Day one. Easy. Shove the greasy food around on the plate and scowl at the floor. Galmar's footsteps echoing through Athene's mind long after he'd gone. The man was cruel on purpose, which for all her crimes Athene never was. Was she?

Night one was more of a trial. The guards must have been instructed to stay out of the room. Hers was the only cell occupied in this lowest level of the jail and lines of bars led away on either side of her like an iron forest. A cot in each cell, with a little straw and a cow's skin. It wasn't cold. Her dagger had been taken, of course, and her armor. She was a little elf in ragged robes. There was no getting comfortable on the cot, and the cowhide didn't reach her feet, or it didn't reach her chest. It was up to her to choose. The straw dug into her skin. The ceiling was black and there was a drip, drip, drip somewhere nearby.

Day two saw Athene wasn't going to be defeated by cliches. The dripping had stopped and her breakfast was warm, eggs and a little meat and water. She'd probably eat better here than she did on the road. But she was bored already. She tried talking to the guards, who ignored her on their way out of the room. But they didn't shut the door so she talked at them through the doorway. She asked about Whiterun and the battle and soldiers and things she thought they'd want her to ask about. She wondered how she could have avoided this. If she'd brought Agni through Windhelm, would they have thrown her in jail? If she'd shown them her excuse? A sick little girl.

Night two revealed there was a draft somewhere behind the wall. The wind must have picked up because it was screaming on the other side of the stone bricks, screaming constantly. Athene knew what it looked like blowing snow out of the inlet and she could see it in her mind, driving hard against the city walls. It was comforting to know she was still there in the place she knew, not unconnected. Up there Silda and Brunwulf saw what she imagined. Ulfric himself drew his cloak tighter, for all his Nord blood. It was Frostfall and winter was deepening. Travellers would be heading into towns and the caravans bedding down for a while longer than usual. The wilds of Skyrim would be left to animals and the Forsworn. And the wind was screaming.

She slept little, then dozed through the morning. When she woke her breakfast had arrived, and was cold. The door to the room was closed and the surrounding cells still empty. She paced, hopped from stone to stone. Remembered a game she used to play with her sisters, drawing squares in the soil and chasing each other around. Complicated rules: miss a square and go again, remember the order or have to go backwards, don't run into anyone else, don't touch, or your turn is forfeit, around you go again, dizzy, laughing–

Either they forgot to bring her dinner or day three was stretching on. The wind had kicked up again but without meals it was impossible to know what time it was supposed to be. She called and no one answered. She sung a pro-Empire drinking song and then told everyone she was sorry, sorry.

Was she supposed to sleep now? She wasn't tired. She wasn't hungry.

The door opened. Longs-for-Stars came in.

"What time is it?" Athene said. "I'm glad you're alive."

The Argonian stopped some way from the cell. "What have you done?"

"You know what I did." Athene tried to make up the distance and pressed herself to the bars. She drank in Stars' face and her voice. Something different and new. Someone else, finally.

"I understand you had to help your friend's sister, I do. And I was honoured to carry Ulfric's axe for a time. But why didn't you come back? They're saying…"

"What?" Athene stared. "What are they saying?" She waited and her friend refused to speak. "It was just a few days. How was I supposed to know you'd attack the city immediately?"

"That was the point of the axe," Longs-for-Stars said.

"You know Galmar has it in for me. You know he put me here because he wanted to, nothing to do with giving you that axe. Did they give you trouble when you got back?"

"No."

"See? It's a grudge. He doesn't trust me."

"Should he?"

Athene had broken a thumbnail against the stone wall, trying to carve tic-tac-toe. She fiddled with the rough bit, deciding her friend wasn't there to be her friend. She was there to accuse, like the others.

"Fine then. What do you want to say? Tell me I'm a traitor, too? I took too long? I let you down? Get it all out."

"You asked what drives me to fight this war. I told you. Now I'm asking you the same thing."

Athene rolled her eyes. "What do you think? Valenwood, Thalmor, Empire. Enough said."

"No, it's not." She moved closer, still out of reach but so Athene could see her bright blue eyes. "It's not enough by far. I've fought by your side, Athene, and I know you well enough that if that was all you'd do it some other way. You'd slit throats in the dark, not join the rebellion. So I'll ask you again. Why?"

"The truth?" Athene heard some of Cicero's laughter bubbling up in her chest. The truth, why not? Why not indeed. "I'm doing it for money. Someone paid me to be here."

"I don't believe you," Longs-for-Stars said.

"I knew you wouldn't. But it is the truth. I'm a mercenary. I was paid and here I am."

"You've already been paid? Then you don't need to stay. Why do you stay?"

"I want to finish the job."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe you! Is there nothing else to you than money and work? What do you want, Athene? What is it you actually want?"

Night four. The wind still screaming. Longs-for-Stars gone in a hiss of frustration. Another demand Athene couldn't answer. Clever tongue stilled. Something niggling in the back of her mind, like trying to remember a word that wouldn't come. She'd worn her thumbnail to the quick and it bled. She drew tic-tac-toe on the wall in black. It would have been red if there was more light. She regretted it, her whole hand aching.

She and her sisters used to fight with fists and words. Athene always used words first. When she lost that way it made her more unhappy than when she nursed cuts and bruises. Her mother held her close and brushed the hair from her face. "You don't always have to be right." She'd taken it to heart. Now she was never right, and never wrong either.

Day five. Night five. She wasn't hungry because she barely moved. Unfair of Longs-for-Stars to come and cut her legs out from beneath her. What kind of a friend was that? Accusations were no comfort. Not when they were directed at her.

What did she want? It was a good question. She'd kill Ulfric and then figure it out.

Day six. Her pillow was wet because she guessed she'd been crying.

There was a traitor in Markarth she had to blackmail. Someone high up in court. Ulfric would love to have that kind of leverage. What would he do if he thought it would benefit his cause? Would he meet a traitor to negotiate for more?

Did she even have to blackmail Raerek? Did she have to see him at all? Would the promise of his information lure Ulfric somewhere she could finish her work without being his errand girl any longer? Without another moment of standing next to Galmar?

Night six. Galmar Stone-Fist. Now she knew what she wanted. She wanted him dead. And whereas Ulfric was a job, Galmar would be purely for her.

Day seven. Athene waited for release. She wasn't broken. Not at all. They wanted her heart? They'd see her heart. And then they'd see their own.