Chapter 36

Wind and driving snow can be as much of a fortress as any made of stone. It scoured her, flaying from her soul weakness, doubt, guilt and the pain in Brynjolf's eyes as he saw her slipping away, withdrawing from them all, despite the warm welcoming she'd received back at the cistern. But she forged ahead, losing count of the 7,000 stairs.

~o~o~o~

Rune had cried and then called her cruel for letting them think she'd died. "Why didn't you come back to visit? Why let us think you were dead?" After the hugs and crying, his eyes turned sharp. "Ah," Brynjolf thoughtfully interjected, "Turns out the Dark Brotherhood thought her good assassin material."

"Assassin?" Rune whispered in awe. "Our Nessa?" It took a while before he forgave her.

That news spread quickly through the guild and curiosity was quenched. No more questions were asked or if they were, Brynjolf deflected them. Even Mercer, who was finally back, looked at her with an appraising gaze and ceased his former ridicule of her abilities.

She hoped her eyes could express her gratitude to Brynjolf because her mouth couldn't seem to form the proper words. There was a cold gaping hole in her heart and a silence she couldn't break but for a cracked word every now and then.

"Sorry," was the primary word in her vocabulary. An answer to Brynjolf's questioning eyes or her lack of response when he caressed her cheek.

"When you're ready, lass."

She could close her eyes and nod, but she couldn't tell him she'd lost herself back in the Sanctuary. Who was she now? Wait, wrong question. Who had she ever been? Just a stick drifting down a river, twirling in eddies, getting tangled here and there and then floating away to the next tangle.

When he'd found her packing her few belongings, she stopped and looked at him, hoping the apology in her eyes could tell him what she couldn't.

"You're leaving then?"

She nodded.

He sighed and sat on her bed. "Why, Ness? You've got a life here. People who care for you." He grasped her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him. "Some very deeply."

Squeezing her eyes shut she wished there were tears, but there was nothing but regret. "I—" The word, though spoken softly, had a rasp to it, one that abraded her throat.

"Go slowly," he said.

She swallowed, trying to smooth the passage for more speech. "Need…words." It wasn't just words. She needed to fill the emptiness with something. She couldn't drift any longer. Whoever she had been had been burned away by betrayal and the discovery of the hard thing within her. It was time to fledge. Time to become whatever it was she was supposed to be.

His head cocked, he was trying so hard to understand what she wasn't even sure she understood.

"High Hrothgar," she said.

"The Greybeards. Voice masters?"

She nodded.

He looked at her quizzically. "There has to be an easier way, lass. Give yourself time. You'll learn to speak again."

Of course, he hadn't seen her shout. There was that incident with the dragon that time, but he probably thought she was barmy. No way would she tell him her suspicion that she was precisely what Jarl Balgruuf had said, a Dragonborn. Even now it sounded absurd to her. But what had been happening to her must be something, a key to becoming a person who wasn't just drifting from one happenstance to another, or running away from expectations of people like Jarl Balgruuf.

But with the few words she could utter, she couldn't express any of that to Brynjolf. She could barely grasp it herself. Words had left her. Not because of the shout, because she didn't trust that she could speak without unleashing a terrible torrent of emotion that she could never control. It was just easier to stop talking.

So when she finished packing, she turned to look at him, hoping he knew how much she loved him even if she couldn't express it. "Brynjolf." Her hand reached out to touch his cheek and her thumb rubbed lightly over his lip.

He grasped her hand and kissed the palm, holding it to his lips. "Will you come back, lass?"

She nodded. "Always." And then she left to go climb the mountain and find her voice again.

~o~o~o~

It wasn't the road to Ivarstead she took. As she stood at the edge of town she asked the carriage driver to take her to Falkreath. Rather, she croaked the name of the town and the driver had taken her there.

Someone had cleaned up the remains of the Imperial soldiers that had died outside the Sanctuary. Every step threatened to rip the scab off the wound. All the emotions she'd kept secure behind silent lips threatened to erupt, but she kept going. As the black door came into view, still broken and now being swallowed up by vines, she still didn't know why she had returned.

Biting her cheek kept the pain from spilling out, but her brow was furled so tightly her head started to hurt. She entered the familiar hallway, following the worn stone stairs down to the first landing. This was where she'd found Astrid so many times, bent over a table and tracing the roads on a map with her finger, plotting another assassination.

The map remained, burnt and tattered, but parts of it were still intact. She leaned over it and looked at it. Her fingers traced a road, coincidentally the one that led to Ivarstead, the one she should be on.

Astrid's office, just off the landing, was dark. No oil lamps lighting it as they once did. A light spell, the first she ever learned, led the way as she walked inside. She almost stepped on the corpse, not seeing it at first, for the jumbled mess of the room. Whose was it?

She stared in puzzlement at the corpse and the objects surrounding it. It was lying in the midst of a circle of candles. There was a nightshade stalk discarded nearby and a dagger was thrust into the chest cavity of the corpse. A black ritual? But who had been alive to perform such a ceremony?

She stooped to examine the corpse and gasped as she saw the handle of the dagger. It was Astrid's dagger, the so-called Blade of Woe. Had Astrid performed the ritual on this corpse? If so, why had she left the dagger behind? Was Astrid still alive?

She stood, still puzzled over the scene. With the tip of her boot she nudged the corpse's head and it turned to the side, the mouth falling open, and she recognized the lengthened incisors of a vampire.

"Astrid!" she hissed. She took a step backwards as if believing the corpse would come to life and attack her. Whatever enthrallment Astrid had held over her, not even a shred remained. All this death and destruction, even her husband's death, was because of her, the woman who had power and wealth, jealous of a simple girl just because the Night Mother spoke through her.

The stupidity of it all flared within her. She'd blamed herself, but that evaporated as she stood over Astrid's corpse. No, the fault of it all was Astrid's petty self-absorption, no one else's. There was no keeping it in. Her anger combusted and her voice exploded from her. Not in a shout but in a howl of fury. Viciously kicking Astrid's corpse, she screamed every insult she had ever heard. Then she picked up the dagger and stabbed the remains repeatedly until finally the body, half decayed, fell apart and the stench broke through her anger.

She wiped away the sweat and tears from her face with the back of her hand, not wanting to smear herself with Astrid's putrefying remains and then dropped the dagger on the corpse. Standing, she turned away, feeling released of something that had been strangling her ever since that day.

"Well done, Listener. Stabbity, stab, stab. You've assassinated a corpse!"

Nessa gasped and took an involuntary step backwards. "Cicero!"

"But you're not the Listener any longer, are you?" His eyes narrowed as he stared at Nessa.

"No… Cicero? Did you…" she pointed at Astrid's corpse.

"Did I kill Astrid? Who did the Black Sacrament? Who…who…who? Oh yes, indeed. Cicero found Astrid right here, performing the Black Sacrament using herself as the effigy. She whispered a name, over and over." His voice lowered to a ragged whisper, "Nessa… She whispered your name. Tell Nessa to take one last contract. She must assassinate me. Ha! I took that contract myself."

"But…" Nessa started to say.

"Yes, well, why should you have all the fun?" He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling with merriment. "I did it myself. With relish. But then here you are, fulfilling the contract after the fact. How very thorough of you!"

"She lived?" She looked at the corpse, wondering if Astrid had been alive, if only barely, all this time since the fall of the Sanctuary.

"Barely. Looked quite painful too. Shame, that. But vampires are tough buggers to kill."

It had been months since she'd seen the Keeper. She couldn't put her finger on it, but he wasn't the same. His voice wasn't as high pitched, his laugh didn't sound quite so maniacal. He sounded almost… not crazy. "You've changed."

The edge of his mouth turned up in a wry smile and he shrugged. "I was minding my own business when I felt something—a presence— leave. Like a little voice in my head went silent. So I came here and found…," he turned around slowly, spreading his arms, "this. And no Mother."

Nessa's eyes glanced nervously past Cicero, wondering if he would blame her. He was rather protective about his dead charge and now… well, she was truly dead. How would he respond? "I tried, but there were too many. Everyone dead, almost." The words were coming a little easier now, but she'd grown unused to talking.

"You said you'd take care of her." Cicero's voice dropped. It sent chills running up Nessa's spine. "You said she'd be fine," he said, with his head tilted down, but eyes looking up. He looked like a wild animal about to pounce.

What were her odds? He'd nearly killed Arnbjorn in a fight and Arnbjorn was one of the best fighters she'd ever known. She took a tentative step backward, nearly stepping on Astrid's corpse. Her hand dropped to her weapons. "I tried. I'm sorry."

"She's gone," he said. He looked up then, a big grin spreading across his face. "She's gone and so is that… voice in my head." He chuckled at Nessa. "I'd call that quite the coincidence, wouldn't you?"

Nessa nodded, still unsure of what Cicero would do.

His hand went to his head and he swept off his jester's cap. "Ridiculous costume. Can't believe I've been wearing this all these years. I need some new clothes."

Nessa watched in wonder as the cap fell to the floor. "Was she… talking to you too?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I was her Listener, I just didn't hear her properly like you did." He laughed, a little bit of his former mania creeping into it. "That is funny. All that time I thought I was alone, she was talking to me." His laughter stopped as soon as it started and he looked at her again, this time without any of his former menace. "What will you do now?"

Should she tell him? She knew the old Cicero and trusted him, in a way. But this man wasn't the same. She had no history with a sane Cicero. "I'm leaving Skyrim."

"Where are you going?"

"When I get there… I'll know."

"Wandering, then?"

She nodded. At least when you didn't talk much it was easier to lie. "You?" she asked, deflecting his curiosity.

"Back to the Dawnstar Sanctuary. I'll start recruiting once I get there."

Nessa cocked her head, looking at him questioningly. Was he going to restart the Dark Brotherhood?

"Sure, why not?" he said, intuiting her unspoken question. "It worked pretty well for Astrid, all things considered. She just let her jealousy and insecurity ruin everything. Perhaps another Night Mother will show up." He chuckled and scraped his fingers along his jaw, scrutinizing Nessa closely. "Who knows, maybe she walks amongst us now, hm?"

Nessa's eyes widened and she took a step backward and this time stumbled over Astrid's body. She shook her head violently. "I'm done."

Cicero shrugged and his mouth curled with unspoken humor. "Perhaps our Lord has different ideas. If so then this is probably not goodbye." He held out a hand.

She reached forward and took his hand, letting her fingers curl around his. "I'm sorry." She was still apologizing for all the ways she'd let him down.

"It'll all work out, cherub. Get happy again, and do come visit me." He gave her hand a short, affectionate squeeze and then let go.

She nodded and then turned, picking up Astrid's dagger. "Yours." She handed it to him hilt first.

He took it from her and smiled. "I suppose it is." Turning, he walked up the hallway and she watched him disappear from view.

Seeing him and getting his unspoken forgiveness for allowing the Night Mother's corpse to burn, eased some of the burden of guilt she carried like an overladen backpack. She turned to look at Astrid's charred corpse one last time, her anger completely spent. Jealousy and insecurity. Cicero was right. Everything could've worked fine if she hadn't been so petty. Any hint of the enthrallment was dissolved. She was free of Astrid's love, if not her betrayal.

A part of her wanted to leave, escape the ruined confines of the Sanctuary and continue her journey, but she had to see him one last time.

Following the scorched corridors, she could only barely recognize the places she'd been, not a month before. The gathering hall was a jumble of broken barrels, tables and chairs. The grinding stone was whole, but no longer mounted on a spindle. Was that? She pulled a familiar piece of wood from a pile of debris. A piece of the training dummy.

Closing her eyes, she could see Arnbjorn spinning, swinging his great axe in a graceful dance of death that usually resulted in splinters like this one. A bittersweet memory tugged at her. The trip to Solitude, a fairy ring, and a moment frozen in amber light where they had nearly kissed, but bandits spoiled it all and she accidentally shot him.

Her laughter took her by surprise. Of course, the confusing events following that had been part of his plan to seduce her. And so he had. Her laughter echoed loudly through the gathering hall. It seemed to reverberate off the now bare walls and came back to her sounding hollow and lonesome. Her hand flew to her mouth to stop the noise.

She followed the same path they'd taken that day, into the kitchen where they had found Nazir, then down the hall. She stopped when she reached Veezara's body. He was, of them all, perhaps the most surprising assassin. He was friendly, helpful, yet devoted to his job. A special bond had formed between them when they had worked together. He easily fell into the role of teacher and she was a grateful and attentive student. He died in service to his lord, Sithis. This was the end he would have wanted.

She picked up his daggers, which had fallen to his sides, and put them into his hands. "Serve Sithis well, my friend."

That was enough. She couldn't move forward and search for Arnbjorn. It was too much. The wound had ripped open again and she was bleeding. She turned and walked out of the Sanctuary, this time for good.

~o~o~o~

Someone must have miscounted. It seemed there were far more than seven thousand steps to High Hrothgar. She had intended to count them, but lost track when a mountain troll attacked.

"Curse you!" she cried into the wind as the troll slashed at her with vicious claws, cutting through her heavy, warm armor and leaving it in little more than tatters. At least the cold slowed the bleeding of the wound. She killed it despite her numb fingers. She trudged onward, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. She couldn't afford to be distracted by her physical discomforts and be attacked again.

But it was bound to happen, wasn't it? An ice wraith this time. It managed to twine itself around her neck. Her body heat plummeted with that. Turning discomfort to numbness. It would be so easy to give up. Wear the ice wraith like a scarf. Die quietly here in the mountains. Let someone else do this thing. But she ripped it free and then killed it.

Finally she found the fortress and the old men inside. Then, after months of studying, she found her voice.

~o~o~o~

After what, 11 years I reread the story and found this on my cloud storage. I really would love to finish it. I won't promise anything and I'm very, very rusty having not written anything since. But there is an ending that has been dancing in my head for all these years and I might just get it written.