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The Last Days of Lucien Lachance	By : pirouette Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Oblivion Views: 3474 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I neither own nor am affiliated with Bethesda/TES: Oblivion. I'm also not making any money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Title:
The
Last Days of Lucien Lachance

Warnings:
A/O, violence, M/F, Dub-con, spanking,

A/N:
Caleigh
is an author-original character who fills the role the player would
have in the quest-lines being interwoven to create the plot. Since
the narrator is a lifelong assassin, please expect the read to be a
bit dark, but often very tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to figure out
what could possibly have transpired that would have made Lucien able
to be betrayed and ambushed so easily, and out of those musings came
this story. Chapter one of five.

Blurb:
Lucien
Lachance is on the run from the surviving members of the Black Hand,
reminiscing over the events that led to this point. Luckily for us,
he's been having a lot of sex recently.

Chapter
One: A Knife in the Dark

I'm riding as fast and as hard as I
can for Applewatch, horse so tired he's worked up a fine froth at the
mouth and flanks. But I cannot slow down. Even though the chances of
she and I surviving the night are almost nonexistant, I feel
strangely focused. Every moment leading up to this road, to the
misguided members of the Black Hand pursuing my steps, every
conversation I've had--all of it stands out with perfect clarity.
It's odd, really. I never thought that when it was my time to die I'd
have enough warning to reminisce. Most members of the Brotherhood are
removed from life rather suddenly. We go out on a contract and never
return, and that is it for us. I did think that I would at
least be angry, but I was wrong even about that. Because I am not
worried about my safety as I careen down the road. Instead, I am
terrified for the life of the woman riding in the opposite direction.

The
first time I saw her walking through the streets of Cheydinhal I
wasn't impressed. She was slight, even for a Bosmer, with eyes so
large they made her look far younger than she really was, and hair
too short to be feminine. In her leathers, she looked just like any
other wood elf stuck in a city--out of place, awkward, and about two
seconds from vaulting the city wall and fleeing into the gloom of the
forests and the ruins. At the time she was little more than an
amusing curiosity to me, but as her reputation grew, I began to hear
talk of her wherever I went.

For
someone as well known of
as she soon became, very little has ever been known about
her. I found out later that she had just been set loose from the
Imperial Prison by the escaping late Emperor. No one seemed to
remember what she'd been
arrested for, and she refused to tell anyone who asked her. Most
Bosmeri would have grabbed their bow and gone straight back to
thieving, but she decided to run off and save Kvatch from the first
Oblivion gate instead. I learned of her deeds through tavern gossip
long before I saw her again and made the connection between the
silk-clad warrior in front of me and the thief I had seen mere months
before.

Caleigh
is what she tells everyone to call her, but I've always had a feeling
that is no more her name than Lucien Lachance is truly mine. At first
I thought she might be a reformed murderer, but none of the signs
were there. We've had members of the Brotherhood try to stop and lead
a normal life, but they are rarely successful, even if we do
let them live. The call to spill blood is too strong for our kind.
But despite that, she's also not what common society would call
"good," though much of what she has done is truly great.
People say she has closed Oblivion gates outside of every town and
city in the land, but I myself have seen her robbing people blind in
the wee hours of the morning when the city was sleeping, safe in the
knowledge that the Hero of Kvatch had come through once more. And
while I know the Nine are weak and forgiving, the ease of her
pilgrimage to become one of their Knights suggested to me at the time
that she had never taken a innocent life. It never occurred to me
then that if she had, she could have been remorseful enough for them
to absolve her of it. In the end I decided that she simply was not a
killer. She was merely a wild one, an opportunist. But even then I
could see that if something could bring her to our way of life, her
fall would be a tribute to the Night Mother herself. And so I waited
in the shadows and kept listening at the inns so that when she was in
town, I would be there to watch her and guide her descent.

It
didn't surprise when I learned that she was such an indispensable
friend to Martin Septim, our short-lived martyr of an Emperor. Before
his death, she was his lapdog. He remained safe in his Temple in the
mountains, and she ran about the countryside doing his bidding on a
unicorn, an honest-to-Sithis unicorn.
I know the Bosmeri have a way with animals, but this one proved too
much for even her in the end. The stable hands outside Cheydinhal
both loved and hated her--loved her for her generous compensation for
keeping the beast locked up against its will, and hated her for the
sheer amount of work it took to keep a unicorn captive. After Martin
died, she let it go and stole horses when she needed to go from one
city to another. Eventually, she disappeared from my city entirely,
and I lost word of her for months. At the time it surprised me how
much I cared.

I
broke into her home in Cheydinhal one night out of boredom and found
all her belongings and books covered in dust. She had the sort of
library only a person handy with a lockpick could amass, and her
walls and shelves were covered with mementos of whom I must assume
were fallen comrades. There was far too much Blade gear there for it
to be much else. I shut the door behind me, convinced by the obvious
signs of disuse I'd found that she had moved on for good. Time
passed, and the Sanctuary ran smoothly, though my nights were rather
dull with no one to follow.

By
the time she stumbled back into the city months later, exhausted,
drunk, and covered in a thin film of road dust, I had almost
forgotten about her entirely. Every item she carried reeked of strong
enchantment, and the material of her armor was something I'd never
seen in this land before. I wasn't sure at the time where she'd gone
to, but it was obvious from the outset that she came back different.
I wasn't sure at the time if it was her failure to keep Martin alive
that broke her, or if something got to her in her travels, but the
Caleigh I stumbled upon in The Newlands Lodge was neither the Hero of
Kvatch nor the thief I'd seen skulking down the streets initially. At
first she shut herself in her house and refused to have contact with
anyone in the city. She was also conspicuously absent at Chapel,
which struck the townspeople as odd, considering her role as champion
of the gods. When she did leave her house, she was always dressed
quite finely, but she never went anywhere except the tavern. Caleigh
was, slowly but surely, drowning herself in West Weald wine. Such a
waste.

I
think she would have carried on that way indefinitely if the City
Watch hadn't started extorting citizens. The Dunmeri don't know when
to keep their lips sealed, I've always said, and soon the Lodge was
rife with gossip. Elves being thrown out of their homes. Shop
earnings garnished. Caleigh listened, and I watched her back grow
stiff and her countenance grim, but she did not act. If Martin had
still been alive, I believe she would have stopped the problems
before they reached the breaking point. And if she had acted, Aldos
Othran would not have died so pointlessly. I've lived with a love of
the glory within death for decades now, and even with my knowledge of
its nuances I could find no beauty in his demise. He was a grieving
drunkard, cut down without warning by a worthless guardsman who did
not care enough to put effort into his work. It made my stomach turn,
but I was not surprised. Caleigh heard the news, however, and for the
first time since she returned from her travels her blue eyes seemed
alive again. Not with the good-natured interest I was used to seeing
within them, but with an uncontrolled hatred that made her truly
beautiful to me. She downed the last of her drink, clutched her
dagger, and slipped out of the bar unnoticed. Since no one even
realized I was in the room, it was easy for me to follow her. Then
again, it would not have been difficult for me to guess where she was
going--Ulrich Leland, the Guard Captain responsible for the entire
mess, was not what I would call a subtle man.

It
took her less time to break into the barracks than I was expecting,
even though I had seen her at work before. The first thing she did
before slipping through the door was remove her shoes, an act which I
found oddly endearing. Her dress must have had a substantial stealth
enchant on it, because the instant she began sneaking to Ulrich's
room I almost lost her. That one brief moment when I thought she had
actually gotten away from me still gives me a thrill when I think of
it. As drunk as she was, and as soft as a two months of rotting in a
tavern had made her, she was still a wonder to behold. She had
clearly had practice--training, even.

Ulrich
was not yet in his rooms, but that fact did nothing to dissuade her.
She settled in with a practiced patience and waited until his return.
I have no idea how long it took because I was too busy studying how
perfectly still she kept herself in the shadows by his bureau. As
soon as his door was shut behind him she fell upon him in a silent
fury, her dagger gleaming in the faint candlelight of his bedside
table. He was dead before the blade pierced the flesh of his throat
for the second time. The third time. Once she had finally sated
herself his corpse was barely recognizable. She stood there panting
for several moments before collecting herself, looking down at her
dress, and sighing in annoyance.

That
was the precise moment I realized I could have her. She had just
murdered a man in cold blood, unfairly and without warning, but
someone as used to the craft as I could tell the flush in her cheeks
betrayed enjoyment, not shock, at what she had just done. The blade
in her hand was red to the hilt and dripping and her face was laced
with splatters of his blood, but her major concern was that she had
ruined her dress. She was going to turn out to be a very tidy
assassin if I played my part in the next few hours of her life
properly.

After
making use of Ulrich's mirror to get the worst of the blood off, she
snuck back home and burned her dress in her fireplace without
fanfare. I thought as I watched her that she might be feeling a stab
of remorse, but the look in her eyes as she saw the fabric ignite
suggested older, far more bitter memories were associated with it.
She cleaned her weapon while the thin layers of the gown went up in
smoke. Once the entire garment had turned to ash, she picked at some
venison and then went to bed to sleep off the rest of the wine
coursing through her system.

As
I always do before I decide to approach someone new, I watched how
she slept. A worried killer will twitch and whimper and whine.
Weakness will be etched into the slightest movement of his eyes under
their lids and in the way he breathes. She possessed none of those
symptoms, but slept on peacefully, face relaxed and unlined, chest
rising and falling steadily with the quiet rhythm of one who has not
had an unusual day. One hour passed, then two, and still no
nightmares occurred. When I woke her from her slumber and watched her
take the same dagger that had just ended Ulrich's life into her hand,
I could not help but smile.

"You
sleep rather soundly for a murderer," I told her. "That's
good. You'll need a clear conscience for what I'm about to propose."

Normally
the accused sputter denials at me, white-faced with terror, but she
did not respond at all.

I
invited her to join the Dark Brotherhood and told her of a contract I
thought might be appropriate for her initiation. She remained
absolutely silent for the entirety of the conversation, but her hand
tightened around the hilt of her dagger and for one glorious moment I
thought she might attack me. I hadn't had a decent fight in years,
and the hair on the back of my neck was telling me that Caleigh might
actually be a good enough fighter to prove a challenge. But her blade
never lifted in attack, nor did she turn the new weapon I bestowed
upon her back on me.

I left her with a sense of bitter disappointment. The contract I had
given her was all wrong, I was sure, but it was all that was
available at the time. Based on the information I'd been given by
Ungolim, our Listener, Rufio was not obviously
bad enough for her to be compelled to end his life. He looked too
weak and would react in terror instead of aggression if she
confronted him while he was awake. Which, being who she was, she was
sure to do. I'd fumbled it, hoping that her sanguine acceptance of
Ulrich's death meant this was nothing new to her, but her stony
silence made me wonder if I was wrong. I had told her if she made no
move on Rufio I would never contact her again, and as I travelled
home I was once more surprised to realize how much I would miss
shadowing her. But I am a man of my word, as frustrating a trait as
that may be.

My
plan was to go home to Fort Farragut and return my focus to the
administration of the Guild, but something made me decide to travel
to the Inn of Ill Omen and take a room instead on the off-chance I
had come to her at the right time. I was not worried about her
recognizing me--outside of my Robe of the Hand I am a very unassuming
man. If I sit in the shadows of a tavern and quietly sip at a beer,
neither she nor any Imperial Soldier to come in for a break would
even notice I was there. I enjoy fading into the background, and was
prepared to wait for two weeks if need be--just to make sure she
wasn't coming after all. I would find out even if she completed the
contract while I was not there, but I wanted
to be. I wanted to see if and how she did it. I wanted to watch her
fall completely.

Every
time the door to that accursed inn opened something in my stomach
stirred restlessly, but six full days went by before the person
entering turned out to actually be her. Hair wild as always, cheeks
flushed from a breakneck ride. She told me later that the Guard had
realized who killed Ulrich, forcing her to flee Cheydinhal on a
stolen Legion horse. She has never realized I
am the one who tipped off the Guard, and I have no intention of
telling her. My plan worked beautifully--she fled to the Inn of Ill
Omen as I hoped she would, bursting through the door at top speed in
a blue gown, so comely that even the filthy old Nord innkeeper stood
up straight and tried to preen. Those huge, wide eyes flicked about
the room appraisingly, resting on me for an instant before I was
dismissed. I was so glad to see her I had forgotten she wasn't
supposed to recognize me. I'd thought I was too old to feel slighted.

"I'd
like a room, please," she murmured to the innkeeper.

"Plenty
of rooms available," he replied, much too loudly. I doubt he'd
seen a woman of her caliber in years. "No one staying here these
days except ol' Rufio."

She
gave him a polite smile, which he took for encouragement to ramble. I
had half a mind to stab him in the spine to silence him, but
contented myself with his second-rate beer, instead. By the time she
freed herself from his company he'd given her all the information she
needed to find him. Not that it was that hard. I'll never understand
why so many people think moving into a basement room counts as going
into hiding.

She
went upstairs, ostensibly to put away her things, and I ducked back
into my room to get into my Robe. If she killed Rufio, I'd have to
speak to her directly. If I spoke to her directly, I'd have to look
the part. One Chameleon spell later and I was watching her as she
paced the floor of her room, shaking her head periodically. The blade
I had given her was resting conspicuously on the bed. My throat felt
thick--I honestly had no idea what she would decide. Time crawled by,
and the noises from downstairs subsided. The Inn was winding down.

I
had just resigned myself to the fact that she wasn't even going to go
see
Rufio when she muttered something under her breath, lunged for the
blade, and began to sneak downstairs. I followed her at a distance,
trying to ignore how her hips swayed beneath her gown. I wasn't
successful--the way the cloth shifted as she moved proved to be
hypnotic.

Rufio
was asleep when she got to his room, looking spitefully old and
frail. Caleigh circled his bed, staring, and then did the exact thing
I was worried she'd do. Her hand reached out to his shoulder, and he
jolted awake with a gasp.

"No!"
He shouted, leaping to his feet, and she looked him over
disdainfully, clearly skeptical that he had ever been a threat to
anyone. He did not take to her silence as well as I had, and began
shaking visibly.

"No!
Please!" Rufio repeated, noting the blade at her hip. "I
didn't mean to do it, you understand me? She struggled!"

Caleigh's
eyes narrowed at this, but Rufio was too panicked to notice this was
likely the one thing he could say to provoke her to killing him.
"I...I told her to just stay still, but she wouldn't listen!"

At
this her hand went to the blade's hilt, and his voice rose an octave
in panic. "I had no choice!"

What
happened next still remains one of the most beautiful memories I have
of her. Rufio bolted for the door, and Caleigh drew her bow, nocked
an arrow, and fired it, all in the time it took me to realize she had
moved. Her shot was true. One silver arrow to the back of the knee
sent Rufio down onto the floor of the room, whimpering and bloody.

"It's
not fair!" Caleigh sobbed, throwing her bow aside like a child
and reaching for her blade again. "People like you live! Good
people keep dying everywhere! And I can't keep it from happening!"
She stabbed him in the hand to keep him from reaching for the arrow
embedded deep within his flesh. If the Nord innkeeper heard Rufio's
screams, he ignored them, because we were left in solitude as she
ended Rufio's life by inches. Once he was finally dead, she threw the
blade I had given her with an ear-ringing shout and crumpled to the
floor. The blood coating it left a dark smear as it skidded across
the stone with a slippery, metallic shriek and stopped at my feet.

She
didn't react when I revealed myself to her. Didn't stand. Didn't even
try to stop crying. The tears streaking her face were almost as
fetching as the blood covering her hands, but what captivated me the
most was the flush in her cheeks. How she seemed to be panting. Her
blue eyes met mine directly for the first time when I looked down at
her. She stared up at me angrily, and I realized just how badly I
wanted to feel her flesh surrounding me. That realization should have
worried me more than it did at the time.

"So,
the deed is done," I said, smiling down at her, but she did not
smile back. She was just as silent as during our first encounter, but
this time it was angering rather than alluring. I explained to her
that by killing Rufio she had accepted membership into our
Brotherhood, a fact which made her cry harder than before. I was
completely at a loss, and finally sank to my knees beside her,
ignoring the warmth of Rufio's blood seeping into my robe.

"Why
did you kill him, then?" I asked at last.

"I-I
don't know! I'm not a killer," she sobbed, and I delighted to
hear her voice directed at me for the first time.

"The
flush of your skin says otherwise, my dear," I replied gently.
Her eyes met mine again, and I reached out my hand and dared to touch
her cheek. Her skin was too soft for hands like mine. She made me
feel like sandpaper. For one happy moment I thought her eyes were on
the verge of fluttering shut as she felt my fingers on her skin, but
she pulled away suddenly and drew her knees to her chest.

"No!"

"You're
a natural, Caleigh. You have the mark of Sithis himself. There's no
point in running from it."

There
was a long silence, punctuated only by her jagged, hitching breaths.
I tried to remember how I felt after my first assassination, but it
was too long ago, and our situations were too different. I was raised
by the Brotherhood, and have called Sithis and the Night Mother my
family since I could speak. The transformation I was witnessing in
her was something completely alien to me.

"Why
are you so upset about this?" I sat down completely then,
dwarfing her on the floor.

"I
just murdered a man!" Her eyes opened wide, clearly questioning
my sanity.

"Yes.
You ended the life of a murderer and a rapist. He's never going to
hurt anyone ever again, and yet you're sitting there crying about
it!"

Her
breath caught, and she blinked several times in surprise. "What?"

"One
fewer killer in the world, my dear. By your hand. How is that not
good? By ending his life, you may have saved others."

She
wanted to believe me. I could see it in the tension in her shoulders,
in how still the air around her had become. I had her, and we both
knew it. Cautiously, I reached my hand out and rested it on her
shoulder. After a moment she resigned herself to taking comfort from
a stranger and leaned into me gently. I threw my arm around her and
began stroking her hair, taking the opportunity to bury my face in
her coppery waves and inhale deeply. She smelled of the road, an
aroma which mingled nicely with the thick iron scent of Rufio's blood
below us. The warmth of her against me was invigorating. My hand
settled on the bare skin between her shoulderblades left exposed by
her gown, and she shivered in response to my touch. I hadn't felt
that tense in years--not before a kill, not during a job gone badly.
Every nerve of my body that was also in contact with hers was
practically shrieking in excitement.

Discipline
is something the Dark Brotherhood weaves into its members from their
first day, but her proximity destroyed all my restraint. I wanted to
taste her, to run my hands over her skin until she begged me to take
her. I lowered my mouth to her shoulder and let my tongue play along
the groove above her collarbone. She stiffened against me, but did
not pull away. Soon I was nibbling her neck, slowly easing my hands
down to her waist to pull her closer to me. I remember being vaguely
aware that she was no longer crying, but she was still silent. So
silent. As my hands caressed her face, neck, shoulders, slid down her
back, all the tension slowly melted from her muscles. When my fingers
lingered at the laces to her gown, she refused to look at me, but as
I began to expose her body to the flickering candlelight, covering
her newly bared skin with slow kisses, she at last gave a quiet gasp.

Soon
she was stripped of her blue velvet gown, free of all weaponry,
completely naked, curled in my lap like a child who had just woken up
from a nightmare. The hem of my robe was saturated with Rufio's blood
from the slowly growing pool developing beside us, and the thought of
sullying more of her skin with it seemed suddenly detestable to me.
Wrapping her in my arms, I picked her up and carried her to her hit's
recently vacated bed. Her face was turned up to mine as I set her
down. I moved in to at last kiss her as I had wanted to for months
now, but her hands rose to my shoulders and gently stopped me. All
action paused as she worked up the will to speak and I tried to
remember how long it had been since someone had told me no, even
indirectly. If I had cared less for her, or maybe if I had cared one
iota more, I would have backhanded her for denying me.

"Take--take
off your hood," she murmured at last, and I stood frozen before
her. It had been years since even another ranking member of the
Brotherhood had seen me out of my robes and known who I was. Was I
really going to reveal myself to a mere initiate?

When
she saw that I would not do so myself, her hands reached up haltingly
and carefully slid the cowl from my face. As the candlelight
illuminated me clearly, she gasped again, this time in recognition,
and shook her head. "I should have known." But her eyes
never left mine, and when I pressed my lips against hers she kissed
me back with terrifying need. I meant to ask her where she recognized
me from, to see if she knew just how long I had been following her,
but when her fingers twined their way into my hair it seemed suddenly
irrelevant. I shoved her over onto Rufio's bed, grabbing her by the
wrists and pinning her against the faded fabric of the bedclothes.
Her eyes slid shut as I bit at her neck. Her shoulders. When my
tongue began to play over her breasts, she tossed her head back and
arched into me.

The
damp trails I left on her skin glimmered in the dim light of the room
as I took a moment to pause and admire her. When I let her wrists go,
she tugged at my robe insistently, though her eyes remained shut. I
undressed hurridly, experiencing a thrill as my skin realized it was
no longer clothed. My brain was overcome by fog, and the only
coherent thoughts I could conjure were telling me to bury my head
between her legs and break her silence entirely.

When
I leaned over to gently push her knees apart her eyes opened and she
lifted her head to stare at me. I stood naked before her, unashamed
that it was clear how much I wanted her. As she watched me, I slid my
hand up her inner thigh and began to work her clit with my thumb. She
bit her lip, her hips bucked slightly, but still she remained silent.
My fingers dropped lower, exploring the extent of just how wet I, or
perhaps Rufio's death, had made her. If I had chosen to enter her
then, it would have been effortless. But first, I decided to taste
her. Falling to my knees, I ran my tongue hungrily across the flesh
my hands had just teased, licking and flicking at her most sensitive
spots in an effort to elicit a noise from her. Though her fingers dug
into the bedclothes, she did not make a sound. When she came, she bit
into her hand so hard she drew blood, so strong was her desire to
deprive me of her voice.

The
sight of her, back arched, teeth buried into her own skin, covered in
a thin sheen of sweat, but still silently riding out her orgasm was
enough to make me incoherent with rage. I wanted to hear her!
Grabbing her by the legs, I dragged her to the edge of the bed and
flipped her over before she was quite sure of what had happened. Her
hands moved to find purchase and lift herself off the bed as she felt
her knees hit the floor, but I was faster than she and restrained her
by pressing her wrists into the small of her back. She looked back
over her shoulder at me, a sight which made my nerves scream with
desire, and began to struggle to wrench her hands free from my grasp.

"No!"
I snapped, grabbing the belt of my robe where it lay on the floor and
quickly binding her hands together, leaving enough leather free for
me to hold on to it and keep her mostly immobilized. She had twisted
and was trying to glare at me until she felt my fingers caressing the
back of her thigh. Instead, she wilted back against the bed. Her
nerves had rendered her incapable of resistance. I positioned myself
behind her, keeping ahold of her wrists just in case. She was going
to make noise for me whether she wanted to or not. I coaxed her legs
apart with teasing fingers and pushed into her smoothly, resisting
the urge to groan in ecstasy as she enveloped me.

One
thrust was all it took to realize that I was not her only lover, and
for the first few seconds I was inside her I battled the overwhelming
urge to find and personally murder every man she'd ever been with. If
they were still alive, that is. But she felt too warm and soft for me
to be distracted for long, and soon I was holding her by the hips,
forcing myself into her with a steady rhythm. Without hands free to
steady her, each of my thrusts sent her hard against the bed. When
she began to push back to meet me, she was able to keep herself
stable with her legs. Her face was pressed sideways against the bed,
eyes shut, lip bitten. Still silent. It didn't matter how roughly I
pushed into her. Even when she winced in pain she kept completely
quiet.

Fine.
I grabbed her restrained wrists in one hand, leaning back and using
her weight to balance me as my other hand wound back. I smacked her
on her exposed rump as hard as I could, the sound of the impact
echoing against the stone walls of the room. Again and again I struck
her, until I could see even in the dim light of the room that her
skin was glowing red and angry. I lost count of the number of times
the sound of her being spanked resounded through the room. I have no
idea how long the tears streaked her face. All I knew is that when I
paused so that I could listen I found her breathing ragged with
pleasure. And when I leaned forward again to tease at her nipples
with my fingers, the groan I elicited from her returned my sanity to
me. I bit at her back with a low moan, revelling in the sounds she
made in response.

A
few thrusts later, I felt her tighten around me, and she came with a
series of loud gasps, the sound made thick by tears. I wanted to keep
going, to make her come again and again until her voice was hoarse,
but there was no way I would be able to hold off. Seconds after she
fell silent again I finished within her, groaning and shuddering,
clutching at her hips for support. The muscles in my back and legs
felt wobbly and weak, and I collapsed against her, panting. Her
freshly-spanked skin startled me with the heat my blows had pooled
within it.

The
room was hot but silent, filled with the scent of sex and iron, so
thick it made my mouth feel dry and unclean. I pulled away from her
and slumped onto the edge of the bed, chest heaving, but she remained
still against the covers. A glance to my left told me she was crying
silently.

"Welcome
to the family," I muttered, twisting to free her hands. Once
they were unbound, she moved them as if she planned on lifting
herself from the bed, but she remained face-down.

"What
do I do now?" She asked at last, her voice barely audible over
the rushing blood in my ears.

I
told her about the abandoned house in Cheydinhal, about Ocheeva. She
listened quietly for a moment, then sighed. "How am I supposed
to get there with the Guard after me?"

I'd
already thought about this. "I'll return before you do and frame
one of the other citizens. There's a female Dunmer who has been
outspoken against Ulrich for weeks now. She'll do nicely."

"Why
would you do that?" Her voice was dull with depression.

I
chuckled. "Because we need our Hero of Kvatch."

Caleigh
didn't respond, and silence stretched between us again. After a few
minutes I quietly rose and dressed myself. "I'll return to
Cheydinhal tonight and take care of it. By the time you make it back,
your name should be cleared and your home returned to you." Her
beating me to the city was an impossibility--I doubted she'd be able
to keep in a saddle for at least a week, and even walking would be a
slow endeavor.

She
rolled over and sat up with a wince. "This Sanctuary, do you
live there?"

"No.
I merely oversee its operations when it is needed. I trust Ocheeva to
do most of the work."

I
used the next span of silence to take my leave of her and the
Inn together, hoping she'd have the sense to clean herself up and
leave before Rufio's stone-cold corpse was discovered in the doorway
to the room. The innkeeper was nowhere to be found when I left. He
must have gone to bed shortly before Caleigh began slicing Rufio into
tiny bits. I was confident she'd have enough time and space to flee
the scene.

Dawn
had broken and my horse had worked up a good lather before I realized
how unusual it was for me to be worried about the success of her
escape. If an assassin didn't make it back, he or she was no longer
of use to the Night Mother. That was it. If Caleigh had been caught
that night, it would have been a sign that she would have been a
liability to the guild. Better to have found sooner rather than
later, when it could have potentially damaged us or linked to us
directly. But still, the thought of never seeing her again was almost
physically painful to me, especially after what had transpired
between us. What shouldn't have transpired between us. At
least I had enough sense then to be worried about what she'd done to
my self control.

I
remember wanting to turn the horse around. I wanted to get her and
take her to Cheydinhal myself, but that would have endangered her in
the end.
I
wanted the members of my Sanctuary to know that she was special,
though there would be no doubt of that as soon as they saw her work,
but I didn't want them to know that she was important.
Because if they knew she was important, she would become a tool for
anyone who wished to displace me. And as anyone in my trade figures
out quickly, it is easier to be demoted by a blade than by a
superior. Though the Five Tenets forbid murdering a Dark Brother or
Sister, every assassin in our employ is smart enough to find other
ways to get rid of a block in their path. Then again, it could be
that I just didn't want to admit she was important at all. So I rode
on determinedly and reached the city late, just as I preferred.

Ocheeva
was overjoyed to hear that I had successfully made the Knight of the
Nine, the Hero of Kvatch, the Champion of Cyrodiil, into a Dark
Sister. I told her of her talent with a bow and her incredible
stealth abilities and she listened raptly, already running through
the list of possible contracts currently available for us to give her
upon her arrival. Now that Caleigh was again out of sight, I had my
doubts that she would arrive after all. But I trusted in my abilities
to read her natural inclinations and set about framing Llevana
Nedaren for the murder of Ulrich. As a close friend to Aldos Othran,
it wasn't difficult for the Guard to believe it had been her. After
all, the Hero of Kvatch, a murderer? She'd never do something so
terrible. It was a perfect farce.

Now
all I had to do was wait.
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The Last Days of Lucien Lachance