"There's my beautiful bride." Bjorn's voice warms the morning air as I step into the courtyard.
He's waiting with wildflowers—the purple ones that grow near the fjord's edge. The ones I mentioned loving when we first met.
"I thought we could spend the day together. Just us, before the madness truly begins."
My heart stutters. This is the Bjorn I fell in love with—thoughtful, attentive, seeing me instead of through me.
"I'd like that," I say, and mean it.
He takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, and leads me through the settlement. When we reach the eastern meadow, I stop breathing.
A longhouse rises from the earth—not finished, but far enough along that I can see its bones. Bigger than my father's hall, positioned to catch the morning sun.
"For us," Bjorn says, pulling me against his side. "I've had them working on it since spring. See there? Facing the water, that's where you'll have your loom. I know how you love watching the sea while you work."
My throat tightens. "You remembered."
"I remember everything about you." His hands settle on my waist, gentle and sure.
When he kisses me, it's soft and sweet and everything I've dreamed of. This is right. This is what I wanted.
So why does my gift flicker at the edges when he touches me?
Quick flashes I can't hold onto. Shadows moving where there should be light. Words that don't match expressions. Every time I try to focus on these fragments, they scatter like startled birds.
"There you are!" Sigrid's voice cuts through the moment. She appears near us, cheeks flushed. "I've been looking everywhere. We need you for the final dress fitting."
"Now?" Bjorn's arm tightens around my waist.
"Wedding preparations wait for no one," Sigrid says brightly, but her eyes aren't on me. They're fixed on where Bjorn's hand rests on my hip, and something in her expression makes my skin crawl. "You want everything perfect for your bride, don't you, Bjorn?"
"Of course." He releases me, but Sigrid has already grabbed my arm, pulling me away with surprising force.
"Isn't he wonderful?" she gushes as we walk. "So attentive. So devoted. Any woman would kill to have a man look at her the way he looks at you."
It should comfort me. Instead, something about her enthusiasm feels performative, like lines rehearsed too many times.
The way she says it, hungry and almost fevered, makes me slow my pace. "Sigrid…"
"We should embroider ravens on your wedding dress," she continues, not seeming to hear me. "Bjorn mentioned once that he loves ravens. Or was it wolves? No, definitely ravens. He has such specific tastes, doesn't he? So particular about what he wants."
She keeps talking, a steady stream of Bjorn-focused observations that feels more like interrogation than conversation. When did he mention ravens to her?
Why does she know his preferences better than I do?
"Is it just me, or is Sigrid being... strange?" Ingrid's whisper cuts through the fitting room chatter.
My younger sister kneels beside me, pinning the hem of my dress, her fourteen-year-old face scrunched with worry.
"Strange how?" I keep my voice low, though the seamstresses are too busy arguing over embroidery patterns to listen.
"She won't stop talking about Bjorn." Ingrid bites her lip, fingers stilling on the fabric. "And not in a 'happy for my cousin' way. More like she's... I don't know. Obsessed with him."
The word lands heavy in my chest.
"You're imagining things," I say, but it sounds hollow even to me.
"Maybe." She doesn't sound convinced. "But the way she looks at him during meals... It makes me uncomfortable."
"She's our cousin," I say finally. "She's just happy for us."
Ingrid says nothing at that, but her silence speaks volumes.
I want to laugh it off. Tell her she's too young to understand, that Sigrid is just being supportive. But at the evening meal, I watched. And gods help me, I see it.
Sigrid's eyes follow Bjorn with the focus of a hawk tracking prey. When he laughs, she leans forward. When he drinks, her throat works as if she's swallowing too. Her gaze follows Bjorn with an intensity that has nothing to do with celebration.
It's possessive. Calculating. The look of someone counting coins that aren't yet theirs.
* * *
The sun is setting when I escape to the sea cliffs, needing air that doesn't smell like wedding preparations. The path is familiar—I've walked it since childhood when the hall felt too small for whatever was swelling in my chest.
"Hiding?"
I spin to find the dark-haired warrior from Úlfheim leaning against a wind-twisted tree.
In daylight, he's even more unsettling. All sharp cheekbones, eyes the color of dark clouds, a scar through his left eyebrow that somehow makes him more beautiful.
"Walking," I correct. "It's my father's land."
"And soon to be your husband's, I hear. Though you look like someone fleeing rather than strolling."
"If you must know, I'm avoiding the women dispensing wedding night advice." The confession surprises me. "Apparently, I need detailed instructions on how to please a man I've known for three years."
His laugh is dark and sudden. "Ah yes, the sacred wisdom of lying still and thinking of Thor."
A startled laugh escapes—real and bright, cutting through the weight I've carried all day. "That's... that's terrible."
"But accurate?" His smile is crooked, knowing. "In Úlfheim, we give different advice. We tell brides that if they're not drawing blood, they're not trying hard enough."
"Blood?"
"From gripping too tight." His eyes held mine as he pushed off the tree, moving closer with that unsettling grace. "Real pleasure should leave marks."
Heat floods everywhere—face, chest, lower. I should be scandalized. Should slap him. This is wrong. I'm getting married in three days. To Bjorn. My beloved Bjorn who would never say such things, never make my pulse race like prey being hunted.
"So you're an expert on brides?"
"I'm an expert on watching people." His smile is slow, knowing. "Like how you watched me last night. When my clan entered."
No. "I was observing all the warriors—"
"Liar." Soft, amused, and why does that word from his mouth make my skin prickle? "Your eyes stayed on me. Even when your sisters was speaking to you."
My traitorous heart hammers. He noticed. Of course he noticed. I couldn't look away—still can't, even now when I should run. "You're very sure of yourself."
"I'm sure of what I saw." He's closer now, and I smell leather and pine smoke. "The question is why a bride three days from her wedding would look at a stranger like that."
"Like what?"
"Like she was memorizing me."
The truth of it hits like cold water. I was. Every detail filed away without permission—the way he moved, the dark fall of his hair, how his eyes found mine across the hall like he felt my gaze.
I need to leave. Now.
I move to slip past him, but he shifts smoothly. Close enough that leaving means brushing against him.
"Running already?" Challenge gleams in gray eyes. "At least tell me your name before you flee."
"I thought everyone knew the bride's name."
"Names in great halls aren't always the real ones."
"Astrid." I hear myself say it. "Astrid Ragnardóttir."
"Erik." Just that, freely given.
"That's all? Just Erik?" I study him, this warrior who moves like violence and speaks like silk. "Not the Bloodwolf's second? His niece? His shadow?"
"Just a common warrior." Erik smiles frowning. "Disappointed?"
Yes. No. I don't know. "Curious. Common warriors don't usually notice so much."
"And proper brides don't usually flee to cliffs during their wedding preparations." He tilts his head. "Yet here we are."
Here we are, indeed. When I should do anything but stand here drowning in the way he looks at me like I'm a riddle he wants to solve.
But my feet refuse to obey.
"Astrid!" Ingrid's voice echoes below. "Where are you? Mother's asking!"
Erik melts toward shadow. "Your sister sounds worried."
"She's always worried." I step back, suddenly aware how close we've gotten.
"Astrid." My name stops me, and I curse myself for turning back. Something unreadable crosses his face. "The women were wrong, by the way."
"About what?"
"All of it." His eyes hold mine. "But especially the part about lying still."