We reach Ravnfjord under a sky like poured lead. Our longships slice the fjord in clean strokes, oars feathering. Erik stands at the prow, one hand on the carved wolf-head. He's been here before; his shoulders remember. I stand beside him because that's where the ground steadies, even when the ground is water.
The walls bristle. Men move along the ramparts with the quick certainty of people who have counted their arrows. When the horn rolls over the water, the gates grind open—not welcome, calculation. Ravnfjord is preparing for siege.
We beach on the shingle and spill ashore. Erik's orders snap—hulls above the tide line, two flipped as barricades, net-lines strung, extra shields stacked by the gate. Úlfheim tactics stitch into Ravnfjord.
Ragnar waits inside. My father, a cliff I once tried to scale with gentleness. His face when he sees me beside the Bloodwolf is a storm trying to become a single cloud—shock, shame, relief, anger.
"You came," he says.
"Not for you," I answer. "For my mother and sister. For those who didn't break oaths."
The words land like blows.
"There's no time," Erik says. "Stores, wells, chokepoints. Who commands your archers?"
"I command," Ragnar snaps.
"Then command this," Erik says, already moving. "Twenty to the west wall. Heavy bows there—cleaner angle. Spear lines in the gateyard: two ranks, shields high, staggered. Pitch along the inside parapets. If they bring ladders, fire eats faster than steel."
"You will not—" Ragnar starts.
"You will if you want to hold," I say.
He glares at proof made of men and wood and a daughter who learned to raise her voice. "Fine," he grinds out. "Do it."
What follows is a storm with a spine. Erik integrates everything: Ravnfjord's stone and narrow streets with Úlfheim's patience. Runners at bends where sound travels. Ship-crews in the inner ward with hooks and axes if the gates go. Ballistae hauled to the curtain wall. He changes nothing that works; he fixes what doesn't.
He still finds me. "Stay with the quartermaster women," he says. "Your mother's there."
"That sounds like punishment."
"It's logistics," he deadpans. "The gods of war eat barley and bandages."
"Flirt with me by way of inventory," I say.
"I'll flirt with you by way of anything," he murmurs.
"Focus, Bloodwolf."
"Focused," he promises. "Come back to me."
He goes to bully a palisade; I go to count what keeps warriors breathing. The storerooms are cold: grain, dried fish, linen, honey, water we test with a pinch of salt. Women move with economical grace. I know half their faces; they know all of mine. My mother wraps herbs. Her hands are clever, precise.
She doesn't speak until we are alone, the door settling with a soft thud. "I failed you," she says.
I want to rage, peel the hurt open. "Yes," I say instead. "You did."
We work in silence that isn't empty. I sort salves; she knots cords.
"When I married your father," she says at last, "I loved him. Love can be a ship, Astrid. It carries you far, but it cannot climb a mountain. Over time, I learned love wasn't enough without power. So I survived by becoming invisible, by never asking for more."
She grips my hand—the first uncalculated touch in years. "I thought I was teaching you strength by preparing you for marriage. Instead, I taught you to accept too little. I'm sorry."
A simple blade driven true. Memory offers up a dozen moments I could spend like coins: bracelets, bargaining, the silence when I was led away. They buy nothing. I exhale.
"You were wrong," I say. "But you survived. And you taught me to want more by showing me the cost of wanting less."
Tears run hot. She reaches to wipe them and I let her. We stand in that fragile forgiveness, new and shaky.
A horn splits the air.
We drop each other's hands and reach for work because habits are scaffolds. I tie off a last bundle and pass it to a girl with quick feet. "To the infirmary," I say. "Then the cisterns. Count them again."
On the stairs I almost collide with Erik. He smells like wind and pitch. "They're here," he says. "Scouts on the ridge. Danes, and more behind them."
"I'll go to the walls."
"You'll keep your head below the crenels," he says. His hand brushes my wrist, then grips it, a promise. "If you sense anything, tell me."
"I always tell you everything," I lie.
He arches a brow, knowing and accepting it. "Do you."
"Everything important," I amend, then, because it's bad luck to lie to the man who keeps you alive, "Most things."
His mouth twitches. "Flawless. Go."
I run. Ragnar stalks the wall as if daring it to fail him. He barks orders I agree with. When he sees me, his jaw works like a trap. He looks away first. It feels small and huge at once.
"You came back," my sister Ingrid says, appearing at my elbow like a ghost learning to haunt. She's taller than I remember, sharper at the edges. "I didn't think you would."
"Neither did I," I admit.
"Mother cried after you were taken." Ingrid's voice is careful, like she's testing ice. "Father locked himself in the war room and broke three chairs."
"Good," I say, then soften it. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"I'm not." She hands me a waterskin without being asked. "It taught me that even jarls bleed when they're stupid."
I take a drink to hide my smile. "When did you get so sharp?"
"When you weren't here to do it for me." She pauses. "Is it true? About you and the Bloodwolf?"
"Depends what you heard."
"That you chose him. That he's not what the stories say." Her eyes search mine. "That you're happy."
The word catches in my throat. Happy. Such a small word for such complicated truth. "I'm alive," I say finally. "I'm seen. I'm choosing my own path."
"That's the same thing," Ingrid says, too wise for her years.
"Archers to half-draw," someone calls. "Wait for my mark."
Ingrid squeezes my arm once and melts back into the flow of defenders. I set my hands on the stone. It steadies me. My gift lifts like a hawk and wheels.
Noise fades. The battlefield recedes. In its place: back corridors, the granary door, the narrow postern that stays barred unless someone forgets. A hand turns a key that shouldn't exist. The vision doesn't show me a face, only intention—betrayal sharp as a blade between ribs.
Someone inside these walls is about to open them to slaughter.
The vision slams me back into my body. Horns sound again. On the ridge a banner snaps—a Danish serpent. But the real strike will not come from that direction.
I push through the press of bodies on the wall, shouldering past warriors checking their quivers. My heart hammers against my ribs—not from running, from knowing.
"Erik!" I shout, but the wind takes it. I try again, louder, and this time a runner hears me, jerks his chin toward the inner ward.
I find the stairs and take them two at a time. The courtyard churns with preparation—pitch being heated, spare weapons distributed, men checking straps and edges. Erik stands at the center like the eye of a storm, directing flow.
He sees me coming and knows. The way his whole body goes still, the way his eyes sharpen—he knows this is the sight speaking.
I reach him breathless. The words come out raw, urgent: "Someone inside Ravnfjord is going to betray us. The real attack will come from within."