Winter closed in like a noose. The marsh stretched for miles, bleak and frostbitten, incapable of supporting life larger than mudcrabs and skinny hares. She saw one grazing on the brittle remains of grass and levelled an arrow at it. She missed, her arrow embedding itself in the boggy earth with a muffled sucking sound.
Her hunting bow dug uncomfortably into her side when she bent to retrieve it, pressing at her empty stomach. The hunger made her weak. She had to rest for a moment at the edge of a frost-crusted pond. A pale-skinned, dark-haired woman peered back at her when she leaned over the murky water. She startled. When had she gotten so thin? She ran her fingers over her cheeks, feeling the skull beneath her skin. Her stomach gurgled. She forced herself to her feet and kept walking.
The mud sucked greedily at her thick-soled boots but never swallowed them, for she had long since learned the safest ways through the marsh. Every rock and half-submerged log was as familiar to her as her own calloused, scar-flecked hands. She approached a snare she had set underneath a scraggly snowberry bush. The entire plant quivered and twitched in time to the throes of whatever she had caught. She crushed deathbells beneath her knees, bending down to pull the lowermost branches aside.
A snowy fox stared forlornly up at her. She stared back. Another pang of hunger shot through her gut. The fox remained oddly silent while she worked to gently tease the snare from its back foot. It scrambled away, disappearing with a flick of its tail into the marsh.
Her other snares were empty, and it began to rain. She sloshed through the muck on her way back to the city, shivering beneath her wet woollen clothing. The Blue Palace loomed on the mountainside, looking more grey than blue between the slanting sheets of rain. She climbed the hill to the city gates and merged with the crowd.
Rainwater had dislodged waste and sewage, making the streets reek. She wiped at her streaming eyes. Despite the stench and the rain, dozens flocked the streets of Solitude, gathering in clumps beneath the tiled awnings. Brushing against a finely dressed woman on her way to the market square earned her a disdainful sniff.
"Keep your dirty boots away from my gown." The woman yanked the folds of her skirt away. "I am attending the wedding of the Emperor's cousin!"
Had hunger not made her light-headed, she may have felt a flicker of embarrassment for her uncombed hair and tattered clothing. She muttered an apology and twisted away, hurrying her pace. The streets were grey and streaked with filth, but the banners strung overhead brought splashes of colour to the dull sky.
"Laelynn!" A Nord called out to her from behind one of the market stalls. "Everyone's packing up for the wedding… I thought for certain the vampires got you, you're so late."
Laelynn smiled thinly, leaning up against the wooden counter. "No luck with the snares today, Addvar."
A logbook lay face up between them; Laelynn read the date scrawled in his messy hand. 22nd of Sun's Dusk, 4E 209. Addvar ran a hand over his chin, which was covered in patchy stubble. He was not an old man, but the approaching winter had left him haggard.
"Ah, well." He slid a paper-wrapped parcel across the counter. "Not all the fish have migrated."
Laelynn twitched one corner of the wrapping up to see cubes of seared salmon steak. Her stomach rumbled but she half-heartedly pushed it back. "Addvar, I couldn't…"
Addvar pressed it into her hand with a stern look. "If it keeps you from stealing or begging, it's worth losing a few Septims." He nodded pointedly over her shoulder. Laelynn turned to see a pair of street urchins slip loaves of bread from a cloth covered barrel before slinking away into the crowd. "You haven't come to see me in two days, and that usually means you haven't eaten. Take it."
She tucked the food into her pocket. "Thank you, Addvar."
"Now get out of here!" He shooed her off and continued packing up his stall. "The wedding will be starting soon."
People clung to the sides of buildings, keeping out of the rain on their way to the Temple of the Divines. Laelynn hopped onto a low wall so that she was a head and shoulders taller than the press of wedding-goers. Her clothing was already sodden; a little more rain wouldn't do any harm. A high-pitched squeal speared through the crowd and made Laelynn's eye twitch. She turned to see a woman with jewellery dripping from every digit fussing over her mud-flecked skirts.
"I can't be seen in public like this!" the woman lamented to the ladies around her.
A small, quiet part of Laelynn's mind—the one not occupied with surviving day to day—felt a glimmer of resentment. She pressed a hand to her aching stomach and trudged after them.
The rancid smell that had hit her when she first entered the city gradually faded to the spicy scent of winter blooms. They coated the long, zigzagging path through the upper city, bent against the rain. Laelynn absently plucked a few stems as she passed. The river of people emptied into the Temple courtyard, with the better-dressed half disappearing behind a set of heavy stone doors. That left the rest of them milling on the tiles, along with birds that preened themselves in the gathering puddles.
Laelynn climbed one of the walls while the rain continued to patter down. Once or twice her boots slipped on the treacherously slick stone, but eventually, she was perched over the Temple courtyard. She swung her legs over the edge and ran a thumb over the silver pendant hanging around her neck. No matter how deep the pit in her stomach grew, she would never sell it.
The salmon steaks likely had a taste to them, but Laelynn didn't register it as she wolfed them down. Soon her stomach was uncomfortably full. She groaned and leaned back, taking the pressure off her gut.
A head popped up over the lip of the wall and made her jump.
"I finished my dragon carving!" A young boy grinned up at her, brandishing a hunk of wood. He heaved himself up with his other arm and plopped next to her on the stone. "Now my Dragonborn can do battle!"
The boy fished another crudely carved piece of wood from his pocket and began smashing the two together. A small smile tugged at the corner of Laelynn's mouth while she watched a hawk wheeling through the clearing rainclouds.
"Hey, Laelynn?"
She hummed and raised her eyebrows. The boy had stopped playing with his carvings, staring down at them with a slight crease between his brows. His short cropped hair and the hard lines of his face made him look older than his ten years.
"Do you think the Dragonborn will ever return?"
The taste of salmon steaks turned bitter in her mouth. Her gaze turned south-east to where the Throat of the World loomed far in the distance, its lonely peak soaring above the surrounding mountains and slicing through the receding clouds. She was seized with a sudden urge to fly as freely as that wheeling hawk.
"I don't think so, Blaise." Babbling voices floated up to where they sat perched on the wall. Wedding guests poured into the courtyard, drawing her attention for a moment. "Being the Dragonborn is a dangerous business. I think one of his quests got the better of him."
"He'll come back." Blaise examined his wooden toys and huffed out a quiet breath. "He has to."
Laelynn twirled the flowers between her fingers, releasing their scent into the air. Blaise looked darkly down at his carvings, fidgeting with them. Then his face lightened and he pointed down at the courtyard.
"Look! Here comes Vittoria!"
Laelynn followed his hand to the woman gliding from the Temple of the Divines. A long train flowed behind her like a crimson river, supported by the doting hands of maidservants. Even with such weak sunlight peeking through the clouds, the bride seemed to glow. Was this what marital bliss was like? Laelynn could scarcely remember her own parents, but she was certain that they had never seemed this happy. Blaise sat right on the edge of the wall, practically vibrating from excitement. She grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him away from the edge.
"She's so beautiful…" Blaise propped his chin on his hand, smiling dreamily down at the woman as she addressed the crowd.
Laelynn's attention drifted away. She searched for the hawk, but it had long since disappeared into the clouds. Her gaze was drawn instead to the gargoyles dotted along the walls. One in particular had a long tongue that drooped down past its chin, curling in grotesque loops over its ears. It was that gargoyle that fell, face first, onto Vittoria's head.
Beside her, Blaise let out a wordless shriek. The courtyard erupted.
Laelynn watched a fat Breton wrestle other guests in his rush to the exit, trampling anyone who got in the way of his hamlike feet. The others were no better—tearing at other guests and screaming while the assembled guards shouted to one another above the din.
"One thousand Septims to whoever catches that man!"
A black-clad figure beat a hasty retreat, weaving between the castle's upper towers before dropping out of sight. Laelynn raced after them.
"Stay here!" she shouted to Blaise, leaving him and her wilted winter flowers behind.
One thousand Septims. That sounded like food, and clothes, and nice smelling soaps. She jumped from the wall to a lower balcony, with a jarring impact that sent jolts of pain through her legs. The figure had already leapt to the city's outer wall and was running with alarming, catlike balance along its slippery masonry. One glance over the side had the fish in Laelynn's stomach swooping unpleasantly. It was a sheer drop, with the earth so far below it was shrouded in swathes of mist.
"Hey, stop!" she cried, but the figure—an assassin, she realised numbly—did not miss a step. He nimbly vaulted over a garden wall, sending a flock of birds into the bright grey sky. Laelynn followed, landing and rolling on the wet soil before launching into a full sprint along the main street. One thousand Septims. Her heartbeat sounded like clinking coins in her ears.
Up ahead, someone let out a surprised squawk. Laelynn rounded a corner just in time to see the shrouded figure bound over a fallen washerwoman and try to lose himself in the city's back alleys. Blood pounded in her ears, loud enough to drown out her own footfalls as she veered around a house in close pursuit. Together they flew through a small graveyard, trampling flowers and trinkets for the deceased, before breaking out onto the street again. This assassin was possessed of an almost inhuman swiftness, Laelynn would give him that—but she knew the city of Solitude almost as well as she knew the marshes at its base.
While he cut back into a tight alley, Laelynn raced through a vegetable garden until she reached the alley mouth, just a few heartbeats before him. She darted forwards and grabbed ahold of his wrist, but the assassin wrenched free with a startled grunt, leaving Laelynn clutching nothing but a red and black leather glove. With no warning he darted leftwards, towards the south gate, leaving Laelynn to scramble after him into a narrow corridor. Her boots slipped, and in the half second it took to right herself, the assassin was right in her face.
SLAM.
Laelynn's back hit unforgiving stone, and she found herself pinned to the wall with a dagger at her throat. Choking on a strangled gasp, her hands instinctively shot up to close around the figure's bare wrist and keep the blade as far as possible from her fluttering pulse. Dimly, she registered the faint, spicy scent of winter flowers.
"Do you want to die?" The assassin ground out in a gruff Nordic tone. "Because that can be arranged." Merciless blue eyes narrowed themselves on Laelynn's own and she felt her blood begin to well beneath the sharp blade.
"We have no time," came a voice at the mouth of the corridor. Even cowled, Laelynn could tell that this one was Argonian. The red and black garb hung strangely from his lithe, scaly body. "Leave her and come quickly. The guards won't stay distracted for long."
The Nord shoved her roughly against the stone but heeded his companion's words—she could hear their feet on the spiral staircase, taking them down, down, down to the distant shoreline. Her fingers came away bloody when she touched her throat but… by the Divines, she was alive. A breath she didn't realise she had been holding wheezed out between Laelynn's teeth, and she allowed herself to slide down and sit against the wall.
In one hand there were droplets of her own blood. In the other, his black and red glove.