Eep...

Sorry everyone, I hate leaving you all on tenterhooks like this, it's been hard for me to write anything these last few weeks with work and a few other problems...but I hope to update faster now that all that is behind me :)

Thank you so much everyone for your support and thoughts, it means an awful lot to me that many of you are enjoying the story thus far :D

Anyway, I bet you are all gnashing your teeth at this AN, so start reading!

(btw, this is my most violent chapter I have ever written, so be warned ;D)

Godnamet, Daedric Prince of Cliffhangers and Taking Too Frigging Long to Update XD

"I am telling you, I heard something!"

"Shut up, you always keep saying that…remember what happened the last time? You said there was an intruder and by the time we amassed all our men, it turned out that you had heard a rat that had knocked over a stack of old chamber pots!"

The first guard snorted as he bit back the scathing retort that had been at the tip of his tongue and stayed silent. He had been mistaken the last time, but as far as he was concerned, he had done the correct thing in reporting in.

Ever since Erikur…Jarl Erikur, he corrected himself, had come into command of the Blue Palace and Solitude shortly afterwards, there had been a need for soldiers who were not blinded by the 'false Dragonborn' that Erikur had been snarling about at every person he had come across. The number of men and women who had come forward had been few however.

"Think we should check?"

"Honestly, who do you think would enter the Palace in the dead of night, knowing it is well defended and that it would take a small army to get past us? No-one would try it."

"She would," the other muttered sourly.

"Yeah, but she always has been a crazy bitch. Besides, no-one has seen the Dragonborn since Jarl Erikur put the bounty on her head."

"You did say she was crazy…maybe she is coming for him."

"Yeah…and run right into a whole town full of guards. She's crazy but not stupid. Now shut up and…"

CLANG.

"I TOLD you there was something down there!"

"Shut your fucking mouth and follow me. Maybe its another damned rat after all."

"Shut up," the guard muttered as he followed, unsheathing his iron blade and clenching it with a slightly sweaty hand.

The two guards ran around the corner and scowled at the sight of the small mice that scurried amongst the ruined bookshelf that had obviously collapsed from wood rot.

"Tell me again why we stand guard here?"

The other man chuckled as he sheathed his blade.

"You know that the Pelagius Wing is not exactly the most…sturdy part of the Palace. The doors and windows are still strong though, so even if someone were to break in this way, they would struggle to get through all the ruins without falling through the floor."

The guard laughed and put his blade away.

Just as a sharp blade slashed right through his throat, the edge easily cutting through the skin and sinew before slicing through the windpipe before he even had the chance to take a breath.

The other guard fared no better.

He had heard the soft gurgling sound coming from the other guard, but his blade had only been partially pulled from his sheath before a foot suddenly appeared from the gloom and connected with his jaw, sending him crashing to the ground. He tried to reach his dagger in his belt when a knee appeared from above him, the appendage dropping onto his shoulder and pinning his arm down.

Two glittering eyes appeared from within a black cowl and he shivered as they stared at him. Bright orange, they were not the eyes of a person, but those of a monster.

He didn't see the blade coming down, and only felt a sharp pain on the side of his head before everything went black…

Morgan stood up and ran the blade along the tunic of the dead guard lying under her and sheathed the dagger when most of the blood had been wiped off. She looked around and nodded to the pale blue apparition that had appeared out of nowhere, a feral grin on his face.

"Excellent. Most excellent."

Morgan gave Lucien an appreciative smile before smirking.

"Plenty more where that came from."

"They should have been back by now. Look, they even left their healing potions. What do you think happened?"

"Maybe they left. You know that most of these milk drinkers are afraid of a fight."

"Huh. Look at that."

"What?"

The two men looked on as a growing cloud of mist approached them down the corridor.

"Someone might have broken a window. You know what most of the brats around here are like."

"But it's raining out there," the other pointed out, nodding to the dirty glass windows and the sound of pouring rain slamming against the glass and the frame.

Two hands shot out from the mist and grasped both men by the throats and lifted them effortlessly into the air. Both men tried to prise the gloved hands from their necks but found that they couldn't even move a finger from their throat, let alone the hand.

And their fear grew when a feminine figure emerged from the mist, a pair of glittering orange irises piercing the darkness, and a set of razor sharp fangs appearing from the smiling woman's mouth…

Elisif sat down again and bit her lip in frustration. She had been kept in this cell for what seemed like weeks, although she knew it had only been a few short days. The guard assigned to watch her was not one of the loyal ones, but one of Erikur's lapdogs.

"Fucking lowlife," she snarled under her breath.

She hadn't had any warning about a coup, and by the time it was over, she and the rest of the court had been thrown into separate cells and were given a few meagre scraps of food every day. The only person she could see was Sybille, who was lying down and barely moving. She never said anything, and she never ate anything either, much to Elisif's distress.

"You need to eat," she reminded her Court Wizard yet again.

Normally, she never got a response, but this time, Sybille sat up at an almost inhuman speed and looked over at her.

And Elisif felt her heart skip a few beats when she spotted the razor sharp fangs and the eyes that had turned a soft red instead of the usual light brown that she was familiar with.

"Yeah, that's right. She's a filthy bloodsucker. And guess what? She hasn't fed in days!"

Elisif glared at the young man dressed in battered iron armour that stood there just outside her cell. He was smirking as he continued to talk to her.

"And that means that she is really hungry. Good thing you have bars between you, but I doubt that they will hold against a vampire. Of course, when she drains you, we will kill her and then we can…"

Elisif scuttled back to the far end of her cell as a hand suddenly erupted through the guard's ribcage, blood streaming off the limb as he feebly writhed on the arm that had impaled him.

"Here you are, feed on him."

Elisif continued to watch as the gate to Sybille's cell was ripped off it's hinges by the free arm that this stranger had, and was followed by the twitching body of the guard being thrown into the cell. She held her hands over her mouth as Sybille leapt on top of the dying man and tear his throat out with those fangs.

"Time to get you out of here Jarl Elisif."

Elisif blinked and looked back to see a woman dressed in black armour kneeling down in front of her and offering her a hand.

"Who are you?"

The woman chuckled.

"Someone who wants that fat pig sitting on your chair upstairs dead. That's all you need to know."

Elisif said nothing and simply accepted the hand and was pulled upwards easily. She couldn't see the woman's face, not even her eyes.

"Who are you?"

"Let's just say we have the same friend and she hates seeing you being treated like this."

"Morgan," Elisif breathed.

The woman nodded and when Elisif blinked, she was gone.

The arrival of Sybille standing beside her was the only reason why she looked away from where the stranger had been, knowing that she was safe for the time being.

"I will explain everything later, but we must move now, My Jarl."

"Where to? We have nowhere…"

"We go to see the fate of the man who started all this and who forcefully removed you from your seat," Sybille replied sharply, and Elisif smiled a little.

"Even now, you speak to me as though you are my teacher."

"After so many years, I am a teacher to everyone."

"Indeed. Let us get the others out of their cells first though before leaving. We will need them."

"And the woman who just freed us both?"

"If she was asked to kill Erikur, I will not stand in her way."

"By your command, My Jarl."

Erikur had been yelling for the last few minutes, and in the eyes of Argus the UnBlooded, he was going to burst a blood vessel.

Maybe that might be a good thing. Stupid idiot thinks yelling is going to help him. He's lost most of his guards by the amount of blood I found in the Pelagius Wing, and the rest of them have simply vanished.

"Are you listening to a single thing I said?!"

Argus looked over and nodded as Erikur went a deeper shade of purple.

Idiot. He doesn't know that whoever has taken down his small army is coming for him. The only reason I am here is so I get paid.

"How the hell can one person get past all the guards? It makes no sense!" Erikur raged on, "There are no places that someone could get inside without being detected!"

"Maybe they got in using…oh, I don't know…a fucking key?" Argus replied, now out of patience. "You did make a fair few enemies after the coup, and of course some of them had full access to the Palace. And the fact that a guard went missing a few days ago suggests that someone knows what you did."

"That matters little now," Erikur muttered angrily as he ran his hand across his sweating forehead, "You need to get me out of here. When the dogs loyal to that bitch downstairs get loose, they will come for me!"

"And your point is?" Argus smirked. "As I recall, you never paid me to protect you, you only paid me to hire the men. And seeing as they are dead or gone…"

"You fucking…."

Erikur's rage was cut short when a blue arrow suddenly speared Argus through the throat, the blood splattering from his ruptured arteries spurting over Erikur's fine regalia as he collapsed to the floor, his steel battle axe still in it's sheath.

"Nice shot."

Erikur looked up to see a woman clad in black appear from the staircase, her hands charged with a red magic that he didn't recognise. The other person was a ghost of some sort, a blue bow held in his hands. The ghost laughed, a cold sound that sent chills through Erikur's spine.

"As always." he rumbled, his bow vanishing from his hands.

"GUARDS!"

Instead of three or four men charging up the steps to protect him, there was nothing but silence until the woman laughed, her face hidden under her cowl as she walked around Erikur, who was clutching the steel dagger in a vice grip.

"There is no-one left to help you. They were taken out while you were yelling your head off. If you had been quiet, you might have heard their gurgling cries for help…"

Erikur said nothing as he watched this woman warily.

"You bitch! Do you have any FUCKING…"

"I know who you are," the woman replied with indifference, infuriating Erikur further. "And I don't care. You have more immediate concerns than who I am. The real question is…when is your lackey going to stop pretending that he is dead?"

Erikur blinked as he watched Argus attempt to sit up, his hand clutching his throat. Blood was pouring from his wound at a rate that would spell his death soon, but he was still strong enough to hurl one more insult.

"If you weren't a bitch, I might have found that get up attractive. Get it from a whore?"

Those were the last words he ever spoke.

The woman moved as though time never affected her, and the next moment, she was plunging a glass dagger through the roof of Argus's head, the tip of the blade emerging thought the bottom of the jaw.

"Fucking pig," the woman snarled as she snapped the man's neck for good measure after removing her blade.

Erikur moved back a step to find he was leaning against the chair, and no possible escape except of going past this woman and the ghost. As if sensing his plight, the woman moved closer. He moved to the side and held the dagger out and yelled at her, spittle flying from his mouth.

"I WILL FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE! I HAVE FRIENDS WHO WILL KNOW WHO IT WAS! YOU WILL BE CHASED THROUGH SKYRIM AND WILL NEVER HAVE A MOMENT'S PEACE!"

There was silence for a few minutes before the woman spoke. And her voice was amused, much to Erikur's anger.

"Was that meant to scare me? Honestly, where do you morons come up with this shit? What would I have to fear from Ulfric and his Stormcloaks? Yes, I know it was you that sent him gold so he would help you get Elisif's throne. But guess what Erikur? Someone hates you just as much as she hates Ulfric."

"Who?"

The woman removed her hood and Erikur fell over the chair in shock as he noted the black hair and the orange eyes that now showed no emotion other than anger. He had dropped his dagger and was scrambling around to retrieve it when a hand grasped the back of his neck and he was thrown into a wall, the impact breaking a rib or two.

He never had time to come to his senses when he was thrown again, this time landing in a heap next to the chair that he had longed to sit on for so long.

Then he was thrown onto his back and winced as she straddled his injured ribs and grasped his left arm before violently snapping it between her fingers. She did the same to the other one before smirking down at him.

"One last thing before I send your soul to the Void. Vittoria said 'hello'."

Erikur took a breath to scream but the dagger was faster than his lungs, the blade slashing his throat as though it were parchment.

Lucien nodded approvingly as she stood up and spat at the corpse.

She had killed more efficiently than he had anticipated. He had been concerned that her life as an adventurer might have been a hindrance to her skills as an assassin. But she had used all her skills she owned to their fullest (although he had to admit that turning into a mist was something he hadn't expected in the slightest).

She had also sent her target's soul to the Void quickly. Erikur would be there right now and wondering where he was. Lucien smirked at the thought and then schooled his face into a stone-like expression as Morgan looked around to face him.

"It is done."

"Indeed. And a fine performance it was. For unlike many assassins I have known, you appreciate the thrill of the hunt and how to act when things happen in a way that you never expect."

"I didn't expect someone coming out of the room clutching a chamber pot to his backside and stinking like a dead skeever," Morgan replied with a wry grin. "Why do you think I threw him over the wall and into the ocean?"

Lucien chuckled as she nodded to him.

"Well put."

Morgan beamed at him before pulling her cowl back over her face when she heard the multiple sounds of boots and heartbeats coming up the steps. She had no intention of anyone knowing who she was…although she guessed that Sybille might have an inkling by the way the vampire smirked at her as she passed.

Elisif didn't look at the corpse of the man that had betrayed her as he was carted away. She fixed all her attention on the woman who had clearly done the deed. Her black armour was spattered in blood, and her glass daggers were still smeared in the red liquid.

"Who are you?"

"A friend, Jarl Elisif."

"Do friends always tear people apart like that?"

"Only the ones that anger me," was the woman's response.

Elisif frowned.

"I only wish to thank the person responsible for freeing us all. Maybe we might need your services in the war ahead…"

"You already have a person that can do that, Jarl. I'm sure the Dragonborn would help you out if you removed the bounty on her head in this region."

"Of course…and could you ask her to see me at her earliest opportunity?"

The woman nodded and before her very eyes, she vanished, leaving no trace of her existence.

"Sybille. I know we have much to discuss. But…do you know her? She's clearly a vampire by what she did in the dungeons…"

Sybille slowly replied, her eyes glinting with an emotion that Elisif couldn't place.

"There are many vampires in Skyrim, My Jarl. Just be glad that she is one that is on your side, just like Morgan Aurelius ad myself are."

Sybille walked off and began to order the freed guards to various duties, such as cleaning the bodies of the rebels and to stand guard in case of further assassinations (even though she knew that the vampire had done her task and was gone).

Elisif nodded before walking to her chambers, eager to be rid of the grime that had covered her clothes and get a proper night's sleep. She was so tired, she didn't notice the amused grin of Sybille Stentor behind her.