“Not in the mood to talk, huh?” Troy needled persistently.
“How’d you guess,” came Zane’s venomous retort.
“Fine,” Troy said in an offhand, casual tone, as if he was idly examining the cuticles on his flesh hand. “You can listen then, can’t ya?”
Refusing to respond, Zane looked through his scope again, noting the bandits milling around between the decrepit shacks and tents that made up their settlement.
There was a brief silence on the line that made the older man hopeful the Calypso brat had gotten bored and hung up.
Rolling his shoulders, Zane was about to take his first shot when he realized the line wasn’t dead.
It took a few moments for his ears to discern the sound of heavy breathing from the constant rush of wind whipping through the canyon.
“What are you-”
Zane’s mouth fell open as a soft, unmistakable sound of pleasure echoed in his ear.
“The fuck’re you doing?!” Zane hissed, trying to shrug off the shiver that spread from the nape of his neck down to his tailbone.
The Void was the beginning, and the end, of all things.
Daud knew this better than anyone.
The Outsider, that Black-Eyed Bastard, had started him on the path to becoming Dunwall’s most infamous assassin. And it was that gift, that mark, that would similarly determine his end.
All the penance in the world wouldn’t keep him from his fate, an eternity on a butcher’s block in this timeless, endless place.
As such, Daud was not surprised when one of the whales, the Deep Watchers, floated overhead when he opened his eyes. It was not his first time in The Void, nor would it be the last.
The only question was whether this was another dream, or if The Outsider had pulled him in for more hushed revelations and cryptic rambling.
The pull of that strange gravity, that energy which clawed impatiently at his very soul, led Daud to believe it was indeed the Black-Eyed Bastard in one of his moods.
Blinking across crumbling platforms under unseeing eyes of the Leviathans, Daud made his way toward that familiar force, the mark on the back of his hand burning brightly.
Prepared for thinly veiled jabs and the usual foretelling of his demise, Daud was unprepared for what he actually encountered.
His balance was perfect after landing the Blink that brought him to the platform. Another floating ledge, raised like an altar surrounded by broken shards, shimmering in the dull, cold light that permeated this dismal place.
But he was disoriented upon seeing he was not alone, and that it was not The Outsider waiting for him.
