Brynjolf carefully checked to be certain his illusion spell was in place and put on the hood of his new outfit before leaving Honeyside for the Ragged Flagon. Nobody gave him so much as a second glance. It wasn’t that he expected any sort of trouble simply walking across the marketplace, not really; but he needed to give himself time to settle into a new routine and feel comfortable in his new, cooler skin.
He walked down the lowered drawbridge to turn left into the Flagon’s entrance and grinned as he heard a quiet but steady hum of activity from the area directly ahead of him. It seemed that Zarashi’s establishment was already drawing customers. With any luck his contribution to the business was helping in that. He stopped for a moment to consider the fact that he actually could hear the muffled coughs from behind closed doors, past an archway and a room filled with hanging moss and overgrown roots. He’d missed having this degree of auditory acuity. He shook his head, pulled off his hood, and made his way down the ramp into the Flagon.
A quick scan of the place told him that Delvin was seated at the table he personally favored as well, the one tucked in behind the support structure, hidden from the entrance just enough. He took a deep breath and blew it out to calm himself. Delvin was going to be his first test. If Delvin spotted the differences in his appearance right away he was in trouble. If not, there was hope he could do what was going to be necessary for him to do. He made his way to the table and cleared his throat.
“So how are things going, Delvin?” he said quietly. “Anything I need to be aware of?”
Delvin’s gaze ran down him and back up. One eyebrow went up just slightly.
“New duds, boss? What’s the occasion?”
“Ran into some trouble on the way north. The old armor’s pretty much useless to me right at the moment.” He wasn’t in the habit of lying to Delvin, and all of what he’d just said was true enough: he definitely needed fire protection much more than he needed an enchantment that would allow him to carry more, right at the moment. His vampiric strength more than made up for anything the Guild armor had given him.
“Hmm.” Delvin nodded, but Brynjolf saw a flicker in his gaze that told him Delvin wasn’t entirely convinced. “Well it looks a bit flashy, Bryn, but you do whatever you need to do. Business is off to a good start. But, uh…” He paused and rubbed his face. “You need to go find Maven. She was lookin’ for you. She wasn’t happy that you weren’t around.”
Brynjolf stifled the urge to sneer. “Oh? Did she give you any hint of what she wanted?”
“No. But you know how she is. I got the feeling that it would be a real good thing if you didn’t wait around too long before going to talk to her.”
“Mmmm. Thanks, Delvin. I’ll do that. But first I need you to catch me up.”
He slid into the chair beside Delvin for a few minutes and they talked about the more mundane business of the past few days. Nothing much had transpired that needed his attention. Delvin expected more raw materials for their side enterprise in the very near future; so, for the short term, Brynjolf’s physical presence wasn’t needed. He took his leave by way of the Flagon and walked back through the marketplace toward the meadery.
Maven generally spent a portion of each day, about this time, checking up on her largest – or at least most legitimate – business operation, so he assumed he would be able to find her there. She did not disappoint him. When he entered the building he found Maven in full voice, raking one of her employees over the coals for some slight, real or imagined.
It never occurred to me before now to consider how these people must feel, listening to her rail against them day after day. The sound of her voice sets my teeth on edge. He laughed internally at his own turn of phrase. Even those teeth. He cleared his throat loudly.
Maven turned and glared at him. Brynjolf noticed the woman she’d been berating skitter away toward the door and once again fought to keep from laughing.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you for several days now. Where were you?”
“I was out of town.”
“And why wasn’t I informed? Never mind. Come with me. We have matters to discuss.” Without waiting for a response from Brynjolf, Maven swept out through the meadery door, clearly expecting him to obey and follow.
“Shor’s bones,” he muttered as he followed her. I’m so tired of this. But I’m not quite ready to do anything about it. Not yet.
Maven had made her imperious way across the center of Riften and was nearly to Black-Briar Manor by the time Brynjolf stepped outside. He could have caught up with her in a moment by running, but he forced himself to walk at his normal pace, making her wait for him to arrive at her door before following her inside. Once he was inside, she shut the door firmly behind them and turned to give him one of the most withering glares he’d ever had cast in his direction.
Well look at you. This should be interesting. Not even Sayma has looked at me like that before.
“Now then, Brynjolf,” she said. “There’s been trouble brewing with our supply chain. I’m also having trouble getting enough honey to supply the meaderies. I feel that a bit of pressure might be needed to get things rolling again. I had expected you to deal with it, you and your little Guild, but you haven’t been here. I want to know why.”
“Hmm. Trouble? Perhaps if you’d spent a bit of gold to rebuild those hives we burned to smoke out Aringoth, you wouldn’t be having any issues with honey supply. As for shipping, I thought it was back to normal now that the war was over,” he said, amused by the fact that he knew more about the situation than she did. “I haven’t heard anything from our sources.”
“Well, of course you haven’t heard anything. You’ve not been here for me to tell you. How am I supposed to direct your activities if you aren’t available to me?”
In spite of himself, Brynjolf felt his irritation growing. There had been so many years of this. So many. And for most of them, he’d simply put up with it, tried to ignore Maven’s constant, abrasive sarcasm and her unwavering assumption that he was an idiot. He had tried to smooth over ruffled feathers and make things go exactly how she wanted them. He’d done what he’d been asked to do all those years – decades, really – at first because he believed it was the right thing to do and then, after he’d become more than a little disillusioned with her, because he was desperate to ensure the Guild’s survival.
But I’m Guildmaster now. The Guild is in the best condition it’s been since Gallus’ time. And I have friends in higher places than the front desk of a meadery. It’s about time she took some of what’s right under her nose into consideration.
“Well, I’m sorry about that, Maven,” he said smoothly. “But as it happens I’ve been away on business for several days. Messages from Jarls, and so forth.”
“What? Why wasn’t I informed?”
He smirked. “Because, Maven, you are not a Jarl; and as you may remember from your unfortunately brief time in that role, Jarls often have business that they don’t wish shared with the common rabble.”
He knew he’d pushed it almost as far as it could be pushed at that point, having rubbed salt in a wound that was still wide open for her. She had wanted to rule this city officially as much as she’d wanted anything; and Ulfric’s victory had taken that from her. Maven’s eyes widened for a moment; then they flashed with anger.
“You stupid, stupid man!” she snapped. “Whatever made you think you could go off and do things on your own, without asking me? You. Will. Pay for this insubordination.”
“Will I.” He offered the comment in flat tones, as a statement rather than as a question. As he spoke he felt a familiar chill take over his voice that was undoubtedly reflected in his eyes as well. He weighed his options for a moment – only a heartbeat or two – and then stood a little straighter and said what was on his mind in spite of how risky it was to do so.
“I don’t believe you truly know who you are dealing with.”
Maven sneered. “Oh, of course. How silly of me. You are the Guildmaster,” she said venomously.
He chuckled. “Heh. Well that’s certainly the case, Maven.”
Yes, I’m the Guildmaster. I’m one of the Nightingales. I’ve just had the Dragonborn and the future High King as my houseguests. I’m a Volkihar Nightlord. You really have no idea who you are dealing with.
He wondered whether his illusion spell might be waning, for Maven’s expression momentarily flickered with uncertainty. Or maybe he just had that look in his eyes, the one he remembered Vitus having when his guard slipped, that glare that revealed icy-cold depths beneath.
“As it happens,” he continued, “I have a great many things on my plate after having been gone for several days. If you’re done complaining, I’ll be on my way.”
He turned to leave and heard a sharp intake of breath behind him.
“Brynjolf! You can’t just walk away from me,” she snapped. “You’ll regret it.”
He sneered, barely suppressing the urge to bare fangs.
“Will I? We shall see.”
___
It was full dark by the time he left Honeyside again. He slipped quietly out the westernmost gate of Riften and along the shores of Lake Honrich.
There were several reasons he was out on this evening. The primary one was, of course, that he was hungry and needed to feed before he even considered returning to Sayma. The other reason was that he was angry, and he intended to do something about it.
I offered her a chance to get in on the ground floor with the business and she wouldn’t even hear what I had in mind. She’s treated me no better than Dirge or Maul for years, and I’ve had enough of it.
He crept across the stone bridge from the shore to Goldenglow Estate. Its sturdy western gate was solidly locked. He chuckled and simply leapt across from the bridge’s railing to the ledge on the far side of the gate, then dropped back into a crouch and moved forward, listening for heartbeats. He could hear some, faintly, from inside the manor; but he sensed no presences on the outer island where the apiaries were. It was just as well. He was mostly concerned with leaving a very clear message for the bee farm’s chief customer, and that would involve the people inside.
It was no trouble to unlock the door to the manor and let himself in. He drew his sword and headed down the main hallway, listening for the mercenaries. It wasn’t likely that he would need the sword. He intended to use the other sharp implements at his disposal to take care of all of them. But just in case, he was prepared.
Looking back on it later, he decided that anyone on the premises during the half hour that followed must have had a terrifying end to his life. For end their lives did, in a bloody and brutal way. He used his natural skills in stealth to creep up behind some of them and drain them, dropping their clearly-marked corpses to the floor in puddles of their own blood. He set one group of three on each other with his Nightingale powers, and they ripped each other to shreds while simultaneously looking as he must have looked when Mercer Frey had set him against Karliah. He pulled the shadows in around him and crept through the house, making certain that every living creature in it was dead. In the final room he checked he found one guard who had slept through the noise his fellows had made, and fed on the man twice in a row, leaving his cot saturated with blood and its occupant quite dead.
Once the manor was reduced to a charnel-house, Brynjolf returned to the night, licking his lips. He crossed the bridge to the secondary island and stood there, grinning. To his left were the corpses of the three hives Dagnell had destroyed at his direction, years before. Maven had, for reasons he did not understand, never bothered to have them rebuilt or their colonies repopulated. The other three hives, however, had reliably produced enough honey to keep Maven’s meadery supplied, for a time.
“Of course she wasn’t expecting Honingbrew to take off the way it has. Old Mallus has done a fine job out there in Whiterun, hasn’t he? Too bad the war damaged all the hives near him.” He walked around the three remaining hives once more, hands on hips, shaking his head. “It would be a shame if something were to happen to these.”
He sauntered down the slope to one of the sheds nearby and lifted a burning torch from its sconce, being careful to keep the flames well away from his person. Returning to the hives he torched them, thoroughly; and though he felt a bit sorry for the poor bees he’d destroyed he was delighted with his handiwork once it was done.
After all, nothing tells the people of Riften I mean business better than a few giant columns of smoke.
He jumped back onto the bridge and began a leisurely walk back down the shore toward Riften. He couldn’t help feeling a sense of real satisfaction. Maven’s shipping scheme was in the process of being disrupted and she would need to rely on the East Empire Company more than ever, now that her supply of honey had been almost completely cut off. It wouldn’t make up for what felt like a lifetime of insults and being taken for granted, but it was something, and it felt good.
He was within eyeshot of the gates when a voice called out to him from behind.
“Brynjolf!”
Brynjolf whirled. He hadn’t heard any heartbeats or other sounds and found his own heart pounding from having been startled. There were two people behind him – a man and a woman. As soon as he saw their eyes he realized why he hadn’t heard them approaching.
“Stay back. I don’t care to have a fight with vampires.”
The woman snickered. “Other vampires, you mean? I thought you weren’t supposed to be a vampire, but your eyes say that you are.”
Brynjolf felt a flush of anger; not at them, but at himself for having forgotten to cast his illusion spell yet again. He tsk’d and looked from the woman to the man. As he scanned the vampire and took in the noble’s armor he wore, Brynjolf’s eyes widened.
This is the man I saw fighting the dragon alongside Wickham. His name is Agryn.
His mind spun frantically for a moment. He could easily be in grave danger at the moment, particularly if he let it slip that he knew who this person was. He was happy for so many years of experience as a thief and con artist, then, as aside from his initial surprised reaction he was able to keep a composed look on his face.
“I’ve seen you two before, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” the man said quietly. “We were sent to observe you, some time ago. You likely noticed us at the Ragged Flagon.”
“I hope you won’t mind my asking why you’re here and what you want with me.”
“Well, it’s rather a long story. We were just heading into the city to look for you before my partner here spotted you coming across the bridge. Is there some place we could go to talk?”
Brynjolf considered the man carefully. He’d seen Agryn fighting a dragon; but now that he was closer up he could take a truer measure of the man’s strength. Brynjolf sensed that this was another very powerful vampire, of substantial age. The woman, not as much. She was young. Formidable, but young and not nearly as powerful as either himself or the man standing before him.
“Tell me something, first. You say that you were ‘sent’ to observe me. Who sent you?” He knew the answer well enough, of course; but he wanted to see what they would tell him, to get a sense of their relative positions in this most confusing moment. If they were here to cause trouble, chances were good that they would not tell him anything like the truth.
The two exchanged what Brynjolf took as an almost pained look. After a moment she nodded at him. They both turned back to face him.
“I assume you’re familiar with the, um, Archmage of Winterhold?” the man asked.
Brynjolf felt his hackles rise in spite of himself. “Yes. So you are his…”
The vampire frowned. “Was. No longer.” He stepped forward and offered his hand. “My name is Agryn Gernic, and this is my partner, Vyctyna Tardif. For a very long time, and until quite recently, I was Edwyn Wickham’s closest associate. But I don’t care to speak of it out here in the open, even in the dead of night.”
Brynjolf considered for a moment. It was highly tempting to find out what these two wanted. If he took them to Honeyside there would be little to no chance he would be in any sort of danger, given the eyes continually on the place. He took Agryn’s hand and shook it.
“Alright. It’s good to finally meet you officially, Agryn. And you as well, Vyctyna.”
She giggled. “Call me Tyna. Everyone does.”
“Alright, Tyna. As it happens, I was just heading back to our… my home in the city. We’ll be able to speak there. Follow me.” He cast his illusion spell and headed back for the gates, hoping that his instincts about these people were sound and he would not suddenly find himself being shredded by two sets of claws. Nothing untoward happened, though, and before too many minutes had passed he was ushering them into Honeyside and watching them take seats at the table.
“Sorry I haven’t anything – appropriate to offer you,” he said, standing beside one of the vacant seats. “This is very recent.” He waved toward his face. “Earlier today, as it happens.”
“So I wasn’t imagining things!” Agryn said. “You really weren’t a vampire before.”
“No, I wasn’t. Not for a long time, now, not since…”
“Oh, what was his name?” Tyna said. “I’ve heard it often enough. Andante?”
Brynjolf smiled and nodded. “Aye. The lad cured me not more than a few minutes before he died. Didn’t ask me about it, just cast a spell. I’ve spent a year or so back to being human.”
“So why did you get yourself turned again, then?” she asked.
“Well, that is the thing, isn’t it?” Brynjolf said, sliding into the chair. He peered at Agryn. “And why is it that you’re here, telling me that you are Edwyn’s former associates?”
Agryn gave him a wry grin. “That is indeed the thing.” He heaved a huge sigh. “Listen. I’ve spent a couple hundred years doing just exactly what that man told me to do. And I didn’t mind it. I always understood him to be working to our best interests, since he was Harkon’s right-hand-man. But I was always just taken for granted. Do this, Agryn. Do that, Agryn. Never ask for any recognition. Or understanding.” His voice had dropped as he spoke, and his eyes had become unfocused; but as he finished he shook his head and looked at Brynjolf again. “I never minded, for all that time. Here I was, just twice removed from the head of the entire clan, and I felt as though that was enough for me. For anyone, really. But lately, he’s been…”
“Going nuts,” Vyctyna said flatly. “Putting Aggie in danger for no good reason. Who in their right mind sends their best friend out to stand in front of a man who breathes fire?”
Alarm bells started ringing in Brynjolf’s mind. His eyes widened, and he reached across to grab Agryn’s forearm. “That was you? You were the one who attacked Dardeh?”
Agryn smirked. “The ‘Dragonborn.’ Yes, that was me. The idea was to simply take him captive for Edwyn to use as a thrall. He nearly killed me. He scorched Edwyn. He did kill his housecarl, the Redguard woman. That’s a dangerous man, right there. And coming from me, that is saying something.”
“But why did Edwyn send you after him? Why Dardeh?”
“Dragon blood,” Vyctyna said, the sarcasm dripping from her tone. “Would you believe he tried to feed on a dragon the other day? The guy is nuts, Brynjolf. He’s convinced that he’s going to be Emperor if he gets the dragon blood.”
Brynjolf’s mouth had drooped open as they talked, and he had to make a conscious effort to close it. “So they were right,” he murmured, almost to himself. “We talked about this just the other day. Roggi said the vampires were out to get Dar, and Dardeh said it had to be because of his blood.”
“It’s because Edwyn has lost his grip on sanity, Brynjolf,” Agryn said. “I’ve been watching it happen for a long while now. The same kind of obsession that took hold of Harkon. You knew Harkon, briefly. You saw how he was.”
Brynjolf nodded. “Yes. He was single-minded, and that’s putting it kindly.”
“Well Edwyn has cracked. He’s not just single-minded. Every bad quality he ever managed to hide in the past has come flooding out recently. He takes no care of me, or anyone else. The final straw was when he…” Agryn trailed off, reaching for Vyctyna’s hand.
“He forced himself on me, Brynjolf,” she snorted. “Or at least he tried to. That was the tipping point. We’re not married, Aggie and me, but we might as well be.” She shook her head. “At least we aren’t trying to fool people into thinking we can make babies.”
Once more Brynjolf’s mouth fell open. “What was that?”
Vyctyna’s eyes flashed. “Aggie wasn’t the only one who got treated like a commodity lately. Edwyn married Elisif, you know? The Jarl?”
“Yes, I know the Jarl,” Brynjolf said quietly.
“Well she wants a baby. And he can’t give her one. Edwyn had me make a thrall, someone who looked pretty similar to him. Then the woman in the Flagon worked on him so that you can’t even tell the difference. So we went through all of this so that someone who can give Elisif a baby is doing the work for him.” She rubbed her chin. “Hmm. I’m surprised, really. I thought Edwyn liked Elisif that way. I really thought he enjoyed being with her. But I haven’t seen him go near her in awhile.”
Agryn snorted. “No. He hasn’t. And that’s why I’m convinced that he’s lost his mind. I teased him about being jealous of Geor awhile back and his reaction was, well, let’s just say less than charitable. I thought I was going to have to defend myself.”
“And that’s what Vekel saw,” Brynjolf muttered. When he realized they were both staring at him he chuckled. “Never underestimate the observational skills of a bartender. He told me he saw one Edwyn come in and two leave. We figured out what he must be up to. You know, if it wasn’t such a serious situation I’d laugh that all of us have figured out the same things coming at it from different angles.”
“But it’s not funny,” Agryn growled. “And I’m not willing to let him get away with it any longer.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “Listen, Brynjolf. I was ready and willing to do fairly much anything Harkon asked, because I am after all a Volkihar lord and I want us to continue and thrive. I followed Edwyn for years and years because of that. I didn’t ask for anything. But both of them have taken things too far. It killed Harkon and it’s broken Edwyn, and it has to stop. The mortals will always try to hunt us down. I know that. They won’t succeed, if we simply live our lives as we always have, as all the other clans have. But if we let Edwyn have his way…” he shuddered. “I don’t think any of us will come through it intact, vampire or mortal. He has to be stopped.”
“Aye,” Brynjolf said quietly. “That’s what we decided the other night.”
“Who is ‘we’?” Vyctyna asked.
Brynjolf considered how much he could share with these people. It was clear that he and Agryn had a great deal in common. Both of them had just reached the end of their tolerance with a so-called superior. And now he had a common interest with Agryn – the survival of the Volkihar.
I’m going to trust him. I may end up regretting it but I don’t think they would have approached me and told me all these things if they were trying to harm me.
“The Dragonborn and his husband Roggi,” he said. “My wife and I. And… Ulfric Stormcloak and his wife Frina.”
Agryn’s eyes opened wide. “Stormcloak? Really?”
Brynjolf nodded. “Yes. He has as much to lose as anyone else and he’s been through two wars trying to put this province back together.” He shrugged. “You might not be surprised to learn that I don’t care about gods and worship one way or another. But I do think he’s the best man for the job.”
Agryn nodded. “So we all want the same thing, more or less.”
Vyctyna’s brow wrinkled. “There’s one thing that confuses me, though. Why are you a vampire again, Brynjolf?”
He looked at her in surprise. There was something important about that question, and he wasn’t exactly sure what; but it made him very uncomfortable.
“Well, I was asked to help. And I was, as far as I knew, the only one potentially strong enough to take Edwyn on. It surely would be a fool’s errand to try to take him on at the College, with all the mages there. I… assumed that I would need to fight Edwyn at the castle, the same way I fought Harkon; and I wouldn’t be able to either enter the castle or fight him as a mortal man. All of us together, even the Dragonborn and Ulfric with his Voice wouldn’t have been enough to hold off a castle full of Volkihar nobility hunting mortal prey. So I… got turned.”
“Wait,” Agryn said. “Who turned you?”
“Serana.” He met Agryn’s gaze as the man gasped. “She wants him dead too, for the same reasons Elisif will if she ever finds out what he’s done. But she isn’t sure of her support there at the castle. Technically,” he continued, rubbing his temples, “I could make a decent case that I’m the rightful heir to that throne, except that I know I’m not. Andante didn’t leave the castle to me, he left it to Serana. I was the one who heard him say it. But he surely didn’t leave it to Edwyn Wickham.”
“Well.” Agryn paused, staring back and forth between Vyctyna and Brynjolf. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you could kill Edwyn.”
Brynjolf looked up at him in surprise. “No?”
“No. I don’t think I could, either. Not alone. I’ve been taking a measure of you, Brynjolf, as we’ve been just sitting here talking. I suspect you’ve been doing the same with me. You’re stronger than most of the people in that castle. I know I am. But neither one of us is close to Edwyn.”
“Because he’s also a mage.”
“Yes. He isn’t just the Archmage of Winterhold, you see…”
Agryn spent the next few minutes filling in the gaps of what Brynjolf had known or suspected before now. Edwyn had his tentacles in every one of the magical organizations in Tamriel, to one degree or another, and had learned almost all forms of magic. He knew influential people in every province. He’d spent years establishing communities of vampires everywhere he’d gone. But most of all, he was immensely powerful, even without his status as a senior vampire.
“We can’t do it alone. But perhaps we can as a group, especially if we also have the assistance of Harkon’s daughter.”
“How much time have you spent in the castle since Edwyn arrived in Skyrim?” Brynjolf asked.
“Not much. We’ve been on the road most of the time. Or in Winterhold. Or here, in Riften. We have a… home. Nearby.”
Which would explain how they came to be out on the road just as I left Goldenglow. Alright.
“There’s a back way into the castle, and enough space that’s been renovated that the three of us could hide out for weeks and never be suspected, much less found. Meet me near the fort in, oh, let’s say three days’ time and I’ll get you in. Then I’ll figure out how to get hold of Serana and we’ll go from there.”
“That sounds agreeable to me,” Agryn said. “Tyna?”
“Of course. Where you go, I go, Aggie, unless there’s a damn good reason not to. You know that. Three days it is, Brynjolf.”
“It would seem that we have more in common than I would have expected,” he told them. “All of us have reached the ends of our ropes at the same time. I hope we’ll be able to resolve all of this without too much trouble.”
All of them rose, then, and the couple turned toward the door to take their leave.
“Am I right in assuming that those very large fires at the bee farm had something to do with the end of your particular rope, Brynjolf?” Agryn asked him with a smirk.
“You might well be,” Brynjolf said, grinning back at him. “I wouldn’t want to say for certain, one way or another. But let’s just say that having your expertise and contributions overlooked for decades on end is something I’m very familiar with.”
Agryn shook his hand again. “Take care, Brynjolf. We’ll see you soon. And, uh… thank you for being willing to listen to us. I would have understood if you weren’t.”
“Aye,” Brynjolf said, nodding. “We all have something to lose if this goes sideways. Let’s hope it doesn’t.”
Agryn Gernic and Vyctyna Tardif left Honeyside. Brynjolf walked slowly down the stairs into the bedroom, opened the table on the left-hand side of the bed and took out the single small bottle he’d put there. He’d meant it as a symbol, really, a gift to the memory of the man who had filled the table with small bottles when he’d lived there. He trudged back up over the stairs and out onto the quiet back deck of the home.
Off to the west he could see the reflection of flames still highlighting the underside of three tall columns of smoke. He chuckled, taking some satisfaction from the fact that Maven Black-Briar was in for a very nasty surprise. While he watched them flicker he opened the bottle of skooma and downed it, tossing the empty container out into the lake. Then he leaned forward and rested his forehead on his hands against the railing as the drug began to swirl in his head.
Serana wanted Edwyn dead. Edwyn’s own lieutenants wanted him dead. And so did the three strongest men he knew, two of whom had the power of the Voice at their disposal. There was only one Edwyn Wickham, and there were seven of them ready and willing to take him on.
“Gods damn it all to Oblivion,” he whispered to the air around him. “I didn’t need to do this after all.”