As he walked through the foggy cemetery, heading toward Camilla's grave, Torin rubbed his forehead. The headache had finally arrived—a dull, persistent throb behind his eyes that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
He'd been holding it off since the moment he saw the scars, but now, with the silence pressing in from all sides and the cold seeping through his boots, there was nothing left to distract him.
He let out a long, slow sigh. The breath steamed in the air, then dissolved into the mist.
Why did everything have to be so complicated?
Why couldn't this be some regular maniac? The kind he could track, and kill, and be done with. The kind that left a trail of bodies and mistakes, that made noise, that was easy to find.
He expected a simple killer. A straightforward hunt. Something he could wrap up in a few days so he could get back to the College, back to his research, back to the work that actually mattered.
No. Of course not.
Instead, he was hunting a mage. A healer, at that. And to make things even worse, he found himself struggling with anger he thought long gone...
Torin's jaw tightened as he walked, his boots crunching on the gravel path. The fog swirled around him, thick and damp, turning the gravestones into ghosts and the trees into watching sentinels.
The revelation about the healing magic changed everything. And nothing.
It made him sick, first of all. The idea that someone had used healing—healing—as a tool for cruelty. That they'd taken the one school of magic dedicated to preserving life and twisted it into something that prolonged suffering.
Colette Marence would have a fit if she knew. She'd probably track down the bastard herself and give him a long lecture before either beating him half to death, or all the way...
But as dark as it was, the revelation would help narrow things down. Significantly.
The number of capable healers in Skyrim was small. Not because Restoration was rare—plenty of people knew a few basic spells—but because healing someone back from the edge of death, keeping them alive through wounds that should have been fatal, that took skill. Years of training. Practice. Talent.
And in Falkreath? A backwater hold with one priest of Arkay and a handful of wandering alchemists? The list of people who could have done this was very, very short.
Even if the culprit was someone who hid their magical talents—and they probably did, if they'd been operating in secret for years—there were ways to tell. The way they moved. The way they looked at people.
The subtle tells that marked a mage, even one who never cast a spell in public. And a healer specifically? They had their own tells. The steadiness of their hands. The way they assessed injuries without thinking.
The patience that came from years of sitting beside the dying and waiting.
Torin would figure it out. He'd build a profile—everything he knew about the killer, everything he could infer from the wounds, the scars, the patterns, the victims themselves. Then he'd start making a list. People who had access to Eydis. People who'd been around four years ago. People who had the skill to heal like that and the motive to hurt like that.
Then he'd methodically eliminate each one until only one was left.
That was how people did these things in his previous life. Not that he'd been a detective or anything—he'd read enough books, absorbed enough secondhand knowledge to know the basics. Profiling. Evidence. Process of elimination.
He wasn't a professional at this, but he had magic, and he had Auri, and a burning need to see this finished... if that's not enough, then a lot of anger to vent as well.
That would have to be enough.
It had to be enough.
He was about to decide—guard barracks first, or start questioning people right after he visited Camilla?—when his chain of thought snapped like a dry branch.
Movement.
In the fog. To his left, maybe twenty paces away. A shape that didn't belong among the gravestones, a shadow that shifted when the others were still.
Torin's hand went to his axe, his body tensing, all the rage and frustration he'd been holding in check suddenly focused into a single, razor-sharp point.
Torin's hand tightened on his axe, every muscle in his body coiling.
"Who goes there?" His voice cut through the fog, sharp and commanding. "Show yourself."
The shape moved again. Closer this time. A small shape, Torin realized—low to the ground, moving with a fluid, almost silent grace that set his teeth on edge. Not anyone he'd expected.
His eyes narrowed, peering through the fog, trying to determine if what he was seeing was a threat or just another ghost in this city of the dead.
The figure emerged from the mist.
Short. Petite. Covered in black fur that was mostly hidden beneath a simple grey dress that had seen better days—patched at the elbows, frayed at the hem, too thin for the cold.
The fur beneath was sleek and dark, the kind of black that seemed to drink in the little light the fog let through.
A small humanoid feline stared at him with wide, yellow eyes. Perplexed eyes. The kind of eyes that didn't quite understand what they were seeing, that were trying to fit what was in front of them into a world that didn't usually work that way.
Her head tilted, catlike, her ears twitching beneath the hood she'd pulled up against the damp.
"You can see K'hila?" Her voice was small, light, with that lilting accent Torin had heard from every Khajiit he'd ever met. "Your kind always looks through this one."
Torin's posture relaxed.
His hand fell away from his axe. The tension drained from his shoulders, replaced by something that might have been relief or might have been exhaustion. He let out a long, tired sigh, the breath steaming in the cold air.
A child. Just a child.
He put on a smile, strained around the edges but genuine underneath.
"Nords aren't fond of things they don't understand," he said gently. "And they don't understand your kind. They see the fur and the claws, and they stop looking. That's their loss."
He took a step toward her, slow, careful. The way he'd approach a spooked horse or a wounded animal. She watched him come, those yellow eyes tracking his every move, but she didn't run.
"But enough about that." He stopped a few feet away, giving her space. "What are you doing out here all by yourself? It's dangerous right now. Especially for someone your size."
K'hila nodded solemnly. Her ears flattened against her head for a moment, then perked back up.
"This one knows of the danger you speak of. The monster." Her voice dropped to a whisper, like she was sharing a secret with the fog itself. "It's looking for K'hila. It thinks itself cunning. But K'hila is too wise. Too swift for the wicked monster."
Torin couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. The confidence in her voice was almost comical—this tiny thing, barely reaching his waist, declaring herself too clever, too swift for something that had been hunting grown adults through these woods for weeks.
However, underneath the amusement, there was concern. Real concern. Because if what she said was true—if the killer was actually looking for her—then this child was in more danger than she probably understood.
He took a few more steps, moving slowly, deliberately. Then he got on one knee in front of her, bringing himself down to her level. The fog curled around them both, cold and damp, but he barely noticed it anymore.
"Who is this monster?" His voice was soft, careful. "Can you name him? Can you tell me what he looks like?"
K'hila's eyes darted to the side, then back to his face. Her tail, which he hadn't noticed before, twitched nervously behind her.
"If you do," Torin continued, "I'll make sure he never harms you or anyone else again."
The words hung in the air between them.
K'hila studied him for a long moment, her yellow eyes searching his face for something—deception, maybe, or pity, or the kind of false kindness adults sometimes gave to children when they didn't really mean it.
Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to find it, or maybe she didn't.
Either way, her shoulders relaxed, just slightly.
"This one doesn't know the monster's name." Her voice was barely a whisper now. "This one hasn't seen it either."
She trailed off, her yellow eyes darting to the fog around them, scanning the gravestones, the trees, the shadows between the lights of the hall ahead. "K'hila knows it's out there. And that it's searching for K'hila."
Torin let out a low hum, his brow furrowing.
Was this a child spouting gibberish? The kind of stories frightened kids told themselves to make sense of a world that was too big and too scary? Or was there something more to her words? Something real, buried under the fear and the fairy tales?
He looked down at her—this small creature in her too-thin dress, her fur damp with fog—and decided it didn't matter. Either way, she was a child alone in a cemetery, and he was going to get her somewhere warm and safe before he did anything else.
But first.
"Where are your parents, anyway?" He kept his voice light, casual. "Did you sneak away from somewhere? I know a few people in town. I can take you back to them."
K'hila shook her head, her ears flattening briefly against her skull.
"This one has no parents." She said it simply, like it was just a fact. The way someone might say the sky was blue or the snow was cold. "This one was raised in the trade caravans. By the traders."
Torin's eyes widened slightly. "The caravaneers? But there are no caravans in Falkreath right now, not for a while."
He'd run into them enough times on the roads and even sought them out for trade on occasion. He knew their schedule and trade route.
The caravans moved with the seasons, following the trade winds and the coin, and in the winter months, they gathered in Solitude, where the nobility paid good money for exotic goods and warmer furs.
There was no reason for a Khajiit child to be here. Not now. Not alone.
K'hila seemed to deflate a little at his words. Her shoulders sagged, her tail drooping behind her, and for a moment she looked every bit as small and lost as she was.
"Yes." Her voice was very quiet. "Though K'hila is wise and swift now, that wasn't always the case." She pouted, her lower lip pushing out in a way that was almost comically childish. "The monster's servant deceived K'hila. Separated her from the caravans."
The monster's servant.
He stared down at her, his mind racing. She'd mentioned the monster before—something hunting her. But a servant? That was new.
"How long ago was that?" He kept his voice calm, even, though something cold was forming in his chest. "When you got separated from the caravans?"
K'hila rested a finger just below her lower lip and raised her gaze in thought, her ears perked forward. She looked for all the world like a child trying to remember how many days until her birthday.
"This one didn't keep track of the time." She frowned, her brow furrowing. "But it felt like two months since then? Maybe more. Maybe less. The days all look the same when you're running and hiding."
Two months.
Two months, this child had been alone. Two months, surviving in the woods around Falkreath, hiding from something that was hunting her.
Two months, while the caravans that had raised her were probably halfway across Skyrim by now, and the guards who were supposed to protect this hold were too busy chasing shadows to notice a lost child shivering in the fog.
The curses were right there, on the tip of Torin's tongue. The caravaneers who'd let a child wander off and then just left without her. The guards who'd been combing the hold for a killer for weeks and somehow missed a Khajiit child hiding in their own cemetery.
The whole town, probably, that had looked at a small, frightened creature and seen nothing worth noticing.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Took a deep breath. The anger was there, hot and sharp, but it wasn't for her. None of it was for her. He swallowed it down, forced it into the same place he'd put all the other rage tonight, and let it sit there with the rest.
"How were you able to survive so long on your own?" He started walking again, slow, letting her set the pace. "Two months is a long time. How did the monster not catch you?"
K'hila grinned smugly, her small pointed teeth catching the faint light from the hall's windows. Her tail, which had been drooping moments before, curled up behind her like a question mark.
"In addition to being wise and swift," she announced, puffing out her chest, "K'hila is also subtle and sneaky."
She gestured grandly at the fog around them, at the gravestones and the shadows and the silent trees. "She knows these lands now like the back of her paw. Every hiding spot. Every path the guards don't walk. Every place where the monster won't look."
Torin couldn't help but chuckle. The sound came out low and warm, surprising him. This little cat wasn't lacking in confidence. That much was certain. He'd met grown warriors with less self-assurance than this speck of fur and attitude.
He slowly stood up, his knees popping slightly from crouching too long in the cold.
"Well, wise and subtle you might be," he said, looking down at her, "but this burial ground is no place for a child. Even one as impressive as you."
He extended his hand toward her. "Why don't you come with me? I'll find you someplace warm in town. Somewhere with a real roof and a real fire. Somewhere you don't have to sleep with the dead."
He paused, then added, "And maybe, on the way, you can tell me about the monster's servant. About how they tricked you. So that I can make sure they don't deceive anyone else."
K'hila stared at his extended hand.
Her yellow eyes studied it like it was a puzzle she needed to solve. Her ears swiveled forward, then back, then forward again. Her tail curled and uncurled behind her, a nervous twitch that betrayed whatever calm she was trying to project.
Torin waited. Didn't push. Just stood there with his hand out, letting her decide.
After a long moment, she nodded slowly. Deliberately. Like a merchant agreeing to terms after careful consideration.
"This one finds your terms agreeable." Her voice had shifted into something more formal, more grown-up—the voice she probably used when she wanted to be taken seriously. "But only on one condition."
Torin's brows rose slightly.
"Oh?" He kept his face serious, though the corner of his mouth wanted to twitch. "Let's hear it."
K'hila planted her small hands on her hips. The gesture was so adult, so absurdly self-possessed, that Torin had to actively stop himself from laughing.
"You must teach this one how to whistle." She paused, giving him a quick once-over with those sharp yellow eyes. Her gaze lingered on his face, his lips, his hands—like she was assessing whether he was even qualified for the task. "There will be no deal if you don't know how."
Torin just smiled.
Then, without breaking eye contact, he pursed his lips and let out a low, clear whistle. The note hung in the foggy air for a moment, pure and steady, before fading into the silence of the cemetery.
K'hila's ears shot straight up. Her tail went rigid. Her eyes went wide.
"Yes!" She nearly bounced on her toes, her composure crumbling into pure, unfiltered excitement. "This one wants to learn that! That sound! That beautiful, sharp sound!"
She caught herself, visibly reining in her enthusiasm, and her voice dropped back to something more measured. "Do we have a deal?"
Torin nodded slowly, pretending to consider. "Alright. We have a deal. But—" He held up a finger. "Only if you come with me to visit an old friend first. I was on my way there when you came along. It's not far. Just a little ways into the woods."
K'hila's ears flattened for a moment. Her eyes darted toward the fog, toward the darkness beyond the cemetery's edge.
"A friend?" she asked warily. "What kind of friend?"
"The quiet kind." Torin's voice softened. "She's been gone a long time. But I like to visit her when I'm in Falkreath. Let her know I haven't forgotten."
K'hila studied him for a long moment. Those yellow eyes, so old and so young at the same time, searched his face for something. What, he couldn't say.
Then she let out a hum—a thoughtful, considering sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her chest.
"You drive a hard bargain," she said finally, with the air of someone who'd just negotiated a particularly tricky trade and wasn't entirely happy with the terms but would accept them anyway.
"But this one agrees."
She reached out and took his hand.
...
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