After he had listened to enough obsequious congratulations from the nobility, Andante led Brynjolf up to the space that had been Harkon’s private quarters and lowered himself into the throne before the fireplace. Once again he had the strange sensation of being outside himself, watching his body seated like a piece of castle statuary, his mind replaying the battle with Harkon and everything that had happened afterward.
We did it. We killed Harkon. The castle, the court, and the Bow – they’re all ours now.
He was dimly aware of Brynjolf, who was anything but motionless. He paced the rooms, checking out all the cabinets and fixtures, opening and shutting the sleeping coffin. Every so often Andante heard him make a disgusted noise. He saw, in his peripheral vision, Brynjolf righting an overturned bucket and then heard an occasional clunk as he dropped something into it; but he himself felt incapable of moving from the throne to get a better sense of what was going on. He simply stared into the fireplace, watching the flames caress a log, a part of his mind recalling flames that had not caressed, but had angrily threatened to destroy.
Finally, a shudder rippled out from his core and he was able to shake himself out of his reverie. He breathed deeply for a few moments and glanced around the room. Brynjolf was holding up a gnawed, bloodied shin bone by one end, with an expression of revulsion on his face.
“I know,” Andante said, in spite of the fact that Brynjolf hadn’t addressed him. “It’s revolting. I know we live on blood but this place is filthy.”
“Aye,” Brynjolf agreed. “I guess I got used to noticing details like this after…” He trailed off with another disgusted noise.
“After what?”
Andante was beginning to feel a bit more like himself again. The overwhelming, cold, detached sensation of imperious triumph that had flooded him when Harkon had disintegrated before his eyes was fading. Instead, the excitement and anticipation he’d felt when he’d first seen the castle and thought of himself sharing it with Brynjolf was starting to return. But he still frowned at the fire, wondering what had happened for that short time and fearing that he really knew the answer.
I’m afraid that it was just me. It was Vitus. I know it was. I remember him. Me. But that’s not who I am now. Is it?
“Bah,” Brynjolf said, walking back down the steps toward Andante. “The Guildmaster. She didn’t like how dirty the Cistern was.”
Andante glanced at Brynjolf again and chuckled. “And it’s so lovely now?”
“Well you never saw it before she took over, lad. It was… like this,” he said, pointing at the cobwebs and piles of rubble. “Without the blood. None of us really ever thought about it, or even noticed, truly. She put her foot down. Hard.”
“Well, I guess it’s my turn to be the wife, then. This place is going to be put back to rights and we’re starting here.” He rose and turned to find Brynjolf staring at him, frowning.
“That wasn’t funny.”
Gods. No, it wasn’t. What is wrong with me?
“I’m… really sorry, Bryn. That was cheap of me.”
Brynjolf stared at him a moment longer. Then his expression softened, and he shrugged. “I should grow a thicker skin. No, my wife isn’t with me any longer. It’s just the way it is. I should stop making such a fuss about it, because I have excellent company regardless.”
Andante smiled, but had a hard time keeping it from being a sad smile. Yes, I know. Excellent company, and that’s all I am.
“And I should think once in awhile before I open my mouth.”
Brynjolf moved toward the bucket he’d set in the corner and dropped the bone into it. It was beginning to fill up with bones and other debris, Brynjolf having automatically begun the process of cleaning up the area.
Andante heard a small chuckle.
“What’s so funny?”
“I told her about you, you know, just before she left.”
Andante blinked in surprise, and turned to stare at him.
“Your wife? You told her… what, about me?”
Brynjolf gave him a sideways glance and a small smile. “I told her that I might have found someone to help with all the new work we were getting. The Guild was in pretty tough shape before she joined us, lad. She managed to put us back on track. You came along just as things were getting really good again.” He closed his eyes and smiled for just a moment, then chuckled again. “I told her I’d found someone with nimble fingers.”
He turned to face Andante and grinned. “And I told her she would enjoy looking at you, too.”
Really? He took notice of me way back then?
His heart rose into his throat for just a moment with the unexpected sweetness of that revelation, particularly sweet coming as it did right after having inadvertently rubbed salt in the wound for Brynjolf. He found himself confused, flustered, an unusual situation for him, and he tried to cover it.
“You didn’t know how nimble my fingers were at that point, Brynjolf.”
Brynjolf laughed.
“But I’m glad to know you found me pleasing even that long ago.” He chuckled. “I told you that you did, and you kept denying it.”
“Yes, I did. To both.”
“Well, there. You’ve admitted I was right. I shall die happy.” I shall die happy because you’ve just paid me the most wonderful compliment, my dear. I didn’t deserve it.
Part of him had known they’d end up together from the moment he had met Brynjolf. Even though he now knew that Brynjolf had just been drawn to him because he resembled Dynjyl, it was satisfying to know that he’d been right.
It was always going to happen, right from the beginning.
He stood and stretched out his shoulders. “We do need to get started on this, though. I want to enjoy this room without the stench of old blood behind us. It’s a nice torture rack and all, but I’d just as soon leave that kind of work to the other folks at the Sanctuary. Or to Roggi.”
Brynjolf shot him a sharp look.
“So he’s spoken to you about that, has he? Well. Roggi doesn’t do that kind of thing anymore and we shouldn’t encourage it. He has a family now.”
“Mmm,” Andante said carefully, starting to collect his own pile of rubble that needed to be disposed of. He’s not as retired as you think he is.
Some good amount of time later, Andante smiled and dropped down to sit, cross-legged, on the floor before the fire. They’d cleaned the congealed blood, knocked down the spider webs and wiped all the dusty surfaces clean; and most importantly they’d chipped away at the piles of stone rubble Harkon had never bothered to remove. With the help of some of the lesser vampires in the castle, all of it had been carted away and the floor had been swept and washed.
He now looked up at something he’d been imagining in his mind, since the first time he’d seen the place. Brynjolf sat in the throne, perched at the edge of the seat.
“I’ve been waiting for this, Bryn,” he said, beaming. “You look perfect in that throne.”
“Do I?” Brynjolf smiled, briefly. “Well it’s your throne, Andante. You’ve made that very clear.” His smile faded, and he crossed his arms. He looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“Of course I made that clear to everyone else, loverboy. I had to. How are we supposed to truly take control if I don’t?”
Brynjolf frowned. “The same way I took over the Guild when Mercer died. And then after Dag left. By agreement. By actions.” He shook his head. “I understand, don’t get me wrong. These are vampires, and ancient ones at that, and you and I are not. But there’s something that bothers me about all that. You were not acting like yourself, earlier. Was there really any need to be so cruel to Serana?”
Andante dropped his gaze to the floor before him. Ah. That. It had to come up sometime. No, I was acting exactly like myself. Or my old self. Something. I don’t much like it. I’m glad I still don’t remember everything. I have a feeling that I’d like it even less.
He chewed on the inside of his mouth, considering what he might say.
“Well I suppose I need to tell you the truth, because you’ll see right through me even if I don’t.” He looked back up at Brynjolf. “I want that power, Bryn, the power of the Bow. I don’t know whether it will work but I have to try. I don’t want to be slow and sluggish and weak in the daylight any more. I want to be able to – I don’t know, run. And leap. And feed when I’m hungry. And rid the world of the…” He trailed off.
Brynjolf raised an eyebrow. “Rid the world of which?”
I still can’t tell you those details. We’re already in enough danger as it is.
“The people who caused me to lose my memories. I want revenge on them.” That’s true enough. Brynjolf’s expression was still wary. “Come on, Bryn. You know that’s what it is. It’s the same thing that you felt when you asked me to turn you into a Lord. Do you remember that, you greedy, greedy man?” He smiled at the memory. “You wanted my blood, and you were going to take it one way or another. And so you had it. And you’re stronger as a result.”
He got up on his knees and scooted close enough to the throne to slip his arms around Brynjolf’s waist. Then he leaned forward, smiling, and ran his lips down Brynjolf’s neck, nipping here and there, teasing that he, too, might bare his fangs.
Brynjolf’s heartbeat sped up, and his breathing increased; but he placed his hands on Andante’s shoulders and pushed him back.
“You know I am, lad. And you’re right, I wanted it, just the way I wanted you to turn me in the first place. But you still didn’t need to be so cruel to Serana after all the help she gave us.” He examined Andante’s face; and Andante felt as though he had no place to hide from those eyes that were so good at reading others.
“The past little while, you’ve seemed different.”
Damn.
“I know I was cruel to Serana. I was excited, and I don’t really much like Serana in the first place. I guess it kind of bled over. I’ll apologize to her later.”
“After everything we went through so that she didn’t have to give her blood to her own father, I don’t know how much good an apology will do at this point. You can try. But what else is going on? You can’t fool me, you know. I can tell.”
Andante sighed. It didn’t matter how evasive he was, Brynjolf could read him. Better to tell him something, now, to control how much information he gave out. Perhaps he could figure out a way to break the truth gently once he was absolutely certain that he remembered it all.
“I’ve been having, well, little bits of things coming back to me, Bryn. It’s distressing. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Sometimes I get dizzy when it happens. I think, maybe, that turning human again and then back did something to, I don’t know, wake me up.”
Brynjolf studied him, his brow furrowed.
“But that’s good, isn’t it?”
Andante shook his head. “Not really. Nothing I’ve remembered was complete.” So now I must resort to lying to you. I hate this. “I am reasonably certain that I’m from Bravil, originally.” I’m completely certain, but at least that’s not a total falsehood.
Brynjolf nodded. “Alright. That doesn’t surprise me, given your voice. Anything else?”
Well, I can give you this much, my love. “What happened to me involved flames. That I’m certain of. It’s why I was so angry when you took chances with those dragons.”
Brynjolf studied him for several long, quiet moments. He surprised him, then, by pulling him close into a warm embrace.
“I’m sorry, lad. If I’d known, I’d have been more careful.” He released him and smiled, one of the small, one-sided smiles Andante had grown so fond of.
“Well, I think I’m glad that you’re starting to remember things. But let me know, yes? I want to help, if I can, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know who you were before, any more than you do, but it’s like I told you before; I’m here because I want to be. If I didn’t, I’d have headed home to Riften by now.”
Andante smirked. “Even if you’re running with some kind of demon?”
“Aye.” His eyes glinted with mischief. “Don’t forget, I’m one of those myself. And I wonder.”
“You wonder what?”
“Whether two of us really will fit on this throne at once?”
Andante laughed. “I think we should investigate that possibility.”
__
It began simply enough, in the cathedral where they had defeated Harkon. Bits of fallen masonry, piles of ancient rotting bones, rotting wood from broken pews and the remnants of the creatures Harkon had summoned to fight them littered the area. Andante and Brynjolf broke down the rubble and gathered it into piles. He brought Vingalmo and Orthjolf into the cathedral to task them with directing the removal of the rubble.
“Dump it into the sea,” he told them. “Not at the docks. We will be repairing those. I don’t care where, but into the sea with it. Have some of the thralls dust and sweep once you’re done.”
There was one thing, though, that Andante forbade them from removing.
“Leave him,” he said, pointing to the glittering pile of crimson ash in front of the blood altar. “I want Harkon to serve as a reminder to anyone who decides it might be a good idea to try to take the throne back from me. It would not be a good idea. There lies the evidence.”
The two nobles exchanged a glance, and then nodded and left to round up workers.
“A bit excessive, perhaps?” Andante asked Brynjolf once they’d gone.
“No. Those two are trouble. I’m not certain we can trust Garan Marethi either but he seems fairly neutral. You’ve done well to be sure they know who is in charge now.”
Andante grinned. “We are. I am – and you, Bryn.”
“I’m your Second. Let’s look at it that way. I’m good at that.”
The entire court was involved in the cleanup, as Andante had insisted they would be, although he and Brynjolf took point and did many of the heaviest tasks first. The clan started its work in the main keep; cleaning up the dining hall, the sleeping areas and the forge, removing piles of bone and spider webs from the thralls’ quarters, and wiping down and polishing up the fine old furnishings in the place. Andante overheard a fair amount of grumbling by vampires who had been forced to change their usual behaviors or clear out of their pet corners while cleaning happened; but everyone pitched in, and as strong as they all were, the work went quickly.
Once they finished, all of them were smiling, either openly or via quiet looks of satisfaction. The carpet runners were still threadbare, but they were clean, and so was the rest of the place. It looked like a court, now, and not a ruin in which monsters skulked, ashamed of their own existence. It smelled old, and damp, as an ancient castle on the sea would, but it no longer smelled like an offal heap. All of the trips in and out the doors to remove debris had changed the stagnant air. The entire area felt lighter, if not brighter.
“They didn’t much like the work, but they like the results,” Andante said quietly.
“Just like we did in the Cistern,” Brynjolf agreed. “It’s amazing what you can get used to until it’s suddenly better and you realize what you were missing.”
Beginning with the next day, work became more complex. They would have to travel farther into the depths of the castle to prepare areas. Rubble would need to be carted through stairways and away from enclosed areas with few exits, almost none of which led directly to the outside. They left the details of that to Vingalmo and Orthjolf, though, because they had enough to deal with themselves.
In the courtyard, they worked for hour after hour chipping away at fallen pillars and piles of ruined furnishings, gathering dead boughs from the garden and broken pottery that had once held Valerica’s alchemical plants. They finished cleaning up the largest portion of the yard, near the doors to the main keep; but when Andante moved toward the garden itself Brynjolf stopped him.
“Leave this part to Valerica. She’s the one who knows about growing all these plants. You heard Serana talk about how she was a master.”
“But she’s in…”
Brynjolf raised an eyebrow. “And you promised her we’d go back for her if we could. Well now we can. Maybe it will smooth things over with Serana a bit if you bring her mother home. It will give both of them something to do.”
Yes, I promised we’d get Valerica, and you want to see Dynjyl again, don’t you, Andante thought sourly even while realizing that Brynjolf had it right. I really was hoping to avoid that, but I suppose there’s no help for it.
“Indeed. Once we get the rest of this place cleaned out. It wouldn’t do for her to have to pick her way down through rubble and gods know what else just to get to her garden, would it?”
“No. Not at all.”
“All right.” He looked around and smiled. “You know, once she has these plants growing again this is going to be beautiful, and maybe we can all enjoy it. Let’s get back to it then.”
Across the courtyard from the main keep, on the north side of the space, was a door Andante couldn’t remember having opened on their first trip through the area. They pushed the door open, tentatively creeping into its entryway, to find that the tower on the other side of it looked usable, even though at least one passage was completely blocked by a partially-fallen wall. There was a sizeable dining hall, a smaller echo of the one in the main keep; and although its furnishings were broken, its existence was exciting to Andante.
“I think we could turn this into our own private area, Bryn,” he said, pulling out his pickaxe to begin the process of breaking up the rubble, looking back over his shoulder at Brynjolf.
“Look out!” Brynjolf shouted.
Against the wall, what had looked like a simple sculpture of a gargoyle roared to life and leapt forward, claws slashing. Andante dropped the pick, grabbed his axe and began slashing at it while Brynjolf circled around behind it and began smashing at it with the edge of his shield. It wasn’t a terribly strong gargoyle compared with others they’d fought, but the adrenaline of being surprised gave his final axe blow a little extra strength even though it was a little wide of its mark. The beast fell backwards and to the side, down but not out.
Andante gritted his teeth and followed up with a vicious kick to its head, his pointed, reinforced boots crushing its skull.
“Well then,” he said, picking his pickaxe back up from the floor where he’d dropped it, trying to catch his breath. “I wasn’t expecting anything to be alive still down here. I guess we’d better be careful.”
“Aye. All those bones, in the rest of the castle? Who knows what else we might run across.”
“I hadn’t thought about that but you’re right. We found things before. There may have been more of them that we just didn’t run into.” He turned to the pile of fallen stone he’d been about to attack before the gargoyle moved, and began chipping away at it.
Once the north tower had been restored it was surprisingly lovely. Some of the old furniture was in good shape, needing only to be cleaned and polished. A new dining table filled the main space, and two bench seats flanked a roaring fire. They found things in storage and moved others across from the main keep, and now the north tower held mannequins for armor display, weapons racks mounted on the walls, and some old but colorful banners that had been aired out and shaken free of dust. There was a small but private space at the top of a short stair, which they turned into a bedroom that was nearly identical to the one in Honeyside.
The doorway that had been blocked led to a long, narrow room that they filled with single beds brought across from the main keep.
“Planning on having children?” Brynjolf asked, looking around the room.
“Children? Me? No. I’m not a fan of children.” He shuddered. “But who knows, Bryn. Maybe you?”
Brynjolf frowned and turned away. “No, I can’t picture that ever happening, lad.”
“Don’t be a wet blanket,” Andante said, pulling him back around. “Maybe Roggi and Dardeh will come to visit.”
Brynjolf’s eyebrow rose. “And bring their family. Into a castle full of vampires. Somehow I don’t think so, but it is a nice thought. I’m sure there will be some use for this. At least it’s not ruined anymore.”
“Right. And I intend this castle to be full of a new clan. Our clan. There may be lots of people who need to be housed. We have spaces for them now.”
Those were the first few days. Each of them was challenging, and tiring; and they fell into the big bed in the north tower and slept like stones at the end of them. Andante was certain the rest of the vampires must be doing the same, given that they were the ones moving all the debris out of the castle. He was too tired to go check on them. They finished with the courtyard, and the north tower, and even the tiny eastern tower that might serve as a storage area or a study at some point but which had no real purpose now. It was clean and accessible now, though, and that was all he wanted.
And then they moved to the undercroft, and the ruins beneath the main keep.
The undercroft was where they had snuck into the castle with Serana, trying to avoid Harkon’s notice. It was where they had found the feral vampire, and the piles of stinking, rotting bones, and the gigantic spider on their way to locate Valerica’s study. The vampire and spider they had killed were gone, likely through the efforts of skeevers or rats, but the bones remained and smelled just as bad as ever. Andante assumed that they would be looking at some back-breaking work, but that they’d removed the adversaries from their path on their earlier trek through.
He was wrong.
They stepped through the door leading into the undercroft from the courtyard, and were greeted by no fewer than four death hounds. Andante attacked immediately, but slipped as he turned to strike at the second hound, his momentum carrying him off the narrow walkway he was on, down into the water of the former cistern room. As he scrambled to his feet, he heard the unmistakable sound of a conjuration spell being cast; and when he made it back up to the walkway he found that Brynjolf had revived a skeleton from the bone pile to fight alongside him.
Andante pushed past the skeleton to take on the hound farthest away from Brynjolf. They finished the hounds and Andante turned to him in surprise.
“I’ve never seen you do that before. Well done.”
Brynjolf shrugged. “Never needed to, before. Serana kept us in more than enough assistants while she was with us. I figured I could use some practice.” He grinned. “I’m a man of many talents, after all.”
“Indeed. I should remember to do that myself, more often.”
And so it went, for days on end. Not only were there piles of dirt to loosen, bones to collect and thick, sticky webs to knock down, but as they had feared there were spiders, skeletons, death hounds and gargoyles to kill before they could even get to some of the spaces. They fought on and on, clearing an area to be followed by the crew of clan members with shovels and wheelbarrows and thralls. Some rooms were simple, merely needing broken wood and dirt to be scraped into compact piles and then removed. Other rooms required hours of effort to clear massive piles of fallen stone from passageways that had been long blocked, taking care to shore up precarious-looking walls and leaning pillars as they went. They spent several days clearing debris from the docks that had been their point of entry to the castle, and Andante set a number of skilled people to work on the damaged ship that languished there.
The worst was the large dining room where Andante, Brynjolf and Serana had faced multiple strong skeletons on their first time through. Somehow, from the depths of the ruins, more skeletons had come to take the places of those they had killed before, and this time only Andante and Brynjolf were there to dispose of them. Not only did they have no time to pause between skeletons, but the ruin of this room was extreme; they needed to avoid tripping over debris and had to watch their feet even while dodging blows. By the time the area was secure, both of them were exhausted and could not do much more than lean against the wall watching as their crew began carting out the rubble. Days later, though, when all was finished, there was an elegant, warm room to rival that in the main keep.
On and on they went, upward toward Valerica’s workroom in the same seemingly endless spiral they had followed once before. Andante marveled at the size of the castle which, even though he’d known it was large, had seemed closed in and somehow much more limited in scope than the vastness of what they found once the rooms were put to rights. Perhaps the most beautiful of the spaces they reclaimed was the small chapel, which, when they were done, had an altar to Molag Bal that was the equal of that in the cathedral.
“Bryn,” Andante breathed, standing in the loft, “this is amazing. This whole thing is amazing. We could have an entire city of people here and never run out of space for them all.”
“Aye. You could be the Jarl of Volkihar Island.”
He laughed. “Count, please. I am Imperial, after all.”
“Ha. Of course, Count.” Brynjolf looked around and smiled. “It is pretty impressive, though.”
Andante slipped one arm around Brynjolf’s waist and gave him a quick squeeze. “Joint rule. You can be Jarl. You’re the Nord.”
He started to pull away, but Brynjolf stopped him. He tipped Andante’s chin up and gave him a kiss, brief but sweet, and then let go of him, smiling, and turned to walk away himself.
“My,” Andante murmured. “Remind me to call you Jarl Brynjolf again sometime soon.”
Brynjolf’s laugh echoed down the hallway as he walked into the next rubble-filled area.
__
At last, one evening, they sat before the fire in their North Tower quarters. Andante was sore, and tired, but smiled at Brynjolf happily.
“We did it.”
“Yes, lad.”
Andante peered across the space at him. “You don’t look very happy about it.”
Brynjolf sighed. “Well, you know what’s coming next.”
“Yes, I know. We have to go get Valerica. And we’ll undoubtedly see Dynjyl again, and that will make you all upset again.”
Brynjolf shook his head. “It’s not just that, Andante. It’s afterward. You know I can’t just stay here indefinitely. I’m certain that Maven must be wondering whether I’m alive at this point, and it’s not fair to leave everything to Delvin and Vex. The new recruits need to see their, well, their…”
“Guildmaster? Yes, they do. I don’t know what to say about Maven, though. She ought to be busy enough now with being Jarl to keep her mind off the Guild so long as things are going smoothly. I don’t like how much control she has over things, Bryn.”
Brynjolf gave him an odd look. “You’re not the first one who’s told me that.”
“Well, whoever else said so was wise indeed.”
“Mmm.”
Andante looked at him. Brynjolf was staring into the flames, looking not quite sad, not quite angry, but a bit of both.
“Let me guess. It was your wife.”
“Yes.”
Andante sighed. “Well I should have known. Listen. Tomorrow we’ll go find Valerica and bring her back. And then, well, we do have a job to do for Garan Marethi, down near Riften. We’ll go take care of things there and spend a few days at Honeyside, yes?”
Brynjolf nodded, and muttered something that Andante couldn’t quite make out.
“What was that?”
“And say hello to Dynny.”
Ah. Of course. I keep forgetting that I’m third on the list, at best. Give him a castle, and I’m still not good enough. He shrugged. I guess I knew that anyway, didn’t I.
“Yes, of course. We’ll make sure to spend a bit of time with him.” He smiled to himself, sadly, and then looked up at Brynjolf and winked at him. “I like him. It really is too bad that he’s not flesh and blood anymore, because you know, we could bring him back here with us and…” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Brynjolf’s mouth dropped open.
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
Andante rose from his seat and started retreating toward the bedchamber. “Of course I am, loverboy. It can’t actually happen, of course, but it’s fun to imagine, isn’t it?”
He walked up the stairs, snickering to himself as he heard Brynjolf’s armor rustling behind him.
“You’re a terrible influence, lad.”
“I know.”