Cold water crashes over my naked body, dragging me from darkness into brutal, shivering awareness.
I gasp, choke, curl instinctively against the frozen assault.
My lungs seize as ice floods my nose and mouth, and I cough violently, hands scrabbling against frost-hardened ground. My eyes open to gray morning light—pale and merciless.
Astrid stands above me with an empty wooden bucket, her smile sharp as a skinning knife.
"Wake up, whore." The word lands like a slap.
My mind struggles to piece together fragments of the night before—fire blooming from snow, faces dissolving into smoke, and then... hands on my skin.
Weight pressing me down. Pleasure that felt like worship.
My body tells me the truth before memory can. I ache in places I have never ached before—deep inside, where no pain has ever reached.
Bruises bloom across my thighs and hips in patterns that match the grip of large hands. And I lie bare in the frost behind the barn like discarded refuse.
"What..." My voice emerges cracked and raw. "What happened to me?"
Astrid's laugh rings bright and cruel in the morning air. "You do not remember? How delicious."
She crouches down, drinking in every bruise with evident satisfaction.
"I watched you stumble out of the barn like a mad thing, half-naked and babbling about gods. And then maybe some of the father's warriors found you."
My stomach turns to ice.
"Oh yes," she continues, eyes glittering with malicious delight. "Drunk, old warriors with wandering hands and no wives to warm their beds. They saw you offering yourself to the shadows, and they took what you so freely gave. Three of them, I think. Maybe four. It was difficult to count in the dark."
"You are lying."
"Am I?"
She tilts her head, golden hair cascading over her shoulder like spun sunlight.
"You were drunk and willing, dear sister. Any man with eyes could see you wanted it. Who can blame them for accepting your invitation?"
I push myself upright on trembling arms, refusing to cower before her even as shame burns through my veins.
The fragments in my mind feel wrong—those hands were not old and grasping. Those voices were not slurred with too much mead.
But the mushrooms have stolen my certainty, left only confusion and the ache between my thighs.
"Why?" I whisper. "Why would you do this to me?"
"Because I could."
Astrid rises, brushing frost from her fine skirts with delicate fingers.
"Because you have always looked at me with those judgmental gray eyes, as though your poverty made you somehow purer than the rest of us. I wanted to see you brought low."
Her smile widens, revealing perfect white teeth. "And now I have."
She pauses, examining her nails as though already bored with my suffering.
"But I cannot linger over your ruin, delightful as it is. I have far more important matters to attend to."
Her voice takes on a dreamy quality, soft and yearning.
"The konung's sons are still here, you know. Ragnar and Leif—have you heard of them? The most powerful men in the North, and the most handsome. Every woman in three jarldoms would kill to catch their eye."
Something cold slithers through my chest at those names, though I cannot say why.
"Father has arranged for me to dine with them this evening," Astrid continues, preening like a cat in cream. "A private audience. They are seeking brides, and I intend to be chosen. Can you imagine? Me, a princess. Perhaps even a queen someday, ruling at Ragnar's side while you rot in obscurity."
She looks down at me, naked and shivering in the frost, and her triumph is complete.
"Legitimate daughters marry princes, Hild. Bastards get rutted by drunk old men in the snow and then shovel pig dung." She tosses the bucket aside, where it clatters against frozen ground. "Speaking of which—the stables need mucking. I suggest you begin before Father notices you are missing."
Then she is gone, her fine skirts swishing through the frost as she returns to the warmth that will never welcome me.
I gather my torn shift from the snow, wrapping it around my marked body with what dignity I can muster. The fabric is damp and offers no comfort against the bitter cold, but I clutch it like armor nonetheless.
The walk back to the longhouse is endless and far too short. Every step sends pain radiating through muscles I did not know I possessed.
I keep my head down, avoiding curious glances, praying the evidence of my shame is not written too clearly on my face.
Inside the longhouse, I slip toward the cramped corner where my mother sleeps—the small space granted to a concubine of fading favor. But before I can reach it, a cold voice stops me in my tracks.
"What is this?"
I turn to find Eira blocking my path—Astrid's mother. My father's legitimate wife, the woman who rules this household with an iron will and colder heart.
She is dressed in morning finery, her gray-streaked hair coiled beneath a silver circlet, her eyes raking over my torn shift and bruised skin with undisguised contempt.
"Stepmother," I murmur, lowering my gaze. "I was just…"
"I can see what you were ‘just’." Her lip curls. "Creeping back like a cat in heat after a night of whoring. On this day, of all days, when important guests honor our hall."
"I did not…"
"Silence." The word cuts like a blade. "I do not care what you did or did not do. I care only that you are not seen. My daughter dines with princes tonight, and I will not have your shameful presence casting shadows over her prospects."
She steps closer, and I smell lavender and bitter herbs—the scent of a woman who has spent years cultivating respectability.
"You will complete your duties out of sight. You will not speak to anyone of rank. You will not so much as breathe in the direction of our guests. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, stepmother."
"Good." She looks me over once more, disgust plain on her features. "Clean yourself. You smell like a barn animal."
She sweeps past me without another word, leaving me alone in the cold corridor.
I walk out into the morning cold after changing. Behind me, the household buzzes with excitement—servants preparing dishes, polishing silver, whispering about Astrid's audience with the princes.
Before me, the pigs wait in their pen, indifferent to the ruin I carry in my bones.
I pick up the bucket. I begin to work.
I tell myself the trembling in my hands is only the cold.