Sayma knelt down and held her arms out as the little boy came running out of the bedroom toward her.
“Mama!” His face held an ear-to-ear smile, and his green eyes sparkled.
Just like his father’s, she thought as she gathered him up into a tight, warm hug. It was somehow more difficult to think about that, now, which surprised her.
All the months he’d been alive she had been able to look at those green eyes, brush that red hair, and do so without any sort of sadness. He was just her son. She’d carried him as all mothers did, for the better part of a year. She had endured the fear and pain of birthing him with only Babette in attendance, and enjoyed watching him grow to this point. She had done so in what had felt like a separate world, almost completely apart from what had once been her life as Dagnell. It was a strange existence, a dark world in which she lived as the Listener, responsible for Skyrim’s assassins; an uneasy, unsavory place to raise a child. She had been happy that he was too young to understand what was all around him, and had worried as his native intelligence began to manifest itself because she didn’t really want him to know what things went on in the Sanctuary. Still, through all of it he had been just her son Brynjolf, and looking at him had brought no particular sadness or pain – only love.
But looking into her husband’s eyes again, touching his face as she and Andante had frantically tried to bring him back to consciousness, watching him move from anger to grief and back again as he slipped back into his old role as Guildmaster had revived feelings she’d thought that she had safely packed away.
She pulled back from her son and smiled, and a part of her ached remembering that she had created this little boy with the tall, sad Nord in Riften.
“How are you, sweetheart?” she asked. “Have you been a good boy?”
He nodded vigorously, and smiled over her shoulder. There was a deep rumble behind them as Dardeh approached.
“He’s been wonderful. His cousins have been very entertained,” he said. “I won’t say it too loudly but so has his uncle Roggi. I think he’s been enjoying having a younger child around.”
Sayma turned and grinned at Dardeh, rising to her feet.
“I’m glad he’s been behaving.”
“Mama, come,” little Brynjolf said, tugging on her hand. “Doggie!”
Sayma raised one eyebrow in question, and Dardeh started snickering. “Go look,” he said. “I think Lucia’s trying to sleep, but… go look.”
Young Brynjolf led her by the hand into the children’s bedroom. One of the girls was stretched out on her bed, and the other was standing next to it, hand on hip. Brynjolf looked up at her and grinned.
“Doggie.”
Standing over Lucia, on the bed, was a small, protective fox.
Sayma started to giggle.
“Sweetheart, that’s a fox, not a doggie. But he’s very cute, isn’t he?”
He grinned at her, a tiny one-sided grin that stopped her short for a moment because it looked so much like his father’s. She ruffled his hair.
“Ok, you play a bit more. I need to talk with Uncle Dardeh.”
“Ok, Mama.” He skittered across the room and started tickling Lucia, who obviously hadn’t been asleep at all. She giggled, the fox squirmed around on top of her, and what had been a quiet bedroom became a riot of children being children.
Sayma and Dardeh returned to the kitchen, to be greeted by a smirking Roggi.
“I heard all that,” he said. “And you’re right, Dar, I really like having a little one around. I actually enjoyed Kjeld the Younger a lot. When he was, you know, younger and less a great useless lump. Someone had to help Iddra watch him while his father was off on his trips, and so I spent a lot of time with him, playing at being a father myself.”
Sayma laughed.
“Well I’m glad you’re both enjoying him because…”
Roggi’s eyebrow rose. “Because?”
She sighed. “Well, I need to do a thing.”
Dardeh tilted his head to one side. “A … thing?”
“Yeah. A thing. Can we sit down and I’ll tell you about it?”
“Of course.”
Roggi snickered. “I’ll get the mead.”
“Not too much of it, Roggi,” came a feminine voice from the other side of the room. Sayma swiveled in surprise, to see an attractive woman emerge from the stairwell.
“Don’t badger me, Lydia,” Roggi grumbled. “I know enough to behave myself. Couldn’t very well get away with anything with the two of you around, could I?”
Dardeh leaned over and kissed Roggi on the cheek.
“No. You couldn’t. That’s exactly the way I want it to be. And you know I always get my way, Roggi, because…”
“… it’s your house and you’re the Dragonborn, yeah I know.” Roggi whined, but his eyes gleamed as he gazed at Dardeh, and he smiled. She watched him reach for Dardeh and run one hand down his arm, then squeeze his hand. They didn’t let go for several long heartbeats, and when they finally did the gesture was lingering, as if tendrils of feeling continued to connect their hands even as they walked to opposite sides of the space.
My gosh, they really are in love, aren’t they?
I would think you’d recognize something like that.
Oh be quiet. It was a rhetorical question.
Her other voice hadn’t offered its snide commentary very often in the past two years or more but when it did, it was every bit as annoying as it ever had been. It seemed to emerge, in particular, with comments that would cut as painfully as possible, that would remind her of her own shortcomings. This was no exception.
“I’m going to take our collective kids down to the lake,” Lydia said, coming around the guardrail and turning toward Sayma. “Hi. I’m Lydia, Dar’s housecarl. I used to be a part of Jarl Balgruuf’s household in Whiterun, but he assigned me to Dar a couple of years ago and I’ve followed him out here. Someone has to keep these two honest.” She grimaced at them, but then chuckled. “I’ve really been enjoying little Brynjolf. He’s such a good child.”
Sayma smiled.
“That’s a relief to hear. He hasn’t actually grown up in the best surroundings. That’s one of the reasons I was so glad to send him here with Roggi and Dardeh.”
Lydia shook her head. “Not that they are much better, I’m sure.”
For a second Sayma didn’t know how to react. She looked at Roggi, who rolled his eyes. Dardeh snorted.
Lydia started chuckling. “I just like giving them a hard time. These two are the best dads in the world, Sayma. I think the children are very fortunate to have them.”
“And they’re fortunate to have you, too, Lydia. And so are we. And you know that already, so don’t give me grief about it,” Dardeh said, grinning at her.
While Lydia herded the children out the back door, Sayma sat down and took a moment, and a sip of the mead Roggi had handed her, trying to judge exactly what the situation was in the house. She remembered the sensations of good-natured ribbing and pretended grumbles, all surrounded by a shared love. She remembered that from her youth, racing and wrestling and laughing with Coyle and Daron along the docks in Stros M’Kai; and she smiled to herself at recognizing that same warmth here in this home.
“You are lucky to have Lydia here, you two.”
“Yes, we are,” Dardeh told her as he lowered his bulk into one of the chairs. “I didn’t quite know what to do with a housecarl. But I do know what to do with a friend.”
“Yeah,” Roggi grumbled, taking the seat next to him. “Let her torment your husband.”
Dardeh laughed, and swatted at Roggi.
“Whiner.”
“Dragonborn.”
Sayma sat and watched Roggi, and smiled. He’s happy. He’s so very happy. I could never have done this for him, not if I had tried for a thousand ages.
“So what is the Thing, Sayma?” Roggi asked turning to face her, the smile he’d given Dardeh still lingering on his face. “The thing you have to do?”
“Well, it’s complicated. It involves Brynjolf, and in some way I’m not sure of it involves Andante, and that Dynjyl fellow Bryn was mentioning to us, and it’s all very confusing to me. But the bottom line is that I need to know whether little Bryn can stay here longer or I need to take him back to Dawnstar.”
Dardeh and Roggi exchanged a look, and she had no idea what it held.
“Why don’t you tell us what this is about, then,” Roggi said quietly.
They talked for a long time about the Nightingales, and Nocturnal and how Brynjolf had gone to see her for Dynjyl’s sake and Andante had gone to her for Brynjolf’s sake. She described the problem as best she knew it, and then shook her head.
“… and so I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know where to begin looking for this couple. All I know is to try.”
Roggi reached for her hand and squeezed it, and then smiled. “You’re going to take this on for him?”
She looked into his blue eyes and smiled back.
“What else can I do, Roggi? It’s fallen to me. I’m the only one left.”
“And?” One of his eyebrows rose, and he smirked at her.
“Yes, you know me too well. I care about him. I want to do this for him. Is that what you want to hear?”
Roggi grinned at Dardeh, and then back at her. “No, and you know that as well as I do. But it’s a start. So,” he continued, looking back at Dardeh, “can we keep little Bryn here for a while longer?”
Dardeh nodded slowly. “Of course.”
Roggi frowned.
“Something wrong?”
Dardeh shook his head. “No, sorry. It’s just that I was remembering something, from years back.” He turned to look directly at Sayma. “When I was a kid, a teenager that is, there was this odd husband and wife up in the hills east of Dushnikh Yal. We used to make fun of them because they had an odd accent. They always talked about waiting for something special. I wonder.”
“Really?” Sayma eagerly grasped for this tiny crumb. “Could you give me the general location? It’s not much but it’s a place to start and that’s more than I had before.”
“Sure. Got a map?”
Sayma dug her well-worn map out of her pack and handed it to Dardeh. He peered at it for a few minutes and then drew a fairly substantial circle on it. He handed it back to her, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that. I didn’t exactly set out to remember them, back then, but it’s somewhere in there, the general area around Dushnikh Yal and Valthume. If you go up there be careful, though. It’s really easy to turn an ankle and there are bears absolutely everywhere.”
Sayma smiled, thinking of Shadowmere’s agility and grace. She’d be fine so long as she didn’t get completely lost.
She nodded, and was opening her mouth to speak when there was a frantic hammering on the door.
“Dragonborn! Dragonborn!” came a muffled shout from outside.
Dardeh rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Here we go again,” he said, rising from his chair. Roggi followed suit, reaching for the greatsword he’d leaned up against the wall. Sayma also stood, not quite knowing what to do.
Dardeh opened the door to a frantic farmer. His eyes were wild, sweat dripped down his face, and he was panting.
“Dragonborn! There’s a…”
“Dragon?” Dardeh asked, calmly, with a smile.
“Yes, down across the road from the mill. It’s killing everything! Freezing them! Dragonborn, you need to come now!”
Dardeh’s voice was steady, soothing. “Of course. We’ll be right there. Now go back home and keep under cover, OK?”
The man nodded and turned, sprinting down the walkway to the road and then north, down the hill toward Gavrostead. Dardeh closed the door and turned to Sayma.
“We have to take care of it. Or at least I do.”
“We,” Roggi said, adjusting his sword’s positioning.
Dardeh grinned. “Alright, we.” He turned to Sayma. “Are you coming with us?”
“I…” Sayma swallowed, remembering the only previous time she’d come face-to-face with one of the enormous creatures, in the hills just south of Eastmarch. She’d been terrified and her heart hadn’t stopped pounding for hours afterward.
Can I do this? She frowned at herself. Come on now. Andante killed dragons and he wasn’t Dragonborn. How many times did he tell me about those? I can at least toss an arrow or two at it. I want to see Dardeh at work.
“Yes. I’m coming with you.”
Roggi dashed to the back door and yelled out it – “Lydia! Dragon!” – and then returned, and the three of them ran down the road toward Half-Moon Mill.
It wasn’t long before she heard it, and she shuddered at the sound. It was the same hollow, enormous noise she’d heard several times before; a roar with something else inside it, something she’d never quite put a finger on. She listened; and her mind strained to make sense of it but couldn’t. She cast her memories back to the day she’d first met Dardeh, when he’d told her about dragons while staring at Roggi like a starving man taking the full measure of a feast laid out before his eyes.
“Dardeh!” she yelled to him as they approached the small bridge south of the mill. “Is that dragon saying something?”
He shot her a sharp look, and slowed to a stop.
“Yeah it is. It’s yelling the words for Frost Breath. Can you… hear the words?”
“Um, no, you’re the Dragonborn, not me. You’re the one who told me they have a language, remember? But there’s something about the sounds they make. It gives me such an odd feeling. Like a tickle.”
“A tickle in your head? Like you can almost but not quite tell what it is?” He reached for her arms and peered intently into her eyes.
“What’s all this, Dar?” Roggi asked, coming up beside them. “We have to go kill that thing.”
Dardeh waved Roggi off with one hand. “It’ll be on us soon enough, Roggi. This feels important. This is what it felt like for me, when I first encountered Alduin.”
“What?” Roggi’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that Sayma is…”
What? I’m what?
“I don’t know,” Dardeh said, still frowning, as he released her and straightened up. “But that’s exactly what I felt like when I first encountered dragons.”
“Can there be more than one Dragonborn, Dar?”
“Roggi, you know there can. Miraak was Dragonborn. Arngeir told me I was the only one they knew of at the time, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be another. And there are a number of people who can Shout, you know that.”
Roggi stared between them, back and forth. “And you two are brother and sister.”
“Well, half anyway.”
Sayma felt the hair on her neck rising. “Now wait a second. Just because I’ve had this weird feeling when I heard dragons, or heard you, Dardeh, or Ulfric…”
Roggi’s head snapped around and he stared at her.
“You’ve heard Ulfric Shout?”
She suddenly felt afraid, and wasn’t sure why. This is all too strange. Are they trying to suggest that I am… or might be…
“No,” she answered. “But I’ve heard him speak, as I told you before. And there was something about his voice that gave me the same strange feeling as I’m… getting right now,” she finished, as the dragon roared again, this time much closer to them.
“Come on,” Dardeh said. “We’re about to have company. We’ll sort this out later.”
And then things got frantic.
It was a smallish dragon, as such things went, but was still the largest creature Sayma had ever encountered. Not even a mammoth was larger. And mammoths didn’t swoop overhead, strafing the area with intense bursts of cold and frost that stopped muscles from working and hurt desperately. With a part of her mind she admired the creature, its silvery-blue scales and spiral-patterned horns beautiful to behold; but it took every bit of fortitude she possessed to pull out her bow and string an arrow to it, and every bit of strength she had to hold the bow steady as the creature flew overhead, its passage buffeting them in the currents of air it created. Both Dardeh and Roggi were already busy firing their own bowshots, and Roggi was screaming at it to die. They were having some small success, bloodying its head. Sayma loosed her own arrow, then; it flew straight and buried itself in the dragon’s side.
Something about that calmed her, steadied her. I can do this, she thought. I know how to kill things. This is easy. She drew back on the string a second time and let fly another arrow that caught the beast in the underbelly.
The dragon screamed and rose back into the air, circling the area and roaring.
“It’s none too pleased with that,” Dardeh laughed. “Swearing up a storm.”
“Can you bring it down, Dar?” Roggi asked. “The forest’s too thick here to rely on the arrows.”
“Yeah, I’ll ground him when he comes around again. It’ll be easier to get him with the swords anyway.”
Sayma stood well back from them and drew her Bosmer shortswords. These were the tools she used to take down her targets; a deadly sharp matched set she’d had made because they were easier to conceal and to wield than the bulky Alik’r scimitars she’d grown up with – and because the scimitars might have given away the fact that she was Dagnell. She heard the dragon screaming at them as it circled back around and her heart started pounding; but she drew her consciousness down, close, into a small, focused place in her center. This was the way she approached all exterminations and she did it without conscious thought.
The silvery beast soared across the clearing once more, frost gushing from its maw.
“JOOR—ZAH FRUL!”
Sayma heard her brother Shout. She didn’t quite understand the words but knew that they were words, in the dragon tongue, and she saw what happened next. The dragon was enveloped by power, glowing blue, and it settled unsteadily toward the ground. Dardeh laughed and ran forward brandishing a very long double-edged sword and a smaller, more slender blade that seemed to glow with an energy of its own. The dragon hovered just above Dardeh and drew its head back, inhaling. Then it settled slowly to the ground.
It’s going to kill him!
Sayma didn’t stop to think; she rushed the beast, hacking and pounding at it as hard as she could, not noticing that Dardeh had deftly stepped aside and was doing serious damage to the dragon’s body with his own swords. She was so intent on what she was doing that she didn’t realize the inhalation was in fact going to become a roar in spite of its being down.
The frost breath caught her full on.
The pain was immense. Sayma had never been good with cold. It had even been a running joke between her and Roggi that she was hopeless in the cold and against enemies who used cold-based attacks. She screamed and tumbled backward, down onto one knee, curling up into the smallest ball she could achieve. The dragon began moving toward her, its jaws snapping.
I’m going to die. Make it stop. Make it stop.
“No!” she heard from behind her, followed by the sound of rushing feet and the meaty smack of sword striking dragon. She fought to raise her head and saw Roggi standing between her and the dragon, fighting like a madman, his greatsword laying open enormous gashes in the beast’s face. Dardeh, to the side, was stabbing and slashing in the whirling style she remembered seeing her father use, when she was a very small girl. She thought she saw Dardeh smiling as he did so.
The blue glow around the dragon started to fade even as it snapped at Roggi, its teeth missing him by a whisper.
“Get him again, Dar!” Roggi screamed. “He’s about to take off!”
“JOOR—ZAH FRUL!”
He’s keeping the dragon on the ground. I don’t know how but that’s what is doing it.
Sayma fought her stiff muscles, willing them to move.
I have to at least stand up. I can’t let Roggi die because of me.
“You’ll die this day, dragon!” he shouted, his huge arms sweeping the dragonbone greatsword back and forth in deadly attacks.
Sayma managed to reach her feet just in time to watch Dardeh, laughing maniacally, stab into the dragon’s neck with the smaller, slenderer sword. Its head and neck snapped backward and then, with a thunderous crash, the entire creature fell to earth. Roggi scrambled backward, neatly, his movements revealing the extent of his practice and experience.
Sayma, standing just uphill from her half-brother Dardeh, then saw something she’d never witnessed before. She’d heard people talk about it – had even heard Dardeh talk about how he absorbed the energy from a dragon – but it was a different order of magnitude altogether between hearing about the experience and witnessing it. There was a small, muffled boom, followed by the dragon’s skin beginning to smolder. It began to crackle. Flames erupted along the beast’s length. Dardeh stood in front of the dragon, his face raised toward the sky, eyes closed as golden, whirling tendrils of energy began to rise from it and stream toward him. His arms spread to either side, as though embracing the energy.
The dragon burned faster and faster and the energy rushed from it, around Dardeh and, it seemed to Sayma, into him. Stranger yet, it seemed as though some few streamers of the golden light continued up the hill, past Dardeh, and around her. She could feel the energy brushing her skin, reaching for her the way Roggi’s caress of Dardeh’s hand had lingered, stretching out far past the limitations of physical touch.
That’s just crazy. I’m just seeing the light from the dragon. Right?
There was a rushing, roaring sound as the final wave of the dragon’s energy broke over Dardeh and entered him. And Sayma stood, frozen, as she felt her own skin tingle, her body warming, filling, as a fraction of that energy flowed around her, her mind leaping to full alertness as she struggled to grasp what she was seeing and feeling.
The swirling energies died down; the golden glow surrounding Dardeh slowly subdued. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, smiling.
“That never gets old,” he said, grinning.
“You’re a glutton,” Roggi said.
“I am, it’s true; and you love it and you know it. But…” he said, turning around to look up at Sayma, “I think something else just happened, too.”
Sayma started to tremble. This is too much. It’s just too much.
“You absorbed it, Dardeh.”
He smiled. “Call me Dar. I’m your brother, after all. We have things in common.”
What is he saying? Tell me I’m imagining things.
You’re not imagining things.
Shut up.
“But you absorbed that dragon’s …”
“Soul. Yes, I did that. That’s what I do, as Dragonborn. That’s why, when Roggi and I kill a dragon, it stays dead.”
She looked over at Roggi, who was smiling at her. “You really are strong enough to kill a dragon now, Roggi.” He nodded, the smile growing wider. “You saved me. Again,” she added, chuckling.
“Well, yeah.”
Dardeh took a step closer.
“You felt it, didn’t you?”
Sayma felt the hair on her neck rising. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. I know it because I could feel it, too. Some of that energy just went right on past me, up the hill. It ended up in you, didn’t it?”
Roggi’s mouth fell open. “Are you saying that Sayma’s Dragonborn?”
“No, no, I’m sure that’s not right!” She almost had to sit down, her legs were trembling so badly.
Dardeh grinned. “I don’t know for sure, but… Ok, Sayma, tell me what this is.” He turned toward the trees and Shouted.
“FO– KRAH DIIN!” The sound reverberated, filling the entire clearing and bouncing off the forest surrounding it. A large cloud of frost flew downhill from just in front of Dardeh and dissipated harmlessly.
She blinked. It was almost as though someone had placed a book with the words written out on its pages into her hands, something that had been in a strange tongue translated to her own. She knew the words and she knew what they signified.
“It’s… “
“Yeah?” He turned back to her, grinning from ear to ear.
“Dar. When you Shouted at the dragon, I just heard a huge sound. I could tell there were words in it. Just like when the dragon roared. But I didn’t know what the words were.”
He nodded vigorously. “Because I was Shouting in Dovahzul. Dragon language.”
“Just now I heard you say three words. Fo. Krah. Diin.”
“Yup.”
“It means Frost Breath. Roughly. That’s what the dragon was roaring, too, isn’t it?”
“Yup.”
Sayma’s legs gave out on her, finally, then, and she sank to the ground. Roggi rushed to put an arm around her, but Dardeh stood laughing.
She felt dizzy for a moment. Did I really just hear dragon language?
“Dardeh, it’s not funny.”
He chuckled and sat down in front of her. “I know. I’m not laughing at you. I’m remembering what it was like for me, the first time it happened. I was probably paler than Roggi. Can you Shout, do you think? It just kind of happens, when you can. You’ll know it.”
Sayma closed her eyes and took stock of everything going on inside her. She felt stronger, somehow; warmer, more complete. But she had no idea how to form the words she’d heard into something like a roar that would produce frost. She opened her eyes and shook her head.
“No, I can’t.”
Roggi stood up, pulling at his beard in an unconscious gesture.
“I don’t understand, Dar. How can Sayma be Dragonborn and not Shout?”
Dardeh rose to his feet and held out a hand to pull Sayma up.
“I don’t think she is Dragonborn, Roggi. Not really. Not completely, anyway. But there’s no question that she took some of that dragon’s energy and she can understand Dovahzul, and it has to have something to do with us being brother and sister.”
Roggi frowned. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
Dardeh shook his head. “Think about it. Andante could Shout, but he wasn’t Dragonborn, was he?”
“No. Thank the gods. Can you imagine?”
“See? It seems to me that there are different degrees of being able to use this power. Some people can understand Dovahzul but can’t use it. Others can use it but aren’t Dragonborn. And then there are people like me, and Miraak, who can absorb a dragon’s soul.”
“And Talos,” Roggi murmured.
Sayma’s mouth fell open. Talos? Talos could…
“Yeah, he was Dragonborn too, when he was a man,” Dardeh breathed quietly. “We seem to be rarities. But this is something different. Sayma can understand the language even though she can’t use it – but she can absorb some of the power.”
“Dar, that sounds crazy,” Sayma said. My brother. My brother is in a category that includes Talos. I don’t know what to do with that.
“It does, but think about this: how much sense did it make when Jine appeared to me in dreams and started talking about a whole line of men with power? And then Dadarh saying ‘I’ll have to use the girl.’”
“You mean there’s something in our background?” Sayma said.
He nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Something in our blood, on our father’s side. It would fit with everything that’s happened here in real time and also in my dreams. And whatever you call the time I spent on Solstheim and Sovngarde.”
“What do I do, then? I have no idea what to make of this.”
“Well,” Dardeh said, starting to move toward the road, “I’ll tell you what my mother used to tell me. ‘Be patient, Dar,’ she would say. ‘You’ll know when the time is right.’” He smiled at Roggi, a brilliant smile that lit up his face and made Sayma’s heart ache. “She was right about that. I’d be willing to bet that you’ll know what to do with this when the time is right, as well.”
Roggi grinned. “You’re turning into a regular philosopher, Dar.”
“Well, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about it, you know? Otherwise I think I might have lost my mind.”
“Who says you haven’t?”
“Ha ha, husband. If I have that doesn’t speak well of you either, does it.”
Sayma followed along behind them, listening to their banter, wondering whether Dardeh was right, or was actually crazy, or whether she was. How could it be that she could have absorbed energy from a dead dragon?
Well how could it be that the corpse of a woman who was supposedly married to Sithis speaks to you and gives you assignments to kill?
Shut up.
Even as she snapped at her other voice, though, Sayma had another thought. How can it be that Nocturnal speaks to me, as well?
She looked at Dardeh, strong and confident, striding along beside one of the people she loved most in the world, and smiled. That man is my brother. I am very fortunate. And I think he is right. For whatever reason, our father’s lineage has had an effect on both of us.
She shuddered.
And then she saw in her mind’s eye the sad figure of Brynjolf, leaning up against the wall of the Cistern, murmuring “and that’s another person I’ll never see again.” She looked back at Dardeh and Roggi, so clearly in love with each other, and her eyes started to sting.
I want that for Brynjolf. I want him to look at someone and smile like that, to touch that person and want the touch to last. I want him to be happy.
Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s someone he’ll meet long after all this is done, and he’ll just be little Bryn’s father when he can be. Andante is gone. Dynjyl is not alive. But maybe, if I can do this thing for him, maybe seeing Dynjyl put to rest will help him live again.
So many strange things have happened to me since I met him. I have so many connections in powerful places now, and who knows what this thing with the dragons means. But if I can use it all, somehow, to help Brynjolf, well…
Roggi turned and looked over his shoulder at her, and smiled.
“It’s a start,” he told me.
She smiled back at him.
Yeah, it is.