“Well, here I am, back at work. You’ve done what you were supposed to do, and you’ve gotten what you always wanted. I’m Guildmaster. Now you can go retrieve your son.”
He was leaning up against the corner of a wall in the Cistern, in a spot she remembered having seen him so many times before, his arms crossed close about his chest, back in his black Guildmaster leathers, the Amulet of Articulation’s chain just visible around his neck. His face was – expressionless; hard, unrevealing, and as solid a wall as she could remember ever feeling between the two of them. Not even when they’d first met had she felt as though he wanted her to just go away. Now she did. She sighed quietly, and her heart ached.
“He’s your son, too, Brynjolf. I’m really sorry. About everything.”
There had been a brief moment on the beach in Dawnstar, when Brynjolf had first realized that yes, she was Dagnell, that he had pulled her to him and held her so tightly she could barely breathe. Even now she felt the strength of that embrace; her skin remembered exactly where his arms had touched her and her body felt his warmth as he had enveloped her. For just that moment she had felt as though no time had intervened, that they were together again, that their love had endured through all that had happened to them. But it had lasted just moments, and then everything had changed.
“Don’t call me that,” he had told her, with ice in his eyes, when she’d addressed him as Red without thinking. “You haven’t the right.”
Her eyes stung remembering it. Of course I don’t have the right. I don’t even have the right to have Roggi treat me like a friend in spite of everything but somehow he still does.
It had been a confusing and tumultuous few hours while they all grieved, and talked, and tried to decide what would happen next, and how they would deal with their new reality. Brynjolf had followed her home and had spent a few hours talking quietly to the son he hadn’t known about until just a short time earlier, and had smiled when he tucked the boy into his bed at the end of the day; but he’d said very little to her and she hadn’t wanted to intrude into his very obvious grief. It had been uncomfortable at best.
She’d slipped down the stairs once that night, thinking she might somehow be able to comfort him; but the sounds of quiet weeping in the dark had shocked her and she’d gone back to bed. She’d gotten very little sleep. Her memories of Andante kept running through her mind, and she kept trying to reconcile them with what she knew of the killer from Cyrodiil. It didn’t seem possible that the talented, funny, sometimes frustrating but always respectful man she had been familiar with could have been the creature of pure evil she knew by reputation. It didn’t seem possible that he was gone. It didn’t seem possible that Brynjolf had been in love with the man, either, but the quiet tears from her extra room told her that it was true, all of it; and she knew that somehow all of it was her fault.
The next morning, Roggi had come knocking at the door early.
“You can’t leave him alone.”
“Roggi, it doesn’t make any sense for me to go with him.” Sayma’s arms were crossed, her voice as low as she could make it and still have him hear her. “You should have seen him last night. He can barely tolerate being in the same room with me.”
Roggi frowned at her. “He stayed, didn’t he?”
“Where else was he going to go? Oh all right, I suppose he could have gone to the inn with you two but…”
She looked down the length of the basement, toward the small bedroom in which both Brynjolfs sat, the younger on his father’s lap. They could hear the elder Brynjolf’s deep rumble interspersed with high-pitched giggles; and every time she heard it, Sayma had all she could do to keep from choking up.
“Sayma. Dag. Look at me,” Roggi murmured.
She turned and gazed into his eyes, blue as she had remembered and on this day dark with sadness. It had shocked her to find that Roggi was married, and to another man. It had shocked her more to learn that his husband was her brother. But it had surprised her most of all to see the genuine affection he so obviously held for Brynjolf.
He’s so protective. He keeps calling Bryn “brother” and it’s clear that he truly feels that way about him. How did we get here from the place where Roggi stormed out on me for having anything to do with the Thieves Guild?
“Why are you so worried, Roggi?”
Roggi sighed, and took her hands in his. “When you left Riften, Bryn fell apart. He… was trying to end it, slowly.” He shook his head. “I cared for him, with my own hands. I’ve… spent more time with him in the past couple of years than you have. He’s had so many losses. It just makes it all the more important that we keep an eye on him until he’s back home and Delvin can watch him, keep him occupied. I think he’ll be alright if he can get back and focus on the Guild because that’s so important to him. He needs something that needs him.”
Sayma started to object but Roggi shook his head and squeezed her hands tighter. “Listen, I know it’s all been a shock. All of it.” He frowned.
“Yes it has.” Sayma said. She looked down the house at Brynjolf, again, and saw that while he was doing his best to interact with their son his face, his eyes, looked defeated, sad, a million miles away.
“Nobody expected any of this. But this is how it is. And he is in a very delicate place right now. He’s just lost someone else he loved. I think…” Roggi trailed off, and glanced down the length of the house himself.
“What?”
“I think I couldn’t take it if something happened to him, that’s what I think.” He looked back at her and smiled a lopsided smile. “I don’t know why that’s the case, but it is. But here’s the thing. I have to go home. Lydia – Dar’s Housecarl – she needs some time for herself. We have two children to look after. I’m a little worried about Dar, too, with some of the things he’s been saying lately about the war. I need to go home with him. But someone has got to be with Bryn right now and you’re all we have until he gets back to Riften. Please. We’ll take little Bryn to Falkreath, if you want, so he can meet his cousins and have some time in a place that isn’t full of death. It’s a beautiful house. You can pick him up on the way back after Brynjolf’s settled.”
“All right. But I can guarantee you he isn’t going to like the idea.”
“Let me talk to him.”
She watched Roggi approach Brynjolf, and heard him speak even though she couldn’t make out the words. Brynjolf looked up at him and then glanced at her, met her gaze. He frowned, and then looked back at Roggi and shook his head.
She turned away so as not to see anything more. I don’t know what else I should have expected. He must hate me.
The voices from the other end of the building rose for a moment, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then she heard one word, clearly.
“Bryn.” Roggi’s voice was sharp, commanding, a tone she’d never heard from him. It raised the hair on her neck.
“All right! All right,” she heard Brynjolf answer a little too loudly.
She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Roggi, with young Brynjolf on his hip. He smiled at her and then at the child. “This young man would like to go see Lake Ilinalta. Is that right, Bryn?”
The boy grinned and nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Ok, Mama?”
Sayma smiled, and reached out to ruffle his curly red hair. “Yes, sweetheart. You can go with Uncle Roggi and Uncle Dar. Maybe they’ll help you catch some fish.” She laughed. “’Uncle Roggi.’ Doesn’t that just sound perfectly strange?”
He smiled at her, the warm smile she remembered that filled his eyes and her heart. “It is strange. But wait till you hear two little girls call me Papa Roggi. It’ll just melt a person.”
Upstairs, the door opened and heavy footsteps announced Dardeh’s arrival.
“Roggi? Are we ready? I want to get going before the weather changes on us.”
“Be right there, Dar,” Roggi called. “We’re bringing young Bryn with us and he’ll need some clothes.”
Sayma heard a deep chuckle.
“Why am I not surprised,” Dardeh said. “You’re a mother hen, Roggi, as well as a nag.”
Roggi grinned at Sayma. “He’s right, you know. Now why don’t you get a few pieces of clothes together for this young thing. I’ll take him upstairs.”
She nodded. “Be right there.”
She moved to the back of the house, where young Brynjolf’s things were, and where the elder Brynjolf sat with his face frozen into an unhappy expression. She bustled about, pulling together the boy’s clothes into a small pack, trying not to get too close or look him directly in the eyes.
“Listen, Brynjolf,” she said over her shoulder. “I know this doesn’t make you happy but something tells me your body is probably not behaving the way you’re used to. It’ll be good for you to have an extra pair of hands nearby.”
An extra pair of hands. He’ll recognize that phrase.
She heard a heavy sigh behind her.
“Aye. I feel like I have weights on my ankles and gods help me but I’m afraid I’ll lunge for someone’s neck first battle I find.”
Sayma couldn’t help it then, she looked at him full in the face.
“I have to say it. I can’t picture you doing that.”
One corner of his mouth rose. “I’m sure. I was… very good at it. It’s a powerful feeling, being able to…” Then he shook his head, bringing himself up short. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear about that. It would be pretty funny, actually, going for a throat now, without my fangs.”
She watched him flick his tongue across his teeth and frown.
“Well, I’ll make sure you at least don’t use your mouth if you’re after someone’s throat. I think my swords would be a better choice.”
She reached into the cupboard for a last small shirt, but then realized that Brynjolf was staring at her.
“He told me about going after his marks, and it was always a blade across the neck.”
Yes, of course it was. That’s how I do it, too. Is that what you’re wondering, Red?
“It’s silent. That’s why. I never saw him work but Nazir did, and Nazir was impressed. I know you don’t know Nazir but trust me, if he was impressed it was worth being impressed over.” She tucked the last shirt in a bag and turned to him. “Well, that’s it then. Shall we go? We can walk with them at least to the crossroads.”
Brynjolf rose and nodded.
When they reached the crossroads, Sayma hugged her son, and Roggi. She hesitated a moment standing in front of Dardeh, but he smiled at her.
“Come here. I know it hasn’t been very long to know each other, and lousy circumstances besides, but …” He pulled her close into a hug. “Take care of yourself, Sis.”
Sayma grinned. “Sis! I’m going to have to get used to that. Thanks, Dardeh. I will. And thank you for taking little Bryn with you. It will do him good to be away.” She watched as Roggi swung the boy up onto his shoulders and heard him giggling as the three of them trotted away to the south.
“Don’t worry about him,” Brynjolf murmured. “There’s not much that can get by those two.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his head and winced. “Dardeh’s really something else and, well, Roggi can kill a dragon these days.”
Sayma stared at him and then looked back at the ever-smaller shapes retreating down the road to the south. Roggi killing a dragon. And to think I put him on his knees the first time I met him.
And I can assassinate an emperor. Nobody would have expected that, either.
It was uncomfortable at best as Sayma walked beside Brynjolf, toward the east. She wanted desperately to ask him more about what he’d told them. Dynjyl, for example. She slipped a glance at Brynjolf and tried to picture him as a young man, tried to picture him with a young man, and she just couldn’t do it. Especially not now, with his brow furrowed, his face set in lines of sorrow and frustration.
Once the sun was high in the sky he glanced up at it and winced.
“He’d have been shooting at it by now,” he muttered.
“That was terrifying,” Sayma answered.
Brynjolf shot her a glance that was just short of a sneer. “It was supposed to be.”
“Bryn.”
“Well what did you expect me to say? We were both Vampire Lo…” Brynjolf cried out as a blob of frostbite spider venom hit him full in the face.
There were two of them, very large ones, of the light-colored variety that lived in Skyrim’s northern climes. Sayma drew her swords and went after one of them, as she so often had. It wasn’t a difficult beast to put down, not in the least; but as she slid her sword out of its body she heard another distressed cry from behind her. She turned in time to see Brynjolf stab down into the second spider, killing it, and then begin casting a healing spell on himself.
“Are you ok?” she asked him. “I’m surprised. I didn’t know you knew spells.”
Brynjolf sighed. His shoulders slumped, and he stared at the spider’s corpse as he healed himself.
“I knew a lot more of them before yesterday. I was trying to use one on this spider and… I can’t, anymore. That’s why it was able to get to me. I really don’t understand it but it’s like everything I knew is just gone.” He shook his head. “He told me that he thought turning three separate times had done something to his mind. I think I know what he means now. I feel useless.”
“You’re not useless. If you were, they wouldn’t be so anxious for you to get back to the Guild.”
They began walking again, and Brynjolf gave Sayma another sour look. “How much do you know about vampires?”
How much do I… what an odd thing to ask.
“Well, a fair amount. I do work with Babette, after all.”
“Do you know what a Nightlord vampire is?”
Sayma nodded. “Yes, they’re the strongest. I never asked him but I’d be willing to bet that’s what Andante was.”
Brynjolf grimaced, staring straight ahead. “Yes. And so was I.”
Sayma stopped dead in her tracks.
I can’t. I just can’t believe it. How can this be?
Brynjolf had kept walking, but turned when he realized she wasn’t keeping up with him.
“Are you coming?”
“Yes, I’m… Yes.” She scurried to catch up with him. “I’m just having a little trouble processing all of this.”
He nodded. “I understand. It wasn’t long, mind you. I had just barely become a Nightlord. Even Andante was surprised about it but I started out stronger than most because he’s the one who turned me in the first place. I don’t believe I’d have ever bested him. Still. That’s a lot to have lost in a few minutes’ time. I feel crippled.”
It was too much. She blurted out the thought she should have kept to herself.
“I still can’t believe he did that to you.”
Brynjolf stopped dead in his tracks and seized her by the arms.
She panicked, remembering another moment when Brynjolf had taken hold of her arms and had flung her backward into the wall. She knew how powerful he was when he was angry, and she didn’t know how strong he might be now even having lost his vampire status. His eyes flashed, and he stared at her intently.
“Let’s get something straight right now, Sayma,” he said, his voice quiet but with an undertone of threat. “I told you all yesterday but apparently you didn’t hear it clearly enough. He didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t invite him to do. Understand? I was the one who made the first move. I wanted him to turn me. I wanted… him. And I won’t have you speaking ill of him, at least not because of that. Do you have that clear in your mind now?”
Gods, Sayma thought. Yes, I hear your words. Yes, I understand what they mean. No, I don’t understand how that can be. Not in the least.
But she nodded, silently, and he let go of her. He turned to continue up the road.
“Sorry I grabbed you. I hope I didn’t hurt your arms.”
“No,” she said. “Bryn, I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to understand that you were…”
He sighed, loudly, a sound of exasperation. “Yes. I know.” His voice rose as he continued. “You and everyone else had a great deal of fun at my expense wondering if I’d slept with all the men in the Guild. Well, I hadn’t. But there were two of them, more than twenty years apart. Two of the three people I’ve ever loved were men, because that’s just how it happened. I’m sorry that’s hard to understand. But they’re both gone now and I won’t have you speaking ill of them.”
He turned to face her then, and any hopes she might have had that he would follow up his statement with some tender recognition that she was the third one he’d loved were soundly dashed. He looked angry, and harsh, and distant, and when he spoke his tone was icy cold.
“I’m not the one who took off my ring and walked away.”
He turned back to the east.
Sayma’s gaze dropped to his left hand and saw that yes, in fact he was wearing two rings on it. One was a gold band with a brilliant, fiery ruby. She didn’t recognize the ring at all.
But the other was the Bond of Matrimony he’d first worn standing at the altar of Mara in Riften, the day he’d married her. She looked down at her own hand, bare save for a ring with a small stamina enchantment, and her heart ached.
He’s still wearing his wedding band. And mine is… gone.
—
They had continued on their way, first to Whiterun and then via carriage to Riften. Brynjolf had been silent as he opened Honeyside and let her in, and then had stood silent for a moment and sighed.
“It’s been a long time,” Sayma murmured. “It doesn’t look much different.”
Brynjolf shook his head and looked around. “No. He didn’t change anything, really. I don’t think he ever thought of it as his place. He had a house in Solitude. This was my home, as far as he was concerned, even though I only stayed here part of the time.”
He looked down at himself and shook his head.
“Well, I guess it’s time. Give me a moment.”
Sayma looked around the first floor for a moment but then couldn’t help herself. She slipped down the stairs and looked into the enchanting room, the smithy, and pushed the banners aside to smile at the steaming bath that had been her favorite thing about this home when she had purchased it. Finally she stepped into the bedroom.
Brynjolf had removed the red vampire armor he’d been wearing and had gotten back into his black Thieves Guild armor. He was just stowing the red armor in the wardrobe when he heard her come up behind him, and turned to glance at her as he shut the door. His face was expressionless. But his eyes – his eyes made Sayma want to weep.
He looks so sad. He doesn’t look angry, or vindictive, or anxious. He just looks so very sad. I wish there was something I could do.
She tried to make her tone light.
“You still look good in those leathers, Brynjolf.”
He just looked at her for a long moment, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to do so. He nodded, and pushed silently past her to the strongbox, reaching into it and pulling out the Amulet of Articulation. He stared at it for a moment and then slipped it into a pocket.
“I’ve worn it off and on, but it’s not really mine,” he murmured. “We need to go talk to Delvin. It should be his.”
He started for the door, but then stopped, turned back, and pushed past Sayma, walking to the left side of the bed. He opened the table and looked inside, made an astonished noise and leaned over, counting under his breath.
“Shor’s bones. Sixty four. I’d best get rid of that. It’ll be too much of a temptation.”
Sayma wasn’t certain, as Brynjolf turned to leave, whether he’d been talking to her or not; so she looked into the drawer herself. There they were, as he’d said: sixty-four small bottles of the one thing in the world she couldn’t abide. She turned to watch Brynjolf slowly trudging up the stairs.
A temptation? That, too? She ground her teeth, remembering Andante’s quiet offer of a bottle of the skooma, an offer that had made her livid. I will never, ever… but Brynjolf?
She stood quietly for a moment, squeezing her eyes shut, clenching her fists.
It is not mine to pass judgment on him. Not anymore.
—
She hung around the Ragged Flagon for some time after they arrived there. Brynjolf got a number of hearty hellos and wide smiles until people realized that he was in a somber mood and not likely to respond with jokes and stories. He pulled Delvin and Vex aside and into one of the small side rooms where people slept in shifts.
Voices, but not words, were audible over the sounds of the bar. It began as a normal conversation. Then Sayma heard Delvin’s distinctive tones rising, louder and higher, along with Vex’s shrill objections to whatever it was Brynjolf was saying. She couldn’t hear Brynjolf, but she knew what he had gone to speak to them about and felt bad that it was going poorly. After some time Vex came storming back out into the Flagon, followed by a sullen-looking Brynjolf.
“Delvin wants to talk to you,” he told Sayma, pointing toward the back. “Now.”
Sayma nodded; she rose to leave but felt that she was being stared at. She glanced around and found Vex glaring daggers at her.
How awkward. I should go over, say hello. I am her Guildmaster, after all. But something tells me that would be a very poor choice on my part.
She settled for a nod, and then scurried around Vekel’s bar. Vekel gave her a mistrustful glare as well, as she walked by, and it just added to the hurts accumulating in her heart.
I should never have admitted it to Roggi and Dardeh.
Who am I kidding. I should never have left in the first place.
Delvin had always been good to her, when she was Dagnell. He’d been tough to know, at first, but once she had proven herself he’d had her back and she had trusted him implicitly. He was the real power behind the success of the Thieves Guild, and both of them knew it. So it hurt all the more to see the baleful look on his face when she stepped through the door and said, quietly, “Delvin?”
“Well, well,” he began. “So it was you who was here that night when I was talking to Roggi. I thought you were showing a bit more interest in us than just some random bar hopper.”
“Yeah, it was me. I was looking for Andante, and I couldn’t help but sit and watch you two. It… was good to see you.”
“Well you’ve got a lot of nerve, coming back in here now. A lot of nerve.” He crossed his arms and frowned, tapped his foot and shook his head. “I wanted to find you as much as anyone else, Dag,” he said. “But now that I see you I’m just damned mad. You left a mess behind. You almost managed to kill Bryn. Indirectly, of course.”
Sayma winced. That’s the second person who’s said that.
“If you was anyone else,” he said in a voice that held enough venom for five of the big spiders, “I’d have seen you dead in front of me five minutes ago. But it’s you, and I can’t forget everything you did for us. So there’ll be none of that. But here’s the deal. Brynjolf is the new Guildmaster. He’s not happy about it, but that’s the way it’s going to be. Vex and I agree. And Karliah, well, she doesn’t really have a vote but she’s agreed with us for a long time now.”
Sayma flinched. It hurt to have him unceremoniously rip her title away from her like that, but she understood.
“Yes. I always thought it should have been that way from the moment Mercer died. I don’t blame you, and…” she looked back toward the door and thought of what Roggi had said. “It’ll probably keep him going. He told you about Andante?”
“Yes.” Delvin glared again. “And that’s another mess that you caused. The two of them never would have gotten involved if you’d been here. At least,” he said, shifting his shoulders, “at least he’s not a vampire any more. That’s the only good thing that can be said about it. So, Listener. That’s how it’s going to be. Any objections?”
Sayma stared at Delvin. First she was desperately sad. Then she was angry, for a moment, as she had so often been while trying to perform her duties as Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild in Skyrim, that her opinions had been ignored. And then she laughed.
“No, Delvin,” she said, grinning. “No objections. I’m glad you’re still in charge.”
He looked astonished for the smallest moment; then a tiny smirk rose on his mouth. “As long as we understand each other, we can all come out on top.”
And now she stood, before Brynjolf, wondering whether there was anything she would ever be able to do to win his trust again. It was an outlandish wish. She had no right to even hope for such a thing to happen and yet she did.
“You can stay in Honeyside tonight,” he told her. “I have things to do here, anyway. I hope you’re happy, by the way. Delvin and Vex were taking no arguments from me and I don’t think they’d have even let you speak.”
Oh how I wish you were laughing with me about this, Brynjolf, but I can see that you’re not. And I would do anything if I could only share a laugh with you one more time.
“Yeah. I guess I’ve been demoted. I’m surprised you all haven’t done it a long time ago.”
He snorted.
Then he took a deep breath and held it, obviously considering his words.
“We weren’t going to. We were waiting for you to come back.”
He turned and walked toward the bar.
“But you didn’t.”