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At first, Nusha had plotted, trying to figure out a way to escape. But nobody escapes from the Imperial Prison.

Her cell lacked a window, and the open slit in the opposite cell only provided strong light for a few hours per day. She took to sleeping, drifting in and out of consciousness on the rough straw mattress, only waking to eat the stale bread given to her and to pace around the room.

It reminded her of her meditation in Black Marsh, when she had sat by the Hist tree for twenty days and twenty nights. But this time, she did not change, and she received no visions or insights. She was trapped here, plain and simple.

There were only two guards outside her cell. Clearly, they trusted the structure of the place to keep her under lock. Nusha worried for Karme, worried what they might do to the poor Dunmer girl who had the unfortunate chance to be captured by the amulet's spell. Doubtlessly they would be torturing her, trying to extract the truth out of somebody who could not give it. They would not believe the Pale Pass story; the Empire had too many enemies for something like this to happen by mere chance.

Occasionally, Nusha would sit still by one of the walls, her ear pressed against it, listening for the sound of Karme's cries, or perhaps the rattle of the Akaviri soldiers. But the prison was sealed off--perhaps Karme was being kept inside the palace itself--and Nusha only heard the flicker of torches and muttered conversation of guards.

Every few hours the guards switched over. Perhaps due to the strain put on them by the skeletons, Nusha was occasionally left alone during this time, only for half-an-hour or so. She had no faith in her abilities to escape, and indeed, they must have felt safe leaving her in the knowledge that none could make it out within that time.

One day, perhaps a week into her incarceration, something strange happened. While the guards were gone, the wall opposite Nusha began to shift. She scurried into the corner, watching warily as it slid aside, revealing a passage lit with pale blue lights.

Standing at the entrance to the passage was a face she never thought she would see again, an Argonian man with milky-white eyes and a smattering of battle scars.

"Meeran?"

She rubbed her eyes. She must be hallucinating. There was no way that he was here.

"You're not dreaming, Nusha. I'm here to rescue you."

At the sound of Meeran's voice, Nusha's stomach twirled into knots. It sounded just as it had almost ten years ago, when she had first met him.

Nusha was an orphan, a wretch who simply showed up in a clutch of eggs in Black Marsh. The local nannies--old Argonians of varying gender who took care of hatchlings--looked after her, but gave her no preferential treatment. Meeran was the one who changed her life, chose her as a Shadowscale. As a representative of the Dark Brotherhood, he visited Black Marsh every year to pick out a fresh bunch of recruits, from those Argonians born under the sign of the Shadow.

Nusha didn't understand how, but she'd seen that moment. When she first licked the Hist that changed her form, she had fallen into a deep sleep, and watched Meeran's journey through Black Marsh through his eyes. The dream confirmed what she had always suspected: she was a runt, rejected by her peers from birth, and Meeran was the only one who had seen something in her, a potential for a greater destiny.

Meeran had chosen her, and the urge to prove the other preceptors wrong, alongside the prophecy, was what lead to Nusha's reawakening and return to the Priory. But ever since that day Meeran had been a murky presence in her mind, neither friend nor foe, saviour nor destroyer. She had wondered if he even existed at all, having only met him once at a tender age, and yet here he was, standing in the Imperial Prison, here to rectify the course of her ill-fated life once more.

"Why?" was all Nusha could muster.

"Now is not the time to talk. The guards will be here soon. There is a hidden passage away from the prison."

Nusha stood up, stumbled forward, and hesitated. "What about Karme?"

"We will deal with her before we leave. Come now."

Nusha followed Meeran into the cool passage. He pulled a lever and the wall slid back into place, as if the prison cell had never been there.

What did he mean by 'deal with her', Nusha wondered. She was too dazed to ask.

They walked down a series of intricately carved corridors, passing through airy chambers that evoked the great Ayleid construction this was once all a part of. Nusha felt as if she was a child in the east wing of the Priory again, being led to the preceptor's office for punishment.

Eventually they reached a door and Meeran stopped. He spoke quickly and carefully to Nusha. "Beyond this corridor there is an interrogation chamber, where the Dunmer is being held. It was once a council room with several levels, and we will enter below the floor, in a part of the room that has been built over. I will move aside one of the tiles, and before the guards return, shoot her with a poisoned arrow."

Nusha's heart sank. So they weren't going to save Karme, but kill her. Meeran pressed a finger to his lips and opened the door before Nusha could say a word.

It made sense. The Dark Brotherhood would not want this debacle to be linked to them, and in order to erase any trace of their involvement, they had to remove both Nusha and Karme. Nusha was sure a venom-tipped arrow awaited her in Leyawiin as well.

They crept into a dark space, bent over beneath heavy stone. There was a muffled noise coming from above, and Nusha eventually realised it was Karme crying. Meeran stepped forward, and a sliver of light spilt into the space as he moved aside the loose tile.

It was as if Nusha woke up, only just realising what was happening. She placed a hand on Meeran's shoulder.

"The amulet will not cease to function if we kill her. The Akaviri soldiers will still--"

"That is not our concern."

Nusha flinched. Meeran didn't care if the skeletons lived on, broke out of their pen and wreaked havoc on the Imperial City. The Brotherhood was not concerned with saving lives, only taking them.

Meeran unsheathed his bow, and pulled the single arrow from his quiver. Gripping onto the wall for support, he pushed away the tile and climbed up. Karme stopped crying, and Nusha saw her chance.

She hurtled towards Meeran, slamming into his stomach. He gasped, the wind knocked out of him, and fell to the floor. Within seconds he had his knife in hand, but before he could use it, Nusha grabbed a piece of stone that had broken off the wall and slammed it down on his head.

Meeran jerked and fell still. Nusha examined his body, afraid he was dead, but found a steady pulse. She propped him up in a corner. Despite the fact that he was directly responsible for Nusha's life in Brotherhood, she didn't think he deserved to die for it. After all, it was she who had failed to make something of herself.

"Hello?" Karme called out from above.

Nusha climbed through the hole. The chamber was wide and circular, with a raised platform around the edge for interrogators to leer menacingly from. In the centre of the room was a grand, wooden chair, almost throne-like, but decorated in the shapes of thorns and vicious creatures. From behind the chair Nusha could make out Karme's bound hand struggling against the armrest.

"Karme."

Nusha walked round to her. If she had not known it was Karme, she might not have recognised her. The girl's hair was mangy, singed and cut off in jagged sections, and her face had aged a decade. Her eyes no longer held the naïve youth of the girl she met in Bruma, and her form was painted with scars, and emaciated.

A fat tear sluiced down Karme's cheek.

"Nusha... You came."

Nusha smiled, but could not think of words. The sound of approaching guards came from the distance, and she hurriedly examined the ropes tied around Karme's wrists and ankles. She'd need something sharp to get them off.

"I'll be back in a moment," she whispered, before slipping back down the hole. She searched desperately for a piece of stone that might work, until she remembered about Meeran. She took the two daggers she could find on him, as well as the bow and arrow for good measure.

Nusha returned to Karme, cutting the rope carefully to avoid hurting her. Karme stood up and almost fell back on the chair.

"Do you think you can walk?" Nusha said.

"I'll have to."

Her face took on a determined expression, one that was fresh to her. Nusha lead her through the hole and put the tile back in place, just as guards were rounding the corner to her cell.

She led Karme back through the corridor into the Ayleid ruins. She had expected Karme to gasp, ponder at the history of the place, but the ravaged, tortured girl had no energy for such frivolities.

"Where do we go?" she asked.

Nusha froze. She had absolutely no idea. She shook her head. They needed to get away. That was all that mattered. She pointed at the passage that wasn't the one she had come from.

"This way."

They walked for what felt like hours. Nusha constantly glanced over her shoulder, worried that a guard would show up at any moment, but it seemed they had no more knowledge of these passages than the rest of the city. How the Dark Brotherhood knew of them, Nusha wasn't sure, but it did not surprise her.

Eventually they reached what seemed to be a dead end, until Nusha discovered an alcove with a manhole in the floor. She twisted it open, and a familiar, foul smell wafted towards them.

"Think you can handle more sewers?"