Kara jolted awake. The first surprise was that she'd slept at all. The second was that there was someone thumping on the door. Karita was already swinging her legs out from the bed. Kara joined her and they both threw most of their clothes on. Karita looked at Kara for a moment before opening the door. A man in Imperial Legion armour stood there, at least two guards behind him.

"What is it, Horik?" asked Karita.

"Sorry to wake you so early, Karita," said Horik. He looked into the room. "But we have to take your friend there along to the jail."

"What?" said Karita. "Why?"

Karita was thrust back against the wall as the two guards entered. They both had their hands on their swords, though with the room cramped as it was there would have been barely room to swing them.

"Won't get any trouble from me," said Kara. One death in town was more than enough.

"Guess you're smarted than you look," said Horik.

Kara had to laugh at that. She reached back towards the bed and everybody else tensed. She found her hat and pulled it down over her scalp.

"Time to face the Jarl's justice," said one of the guards, shoving her out of the room.

They took what little she had and left her in the cell in ragged sleeveless prison-issue robe and boots. She'd always wondered how they managed to always get them just the same level of ragged every time. The scars up her arms had drawn a few looks from the guards. She hadn't asked why they'd arrested her, and maybe they'd taken that as an admission of guilt. Nobody said anything, either way. She lay on the bedroll and thought she might at least get a few day's rest. She'd rather not ruin their cell on her way out, either.

She didn't know long she stared at the ceiling and drifted in and out of dreams. Eventually she was brought back to her broken reality by the sound of someone calling her name. She turned her head the slightest amount to see Karita, one of the bard's hands resting on the bars.

"They're trying to pin Leigelf's murder on you," she said, "but I told them you were with me all night. Which is true." She glared at the guard on duty. "They always try to pin anything bad on the nearest outsider."

A familiar attitude. If there was a reason for Kara to be held in suspicion in Riften or Winterhold, that would be it. There were more voices and the next time she looked over, it was Horik standing there.

"Don't know how you got Karita to stick up for you," he said. "But it doesn't matter. You're wanted down in Windhelm for a different murder anyway. We'll get moving tomorrow, do the handover at the border."

Kara snorted at the dances the holds of Skyrim were forced to do around each other. Clashes of personality and old tensions from the civil war meant that intrusions by guards onto another hold's land could often be construed as hostile actions, leading to threats of cut-off trade and other sanctions. She returned to her inner torment.

She was lucky, she supposed, that the fall she'd taken from the College bridge in Winterhold hadn't done any more damage to her face. But there was now a wide scar across her lower back and a smaller one on the back of her head, where a chunk of ice had tried to stop her entry into the dark water. She'd blacked out and woken up who-knew how much later, spewing bits of the Sea of Ghosts from her lungs.

In the morning the guards came and she let them tie her hands in front of her with rough rope. She was led into the cold and south out of town. A few of the townspeople stood on their porches to watch her go, Jarl Brina included. Kara smiled at her—she'd done the woman a favour, after all. She didn't see Karita anywhere, and felt there might be a blessing in that.

Horik led the party of three guards down through the Pale. The border was somewhere near the Nightgate Inn, Kara thought, but that was too far back east for her. As much as she'd recognised something admirable in Okan-Zaw, she had no desire to spend any time in Windhelm jail, her true identity laid bare for all the city.

She kept silent as they walked, resisting the urge to shiver. At least the snow had stopped falling. Horik kept his hand on his sword the entire way, experienced eyes scanning the road and the wilderness around them. Though what hair he had was grey, Kara reckoned him at being more than passable on the field of battle.

The road trended east after a time and Kara shifted her wrists under the ropes. Tied well enough, but they were no match for her curse. She waited until the south road to Whiterun came into view. The border of that hold were just a short way further, she knew, and Horik would have all sorts of diplomatic trouble on his hands were he to cross that border with three armed guards in tow. There was a Whiterun guard post not too far south, as well.

"Didn't tie these very well, did you," said Kara. She pretended like she was trying to wiggle her way free, reaching her fingers back to pick at the knot.

"Keep moving," said one of the guards, pushing her in the back.

Kara snapped the ropes and ran south. There were shouts and the sound of swords being drawn behind her. With her speed traded away, Kara could only sprint at her regular pace. But with her captors weighed down by armour and mortal limits of endurance, she could leave them well behind.

By the time Kara reached the city of Whiterun, she was cursing Clavicus Vile with every other breath. She stopped in front of the stables and threw up whatever dregs had managed to hang around in her stomach. The guards at the gate looked at each other as she staggered up and she had a momentary flash of fear that her description had reached here too, that she would have to scale the walls, force her way through the gates. Or more troubling, that they simply wouldn't let her in because of her appearance.

Vile had turned her into a beggar with ropemarks on her wrists, fleeing in rags across the wilds with no place to call home, an increasing amount of people on her tail, and nothing she could claim as her own but a cursed sword.

"What in Oblivion happened to you?" asked one of the guards.

Kara fought back a choking laugh. Her voice seemed raw and cracked. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said.

The other guard thumped on the gates. "Get yourself to the Temple of Kynareth," he said. "They'll feed you, maybe find you some new clothes."

"Thanks," she managed to say. She headed up the path into Whiterun, straight ahead rather than to the left and the temple. She paused at the well and drew up a bucketful, knowing she was drawing looks from all sides. The sun was still high in the sky and many were in the market doing business. She drank deep of the cool water.

A large Nord came up to her. She recognised him, though he seemed not to know her. Sinmir, a Stormcloak sympathiser who'd been lined up for commander of the guard if the rebels had taken the city. She wondered how he'd managed to live for so long with someone else at the helm of the only job he'd ever wanted. Sinmir wore battered iron armour without a helmet, an unnecessary affectation within the city, and had a greataxe slung across his back.

"You need some help there?" he asked, as Kara started to draw up a second bucketful from the well.

"Back off," said Kara. She hauled the bucket up fast enough that much of the water was spilled, but it was worth it for the look on Sinmir's face.

"Just trying to help," he said. "No need to get angry."

Kara swung to face him, half-full bucket still in hand. "Get angry?" she said. "I wasn't before, but I'm working towards it now."

Sinmir had the audacity to grin. The pair of them were the same height. "Anything I can do to deal with that?"

It was at that point Kara knew where this was headed. She wanted to see his blood on the stones and her knuckles went white around the bucket's edge. "What do you do around here?" she asked, aware there was quite a large audience, including guards. If she was heading towards the bottom, she thought, she might as well dig a little faster.

Sinmir coughed. "I got a room at the Bannered Mare," he said.

"I ain't askin where your ratty bed's at," she said. "I'm askin what you do. You ain't in the Companions, else you woulda said Jorrvaskr. You ain't in the guard, else you'd be in uniform. So tell me, what you wearin that big suit of armour for then?"

A couple of chuckles came from the crowd. Sinmir took a step back from her.

"I'm a warrior," he said. "I could beat any of them blindfolded. And I won't stand here and let you—"

"Oh, a warrior," said Kara, layering the word thick. "And what are you fighting? Other than with your bedsheets of course."

"You fucking bitch!"

Kara let him hit her. She threw herself down onto the stones beside the well like the blow was a powerful one, like it had any effect on her at all. She found herself being helped up by several hands and had to restrain herself from throwing them off. Dark murmurs were running through the crowd.

"Can't you see she's already been through enough?" someone was saying. Kara still had a hand around the edge of the well bucket, though the water had all spilled in her 'fall'.

"Alright, let's keep this civil," said a nearby guard.

"Oh, if he wants to fight, I'll fight him," said Kara. She grinned and spat blood in Sinmir's direction.

"I'm not going to fight you," he said. The way he looked at the guard made Kara think he'd already had some trouble in that area.

"Oh, you only hit people who aren't expecting it?" asked Kara. "You already hit me, fight's started whether you like it or not." She stepped towards him, raising her free fist in a feint. Then she stuck him in the side of the head with the well bucket. It splintered on his skull and he went down. He didn't rise. The crowd went quiet and Kara kicked at his head hard enough to make a dent. She'd learnt that her strength let her crush skulls without too much strain. The trick here was to make it look like an argument just gone too far.

She took a few steps back from the body. "He hit me first," she said. "You all saw." Before anyone could react, Kara turned and started walking back towards the gate. Before anyone could be sure that he was dead, could determine that she'd hit him much harder than it seemed, she'd be halfway down the hill, running towards Falkreath.