responded quickly. "Throw the lute in with a laundry basket and just walk out the front door."
"Clever," I allowed, turning back to her. I pulled the pack off my back that I had carried the crowbar and rope in earlier, grabbed the lute back from her, and stuffed it inside. I closed the bag's opening around the neck and tied it shut, then handed it to her. "Carry it across," I told her. "I'll be right behind you."
She didn't ask questions or look twice. She just strapped the lute onto her back and jumped up to grab the rope, swinging up to wrap her legs around it and begin shimmying across. I didn't know if it was secure enough to hold two people at once, but I knew that I didn't want to give her a chance to decide to cut the rope before I came across, so I stayed right behind her the whole way. As soon as we were on the far side and on solid ground, I jerked the rope to free the grapnel from the house and reeled it in.
To my total lack of surprise, while my back was turned I could hear the girl's boots squelching in the snow as she turned to run away again. I quickly turned, lashed out with the grappling hook, and snagged her foot just as she started to run. She fell flat on her face, sprawled out in the snow as I walked over and pulled to lute off her back.
"Bad luck," I told her, not unsympathetically.
"Isn't that the truth," she grumbled as she turned over.
As the moons broke through the clouds, I felt my heart drop. Before, she had seemed familiar and I couldn't figure out why. I now realized where I had seen the girl before, and why I didn't recognize her right away. The last time I had seen the tall, athletic woman in front of me, she had been a skinny, starving girl, as abused and dirty as I had been. The dirt and bruises on her face now made the resemblance complete enough that it finally came back to me in a rush.
"Runa?" I asked. "Runa Fair-Shield?"
"How do you know my name?" she asked, sitting up in the snow.
"I remember you from Honorhall," I told her, crouching down and laying Finn's Lute gently off to one side. "You were very kind to me once, and I promised you that I would save everyone. I promised that I would find the Dark Brotherhood and ask them to kill Grelod the Kind." I pulled down the muffler and threw back my cowl, revealing my face. "I kept my promise."
"By the gods," Runa whispered. "Aventus? Aventus Aretino?"
I smiled and nodded, feeling my eyes fill up with tears. Before the Brotherhood, before my new life, Runa had been one of the few people to show an interest in whether I had lived or died. She was one of the reasons I had run away from Honorhall Orphanage in the first place, to save her and the other children there. She reached up for me, and I embraced her like a long-lost sister. Both of us crouched there in the snow, holding one another for a long time.
As I pulled back to ask her what she had been doing for all these years, she surprised me by leaning back and pressing her lips against mine. Unlike Dagny's hesitant, tentative kiss, Runa's mouth parted mine with a violence I had never known before, kissing me hungrily and with a passion I hadn't expected.
"What was that for?" I asked when she finally pulled away.
"So that it wouldn't feel so bad when I did this," she whispered, just before head-butting me again.
After the stars cleared from my vision, I looked around to see Runa and the lute were both gone. A clear trail was left in the snow, and I cursed myself for a fool. I jumped to my feet and took off into the cold Solitude night, with Runa just ahead of me, laughing as she ran.
When I caught up to her, I didn't know if I was going to kiss her or kill her, but we were definitely going to be having a long talk.
…to be continued…