Morning light yanks me from bad sleep into worse: reality.
Erik’s journal glares from the floor—his neat confession: The seer dreams of me. I must claim her before the prophecy claims us both.
The boathouse was strategy, his comfort calculation, and even my first time a bind he wanted—disguised as choice.
I was never choosing. I was being chosen. Claimed. Secured.
The door opens without warning.
Erik enters carrying a tray—bread, cheese, dried fish. He stops when he sees my face, then his eyes drop to the journal on the floor.
Understanding flashes across his features. Then something that might be regret.
"Astrid—"
I'm on my feet before he finishes my name, the journal in my hands. I hurl it at his chest. It hits with a satisfying thud.
"You manipulated everything!" The words tear from my throat. "The comfort in the forest, the passion in the boathouse—it was all strategy!"
He catches the journal, sets it aside carefully. Too carefully. "I needed to know if you were the one from the prophecy—"
"And the boathouse?" My laugh is jagged, broken. "Was taking my virginity part of your grand plan too? Did you calculate exactly how taking that from me would bind me to you?"
Something raw crosses his face. "That was never meant to happen."
"But it served your purposes perfectly, didn't it?" I step closer, my whole body shaking with rage and something sharper—betrayal that cuts deeper because I was starting to believe. "You agreed so you could bind me to you in the most intimate way possible. Make me yours before anyone else could claim me."
The words hang between us like drawn blades.
"I gave you something precious," my voice cracks despite my efforts to stay controlled, "because I thought you saw me. Not the seer. Not the prophecy. Just Astrid—broken and desperate and foolish enough to believe someone actually wanted her for herself."
I'm close enough now to see his jaw working, the way his hands flex at his sides like he wants to reach for me but knows better.
"But I was just a piece on your game board. Another acquisition for the Bloodwolf to secure." I laugh again, and it sounds like something dying. "Did you enjoy it? Playing the tender stranger while knowing exactly what you were doing? Did it make the manipulation sweeter, knowing I had no idea?"
"Believe what you want." His voice is rough, strained. "But everything between us was real, even if my reasons for being there weren't."
"Real?" The word is venom on my tongue. "How can anything be real when it's built on lies? When you pursued me because some prophecy said I'd either crown or destroy you? When every touch was calculated to secure an asset?"
His control fractures. He catches my wrist—not cruel, but firm, pulling me close enough that I feel his heat, his barely leashed intensity.
"You think I planned to feel what I felt?" His voice drops to something dangerous, desperate. "That I calculated falling—"
He stops. His jaw works like he's swallowing words too dangerous to speak.
"Falling what?" I demand, trying to wrench free. "Say it. Falling for the prophesied seer? For the woman who could give you power?"
"For you!" The words explode from him. "For the woman who struck me on that ship with fire in her eyes. Who chose defiance over submission. Who gave herself to me not because prophecy demanded it, but because she refused to let anyone else make that choice for her."
I go still. His grip on my wrist gentles but doesn't release.
"Yes, I sought you out for calculated reasons," he continues, voice rough with something that sounds almost like pain. "Yes, I knew about the prophecy. Yes, I planned to claim you because of what you could mean to my fate. But you—"
His free hand comes up, fingertips barely grazing my jaw, and I hate how my body responds, "—you weren't supposed to matter this much."
The admission steals my breath.
"You were supposed to be a seer. A weapon. A tool to control my future." His eyes search mine, and there's something naked in them, something vulnerable.
"But in that boathouse, when you kissed me—when you chose me over the man you were supposed to marry—something shifted. You stopped being prophecy and became a person. Became everything."
"Liar," I whisper, but it lacks conviction.
"I'm many things, Astrid. But not about this." His forehead touches mine, and gods help me, I don't pull away. "You want to know if taking your virginity was strategy? No. It was the most selfish thing I've ever done. I should have stopped you. Should have been stronger.”
He takes a deep breath. “But I wanted you—not the seer, not the prophecy—just you. And I took what you offered because I'm too much of a bastard to resist something I'd been dreaming about for months."
"Dreaming?" My voice barely works.
"The prophecy works both ways," he says quietly. "You dreamed of me. But I also dreamed of you. Before we ever met, before I knew your face, I saw you in visions—fierce and beautiful and mine in ways that terrified me because they weren't about power or fate. They were about wanting something I had no right to claim."
A horn sounds outside—low and urgent. The moment shatters.
Erik pulls back, instantly alert. "The scouts."
Gunnar bursts through the door, face grim. "Bjorn's forces. Two days out, maybe less. He's bringing everyone who fears Úlfheim's power."
My stomach drops. "How many?"
"Enough." Gunnar's eyes flick to me, then back to Erik. "He's calling this a rescue. Says you kidnapped his bride, that Úlfheim must be stopped before we grow too strong."
Erik's expression hardens into something cold and strategic. The Bloodwolf sliding into place like armor.
"Gather the war council. I want every defense position manned, scouts on all approaches, and—"
"Wait." The word escapes before I can stop it.
Both men turn to look at me.
"If you've seen something that could save my people," Erik's voice is dangerously quiet, his eyes holding mine, "you have a responsibility to speak."
The weight of his words presses against my chest. My gift has shown me fragments—battle, blood, the way this could end. But giving him that information means choosing a side. Means accepting that I'm here, that this is real, that my choices matter beyond my own survival.
My silence stretches between us, heavy with everything unsaid.
"This isn't just about us anymore." Erik steps closer, and there's something desperate beneath his controlled exterior. "If you've seen how Bjorn will attack, if you know what's coming—people will die if you stay silent. My people. Your people. Innocents caught in a war neither of us wanted."
"You started this war when you kidnapped me."
"No." His voice is gentle but firm. "Your father started it when he broke a blood oath. Bjorn escalated it when he gathered an army. I'm just trying to end it with minimal casualties." He pauses. "But I need your help to do that."
"Why should I help you?" But even as I ask, I'm thinking of the vision—the burning longhouse, the slaughtered warriors, the women and children caught in violence they didn't choose.
"Because you're not cruel," Erik says quietly. "Because you care about people beyond yourself. Because even though you hate me—and you have every right to—you won't let innocents die just to spite me."
He's right. Gods damn him, he's right.
I close my eyes, reaching for the fragmented visions. Trying to see clearly through anger and betrayal to the truth my gift is trying to show me.
"Tell me," Erik says. "Please."
But I can’t.