Chapter Text
"That's him." You point and Thomas peers into his binoculars. “Blackford. It looks like he’s heading for his study. Third floor; mind the maid in the next room.”
Perched high up on the roof of a manor in the estate district, you and Thomas have set up base to stake out your target. You never like making house calls, and the rain certainly does not help how cold you feel. Must be the anxiety; these assignments always make you feel so uneasy. Guilty, almost.
“Amazing.” He whistles as he takes in the sheer size of the mansion. “You can see him from here?” When he orients himself with the layout of the floor, Thomas lays his hand on your wet shoulder, and transverses the distance between the two buildings. When he lets go, you are in a dark room, presumably the study. Even in the dim light from cloudy skies outside, you can tell everything about this room is pristine and official, from the signed and framed documents to the towering shelves of books and ledgers.
Your sight has improved drastically since that day; shapes started filling out, and details emerged from them. A darkness washes over everything, but special items with an affinity to the void stand out the most.
So he stands out, too.
If he knew how much attention you paid to him. He might pity you or he might feel smug about it, or maybe even a combination of both. But you can’t help it. His body shines out like balefire, like fields in Morley in the Month of Timber. And you’re always so aware of him, so painfully cognizant of where he is, and where he is going, mindful of his every move. You can sight him easily, pursue him anywhere. Well, not that you would allow yourself to - you just like to entertain the thought.
But these thoughts do you no good. Your mind goes in strange directions these days.
Enough about him and about pursuit; Blackford is heading your way. This you leave to Thomas, who already has his blade drawn. When the act of killing happens, you distract yourself. This time, it is with a particularly alluring painting, glowing white against the darkness of the room. Must be a Sokolov original for it to shine so bright. And like all things relating to Sokolov, there is more to it than meets the eye.
Your fingers find the switch along the frame of the painting and flip it just so. Nearby, the sound of running gears rumbles through the wall, and the painting swings forward on hidden hinges. Blackford, you secretive bastard. You help yourself to the spoils: a coin purse and a humming bonecharm. What is it about the void that draws so many nobles, eager for blood? Or perhaps they come away with a newfound thirst for it. You never know.
The purse you throw to Thomas, and he catches it with bloody hands; it’s worthless compared to the charm. Holding it close, you marvel at its simplicity. Unlike your densely-packed scribble, the carved sigils are flowing and sleek, still alive with powerful magic. You pocket it for good measure.
Though no one speaks of it, there are rumors of what happened to your beneath the waters of the flooded district, of how you emerged changed. For those who kept track of it, your death did not come. Whoever bet money on this must have been quite angry; you cheated death not once, but twice. Still, it is nice to think that someone else paid for your own doings, in a sense.
And no one trusts you anymore, save for Thomas, and the division between you and them grows. But they are smart enough to know your skills are needed, even before this whole mess, when all you could do was carve bones.
It used to be that some whalers would offer you small gifts in exchange for the bonecharms you tirelessly churned out - elixir, coin, even souvenirs from their assignments. You were grateful for them. Now, they have you on a short leash, sighting targets and traps. You have a feeling that they like to think of it as a way for you to work towards forgiveness for your past mistake. Strangely enough, you do not mind this forced act of repentance. One of these days, you’ll be sorry for being such a pushover.
“Ready to go?” Thomas asks. He wants to return home to a warm meal, no doubt. Behind him, Blackford’s body lies lifeless.
“Yes,” you say, and you brace yourself for the hand he’s about to lay on your shoulder, and the nauseating transversal to come.
There are certain people who, after being exposed to magic, will develop a resistance to it.
Like the whalers. Sometimes you can't read them. Most of the time there's too much smoke to see clearly. You get glimpses at best, small things like their names and where they are from, but it’s not nearly enough to really know them. The ones that don’t take to Daud’s gift are easier to decipher. You quickly learned which ones would kill for him, which ones would die for him, and which ones would run you through with a knife for the fun of it. So you are much more wary of the ones you cannot read.
You like to think you knew Thomas before all this. For that reason, you tell yourself, it doesn’t really matter that he’s locked up tight like a puzzle - you would only be confirming what you already know. But in truth, you won’t look even if you could. You’re too scared you’ve got him wrong.
They come in the night.
You are asleep when it happens, but you had the good sense to sleep elsewhere tonight. If they found you sleeping in your room, they would have killed you in your own bed.
Overseers have penetrated your secret hideout, the gleam of their masks and the assault on your olfaction tells you so. They must have brought their dogs with them.
So the plan is to find Thomas. You take your steps in liquid measures, sliding from shadow to shadow, until you reach the old commerce building, until you can reach his room. A sound from one of the abandoned rooms, reclaimed as storage space, catches your attention, and you can see a faint glow emanating from within.
You come upon them in the act, three of them stripping down the room, confiscating bonecharms and runes. When you see their black uniforms, golden masks, undecipherable expressions, you can’t help yourself. You hand, guided by supernatural precision, wraps its fingers around the hilt of your sword.
You can feel energy course through your body, flowing to your arm, to the mark on your hand, and to the knife in your fist. You drive it through the back of first overseer’s head with strength that leaves you wondering where all this aggression came from.
One draws his sword, and raises it in time to block your attack. But you are stronger somehow, and the force of your blade pushes him stumbling back, giving you the chance bury your weapon in the soft flesh of his stomach. Hot blood runs down your hands, rivulets if it dripping down your arms to stain your clothes. The smell of it makes you see white, drives you half-delirious with rage.
The last overseer uses this as a chance to catch you unarmed, but he doesn’t know that your sword is only supplemental. You grab his fist before his knife reaches you and kick hard at his knee. His muffled cry provokes you, leaves you wishing for fangs to shatter bones and claws to rend flesh. Your free hand grips the cold metal of his mask and slams his head backwards into the nearest wall: once, twice, and again. He cries out, and you do not stop until he falls quiet.
You’ve never killed a man with your hands but you suppose now is a good a time as any to begin. Funny enough, you used to be terrified of killing, of the regret that follows, but at this moment your only regret is that you were not able to personally kill those who took your eyes from you.
Another one from behind, he must have snuck up on you, but you are faster than he is. You are on him in an instant, blood-slicked hands at his throat with the weight of your body behind them. The overseer topples over immediately, and you use your entire weight to keep him down. He grabs at you, pulling on your arms with growing desperation. You reward him by pressing your thumbs harder into his throat, and he thanks you with a choked groan.
How you wish you could see his face without the golden mask, to see fear and anguish. If only you could make him feel what you felt. But footsteps approaching from afar put a stop to your thoughts, and you can see the ripples in the air made by the sound of boots against ground. They are close. No time for poetic justice, but perhaps that can come later; you can blind one of them and leave him to wander the flooded district if you so wish. For now, you must finish this one and move on to the others.
You give him one last look, grant him the final vision of you and your eyes - you hope this stretches on through the infinity of his death. But he wheezes your name with precious breath, and your fingers go slack for a second. How does he know? Now it take no time for you to realize he is not wearing a golden mask at all. With mounting dread, you realize this is no overseer, this is just a whaler, just Thomas.
You immediately loosen your hands from around his neck. He coughs, breath rattling in his throat, as you are wrenched off of him. You struggle at first, but stop when you see vapour masks. And no overseer in sight, but you can’t shake the vision from your mind.
“I am fine,” Thomas stutters, “I’m fine.” He explains through laboured breath that he saw you heading into the commerce building by yourself, and in the dark, you must have confused him for one of them. It is alright, you were only doing what you should.
What lies, but the whalers have no choice but to believe him, content to follow his direction when Daud and Billie are not present. They let go of you, but they are still rigid, poised to strike if you make another sudden move.
Daud approaches, and the crowd parts before him. When did he return? His eyes run you up and down, mouth scowling at your sorry state. “No more of this nonsense. We meet outside. Now.”
Someone helps Thomas up, then they disappear one by one, until you are alone in the room.
At this point, you have no choice but to join them. When you do, you find that much of it has started without you. These things always do, but this time you feel you are owed the beginning at least.
But this meeting is not hard to piece together. Someone led the overseers here, and you soon find out that someone is Billie Lurk. She stands before Daud for her confession, but when she sees your approach, she turns to look at you.
“I told the Overseers about your trip. If you haven’t figured it out already,” she says. She looks so tired without her mask. She looks vulnerable. “You were a liability. And I couldn’t allow that.”
You shrug, but her words cut through you like a hot knife - like white heat from sizzling iron. Your feelings are hurt by her confession, and you scold yourself for still possessing the ability to be hurt in this way.
But how cruel. No, you did not figure it out yet, thank you very much. You were much happier under the assumption that you were betrayed for a simple ration of elixir. Anything more than that is just too much, because if you were forced to consider all the things that led to your stupid little twist of fate, then you would surely go mad.
However, what happens to Billie is not up to you. It is up to Daud, and wordlessly, he sheathes his sword and lets her go.
You heart clenches as you watch her retreating figure. How easy was that? You are half-relieved at the lack of bloodshed, half-jealous of it, too. Daud even grants you a scathing look to remind you, and you are immediately ashamed. But what can you do now?
The everyone in hideout is on edge today, and whispers about Delilah are especially loud. There is a bad feeling in the air. You figure it out fast: a new body occupies the space of the flooded district.
Before you can investigate further, you are summoned to the source of this matter. When you arrive, you are greeted by a small group of whalers congregating around her. It’s a somber meeting, and they part to allow you through.
A witch, one of Delilah’s, was caught sniffing around the district. A few men managed to subdue her, and now she sits in front of you, slumping into the chair that supports her. They must have given her something: her head is lolling as though she is half-asleep, half-drunk. No smoke to hide behind either. She’s awake only because her eyes are locked onto you. You can smell rage emanating from her.
“See what you can do,” Daud says from behind her. “Find out where Delilah is hiding.”
Everyone focuses on you now, expectations palpable in the air. You're beginning to feel like you’re the one who is about to be interrogated; your face twists as you look Daud over. He’s as stern as ever, so you do the only thing you can: you pull off your mask and stare at her with your black, dead eyes.
“By the void,” she murmurs weakly - unthinking, but nevertheless terrified - when she sees your face.
You see her time spent as a maid, and dismissed when she knew too much. Not surprisingly, she developed a distrust of nobles. She lived off the streets for a while, stealing so she wouldn’t end up like the girls at the Golden Cat. Then, a fateful day she remembers with reverence: Delilah. She came bearing a promise of refuge. No more stealing, no more running, hiding. Induction into her coven. An island, a manor, roses, ghost hounds that pursue you to the ends of the earth.
You blink and it all dissipates like smoke.
Now the witch sits limp, head down and shaking. You dredged up a lot of forgotten things, it seems. You also wonder what it must feel like to be on the receiving end of that, to have someone sift through your mind. You grimace, feeling lightheaded and the beginnings of a headache. Your mask goes back on immediately when you notice people staring. Exhausting, no doubt, for both sides of this exchange.
“Don’t hurt her,” she murmurs into her lap, quiet enough so that only you can hear. “She saved us all.”
You ignore her, focused only on the name. “Brigmore. Out past quarantine. I can get us in, I think.”
“We’ll need a ship,” he says.
You don’t pay attention to the talk of logistics that follows. There’s a roaring in the back of your head. You can still see the island, the hounds - it’s a vision you can’t shake. Delilah used every last bit of her borrowed powers to shroud herself and her coven. What she’s planning, you cannot say for sure, but the effort she exerts to hide away leaves you worried.
The room clears without you knowing it, and Daud is the last to leave. “See me in my study,” he says, voice low. He doesn’t look at you when he says it either, which leads you to believe this meeting won’t be pleasant.
The witch waits for him to disappear before speaking again: “He saved you, too, didn’t he? You must understand.”
You stare at her, this witch plucked from her coven, who made the grave mistake of straying too far from Delilah’s protection. Caught where she shouldn’t have been. You feel the urge in you again, the contemplation of violence, of restraints, white hot heat, blinding pain. A compulsion to act on it. But you are still yourself, and you don’t hurt her.
Instead, you leave her to herself and her thoughts, a worse punishment by far.
When you visit him in his study, you make sure your face is slack, devoid of anything that might give you away. It’s embarrassing how long it has been since you’ve last spoken to him privately here, how you avoided doing it despite how much you crave his presence, and it’s even more embarrassing how long you’ve been keeping track. So you loom rigid with dread in the doorway, silent and starving like a dog with a scent, before you approach. You force yourself to keep from saying anything; you want to be cold as he is to you.
Oh, but he’s divisive like none other, and he won’t let you have it. He can wait for as long as you can, maybe more (and you’ve both waited years already). So you might as well expedite the process and say: “You wanted to see me?”
Daud takes the time to snuff out his cigarello, and makes no effort to acknowledge the fact that you two are alone with each other. “I can get a boat, get us to Brigmore,” he says after a pause, and you know right away the questions he will ask next.
Did you see enough to know the grounds? Yes, you did. Can you find a way in the manor? Yes, of course. Everything he asks you can answer, because you’re so diligently obedient. You made it a point to be so in the past, before your reversal of fortune. But now you know something he doesn’t for once in your life - something valuable - and you do not intend to let this bargaining chip go to waste.
“I’ll help, but this will be the last time. When we return, I will be leaving.”
“If that’s what you want. Simple, isn’t it? I’ll bet you wish you knew sooner.”
Another lesson from him? How quaint, you think, and how stupid. “ I don’t need your permission. I didn’t need it last time, either.” This last part you add out of spite: “I did it to prove that I don’t need anything from you.” I don’t need you is what you really mean, but you know better than to say that. Still, your boldness surprises you. When did you grow a backbone?
“You did it to hurt me,” he replies, tone even, face level. Calm like white snow, blanketing the barrens of Tyvia for miles to come. “You think I don’t care.”
Does he care? His words send you staggering, like you've been slapped across the face. You’re too stunned to believe that. You believed the opposite for so long, that slowly but surely there was an irreparable rift growing between the two of you. And you’ve been so distracted by your idiotic thoughts of longing and the denial of that longing that you’ve been blind even before you lost your eyes.
But now without sight do you truly see him - worn down and a shadow of who he used to be, changed, but the same. Guilty like you.
You take this time to study his face, made vulnerable by his confession-in-a-statement. The slant of his nose, the full breadth of his eyes, the curve of his arrogant mouth. You are suddenly overcome by the desire to consume him, consume his heart (still beating and still tender, though unbeknownst to him).
Restrict the rampant hunger and beware the wandering gaze. There you go again, breaking strictures by twos and threes. You might as well go down the list in order.
He approaches you now, and you turn all but boneless at his touch, at hands that have done violence in Dunwall, at hands that have done kindness, gentleness in Tyvia, Morley, and Serkonos.