Kara almost prayed for the next month of Morning Star to arrive. Her year had not gone well. Upon returning to the Dawnguard, she'd found Serana gone. Nobody would say where, though she was sure somebody knew. Isran was openly hostile towards her and she indulged herself in dangling him out high above the foyer before leaving. She couldn't see herself getting a warm reception on a return visit.
Which meant that as the year two hundred and eleven of the fourth era came closer, Kara looked back on hollow times. Mostly alone, she had crisscrossed Skyrim, seeking out bandits, twisted necromancers, and whatever other evils she could. She eliminated them all and received nothing in return.
The beginning of the new year found Kara in the Rift. She'd found a small hut that it seemed had once belonged to an alchemist, and was busy making it habitable. It wasn't much east, really, from Vile's shrine—and she was reasonably sure that her shared meal with Waylas had been somewhere nearby. She remembered that night clearly, even two years later, and often found herself thinking if the Redguard hunter was still out there, taking the world as it came, or if one of the many dangers of Skyrim had found her. Kara, at least, was trying to do something about those dangers. As much as she could, without attracting attention.
She'd kept track of the days, and so was waiting inside when Clavicus Vile appeared, just after midnight. She sat on the bed in the moonlight coming through the window, summoning and dispelling her sword over and over—which had become something of a habit in recent months.
When Vile appeared he looked like an Imperial man. Dressed in a long blue robe, his hair was shoulder-length and black, held back by his long forehead horns. He looked around the hut, always smiling.
"Keeping yourself busy, I see," he said.
Kara halted in her habitual sword-cycle with the sword in hand.
"Who d'you want me to kill this time?" she asked.
"Why Kara," said Vile, "are you accusing me of being predictable? I'm cut ever so deep." Yet his smile remained.
Kara ran them off on her fingers. "Kill the bandits who stole the Masque. Kill the vampires in the shrine. Kill the Vigilants who captured Edwin—"
"Ah," said Vile. "I told you to rescue Edwin. Achieving that by killing his captors was entirely your decision."
Kara flinched. "There was no other way they'd let him go."
Vile shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not." He paused and folded his arms. "By the way, dear Edwin was most put out with you. He had to roll around the snow for an hour before he could get free."
Kara grinned, then quickly quashed it when she noticed it matched Vile's. She didn't want to share anything with him. She certainly didn't want to start adopting his mannerisms.
"You still haven't said who I'm killing this time," she said.
"So hasty," he said. "Before we get to that, I have another deal for you. I see how much you've been enjoying your new sword—its original owner is very shaken by its loss."
Kara shrugged. "If they want it back, they can take it up with me," she said. Less bravado and more a deadened acceptance of her curse, now. "What's the new deal?"
"A set of armour," said Vile. "Gleaming, glorious armour. As easily to don as your sword is to draw. Impenetrable by blades or magic. And all I ask in return is for the strength that I gave you."
"No," said Kara, too quickly.
"Would you care to reconsider?" asked Vile, still smiling.
Kara shook her head. Her strength had seen her through many a fight, and though her skills had improved greatly over the last year, she found now that even though she could probably manage without it, she was reluctant to let it go. And she hated herself for it.
"Very well," said Vile. "I was planning a simple task for you, something that wouldn't have taken more than a day or two. But if you cannot bring yourself to accept a brilliant deal when it is offered, then I will find other ways to occupy your time."
Kara stood, sword still in hand. She wondered what would happen if she took a swing at the daedric prince. He wasn't really in the mortal realm, she guessed, but her sword had its own connections to Oblivion. She hesitated. If Vile could read her thoughts in her face, he made no mention of it.
"Travel to every Hold capital," he said. "Kill one person from each. When the city has walls, the death must occur within the walls. That should keep you busy."
"What?" said Kara. She waved a hand at her uncovered scars. "I'm pretty fucking noticeable here, they'll have my description in every city after the first."
"I imagine so," said Vile. "A challenge for you, then." He vanished.
Kara spat at the place where he'd been. The challenge, she thought, was how to avoid spending most of the month in prison with cities still remaining on her list. Vile had never told her outright what the consequences were for failing in his orders. But her nightmares had a specificity to their horrors that she knew couldn't be a coincidence.
The time constraint was going to weigh on her mind. She dismissed her sword and quickly filled a pack. Just food, really, but more importantly, its presence made her to appear more like a genuine traveller. She crammed her fur hat down over her scarred scalp. She'd kept her hair short for reasons she couldn't properly articulate. The fact that it was winter made the hat less conspicuous, and she'd long discounted a hood as too suspicious.
She left the alchemist's hut without looking around. She wished then she hadn't traded away her speed. Still, she began to make tracks towards the nearest city: Riften.
Kara decided to go through the north gate into Riften. Though the south gate was lesser-used, it was precisely because of that she thought she'd be more remembered if she went through there. It was still a couple of hours until dawn, however, which made her arrival more noticeable than she would have liked. Still, it couldn't be helped. She had a deadline to stick to.
The guards on duty both took long hard looks at her as she stood waiting to be admitted.
"What brings you to Riften?" asked the first guard.
"Business," said Kara. True enough.
"What sort of the business?"
"Got a friend here who owes me some money," she said. The second guard laughed and the first one thumped twice on the gate. It began to open inwards.
"Good luck with that in this town," they said, waving her through.
Kara wandered the quiet walkways and alleys of Riften. More than once she thought she saw a moving shadow at the edge of her vision, but when she turned, there was nothing. At first she tried not to think of what she had to do, pretending she was just a traveller seeking a bed for the night, or some work to get them enough coin to see them to the next town. But then her weary bones reminded her of her curse. Who to kill in Riften? It would be best to make it quick and move on. There was no way of knowing what sort of complications could arise in the other cities.
A guard was too tricky. They were well-equipped, and she didn't have time to learn their patrols. The Thieves Guild held a tight grip on Riften, or so she'd heard. She had a . . . an acquaintance in their ranks, a Khajiit called Dar'epha. But it had been years since they had seen each other's faces, and they had never been close. Perhaps everybody who'd known her once, before her deal with Vile, thought she was dead. Kara couldn't decide whether she preferred it that way or not.
She found herself descending to the lower walkways. A dangerous place to wander alone at night. Kara trod the wooden boards as quietly as she could, examining doors and poking her head into corners. Dark water just a hand's width or three below her, and shadows staking their claims all around. In a nook that led to a bolted gate, she found a sleeping figure. Dirty and dressed in rags, she labelled him as a beggar. Every large city seemed to have one. This one was a Nord, elderly with white hair retreating across his scalp.
He came awake as Kara watched him and darted back, only to clang into the gate. She hoped the noise wouldn't attract the guards as she extended her palms and moved closer.
"Come to stare at the dirty beggar, have you?" he spat. His movements were slow and he wrapped his arms across his chest against the cold. Kara crouched within reach of his leg and stared into his face. She wondered how she was supposed to feel on such an occasion. She had killed many times before, but this . . .
"Have you nowhere to sleep?" she asked.
"Does it fuckin look like it?" he said. "They kicked me out of Beggar's Row. Said I was gettin too friendly with the women. I ask ya—man tries to show a little compassion for a woman's situation, and all he gets is kicked out from under the only roof he's got!"
Kara nodded, her decision made. She supposed she should be thankful. He could have been one of those saintly beggars she'd heard about.
"I understand," she said.
"You do?" asked the beggar, his face lighting up. "Everybody else just looks down their fuckin nose at me."
"If you'd like," said Kara, "I could have a word with them, see if they'd let you back in."
"Why would you do that?" asked the beggar, instantly suspicious. "What d'you want from me?"
"Nothing," said Kara. She swung her pack off her back. "Here, I might even have some food for you." She took out a piece of honeycomb the size of her fist, wrapped in hide to stop it sticking to everything else. The beggar's eyes went wide. He snatched it from her hand and had half of it down before Kara had her hand back in her pack for her knife. She stayed crouched and watched the beggar finish his meal.
He was licking his fingers when she said, "I'm sorry."
She pulled the knife from her pack and used her free gloved hand against the beggar's mouth, pinning him to the wall. She swiftly cut his throat and kept her hand pressed on his mouth until after his struggles ceased. Afterwards she found herself cleaning the knife on his ragged bedding and pulling off her gloves to wash her hands in the dirty water outside. No guards appeared, either further along the boards or from above.
Kara stared at the corpse for a long time. She knew she should linger in Riften for a while longer, make her ruse for being there seem more legitimate, to deflect suspicion away. But the more she stared, the more she wanted to be on her way. She shouldered her pack and resisted the urge to summon her sword there and away again.
She went out by the south gate and took a wide loop east around the city walls. She kept out of sight of the guards on the north gate, not wanting to be asked about her imaginary stingy friend. The faintest hint of dawn was edging over the mountains in the east as she set her sights northward. Habit made her drift off the road, but she pulled herself back. No time to take her wilderness detours, not when she had so far to go until her old home city: Windhelm.