Seraphina could see a web but it was not like any she had seen before. She hovered above it trying to take in its numerous silvery strands, some shone brighter than others whilst some hung broken, free and useless. The web stretched on into an eternity, a promise of too many paths for one person to consider. She tensed as she seemed to move against her will to its centre. Sera expected a spider but instead she was rewarded with something stranger. Two young children sat in the centre clutching each other tightly as they looked about in confusion and fear. One was a blonde girl and the other a dark haired male, they were like day and night and if Sera did not recognise them she wouldn't have realised they were twins.

"Thomas," she whispered the name softly, afraid to give it life again. Her eyes widened as the children suddenly became encircled by a group of black hooded figures. There was a shriek on the web and a splash of blood.

Down one strand of the web Sera's mother stood, bright eyed and smiling with a silver tiara on her head. At her feet were two shadowy figures the same size as the twins. They shot up suddenly to become adults, each bearing a small crown. There was a loud shriek and a splash of blood. Sera watched in horror as the strands of the web leading from the twins to the crowned figures suddenly snapped free and the image of her crowned mother vanished.

"One fate destroyed." The wretched female's voice that plagued Sera filled her head once more.

"Who are you?" she groaned back in annoyance.

"I told you child I am the webspinner, Mephala, prince of secrets, sex and murder, a novel combination you must agree."

Sera shook her head in angry dismissal. The hooded figures attacked the twins and she watched in horror as they fled down the web from them. "Thomas!" she shouted in despair. Another vision, her younger self, Thomas and their mother safe and hand in hand. The web was broken again in another splash of blood.

Sera was desperate to look away but she couldn't. She watched as several potential fates played out before her. Thomas growing up as a scrupulous character under his father Shady Sam's proud gaze. The late Lyra reunited with Shady Sam and raising their children in an unusual but happy family. There was a vision Sera couldn't quite see, a man with a face she couldn't quite make out, clad as a noble and guiding her to a castle to live a life of nobility, the web seemed to quiver at this vision but only one strand snapped free from it whilst another remained bound to it. A second vision showed the same figure only this time he was dead with arrows in his back, slain by the Dark Brotherhood whilst trying to protect Sera.

"He didn't have to put on the cowl," Mephala mocked. "The lure was too strong for the weak willed count."

'Count?' Sera pondered as she looked to the figure in confusion. Just as quickly as the word entered her mind it was stripped away again and she forgot what the Daedric Prince had said.

The blonde watched as she and the Stranger were both cut down by Lucien Lachance. Next she saw Roland wrongfully slaughtered as he was falsely accused of being a vampire. The images became a blur- herself in jail, herself dead, in one image she was a pauper, in another a noble.

Finally, it came to an end just as Sera thought she might throw up from dizziness. There were two figures in the centre of the web again, this time back to back, one herself and one... "Thomas!" she cried out his name once more, feeling the pain of his loss anew. It couldn't be, it didn't make sense. He called himself Fenrick Burd but why? He wore the emblem of Kvatch, the black fox, and stood armoured with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Sera followed his fierce gaze to several figures looking back. There was a man, a monk with the ghostly illusion of a crown on his chestnut locks. To his right was a figure in blood red robes with strings on their limbs like a puppet. Sera followed the strings up to a wooden bar in the clutches of an Altmer in blue robes. She noticed how he too had strings, finer and barely visible as his right hand moved to work the red robed puppet. She followed these strings too and immediately regretted it. A beast held the strings, red skinned with four arms and the horned face of a demon.

"Everyone has strings," Mephala taunted, "and everyone is a puppet whether they realise it or not. Look to your assassins, all of them dancing to another's tune without realising it."

Sera finally looked to the image of herself and the figures facing her. Lucien Lachance stood in the middle, in one hand he offered her a deceptively innocent looking red apple and in the other he presented her with the handle of a dagger. He too bore strings but when she followed them up to see his puppet master the image grew clouded.

Mephala immediately started cackling at her. "Figure it out for yourself; you must be your own guide on the web."

Sera's gaze flickered over to the figure to Lucien's left, another male in black but he was no assassin. On his chest in bold red was a skull with skeletal hands crossed beneath it. Sera tried to take in his face and suddenly found herself on the web and paralysed before him. He was looking right at her with a wide grin across his handsome Altmer features.

"What strange visions you have," he mocked her. "I initially thought you to be nothing more than an unfortunate thrall but now I see I was right to spare you. You bring me many souls and lives, you are better than a worm."

Sera shut her eyes and shook her head rapidly. She could feel him poking through her mind, pressing against her most secretive thoughts and trying forcefully to pry them open. She whimpered as her resistance caused her to feel a very real pain.

"You cannot keep anything from me, I took your blood and with it I made you mine," the Altmer informed her. "Assassin, thief, countess, I see it all."

SLAP! The sudden sharp gesture snapped Sera back to reality. She winced as her left cheek bloomed with a fiery pain; the blow had been hard enough to bruise and was as much to hurt her as it was to awaken her.

"Sister you've come back to us, very good," Lucien Lachance addressed her in a biting tone as he looked to her with a bitter smile.

Sera tried to get her mind working quickly. She realised that she was no longer in the cold ruins of a castle but instead on the dusty, wooden floor of what appeared to be a basement. She decided that it wasn't necessarily an improvement as she was quite far from the only door out and had three faces peering down at her.

Lucien leaned the closest trying to force her to meet his angry, brown stare. "Still sleeping soundly I see," he remarked icily.

Sera avoided the Speaker's stare and instead looked to his companions. One was a Khajiit, clad in black leather pants, boots, and tough, studded boxing gloves. He had soft, golden fur with long, thick strands of ash blonde hair that seemed more like a tattered mane and glittering gold eyes that were bestial and intelligent. He was taller than Lucien and all muscle and Sera found it hard to imagine him practising the cloak and dagger ways of the Brotherhood.

The second companion hung back in the shadows, pale faced and nervous. His grey eyes darted about the room rapidly as if unwilling to settle in a particular direction. As she studied him Sera realised she recognised the face beneath the dark hood, it was Mathieu Bellamont.

The blonde's tired green stare met Lucien's heated glower. "Have you finally grown tired of me?" she quipped acidly. "And now you're going to stab me in a basement?" She sighed. "Is it really going to take three of you to do it?"

SLAP! This time Lucien backhanded her right cheek turning it as red as her left.

Sera bit back a cry of pain, refusing to give him the satisfaction of it.

"You would deserve it," Lucien growled at her angrily.

"Are we to beat her to death?" the Khajiit purred in a bored voice. "If so surely this one's paws would be better doing the work." He flexed his fists pointedly as he turned his gaze upon Sera. There was no emotion in his amber stare, it was cool and empty and Sera knew he could easily pummel her to death without a prickle of guilt.

Lucien sighed and stood upright. "No," he murmured as his charming persona slipped back into place.

Unnoticed, Mathieu dared to look relieved at Lucien's answer. Though the Breton knew he would not have intervened should Lucien have chosen to murder the blonde it would have been difficult to watch. There was something about the blonde, when she had lain upon the basement floor in sleep she had appeared so gentle and innocent. Mathieu wondered what she might have been if Lucien had not seen fit to poison her.

"What then?" Sera growled out. She pushed herself to a sitting position at last. She contemplated standing but thought that Lucien might only push her back down if she did.

"What then?" Lucien repeated tauntingly with a shake of his head. "My dear sister you summoned the Dark Brotherhood, you tell us what then."

For a moment Sera looked shocked but then an ugly smile appeared across her face as she recalled the endless hours repeating the chant almost as if she was in a trance. "And you were the best they could send me?" she retorted mockingly.

"You are lucky I learned of what you were doing," he informed her frostily, "were anyone else to... A Dark Brotherhood member trying to conjure the Dark Brotherhood, did you mean to joke?" he snapped at her.

"No, I meant to make use of your wretched ways," she answered angrily.

Lucien let out a cold chuckle at this. "I see, how hypocritical of you Sera. You won't bloody your own hands too willingly because it's wrong but you have no qualms with asking another to do the same?"

"That's not it," she replied moodily. "I'd happily kill him but I don't know how to find him and the Brotherhood is famous for always finding its targets, is it not?"

The Khajiit looked at the woman with intrigue. "And who is the target?" he queried.

"Aldrin."

"Aldrin who?" the Khajiit pried.

Sera shrugged. "I don't know, he had grey eyes and sharp teeth."

"Is that it?" Lucien queried sardonically. "Do you think the Brotherhood is made of clairvoyants?"

Sera glared at him. "Are you saying you can't find him? Then you're failing my request?"

Lucien reached out with both hands and grasped the blonde's shoulders tightly. He pulled her so close their noses were almost touching and she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. "You are in the Brotherhood Sera; you have killed for us more than once so do not pretend otherwise. I accept your call but you will carry it out with me, this is your mess, you will fix it."

"How?" she demanded bluntly.

"You know more about him than you say," Lucien answered, his voice smooth and compelling once more. "Why did you make the summons where you did? Whose body parts did you defile?"

Sera turned her face from the assassin only to find his right hand at her chin and forcing her gaze back on him. His fingers were ice cold against her skin and the sensation of them made her fill with unease.

"What happened in that castle to make you of all people want the Brotherhood's help?" Lucien pressed her for an explanation.

"Death," she answered softly, "death happened in that castle. My friends, my last shred of hope for this world and myself, it all died there. It was a feast," she explained as she offered him another ugly smile, "of people by people and monsters that masqueraded as people. The Order of St Eduana they called it but that was just a cover story I imagine. I alone survived. My friends died and I avenged them, I cut them all down save one, Aldrin, he ran but I will have him too."

Mathieu watched and listened to the woman in fascination. The Breton could not decide if she sounded mad or disturbingly sane. All her talk of vengeance and death did not match with the wary woman Lucien had abandoned in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary, that woman had been terrified of taking a life but this woman seemed determined for one. 'Is this Lucien's venom at work inside her?' he wondered hatefully. 'Has she finally cracked under his yolk or has another done this to her?'

"A cult of cannibals," the Khajiit murmured, "sounds like followers of Namira."

Lucien nodded in agreement as he finally released Sera. "It's a starting point," he murmured. "Well Sera I will show you how to track this Aldrin but you will be the one to cut him down and offer him to Sithis."

Sera nodded agreeably with an icy stare.

"And," Lucien continued with a firm look, "after there will no more quibbling from you about your duties to the Brotherhood, you will submit to it and to me."

"Never," she snarled.

"You cannot pick and choose when to be of the Brotherhood," he warned her, "if you want Aldrin dead those are my terms."

"You cannot make terms, if Aldrin doesn't die then Sithis is denied," Sera reminded him, "and word will spread of the Brotherhood failing to answer a call."

Lucien bristled at her words and made himself pause to think about his response lest he lose his temper with the woman.

"She has a point," Mathieu dared to speak up. He met Lucien's glower unflinchingly; glad to add to the Speaker's anger.

"You grow bold with your promotion Mathieu," the Khajiit chided him, "but I must agree. There are rules Lucien and whilst your chit of a girl here may have abandoned them we must heed to them. The call to Sithis was made, even if it was by a member of the Dark Brotherhood, and it must be answered."

Lucien sighed and touched his right hand to his temple in frustration. "I know that J'Ghasta," he grumbled bitterly, "but did you have to spell it out for her?"

The Khajiit, J'Ghasta, simply shrugged in answer.

"Fine," Lucien grumbled as he lowered his hand and met Sera's smug stare, "but do not think you are wielding the power sister, the Brotherhood is not your plaything to call as you please. I warn you now, try this again and I will not protect you from the Hand's wrath. Furthermore, if you do seek to continue evading and resisting me then the Breton and Imperial men who have wandered this city crying your name will pay a dear price for it."

Sera turned cold at Lucien's words. 'Breton and Imperial? Matthias and...Fenrick?' She had been gone for hours and left the Burd household without a word of farewell and given what had all too recently happened to her... She was surprised to hear of it, Fenrick hardly knew her, well...if he was just Fenrick but even if, against all the odds, he was Thomas as she thought he still did know her, not really and Matthias... What drew the Breton to her and she to him?

Lucien leaned into her, invading her personal space as only a lover should to have his lips brush gently against her wounded right ear. "I know him," he whispered to her. "The Draconis family are more infamous than you think and they have many enemies."

The assassin paused to relish the fear on the blonde's face. He embraced her terror like a flower taking in sun and seemed to brighten as she paled. He pulled back from her and addressed her more clearly. "We shall put your return to Cheydinhal on hold. I shall learn what I can of this Aldrin person and you Sera may stay in Bruma or leave if it pleases you but if you do so take care to inform Mathieu here and make sure he knows where you're going. Consider Sera how generous I am being to you and how perilous it may be for you to try and hide from the Brotherhood."

Sera bowed her head as she considered her response. She was betting on the Brotherhood's infamous ability to find anyone so of course she had to believe in their ability to find her should she choose to try and evade them. It was a relief to hear Lucien postpone her return to Cheydinhal and even better for him not to demand she stay in Bruma. Yet she had to wonder at his motives, was he going to remind her of this sudden kindness in the future and demand something in return? Was he being nice because she was willing to kill for Sithis despite it being a target of her own choosing? Maybe it was just enough for him to know that if she were to annoy him he could easily kill someone she valued. She bristled at the thought and finally met his gaze once more.

"How long will you be?" she queried in a brittle calm voice.

"However long Sithis wills it," he answered mockingly. "Do not fear Sera, you opened the contract, the Brotherhood has no choice but to see it answered, you have no choice."

Lucien turned from the blonde to face J'Ghasta and the still uneasy looking Mathieu. Lucien looked to the Breton first. He liked Mathieu; the boy had a certain talent for killing although sometimes even Lucien found his joy for the slaughter to be disturbing. He had noticed that ever since being promoted to Silencer the Breton hadn't been seen with Maria and when Lucien had queried about it the Breton had only murmured about her being unable to accept him. Lucien wondered if the girl had become hostile, perhaps even jealous upon Mathieu's promotion.

"Mathieu where do you stay in Bruma?" Lucien pried.

Mathieu snapped to attention at the question and his pale grey eyes darted from Sera to J'Ghasta and then back to Sera. Did she view him the same as J'Ghasta and Lucien- as a monster trying to play murderous games with her? 'Perhaps I am,' Mathieu thought to himself, 'a wolf to the lamb. Poor Sera so lovely and bloody, by Lachance she's been made muddy.'

"The Jerall View Inn," it was J'Ghasta who answered. "He stays there to be careful but now you have brought this mewling girl here perhaps secrecy is not a priority."

Lucien smiled over at the Khajiit. "I admit she ranks low in the Brotherhood but you already have my word that she will not betray us."

Sera perked up at this though she made a conscious effort to keep her intrigue from her face. 'Betray them to who?' she pondered. 'The guards? Is this the Khajiit's house then? How foolish but what does it benefit me to betray one of them- an early death, the murder of Roland or Matthias or even Fenrick?'

"You can still leave through the back entrance," J'Ghasta grumbled as he gestured to the only door out of the basement.

Lucien nodded. "And on that we will take our leave." He glanced back to Sera and gestured to the door. "Ladies first."

Sera let out a frustrated sigh before she walked on, heading through the door to a narrow hall that had a set of stairs leading up and a small corridor leading to a set of shutters that led upwards to the outside.

"To the shutters," Lucien instructed smoothly from behind Sera.

Sera flinched to feel his voice hot against the back of her neck. She clenched her fists and swallowed hard before heading obediently to the right.

Lucien's smile widened as he saw how Sera tensed at his voice. He followed close behind her as a living shadow, halting as she fumbled with the lock on the shutters. "An easy one for you I'm sure mistress thief," he teased.

Sera ignored the jibe as she tugged out a lockpick from the folds of her shirt and fiddled with the lock. It was tricky and the lockpick bent several times under the strain before she picked it free. With effort she pushed the shutters up and open to the harsh snowy night of Bruma.

Lucien followed her out and hugged his dark robes closer before he turned and closed the shutters. He knew J'Ghasta would have the lock changed in no time and so he left them unlocked. He turned back to Sera and said calmly, "well sister this is goodnight and goodbye. I will follow through with your unorthodox request if only for the pleasure of seeing you make a willing kill to Sithis. I think when you make a sacrifice of your own choosing you will start to see things my way."

"Is that what you always wanted?" she quipped harshly. "Was all your talk of needing the Gray Fox just that, talk?" She folded her arms and frowned over at him as her breath misted before her in short puffs.

Lucien gave a soft laugh at this. "No, what I shall ask of the master thief is steep and the cost for it will be high which is why I must make it appealing for him. I think if his closest apprentice's freedom and indeed life was not in the balance then he might be inclined to refuse me. When he sees how closely bonded you are to myself and the fate of the Brotherhood he may think twice about my request."

"You're a cruel bastard," Sera murmured, "but I think you enjoy it."

"I assure you I do."

Sera nodded dismissively and glanced up at the cloudy sky. She squinted as snowflakes brushed against her eyelashes and for one brief moment she dared to be calm. It took only seconds before another troubling thought returned to her. "What about Matthias and the others?" she asked.

"You are safe with them and they with you so long as you do not seek to defy me," Lucien reassured her.

"You said the Draconis Family had many enemies," she reminded him.

Lucien looked annoyed at this before he sighed and gritted his teeth slightly. "Let me rephrase, they are safe from me so long as you do not defy me."

"Why are they so hated?" Sera pried as she looked at the assassin curiously.

Lucien rewarded her with a taunting smile. "Perhaps you should ask them that. Now, the night grows colder and later, let's separate while we are on tolerable terms. Farewell sister." He turned from her before she could reply and hastened off. In the snowfall it did not take long for his dark form to be lost to her.

For a few minutes Sera stood shivering on the streets of Bruma unsure where to go. To return to the Burd household would only invite questions but she knew Matthias and Fenrick did not deserve to left in wonderment over her fate. She started to move in the direction of the Burd house, bypassing guards on night shift who were made sullen by the cold. It was as she rounded a corner and passed a set of log cabins that she found a familiar face.

Matthias Draconis almost couldn't believe his eyes when he spied Sera through the snow. He had been pacing through the streets to Bruma for two hours now with a flickering torch in his right hand barely granting him any visibility. He had wandered in his chainmail with a fur cloak offering only a little protection from the elements.

"Miss Polita where in Oblivion have you been?" he demanded.

Sera smiled, happy to see him and amused to hear him call her by her surname yet again. "Sera, please," she insisted. "Do you prefer Master Draconis?"

He halted before her, holding the torch close to inspect her condition, she looked only slightly worse for wear with a bruise budding on her right cheek and swelling adding a rosy tinge to the left one. "It's been almost two days," he informed her gruffly, "where have you been?"

"I went back to the ruins," she confessed quietly, "I just...my friends died there, so many awful things happened there and I needed...I needed closure Master Draconis."

"Matthias," he grumbled back. "Come on, we'll talk about it in the warmth." He looked at her questioningly. "Unless our business is done again and you don't want to..." He trailed off, unsure how to finish his grim thoughts. He reflected on how Sera seemed to dance in and out of his life as if on a whim, she never stayed for long, always pulled on by some other purpose.

"I...where you looking for me?" she asked quietly.

Matthias nodded. "Ever since I realised you'd left. I thought maybe you were taken but Fenrick disagreed, he said there were no signs. I then considered that maybe you had just left, taken up with some other task but it didn't seem right, you usually say goodbye."

"How long did you intend to keep looking?" she queried curiously.

He shrugged. "As long as it took I suppose," he murmured nonchalantly.

"Why?"

"You said we were friends didn't you?" he reminded her. He shuffled uneasily as he spoke and his cheeks flushed slightly though he told himself it was from the cold and not embarrassment.

Sera surprised them both but grasping the Breton in a hug. His chainmail was cold and rough against her skin but she didn't care, she pressed against it anyway before using his shoulders to tug herself up to meet his stare. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "Thank you for being here, thank you for looking for me, both times, for finding me in that horrible place and for finding me now. I'm not sure how you and I keep meeting the way we do but I'm grateful for it."

Matthias nodded back awkwardly. "You're welcome I guess," he muttered. "Bruma wasn't so far from my mother's; I should've just come with you."

"No, don't say that, I made it to Bruma safely, what happened, happened after I got to Bruma, you couldn't have stopped it."

"Mmm well let's get back to the warmth already and assure Fenrick that you're well. He looked for you too," he informed her.

Sera looked surprised at this as she drew back from the Breton. 'Well I suppose he's a guard's son and seems to have a kind and heroic nature,' she reminded herself, 'maybe he searched out of simple chivalry rather than anything else. Lucien has seen him but I guess he doesn't know of the Kvatch twins but I must take a care of the assassins who do, the ones we escaped, whoever they are. It's bad enough I might see them one day and be cut down but I can't have Thomas killed because he got caught up in my mess.'

Sera exhaled tiredly, angry and frustrated with her thoughts. Could Fenrick really be Thomas? And if he was, was she better leaving him while he was still safe in ignorance or should she risk the assassins and try to get to know her lost sibling again?

"Alright, let's go," she murmured quietly as she broke from Matthias at last.

As both figures slipped out of sight they were entirely unaware of the man in the shadows ever watching. Lucien Lachance gave a mocking smile before he shook his head pityingly at the fading figures. "What misfortune to fall for a Draconis," he murmured softly.