The City of Stone

4E 201 | Late Sun's Dusk | Eighty-One Days Since Arrival

Tsukihana woke to someone screaming.

Snow became bronze. Her mother's hand became a Colossus claw. A red eye opened inside the dark.

Target.

She rolled from the bed and struck the stone floor hard enough to empty her lungs. Her hand reached for a sword that was not at her waist.

The door opened.

Katana entered with a knife drawn, saw the empty room, and sheathed it immediately.

"Tsuki. Breathe. You are safe."

The room belonged to the Silver-Blood Inn in Markarth. A hearth burned within a stone recess. Her belongings sat beside a locked chest. Both katanas lay clean and within reach.

Katana knelt several feet away and breathed slowly until Tsukihana matched her.

Memory returned in fragments: the workshop, the elevator, a camp beneath the stars. Nothing after.

"How long?"

Katana looked toward the fire. "A little more than three weeks."

Tsukihana's eyes widened.

She had collapsed after walking only a few miles. Katana carried her the rest of the way to Markarth, paid for the room, delivered Balgruuf's missive to Jarl Igmund, and divided the reward evenly.

The folded blankets beside the chair told Tsukihana where Katana had slept.

"I did not know whether you would wake," Katana admitted.

Tsukihana looked at her right hand. Bare skin. No marks.

"What happened while I was unconscious?"

Markarth had offered little peace. A man murdered a woman at the market, shouted "Long live the Forsworn," and died under guard blades. The authorities removed bodies and questions with equal speed. Miners vanished in lower tunnels. A Vigilant investigated an abandoned house. Masked travelers asked about a foreign swordswoman carrying two blades.

"They know where we are," Tsukihana said.

"They knew. The travelers left four days ago."

"They wanted us to know they had found us."

Tsukihana rose. Her legs shook immediately.

Katana caught her.

"Food first," she said. "Then information. Then stairs. Colossi much later."

Tsukihana wanted to argue. Instead, a hoarse laugh escaped her.

Markarth pressed around them: ancient stone, Dwarven pipes, secrets hidden inside money and silence.

Beneath Tsukihana's heartbeat, the second rhythm moved once.