#the loyalists

When the boat hit the shore right in front of the Hounds Pit Pub the jolt sent lightning through his limbs and Corvo couldn't bite back the grunt that forced itself from his throat. Samuel glanced back at him with concern, but didn't speak up. Corvo was glad for it. He didn't think he could choke out an intelligible response, much less a reassuring one. His wounds were still aching, his leg cramping, and his lungs were burning faintly. He tried not to think of anything else, the aching was easier. Samuel tied the Amaranth to the peer and Corvo dragged himself up from the bottom of the boat.

For a moment he simply stood and breathed as the world did its best to tilt off its axis. Once he no longer felt like something was about to give, be it him or the ground, he gingerly stepped off the boat, slowly and deliberately, no flinching or wavering. No one here needed to know just how much of a disaster the mission had been. Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton were reliable allies, but they were in a precarious situation. A coup, even a counter coup, was dangerous business, and one that didn't allow for decency and empathy. He didn't blame them for it. Politics left no room for good men at the best of times, a lesson he'd learnt quickly and violently upon his arrival in Dunwall. (Not quickly enough.) Cecilia and Lydia for that exact reason did not deserve to be dragged so far into it, to be ruined along with him. Neither did Wallace, for all his grating behaviour. And Emily... Emily should have never had to see what she already had seen. He couldn't- he hadn't been able to protect her from that. He'd failed. But at least he wouldn't add onto it. Emily would never know just how much the last months had cost him if he had any say in it, or at least not until she was much older. For her he would brave whatever terrors the world could throw at him, would suffer through any pain and horror without flinching, to give her at least this little bit of stability in a world gone mad. And right now that meant ignoring the persisting aching throughout his body and the gaping, crippling grief sinking through his limbs like lead. He could break apart later. Much later. Preferably when Emily would be 45, with children of her own and a long, stable tenure as Empress behind her and he himself dead in the ground.

Distantly he wondered if he would be allowed to be buried near the pavillion. If he deserved even that.

Slowly and as securely as he could manage he made his way towards the pub. He left the mask behind where he'd thrown it. He wouldn't need it anymore anyway. From Piero's workshop he could hear a strange whirring, interrupted by the occasional curse, tyvian for some reason. Though it did remind him that he still had to have a word with the Admiral about freeing Sokolov, today and before going to bed. He hadn't argued too hard about keeping him in the cage for the time being, though he had asked Cecilia to make sure he received enough food and water and a warm blanket. The mission had time sensitive, and Sokolov had been disgruntled but nothing worse. That he had made sure of. A lance of pain shot through his leg and Corvo grimaced. Yes, he would have a word with the Admiral about not keeping the inventor locked up unnecessarily, if only to not alienate his considerable support, but he would keep out of it himself if at all possible. The Royal Physician had a habit of poking where he shouldn't, if Sokolov saw him now Corvo would not get to sleep for hours more.

The Heart pulsed once against his chest and Corvo's breath hitched. He steeled his shoulders and ignored it, did his best to push back against the concern almost radiating from it.

(She couldn't make him anymore. If he thought about it more he would end up on the floor again.)

One step after the other he reached the door to the pub and stumbled over the threshold as his foot caught on the sill. A firm hand on his bicep stopped him from planting his face into the floor for the fourth time that day.

Samuel patiently waited for him to right himself, his hand hovering for a moment even after letting go. Corvo took another breath, not quite as deep as he would have liked when his chest ached from the pressure, and walked on, not looking back. He couldn't take another look of concern right now. This moment he couldn't be Corvo Attano, grieving- he couldn't be. He had to be the Royal Protector, the Masked Felon as the wanted posters called him now, if necessary. Competent, efficient, and an untouchable wall between Emily and all who would do her harm.

When he finally fully stepped into the Pub's serving room he didn't turn around, didn't flinch when the room's oppressive warmth nearly choked him again, nor when Havelock caught sight of him and started over with all the subtlety of a navy man on a mission.

"Ah, Corvo! Congratulations are in order! You've done an outstanding job as always, and finally it will all pay off. There will be plenty of work tomorrow, but tonight we celebrate, what do you say? Go on then, everyone is already waiting and I'm sure you'll want a word with the Empress before the governess takes her to bed." Havelock, gruff and commanding as always, didn't give him the opportunity to answer and instead stepped past him, immediately moving his focus to Samuel. Corvo took it as a blessing, though his chest twinged a bit with guilt. Havelock was a lot to deal with at the best of times, and judging by the gleam in his eyes he wasn't at all perturbed by Corvo's unorthodox departure from their plans. But then Havelock usually didn't bother with the servants in the first place, so perhaps he'd finally recognized at least Samuel's worth in their mission. Perhaps Sokolov could wait for at least another night. He'd be... He'd be fine. For the night.

And Havelock certainly wasn't wrong about one thing, Corvo did need to talk with Emily. Just to- just to see. Make sure. Know for certain that she was safe, while Burrow's desperate ramblings about Jessamine's death still hallowed through his bones.

So he left both Havelock and Samuel behind, stepping further into the room. Vaguely he noted that Havelock's 'everyone' seemed to once again exclude Cecilia, Lydia, and Wallace, but there wasn't enough left of him right now to even be disappointed .Tomorrow he would have a word with them, make sure they were well compensated. Even aside from any ethical concerns, it wouldn't do to breed resentment in their ranks. Emily didn't need another knife to the back.

Pendleton and Martin were conversing at the bar. Martin barely glanced at Corvo before furrowing his brows with something that might have been displeasure. Or maybe disapproval. Discontent. Something like it. Either way he simply nodded towards Corvo, curt but polite, and quickly drew Pendleton's attention again before the noble could do more than quickly greet Corvo himself.

Gratitude softened something in Corvo's chest, soothed the deep aches spreading through his body just enough to make slipping past the bar not quite as exhausting anymore. Out of all the leading Loyalists he found Martin to be the most approachable. Perhaps it was their chaotic meeting, the man's own humble origins, if Corvo had interpreted J- the Heart's cryptic messages correctly, or perhaps it was simply a trait of character, but where conversations with Pendleton and Havelock often felt more like listening to a speech in parliament, Martin seemed more interested in actual conversations.

It did not escape Corvo that the man he trusted the most was deliberately failing his job when it came to him.

For a man of the Abbey Martin had proven remarkably willing to overlook the black magic and mark Corvo had unthinkingly flaunted at Holger Square, still unused to the new skills and dazed by his sudden freedom. Martin had barely raised an eyebrow, and even later at the Hounds Pit Pub had only remarked on it once, implying a promise of silence. Corvo knew that at a later date he would have to address it, figure out just how far Martin was willing to deviate from the morals of the Abbey, if not his own, for the sake of his ambitions, but for now Campbell's black book and the promised seat of the High Overseer would keep him busy enough.

At the other side of the room, in the same booth as always, Emily sat with a page of paper and her scavenged crayons, intensely scribbling away at her new drawing, while Callista watched over her. Waiting for him. Relief flooded his veins and made his steps just a touch lighter, even as he reminded himself that she was safe here, that Burrows had not killed her, had not harmed her enough to break her.

When Emily spotted him she hopped up in her seat excitedly, crayons forgotten, and made as if to jump towards him, before Callista gently tugged her down again. It made his heart ache to see his brave, smart little firebrand pout at being tempered, though he knew Callista as nothing but kind if too strict for Emily's tastes. It was an old ache, one he'd first confessed to Jessamine in a quiet moment of intimacy before Emily had even been born, that feeling of loss at knowing that- their child would never quite know the freedoms of his own brief childhood. Jessamine had said nothing for a long while, simply stroked his hair in silence, his head on her swollen belly. Those little freedoms they had been able to afford her were gone as well now, stolen by the knife that had killed her mother and about to be smothered by the throne that had done no less.

Corvo managed to get exactly as far as the booth before his knees gave out and he slumped onto the bench, only to suddenly find himself with an armful of Emily, who didn't seem to take issue with the fact that he was still thoroughly damp.

"Corvo! I'm so glad you're back!" Her arms wrapped around him as tightly as she could with her ten year old might, her face shoved into his chest. Mindful of his own state he carefully laid his own arms around her shoulders, torn between wanting to hold her close just as tightly and trying not to dirty her delicate white suit even more. She'd need it tomorrow.

After a few moments she lifted her head, though her grip didn't loosen, and looked up at him with wide, wet eyes that showed far too much inner conflict for her age. "Are we- are we going home now?"

That question broke him more than anything else, the look in her eyes that betrayed it as anything but the innocent desire of a child. For there was no home for them to return to, not truly. Not when- not with Jessamine gone, with half the city dead and the other untrustworthy. Not with the Tower forever ruined by what had happened and would no doubt still happen.

He pulled Emily close, giving up any hope of keeping her clean. She buried her face in his throat, his nose in her hair. The moment took an eternity and yet not nearly long enough.

It was ended by Callista quietly clearing her throat. When Corvo glanced up she was still intently busying herself with her needlework, but in the meantime it seemed Havelock had finished whatever his business with Samuel had been and had joined Martin and Pendleton at the bar, each with a drink in their hand. Corvo kept his back to them, shielding her from view, as he slowly let go of Emily and gently pried himself out of her grip. Somehow it hurt even more that she resisted for only a moment before relenting, when six months ago she would have clung to him until- until Jessamine would have pulled her off.

Corvo hoped his smile didn't look as heartbroken as it felt, desperately forced onto his face at the sight of his far too knowing little empress brushing off her clothes and straightening her back. Acting on a sudden impulse, the burning need for just a little bit of normalcy, he lifted his hand and ruffled her hair. Dragging out his time he pulled her close by the neck and pressed a kiss onto her head, trying to ignore the way it smelled of river water and brine, instead of Jessamine's favourite hair oil.

"Tomorrow we'll go home," he rasped quietly into her hair. It hurt to even mumble, his throat still sore and abused, but Emily's slight nod and seeking pressure against his lips was well worth it.

Eventually, as it always happened, he pulled away, once again the Royal Protector to the Empress. No matter that she was now tiny and afraid, that he'd failed already, that he desperately wanted nothing more than to grab her and leave. If not out of Dunwall, then at least out of the room, somewhere quiet where she could draw her pictures for a few hours, label them with terms of affection that didn't need to be hidden for fear of destabilizing her already precarious position.

Corvo pushed himself out of the booth, keeping a hand on the table because it was less embarrassing than falling on his face. Callista packed away her needlework in a pouch on her belt, got up herself and gently took Emily's hand, who looked up to him with doleful eyes but obediently followed her governess out of the room. Corvo watched her leave, his feet rooted firmly to the ground, and took just a bit of pleasure from ber refusal to follow Callista's example of curtseying to the three men at the bar before leaving. Once they were gone, off to put Emily to bed now that she'd seen him return (and he'd seen her alive, he wasn't a fool, he knew they could see his desperation as much as he tried to stay reasonable), Corvo finally turned to the council of Loyalists, putting all energy he had left into trying not to slouch. He simply had to do his duty of looking pretty for a few moments, as Jessamine had phrased, make his political contribution to the celebration, and then he could go to sleep for at least three hours. Maybe check in on Emily again before he keeled over entirely.

Havelock handed him a glass of whiskey that had sat on the counter, but it was Pendleton who spoke first, a strange nervous gleam in his eyes. Unsurprising really, the man was not brave by nature, though he clearly fought to overcome that hindrance for their mission. Admirable, for all the man's other faults.

"Damn me, he's done it! Word is spreading all over the city. The tyranny is over. By this time tomorrow Emily will be on the throne. After that we'll clear your name and put everything we've got into rebuilding the city." Corvo felt like the brittle comb he'd tried to drag through his tangled and ruined hair after he'd first dragged himself into consciousness here at the pub. This proclamation was the knot that finally broke off the fragile teeth. It wasn't an altogether unpleasant sensation. It was a giving of tension, the tearing of the strings keeping him upright and running. It was assurance that it really was done, even if not quite as as anyone had been planning, as much as it was the pain of knowing deep in his bones that now he'd have to learn to live without Jessamine. Actually live, not drag himself from day to day just to survive.

The sudden knowledge made his head hurt enough he nearly missed Havelock's interjection. "I wish there were more of a city to rule. Most of Dunwall is rats and corpses." Pragmatic and dark as ever, Corvo found it difficult to appreciate it in the moment. All he could do was suppress the shiver that threatened to knock the whiskey glass out of his hand and focus beyond all the dead, pale, faces with bleeding eyes that haunted his nightmares during the rare moments Jessamine's mangled body didn't fill his entire mind.

Havelock held his glass in loose, relaxed fingers, his demeanour conveying about as much gravity as if dinner had been served cold.

Pendleton didn't take it to heart. "The Admiral's right I'm afraid, Corvo, you did your job while the rest of us sat on our asses. Our work starts tomorrow." Corvo's work would never be over, not as long as Emily was still alive and he wasn't yet blank bones under the earth, but that was a distinction that would be pointless to try and explain to them, so Corvo didn't bother.

If anyone noticed Corvo spacing out more and more they didn't acknowledge it.

"Tonight, rest easy. Tomorrow we crown an Empress." Where Pendleton sounded mildly nervous, Havelock only portrayed grim determination, even when trying to be gentle. Like a soft breath brushing against the shell of his ear he could almost hear Jess mirthfully chuckling about how it was no wonder that he never found a wife.

A drop of whiskey dripped onto his hand,  warm and sticky, and it took him another few seconds to realize that his hand was shaking hard enough to spill it.

Havelock seemed to finally take pity on him and raised his glass in toast, eyebrows slightly more furrowed than before. "To Corvo! The man who served to change the course of history!" Corvo gazed down into his glass, whiskey lapping against the sides, rippling unevenly, and wondered just how much he'd really changed about this course of history. Not enough. Never enough. He'd never cared about such grand notions, he'd only ever served two people in his adult life. He'd failed both of them, and one died for it.

Martin's voice ripped him out of his head before his numbing fingers could lose grip on his glass entirely.

"To Emily Kaldwin, and the new dawn rising for the Empire." The man raised his glass and looked him straight in the eyes, something unreadable on his face. Corvo couldn't bring up the energy to care to try. Let the three have their grandiose ambitions for the night. All the damage they could do for now was to themselves if they wanted to get drunk on their prospects. Tomorrow would be enough to start wrangling them into something productive.

And until then... Until then, drinking to Emily was something he could agree to.

He raised his glass with them, as everyone else in the room echoed the toast. As everyone else started sipping the whiskey he simply threw it all back.

It was bad manners, and he almost thought- he almost thought he could feel the Heart pulse once, twice against his ribs. Jessamine would have scolded him for it.

His throat constricted and burnt. He blamed it on the whiskey.

Thankfully with this it seemed the others considered his contribution to be made. Pendleton and Havelock turned to each other, apparently continuing whatever conversation they'd been having before he returned. Something about reopening trade routes. Martin was the only one to give Corvo a short nod before directing his attention to the bar. What for when the man's glass was still nearly full, was anyone's guess but Corvo's, who was only glad to be off the hook.

Corvo cleared his throat and grimaced, the persistent ache only getting worse from the friction.

His fingers finally went numb enough he couldn't feel the glass anymore, and so he set it down on the bar counter, leaving a wet stain where his sleeve touched the wood. A few seconds of steeling himself and a deep, shaky breath later, he started making his way to the stairwell. No one paid him any mind, as it always had been.

Every creak of the old wooden boards beneath his boots made his head throb as if it was a pistol shot.

He'd just... He'd just check in on Emily again. Make sure she was alright and could sleep. And then he would go pass out on the bunk in the attic.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to force his foot to lift and step onto the stairs, and when he finally succeeded his ankle sent fire up his leg. Corvo hissed, and immediately regretted it when that too felt like it was ripping tears into his throat.

He barely managed three steps before the world suddenly tilted out from under him and he crashed into the wall, sending lightning arching through his limbs.

Once he reached the second floor, quietly panting and only not rubbing his new bruises because he couldn't dredge up the energy to lift his hands, he had to concede that he wouldn't be able to safely cross the bridge to Emily's little tower. Emily wouldn't... Wouldn't benefit from him tumbling off the bridge in a spell of exhausted dizziness and breaking his neck. She would be fine if he... If he went to sleep first.

He rounded the corner to the next staircase and had to stop to cling to the railing when his vision went white and he nearly started retching from the nausea. He tasted copper for his efforts. After a few moments he was able to tell up from down again and hauled himself further, one hand clutching the railing, despite his shoulder screaming at the angle. Better the needles in his neck, no matter how painful, than stumbling over his own two feet and falling when he couldn't be sure he'd be able to get up again afterwards.

His fingers spasmed against the wood.

By the third floor his breath only came in short, pained gasps, the hallway seemed to stretch to impossible length, and Corvo knew something was wrong. Even injured, tired, and wrung out as he was. He hadn't been this bad after Coldridge, or at any point in it. Getting shot in the chest during an attack on four year old Emily had been less crippling.

Someone was stabbing an arch pylon into his brain and melting it from the inside out.

He knew his limits, thought he knew his limits, and yet he was sweating like he'd run the entire way from the tower, while cold shivers wreaked his body. An infection was possible, likely even, but even that shouldn't have been able to take him apart so quickly. He should have... He should have had time...

By the fourth floor Corvo couldn't see the ground in front of himself anymore, stumbling along blindly by instinct alone. His hands  had gone entirely numb, felt alien to his body, like two blocks of icy granite strapped to the  burning bloodfly nest his flesh had become. Pain drowned him so thoroughly there was no thought of reasons anymore, only the all-consuming, burning agony that refused to release him, and the vague knowledge that he needed- he needed to get somewhere... Somewhere close... It was important, it was i-

A floorboard in front of the attic room was uneven.

Corvo's ankle rolled and his beaten, broken body gave out entirely. He fell with a thump he couldn't hear through the shock of agony slamming through him at the impact, taking all consciousness with it and blackness swallowed him in an almost blissful nothingness.

There was no waking for Corvo, only the awareness of agony twisting his insides, that may have been with him for an eternity, hours, minutes or seconds. Pressure started building in his chest, beyond the fire burning through his veins, building and building until something small blipped through the wall of torment encasing his mind. The need to *breathe*.

Almost against his will oxygen rushed into his lungs and doused them in flaming whale oil anew.

*He whimpered.*

A hand closed over his mouth. Another pressed against the side of his throat.

Despite the pain paralysing his limbs and smothering his thoughts there was just a bit of Corvo's mind left to panic at the touch. He wanted to *fight*, rip himself away from the hands threatening to take away his breath again, he needed to *get up*, *run*, **fight**, he had to-

He managed a weak twitch of the finger, a success immediately punished by excruciating agony pulsing through his core.

Any pathetic, crumpled sound he might have made was swallowed by the hand pressed onto his mouth.

After a moment, or an eternity, the hands hesitantly loosened. It did nothing to abate the agony, but even the effort to whimper seemed insurmountable. The faint light shining through his eyelids rammed a sword through his eyesockets.

The voice that suddenly cut through the suffocating blanket of torment, sharp and authoritative, replaced the burning fire in his chest with no less searing ice.

"Samuel, you move like you've been drinking. Did the poison work its magic? Is he dead?" The voice was- familiar. The agony allowed no concrete thoughts, no name to surface in his mind, but vague recognition made it through. Not that it made anything about this more comprehensible.

Another voice, nasally, nervous, and again familiar.

"It better have worked, it cost me a month's profit." No, that wasn't- It-

A wave of pain and nausea rolled over him, violently dragged him under and ripped into his organs, tearing at his flesh and bones and sinew until he wanted to scream.

As if sensing his terror and suffering the hand was back on his mouth, pressing him down with no hope to even twitch.

The next voice was much closer, gruff but soft and somehow much, much more painful.

"Yessir, I believe Corvo has breathed his last, just as you wanted." It sounded... almost directed at Corvo. Pointed. As if the voice wanted him to know. Was it... Was it true? Was he dead already? Because the voices... had wanted him to be? Was this agony his punishment for- for-

Something pulsed in his chest. Against his chest? Not pain, but... Grief?

No. No he couldn't- he couldn't be dead yet. There was- Emily. He couldn't die just yet, no matter what the voices wanted. And she- she wouldn't want him to. Deep in his bones, beneath pain and agony was the knowledge that *she* wouldn't want him to, even when he couldn't focus enough to remember her name.

If he wasn't dead then the voice was lying. Lying for him. Protecting him? That... Made sense and yet didn't.

Another surge of lightning through his veins and ripped the thought from his mind and straight into the void.

"You've done a fine job then." Somewhere, very, very deep in his mind, a well trained instinct had Corvo recognize the sentence as a threat and wanted to draw his blade. The vast majority of him battled to expand his lungs enough to draw in even a sliver of air.

"Remember, we need the body. If we come forward with the corpse of the man who murdered the Empress, we'll be greeted as heroes." The Emp- Jessamine. Jessamine, Emily, they wanted to- He had to-

The hand on his face pressed down, not nearly hard enough to break through the agony consuming everything else, but more than enough to pin him down.

"Yes, it'll grant us legitimacy. We'll be the men who rescued Emily and brought down the Lord Regent and his Assassin. You'll see to the body, won't you, Samuel?" The body... The body was him. Wasn't it.

How fitting that panic would be the thing to finally break through the blinding wall of pain, when it had been the only thing keeping him going the last six months. The- The Outsider had to be enjoying the irony.

Between his brain insisting that he should be running, fighting, battling his way out, his body shutting down more and more, and the hand pressed onto his mouth, the pressure in his chest was starting to mount again...

"Yessir." The voice came to him like through a tunnel, echoy and fuzzy, as his vision faded out, even as his heart was hammering in his chest, as if it was trying to stave off death just a moment longer.

When his brain next saw fit to grant Corvo a moment of consciousness his lungs were burning slightly less. Hands were tugging on him, pulling him... Up? After a moment, or two or three or perhaps a thousand, fighting the nausea and disorientation, he managed enough lucidity to notice that someone had heaved him into a sitting position, his back against the wall. It... Made breathing slightly easier.

Emboldened by his newfound at least partial clarity he attempted to pry his eyes open. His success was moderate, but with effort equivalent to climbing up the entire tower in the middle of winter he managed to gain some hazy vision from hooded eyes. Blurred colours and vague outlines only, but it was better than completely blind helplessness. Even if the sudden visual stimulation made his stomach roil and churn all the more.

The hands stopped pulling on him. Instead one pressed his shoulder against the wall while the other almost gently lifted his chin. The closeness made his skin crawl, and he felt the cold dampness of Coldridge seeping into his bones, but the mere act of forcing his eyes open had sapped his strength, leaving him helpless once again to any steel reinforced boots about to kick in his ribs.

"You back with me, Corvo?" A voice- Samuel's voice, right in front of him, while the vaguely brown blur in front of him moved slightly.

Corvo tried to answer, to agree, to ask what was happening, but instead only a tortured whine crawled up his throat.

The pressure on his shoulder softened a bit, not that it mattered. His veins were filled with fire, his bones with lead, and his skin was melting off his bubbling flesh.

"I'm sorry something terrible, Corvo. But I only gave you half the poison. They were watching me, and it was all I could think to do. I think you're strong enough to survive that." Half... Half the poison. Samuel poisoned him. The whiskey. Because the Loyalists forced him to. Because he had to die for their ambitions. And now Corvo was being boiled alive in his own blood.

His eyes grew hot and vision even more hazy, from something that had nothing to do with the poison. Air became scarce again as his throat closed up and shaky breath grew rapid.

His vision darkened as the pain rose to drown him again, even as he fought to stay conscious, to drag himself away from the brink that led to the sea of flaming whale oil raging through his body and mulching his insides. He couldn't- he couldn't give in, couldn't succumb, he had to- Emily...

Lightening shot through him once more, thoroughly dissolving the thought and didn't even do him the favour of cauterizing his nerves. Instead they were set alight in agony so all-consuming he would have been screaming had he had control over his body. Instead he went entirely slack, boneless, eyelids drooping over unfocused fever-bright eyes.

The hands briefly hesitated, before once again grabbing at him. The pressure through his body rose, dragged at him with the weight of a whale while the world swayed like a boat being tossed around the waves. After a few moments Corvo dimly recognized that Samuel had slung him partially over his shoulder and was carrying him... Somewhere.

As if the man had heard Corvo's disjointed rambling impressions Samuel started muttering again, quiet and strained and absent, as if he wasn't expecting Corvo to hear him anyway.

"I'll put you on a raft and then I've got to ship out myself before they find out I've gone against their wishes. Snakes. They'll want to do the same to me as soon as I've outlived my uses. Hopefully you'll wake up soon and find your way out of this cursed city." The thought of leaving, that Samuel thought he might leave, seemed so entirely nonsensical the mere notion  was quickly washed away by the next flare of nausea and pain.

Time passed at once like a lightning strike and as if it was being dragged through honey while he dangled off Samuel's shoulder. It wasn't entirely dissimilar to drifting through the void, except in the void he'd never felt pain. He didn't know if it simply was or if the Outsider made it so, but after Coldridge the Void provided the only escape from his never healing bruises and scrapes. ...And worse.

His eyes fell shut entirely somewhere along the way, though he had no way of telling if it was for seconds, minutes, hours or centuries. The only timeframe that mattered was the time in-between waves of agony pulsing through his being, ripping away what little sense he still had until only the pain remained.

Until a scream ripped through the mind-numbing pattern. A familiar scream.

Suddenly every reason why he couldn't simply hang here roared back into his mind with all the vengeance he'd failed to enact himself.

It was Emily's scream, the same as- as six months ago, desperate and scared.

Somehow, somewhere, in the abused mess of flesh and bones that still pretended to be his body he found another spark of energy, and with more violence than he'd managed to make himself commit against anyone else since his escape he forced it to the surface, pulled on his muscles to yank himself to his own feet. To Emily. To stop whatever had her screaming like this, to protect her from- from the situation he'd put her in. Again.

Retribution came immediately.

Agony surged through every fiber of his being and his muscles, stiff and unsuble just seconds before, started spasming without his control, every involuntary twitch cause of yet another lightning strike along his spine.

His vision whited out and consciousness fled from the unbearable onslaught before he could feel the shock of his body hitting the ground when Samuel failed to gently lower him down. Nor could he feel the boatman's frantic hands trying to save a condemned man from the death other men had decided for him, while his daughter, just around the corner, was once again dragged away from the body of her parent. Not the river's indifferent splashing, nor the leviathan's voice, unaging like the whale song, muttering to itself.