Dishonored 1 -

He was shaking because for the first time since the Empress fell, he had chosen not to kill. And the mark on his hand had gone quiet, as if even the Outsider was watching to see what he would do next.

But Emily was listening. Somewhere in the next room, she was curled behind a locked door, hearing everything.

Corvo looked at his hands—the hands that had once held Jessamine as she died. The mark of the Outsider pulsed like a second heartbeat.

“Not tonight,” he said softly. “Tonight, we just leave.” dishonored 1

He could kill them. The Outsider’s mark itched. One swift possession into the guard outside. One Bend Time to freeze the twins mid-laugh. Their throats would open like red flowers, and no one would ever know.

Tonight, he was not here to tempt fate. He was here to save a princess.

Three months ago, he had been the Lord Protector, the Empress’s shadow and sword. He had watched Jessamine die on the floor of her own tower, her blood seeping between his fingers as her daughter, Emily, screamed. Then the usurper Burrows had thrown Corvo into Coldridge Prison, branded him a murderer, and left him to rot. He was shaking because for the first time

The Golden Cat was a silk-draped hell of perfumed vapors and captive women. Its patrons were nobles who paid in coin and cruelty. Corvo had learned their names from the Loyalists—Admiral Havelock, the spymaster Pendleton, the inventor Piero. They promised to restore Emily to the throne if Corvo did their bloody work. He didn’t trust them. But he trusted the Lord Regent even less.

He knelt, lifting her onto his hip the way he had when she was small enough to sit on his shoulders during state processions. “We’re going home,” he said.

He wasn’t. Not from cold. Not from fear. Somewhere in the next room, she was curled

She pulled back, eyes wide. “Can we kill them? The bad men?”

Emily squeezed his neck. “You’re shaking,” she said.

The rain over Dunwall had not let up for forty days. It fell in greasy sheets, washing blood and whale oil into the Wrenhaven River. Corvo Attano knelt in the shadow of a copper gargoyle, his masked face tilted toward the lamp-lit windows of the Golden Cat. Behind him, the city groaned—a dying beast choked by plague and the Lord Regent’s iron fist.

Corvo knew the truth the Loyalists had not yet learned: in Dunwall, mercy was a luxury. But so was vengeance. And he had not yet decided which one would cost him more.