I - The Assassin

Far away from the brightness and noise of Mournhold, the New Life Festival in Caldera was being celebrated in a similar fashion. Lights were strung across all the houses, people danced and laughed in the chill of the streets, and the doors of the local tavern were thrown open invitingly despite the cold. The cacophony of sound was dulled, however, inside the dimmed front room of a modest manor just inside the city, where a young Dunmer woman sat before the fire with her legs curled under her, a book open in her lap. Her eyes, however, were closed, the book unread, her head leaning against the wing of her armchair. The tea on the table beside her was undrunk, long grown cold, and the fire in the grate burned low. There was a general silence throughout the house, only permeated when a loud bang issued from outside, followed by several people cheering.

PART TWO: Prologue

The streets of the Great Bazaar were alive with colour and noise. Ropes of bright flags were strung from lamp to lamp, trees were wrapped in vibrant paper, and lanterns with different coloured glass threw circles of red and gold and blue light onto the cobbles below. A thick string of people shifted slowly up and down the narrow paths between street shops, their excited voices rising high into the night air. They were all dressed in clothes that varied from dazzling splendour to thin rags – all manner of people moved throughout the festival, including a man in a dark cloak that pushed impatiently through the crowds.