Usually, I consider myself the stoic type. But I do, at times, take things personally. And finding one of my very few friends nailed to my dining room table? This is one of those times.
But I'm hardly going to sit around and wallow in misery. That comes later. And that's not my temper talking--it's the note placed rather conspicuously at the scene of Lisin's death. It bears a familiar mark, a single hand print, but this time, it's stamped out in Lisin's blood, not ink. And on it, it reads: "To make it right."
It then occurs to me that I never really told Serana about my history with the Dark Brotherhood. Sure, she knew I'd done a stint with them, but the full details had never really been expressed.
I'm barely five seconds into the story before Serana cuts me off. "It doesn't matter what you did or what their reasons are; Lisin was my friend, too. These people have already sealed their fates."
"So let's get down to Falkreath--"
"But think--why would the Brotherhood be so obvious about it? They clearly want you to know it was them. It's a trap."
"Of course it is. But what trap can catch us?"
The sun's rising on Solitude as we head down the road to the stable. I'm readying to get horses for the both of us, but Serana tells me I should go on ahead and she'll catch up. If this isn't a trap, if it's something else the Brotherhood have set in motion, we might not have the few hours it will take for the trip south. So I take the shortcut.
It beats taking a carriage, and my distant brother, unwilling steed that he is, has the good grace not to sing "Ragnar the Red" the whole way there. For that, I'm happy to let him go his own way once he gets me to Falkreath.
It's certainly one of my more dramatic arrivals, but I think the guards have learned to put up with me at this point.
Although Serana told me to go on ahead, I wait for her outside the skull-door. This way, at least, no one is leaving without going through me first. But after a few hours of vividly imaging the people inside and what I'm going to do to them, I get back on my feet and slip inside.
Why now? What changed that they decided now was the time to try getting back at me? I'm ten times as dangerous now as when I killed Vittoria; the Brotherhood have enough spies in their network that I'm certain they've been following me ever since then.
So maybe they were planning something long and elaborate, a masterful trap designed just for me. Maybe they were just waiting until I bonded with someone, gave myself a weakness in the form of someone I couldn't protect, and then they chose that moment to strike at me, hoping that, in my rage, I would be an easier target to kill.
But when I sink an arrow into Astrid's back with characteristic ease, any notions that they were expecting me go out the window.
I hurry over to Astrid, who's still in shock from the attack. "Shut up and fight through the pain," I tell her. "Or you die." I'd rather not alert the rest of the Sanctuary any sooner than I have to. "Why'd you kill Lisin?"
"What?"
"Don't play dumb. I found your note."
"What note?"
"There was a note," I growl, rounding on her, my blade spinning into my hand. "Why? Why did you kill her?"
Astrid glares at me. "You're really something. You killed so many innocents at our behest for the smallest of sums and never looked back. Vittoria was no one special, and neither was Lisin."
Like I said, I can take things personally.
These people...so bound up in their twisted code they won't admit to their own excesses. Contract or not, they killed Lisin because of me. And that's all I need to know, really--I can't punish them for their petty vindictiveness, at least not any worse than by just killing them.
So Cicero, that grotesque, cringing oaf, is the next to go.
I don't even care about going unseen at this point. I just want to be done with this, once and for all. Maybe this grim business will be my absolution for Vittoria.
Cicero's screams bring out the rest of the assassins, a sneering, decrepit handful of people. I'm not the hypocrite Astrid thought I was--I know I've killed many people for very little. But why should that comfort the Brotherhood? Anyone could kill these people and rightly call it justified.
But before I get the chance, Serana is suddenly at my side. "Don't."
"What'd you do?"
Serana glances at me. "Sometimes, dear, I think you forget you're a vampire."
"You enthralled them?"
"Only partially. I can't hold all of them for..." She trails off, looking concerned. "Someone else is doing the same."
And then I realize I forgot someone.
We find Babette outside the Night Mother's room. "I had heard about you," she says to Serana. "I thought you'd look older."
"What's going on here?" I ask. "Why are you helping us?"
"I'm helping myself, idiot, by saving these people from you. We're being framed."
"What sort of person frames the Dark Brotherhood?" Serana asks.
"The sort of person your friend makes as enemies," Babette says.
This is stupid. "I don't believe you," I say. "Why should I? Astrid denied it, too."
"Think. Why would the Brotherhood leave a note? We need secrecy to survive. We are the only Sanctuary that's left. Look, we have spies all over Skyrim--we might be able to find whoever you're looking for, and then you can leave us alone."
I'm against it, but Serana points out that there really is no proof that the Brotherhood was actually responsible. I suggest that we kill them all anyways, but she finally convinces me that having the Brotherhood's spies on our side is worth it. "Working with these people won't guarantee that they'll help us, but killing them will guarantee that they won't."
So, having been won over by my wife's wisdom, I follow Serana out of the Sanctuary. I killed Astrid and Cicero, so that's one part of my life I can put behind me, but Lisin remains unavenged. I start wondering where we should go next.
And then I wonder if we're going anywhere.
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