Chapter Text
Why did he spare us?
We turned iron to his skin, bathed golden by heat, and laughed as he held back screams. We threw him into the dirtiest cell, once inhabited by a man turned Weeper; he glared at us, the Royal Protector, a man renowned for feats unheard of until his existence. We cackled and devoured food and drink in front of him to taunt him, but still, those eyes pierced us.
We thought we were in the right, for Campbell had claimed himself a witness to the death of our fair Empress; it was unfathomable, to think that the most loyal man in the Empire had betrayed someone as kindhearted as she. So, in our collective anger, we lashed out at him, again, and again, and again, but he never spoke a word, only shaking his head when we asked why he'd killed Her; we thought he was simply declining to tell us, but we were wrong, so wrong.
When he escaped, he could have easily slit our throats and be done with it, he could have snapped our necks, or any number of things, but he didn't.
He spared us, only taking action against us when necessary, and even then, he put us to sleep, we were at his mercy, as he was at ours, but he didn't burn us, or lock us away.
Did he somehow know that some of us had wives, even children? Did Corvo know that some of us had no choice but to join the Watch, that we were but urchins whose only hope at life was to embrace cruelty?
With eyes like his, dark, intense, and sharp as a blade, he must have seen something of worth, or were we of so little worth that he did not think us to be trouble? He never spoke of what had transpired, even when pressed; as he stood beside young Emily's throne, it was as if he was wearing some sort of mask, as impenetrable as steel, and as firm as if the grip of Death himself held at his face.
This man, this specter, had spared us.