Sloan rode out of Dawnstar with her contract still breathing and she was not entirely sure what she was going to say when she got back.

 

She had been turning the thought over for hours now, worrying at it like a loose tooth. The Sanctuary lay to the south; the roads were open. She could turn the horse in any direction and be gone before anyone thought to look for her. She was not bound by debt or oath or the kind of blood pact the Brotherhood used to use to seal its members to the cause. She had walked in of her own accord and she could walk out the same way. No one had put a blade to her throat and told her to stay.

 

And yet she was heading south.

 

It did not make sense, not entirely. She had spent her whole life following orders -- first Kira and the Vixen, then Kira and the Tong, then Delphine for a time (that part bewildered her; she had just started doing whatever Delphine asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world), then Kira again, as if the world was determined to bring her back to the same starting point no matter how far she ran. She had moved through her existence like a piece on a game board, placed and repositioned by hands that were not her own, and she had never once asked whether she wanted to be part of the game at all.

 

But standing over Beitild's bed, she had run out of reasons to stay in that role.

 

In the first timeline, she had killed because she owed Kira her life, three times over. She had paid that debt in blood, year after year, until there was nothing left of her but the shape of a blade and the echo of a name she no longer recognized as her own. But what did she owe Kira this time? Nothing – whatever debt may have been incurred by the killing of Mishi had been repaid many times over, as far as Sloan was concerned. And where did that leave her? With a room in the Sanctuary, a place at a table full of killers, and contracts to fill. That was not a debt, it was a transaction. She did not owe Kira her obedience or her life. She was free.

 

And yet she was heading south.

 

Because running away would mean letting the fear of what Kira might do dictate her path, and she was done letting other people's expectations steer her. Because she had spared Beitild -- had looked at a woman who did not deserve to die and had said no -- and she was not going to hide from the consequences of that decision. She would face Kira and she would face the Night Mother and she would find out what price there was to pay for refusing them both.

 

And then, if she was still alive, she would decide what came next.

 

She was still thinking about what that meant when she rounded a bend and came upon a struggle.

 

The first thing she saw was a body sprawled on the roadside, a man in weathered leather armor, his chest a mess of blood and torn fabric. He was alive -- barely -- his breath coming in wet, rattling gasps that Sloan could hear from thirty paces. His eyes were open but unfocused, fixed on the sky with the glassy stare of someone who had already left his body and was simply waiting for it to catch up. He would be dead within minutes, maybe sooner.

 

The second was a woman, very pregnant, being wrestled toward a horse by a man in a Dawnstar guard uniform. She was fighting -- not well, not effectively, but with the desperate, thrashing energy of someone who had nothing left to lose. Her wrists were bound in front of her and the guard had one hand clamped around her upper arm while the other held a short sword that he was using more as a prod than a weapon. There was a fresh cut on her cheek and her lip was split.

 

The guard looked up as Sloan approached. He had a soft face, a thick mustache, and a voice that came out surprisingly gentle given the circumstances.

 

"Afternoon, traveler. Nothing to concern yourself with -- just bringing in a bandit."

 

Sloan reined in her horse. She looked at the woman, who glared back with the exhausted hatred of someone who had been running for a long time and had finally been caught. She looked at the dying man on the ground. She looked at the guard.

 

And she knew.

 

It came the same way it had come with Beitild, as a sudden realization arriving whole and without invitation. She knew the woman was guilty -- she had been part of the band that had attacked a caravan three days ago, had killed innocent people then and before. The arrest was lawful. The guard was within his rights to haul her to Falkreath and throw her in a cell.

 

She also knew what happened in those cells after dark. She knew it the same way -- a wave of knowledge that came from somewhere outside her, carrying images that were not images but certainties: a small knife, a soft voice asking questions that did not need answers, the particular pleasure this man took in finding the exact point where pain became something else. She knew the pregnant woman would not survive a week in his custody. She knew the guard had done this before, many times, and that no one had ever stopped him.

 

Her name was Haen. His name was Sutfu. She did not know how she knew that, but she did.

 

"Is that so?" Sloan kept her voice neutral, casual. She swung down from the horse, keeping her movements easy, unhurried. "Bandits, huh? This one give you much trouble?"

 

"Plenty," Sutfu said, and his smile was warm, almost paternal. "But they always settle down eventually. Don't you, sweetheart?"

 

Haen spat at him. It landed on his chest. He did not even look down.

 

Sloan walked closer, angling herself so she was approaching from the side, her hands visible, her posture relaxed. Sutfu's attention was on Haen, who had stopped struggling and was now watching Sloan with a sort of desperate wariness.

 

"Mind if I take a look at the other one?" Sloan gestured at the dying man. "I've got some field training. Might be able to save him."

 

Sutfu considered this. His gaze flicked to the man on the ground, then back to Sloan, then to the woman, who had gone very still. "He's beyond saving," he said, still in that soft, pleasant voice. "But you're welcome to try."

 

Sloan knelt beside the dying man. She knew his name was Maase and she knew Sutfu was right -- he was beyond her help. His chest was sliced deep, his breath was a death rattle. She placed a hand on his shoulder anyway, a meaningless gesture, and used the cover to adjust the angle of her body. Sutfu had turned back to the Haen, his grip on her arm shifting as he prepared to hoist her onto the horse.

 

Haen's eyes met Sloan's. There was no plea in them -- she had already exhausted her capacity for hope. But there was something else -- a question.

 

Sloan answered it by moving.

 

She was on her feet in a single motion, her dagger already in her hand, and she crossed the distance in three steps. Sutfu heard her coming -- he was not incompetent -- and started to turn, started to bring his sword up, but he was off-balance with a handful of struggling prisoner. Sloan's dagger took him in the side, just below the ribs, angled up. He made a sound -- not a scream, more a surprised exhale -- and his grip on Haen's arm went slack.

 

Haen did not wait for instruction -- she wrenched free, stumbled back, and stood with her bound hands held out in front of her, breathing hard.

 

Sloan pulled her dagger free. Sutfu folded to his knees, both hands pressed to the wound, his soft face contorted into something that was almost confusion.

 

"What…why…" he started.

 

Sloan stepped past him, grabbed the woman's bindings, and sliced through them with a single motion. "Can you ride?"

 

The woman stared at her. "Who in Oblivion are you?"

 

"Someone who just killed a Dawnstar guard for you. Can you ride?"

 

The woman looked at the horse, then her own belly, then let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. "I'll manage."

 

Sloan nodded and turned back to Sutfu. He had fallen onto his side, his blood pooling dark against the frozen ground. She knelt beside him, close enough to see the confusion still flickering behind his eyes, and she felt something she had not expected: not satisfaction, not pity. Just certainty. The same certainty that had told her Beitild would not die told her he would.

 

"You're going to bleed out. It'll take a few minutes. Maybe longer, if you're lucky. I've seen similar wounds take an hour." She stood. "That's more time and much less pain than you gave many of them."

 

She walked to her horse and mounted. Haen had already hauled herself onto Sutfu's horse, her movements awkward but determined, her bound hands now free and gripping the reins with white-knuckled intensity.

 

"Why?" the woman asked.

 

Sloan considered the question. She could have said because he was a monster. She could have said because you're pregnant. She could have said because I'm tired of watching people die for the wrong reasons. All of these were true, and none of them were the whole truth.

 

"Because I can. And because I've spent my whole life doing what other people told me to. I'm done with that." She gathered her reins. “You still need to pay for your crimes. I won’t take you to Dawnstar but I will turn you in at Morthal.” She shook her head as Haen’s face darkened and she started to draw back. “Please don’t run – it will not work. You know what you’ve done. Whatever your reasons, there are some actions you cannot take back.” As who would know better than she? Sloan was glad she could not see herself with these new eyes – hers sins probably looked like a hole of pure darkness.

 

Haen stared at her for a long moment, then her shoulders slumped and she nodded, once, and turned her horse west without another word.

 

Sloan followed. Behind her, Sutfu made a wet, rattling sound that might have been an attempt at speech. She did not turn around.

 

She had a duty now -- a small one, a temporary one, a promise to see a guilty woman to the right authorities before she headed south to face whatever Kira had waiting for her. It was not the path she had planned; it was not a path she had ever imagined herself taking.

 

But it was hers. She rode west with a dead man she wasn't supposed to kill and a living woman she was behind her, and for the first time in both of her lives, the choices she had made today were ones she had arrived at on her own.

 

 

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