CHAPTER FIVE – FOR LOVE OR MONEY (OR BOTH)

On one of my early Guild heists, I stole a small silver looking-glass from the house of some pompous noble. It wasn't our target, just yet another shiny object that had caught my eye. I often have an irresistible impulse to slip anything that looks remotely valuable into my pockets, and the mirror was one of them. And I won't lie – I spent an unhealthy amount of time looking into it. Not out of vanity. No, I was trying to imagine just how similar my features were to my mother's.

And now, I had my answer. Because the face of the woman now looking at me... I'd seen it before. I'd seen it in that mirror a hundred times. We Dunmer age slowly, Leo, even half-bloods like you and I, and so there was little of the lining on her face that would have been there on a human of her age. It was weathered, yes, far more weathered than mine. But everything else… nose, brow, chin, everything – it was all the same as mine, or as close to the same as made no difference. Oblivion, even our eyebrows curved in the exact same way.

There were only two glaring differences. One was the hair, a few shades lighter than mine. And the second was the eyes. Not the normal Dunmer crimson, but a deep purple that Ahkari would have called indigo.

I'm not sure how long it was that we simply stood there, staring at each other. We were silent, but there was no awkwardness, no embarrassment, in that silence. Here I was, standing in front of my mother, and here she was, standing in front of her daughter, and I knew that she wanted this moment to last as much as I did.

At last, she looked away, the purple gaze flicking downwards. 'I owe you an explanation,' she said heavily. 'Several explanations.'

'It's all right. I think I've already figured out most of it.'

'Let me explain anyway. I won't feel right unless I try.'

She seated herself beside the fire again. I dropped down next to her, regretting the quick movement instantly as my recently-healed wound throbbed resentfully. Hissing angrily, I pressed a hand to it – and when I looked up, my mother's hand was held out in front of me, a potion bottle nestled in her palm.

'It'll dull the pain,' she said.

'Thanks. Really.' I snatched up the bottle, uncorked it, and took a slow sip of the contents. It was sour enough to make me flinch my tongue away, but after only a few swallows, I could barely feel the pain in my chest any more.

'I've learned one thing about you today, if nothing else,' I remarked, corking the now-empty bottle. 'You're one heck of an alchemist.'

Something flitted across her face that might have been close to a smile. 'Thank you. My mother taught me.'

I froze for a moment, almost dropping the bottle. Quite suddenly, I had a grandmother. Quite possibly a dead grandmother, but still, family. More family. In one day, I'd gained a mother, and a father, and a grandmother, and… how many others? Who else might there be who shared my blood, who I had yet to learn about?

'She the one who taught you how to make a scarily effective paralysis poison?' I asked, passing the empty flask back to her.

My mother shook her head. 'No. That was my own invention. It took me a year to perfect, and I only had enough for a single shot.' Her jaw clenched. 'All I had hoped for was to capture Mercer alive…'

I bit my lip. She'd been waiting twenty five years for this. She must have been planning that moment in the Sanctum for painfully long. And then I'd ruined it, just by being there.

'Why did you shoot me?'

She sighed. 'For whatever difference it makes, I didn't realise it was you. I had no idea who you were until Mercer said what he did… about me sending you. And as soon as I got a look at your face…' She paused, shook her head, and went on. 'But once I saw Mercer had brought backup - once I realised he was hanging back… I didn't have a clear shot. I made a split-second decision to get you out of the way, and it prevented your death.'

'Couldn't you have waited a second more? Until Mercer came after me?'

'I didn't realise it was you,' she repeated. 'You were a Guild member I didn't know, and if I'd waited, then I was giving Mercer a chance to bring loyal backup with him. If I hadn't been able to convince you that Mercer was the traitor, I'd have been fighting two at once.'

I nodded slowly. 'Yeah. Makes sense. For the record, though, there is literally nothing I hate more than being helpless. So let's not make this a regular thing, or anything.'

'I've no plans to.'

We sat in silence for a few moments more.

'So go on, then,' I said eventually. 'Tell me. Tell me everything.'

'Where should I start?'

I spun my multitude of questions around in my mind, and landed on the one that Mercer's words as he stood over me in the Sanctum had brought to me. 'Start with my father. It was Gallus, wasn't it?'

I wasn't prepared for the sudden look of agony that flashed over her face. It lasted only a moment, but I think even a Falmer could have spotted it. And I realised then that I'd not been the result of some careless fling. That much, much more had ended than a life when Mercer betrayed his Guildmaster in the Sanctum a quarter century ago.

'Yes, Gallus was your father.' She was determinedly not meeting my eyes now. 'He never knew about you, Melyna. Even I didn't know that I was carrying you until after he was dead. If he'd known… I'm sure he would have refused to go to Snow Veil Sanctum when Mercer asked him to.'

Though I was sure I already knew the answer, I found myself asking, 'Did you love him?'

She turned her head back to look at me. 'More than life.'

I closed my eyes. The thought of watching someone I cared about that much dying in front of me, killed by the hand of someone I'd thought was a friend, being helpless to stop it, and then being framed for his murder… it was painful to think of it. Agonising, even. And oddly, when I tried to imagine it, the murdered man had a black ponytail and amberish-brown eyes.

I shook my head, as if to clear the vision from it. 'So I'm a half-blood.'

'Does that trouble you?'

'Nope. I kind of like it, actually. Bit unusual.' I grinned. 'And it gives me a reason for being so terrible at being a Dunmer. So… what was he like? I mean, I've heard the Guild talk about him, but…'

This time, she did smile, if sadly. 'He was… an incredible man. A scholar, a master thief and a natural leader.'

'A scholar?' I echoed.

'He was a genius. He spoke at least four or five languages. Sometimes he'd deliberately organise heists that he thought could let him get his hands on some kind of ancient artefact for him to study.'

'And he was still a thief?'

'You're with the Guild. I'm sure you've come to realise during your time amongst them that the last thing a thief can afford to be is a fool.'

'Touché, I guess. Just never really saw a thief hit the history books before.'

Another small smile tugged at her mouth. 'He enjoyed the history books, certainly. But he was a thief for the thrill of it, just as I was. Just as you are, perhaps.'

I snorted. 'Oblivion, yes.'

Now the smile was full on her face, and I found myself returning it readily. Here was something I'd inherited from my parents. Here was something that I shared with them, despite never having known either of them until today. Gods above, it felt good to know that I'd taken after them, at least in one way. Perhaps I'd find more.

'He was a kind man,' my mother said softly. 'The Guild's always had rules against killing because it's bad for business. But Gallus hated to see anyone killed because he thought it was wrong. He never organised heists against people too poor to cope with the loss of coin. He cared for his Guild as if every one of them was a younger sibling, even though the eldest were decades and even centuries older than he was. Everyone respected him and obeyed him without question. And me… I loved him. He told me once that he felt comfortable around me, able to let his guard down. I can't help but think I'm to blame for what happened to him.'

I stared at her. 'You're serious?'

'Almost always.'

'How in Oblivion can you be to blame? Mercer lures him here, stabs him in the back, and you think it's your fault?'

She drew up her knees against her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. It was as if she was closing in on herself, shutting out everything that could be hurt if left exposed.

'You don't know the full story yet,' she said. The words were hoarse. 'I will tell you everything, but… it'll take time. I've barely spoken to a living soul in twenty five years, and… it's not going to be easy learning to trust again. Even my own daughter.'

She winced as if she expected me to lash out with harsh words and tell her this was stupid, that I deserved better. But I didn't. If any feelings of offense rose inside me as she spoke, they vanished as she said the final word. Daughter. There it was, out in the open, spoken aloud for both of us and the Divines to hear. She'd acknowledged what we were to each other, and I found I couldn't be angry with her.

'I think I get it,' I assured her. 'I mean… after what happened with Mercer, I'm not surprised trust isn't something you're giving away in free handouts.'

She glanced up, frowning. 'You're being very generous. I expected you to be angry.'

'What the hell about?'

'Maybe the fact that I abandoned you days after you were born and stayed out of your life for a quarter century, only coming back into it by accident.'

My eyes narrowed. 'You can stop that kind of talk right now. You didn't abandon me. Abandoning me would have been dropping me in the wilds for the wolves.'

'I still let you go.' Her voice was barely audible now. 'You were days old. You were all I had left of your father. I was all you had in the world. And I gave you up at the first chance I got. There's not been a day since when I haven't regretted it. I kept telling myself that once I'd put an end to Mercer, I could come and find you, but –'

'Stop it.' I inched closer to her. 'Look, I'm not angry with you, so you've no good reason to be angry with yourself. You had the entire sodding Thieves Guild hunting you down, and I know how stubborn and well-connected they are. You had that bastard Frey trying to kill you. It's not like you just dumped me with an evil laugh. You gave me to a Khajiit caravan – you know, some of the greatest survival experts in Skyrim – to stop me from being hunted down and killed by the guy who'd already killed my father. It seems pretty bloody reasonable from where I stand.'

She bit her lip. 'I told myself the same thing. That I couldn't care for you properly while I was on the run from the Guild, living in the wilderness. I told myself having a child to look after would make me slower, easier to catch. That Mercer would kill you if he got the chance.'

I gave a gentle tap to the scar on my stomach. 'Yeah, I reckon recent events proved you were right about that last one.'

'But it didn't make it any easier. And it hasn't got any easier. Even if it was reasonable, you're my child and I gave you to strangers. I sometimes wonder if I was lying to myself. If my reasons for giving you up were more selfish.'

'Like?'

'Like the fact that I didn't feel capable. I'd just lost Gallus, my friends and my life with the Guild to Mercer's betrayal. Then I found that I was with child. Nine months of carrying you. And just so you know, you weren't easy to give birth to.'

I couldn't stop myself from snorting. 'That doesn't surprise me. I've heard many, many variations on the theme of 'you're extremely difficult' over the years.'

Another almost-smile flickered across her face, and I couldn't help but feel a burst of triumph. Getting her to smile seemed like some great achievement.

'I was young, in pain, very afraid, and completely on my own.' My mother shook her head. 'Women aren't known for being particularly emotionally sound after they give birth. I gave myself all the noble reasons – that I was giving you a better life, I was keeping you safe – but I think perhaps it was just that I couldn't cope.'

I shrugged. 'Well, so what? It was still a sensible thing to do, whatever the reasoning was. And the caravan looked after me.'

'That's… a relief. They promised they would, but I always feared –'

'Yeah, OK, so stop fearing now. They were good to me. Ahkari, the head trader? She took me under her wing, raised me and all. She was like a –'

I broke off, suddenly realising that the planned end to that sentence might not be the most sensitive thing to say in the present company.

'Like a mother to you?' the present company finished for me. 'You can say it. I'm not going to get offended.'

'Well, I don't know why you keep expecting me to get offended, then.' Smirking, placed my hand flat on the ground behind me, ignoring the snow, and leaned back. 'Maybe you should trust that I've inherited more stuff from you.'

Now she did smile, properly smile. 'I can't say I'm not looking forward to seeing just how much of myself I've managed to pass on. And seeing how much you take after your father.'

'Then make a deal with me,' I said. 'The deal's this: you stop beating yourself up about shit that happened twenty five years ago-'

She cut across me, a faint look of amusement in her eyes. 'You don't seem to have inherited your language from me or Gallus.'

'You're gonna have to get used to it, 'cause it's my favourite word. That and sodding. Runners-up are freaking and bloody.'

She chuckled softly. 'I suppose I'm twenty five years too late to start policing your manners.'

''Fraid so. Anyway, the deal is, you stop angsting about all that sh…stuff. Then you and me get to work on finding the son of a skeever who made all this mess happen, and we make him pay for it. We put a plan together for doing that right here, right now, and then while we're putting it into action, we can learn about who exactly we are. Sound good?'

'Definitely.'

I held out my hand. She took it. And instead of shaking it, she squeezed it tight, breathing out slowly as if in disbelief that after all this time, she was finally able to touch me. She met my eyes, and I could tell that she wanted the same thing that I did. Closeness. To hold and be held.

She reached out a little way, but quickly snatched her hand back. 'May I -?'

And what was I supposed to tell her, that she wasn't allowed to hug the kid she hadn't seen in twenty five years? I know I can be a bit of a bitch, but I'd never go that far.

I didn't leave her in any doubt about it. I pretty much threw my arms around her. And she let out a sound that was half a gasp and half a sob and pulled me close, as close as she could get me. I pressed my head against her shoulder, like I used to with Ahkari, except this wasn't Ahkari, this was the woman who'd given birth to me. Perhaps she was twenty five years late, perhaps I was cold and tired and still hurting from a stab wound in my stomach, and perhaps we still had a long way to go before either of us really knew who the other was. But it didn't matter. Suddenly, none of that mattered at all.

'So,' I said, a little faintly, as we let each other go. 'Do we have a deal?'

'We do.' She dipped her head. 'And you'll be pleased to know I've already made a start on the plan front. My purpose in using Snow Veil Sanctum to ambush Mercer wasn't merely for irony's sake.'

She pulled a battered leather back over to her, and, after rummaging around inside for a few moments, drew out an even more battered-looking book. I leaned over to get a clearer look. The cover was faded brown, with a metal symbol embossed upon the surface. Like a bird, with its wings reaching up to encircle a shape that might have been a sun or a moon.

My mother her fingers over the cover, then pressed the book into my hands. 'This was your father's.'

A sudden hot feeling rose up my throat and pressed against my eyes. I swallowed hard. I was not crying, I told myself. It meant so much to me – it meant the world to me – to have something that had belonged to him, to be holding a book that he had held too. But I was not crying. Absolutely not.

'It was his journal,' my mother explained. 'I recovered it from his… remains.'

'Right. Must have been enjoyable.'

'It wasn't.'

'That was sarcasm.'

She nodded. 'I thought so. But you may find I'm a little rusty at detecting it after twenty five years outside society.'

'Don't you worry. Spend five minutes around me and your sarcasm detection abilities will be working overtime.'

I went to pull the book open, but my mother shook my head. 'There's nothing in there, I'm afraid. Not in any language I recognise.'

I flipped the thing open anyway. Not because I didn't believe her – I did, and she was right. The words that filled the pages were formed of odd, spiky symbols, vaguely reminiscent of the script used in Morrowind. But it didn't matter to me. What mattered was that my father's hands had formed them. That place, just there, where the ink was smudged – his hand must have brushed against it as he wrote. I pressed a fingertip against the spot, as if trying to conjure up a ghost of his presence by touching something that he had once touched.

Slowly, I flicked through the pages. 'You think that he might have written about what happened with Mercer?'

'Something tells me Gallus already had his suspicions. In the weeks leading up to his death, he seemed… preoccupied. He wrote about everything in his journal, things he didn't tell anyone else. If there's evidence that Mercer's a traitor, we'll find it in there.'

'Which means we need to get this insane writing translated, right?'

She nodded. 'I was thinking… Enthir. Gallus had a friend at the College of Winterhold. They studied the language together. If we went to him, he might be able to help.'

'Can we trust him?'

'Completely.'

I snapped the book shut. 'So. To Winterhold?'

'Yes. But not yet. There's something here that needs to be done.'

She turned her head away. I followed her gaze, back towards the Sanctum, and understood.

'He's still in there,' I murmured. 'He's been lying in a sodding Draugr pit all this time.'

My mother's jaw was clenched. 'Yes. And he has to be laid to rest.' She glanced back at me. 'This won't be a pleasant task and… you never knew him. If you want to head to Winterhold with the journal and leave this to me –'

'Not happening.' I pushed the book back into her bag. 'He was my father. I don't care that we never met. I wouldn't exist without him.'

Another ghost-smile flitted over her face. 'I hoped you'd say that.'

She rose to her feet. 'Your weapons are over there; you'll be needing them, if we're heading back into the Sanctum. There are probably a few Draugr left.' Her expression grew thoughtful. 'I notice you carried a sword as well as a bow.'

'Yeah. Archery's what I'm best at, but I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. I swap to the blade when people get up close. Even learned a few fire spells to go with.'

She nodded slowly. 'In that case…'

I watched as she bent down and lifted something from the snow. As she dusted the flakes from it, I saw what it was – a sword, silvery metal with a carved ebony hilt. Not merely carved, I realised a moment later, but carved into a shape. That of a bird, with wings spread upwards towards a circle. The same symbol that had been on the cover of my father's journal.

'It was his, wasn't it?'

She nodded, holding it out to me. 'He always used this sword, for as long as I knew him. I think… I know that he would have wanted you to have it.'

My throat feeling suddenly tight, I wrapped my hands around the hilt and lifted it from her hands. It was of a similar length and weight to my own blade; comfortable and familiar-feeling. Carefully, I twirled it in a few looping shapes, and it cut through the air with a sleekness I'd never known any weapon to have before. It seemed to meet with almost no resistance.

'That's one hell of a blade,' I murmured. And then, remembering that it was not just a sword but the sword my father had used, I gripped it a little tighter. This weapon was mine now. It felt like a very… family thing to do, to pass a weapon down from parent to child.

My father should be the one giving this to me. He should be here with me. With us.

I breathed in deeply, and headed over to where my weapons had been stacked neatly against a rock. The bow and quiver I slung over my shoulder, the dagger I tucked into my belt, but the sword I pulled from its sheath and dropped into the snow, replacing it with my father's blade.

'I've just decided something,' I announced.

My mother's eyebrows raised. 'And what's that?'

'I am going to bloody kill Mercer bloody Frey.'

A look of steely determination stole into her eyes. 'Good. We're in agreement, then.'

'Well, you know what they say. Like mother, like daughter.'

And, wearing matching smiles that quickly faded, we set about our task.

We burned what was left of my father. We didn't have the time or the tools to bury him. I wished it could have been more, the sort-of funeral that we gave him, more than a hurriedly-made pyre that took three attempts to light, since my fire spells found it hard to catch on the snow-sodden wood.

There was no time to make speeches. My mother had probably spent the last twenty five years promising his memory that she'd avenge him, telling him that she still loved him. I could see those things in her eyes as she watched the flames rise up. The grief, the anger, the resolution.

There was nothing left but bones, Leo. That was what we had to carry out of that tomb. I remember standing there as the pyre burned, thinking of those bones, and realising that there had been flesh on them once, that they had been a body that had breath and life in it. Arms that had held my mother. Lips that had kissed her.

Those arms should have held me, too.

You're dead, Frey, I snarled, as we turned our backs on the sanctum and started out through the snow towards the north. You're Gods-damn dead.

If I could have, I would have ridden straight back to Riften to put my father's sword through my former Guildmaster's stomach, but there were far too many good reasons why I couldn't. No horses, to begin with. Mercer had killed my mother's horse before we entered the sanctum, and he'd done the same to mine upon emerging. Clearly he wanted to save himself the trouble of escorting a riderless horse back to Riften.

The second reason, of course, was that my mother was right. We needed proof of Mercer's treachery. My word alone wouldn't be enough, not when none of the senior members had ever fully trusted me. No doubt Mercer had returned to the Guild by now and was telling them all about how I was their old enemy's evil daughter, a spy the whole time.

I'm not going to recount every detail of our journey to find that evidence, Leo. It took us days. Enthir told us that my father had penned his journal in the script of the Falmer, and directed us to Markarth. There, he said, we might find aid from a scholar of the Dwemer and Falmer cultures. We didn't, and needless to say this ended up with us breaking into the scholar's museum, sneaking through it, stealing a rubbing of some fancy tablet thing with the Falmer script inscribed on it, and evading the guards to escape. Normal day in the life of a professional thief, just with more than usual at stake.

That's not the important part of the story, really. The important part is that it took us three days to travel to Winterhold, and then to Markarth, and then back to Winterhold to find Enthir to translate the journal for us, and finally back to Riften. And I spent those three days getting to know my mother.

We turned it into a sort of game. As we travelled along the twisting Skyrim roads I'd come to know so well from my days with the caravan, we would take it in turns to share something about ourselves - or, for her, occasionally something about my father. Whatever we said would be discussed and questioned. And so each of us slowly learned who the other was.

'I speak fluent Ta'agra,' I told her, for example, as we steadily trekked back towards Riften. 'Ahkari made sure I learned the common tongue too – you have to know it, if you're a trader – but I grew up speaking Ta'agra to the rest of the caravan.'

'I never considered that,' my mother said, frowning slightly. 'It didn't occur to me that you'd be raised speaking a different language.'

'It never caused me any problems. Except the accent. That tends to get me some odd looks.'

She smiled. 'It's not all that noticeable.'

'Freaking good to hear it. Guess I've got better at dropping it, since I've been living around humans for a year. Well, humans and the odd elf. Your turn.'

She sucked on her lower lip for a moment before speaking. 'Gallus was fluent in Ta'agra, too. He was friends with some of the Khajiit caravans. That was part of the reason I felt safe leaving you with one; Gallus had trusted them.'

'You said he spoke four or five languages. What were the others?'

'He could speak Dunmeris. Often did with me, if he wanted to say something that he didn't want others around us to hear.' She gave me another one of her fleeting smiles. 'The others… I'm not sure I can remember, now. It was so long ago.'

'I barely speak a word of Dunmeris,' I admitted. 'I lived in Morrowind for a few years, but all those weird traditions, the great houses, the kind-of-annoying custom of calling any strangers outlander until you started hearing the word in your sodding sleep… I couldn't take to it.'

She sighed. 'I've never been to Morrowind.'

'What, never?'

'No. I told you the other day that I was born in Shor's Stone. My mother raised me and taught me the thief's trade, then sent me to the Guild when I was old enough. I never travelled far outside the village until then. And once I was with the Guild, I had no reason to travel beyond Skyrim.'

There was silence for a while as she finished speaking, a silence that was suddenly broken by the distant bellowing of a dragon somewhere over the mountains. My mother tensed instantly, one hand flying to her bow, but when no sound of wingbeats broke the still air of the evening, her body slowly relaxed. It was something I'd noticed about her over the few days I'd spent in her company; the slightest sound, the tiniest threat of danger, would set her on edge.

I guess that's what comes of being hunted for twenty five years. Every time I saw it, I mentally conjured up an image of Mercer, and imagined shooting an arrow into his skull.

'Have you ever seen one up close?' My mother's eyes were still turned to the sky, flicking warily from left to right, and I knew she was waiting for a winged form to sail up from behind the peaks. 'A dragon, I mean.'

I couldn't stop myself from grinning. 'Hell, yeah. I was at Helgen a year ago.'

She glanced at me, frowning. 'Helgen?'

'Oh, right. Of course, you wouldn't know. That was the first dragon attack since… you know, forever. Huge black beast just swooped down out of the sky and just laid waste to the whole town. Ripped towers apart with its bare claws. Sent houses up in flame. Wiped out the whole place.' I chuckled. 'And saved my life, incidentally. I'd got myself arrested by the Imperials. They were kind of distracted from executing me when a dragon practically fell on their heads.'

'I can imagine,' my mother said drily. 'How did you make it out?'

'Skill, courage and determination. Plus luck. Plus there was a Stormcloak soldier who gave me a hand, though I did kind of dump him as soon as we got to Riverwood.' I rubbed the back of my neck. 'Still feel a bit guilty about that. His sister asked me to take a message to Whiterun for her. I told her I had better things to do, and pissed off to Riften.'

'What better things were those?'

'Joining the Guild. I was looking for you, remember?'

For a moment, she smiled. Then a shudder ran through her, and she jerked her head to the side as if it hurt her to look at me. 'You spent half your life trying to find me, and I never even tried –'

'Hey. I thought we agreed you were going to shut up about that. I don't care.'

'I care. I feel that I let you down.'

'Well, stop it. I don't blame you for it. And things are working out fine, aren't they? We've got the journal translated, and it proves Mercer's guilty as a… guilty… person. Whatever. We kill that bastard, and we set things right. Sure, we missed out on twenty five years. But Dunmer live long lives, right?'

'I wish I'd been there for you when you were growing up.'

I snorted. 'Nah, you don't. Ahkari says I was a nightmare. Cried non-stop and threw up on her expensive blanket imported from Cheydinhal.'

She made a noise that was suspiciously close to being a laugh. 'On second thoughts, perhaps I did dodge an arrow there.'

'Exactly! See, it's all working out for the best. As long as Mercer hasn't screwed things up for us somehow by the time we get back to Riften.' I gritted my teeth. 'Gods, as far as I'm concerned, we can't get back there soon enough. He's going to be calling me a traitor to every friend I made. Or telling them I'm dead. Probably both. And Divines only know what he's told Marcurio –'

I snapped off the sentence. I didn't want to think about it. I'll give your boyfriend your regards, Mercer had said. What if he thought Marcurio was a danger to him? What if he tried to - ?

My mother was frowning at me. 'Who's Marcurio?'

I hesitated for a moment before reply. 'He's this… guy. Mage hireling I met a year ago in the inn. We work together on most of my solo missions - it never hurts to have the backup, right? He's basically the most irritating person to ever breathe, but he's OK.'

She said nothing in response to this for a while, but her expression grew thoughtful, and then suddenly, uncharacteristically mischievous. 'You know, Gallus loved to read. And he told me more than once that in all the stories, the more a woman insists that she hates a man, the more likely it is that she's actually fallen for him.'

I let out an embarrassingly undignified yelping sound. 'What the actual Oblivion? Just – no! You've not been my mother long enough to start trying to pair me off with people!'

She was smirking now, definitely smirking. 'From the name, I'd guess he's an Imperial.'

'Yes. What does that have to do with anything?'

'And you said that he's a mage… mages tend to be quite studious, don't they?'

'Well, he reads, and he knows a load about magical theory, but I don't get why –'

'Dark and handsome?'

I gaped at her, then shook myself and decided I might as well humour her. 'I… fine, sure. Black hair. Brown eyes, sort of amber-ish.'

She gave a single, firm nod. 'Then it would seem the women of our family run true to type. I fell for a dark and handsome, intelligent Imperial man too.'

'Shut up, mum!'

I've been asked since if I was nervous, returning to the Guild that day. Walking into the Ragged Flagon knowing that Mercer must have been there already, slandering my name. Knowing that he'd have told everyone I was dead, and that to them, I'd be like a treacherous ghost.

But honestly? No. I wasn't nervous. I was done with being nervous. It was as if all the nervousness in me had been used up as I stood in front of the puzzle door in Snow Veil Sanctum. By the time I reached the door to the Cistern, I was not even the slightest bit nervous. What I was was freaking angry.

'Mercer Gods-damn Frey!' I roared, smacking the door open with my foot.

The Cistern is a bloody brilliant place for echoes, I'll tell you that. My words must have rebounded half a dozen times from the domed roof. There was a moment of silence as the final echo died away, a silence that was quickly filled with the sound of running feet.

My mother glanced at me, her expression more than a little incredulous. 'Melyna!'

'What? It's not as if this is a stealth mission. Is this going to be my first parental scolding?'

'No time.' She nodded towards the three leather-clad figures emerging from one of the Cistern's side rooms and racing across the walkways towards us. 'Let's hope luck is with us.'

Though the Cistern was dimly lit, there was light enough for me to make out that of the Guild members approaching us, once had a thick mop of red hair, another a shock of lightning-blonde, and the third, next to no hair at all. 'Brynjolf, Vex and Delvin,' I muttered. 'No sign of the man himself. What do we do if he does show?'

'The same as we'll do if he doesn't – show the Guild your father's journal and hope for the best. Remember, we have proof, and all he's got is his word.'

I can't say for certain, but I think that I inched a little closer to my mother as the others drew near us. I'm fairly sure that I was simply trying to show that we were together in this, that they would have to go through me to hurt her. I definitely didn't do it because I wanted to know that my mother was close to me in case things went wrong. Definitely not.

The three senior Guild members drew to a stop a short distance in front of us and, in near-perfect union, whipped their daggers from their belts. Brynjolf took a step forward, indicating for the other two to stay put, and - as he'd done so often before – peered closely at my face. Then he turned his eyes to my mother, and studied her with equal concentration. His eyes widened for a moment – then narrowed almost to slits.

'So Mercer was right,' he growled, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his dagger. 'I should have known all along. Gods, I did know, the moment I set eyes on you in the marketplace. And I brought you down here all the same, let you sit here spying on us, knowing you were her daughter.' He jerked his head in the direction of the woman who stood next to me. 'I trusted you, Mel. So you'd better have a damn good explanation for being here with that murderer who's your mother, or –'

'She has a very good reason.' My mother's voice was practically ice. 'And we'll discuss it, Brynjolf, once you stop pointing a dagger at my daughter.'

There was so much ferocity in the words – so much pure threat – that Brynjolf seemed to obey before he really knew what he was doing, lowering his hand so that the dagger, while still gripped firmly, was no longer extended towards my neck. 'No tricks. Either of you. Or we'll cut you down where you stand.'

'Try it,' I snapped.

My mother shot me a sharp look, and I held up my hands. 'Fine. I'm staying calm. This is me, being very calm. Now let's prove to them that Mercer Frey is a jackass so that I can go and find him and tear his head off.'

She was almost smiling as she reached into her pack and pulled out the journal. 'Here, Brynjolf. We have proof that you've all been misled.'

He glowered at her, showing no signs of taking the book from her hands. 'What sort of proof?'

'This bloody sort.' I grabbed the journal and thrust it in his direction so fast that he had pretty much no choice but to take it. 'Read the effing book, Bryn.'

For the record, I didn't actually say effing, and my mother raised her eyebrows. 'Language, Mel.'

Brynjolf flicked open the book, and glanced up at us with his brow furrowed. 'What is this?'

'It's Gallus's journal.' My mother folded her arms. 'He wrote it in the Falmer script. You want to look at the translation of the final few pages.'

He duly flicked through the pages until he came across Enthir's translation. Delvin and Vex slowly crept up behind him until one was peering over each of Brynjolf's shoulders. He frowned and shot looks at them, and they inched back again.

'And how do I know that this is an actual translation, and not something you've made up?' Brynjolf demanded, holding the translation up to the light. 'Your brat's been lying to the entire Guild for a year – very convincingly, I might add. I'm not inclined to just believe anything either of you say.'

'And I'm not inclined to react well to you calling her either a brat or a liar,' my mother snapped back. 'To answer your question, if you read the translation, you'll know that it was Gallus who wrote the original. You can't have forgotten the way he used to speak. It's him in every word, Brynjolf.'

'It is?' I muttered, as Brynjolf bent his head and began reading, mumbling the words under his breath.

She nodded. 'The main thing is, he says perimeter rather than edge and replete rather than filled. He was always doing that. To Gallus, there was no reason to use a word if there was a more interesting one that could replace it.' A slightly mischevious look came into her eyes. 'Do you remember that time he called you vituperative, Vex?'

Vex glared.

'What the heck's vituperative?' I demanded.

'I haven't the slightest idea. Gallus claimed that it meant, 'prone to highly abusive criticism,' but he might have been having me on.'

Vex opened her mouth, most likely to throw some highly abusive criticism at us, but at that moment, Brynjolf let out a sharp exclamation – no words, just shock. Every head snapped around to face him, and I felt my heartbeat quickening ever so slightly. This was the moment, then, when we were either believed or disbelieved. And if it was the latter, words wouldn't get us out. Arrows were the only things that could do that.

'No, it… it can't be. This can't be true.' Brynjolf thrust the translation notes back inside the journal and slammed the book shut. 'I've known Mercer too long...'

'You didn't know that bastard at all,' I spat.

'Melyna. That won't help.' My mother met Brynjolf's gaze with rather admirable calm. 'I assure you, Brynjolf, it's true. Every last word.'

'Every last word of what?' Delvin demanded, inching forward and extending a hand towards the journal. Brynjolf slapped his fingers away.

I took a step towards them – my three teachers and Guild siblings who were, right now, my greatest enemies. 'How about I just say it all nice and simply? Mercer's the traitor. He's the one you should have been hunting for the last twenty five years. My mother didn't kill Gallus. Mercer did.' My hands clenched into fists. 'He killed my father.'

Brynjolf's eyes stretched wide open, and Vex let out a string of stunned expletives. Delvin frowned at me and tilted his head on one side. 'Before I even start asking myself whether or not you're telling the truth about Mercer killing Gallus… where does your father come into this?'

A pause; then Brynjolf turned to him, shaking his head. 'No, Del. I think… I think the lass is trying to say that Gallus was her father.'

'Oh. Right. That makes sense.' Delvin's frown grew deeper. 'No, it bloody doesn't. I can take you being her daughter, but Gallus's?'

From the way Vex was staring at my mother, you'd have thought someone had shoved dung under her nose. 'You and Gallus?'

'I loved him,' my mother said, very simply. 'Melyna is my child by him. She lost her father to Mercer's greed and deceit before she was even born. I knew that Mercer would kill her if he ever found me, so I left her with a Khajiit caravan when she was days old. She had no idea who her parents were until she met me.'

'I didn't lie to you about that, Bryn,' I said, and my voice was quieter than I was used to hearing it. 'I know I lied about some of it, but when you told me about that Guild traitor and I promised that my loyalty was to the Guild and not to her? I meant what I was saying.' He was meeting my eyes at last, and to my relief, the hostility was gone from his face. 'Bryn, you don't have to believe any of the rest. It'd be convenient if you did, of course, but you don't have to. But believe that. Believe me when I say I wasn't lying when I called the Guild my family.'

He looked at me steadily for a few seconds. 'And now, lass? Now you've met your mother? Where do your loyalties lie now?'

'I don't have to choose between the Guild and my mother,' I retorted. 'I can be loyal to both. Because Mercer is the one who betrayed us.'

'It's a lie.' Vex stormed forwards, her face twisted into a mask of fury. 'It's a Gods-damn lie, Bryn. We've had her living with us for a year, like… like a wolf pretending to be a dog. And all along she was her daughter.' She jabbed her dagger in my mother's direction. 'Don't listen to her. Don't listen to a word she says. We should cut her throat now -'

My mother's hand flashed to her back, reaching for her bow – but there was no need. Because Brynjolf had, very gently, placed his hand on top of Vex's dagger and was pushing it down.

'No, Vex,' he said quietly. 'I do believe her. I don't know what to think about what they say about Mercer, but…'

He let out a long, slow breath. 'I do believe that she's Gallus's daughter. And I'm not killing that man's child. No matter what. I owe him better than that.'

Delvin let out a murmured sound of agreement.

Vex's eyes shot back and forth between us. Then, with a slow nod, she sheathed her dagger and stepped back. 'Fine. So what now?'

'Now, we find out whether what they say is true. We open the vault. This journal says that Mercer's been stealing from the Guild for years, and if that's the case, we'll see the evidence with our own eyes.' Brynjolf jerked his head in the direction of the vault. 'Come on, all of you.'

As we headed across the walkway – a tense, stony-faced party – I hurried forward to walk at his side. 'That true, Bryn? You believe that he was my father?'

His lips pursed, but he nodded. 'Aye. I do.'

'Why? I mean, I know I look like my mother, but… my father? If you never saw anything of him in me before over the last year, why now?'

Brynjolf let out a thoughtful huff. 'I don't know, lass. I honestly couldn't tell you. It's like the moment you said it, it seemed to make sense. You have his hair, I suppose. And at least some of his smarts.' A grin flickered at the corner of his mouth. 'Or maybe it's because you share his uncanny luck in cards.'

I couldn't stop myself from laughing. The others looked at me as if I were mad to be amused by anything at such a time, but I couldn't help it. Somehow, in that moment, I knew for certain that everything was going to be all right.

Finding that the Guild's entire stock of gold had vanished without trace would not have been my normal definition of 'all right.' But this was hardly a normal time.

They were a blur, the next few minutes, a blur of head-scratching from Delvin, fuming from Vex, frowns and sighs from Brynjolf, and explanations from myself and my mother. Explanations of what had happened in Snow Veil Sanctum, both three days before and twenty five years ago. The story of how the Guild's leader had robbed his own people of every last Septim. My mother stayed very calm, and I stayed less calm, until at last Brynjolf breathed in deeply, and nodded.

'All right,' he said. 'That's enough for now. Karliah – I want to go over some of this again with you. But you, Melyna – we need you back in the field. We need you to break into Mercer's place and search for anything that could tell us where he's gone – '

'Hold on.' I help up my hands. 'I'm ready to take care of it, Bryn. But there's something I need to know first. Where's Marcurio?'

My mother raised one eyebrow.

'Marcurio?' Brynjolf said slowly. 'I don't know, lass. I guess he's in the Bee and Barb, like usual.'

'Have you seen Mercer since he went to Snow Veil with me?'

'Yes, he came back here to tell us that you were a traitor, Karliah's daughter, and now a dead woman, and that your mother got away. And then he vanished and we've not seen him since.'

'Do you know if he went to the inn? As in, the place that Marcurio hangs out?'

'No. I don't. And right now, lass, your boyfriend is the least of our worries –'

I couldn't even be bothered to debate the boyfriend part. 'It's not the least of mine, Bryn. Before Mercer stabbed me in the Sanctum, he told me he'd send Marc my regards. And either that meant he was going to just be a sodding sadist and rub my not-actual death in his face, or… or it meant something worse. And I've got to know. If it's the former, then I've got to make sure he knows I'm alive, and if it's the latter…' I stopped, suddenly aware of how uncharacteristically high-pitched my voice was becoming. 'If it's the latter, then I need to know if I've got another reason to rip that man limb from limb.'

Brynjolf stared at me, then sighed yet again and dipped his head. 'Go find your boyfriend, then, lass. And after, go straight to Mercer's house. You know where it is. Anything that could tell us where he is…'

'Got it.' I shot a quick grin at my mother. 'I'll be back soon.'

Her face was grave. 'Good luck, Melyna. Be careful. And… I hope your friend's alive.'

I swallowed, muttered something like, 'Me too,' and ran for the Cistern's exit.

Something had occurred to me, you see, Leo, over the past few days. I had realised just how much had been taken away from my mother, and from my father, and from me. If not for Mercer, I would have been born in the Guild, raised in the Cistern. My parents would have taught me the bow and the blade. Maybe… maybe they'd have had more children. I'd have had siblings, perhaps a brother or a sister or even both.

I could have had a bloody family. We all could have. And Mercer took that away. Mercer took it away before my mother even had a chance to learn that she was with child, to tell my father about it, for them to celebrate it and to choose a name together.

Mercer had taken away my father. A man who I would have loved, and who would have loved me.

He would not take a second. By all the Divines, he could not have taken a second. He could not have taken Marcurio.

I have to say, I enjoyed writing this. Quite a lot. Karliah is quite possibly my favourite Skyrim character, so finally bringing her into the story (and having her say something other than in-game dialogue) was very enjoyable. Especially her interactions with Melyna. Let's just say the opening scene of this chapter has been hanging around in my mind waiting to be written for a long, long time.

Any thoughts on the family reunion? If so, I'd love to hear them! Thanks for reading.