The morning after my confrontation with Erik, I wake alone in his chambers.
No guards at the door. No chains. Just silence and the distant sound of the sea.
I test the door—unlocked. The corridor—empty.
Confined, but not imprisoned. The distinction feels important.
Úlfheim reveals itself slowly as I explore. Dark timber walls lined with weapons and shields. Everything here speaks of war and survival—nothing soft, nothing wasted.
From a narrow window, I watch men train below. Their movements are precise, brutal. This isn't ceremonial combat—this is preparation for real violence.
"You shouldn't be up here alone."
I spin to find a girl in the doorway. Young—maybe fifteen—with dark hair and clothes that mark her as a thrall.
"I wasn't aware I needed permission."
"You don't." She steps closer, carrying linens. "The jarl said you're free to move about. I'm Runa. I've been assigned to attend you."
I wait for hostility. Instead, she offers a small smile.
"You're not afraid of me?" I ask.
"Should I be?" She sets the linens down. "You're the jarl's... guest."
The pause is deliberate. We both know what I really am.
"The others are afraid," Runa continues. "They whisper about you. The jarl's seer. The one from the prophecy." She pauses, something knowing in her smile. "But he smiles with you. I've served him two years and never seen him smile before."
Heat crawls up my neck. "I don't make him smile. I argue with him."
"Yes. And it amuses him." She moves to the window. "The previous jarl was cruel. He took pleasure in pain, especially women's. When the Bloodwolf took leadership, we thought it would be more of the same."
Her voice softens. "But he's different. Hard, yes. Brutal to enemies. But he protects his people. Freed those of us who wanted freedom. The clan fears him, but they also trust him."
I don't know what to do with this information. It doesn't fit the simple narrative of Erik as monster.
"Why tell me this?"
"Because you looked like you needed to hear something real."
The day passes in strange suspension. Runa brings food and careful observations about Úlfheim. How Erik instituted laws protecting thralls. How he trains younger warriors with discipline and mercy. How prosperity has grown under his leadership.
"He's never taken a wife," Runa says. "The elders push for it, but he refuses."
"Why?"
"He told them he was waiting." She meets my eyes meaningfully. "For the one the gods chose."
The prophecy. Always the prophecy.
But I think of his words this morning—how I wasn't supposed to matter this much.
Was that real? Or calculation? Somehow I can’t really believe in the second option.
Afternoon brings combat sounds from below. I return to the window, drawn despite myself.
Erik moves through the training yard like death incarnate. He spars with three warriors at once, blade flashing with surgical precision. He doesn't just fight—he teaches.
"Wider stance, Tristan. You're off-balance."
"Shield up, Brant. Dead men don't learn."
This is the Bloodwolf everyone fears. Brutal, brilliant, terrifying.
But then a young warrior trips. Erik could punish the mistake. Instead, he extends a hand, pulling the boy up.
"Again," he says firmly. "Fear makes you clumsy. Master the fear, master the blade."
I watch until sunset, trying to reconcile all the versions of Erik I've seen. The tender stranger. The cold strategist. The protective leader. The merciful warrior.
Which one is real?
Maybe they all are.
Night falls heavy and cold. Runa helps me prepare for bed—another strange intimacy in this place.
"Will you be alright alone?"
"I've been alone before."
She hesitates at the door. "If you need anything, call out."
Then I'm alone in Erik's chambers, surrounded by his scent and the weight of everything unsaid.
Sleep comes reluctantly.
And then the vision hits.
It slams into me with brutal force—no warning, no transition.
Fire. The longhouse burning, timbers crashing. Smoke so thick I can't breathe. Screaming—women, children, dying.
Erik's warriors cut down one by one. Men I watched training today. Boys who stumbled and were shown mercy. Now they fall, blood staining black sand.
Bjorn stands in the center of carnage, golden and terrible, chains dangling. Laughing that cruel laugh.
"Did you think the Bloodwolf could protect you? You were always mine, Astrid."
The chains reach—
But the vision fractures. Shows something else.
A choice. A moment. Me standing between two futures.
If I speak, if I warn them—some die but others live. The longhouse survives. Erik survives.
If I stay silent—everything burns.
I wake screaming.
The door crashes open. Erik bursts through, sword drawn, scanning for threats. When he sees me trembling, the weapon lowers.
"Astrid." He's at my side in two strides. "What happened?"
I can't speak. Can't breathe. The vision clings like smoke.
Erik's hands frame my face, gentle despite the calluses. "Look at me. Breathe. You're safe."
"No one's safe," I gasp. "I saw—gods, I saw—"
"Tell me." His voice is commanding, urgent. "Tell me what you saw."
I meet his storm-gray eyes and see genuine fear. Not for himself—for me, for his people, for all of us caught in this web.
"Tell me," he says again, softer. "Please, Astrid. Whatever you saw, I need to know."
My silence could cost him everything. Cost all of them everything.
The young warriors who train too hard. Runa with her careful kindness. The people who trusted their brutal leader to protect them.
And Erik. This complicated, infuriating man who manipulated me and saved me and looked at me like I mattered.
"The longhouse burns," I whisper. "Bjorn breaks through your defenses. Everyone dies—your warriors, the women, children. Everyone."
His jaw tightens. "When?"
"I don't know. Soon. Days, maybe." I grab his wrists, holding tight. "But there was more. A choice. A moment where everything could change."
"What moment?"
"I don't know yet." Frustration tears through me. "The visions are never clear. Just fragments, possibilities—"
"Then we'll work with fragments." He pulls me against him, one hand cradling the back of my head. "Whatever you can tell me, however small—we'll use it. Build a defense from pieces of prophecy if we must."
I should pull away. Should maintain the anger, the distance.
Instead, I let myself lean into his warmth.
"I'm scared," I admit into his chest.
"I know." His voice rumbles through me. "So am I."
The confession breaks something open. The Bloodwolf, afraid. The monster everyone fears, holding me like I'm precious while admitting vulnerability.
"Don't let go," I whisper. "Not yet."
"Not yet," he agrees.
We stay like that, caught between prophecy and choice, while outside Bjorn's army draws closer and my visions promise fire and blood and one slim chance to change everything.