I have got to get rid of this key.<\/em><\/p>\n You\u2019re not just a little bit tempted?<\/em><\/p>\n No. No, I\u2019m not.\u00a0 Yes I am but no, I\u2019m not.<\/em><\/p>\n Well you can\u2019t have it both ways.<\/em><\/p>\n I know.<\/em><\/p>\n She sat and waited for the shaking to stop, looking around at the area from her high perch.\u00a0 To her right, not far away from where she\u2019d been but hidden from that vantage point by the thick undergrowth, was an overturned cart.\u00a0 Its horse was dead, smoke rising from its carcass.\u00a0 Dag could see one corpse, completely burned, its tendons having constricted in death to the fetal position.\u00a0 There were the marks of fireball explosions all around the cart.\u00a0 She shuddered from her core.\u00a0 I\u2019m lucky that wasn\u2019t me, she thought. It nearly was.<\/p>\n From the clearing where the cart had fallen ran a pathway to the southwest and downward toward what looked like an old Nordic ruin, or perhaps something even older, carved into the side of the mountains behind it.\u00a0 A small stream fell from their summit and flowed across the path in front of a set of iron doors. It was the spot Karliah had marked on her map. The Twilight Sepulcher.\u00a0 She pushed the doors open and slipped inside.<\/p>\n It was a huge, dark cavern.\u00a0 Dirt covered the floor of what once must have been a magnificent space; wide stairs rose through great stone arches, some intact and some collapsed, leading to a tunnel formed by more of the same.<\/p>\n A translucent, bluish, spectral figure descended the stairs toward her.\u00a0 She tensed, her right hand on her sword, but it seemed clear after a few moments that this was not an immediate threat.<\/p>\n \u201cI do not recognize you,\u201d the figure said, its voice thin and hollow, \u201cbut I sense that you are one of us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would ask the same of you,\u201d Dag replied. \u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the last of the Nightingale Sentinels, I\u2019m afraid.\u00a0 I\u2019ve defended the Sepulcher alone for what seems like an eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re alone?\u201d Dag asked.\u00a0 Karliah had said that at the end of the Nightingales\u2019 lives they became Sentinels. There were three Nightingales at any time. There must have been many more Sentinels through the ages. \u201cWhat has happened to the others?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe were betrayed by one of our own kind,\u201d the specter said. \u201cIn fact, I\u2019m to blame.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you say that?\u201d<\/p>\n The voice was calm, without inflection, but Dag almost felt rather than heard a sigh.<\/p>\n \u201cI was blinded by treachery masquerading as friendship.\u00a0 Perhaps if I had been more vigilant Mercer Frey wouldn\u2019t have lured me to my fate and stolen the Skeleton Key.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag felt the hair on the back of her neck rising.<\/p>\n \u201cWait a second!\u00a0 You\u2019re\u2026Gallus?\u201d<\/p>\n She felt a twisting, sharp, painful sadness.\u00a0 Oh, Karliah, she thought.\u00a0 He\u2019s here.\u00a0 You should have come with me.\u00a0 Gallus is here.\u00a0 Much to her surprise she felt her eyes welling up.<\/p>\n \u201cI have not heard that name in a very long time.\u00a0 How do you know of me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGallus, I have the Skeleton Key.\u201d<\/p>\n The disembodied voice lifted.\u00a0 \u201cThe Key! You have the Skeleton Key! I thought I\u2019d never see it again!\u00a0 And Mercer Frey?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s dead.\u00a0 He\u2019s very dead.\u00a0 And I trust that Nocturnal has not accepted whatever pitiful excuse for a soul he may have had left.\u201d\u00a0 Dag had no idea what powers a Daedric prince might have over a person who broke a contract with them but she hoped they included making him very miserable.<\/p>\n \u201cThen \u2026 it\u2019s over, and my death wasn\u2019t in vain. The Guild owes you a great debt.\u00a0 My only regret is that you had to undertake its retrieval on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cOh no, I didn\u2019t do it by myself.\u00a0 The other two Nightingales were with me.\u00a0 Karliah helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKarliah? She yet lives?\u00a0 I was afraid that she had met my same fate at the hands of Mercer Frey.\u201d\u00a0 Gallus\u2019 voice rose, almost joyfully.<\/p>\n Dag found herself warming to Gallus.\u00a0 His speech was formal, but not in the stiff, uncomfortable way that Mercer\u2019s had been.\u00a0 This was the formality of a scholar, a well-educated man whose speech simply flowed from him in perfectly-formed phrases.\u00a0 How a specter could convey emotion was a mystery to her but he was doing so, gracefully and elegantly.<\/p>\n \u201cWell I have the Key right here, Gallus.\u00a0 Take it and return it to where it needs to be.\u00a0 You deserve that honor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNothing would bring me more pride, but I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s impossible.\u00a0 You see, from the moment I arrived here in this room I\u2019ve felt myself, well, dying.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cWait. How can a spirit die?\u201d<\/p>\n Gallus stood quietly for a moment, his arms crossed, seemingly deep in thought.\u00a0 He shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a temple to Nocturnal.\u00a0 Contained in the inner sanctum is the Ebonmere \u2013 the conduit to Nocturnal\u2019s realm of Evergloam.\u00a0 It\u2019s through this conduit that she influences events in the world, and the Skeleton Key is our means of accessing it.\u00a0 This is what we are sworn to protect.\u00a0 When Mercer Frey stole the key that conduit closed, severely limiting our ties to Nocturnal, and causing our luck to fade.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we do isn\u2019t luck. We have great skill.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, of course, and you all should take great pride in it.\u00a0 But think of how the Guild was when you joined it.\u00a0 Have its members not spoken of having bad luck?\u00a0 Think of all the little things that have been happening:\u00a0 a pick breaking in the lock, clouds clearing away from the moon at just the wrong time.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag certainly could think of any number of times when what should have been an easy attack, or a silent passage, had gone wrong.\u00a0 She had a vivid memory of the bandit turning to look at her in Cragslane Cavern, for example, and her perfectly-aimed arrow catching on the rope before her when it shouldn\u2019t have.\u00a0 She nodded, slowly.<\/p>\n \u201cNocturnal doesn\u2019t influence events directly.\u00a0 She merely nudges the resistances to our luck. If the Key is not returned, our luck will run completely dry.\u201d<\/p>\n If a spirit could have drawn an audible breath, Dag was certain she would have heard it just then.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot return the Key because I\u2019m weakening.\u00a0 I can feel myself \u2026 slipping away.\u00a0 Whatever damage was caused when Mercer stole the Key can only be fixed by returning it, and you\u2019re the only one who is able to do so. I cannot manifest anywhere but this chamber, so I\u2019m afraid I cannot help you.\u00a0 However, I did find the remains of a poor soul who came here before you.\u00a0 Perhaps his journal might help.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag nodded, scanning the area quickly.\u00a0 There was a skeleton at the far side of the chamber, and she would investigate it soon, but right now she needed to speak to Gallus.\u00a0 On another day of her life, she might have thought she was going completely mad; but on this day what the spirit of Gallus was saying made complete and utter sense.\u00a0 She had to do this thing for him, for Karliah, for Brynjolf, and for the rest of the Guild.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what has happened to all the others, Gallus?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAfter twenty-five years, my power is fading. In fact, even now I feel \u2013 strange, even though I shouldn\u2019t be feeling anything at all. They have been here many more years than I. The others no longer remember who they were; they\u2019ve forgotten their original purpose. Good luck, Nightingale.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag nodded.<\/p>\n The skeleton crumpled as she eased the journal out from under its hand. She flipped through its pages quickly; it was the journal of one Nystrom, presumably the man whose skeleton she\u2019d just disintegrated.\u00a0 He had been here with two others, Lythelus and Anders, and it seemed as though their motive had been to rob the riches in the inner sanctum.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t much of use in the journal but for some odd, riddle-like passages.<\/p>\n The first seemed fairly obvious.\u00a0 \u201cShadows of their former selves, sentinels of the dark. \u00a0They wander ever more and deal swift death to defilers.\u201d\u00a0 The word sentinels and the word death were all she needed to know.\u00a0 She drew her bow and moved past Gallus, up the stairs, into the long tunnel of arches, and around a corner to a set of iron doors.<\/p>\n Beyond the doors was a grand staircase leading down, and alcoves opening to either side.\u00a0 Dag didn\u2019t have time to consider the alcoves, though, for there was a dark blue specter at the foot of the stairs.\u00a0 One of the Sentinels.\u00a0 She drew her bow, set her best arrow to its string, and let it fly.\u00a0 The figure turned and shouted \u201cdoes someone live among the dead?\u201d\u00a0 An arrow whizzed just past Dag\u2019s ear.\u00a0 She flinched, then fired another shot of her own.\u00a0 The specter groaned and crumpled, moaning \u201cI shall\u2026be back,\u201d then vanished but for a spot of glowing dust where it had stood.<\/p>\n Another arrow hit the stairs just behind Dag.\u00a0 She whirled to find a second Sentinel emerging from one of the alcoves above.\u00a0 This one took several arrows to remove; the specter was a good shot, and Dag had to dance about the room ducking for cover where she could find it.<\/p>\n The tunnel leading from this chamber led to a standard burial chamber.\u00a0 None of the draugr were moving, or threatening to do that, much to her relief.\u00a0 She headed for the iron doors at the end, and opened them to a room full of mist.<\/p>\n It was impossible to tell how large this area was.\u00a0 As heavy as the mist in Redbelly Mine had been, this was thicker.\u00a0 It filled the space, but was particularly thick around the base of the large platforms rising at seemingly random intervals. The room was darker than night but for a few firepots scattered at the tops of three platforms, and in several places at ground level. Dag could see her destination to the left and up \u2013 another pair of iron doors.\u00a0 She started forward, heading for the first of the lights; but as she neared it she heard a hissing noise.<\/p>\n And she felt her strength ebbing.\u00a0 Quickly.<\/p>\n She darted back toward the barrow from which she\u2019d arrived. To her great relief, the hissing stopped as she reached the shadowed entryway.\u00a0 She dug around in her pack for a potion to restore herself, and considered her options.\u00a0 There were lights, firepots, at the top of three platforms.\u00a0 Up.\u00a0 That was the way through to reach the doors, and without being able to see around them she was willing to bet that she needed to get there via the platforms.\u00a0 She peered at the nearest of them; there seemed to be a narrow set of steps leading up.\u00a0 Taking a deep breath and holding it, she ran for it; but again, as soon as she neared the light she heard the hissing and felt herself being damaged, quickly, painfully.\u00a0 She ran back to the barrow a second time and cast healing on herself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is this, anyway?\u201d she muttered to herself.<\/p>\n What do you think it is, idiot? When was the last time you saw Nocturnal parading around outside in the sun?<\/em><\/p>\n She fought the urge to smack herself on the forehead.<\/p>\n Good grief. Nocturnal, Mistress of Shadows. Of course.<\/em><\/p>\n It was clear that Dag needed to get to the top of the platform, so that she could see where to go next, but getting there was going to be interesting.\u00a0 Her path wound around the base of other platforms, through thin slivers of shadow that lay between the edges of the pools of light cast by firepots. To her relief, she took no damage, heard no hissing.<\/p>\n She mounted the stairs to the first platform and cursed as she caught her feet on a rope. \u00a0Arrows flew at her. Damn, another trap.\u00a0 She ducked and rolled to her left, praying that she wouldn\u2019t roll off the platform, and then stood to survey the area.<\/p>\n Well, Dag thought.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t what I was looking forward to.\u00a0 She cast healing on herself while checking her next move.\u00a0 The platform closest to her destination was too tall to jump up, but there was a rope-and-log bridge strung from it to the farthest platform from her.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t see a way to get up onto that one, but there was a small space, a possible path through the darkness to its far side. The descending stairs just in front of her had another tripwire across them. Off to her right she saw only a clean, dark edge.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want to find out how far down that drop goes.<\/em> She decided to leap the tripwire and make for the shadows. The worst that could happen was, after all, the worst that could happen.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t quite as dark, where she moved this time, and she could feel herself being damaged as she dashed around the end of the platform and ran headlong into a set of wooden steps that had been invisible from where she stood before.\u00a0 Wincing and trying hard not to gasp, she jumped onto the stairs and up, just as more arrows began flying toward her.\u00a0 She crouched and slid along the left edge of the bridge and up to the top of the tower, practically falling over in an effort to stop; for at the far end of this platform was another, very bright, brazier.<\/p>\n Again, she used up most of her energy healing herself.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t far from this platform to the iron doors.\u00a0 Down, across a short gap, and up.\u00a0 There was a tripwire at the top of the stairs, though, and the mist between here and there was especially thick, making it hard to see what was between her and them.\u00a0 It was going to be hard to avoid being damaged, though; she could only see a narrow sliver of darkness up the center of the stairs.\u00a0 She took a deep breath, jumped the tripwire and sprinted for the stairs.<\/p>\n By the time she got to the top of them and through the doors, she was trembling and hurting, coughing hard from the exertion.\u00a0 Dag sat down in the corridor and found a few more potions in her pack that helped, and eventually her breathing returned to normal.\u00a0 This was another section of normal Nordic barrow, holding a few skeletons and carefully-wrapped Draugr and little else, but at the far end was a large statue flanked by two more of the light pots that had shown her the way through the mist.<\/p>\n Dag approached it and looked it over.\u00a0 It was a lovely woman with outspread hands.\u00a0 At its base, a flat bowl for offerings had several gemstones, some rare flowers, and a few coins in it, and just in front of it, on the floor, was a dead bandit.\u00a0 There was nothing else to indicate what Dag should do.<\/p>\n She opened the journal and flipped through to the riddles.\u00a0 Give her what she desires most, it said.<\/p>\n \u201cWell. This is Nocturnal\u2019s shrine, so this must be Nocturnal.\u00a0 What does she most desire?\u201d Clearly, the gemstones and flowers had not been the right choices.<\/p>\n Dag thought.\u00a0 How had Karliah called for her?\u00a0 Empress of Shadow and Queen of Murk.\u00a0 Walk true with the shadows.\u00a0 Nocturnal was a thing of darkness, and she was being flooded by light.\u00a0 She looked more closely at the light pots, which were raised, sitting atop ornate stone sconces.\u00a0 There was nothing that looked like a mechanism for shutting them down, and she had no way to get to the top of them and somehow manually scoop the burning material out.\u00a0 Then her hand brushed against the back wall and hit a chain, much like the ones in Snow Veil Sanctum that had raised metal gates.\u00a0 Indeed, as soon as she pulled it the light went out.\u00a0 She ran to the second light, found its chain and pulled it; as the light was extinguished a heavy stone slab lowered itself into the ground, revealing a tunnel behind the statue.<\/p>\n Dag was about to sprint through the narrow hallway before her when a set of swinging blades dropped from the ceiling and started sweeping the width of it. She screeched to a halt.\u00a0 Those things are too closely spaced for me, she thought.\u00a0 I can\u2019t possibly time it well enough.\u00a0 She moved forward a few steps to check.\u00a0 Maybe there was some way to turn them off, a chain, a lever\u2026<\/p>\n There was an alcove to her left, with a set of iron doors.<\/p>\n \u201cHere we go.\u201d<\/p>\n The doors were locked.<\/p>\n Dag broke a dozen lockpicks, and was beginning to swear under her breath.<\/p>\n So use the Key<\/em>, her other voice said.<\/p>\n She shuddered.\u00a0 No<\/em>, she replied. I don\u2019t want to let it into my head any more.<\/em><\/p>\n How else do you intend to get it back where it belongs, then? This lock is too hard for you.<\/em><\/p>\n Dag knew her voice was right.\u00a0 She simply had to do it, or she would be sliced to ribbons in the other hall.\u00a0 Against her better judgment, she pulled out the Skeleton Key and began working the lock.<\/p>\n It nearly hummed.\u00a0 Its ornate, colorful, rounded handle fit in her hand as though it had been custom made to do so, and she felt it appealing to desires she hadn\u2019t realized she had until\u2026 until\u2026<\/p>\n Think of all we could do together<\/em>, it told her. You and Brynjolf could be so very rich. Nobody could ever touch you again.<\/em><\/p>\n I \u2026 and Brynjolf?\u00a0 Don\u2019t you mean the Guild?<\/em><\/p>\n Yes. As you say.<\/em><\/p>\n The lock clicked open and Dag hurried to put the Key back in her pouch.\u00a0 A shudder ran up her back.\u00a0 She felt somehow unclean, violated, as though the Key itself had somehow reached into the deepest parts of her mind. \u00a0I have got to get rid of this thing, she thought, her unease mounting by the moment.<\/p>\n Beyond the doors was a long, multi-level chamber with great ornate pillars and what seemed to be an audience chamber of some sort at the bottom.\u00a0 The balcony on which she stood hugged both of the room\u2019s long sides and across its back, to her left.\u00a0 Across the way, Dag could see another spectral Sentinel.\u00a0 She thought for a moment.\u00a0 There may be treasure down there, she thought, and I know I can dispatch that spirit.\u00a0 But I need to move.\u00a0 She crouched and crept along the balcony to the corridor she could see beyond it.\u00a0 The spirit never moved.\u00a0 Was this the Key working again, keeping her hidden?\u00a0 She\u2019d proven often enough that she was not nearly as stealthy as she\u2019d like to be.<\/p>\n There was one more set of doors, just to her left as she emerged from the corridor.\u00a0 To her right, she could hear the blades sweeping their deadly path.\u00a0 She opened the doors and strode down the darkened hallway.<\/p>\n And into an enormous pit.<\/p>\n It was at least fifteen feet deep, probably more, and the fall into it onto the hard stone beneath hurt a great deal.\u00a0 For a moment she wondered whether she might have broken her ankle, but standing proved that it was only sprained.\u00a0 She worked on healing the sprain, thinking \u201cI must be getting better at healing by now, you would think, given how often I have to use it on myself.\u201d There was a skeleton here, with a note next to it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo here\u2019s where you ended up, Anders,\u201d she murmured.\u00a0 The note indicated that he was starving to death when he had written it. She\u2019d better hope that there was a way out, or she\u2019d be joining him here.<\/p>\n Dag looked up.\u00a0 She could see the opening through which she\u2019d fallen, well above her head, and directly overhead an opening to what looked like trap door, a well opening perhaps.<\/p>\n She was just beginning to feel as though she should panic when the world shifted.<\/p>\n She had the Skeleton Key in her hand, with no recollection of having removed it from her pack.\u00a0 She turned it in her palm, examining it, baffled.\u00a0 Suddenly, with a huge, ringing sound, the floor began glowing in shades of blue and green in elaborate patterns.\u00a0 There was an indentation in the center of the floor that seemed to call to her.\u00a0 A keyhole. She reached forward and pressed the Skeleton Key into it.\u00a0 Instantly, it felt as though an enormous weight lifted from her; but she didn\u2019t have a chance to savor the feeling.<\/p>\n The floor dropped. \u00a0How far, she could not say; but it was to the bottom of a large cavern, shaped much as the one at Nightingale Hall but with a deep blue, pulsing, shimmering pool in its center, and stone discs with the phases of the moon rather than circles at the end of arches.\u00a0 A familiar sound began, a hum of energy from which emerged not just the ball of light Dag had seen when she became a Nightingale but a human figure, a barely-clad woman of stunning beauty with ravens on each of her outspread arms. It was the statue she\u2019d seen, but in animate form.\u00a0 Dag was dumbstruck. An actual Daedric prince, a thing of legend like Dardeh, like the dragons, like the Nightingales themselves, but this one from its own plane of Oblivion.<\/p>\n \u201cMy, my.\u00a0 What do we have here? Once again the Key has gone missing, and once again a hero has returned it. And now that you\u2019ve performed your duty you stand here awaiting your accolades: a pat on the head, a kiss on the cheek. But understand that this was merely a part of your contract. Your actions were expected.\u201d<\/p>\n Well thanks, Dag thought sourly.\u00a0 You\u2019re telling me that it was all nothing. \u00a0Nothing but Fate unrolling my life like a ball of yarn, right?\u00a0 I reject that notion.<\/p>\n Nocturnal reassured Dag that she was quite satisfied with having the Key returned, but that she should not misunderstand her own motivations. \u201cWe both know it has little to do with honor and oaths and loyalty.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about the reward.\u201d<\/p>\n Are you sure, Nocturnal? Dag thought. I don\u2019t need a Daedric prince to give me a reward. I can take what I want without too much trouble, or at least enough to make me satisfied.<\/p>\n Except for people. I can\u2019t just take people, I have to earn them, and thus far I haven\u2019t done tremendously well on that front in my life until now. The Guild has given me a chance to prove something to myself. No, Nocturnal. As tenuous as their hold on honor is in the Guild, it\u2019s there.\u00a0 They showed it in the way they rallied around Brynjolf when Mercer disappeared, when they thought Karliah and I were enemies, and then afterward when they found out we weren\u2019t.\u00a0 And that means something to me. That\u2019s why I killed Mercer.<\/em><\/p>\n Is it really?<\/em><\/p>\n Shut up, she thought. Nocturnal was speaking again.<\/p>\n \u201cDrink deep from the Ebonmere, for this is where the agent of Nocturnal is born.\u00a0 The agreement has been struck, the die has been cast, and your fate awaits you in the Evergloam.\u00a0 Farewell, Nightingale.\u00a0 And make sure the key stays in place next time, won\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n Nocturnal transformed into the ball of light Dag had seen once before, then disappeared.<\/p>\n \u201cShe seemed pleased,\u201d Karliah\u2019s voice spoke from behind her.<\/p>\n Dag whirled, startled.\u00a0 \u201cHow did you\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI saw the portal open in Nightingale Hall and knew you had succeeded in your task.\u00a0 And here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag was about to start complaining.\u00a0 How could she?\u00a0 She wouldn\u2019t come along for the dangerous part but popped in at the last moment?\u00a0 How could she? She had just opened her mouth to take a breath when a sound cut her short.<\/p>\n \u201cKarliah?\u201d<\/p>\n Gallus emerged from the shadows and walked forward.<\/p>\n \u201cGallus!\u201d\u00a0 There was so much in that one word, that one name. \u201cI thought I\u2019d never see you again.\u00a0 I was afraid you\u2019d become like the others.\u201d<\/p>\n Dag stepped back, hoping to dissolve into the shadows. The Key. It opened his access, too, so he could leave that room. I can\u2019t interrupt this moment, she thought.\u00a0 They\u2019ve waited so long.\u00a0 But Gallus turned and looked directly at her.<\/p>\n \u201cIf not for the actions of this Nightingale in returning the Key, your fears would have come to pass. She brings honor to us all.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanks to me?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Dag felt a wave of gratitude sweep over her. Thank you, Gallus, she thought, her eyes beginning to well up.\u00a0 You understand how difficult it all has been, even if Nocturnal does not.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat will you do now?\u201d Karliah asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNocturnal calls me to the Evergloam.\u00a0 My contract is complete. My debt has been paid, and now I can rest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWill I ever see you again, my love?\u201d Karliah\u2019s voice was steady, strong; but there was so much emotion in it, both longing and acceptance.\u00a0 Dag swallowed hard.\u00a0 How many times had she thought those same words but not been able to do so with acceptance and grace?<\/p>\n \u201cWhen your debt to Nocturnal has been paid, we will embrace once more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEyes open. Walk with the shadows,\u201d Karliah said, her voice overflowing with emotion.<\/p>\n \u201cGoodbye, Karliah.\u201d<\/p>\n Gallus looked at Karliah, a long, lingering gaze taking in everything that he could of her.\u00a0 Then he vanished.<\/p>\n Dag found herself wiping tears away.\u00a0 It just wasn\u2019t fair. She wasn\u2019t sure how Karliah was feeling, but it hurt her to her core.\u00a0 All of that time, all of that struggle, and they had only a few moments together.<\/p>\n Karliah stood staring at the Ebonmere.<\/p>\n Is she all right? Dag thought.\u00a0 Do I break this silence?\u00a0 What do I do now?<\/p>\n She stepped forward and spoke quietly. \u201cWhere did Gallus go?\u201d<\/p>\n Karliah turned to look at her.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has become one with the shadows. In death, he has become a part of what we all use, to live.\u201d<\/p>\n And then she began to explain.<\/p>\n The shadows, she said, were those who had come before and had returned to the Evergloam, and who were always with them. They were part of the darkness that surrounded them, a real and lasting part of it, who guided them, unseen, every day.<\/p>\n There was something infinitely comforting in that to Dag.\u00a0 That\u2019s what it is, she thought. \u201cEyes open and walk with the shadows\u201d didn\u2019t just mean \u201cbe a fortunate thief.\u201d It meant \u201cbe with all of us. Be part of us as we are a part of you. We will always be together.\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at Karliah with her heart rising up to her throat and thought again about Gallus. No, Karliah. Falling in love with him was not wrong, nor his falling in love with you.\u00a0 You\u2019re both part of the same thing, both a part of each other.\u00a0 It\u2019s not your fault that Mercer Frey existed in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n With every moment that passed, Dag felt more distressed. Mercer had managed to separate them for twenty five years, but he hadn\u2019t been able, in the end, to rip Karliah and Gallus apart. Watching Karliah at this moment was exquisitely painful and yet beautiful at the same time, and it pulled at her in ways she wasn\u2019t able to understand. Karliah was calm, peaceful. Why wasn\u2019t she?<\/p>\n Karliah explained that Dag would be called back to defend the Sepulcher if necessary, and showed her how to accept one of the three powers of Nocturnal: Stealth, Subterfuge or Strife.\u00a0 She thought about what Mercer had done in the cavern, and wondered whether, somehow, he had managed to tap into all three of the powers by using the Key. She didn\u2019t want either the power of subterfuge or strife after watching him.\u00a0 Those things were too dangerous. But she had watched him pop in and out of visibility while she\u2019d been chasing him.\u00a0 That power, now that was useful. She chose to become the Agent of Stealth.\u00a0 I need this one more, she thought. I can barely sneak well enough to save my own hide.<\/p>\n Dag stepped through the portal into the Sepulcher\u2019s entry hall, then walked slowly to the iron doors that let her out into Falkreath Hold.\u00a0 She blinked, her eyes watering; the sun had finally emerged.\u00a0 It was, for once, a beautiful day in the forests of Falkreath. Birds were celebrating, filling the air with sound.\u00a0 She could hear elk bugling off in the distance. The stream before the cave burbled and chuckled as it rushed down over the stones. The forest was alive. She was alive.\u00a0 So was Karliah.\u00a0 And so was Brynjolf.<\/p>\n It took her back to the moment when she had emerged from Bronze Water Cave, blinking, confused, still feeling the strength of Brynjolf\u2019s embrace.<\/p>\n Dag sat down and burst into tears.<\/p>\n It finally made sense.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just Karliah and Gallus she was crying for.<\/p>\n Her mind returned to the desperate moment when Mercer had promised to give Brynjolf her \u201cregards.\u201d That had been the moment when she should have known, but hadn\u2019t; and she had taken what felt like a lifetime to understand it. She again saw Brynjolf looming at the door of the Cistern, taking out his despair on her because she was the closest thing at hand and because\u2026 why? Because she was the bearer of bad tidings? \u00a0Could it have been more than that?<\/p>\n And then she saw him gently persuading her that she, not he, needed to be Guildmaster. She\u2019d accepted because of him. There hadn\u2019t been a single other compelling reason to do so.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t even wanted to be in the Guild, in the first place.<\/p>\n The Key really had reached into her and read what was there to be seen. It wasn\u2019t the Guild it had talked about to her, not at first.\u00a0 It was Brynjolf.<\/p>\n Brynjolf infuriated her.\u00a0 Everything about him had annoyed her, the way he brushed everything off with a snide comment, his bragging, his sneers, his \u2026 everything. He\u2019d done so from the instant she\u2019d met him. \u00a0On top of that, he was a dangerous man, a devious one, who dabbled in things she hated. He had an unfortunate relationship with Maven Black-Briar and, by extension, the Empire and the Dark Brotherhood, and she wasn\u2019t sure how she felt about that.\u00a0 He had done so many awful things.<\/p>\n But to Dag, he had been supportive.\u00a0 He had treated her like an equal when she was clearly not. He hadn\u2019t put his head together with Vex or Delvin, but with her. He had even suggested that she become his superior, in the Guild that was his life, when it was ridiculous to think such a thing.\u00a0 That meant that he trusted her. He considered her a friend, of that she was certain. He treated her like his partner.<\/p>\n And then she thought about his laughter. Sitting beside her at the Flagon.\u00a0 Teasing her about this thing or that. He certainly hadn\u2019t ever shown any sign of physical attraction to her, had he? For that matter, she didn\u2019t know whether he preferred women or men. She had no idea; there were rumors about Tonilia with Brynjolf, about Vex with Brynjolf, and the boys hovered around him like bees to honey, as well. Who knew? \u00a0She thought about his constant following her with his eyes. Maybe there was something there.\u00a0 Maybe?<\/p>\n Am I thinking about this clearly? Dag wondered. Is it just the intensity of the situation getting to me, the meeting a Daedric prince, nearly dying yet again, watching Gallus and Karliah be reunited ever so briefly?\u00a0 Will I go back to Riften and discover it\u2019s just business as usual?<\/p>\n Dag sighed, and thought once again about Bronze Water Cave, her mental cry to Brynjolf not to leave her alone.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the being alone part that had bothered her; she\u2019d had no problem with the notion of Karliah returning to Riften then. It was being without him<\/em> that had seemed like a gaping wound, the same way Mercer\u2019s comment in Snow Veil Sanctum had.<\/p>\n The last thing that had been on her mind was being involved with him.\u00a0 At least that had been her belief.\u00a0 She had actively wanted to not be involved with him.\u00a0 At least that\u2019s what she\u2019d thought.\u00a0 And yet against all reason, contrary to all common sense, and likely without any hope of reciprocation she had found herself tangled up with Brynjolf of Riften, head of the Thieves Guild in Skyrim; and, she realized with a sense almost of desperation, she wanted it to stay that way. She didn\u2019t want yet another important person to walk out of her life the way Coyle had, the way Roggi had.<\/p>\n Almost, Mercer. You almost succeeded. But you won\u2019t have the satisfaction from the grave of seeing us apart for decades as well, at least not if there is anything I can do about it.<\/em><\/p>\n I have to at least try, to see whether it is even a possibility.<\/em><\/p>\n She stood up, brushed off her Nightingale armor and started east, back to Riften.<\/p>\n Falkreath Hold was dark, and it was wet.\u00a0 As high up as it was, Dagnell thought, one would have expected it to be snowy, but no, it was just soggy, damp shades of brown and green. It was a thick, deep forest of spruce, fir, and pine, with a thick bed of fallen needles underfoot.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/1-2-21-1.png\")
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