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She bites her lips. She clenches her teeth when she nearly tears the flesh of her mouth apart. But finally, finally, when the pain and the injustice brim over, she screams. And it is not a scream of helplessness; it is a scream of absolute, white-hot fury that ought to turn the world to ashes. It is the only confession they get out of her, and burn her tongue out of spite.
The real world remains oblivious to the oncoming tempest brewing ever mightier within that abused, fragile frame. The flesh and the metal and the stone do not see the wildfire. But the Void ripples underneath and over. The Void shivers in anticipation. It laps at the Outsider’s senses when the manacles first clasp around the human’s wrists, and it is enough to pique her interest and pull black eyes to the shadows of Coldridge. She would have pulled Corvo into her realm either way. Her magnificent rage will, however, be a pure delight to watch.
Corvo knows.
She knows everything. The guard shifts, the layout of the prison, the pathways she could take to escape unnoticed. The guards themselves. She knows her abilities. She knows her determination.
They have been warned to keep a close eye on her. To keep her shackled, locked up, always under control. Subdued, with pain or fatigue. Even poison, the few times someone more creative than the Royal Interrogator had a go at her.
They shouldn’t have fucking fueled her anger. Shouldn’t have mocked her with cruel tales of Emily’s fate. Corvo would’ve gladly succumbed to her fate and let them kill her after all she lived for was ripped from her hands with the blade under Jessamine’s ribs. But there was one more soul she had to protect; one more gentle face left in this world that she must see safe and happy. And their barbs - whether true or not - gave her all the reason she needed to fight tooth and nail to get out.
In the end, the key from the Loyalists wasn’t even necessary. She considers not using it out of spite, but it saves her the trouble of breaking her wrists to get out of the manacles; her hands are already almost useless after the torturer broke her fingers for the joy of hearing them snap.
She is silent as she crawls behind the guards’ backs. It’s been six months since her body went through a day without some sort of abuse; it’s been even longer since she last had a proper meal. Oh, she would take out several guards in a fight before they brought her down, but there is nothing to be gained from the ruckus; she needs her strength for the challenges beyond the prison gate, and, lastly, it is not these guards’ blood that she is out for. She doesn’t take the cleaver left for her in the corridor.
The bomb is inelegant. Corvo chokes out the guards and fusses about the room, looking around for a different path, but the explosive does, indeed, seem to be the only way out.
She dashes through the smoke before anyone can gather their wits and plunges into the water under the bridge. It feels ironic that her first moments of freedom are marked with suffocation after most of her air escapes her with the gasp of pain when she hits the surface.
The water pulls her down. Its soothing indifference almost lulls her into surrender.
Find Emily, a small voice whispers in the back of her head.
She kicks and flails, and emerges with a gasp she cannot suppress. The air feels almost nutritious after the stench of her own unwashed body and burnt flesh. She can barely drag herself into the stinking maw of the sewers, but that is where she must go. To survive. To save Emily.
With clenched teeth, she makes her way through the damp passages, unnoticed.
There is a grizzled boatman waiting by the outflow, as the letter promised. Corvo approaches him, trying hard to stay upright, but the calm and collected posture of a Royal Protector that she tries to emulate was destroyed with the torturer’s irons and knives. It shouldn’t be so surprising when the man pulls a pistol out of nowhere and levels it at her face before a flash of bewildered recognition shows in his eyes.
“Lady Corvo...? Those bastards. You look worse than a weeper, if you’ll pardon my reaction.” He hides the weapon and holds a hand out to her. “Get in the boat, please. Let's go somewhere safe.”
Corvo grunts in thanks and nearly passes out once she can rest her head against the board.
The Loyalists are exactly what she’s expected. She pays no mind to the incredulity on their faces when she assures them with a deadpan nod that she will carry out her mission. Their stares are dubious when they size her up. A small mercy, for they would be lecherous if the torn, dirty clothing on her revealed something other than scars, burns, and ribs outlined under filthy skin. I look the part of death herself. Do not fear for me; fear me, she wants to tell them, but she merely smiles, feeling the unhealed burn on the corner of her lips stretch. The effect is the same.
They let her bathe afterwards, with Lydia and Cecelia fussing about until Corvo undresses. It is at that point that Lydia excuses herself, the pleasant facade cracking when the scars appear from under the rags. The other servant is left alone with the task of helping Corvo wash off the grime. The silence is heavy, and Corvo ends up laying a gentle hand on Cecelia’s to take the sponge and let the girl know that she doesn’t need to endure the sight of her ruined body.
She leaves with a grateful nod, promising to be within earshot should Corvo need anything else. She offers the girl a small smile and is relieved to see that it was taken for what it was, despite Corvo’s ghoulish face.
Kindness feels strange.
She leaves the water dark brown with all the grime she’s washed off. She dries herself, perplexed with how bright her skin is - ashen and pink and mapped with scars. The pain is the same, but she finally feels free.
A small, blackened mirror on the wall reflects her face when she leans close. Corvo drags a hand through her hair. They shaved it off when she was first imprisoned, but now it hangs in wet streaks around her ears and jaw. However carefully she washes it, it will never be as luscious as it had been before, when Jessamine would comb it and rub her favourite oils into Corvo’s scalp.
Just another thing taken from her by cold, greedy men.
The bed in the attic is marginally less uncomfortable than the cot in Coldridge. It smells of laundry, at least, and not blood and sweat, and the trace of decay on the air is negligible. Corvo falls asleep with the practiced ease of someone who’s learned to rest whenever they can.
What wakes her up is not the unearthly not-light streaming in through the other room, nor the strange chill. She jolts upright and cannot understand what is so strange about the world suddenly. It tastes almost like happier times.
She gets out of the bed and understands. The infinite cacophony of pain has been shut out. Her body is silent. Even in her dark and disjointed dreams in Coldridge, she was always hurting. It feels divine to swallow without jarring the burn that has rendered her tongue useless and to breathe without disturbing the broken ribs. Stepping outside, she learns her body anew. She cannot help the tears of relief that well up on her lashes and fall upwards. A thankful offering to nothingness.
The expanse of the Void makes her head swim. There aren’t words in any language she knows for what she perceives when she gazes off the shreds of the world and into the distant pool of cold glare below. Here, the beautiful and the grotesque of reality are merged into a strangely elegant jigsaw that has her marveling.
“Hello, Corvo.”
Blood stops flowing for a split second in Corvo’s veins. But no, it is not Jessamine that condenses into a material form in front of her, and an old wound opens anew in her heart.
She doesn’t weep. The time for weeping has passed, and she hasn’t shed a tear where her wardens and torturers could see it.
Once Corvo swallows her grief, she cannot help but stare. There is a god in front of her; there is no preparing for an event like that. Looking at the creature is exactly like looking at the Void; terrifying, thrilling, addictive. The Outsider takes a moment to stare back. Something like a smirk curls in one corner of her lips. Corvo shivers, because she knows she is being scrutinized on far more than just the visual level. The deity’s palpable presence mere steps from her is nothing she’d have ever expected, but it couldn’t possibly be anything else. The moment feels like exactly what Corvo’s life has been leading up to. It is not a comfortable thought.
What am I doing here , she wants to ask, but her tongue still doesn’t cooperate. Every mercy has its limits, she concludes as the deity speaks.
“Your life has taken a turn, has it not? The Empress is dead, her precious daughter Emily is lost somewhere in the city, and you will play a pivotal role in the days to come.” There is a promise in the tone that Corvo is afraid to hear. The hairs on her bare forearms bristle, but there is no escaping the Outsider’s grace. The Mark is burned into the skin of her hand and the magic floods her blood, the intrusion unwelcome and jarring, yet strangely exhilarating. Corvo gasps, momentarily drunk with sensation.
“Come find me,” the Outsider challenges. Corvo doesn’t miss the gleam in the black eyes that would appear playful on a human. On the deity, it is puzzling.
Black-eyed bastard, she curses silently. She cannot turn down help in her current situation, but where the Loyalists entail an entirely manageable complication of political nature, the Outsider is a wild card. Corvo mulls over this development for a while. How to predict the consequences of the chaos god’s favour?
The Mark glows faintly, irritating the skin and stirring the magic woven into Corvo. A cue. She steps towards the edge of the platform she is stranded on and looks into the familiar gazebo with an even more familiar figure strewn on the ground in a pool of her blood. The mere sight sets fire to Corvo’s rage again. Jessamine is dead because of machinations of men lesser than her. If it takes supernatural aid to bring them down, so fucking be it. Corvo warps the space around her in a new instinct and zooms across the distance. Magic bends to her will eagerly, feeding on her anger. Power surges and crackles in her veins with the emotions that the sight of the fallen Empress evokes. YOU CANNOT SAVE HER, reads the note discarded on the stone. I will yet make the world right again, counters Corvo, willing her thoughts to project across the Void without sound. Somewhere in the distance, a leviathan hums in satisfaction, a whalesong of anticipation. Corvo follows.
More scenes, frozen in nothingness. Emily, struggling against two nobles. Corvo knows their faces. The Pendletons. I wonder what Treavor knows about that. Hiram Burrows, leaning over a map of Dunwall. Corvo’s fists clench. She jumps onto the table and aims a kick at his head, hoping to give the real man at least a headache. I will see you soon enough, rat. Armored guards elevated high on metal stilts, terrorizing citizens. What have you done to Dunwall, Burrows? How does it feel to feed chaos at every turn?
She is stopped in her tracks when another blink brings her to a passage in a wall that might lead to a noble’s garden in the real world. Here, a veil of darkness sweeps across it, and the Outsider materializes again, drawing Corvo’s vision with an almost-physical tug at her chin. It feels infuriatingly patronizing and she purses her lips, keen to show her apprehension. The mischievous spark is back in the black eyes, and this time there is no mistaking it for anything else. The deity is enjoying herself already.
And then she gives Corvo the Heart.
The gift is bizarre. Corvo’s mind tries and fails to wrap around the object - the being? - that pulses in her hand. It connects to the magic flowing inside her now, subtly enriching her perception of the world, pointing like a compass to a rune somewhere nearby. With a tentative prod to the link, Corvo asks about the Void.
This place is the end of all things. And the beginning.
The voice -
It cannot be.
It cannot be anything else.
“No,” she cries. A soft, broken noise. Her knees hit the unreal cobblestone and she cradles the Heart to her own chest.
A tear slides up the side of her face and disappears overhead.
Corvo doesn’t know if the feeling she’s drowning in is regret or relief.
Eventually, she takes note of the sensation of being observed, and feels entirely too vulnerable for comfort. She gathers herself up and follows the directions of the Heart. She doesn’t dare ask for more explanations of the nature of the Void.
The rune sings to her when she draws near. Its call nibbles on Corvo’s consciousness in a rather grating manner, and sends the strangest jolt through her body once she takes the artifact into her hands. It speaks of potential, promising sight and strength, coaxing her to take its power. Corvo accepts its gift of vitality; she needs it desperately. The rune thrums for the last time, its melody settling into Corvo’s own bones, and it disappears in a swirl of black smoke.
The Outsider is there again.
“How you use what I have given you falls upon you, as it has to the others before you.” Corvo wants to speak, but doesn’t find anything to say. It doesn’t seem like she will not get another chance, however. There is an indulgent smile playing on the Outsider’s lips as she says, “I return you to your world, but know that I will be watching - with great interest.”
After that, reality crashes into her with renewed intensity of every ache and pain in her body. Was all this a dream? No; she feels healthier, no longer crippled and beyond repair. And in her left hand, the Heart lays as real as anything, a soft stream of magic humming between it and the Mark. It should be disturbing, but Corvo feels inexplicably comforted by its weight in her palm.
“Thank you,” she mouths into the darkness.
The whale song of expectation echoes in the night.