Kin's stomach dropped the moment he realized Taviiah was alone. He turned at once, ready to bolt back the way he'd come, but a hand caught his shoulder and stopped him cold. Passha's grip was firm, almost cutting.
"Have you learned nothing from dashing off on a whim?" she asked, her voice low and sharp. "We need to be smart about this."
Kin looked back at her, breath unsteady. "I left my friend alone. She could be in danger."
"This may be true," Passha said, "but sprinting blindly into what could be a trap will not help her."
With that, she pulled her hood over her head. The dark fabric had slits for her horns and fell into a tattered black cloak that stopped at her waist. Without another word, she strode toward the side of a nearby building and began climbing it as if the wall had been made for her hands alone.
"Come," she called down. "We will need a view from up high if we are to find her quickly. Try to keep up, child."
Passha ascended with effortless precision, her body flowing from ledge to ledge with unnerving ease. Kin stared after her, then glanced down at himself with irritation. The dress Taviiah had forced him into was not exactly made for rooftop pursuit.
He searched for another way up and spotted a stack of crates and boxes leaning against a neighboring wall. Muttering to himself, he scrambled up them and hauled himself onto the rooftop. By the time he got both feet under him, Passha was already moving again, climbing toward an even higher roofline.
Kin gritted his teeth and followed.
Keeping up with her was miserable work. Passha moved like climbing and leaping were as natural to her as breathing. Every motion was precise, efficient, instinctive. She made the whole thing look insultingly easy. Kin, meanwhile, had to claw, jump, and scramble after her with far less grace. By the time they reached the highest roof in the area, his lungs were burning.
Passha crouched low at the ledge, her sharp eyes sweeping over the city below.
"Where did you last see her?" she asked.
Kin bent forward with his hands on his knees, fighting to catch his breath. "We were... right outside... Candlehearth," he managed. "We saw a figure. I ran after it without thinking. That's when I bumped into you."
"I see..."
Her gaze shifted, scanning the streets and rooftops with eerie focus. Then her head angled sharply toward the market square.
"Come."
She took off immediately.
Kin barely had time to curse before he chased after her again. Passha leapt from building to building without so much as a sound, her landings silent, her movements swallowed by the night. She was three, maybe four rooftops ahead before she glanced back at him.
"Do not dally, child," she called. "And be quiet about it."
"Easy for you to say," Kin muttered under his breath as he jumped the next gap. "You aren't the one in a dress right now."
Still, he followed.
He matched her leaps as best he could, clearing each gap with growing confidence. Passha noticed. For all his recklessness, the boy adapted quickly. There was a nimbleness to him she had not expected—rough around the edges, perhaps, but real. Almost Bosmeri.
By the time Kin finally caught up, he was silently begging the Divines for the rooftop sprint to be over.
Passha had already dropped into a crouch at the edge of the roof, peering down into the square below.
"There," she said. "Is that your friend?"
Kin stepped beside her and looked.
Relief hit him first.
Taviiah stood in the very center of the square, unmistakable in her red dress. She looked unharmed. Whole. Alive.
But then the relief curdled.
Something was wrong.
She wasn't moving.
She stood perfectly still, arms drawn tightly around herself as if she were holding her own body together.
"Taviiah!" Kin shouted. "Up here! Don't worry—I'm coming to you!"
He immediately started toward the edge, ready to climb down, but Passha grabbed him again and yanked him back.
"Wait," she said sharply. "Something isn't right."
Below, Taviiah lifted her head just enough to call back, her voice tense and urgent.
"Kin? If that's you, stay where you are! Don't come any closer!"
He froze.
Confusion washed over him. Why was she standing out in the open like that? Why was she clutching herself? Why in Oblivion was she telling him to stay back?
He squinted harder into the square, forcing his eyes to adjust.
That was when he saw them.
Thin strands caught the moonlight from certain angles—faint, glimmering lines stretching all around Taviiah, crisscrossing the square in a web so fine it was nearly invisible.
Passha pulled him farther back onto the rooftop and narrowed her gaze.
Then she saw it clearly.
"She is right," Passha said. "It is not safe to approach her."
Kin stared down in horror. "What are those strings around her?"
"Ebony wire," Passha replied grimly. "It seems someone did indeed set a trap... and your friend walked right into it."
Now that he knew what to look for, Kin could see the trap in full. The wires were everywhere, woven so tightly around Taviiah that she could barely move. They only revealed themselves when the moonlight struck them just right—thin, deadly threads of black metal wrapped around her arms, her torso, her thighs.
Ebony.
One of the strongest metals in Skyrim.
The wires had bitten into her already. They held her in a merciless grip, tight enough that even the slightest movement threatened to cut deeper. Blood ran down both her arms and along her legs, glistening dark in the pale light. Every shift of the wind made the wires tremble, and each faint vibration seemed to send pain through her whole body.
Kin felt sick.
Then, from somewhere in the distance, laughter drifted through the night.
It was wrong.
Warped. Rotten. Decrepit.
The sound slithered through the square like something crawling out of a grave.
"Where is that coming from?" Kin asked, turning sharply as the sound slithered through the night. "I hear it all around us."
Passha's eyes narrowed as she studied the square below. "This is bad. Those wires are lethally sharp and difficult to see. One wrong move and your friend could lose a limb… or her life."
Then the voice came again, close now. Too close.
"We found you…"
Kin's head snapped left.
A dark figure burst from the shadows, cloaked and fast, blade already drawn. Kin barely had time to react. Instinct took over. Magicka flared in his hand and a bound blade sprang into existence just in time to catch the strike.
Steel met summoned edge with a violent crack.
The force of it shoved Kin backward across the rooftop, boots scraping hard against the shingles as the cloaked attacker pressed in without pause. A second strike came. Then a third. Kin raised his blade to meet them, barely keeping up.
The figure lunged again—
—and Passha dropped between them like a falling shadow.
The attacker swung low at her waist. Passha sprang over the slash with impossible quickness and drove a spinning kick straight into the figure's face. The blow snapped their head sideways and sent them stumbling back across the roof.
Kin slid to a stop, caught his footing, and rose with another bound blade forming in his free hand. The blue-white glow of conjured steel lit his tense face.
"Is this our guy?" he asked.
Passha stayed low, eyes fixed on the figure. "One cannot be too sure," she said, "but it would seem that way."
Kin's gaze flicked to the square below. "What are we going to do about Taviiah?"
"Keep them busy," Passha said. "I will see about freeing your friend. Keep your wits about you as well."
Kin tightened his grip on both blades. "Got it."
Without another word, Passha leapt from the rooftop.
She landed in the square with barely a sound, dropping into a low crouch the instant her feet touched stone. Above her, the moonlight caught dozens of gleaming lines stretched through the open air—ebony wire, woven into a silent death-web that would cut apart anything careless enough to brush against it.
Up on the roof, Kin squared himself and waited.
The cloaked figure slowly rose to its feet.
Not like a man.
Its body twitched with each motion, jerking and bending with a sick, unnatural rhythm. The hood hid most of its face, but Kin could see the mouth.
That grin.
Wide. Wrong. Almost joyful.
"So you're the one," Kin said, his voice hardening. "The one who's been murdering women in this town."
The figure only laughed.
A dagger slipped from somewhere inside the cloak and dropped into its hand, trailing a faint glimmer of wire behind it. Kin's eyes widened slightly. The same kind of weapon. The same trap.
"You're the Butcher."
No answer. Only that warped laughter, rising and falling like an animal trying to imitate a person.
The Butcher took one slow step forward, bare feet scraping lightly against the roof. Kin noticed then that he wore no shoes. What little skin showed beneath the cloak looked ruined—scarred, raw, almost flayed in places.
Kin steadied himself, trying to read him, but the man did not move like anything he understood.
Then the Butcher vanished forward.
He came at Kin with terrifying speed.
Kin planted his feet and snapped both blades up just in time. The first clash rang out like a bell. Then came three more slashes in a blur of movement. Kin parried the first. Deflected the second. Ducking low, he barely avoided the third as it hissed through the space where his throat had been.
There was almost no room to maneuver. They were fighting on a long, narrow stretch of rooftop, with little space to give ground and nowhere safe to fall back.
Kin slashed out in return, forcing the Butcher back a step.
Only a step.
Then the man was on him again.
The Butcher unleashed a storm of cuts, his body darting from one side of Kin to the other with each collision of their blades. Every clash spat brief flashes of light into the dark. The rhythm grew faster, harder, more vicious by the second. The man's speed was monstrous—more than human.
Kin's reflexes were the only thing keeping him alive.
One lapse. One mistake. One heartbeat too slow.
That was all it would take.
Below, Passha moved through the wire trap with agonizing care.
She kept herself low, almost crawling, twisting beneath one strand and slipping over another. Moonlight traced the scales of her tail as it moved behind her in slow, controlled sweeps. Her body bent with unnatural flexibility, folding and turning in ways no ordinary person could manage. Every movement was deliberate. Every breath measured.
Above her, the sound of battle carried over the square—rapid metal strikes and the Butcher's horrible, howling laughter.
Passha did not look up.
She forced herself to focus.
Step by step, she worked her way toward the center of the plaza where Taviiah stood trapped in the web. At last she found a narrow opening beside her and used it to rise slightly from her crouch.
Taviiah's eyes fluttered open.
The sight of the Argonian woman so suddenly in front of her should have startled her more, but exhaustion had hollowed her out. Blood loss had left her pale and weak. Her breathing was shallow. Her arms trembled faintly where the wires held them pinned. She could barely keep her eyes open.
"You must be exhausted from blood loss," Passha murmured. "Good. This means you will not struggle. Hold still."
Taviiah swallowed weakly. "Who… who are you?"
"I… am here to help," Passha said. "Do not speak. It will make this harder."
Her yellow eyes traced the pattern of the wires wound around Taviiah's body. She studied how they crossed, where they tightened, where tension pulled strongest. Then she saw it—a subtle pattern in the twisting of the strands, a weakness in the weave.
Passha raised one hand.
On the tip of a single finger, her sharp nail gleamed.
She placed it beneath one of the lower wires and lifted.
The nail sliced through ebony wire with shocking ease.
The strand snapped.
At once it recoiled in a vicious whip, cutting a thin line across Passha's cheek.
She did not so much as blink.
Instead, she continued upward, severing wire after wire in swift, precise motions. Each cut loosened the trap a little more. Each snap sent black strands recoiling wildly around them. Passha's hand moved higher, carving a line of freedom straight up Taviiah's body.
Then the whole web gave way.
The wires unraveled in an instant, peeling off Taviiah in a violent spiral. They spun outward like a maelstrom of black metal, lashing the air as they flew free. Passha took several shallow cuts as the strands dispersed, but she did not stop until the last of them had unwound.
Taviiah sagged at once.
Her legs gave out beneath her.
Before she could hit the ground, Passha caught her.
"Kin…" Taviiah whispered, barely conscious. "He's still in danger."
"I am aware, child," Passha said. "But you must rest. I will handle things from here."
She carried Taviiah to a shadowed corner of the square, out of sight from the rooftop battle, and lowered her gently to the ground. Taviiah was in no condition to fight. The blood loss alone would see to that.
Passha turned and started away.
A faint metallic sound stopped her.
She looked back.
Taviiah, pale and shaking, had somehow drawn a knife. Her hand trembled violently as she raised it, using what little strength she had left to point the blade at Passha.
Passha stared at her for a moment. "You should really save your strength."
Taviiah's eyes burned despite her weakness. "You don't think I recognize that outfit? I know what you are… I won't let you hurt Kin."
Passha regarded her in silence.
Then she turned her back on her completely.
"If you know what I am," she said, "then you know the boy would be dead by now if I wished it so."
She began walking toward the sound of clashing blades once more.
"You will just have to trust me on that, I am afraid."
Her steps did not slow.
"After all…" she said, disappearing back toward the fighting, "what choice do you have?"
Passha vanished slowly into the folds of shadow, her dark form swallowed by the night.
Behind her, the knife slipped from Taviiah's weakening grasp and clattered softly against the stone. Her fingers twitched once, then went still as consciousness began to leave her.
Passha kept moving.
Now that she was closer, she could hear the fight more clearly—the rapid pound of footsteps, the sharp ringing of steel against steel. The battle had moved. Kin and the Butcher were no longer on the rooftops. They were tearing through the city below, somewhere between the narrow arteries of Windhelm's alleys.
Passha shifted direction at once.
In the alleyways, Kin ran hard, forcing himself to keep moving as the Butcher hounded him through the dark. He was not trying to win ground anymore. He was trying to survive—trying to keep distance between himself and the thing chasing him.
He cut sharply around the corner into another alley.
The Butcher followed instantly.
Not on the ground.
He ran along the walls above Kin like some grotesque creature born for the dark, cloak snapping behind him as he kept pace overhead. His wired dagger lashed out again and again, the ebony thread whipping through the air with murderous precision. Kin parried when he could, dodged when he had to, never letting the man fully leave his sight as he kited him deeper through the city.
The dagger tore through stone as easily as flesh.
The Butcher wasn't just trying to kill him.
He was trying to herd him.
The dagger snapped back into the man's hand, then whipped forward again—this time spiraling the length of the alley, carving along both walls as it raced over Kin's head. Stone split open under the wire's bite. Chunks of rock and debris rained down.
Kin dropped and rolled, barely escaping the collapse. He came up in a guarded stance, blades raised, ready for the next attack.
But nothing came.
The broken stone had filled the alley with a thick cloud of dust, and in an instant his vision was ruined. The narrow passage became a choking blur of gray. He could no longer see the Butcher.
Only hear him.
That laughter.
It bounced from wall to wall, twisting through the dust until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"Damn it," Kin hissed, turning slowly. "Where are you?"
The answer came as a disembodied whisper, warped and taunting.
"Are you scared yet?"
Kin's grip tightened.
"Are your senses being overrun with fear?"
The voice was closer now. Then farther. Then everywhere again.
"You know all it takes... is one tiny slip-up..."
The last words exploded through the alley.
"AND YOU'RE MINE!"
Kin spun—
Too late.
The Butcher burst out of the dust directly behind him, blade already drawn back for a killing blow. He brought it down in a savage cleave aimed straight at Kin's head.
Kin moved on instinct.
The strike missed him by a hair.
The force of it ripped the dust cloud apart in a violent surge, clearing the alley in one sweeping breath. The Butcher's blade gouged the stone where Kin had been a moment before. He looked down at the boy, grin stretching wider beneath the hood.
Then he saw Kin's eyes.
Wild.
Focused, but only just.
The Butcher's words had done their work. Fear had wrapped its claws around Kin's mind, and now adrenaline was surging through his body so hard it felt like fire in his veins. He had been trying to keep himself from shouting—trying not to cause more destruction in the city than necessary—but that restraint was gone now.
The Butcher sensed it too.
He leapt back, wary now, anticipating whatever desperate thing the boy might do next.
Kin sucked in a deep breath.
The Butcher lowered himself and charged, moving with monstrous speed. He zig-zagged wildly down the alley, his body jerking from side to side in a blur as he closed the distance.
Kin shouted.
"WULD!"
The force of Whirlwind Sprint hurled him forward like a launched arrow.
They met halfway.
Their blades crashed together with a violent burst of light.
Then they collided again.
And again.
And again.
Each clash rang out like thunder in the alley.
Every time Kin's momentum broke, another shout tore from his throat, launching him back into the fight before the Butcher could capitalize. The rhythm became vicious—clash, shout, surge, clash again. He was using Whirlwind Sprint not just to move, but to force himself into the same impossible tempo as his inhuman opponent.
It worked.
Barely.
Kin had grown better at enduring the strain of shouting, better at managing the damage it did to his body. But this was something else. This was abuse. He was using the Voice in rapid succession, again and again, with no time for recovery.
He did not care.
At this point, he was no longer fighting cleverly.
He was fighting to stay alive.
A few buildings away, Passha heard the battle before she saw it. Each time Kin shouted, the stone beneath her feet trembled. The noise rolled through the streets like distant thunder.
She climbed to a nearby rooftop to get a better vantage point.
What she saw below startled even her.
The two of them were moving so fast they were nearly impossible to track. Their bodies blurred through the alley in flashes of motion and light, blades crossing so quickly the eye struggled to follow. Even Passha, with all her instincts, found it difficult to keep them in sight.
Then another voice spoke inside her mind.
Soft. Ancient. Female.
"The boy is indeed very powerful," said the Night Mother, "but he cannot keep this up. He risks being overtaken because of the fear that grips him."
Passha's eyes stayed fixed on the battle below. "Night Mother... if you do not mind me asking, why is this child special to you?"
"Not just to me," the voice whispered. "He is special to all. He is a child of legend. He is the Dragonborn."
Passha was silent for a beat.
"I see," she murmured. "So the boy serves some greater purpose, then?"
"I will explain all in due time, my child. For now... I only wish that you keep him alive."
Passha inclined her head slightly.
"Understood. Your will... my hands."
Below, Kin collided with the Butcher again—only this time, when they broke apart, his footing failed him.
He staggered.
The last shout had hit him harder than the others. He tried to recover, tried to plant himself and turn in time, but his body no longer obeyed the way he needed it to. When he finally stopped moving, a sick realization ran through him.
His legs would not answer.
They felt heavy. Dead. Useless.
The Butcher saw it immediately.
His laughter rose louder than ever as he charged.
Kin dispersed both bound blades in a flicker of fading magicka and grabbed at one of his legs as if he could force life back into it.
"Not this again..." he rasped. "Come on. Move, damn you—"
He broke off in a cough.
Blood splashed from his mouth.
The overuse of the Voice had finally caught up to him. His throat burned. His chest ached. His body had reached its limit, and the Butcher was already upon him.
Kin looked up and knew, with chilling clarity, that he had lost.
There was no time left. No way to defend himself. No strength left to run.
Then—
Sparks.
His eyes flicked upward.
Along the wall of a nearby building, Passha came tearing down from above, dragging her claws against the stone as she ran. Bright orange sparks showered behind her in a streaking arc.
The Butcher heard it too.
He turned just as she launched herself from the wall.
Her claws were already drawn back.
He had no time to react.
Passha slashed across his face in one clean, brutal motion as she flew past him.
The Butcher's scream ripped through the alley.
He crashed to the ground, clutching at his ruined face.
Passha landed lightly in front of Kin, placing herself between him and the fallen killer. Even now, she remained low and balanced, ready for another attack.
She glanced back at him. "Are you all right, child?"
Kin tried to straighten, but his body refused. "I can't..." He coughed again, blood dark against his lips. "I can't move my legs. I tried to keep up, but... I must have overdone it."
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked past her at the Butcher, frustration and shame mingling in his eyes.
"I couldn't beat him."
"I did not ask you to beat him," Passha said, not taking her eyes off the fallen killer. "Only that you keep him busy. You rose to the challenge, and your friend is safe because of it. I will take over now."
Kin let out a breath that was half relief, half pain. "You got her out of there? Thank you. I—" He broke off in another cough.
"Save it," Passha said. "We are not finished yet."
Both of them saw it at the same time.
The Butcher's body twitched.
Then it began to rise.
The motion was wrong from the start—jerking, uneven, like a corpse being yanked upright by invisible strings. He got to his feet clutching at his face, his whole body trembling with frantic distress over the wound Passha had carved into him.
Passha frowned. "No blood? I was certain my claws cut him deep."
The Butcher's voice came out in a ragged, panicked whine. "My... my face. Look what you've done!" His hands pressed harder against it. "He'll never accept me like this!"
Kin stared at him. "What is he on about?"
"I do not know," Passha said, her tone flattening. "But I doubt this 'he' is even human. I have never cut a man who did not bleed after."
The Butcher froze for a moment.
Then, as if some fresh thought had slithered into his mind, that awful laughter returned.
It started small.
Then swelled into something manic.
"I know," he said. "I will just have to get more faces... better ones." His grin widened beneath his ruined hood. "I will have to take... yours!"
He lunged at Passha at full speed, keeping low to the ground like an animal charging prey.
Passha was ready.
She shifted into stance, claws raised, body light and balanced. The Butcher came in with a leaping slash, but she slipped past it in one smooth motion and countered at once. The failed strike only enraged him. He attacked again. And again. Each time, Passha met him with nothing but her hands, feet, and perfect control.
She parried with her forearms.
Slipped his blade by a hair.
Pivoted around his next cut.
Her movements were exact, disciplined, almost elegant.
When he tried to split her in half with a broad cleaving slash, Passha dropped low and spun under it, her body coiling beneath the attack. In the same motion, her tail snapped out and swept his legs from under him. The Butcher hit the stone hard.
Before he could recover, Passha drove a kick into his abdomen.
The impact sent him skidding backward down the alley.
Kin watched from behind her as the Butcher struggled to rise. Something about the way he moved gnawed at him—something buried in memory, irritating and familiar.
His brow tightened. "Why do I recognize his movements? Have I seen them somewhere before?"
Passha had already settled back into her stance, ready for the next exchange.
"Now," she said softly, "it is my turn."
She burst forward.
The Butcher slashed out to keep her back, but Passha leapt, planted two quick steps against the alley wall, and spun off it in a vicious guillotine kick. He got his blade up in time to block—
—but only barely.
The force shattered his guard instantly.
Passha pressed the advantage with a rapid flurry of kicks, each one flowing into the next with deceptive rhythm. One feinted high. The next came low. Then another snapped in from the side. Every strike seemed designed less to hit cleanly than to mislead him about where the next blow would come from.
The Butcher stumbled backward under the pressure.
Passha switched footing mid-combination and kept attacking without ever needing her hands. There was contempt in it now. A message.
She did not need weapons to beat him.
Until this moment, the Butcher had faced little real resistance. His victims had been easy prey—young, isolated, defenseless. He had grown arrogant from it. Passha saw that now. Beneath the tricks and speed, there was no discipline here. No true skill. Just cruelty, strange abilities, and the confidence of someone who had never once been forced to answer for what he'd done.
Not a hunter.
A spoiled brat.
A coward with a blade.
The Butcher snarled, panic bleeding into rage. "No! He will be angry with me if I let you stop my hunt! I will end you first!"
He sprang back and hurled the wired dagger into the alley wall.
In the next instant, it ricocheted.
Left wall. Right wall. Left again.
It became a blur of steel and black wire, pinballing through the narrow alley so fast it was nearly impossible to track. Then it struck.
Passha jerked as the blade buried itself in her arm.
The Butcher yanked hard on the wire.
Passha was ripped off her feet and dragged into the air straight toward him. He planted both feet against the nearby wall and launched himself off it with savage force, meeting her midair.
Then came the slashes.
A frenzy of them.
He cut from one side, then the other, twisting through the air as he carved at her from multiple angles before gravity could reclaim them both. Kin could only watch as the Butcher tore into her with malicious delight.
Something in him snapped.
"I have to stop this!"
He lurched forward—
Then faltered.
He looked down in shock.
His legs were moving again.
Life had returned to them.
Ahead of him, Passha hit the ground with a heavy thud. Blood spread dark across her clothes from the cuts she had taken, and the Butcher was already advancing for the finishing blow.
Passha tried to rise, but her body betrayed how badly she'd been hit.
Kin ran.
He summoned another bound sword into his hand as he sprinted down the alley. He did not know Passha. Not really. He still had too many questions about who she was, what she wanted, and why she had chosen to help them.
But none of that mattered now.
He was not going to stand there and watch her die.
His throat burned raw, his voice ragged from overuse, but if he had anything left in him, he would use it.
"Passha!"
Halfway up from the ground, Passha turned and saw him charging toward them at full speed.
Then she looked forward again and saw the Butcher nearly upon her, blade poised to take her head.
She made her choice.
Trusting the boy, she threw herself backward into a roll.
The Butcher's strike sliced through empty air.
But the effort cost her the last of her strength. She could not rise again in time.
Then the alley shook with a thunderous shout.
"Wuld! Nah! Kest!"
The words ripped from Kin's battered throat like a storm breaking loose.
The Butcher looked up just in time to see a bright violet flash tear through the alley.
A violent gust followed.
It ripped down the narrow path like a storm given shape, shattering windows on either side as it thundered past. The force of it blew the Butcher's hood back, baring the killer's face to the night.
Then it was over.
For one stunned moment, he simply stood there.
Still.
Silent.
As though his body had not yet understood what had happened.
Then a dark line opened across his torso—from his right shoulder down to his left ribs.
Black ooze spilled out.
The Butcher staggered, staring down at himself in mute horror as the thick substance poured from the wound. His legs buckled. He dropped to his knees, slick with the foul blackness.
"I..." He coughed, and more of the ooze spilled from his mouth. "I could not do it... brother. I could not find you the perfect..."
His final breath rattled out of him.
Then the body toppled forward onto the stone.
Still.
Dead.
Passha looked past the corpse and saw Kin standing there in its wake.
Barely.
He swayed once, then dropped to one knee as a violent coughing fit seized him. Blood splattered the ground beneath him with each cough. Passha forced herself up despite the pain ripping through her own body and hurried to his side.
"Are you all right, child?"
Kin lifted his head weakly. "I'm..." He coughed again, wiping at his mouth. "Fine. Did we... win?"
Passha knelt beside him, studying him carefully. "Not we," she said. "You won."
She let the words settle before continuing.
"In trying to exploit his overconfidence, I became overconfident myself. I was caught unawares." Her gaze hardened with disgust—at herself more than anyone. "A mistake I shall not make twice."
Then, more quietly, "But you, child... you have shown me what the heart of a hero looks like."
Kin looked at her through the haze of pain and exhaustion. "What... do you mean by that?"
"Your goal was to stop the Butcher, yes? That goal could have been achieved without saving my scales."
Kin frowned faintly. "You mean letting him kill you so I'd have an opening?"
"It would have been the most efficient way to land a killing blow," Passha said. "Calling out to me only made things more dangerous. But I do not blame you for it." Her expression softened, just slightly. "In fact... I am grateful. I see now why the Night Mother is so taken with you."
Despite everything, Kin gave a weak, breathless scoff. "Yeah... we definitely need to talk about that whole Night Mother thing."
He pushed himself upright slowly, unsteady on his feet, and made his way toward the corpse.
Then he stopped.
Passha followed just behind him, and at once she noticed the change in him. His breathing had gone shallow. His whole body had gone rigid.
She stepped around to see what he was looking at.
And understood.
Her claws had scarred the face, yes—but beneath that, the truth of the body revealed itself in the moonlight.
This was no ordinary corpse.
No ordinary man.
The thing lying at their feet had been stitched together piece by piece. Flesh from different bodies had been sewn into a grotesque mockery of a person. The skin on one side of the face was a different shade than the other. The hair did not match. Thick stitches ran straight through the middle, dividing one stolen half from another.
Kin's breath caught.
He recognized one side of the face.
The missing girl from Candlehearth.
He had been too late.
The proof was right there in front of him, sewn into the monster's body. The Butcher had gotten to her long before Kin ever had the chance to help.
His knees gave out.
He dropped in front of the corpse, horror and guilt crashing through him all at once. Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them. One by one, they fell, spattering softly onto the dead girl's face.
"Why...?" he whispered.
His voice cracked.
"Why did I let you leave by yourself? Why didn't I go with you?" His fists trembled at his sides. "You'd be alive right now... and not forced to suffer like this."
His breathing broke.
Then the grief ripped out of him in full.
"Why can't I save anyone?" he cried. "I can't..." He choked on the words, tears running freely now. "I can't even save myself sometimes."
Passha knelt beside him once again.
"Pick your head up, child."
Kin shook his head hard. "I don't want a pep talk, all right? I knew better than this." He clenched his fists until they shook. "Everyone expects me to save Skyrim, slay dragons and all that, but I can't even save the people right in front of me." His voice dropped into something small and raw. "What am I even doing... if I can't do at least that?"
Passha looked at him for a long moment.
"I am not in the business of cheering people up," she said. "I am a career assassin, mind you."
Despite the bluntness, there was no cruelty in her voice.
"But I will say this—you are wrong."
Kin did not respond.
"Tonight, I saw the hero within you with my own eyes. Because of your actions, no more young women will suffer the same fate as those before." She looked down at the corpse, then back at him. "You may not see it now because grief has blinded you, but your actions have saved many. Just because you cannot see their faces, or hear their cries, does not make that any less true."
Kin stared hollowly at the body. "I've done nothing of the sort. This isn't even the real killer. If anything, all we've done is slow his plans."
"That is true," Passha said. "But surely you do not mean to quit now?"
Kin said nothing.
"Protecting people, much like killing them, can be ugly work," she continued. "It is not always clean. In fact, it rarely is. But you have a job to do." Her golden eyes narrowed slightly. "We both do."
Before Kin could answer, movement stirred at the far end of the alley.
Torchlight.
Voices.
The sound of armored men drawing near.
Passha rose at once and placed a hand on Kin's shoulder.
"I must go now," she said. "This city is not especially kind to Argonians as of late. But we will continue our hunt soon enough." She gave his shoulder a small squeeze. "Do not lose heart on me now, youngling."
Kin was too lost in grief to answer. He sat there motionless, staring down at the stitched face before him.
By the time the guards reached the alley, Passha was gone.
They stopped at the entrance, taking in the damage first—the shattered windows, the scarred stone, the corpse on the ground, and the boy kneeling beside it in silence.
They called out to him.
Kin did not react.
He did not hear them.
All he heard were the songs from Candlehearth Hall. The music they had danced to. The memory of laughter that had already become something painful.
The guards approached cautiously, then hauled him to his feet when he still refused to respond. They bound his hands in irons and began leading him back toward the heart of the city, torches raised high against the dark. A few men remained behind to inspect the body and count the cost of the destruction.
Kin barely felt the cuffs.
Barely felt the hands on him.
This pain was familiar.
It dragged him backward through time, all the way to Riften nearly six years ago—to another moment of helplessness, another night where failure had hollowed him out from the inside.
He had never wanted to feel that way again.
Utterly powerless.
Utterly defeated.
And worst of all, he knew the truth.
The real Butcher was still out there.
Still unseen.
Still one step ahead.
Chapter End—