Clouds that looked like clumps of dust swarmed the Throat of the World's peak, churning with lightning and spitting rain onto the plains below Whiterun. Vilkas was right again; he'd predicted the storm after she set down his ale and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, loosened in the rough Nordic wind.
"I doubt it," she'd said, and he sniffed at the air, looking none too pleased. "Will you be joining Farkas and me at the Mare tonight? Mikael and I are singing duets."
He scoffed and called Mikael a milk drinker.
"He has a fine voice," she insisted, trying to clasp some remainders of her patience. "Don't you like music?"
"I like music," he'd said, almost with a pout. "But I hate dancing."
She offered the only solution there was. "Then don't dance."
Vilkas rubbed his stubbly cheek, eyeing something in the pillar behind her. "You're certain Farkas is going?"
Harjid had nodded, and he resigned himself to something akin to the duties of a child's nurse.
"Uthgerd won't leave him alone if he goes, and I don't want to spend another Septim to bail him out for his drunken brawling."
As it was, Vilkas could do as he pleased. His presence would not hinder her voice, certainly, but she began to practice as soon as she closed her room door back at the Mare. Something delicious awaited in the promise of proving someone wrong, and Vilkas was certain she could not carry her voice over the rowdiness of Nords. He would never admit to being wrong, but his presence when she sang would be all the affirmation she needed.
He and his brother had come after her second song with Mikael, who believed himself more talented than she. Perhaps he was; she cared little one way or the other, but her bowl filled with coins more quickly, and four had come from the more approachable of the two Companions.
Mikael asked if he might entertain the room with a few solo performances, but she had met the eye of someone already, and so obliged. He sat within the storeroom and watched her suspiciously until she took the chair beside him.
"Delvin's doing well," she said nonchalantly, and Mallus Maccius leaned forward, his pale features brightened only as much as his smile could allow.
"You were the last person I thought! But I guess it makes sense, you have to have a cover, right?"
"You should announce it," she said, sipping her mead.
"Right. So it's pretty simple. I need my boss, Sabjorn, to go away."
Harjid pressed her lips together, but Mallus shook his head.
"No, I know Delvin is with the Guild now. By the Eight, I don't have the coin for the Brotherhood! But the Guild will do nicely." He explained the job, and it sounded a bit like the Guild was getting paid very well for something that Sabjorn's lackey should handle himself.
Harjid smiled as sweetly as she could manage. "Surely your employer thinks you capable of dealing with a few skeevers. And you handled them fine on the way in. I wonder what he'll say when you have a young lady come to flush them out."
"By all means," Mallus said, nodding at Vilkas just now sitting at the bar, "use one of your friends. I don't give a damn. I need this done tomorrow."
"Fine. Then what'll you give me for a few Dwemer dishes?"
Mallus leaned forward. "Really you should be going to a guy called Calcelmo. He's the court wizard over Markarth way. Eccentric old elf, collects all sorts of Dwarven junk. Hear talk he's opening a museum of it." Finally he winked. "He'll give you what it's worth."
She doubted whether someone who collected Dwemer artifacts would really be desperate enough to give her a good price on a few chipped plates, but she thanked him anyway and stood.
Vilkas was hunched over a drink and nodding every time Hulda raised her brows to offer another bottle. He had six empties when Harjid approached him, smiling through her trepidation.
"You must be nearing intoxication about now," she said carefully.
"Hardly," he drawled, sipping his newest. "Can anyone even hear you over his damn whistle?"
She laughed, leaning back against the bar with her elbows. "I haven't been singing! And it's called a flute, Companion. Of course, it's easier for me to be heard in Cyrodiil—the audience isn't nearly so drunk, but I guess they just don't need to be. Not in that province."
His eyes flickered up to the wall behind the bar. "Then why not go back?"
"Because your brother has given me seven drakes already."
Vilkas tutted, then looked past her at the mercenary woman in the corner. "She give anyone trouble before I got here?"
Harjid couldn't stop her grimace. "I'm afraid she doesn't hate anyone as much as you. She and I have that in common."
His lips stretched back on one side, and she was annoyed that it was almost handsome. "She killed one of ours, you know."
"I didn't know," she said, sitting beside him and leaning in to hear.
"Aye, a whelp. The one who joined before Jelani—he delivered those papers to you this morning." Vilkas downed number seven. "That boy couldn't have been sixteen."
Her eyes narrowed, and she stopped herself from looking over her shoulder at Uthgerd. "Who would send a child up against a woman like that?"
Vilkas kneaded his forehead.
"Why in Oblivion would you do something so stupid?" She hadn't meant to say that, but he certainly would've said the same thing.
His fist tightened on his ale until his scarred knuckles turned white. "Don't," he said, his chest heaving. "You wouldn't understand."
"Yes, I suppose you're right." She stood and shot Uthgerd a look as well. "You fighters are all the same. Glory is worth someone's death every time, isn't it? I'm sure Ysgramor would approve."
Vilkas' eyes flashed almost gold, and he looked like he wanted to hit her for a moment. He stood and flung his drink at the cupboard behind the bar, and the music stopped, and someone cursed behind them. He huffed and settled back onto his stool, and before long the music resumed. "Why don't you shove that thing up the talented end?" he called over his shoulder.
Mikael's playing faltered again, and Harjid rolled her eyes and stalked off to sit with Jon Battle-Born and Farkas.
"Is he alright?" Jon asked.
Farkas jumped in, brushing off his brother's outburst as a common occurrence as of quite recently.
Harjid nodded. "He told me about Uthgerd."
"No, that's not all of it," Farkas said. "It's a Companion thing. Just us in the Circle."
"Oh." Harjid hadn't realized there was another tier of exclusivity within their group.
"Yeah, it's me and my brother, then Aela and Skjor and Kodlak."
"I see," she said, though she really didn't. All the Companions looked fierce, and she was too green to judge which warrior bested another.
"What makes you more special, then?" said Jon.
"Can't tell," Farkas replied, and Harjid wondered whether he meant he didn't know or that it was confidential.
She couldn't keep herself from looking from Vilkas to Farkas and back again. Jon grew tired of the silence and busied himself with Hulda's Redguard server.
"How did you and your brother come to be Companions, Farkas?"
He smiled at her. "It was our father. Vilkas remembers him better, though. We've been here since we were pups."
"You grew up at Jorrvaskr."
"Yeah. Youngest to ever join and to be in the Circle."
"Is it a fancy ceremony?"
"Yeah."
"Did all of Whiterun attend?"
Farkas laughed. "Of course not. It's about blood, Harjid."
For the sake of glory, every time. "Blood, yes. I should have known."
"You know, you're real pretty."
Harjid started, and tore her eyes away from Farkas' brother. "Thank you."
"You're from Cyrodiil, huh?"
"I am. But my mother was a Nord."
"I can tell. You got light skin."
She nodded.
"You like it here?"
"Um—"
Vilkas had upended his stool when Mikael approached him, and everyone in the Bannered Mare fell silent.
"Are you some kind of animal?" Mikael spat, though his voice wavered.
Farkas darted over, stumbling on the bench across the fire and catching his brother mid-swing.
Harjid sprang over to Mikael and led him away from the seething Companion, whose number of empty bottles topped twelve already. "Don't do this," she said into his ear. "He could kill you with one hit."
Mikael pulled away from her once the door fell shut behind Vilkas and Farkas. She scoffed at his pride, certainly unearned, for his arms were little bigger than hers were.
Harjid bounced from step to step until she was on the landing before her room door, and as the patrons of the inn went about their revelry, she caught Mikael sliding out after the twins.
She couldn't contain her sigh, and considered—briefly—leaping off the balcony, but that was preposterous. At least for a bard. Harjid flew down the stairs and slipped out the back door, rounding the tavern as thunder sounded over the distant plains.
Farkas was arguing with his brother to little effect, and in the lights from the Bannered Mare, Mikael heaved up his lute to throw it, and before it hit Vilkas, Harjid pushed him into Farkas and yelped when it cracked against her shoulder.
Before Harjid felt the full force of her fall, Vilkas was upright again and rounding on Mikael, holding him up by the shirt. "No, stop! Vilkas! Don't!"
She was too late for the second hit, but before he'd landed a third, he turned to find her on the ground and released Mikael, Farkas already trying to pull her up.
"Go inside," she told Mikael, who wiped at the blood gushing from his nose.
When the three of them were alone together, Vilkas picked up the lute—or, the pieces of it. "He could have killed you."
"He was trying to kill you," she snapped.
"Why did you get in the way, Harjid?"
"No, Farkas—go home."
With a reassuring look at Harjid, he obeyed his brother, sauntering up the steps and out of sight.
Vilkas pulled her over to the lights, which flickered dangerously in the wind of the coming storm. "Why did you get in the way?"
Harjid's arms tingled when he lifted her hair from her throbbing shoulder blade. She hadn't realized it had come undone in her tumble, but for the moment, she was glad.
"Answer me."
When Vilkas was angry, all she wanted to do was refuse him, but she was sure it was the worst idea she'd ever had. "He didn't earn your outburst tonight. I did. I play games with people who are too serious, and it's my fault that you took it out on him, just like it's my fault he in turn became livid with you."
She felt the air that passed through his lips on her back, and she managed to stifle a shudder as he tapped her shoulder.
"I'll have to see it inside."
"No, I don't want you to see him anymore tonight."
Vilkas clutched her wrist. "Jorrvaskr," he growled.
He was going too fast for her, she realized with annoyance. Her legs were twitching from the adrenaline, and her arms trembled all the way to her fingers.
"Please," she blurted, and he stopped to look at her. "I'm feeling very weak."
Drops of rain began to splatter against the cobbles, and Vilkas looked up at the storm, his eyes glowing. "I could carry you," he said more gently than she'd expected.
"N-no, I'll make it. Just don't take my wrist again."
Vilkas nodded and guided her in front of him with a hand at the small of her back. She struggled up the steps, but he waited for her, and once they'd crested the landing, he rushed to open a door for her.
Inside, a woman her size was brawling with one of the Dark Elf warriors, and cheers went round the hall.
Vilkas pressed a hand to her uninjured shoulder, leading her up to a staircase that descended into the private quarters of Jorrvaskr. Some old man hooted at Vilkas, asking how he'd managed to catch the bard girl, but Farkas told him to shut up, and that was the last of the commotion she could hear.
"Was that his ax?"
"Excuse me?" said Vilkas.
"The ax. Was it the one used by Ysgramor?"
"Oh. Aye, as many shards as we've been able to find."
The hallway looked too long to walk, and she wondered if she should take him up on his offer to carry her, but he turned into a wing on the right and welcomed her into a bedroom. Vilkas lit the candles on a wooden table and set one over a bed hidden by a screen. Harjid caught herself on a dresser when her legs buckled, and she meant to protest when he folded the screen to the wall and wrapped an arm around her waist to guide her onto his bed.
"You're not drunk at all."
He quirked a brow at her as he helped her down. "Why would I be drunk?"
Harjid laughed shallowly as she began unlacing the vest over her frock, but she winced as her back protested with the stretch of her muscles. "Twelve bottles of ale is considered a lot. I beg your pardon, but . . ."
Vilkas nodded once, unlacing her vest as she pulled her hair to her uninjured shoulder again. He stood behind her, and she held her breath for his diagnosis.
"You're bleeding beneath the skin."
She nodded, air escaping her pursed lips. "I've a knife in my room at the M—"
"Mine will do. You should lie down."
Harjid asked him to help her with the dress, but he said the back of it was low enough. "But I don't want to bloody it."
"I have linen," he promised.
"You should at least shut the door."
"No." He adjusted her legs once she leaned forward so he could sit beside her properly. He sniffed; the rain swelled until it competed with the rowdiness upstairs.
The blade opened her skin where the pressure was most painful, and she hissed.
"I'm hurting you."
Harjid managed another weak laugh. "It'll be worth it. It's already feeling better." He didn't answer, but she could feel the blood pooling against a cloth. "The nerves are worse," she assured him. "I avoid confrontations like that. Always."
He tutted.
"Confrontations of a physical nature," she amended.
"Smart for a girl your size."
"That woman upstairs seemed fearsome enough."
"She has more words than scars," Vilkas scoffed.
"But she doesn't turn into a nervous mess if she has to punch someone." She felt him sit up, though the linen he'd pressed to her cut was quickly being soaked through.
Vilkas stood to close the door. "Then why did you do it?"
Because I'm going to hire you in the morning. "You were there to keep Farkas in line. And it wasn't fair of me to push you over it."
"Aye, but a man can't let his temper be ruled by others. And maybe I wanted to hit someone."
"Then it should've been me."
"Someone who could take it," he stressed. "Now I'm spending my night treating a wound instead of snoring with a hand that wouldn't have been sore until morning."
She made to sit up, but he told her no. "Stay down, missy. I wouldn't have slept, anyway."
"Despite the eldershade draft on your table?"
"In my experience," Vilkas said, wetting and wringing out the cloth, "only two kinds of people are as observant as you."
She couldn't stop the grin he couldn't even see. "You'll be sore if I don't ask what those types are, won't you?"
"I'm of little political import, so you must not be an agent. And I have valuable possessions, but I keep on my person. And you couldn't pull them off me, anyway. Even if you were as eager to throw a punch as Njada."
"So I must be a thief?"
"Aye, but a bloody awful one. You fancy gold more than most bards I've encountered."
"You do too."
"Aye, that I do." Vilkas dropped the cloth into the bowl and pulled a glass jar out of the top drawer. "It might leave a scar, but it'll heal prettier if you use this."
"Are you suggesting I apply it myself?" Harjid held her vest against her front as she sat up.
"You could ask Hulda."
She rolled her eyes and turned her back to him. "But you and I've grown so close over these past few hours."
Vilkas stalked back over to her and popped off the lid, dabbing at her raw cut delicately but with a rough finger.
Harjid's eyes closed, and a satisfied little hum escaped her. "Thank you."
He grunted in some positive-sounding way and stepped back. "You can sleep here tonight."
She turned round and watched him unfasten his gorget. "Are you so eager to be friends?"
"I don't sleep anymore," he grumbled, tossing his pauldrons in the corner.
"But what if I decide your armor really is worth stealing?"
He unclipped his cuirass and drew it off, his loose undershirt lifting above his navel as he did. "Then I'll give you that bruise you say I owe you."
"Careful," she said as Vilkas tightened the laces of his breeches, "I may learn to like it by then."
"Vile creature." He opened the door.
"Vilkas?"
He pushed it back open and leaned in from the darkness of the hall. "Yeah?"
"You were right. He was trying to drown me out with his flute."
"What did I tell you?" He muttered something about a milk drinker and a whistle. "Good night."
Harjid smirked, drawing the flute out of where she'd hidden it in her boot and setting it on Vilkas' shelf.