‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ CHAPTER NINE ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
hael, athair daor

   THE VILLAGE HAD NOT changed as much as she thought it would have. A few more buildings had risen at the edges, homes for the new faces that had joined the clan in the years she had been gone. Drunken men loitered the streets, staggered from the warm tavern and towards their homes. The faces were all similar, their features not distinguishable from the other faces of men she had seen. 

   The only thing that stood from everything was the blue-green shields the guards held in their arms, the very same colour on their armours. Pride in their eyes even when they were drunk on mead. In the centre of the shields, the head of a white bear. The emblem came from a legend from a progenitor of Clan Tuirseach—Tyr, the second son of Hemdall and Heulyn. 

   To take the lands of An Skellig, the land promised to him by his father, he had to defeat the Yngvar, a powerful bear. No mortal had ever survived an encounter, so Tyr decided to properly prepare. He ventured into the deepest cave in Skellige and with the fire of the bowels of the earth as his furnace, he forged a blade so strong it could cut a hundred-year-old tree in one blow and not be dulled. Heulyn, his mother, engraved protective runes upon the hilt of the sword by the first light of dawn so that it would protect him from the bear's attacks. He defeated Yngvar. And Tyr became the first master of An Skellig. 

   His blood, the blood of gods, ran through her veins.

   Rennen stopped in the centre of the village, closed her eyes and allowed herself to get lost in the moment. She could see nothing, as if the moon and the stars had been smothered out with paint. Soft conversations from all around, laughter from the inside of the tavern with the deep voice of a skald at the very centre of it all. It moved carefully with the cold winds, a great mixture with the scent of the sea and the woods at the edges of the village and the burnt wood from the torches that illuminated the streets. 

   And in the centre of it all, something rotten.

   The assassin opened her eyes and moved through the shadows of the street, away from the village. Behind a small hill, covered by fallen tree trunks and big roots that had once made their home there, a passage to the small castle she had once called home. The opening a mouth, jagging rocks like teeth.

   She allowed herself to fall into the hole, her feet on a bed of dead leaves that had been there for countless years. It was silent. A distant drop of water against the rocks, the wind whistling between the few openings throughout the cave. All she could hear was her feet on the stone. 

   It had been an accident, the finding of the passage. From the castle to the hill behind it, long and straight and hidden behind wooden crates in a room used for storage. She imagined it had been made at the same time the castle had, an option in case another clan tried to claim the lands as theirs. It had not happened yet, for the clans of Skellige had always thought themselves close and were only wary of mainlanders. Ships and salt and pillaging was in their blood, created for them. 

   The opening to the storage room was small, an iron door that was in the beginning stages of rusting over. She pushed it open. A long creaking sound echoed through the storage room, and gooseskin rose on her skin as she took a step inside. Hay was scattered around on the floor, beneath and on top of the wooden crates to keep the storage dry. Barrels full of mead and wine were in one corner, barrels of salted fish and sacks of flour, rice, and sugar to another corner. The room was not crowded, enough for someone to walk between the barrels and sacks, but the scent was overbearing. 

   Old wood. Mead. Something sweet beneath something everything rotten, memories pulled apart from deep within. 

   In the blink of an eye, she was a child of twelve winters trying to warm her body with mouthfuls of wine she thought of as bitter and sour. She knew the drink was full of alcohol and caused the brain to fog over, but it was the only thing in the whole room that numbed the pain. A simple thing that allowed her to feel nothing. After she joined the Dark Brotherhood, the simple taste of bitter wine moved to the bloodshed and the arms of random people she met throughout the night. 

   Jaskier had been someone to numb the pain of everything, of a life she could have had if she had prayed to another goddess. 

   Rennen stepped out of the storage room and glanced around. The halls were empty except for the torches alight with dancing flames, shadows on the walls like bony hands reaching out to her with every step that she took. Her boots were the only sound of footsteps in the halls. For a moment, she thought there was another set of footsteps by hers, but it was only the beat of her heart trying its hardest to burst from her chest and fall at her feet like a lover falling to his knees. 

   A quick inhale of breath and she continued. 

   The door was just as she remembered, dark wood against grey stones and two torches at the sight that caused the light to dance with the shadows. She did not hear a sound come from the inside, she opened the door and waltzed in as if it were her own. Her feet had only stepped upon those stone floors only a handful of times, but in those handfuls of moments she was there she had tried her hardest to memorise everything. 

   The walls were covered in tapestries of wars between humans and ice giants; of her father and her Uncle Bran, the King of the Skellige Isles, slaying a dragon named Evren. Paintings of old temples full of colours from the Aen Siedhe elves, and their destructions upon the hands of humans; of the wild, blue sea with twin drakkars and the killings of sirens as if they were game that was in season. One wall was covered by a bookshelf, and that bookshelf was covered with books in the common tongue and Elder Speech; books about magic and monsters, of ballads and legends, of fauna and flora from the Continent. 

   Her fingers brushed against the leather spines of the books as she ambled through the room. Right in the centre, in front of the grand window, a wooden desk covered with closed books and letters strewn atop as if they had been discarded without care.  She plucked one of the letters from the pile and opened it to reveal an invitation from King Foltest of Temeria to celebrate the finding of his sole daughter, Adda. No mention of the mother. 

   She let the letter fall onto the table like a leaf during autumn and took a seat on the chair. Her feet lifted and laid atop the desk as she plucked yet another letter from the pile, her fingers skimming against the softness of the cream coloured paper. A familiar buzz. It was a letter from a sorceress in Aretuza, the words neat and tidy on the page as they claimed there was a sorceress that could take a druids spot in the Jarl's court because, as according to the letter, they were more knowledgeable in magic. A name was signed beneath all the words—Tissaia de Vries, Rectoress of Aretuza Mage. 

   Disgust clouded her features as she let the letter fall to the floor. Her fingers buzzed with the magic that was wrapped around the letter, the familiar fuzz as if her fingers had fallen asleep. She flexed her fingers, open and close over and over again as her eyes scanned the countless letters strewn on the table. The envelopes had disappeared, the sender unknown unless one reads the name signed. If there was a name. 

   She picked a letter from the bottom of the pile, the paper bent and frayed at the edges. The envelope was tucked inside. From Vizima. Her eyes scanned the letter:

Jarl Torgeir,
There have been sightings of Lady Rennen in Temeria. 
My man followed her from Nastrog in Verden to Vizima. She came to the city alone and stayed at The Shaggy Bear inn for less than a fortnight, leaving in the mornings to stroll through the city. There were days when she was accompanied by the minstrel Jaskier. The minstrel did not leave her side for much of the time they were together, yet I am still not sure about the nature of their relationship.
After she entered the inn on the tenth day, she never came out. We no longer know where Lady Rennen is, but we'll keep looking.

   There was no name signed at the bottom, no name on the envelope except the Jarl's. There was no trace of magic within the paper, no hidden message except her whereabouts from a couple of years back. She had been in Vizima for a contract, a pair of lovers on their wedding day who tortured a young boy for a mere gold pouch. The sight of the bruises on his skin made a simple decision come to the assassin's mind, to accept the contract and kill the pair of lovers with poison in their wine cups as they toasted to the rest of their lives. The poison acted slow, numbing their fingers and toes first until it swelled all the way to their tongue. And she had stood before them, watching as the poison tore them apart from the inside and stories left her mouth about people who torture children. Eyes wide with the pure fright of what came next, Rennen relished in the blood that left their mouths and the silent pleas with harsh breaths. 

   She crushed the letter in her palm as something surged inside of her. A bright warmth that began in the very centre of her chest, spread all around her until the warmth was at the tip of her tongue. 

   It burned. 

   The fire from the fireplace grew wider and hotter, to the point where sweat began to fall from her forehead. She turned her head to see that it was not the fireplace, but her hand. Her whole hand was warped in a flame, the paper in her palm ashes. It did not burn. Hot like a summer's day, but it did not burn her. 

   A breath left her mouth as she opened her hand and let the ashes fall to the floor, like snow. The flame died down until there was nothing left except soot. It stained her hand like the handprint of the Dark Brotherhood, a mark of pure power. 

   Chaos. 

────── ⚔ ──────

   Before the sun rose over the horizon, the first rays of the sun too scared to appear and brush out the stars, that the door opened. A slow creak, a soft thud as it closed, and the sound of footsteps as they made their way towards the dimming fire of the fireplace. They pushed kindling onto the fire, watched it grow bright and tall to warm the room.

   The man's face was haunting, with alpine cheeks and the eyes of a mourner. His mouth suggested both tenderness and cruelty, but she only knew the latter. His dark hair had hints of grey, obvious sign years had passed since they last saw each other.

   He inhaled deeply through his nose and turned to the desk. A stillness filled the air the moment their eyes met, the familiar tense of his shoulders and the way his hand reached for the hilt of the dagger at his side. His hand did not close around it, but it lingered for too long. "Who are you?" he asked, voice low and dangerous.

   Rennen moved the chair with her legs to face his direction and tapped her fingers against the arm. "You don't remember me?" Her voice was as soft as the wind, carried through the room until it reached him. A small and dangerous smile began to grow on her mouth.

   His shoulders tensed as if someone were pulling his arms behind him, his fingers flexed over the hilt of the dagger. "Rennen," he said. Her name on his mouth sounded like the snap of a wooden beam, unsure of something. He straightened himself and pulled back whatever emotion came through him, ambling to the front of his desk as he put both of his hands behind his back. "What are you doing here?"

   "Did you not want to see me?" She tilted her head to the side and stopped tapping her fingers, wrapping her hand around the end. "You had men tailing me in the mainland, thought you'd wanted to see me." She spread her arms to show herself. "You can call off your dogs, Father. Here I am!"

   Torgeir Tuirseach's lips became straight as he ambled to the desk and sat atop of it, on leg still on the floor. "There is a door you could have used," he said as he glanced down at the countless papers and books on his desk. He moved a few of them to the side, tried to put them in order without allowing himself to become too close to his daughter. "There is a guard that would have announced your arrival."

   "Where is the fun in that?" she asked, raising a brow at him.

   He hummed. "No fun, but order. There is an order when it comes to things, Rennen."

   "Order," she repeated with a nod. "Is there an order to having me followed?"

   He only watched her as he picked up the letters she had let fall to the floor. "Yes," he said.

   She scoffed. "Did you think I would wreak havoc all over the mainland?" The smile on her mouth died. "I haven't grown horns like a myrlapod or have died and become a wraith." She raised her hands and flexed her fingers, keeping her eyes on the way her skin bent over her bones. "So far, I am still human."

   Human. The way her hand had been swallowed by flames and she burnt the letter to ashes flashed in her mind. It didn't burn, but the recollection of it caused something hot to swirl around in her chest. Prodded and pulled and bent whatever was inside of her, wanting to be released. She would not let it. 

   Not now.

   He nodded. "I see now horns or no spectral essence," he said with a chuckle. He inhaled deeply and motioned her to stand with his hand. "If you do not mind, I do have to work."

   She glanced at the desk with all the papers strewn about and the single open book. It was in the middle of Elemental Empires by Gianbattista, a familiar book she had read through her time travelling through the mainland. The book was about genies and their elements which comprise their essence, each of the four planes or dimensions—Air, Water, Earth, and Fire—that were not accessible to mortals but by only the genies. Most that read the book wanted to know how the few and rare mages could bind genies and bend them to their will. 

   Torgeir closed the book and cleared his throat. "Don't you have somewhere to be, Rennen?" he asked. 

   She stood from the chair and ambled around the desk, just as his father did the same. "I am here, so I obviously don't have anything to do." She laid her hands on the desk and lean against it, facing him. "Why did you have men following me, Father?"

   He began to fix the scattered letters on the desk with lips set in a straight line and eyes that held no emotion behind them. "Can't a father be curious of the whereabouts of his daughter?" He looked up at her and arched a brow. 

   A soft chuckle left her mouth, but never a smile. A sneer appeared on her lips as she leaned in closer, close enough to see the same shade of brown in his eyes that she shared. "A father would not have his daughter be tortured at the hands of mages because he thinks she's a monster all because of the day she was born on," she said, low and careful. She did not blink or move but focused on every movement he made. 

   He stilled. A twitch of the fourth finger of his right hand. 

   "A father would have cared for his daughter," she continued, "not push them into leaving because they were afraid."

   He looked up at her, every emotion erased from his face. "I was not afraid," he said, slow and careful, "but I needed to know that you were not like what was prophesied."

   "Have I made river valleys fill with blood?" She stepped back and spread her arms, showing the human in her. If that was what she was. "And last time I looked in a mirror, I did not have a crown of gold upon my head. Has that changed? Pardon me, Father, I had not been able to look in a mirror in the past two weeks, so I don't know if my hair has changed colour with the sun and the sea." She picked up the strands of hair that fell over her shoulders and held them up. "No, I only see brown."

   Her father let out a huff. "Why don't you go get bathed and changed?" He continued to sort through his paperwork, lifted papers up to his eyes and set them in one of the two piles. "We can have breakfast as a family."

   "A family. . ." The word felt strange in her mouth, like the taste of gingerbread. She detested gingerbread. "Since when do you consider me family, Father? From what I remember, we never had breakfast as a family."

   "Then your memory seems to have degenerated since you left," he said without looking up. "It runs in the family. Your great-grandfather suffered through it."

   Rennen slammed her hands atop his desk, leaned her head close enough where she could smell the fir needle and bergamot soap he had used since she last could remember. Her mind swirled. 

   A quick flash, a small image of a moment where she had been in the centre of the table with her brothers at each of her sides and her father at the head. Her stepmother, dressed in a dress the colour of evergreens, sat at the other head of the table with a smile on her face as she spoke about something about the three children at the table. The words were there, left her mouth carefully and smoothly, but she did not know what they were. She could not remember them. But, the table. . . Had it truly happened?

   She sneered down at her father. 

   He did not react. Eyes set in a simple stare and mouth in a straight line, no emotion behind him. "Do you remember where your old rooms are?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "Do you need someone to show you where they are?"

    She clenched her teeth and swallowed back the fury that surged through her, the one that wanted to call forth whatever was inside of her. "I remember," she said through her teeth. 

   "Good." He took a deep breath and flexed his shoulders back, a soft crack echoed through the room. "You can get ready and be at breakfast in two hours."

   Rennen stepped back from the desk, continued to step back until she was at the door. It was only then she turned and walked out of the room, away from her father. She hurried down the halls and directed herself to the bedroom she remembered as hers. As a child, her bedroom had been full of red and gold embroidery because she thought the colours were romantic and full of life, a contrast to the dull stone walls. Dolls and clothes scattered around the floor, an unkempt bed with the blanket halfway down. There were a few spots of dried blood on the floor, a small and gentle reminder of what had happened to her even though her father had given her anything and everything.

   She opened the door to the bedroom she remembered as hers to see that nothing had been moved or replaced. The walls were still covered in red and gold embroideries, a blue-green shield in the centre of the wall with the head of a bear in the centre. The bed was in the centre was neatly made with the bedding a brilliant red that reminded her of all the blood she had spilt throughout the years since she left An Skellig, the four wooden post so tall they seemed to touch the ceiling. In the corner, right by the grand windows, the dolls were stacked on shelves and sat on the floor. A bookshelf to the other corner, full of the books she had been given as a child and trinkets her uncles had brought whenever they visited.

   Nothing had changed.