#soren graye

Brand-Shei is out.

Saw him back in the market today, free of the cell I helped put him in. Strange thing, looking a man in the face after arranging his trouble from the shadows. Stranger still when he greets you like any other customer and not the knife that slipped between his ribs.

We had a few drinks.

Funny how ale softens the edges of a man. A few cups in, and Brand-Shei started talking more freely. Turns out the name is not just unusual for a Dunmer. It belongs to the people who raised him. Argonians, of all things. They found him as a babe, took him in, gave him a life when whoever birthed him left only questions behind.

No idea who he really is. No family name. No bloodline. Just scraps, rumors, and a last clue pointing north.

Winterhold.

He has been searching for answers for years, it sounds like, but Riften has a way of catching a man by the ankle and calling it fate. Debts, bad luck, bad timing. Maybe all three. Whatever the reason, he has been stuck here, chasing his own past in circles while the city quietly eats his days.

I should not care.

I know that.

Brand-Shei was a job. A ring. A distraction. A few days in a cell and a handful of coin in my purse. Nothing more.

And yet.

Maybe it was the ale. Maybe it was seeing him speak of his past with that look in his eye. Maybe it was knowing I had helped bend his life a little further out of shape for someone else’s profit.

Not guilt.

I do not think it was guilt.

Something close enough to be irritating.

He asked me to check the last clue he had in Winterhold. A long way north for a stranger’s question. Cold road, colder city, and likely poor pay unless the gods are feeling generous.

I agreed.

Still not sure why.

But I did, and there is no going back now. A man’s word is useful only if it can be spent more than once. Besides, helping Brand-Shei may clean one stain while opening another door. A grateful merchant with a strange past is not the worst investment.

I told Uthgerd.

She liked the idea.

Of course she did. A journey, a wrong to right, a mystery with enough danger around the edges to keep her interested. She did not press me on why I cared. Maybe she thinks I am better than I am. Maybe she knows I am not and finds the attempt amusing.

Either way, we head out tomorrow.

Winterhold this time.

I may look into renting horses. I have had enough of carriages, cramped benches, and other people choosing the pace. If I am going to chase a Dunmer’s lost history across the frozen north, I would rather do it with some control over the road.

Brand-Shei wants answers.

Uthgerd wants purpose.

Took a few extra days getting back to Riften.

Almost forgot Ingun’s little list in the process. Deathbell was simple enough. Nightshade too. Nirnroot, as expected, was a miserable little song from the riverbank and a pain to gather properly. Still, I have everything now.

First stop was the Flagon.

Reported in to Delvin and took a couple local jobs. Nothing grand. A few simple pieces of work around Riften that should be easy enough to handle tonight, provided no one decides to grow eyes where they usually keep excuses.

Brynjolf is still in talks, apparently. More business turning behind closed doors. That means I keep doing what I have been doing: small jobs, quiet jobs, proof stacked one piece at a time until the Guild has no choice but to open the next door.

After that, I went to Mistveil Keep.

Spoke with Jarl Laila about the East Empire matter. She agreed to let them set up at the docks. I will be curious to see what becomes of that. Tonilia can move the less savory items through the Guild, while East Empire handles the goods that prefer a cleaner face. Two rivers of profit running side by side.

Could be interesting.

Could be dangerous.

Usually the same thing.

Then there was Ingun.

She was ecstatic when I brought her the ingredients. Truly ecstatic, not that forced sweetness Aerin’s little curse seems to drag out of people. She is still working on a lead, carefully and quietly. She does not want to invite the pain by saying his name again, which I understand. But she thinks she is close.

Good.

I told her I would check back in a few days.

In return, she gave me something useful. A poison recipe, and not some market-stall rot meant to make wolves sleepy. This one has teeth. Canis root, imp stool, mora tapinella. Paralysis and drain health together. Stillblood, if I am to give it a name. She taught me how to make it properly, then offered access to her stash of potions and poisons when I need them.

Useful girl.

No, not girl. Woman. Dangerous one, if she ever stops hiding behind Maven’s shadow and her own experiments.

I think I saw something in her today. A slight glint. Interest, maybe. Curiosity. Not the potion-forced sort. Something more her own.

Worth noting.

Could do worse than spending time with Maven Black-Briar’s daughter. Dangerous, yes, but there are worse places to stand than near secrets no one wants spoken aloud. So long as Maven does not notice the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Uthgerd noticed something.

I caught the look. Was that a smile on her lips? Laughing at me, maybe. Or knowing exactly what I was thinking before I admitted it to myself. She is smarter than people give her credit for. Sharp in a way that does not need pretty words.

We had a drink after.

Then I handled the local jobs, quick and quiet, as planned.

Back to the attic after that. Back to the little room above Boli’s, where the boards creak, the air sits close, and the city feels just far enough away to think.

Rest tonight.

In a few days, Ingun may have answers. Delvin may have more work. East Empire may begin moving at the docks.

Riften’s pieces are starting to shift.

Spent the day beneath Riften.

Strange thing, knowing there is a whole other city under the one everyone sees. The market above has its fishmongers, beggars, guards, and Black-Briar shadows. Down here, in the Ragged Flagon, things are less dressed up. Thieves, cutpurses, fences, debt collectors, liars. All sitting around drinking like any other working folk.

Maybe they are.

Brynjolf seems pleased enough with me, though not so pleased that he is willing to open every door yet. Fair. Trust is bought in work, not words. He says I need to handle a few jobs for the Guild before I get brought further in. Whiterun, apparently. A few days away from Riften, lifting purses and testing locks under a different hold’s nose.

Could be useful.

Delvin has the look of a man who has seen every kind of fool and expects me to become one. Vex is worse. Sharp eyes, sharper tongue, and the kind of woman who makes a man want to impress her right before she proves how stupid that was. Tonilia handled the gear and trade talk. Practical woman. Dangerous in the way people are dangerous when they know exactly what everything is worth.

They gave me Guild armor. Good leather, I suppose. Better than rags, and I am not ungrateful.

But I am not stupid either.

Walking around in matching thief leathers feels like wearing a confession. Maybe that works for some of them. Maybe they like the reputation. Me, I would rather look like another hungry man in street clothes than announce myself as Guild property to every guard with eyes.

I will keep the gear. Might have use for it later.

For now, I stay looking like myself.

Still, I can feel it. The chance in all this. Real coin. Real connections. Not just errands and fish, but a path. A dirty path, no doubt, but most roads worth taking have mud on them somewhere.

The women down here are another sort of danger. Vex, Tonilia, others drifting in and out with smiles that cut both ways. Pretty enough to make a man forget his footing. Deadly enough to make forgetting costly.

Best to keep those thoughts buried.

I need work. I need proof. I need coin.

Damn Brynjolf.

I had taken to nicking a few things here and there. Nothing grand. Nothing foolish. A loose purse when the owner was careless. A trinket left too close to the edge of a stall. Little things. The kind of theft a city like Riften barely notices beneath all its larger rot.

Or so I thought.

Turns out old Bryn has sharper eyes than most.

He approached me in the market with a job. Simple enough, he said. Steal a ring. Plant it on Brand-Shei. Let the guards find it. Easy coin, easy work, no real trouble for me.

There is always trouble for someone.

Brand-Shei must have crossed the wrong person, or gotten in the way of someone with longer reach than sense. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe he did not. I did not ask many questions. Questions are expensive when a man is still trying to afford answers.

So I did it.

The ring found its way where Brynjolf wanted it. Brand-Shei found himself in chains. Only for a few days, they say, as if a few days in a cell is nothing so long as it happens to someone else.

I should feel worse about it.

Maybe I do.

Not enough to give the coin back.

After that, Brynjolf pulled me deeper. The Thieves Guild, of all things. Not rumor. Not tavern talk. Real enough, and sitting right beneath Riften like a second city under the first. I had to put some fear into a few stubborn debtors to prove I was worth more than a lucky pair of hands.

That part came easier than it should have.

There is money here. Real money, not fish guts and delivery scraps. Odd jobs, stolen goods, debts collected, favors traded. Do the work, get paid, keep moving. Simple.

Riften finally showed me one of its hidden doors.

Kept close to Riften today.

No carriages. No distant holds. No cursed stone cities full of madmen and guards who pretend corpses are part of the weather. I have had enough of that for a while.

Instead, I worked at the fishery.

Not glorious work. Not clever work. Cold hands, wet sleeves, the smell of fish clinging to everything. But coin is coin, and fish do not usually pull knives or shout about ancient grudges at city gates.

Usually.

There is something useful about simple labor. A man can listen while his hands are busy. The fishery has its own little currents: workers grumbling, merchants counting, dock folk watching who comes and goes. Riften’s real business does not happen in grand halls. It leaks through places like this. Docks, markets, alleys, back rooms.

Marise at the market has been helpful enough. She buys the “extra” fish without too many questions, which makes the work worth more than it looks. Honest coin on the surface. A little extra beneath it.

That seems to be Riften’s way.

I am starting to understand the city better. Not completely, but enough to see the pattern. Nothing here is just one thing. A fishery is not just a fishery. A market stall is not just a stall. A favor is not just a favor. Everyone is trading something, even when no coin changes hands.

For now, I will keep my head down and my purse growing.

There will be time for bigger risks later. Right now, I need money, names, and a better feel for which doors open easily and which ones need a knife slipped between the frame.

The fishery is honest work.

Back through Riften’s gates at last.

After Markarth, even this damp, crooked little city almost felt welcoming. Almost.

I had not been inside long before I saw something worth remembering. Mjoll the Lioness and Aerin, arguing in the street. I kept my distance and listened just enough to catch the shape of it. Could not hear every word, but I did not need to.

Aerin has that voice.

The kind that pretends to care while measuring where the leash should go. Soft words. Worried looks. A man dressing control up as concern. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe he is just a nervous fool clinging to someone stronger than himself.

But I doubt it.

Mjoll did not look like a woman who needed guarding from the world. She looked like a woman being quietly fenced in by someone who smiles while building the walls.

That is worth watching.

Riften hides knives under tables, not in plain sight. Aerin may not be dangerous in the way a bandit is dangerous, but some men do more damage whispering than others do swinging steel. I will make a note of him. And of her.

Reported back to Boli after that. He seemed pleased enough to have his business handled, though not the least bit sorry about sending me to Markarth. I suppose I cannot blame him for the madman at the gate, or for the city being half insane, but I understand now why he did not want to go himself.

Smart man, Boli.

Stingy with explanations, maybe, but smart.

My coin is a little better now. My patience is not. I should head straight to the nook, shut the door, and sleep until Markarth is nothing but bad road dust on my boots.

Instead, I may visit the Bunkhouse first.

A distraction would do me good. Something warm. Something simple. Something that does not involve purchase agreements, silver cities, madmen, or men like Aerin pretending their hands are clean.

Then home.

What kind of city is Markarth?

Boli said it was an easy job. Deliver a purchase agreement to the market. Hand it to the innkeeper. Collect payment. Simple enough.

I should have known better. Nothing involving a carriage ride across half of Skyrim is ever simple.

I had barely stepped through the gates before some madman came at a woman with a knife, shouting about the Forsworn like the word alone was enough to split the stones. For one breath I thought he was coming for me. Instinct took over before sense could catch up.

I put him down.

Then I waited for the guards to clap irons on me, because that is how these things usually go. Stranger arrives. Blood spills. Stranger gets blamed.

But no. They looked at the corpse, looked at me, and more or less told everyone to move along.

Move along.

A man gets killed at the city gate and the guards treat it like a dropped bottle in a tavern. Markarth may be dressed in stone and silver, but there is something foul underneath it. Riften is rotten, yes, but at least Riften knows it. Markarth pretends to be carved from strength while its cracks bleed in public.

Then, as if the day had not made itself strange enough, the innkeeper paid me in ingots.

Not coin. Ingots.

Heavy, awkward, miserable chunks of metal, like I am supposed to smile and thank him for the privilege of hauling half a smithy back to the Rift. Stingy bastard probably thought himself clever.

Fine.

I will hock them before I leave and turn his “payment” into something actually useful. Then I am taking the next carriage back east. I have no desire to sleep in this city, eat in this city, or learn what else its walls are hiding.

Boli owes me more than he knows.

There has to be a better way to make coin than this. Honest work may keep a man fed, but it also sends him walking straight into other people’s madness. Maybe that is the lesson.

Coin is running low.

Not gone, not yet, but low enough that I can feel it every time I reach for my purse. A man thinks differently when he hears only a few pieces shift at the bottom. Less like a man choosing his next step, and more like one being pushed toward it.

I do not care for that feeling.

The little room above Boli’s has helped. No innkeeper waiting with an open hand. No nightly price just to close my eyes under a roof. Still, walls do not feed a man, and pride cooks poorly.

So work it is.

There are always errands in a place like Riften. Deliveries. Messages. Little burdens people would rather put in another man’s hands. Most of it sounds honest enough. Boring, maybe, but honest. More importantly, it lets me move through the city with purpose and gives people a reason to remember my face without fearing it.

That has value.

I heard Boli may need something delivered. Convenient, considering I have been sleeping above his head like a ghost he never invited in. Better to be useful before I am noticed. A favor, even a small one, can make questions feel less urgent.

I will take the work if it pays.

Fish, parcels, notes, whatever needs carrying. Let them think me another hungry man willing to run errands for coin. That is close enough to the truth for now.

Besides, every delivery teaches something.

Who trusts whom. Who pays poorly. Who lies easily. Who keeps their door locked. Who has enough coin to hire strangers for simple work.