Yrsa lay in her fur-covered bed. The cold weather was growing more fierce, winter was on its way, only a few weeks away. She had been dreaming of Harald again; she had seen him in the training circle yesterday, sparring with the other warriors. She thought back to the way he moved, swift and strong.
She sighed as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. She could hear the sounds of the village outside her window, the smell of cooked meat filling the air. She knew she had to get up and join the others soon; her father would expect her to be ready for the day's tasks.
Yrsa stretched and stood, she walked over to the wooden chest at the foot of her bed, she opened it and pulled out her tunic, she dressed quickly, the cold air biting at her skin, she grabbed her belt and fastened it around her waist, her dagger hanging from it, she ran her fingers over the hilt, feeling the familiar grooves, she smiled to herself as she thought of the first time she had used it in battle.
She stepped out of her room and into the longhouse, the smell of cooked meat stronger now, she followed it to the main hall, where her parents were seated at the high table, her father Gunnar, the chieftain, was deep in conversation with one of his advisors, her mother Astrid was watching her two older brothers, Vestgir and Thror, who were wrestling on the floor, their dispute over who had won yesterday's archery contest escalating into a physical contest. Yrsa rolled her eyes as she walked past them. Her mother caught her eye and smiled. Yrsa was a spitting image of her mother, the same blonde hair and blue eyes, the same sharp features, only younger.
"Good morning, daughter," Astrid said, her voice warm, "did you sleep well?"
Yrsa nodded, reaching for a wooden bowl and ladling in stew from the pot hanging over the fire. The steam curled around her fingers, carrying the scent of salted pork and wild onion, rich and comforting. "Well enough," she murmured, though the dreams of Harald lingered in her mind like smoke.
Gunnar's deep voice cut through the hall's murmur, sharp as an axe striking wood. "Yrsa." He leaned forward, his thick fingers drumming the table—an old habit when weighing his words. The advisor beside him fell silent. "The first snow will come soon." His gaze pinned her, the way it did when he spoke as her chieftain, not her father. "You've raided with us six times now. Taken your share of blows and given twice as many." A slow grin split his beard. "It's time for your marks."
Yrsa's breath caught. Marks weren't just ink; they told your story in scars and symbols. Her brothers had earned theirs years ago. Vestgir's forearm bore the twisting serpent of his first kill, Thror's back the interlocked rings of a shield wall survivor. She'd watched the needles dip and rise, smelled the burnt herb paste sealing the wounds, ached for the day—
Thror's elbow jabbed into her ribs, jerking her back to the present. He'd disentangled himself from Vestgir's headlock, his grin lopsided where their brawl had split his lip. "Helga's by the goat pens today," he said, wiping blood off his chin with his sleeve. "I'll take you." His tone was light, but his fingers brushed the fresh welt on his collarbone—a bear's claw. Helga's work always ran deep.
Yrsa matched his stride, stepping over frost-cracked puddles. Thror flicked a pine needle off her shoulder. "You could get the bear, like mine," he mused. "Solid choice. Shows you've faced death and laughed." His voice dropped conspiratorially. "Or the raven. Sneaky fuckers, ravens. Like when you stole Father’s whetstone last summer."
She snorted. "That was Vestgir’s idea." The memory flashed—her brother’s grin as he’d whispered the plan, the way her pulse had hammered as she stole the stone from his chest.
"Still, you did it." Thror nudged her shoulder. "Could always ask for a wolf, though. Better than the bear—"
Yrsa stopped mid-step as Helga's hut came into view. The old woman's dwelling hunched between two twisted pines, its roof layered with moss-stained shingles. Smoke curled from the crooked chimney, carrying the sharp tang of burning juniper—warding off evil spirits, or so Helga claimed. But it was the tools laid out on the weathered stump outside that caught Yrsa's eye: bone needles sharpened to wicked points, their hollowed centers dark with old ink stains. Cups of crushed charcoal and iron-rich clay lined up beside them, each holding a different shade—deep black, rust-brown, the faint shimmer of crushed malachite for those who could afford it. A half-carved antler lay discarded to the side, its marrow scraped out for glue.
Thror nudged her forward. "She's expecting you." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Father sent word at dawn."
The door creaked open before Yrsa could knock. Helga stood framed in the smoky gloom, her hunched silhouette wrapped in a cloak of stitched fox pelts. The scars on her face caught the light—three parallel lines from temple to jaw, the mark of a seeress who'd stared into the world tree's roots and lived. "Young Yrsa," she rasped, stepping aside. The inside of the hut smelled of iron and damp earth, the packed dirt floor strewn with dried juniper branches that crackled underfoot.
Yrsa hesitated at the threshold. Thror gave her shoulder one last squeeze before vanishing back toward the longhouse, his footsteps crunching in the frost. Helga's cracked lips curved. "You've dreamt of this, haven't you?" Her fingernails—blackened with old dye—brushed Yrsa's wrist, tracing the invisible path of future ink. "Come. The needles are thirsty."
Inside, the air clung thick with juniper smoke and something darker—mugwort, maybe, or the bitter pennyroyal Helga used to numb skin. The old woman motioned to a stool by the hearth. Yrsa sat, her knees bumping against the low table where Helga's tools lay arranged like a surgeon's kit. A leather-bound book flopped open beside them, its pages filled with sketches—serpents coiled around spears, wolves mid-howl, ravens with wings spread as if frozen in flight.
Helga's knobby finger tapped a page. "This one's popular." A bear reared on its hind legs, its claws raking the air. "Strong. Fits a warrior." Her nail scraped lower to a sleek fox, its brush curled around a crescent moon. "Or this. For the clever." She studied Yrsa's face, her milky eye glinting. "But you... you want something else."
Yrsa's throat tightened. She'd imagined this moment since childhood—lying awake tracing patterns on her skin with a fingertip, stealing glances at the veterans' marks in the bathhouse. Not just any symbol would do. "Runes," she said, lifting her tunic to expose her back. "Here. From the base of my neck, down my spine." Her fingers twitched toward her left arm. "And Jörmungandr. Starting at the shoulder, twisting down to—" She mimed the serpent's head flicking over her knuckles.
Helga smiled. "Very well, please remove your top." The old woman's grin widened when Yrsa hesitated, fingers hovering at her woollen underdress. "Unless the shieldmaiden fears a little cold?" The taunt hung between them, sharp as a whetstone on steel.
Yrsa exhaled sharply and pulled the garment over her head in one fluid motion. The hut's chill rushed across her bare skin, tightening her nipples into peaks beneath the flickering firelight. She sat straighter, shoulders squared—let Helga see the warrior's body she'd forged through countless drills, the faint ridge of muscle flexing along her stomach as she shifted on the stool. No softness here; just the taut lines of a woman who'd earned her place among the war-band.
Helga gestured toward a chair near the hearth—its back faced forward, the carved wood darkened by decades of sweat and bloodstains worn into the grain. "Sit like this," the old woman rasped, demonstrating by straddling the seat backwards, her chest pressed against the chair's curved rest. "Easier to reach your spine." She patted the spot where Yrsa's shoulder blades would meet the wood. "Unless you'd rather spend the next six hours twisted like a salted herring?"
Yrsa smirked and swung a leg over the chair, settling in with her forearms crossed atop the backrest. The fire's heat licked at her bare chest, painting her skin gold where the sweat already beaded above her collarbones. Behind her, Helga rummaged through her tools—the clink of bone needles, the wet schlick of pigment being stirred.
The sharpness of the first prick struck her like a hornet's sting—sudden, bright, lingering. Yrsa's fingers clenched around the chair's carved wolves' heads. Helga chuckled low in her throat. "Breathe, girl. Like birthing pains—hold it in, and you'll snap your own teeth."
Behind her, the needle dipped again. This time, Yrsa smelled it before it pierced—the burnt-marsh reek of charred oak gall steeped in iron-rich water, the ink that would stain her skin for life. The pain flared hotter as Helga dragged the bone needle in a curling line, embedding the first stroke of the rune Algiz between her shoulder blades. Protection. A warrior's right.
Her breath hissed between clenched teeth. The fire's heat was nothing compared to the searing trail left by Helga's needle—each jab a tiny lightning strike, each pull of the thread-like line a branding iron dragged slow. Yrsa focused on the chair's carvings beneath her whitening knuckles: twin wolves snarling at each other, their wooden fangs worn smooth by generations of gripping hands. She imagined their growls drowning out the wet tap-tap of needle meeting flesh.
The runes bloomed down her spine like footprints in fresh snow—Algiz's forked branches first, then Thurisaz's thorn-sharp angles, each stroke blackening as the iron-laced ink seeped into raw skin. Helga worked without speaking, her wheezing breaths synced to the rhythm of her punctures. Between the pain-flashes, Yrsa caught glimpses in her mind's eye: Algiz, a spear thrust skyward in the hands of a lone warrior holding a bridge. Thurisaz, the thunderbolt that shattered oak trees—and shield walls.
Her palms slipped on sweat-slick wolf carvings when Helga reached the lumbar curve where spine met hips. "Tiwaz now," the old woman muttered, tapping the needle against a cup of pigment so dark it drank the firelight. "For justice. And victory." The first prick at the small of Yrsa's back arched her like a drawn bow. This pain had teeth—deeper, slower, as if the needle sought marrow instead of skin. She bit down on a strip of leather Helga had tossed into her lap earlier, tasting salt and generations of other clenched jaws.
The rune took shape in jagged strokes—an arrow pointing skyward, its shaft intersecting the doubled lines of Tyr's spear. Yrsa's hips jerked involuntarily as the needle crossed old scar tissue from a Saxon blade's kiss on their previous raid. Her vision swam with phantom images: the way Harald had hauled her upright on that blood-slick riverbank, his hand fisted in her cloak as she swayed. How his thumb had smeared mud from her cheekbone after, rough as a whetstone, his laugh startled when she'd headbutted his shoulder in thanks.
Helga's voice cut through the memory. "Turn." Her gnarled fingers gripped Yrsa's shoulder, nudging her sideways. "Left arm next." The old woman's breath smelled of fermented cloudberries as she leaned in, her milky eye reflecting the firelight like a moonlit fjord. "Jörmungandr, was it? Coiled and ready?" She dipped a fresh needle into malachite paste—the green-black of storm-churned depths.
Yrsa extended her arm across the chair's back, palm upturned. The first sting along her deltoid muscle was a familiar shock now, but the serpent's outline took shape faster than the runes—each scale a precise puncture, the needle darting like a minnow between Helga's stained fingers. Sweat dripped from Yrsa's nose onto the wolf carving beneath her clenched fist.
By the time the serpent's body coiled past her elbow, the malachite pigment had transformed her flesh into something mythic—the green-black ink shimmering like wet fjord stones whenever firelight caught the curves. Helga's breathing grew labored as she worked the tighter spirals around Yrsa's forearm, the old woman's thumbnail pressing white crescents into her wrist to stretch the skin taut. "Don't twitch," she muttered when Yrsa hissed at a particularly deep jab near the veins. "Unless you want the world-serpent to look like a gutted eel."
The final stretch across her knuckles was agony distilled. Each needle-prick between tendon and bone sent molten threads up her arm, but Yrsa kept her fingers splayed—forced them still even when the serpent's head took form with bared fangs just above her first metacarpal. Helga exhaled sharply through her nose and wiped away excess ink with a thumb, smearing Yrsa's lifeblood with the serpent's venomous hue.
Dusk had crept into the hut unnoticed, the fire burned low to embers casting long shadows that made the fresh tattoos seem to writhe—Algiz's branches swaying as if in some unfelt wind, Jörmungandr's coils tightening around her arm. Yrsa flexed her fingers, watching the serpent ripple with her movement. The pain was a living thing now, throbbing in time with her pulse, but the pride swelling her chest drowned out its bite.
Helga rummaged through earthenware jars, their stoppers sealed with beeswax blackened by decades of fingerprints. She pried one open with a thumbnail, releasing a scent like crushed pine needles and spoiled milk. "Hold still," she muttered, dipping three fingers into the yellowish paste. The moment it touched Yrsa's back, the cooling relief was so sudden her knees nearly buckled. The ointment seeped into the raw skin with a faint hiss, its numbing properties dulling the edges of pain while something darker—maybe crushed belladonna or fermented henbane—kept the ink lines from blurring as they healed.
The old woman's hands worked methodically, pressing the salve into each rune with the heel of her palm. Where her thumbs passed, Yrsa felt the ink set deeper, as though Helga's touch alone could bind the symbols to her bones. Between applications, Helga spat into a clay bowl of crushed yarrow, stirring the mixture until it foamed pink. "Spittle seals it," she croaked, daubing the froth along Jörmungandr's coils. The serpent's malachite scales darkened under the treatment, taking on a wet, living sheen.
Yrsa's fingers trembled as she tugged her underdress back over raw skin, the wool scratching like a thousand insect legs. Each movement sent fresh pulses of heat radiating from the tattoos— the runes burning between her shoulder blades as though freshly branded, downwards throbbing at her spine's base with every shift of her hips. Still, she managed to clasp her belt one-handed, the other arm held stiff to avoid smearing the serpent's still-drying ink.
Outside, the wind had teeth. It ripped through the gap between Helga's hut and the goat pens, snatching Yrsa's breath into the gathering dusk. She walked stiffly, left arm cradled against her ribs like a broken wing. The village noises swam into focus gradually— hammering from the smithy, the high chatter of children dragging sledges of kindling, the wet thunk of axes splitting wood for the night fires. Beneath it all, the drumbeat of her own blood, loud in her ears.
She took the long way back, avoiding the training circle where warriors still sparred despite the fading light. The scent of roasting boar fat guided her toward the longhouse's smoke hole, its plume darker than the iron-gray sky. Every step sent fresh needles of pain shooting down her spine where Algiz's branches now grew roots, but she kept her chin level—no stumbling, no flinching. Not when Vestgir leaned against the doorframe with a cup of something steaming, his gaze sharpening as she approached.
Inside, the hearth's glow painted the rafters gold. Warriors clustered around the low tables in shifting constellations—some gnawing rib bones, others jabbing knives into maps scratched onto stretched lambskin. Harald sat near the front, his forearms braced on the table as he traced a fjord's inlet with calloused fingers. The firelight caught the fresh scab on his temple—a training yard souvenir—and turned it molten.
Yrsa hesitated at the threshold, her new tattoos pulsing beneath her tunic. Vestgir's footsteps crunched behind her as he ambled closer, ale sloshing over his cup's rim. "Show em’," he murmured, low enough that only she'd hear. His breath smelled of juniper berries and something sharper, the way their father's did when strategizing battle lines.
She smirked and hooked her thumbs under the hem of her shirt, lifting it just high enough to reveal the lower half of the runes snaking down her spine—the dark ink still glistening with Helga's salve. The gathered warriors' murmurs died mid-sentence. Harald's knife hovered above the lambskin map, his gaze locked on the fresh runes along the length of her spine.
A hush spread—realization, then respect. Gunnar stood slowly from the high table, his drinking horn forgotten. The fire crackled as he stepped down from the dais, his boots thudding against the packed earth floor. He circled Yrsa like a prowling bear assessing fresh tracks, his calloused fingers hovering over the thorned angles without touching.
His beard twitched when he spotted the serpent coiling around her left forearm, its malachite scales catching the torchlight. "Jörmungandr, eh?" His chuckle rumbled deep. "You always did bite harder than your brothers."
Harald's knee brushed hers as he settled onto the bench—close enough that she caught the scent of forge-smoke clinging to his tunic, the underlying musk of a day spent sparring. His thigh pressed warm against hers beneath the table, solid as an oak shield. "Still bleeding?" His calloused fingers hovered near her elbow, not quite touching the serpent's ink-stained fangs.
Yrsa snorted and tore a strip of bread from the loaf between them. "Like a gutted boar." She watched his expression through her lashes as she flexed her forearm, making Jörmungandr ripple. Harald's fingers twitched toward the movement before curling into his palm.
His hesitation lasted only a breath before he hooked two fingers under her sleeve and pushed the wool upward with deliberate slowness. The fabric rasped over tender skin, but Yrsa held still—let him see the full serpent now, its coils tight around her muscle, the fangs bared just above her knuckles. His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist where the malachite ink darkened the veins, his callouses catching on the swollen edges of fresh needlework. "Helga went deep," he murmured.
Yrsa's pulse hammered against his fingertips—too quick, too visible. Every nerve in her arm traced the path of his touch, from the serpent's tail at her shoulder to the venom-drip scales near her elbow. She reached for her ale with her free hand, the cup's weight grounding her as she drank. The fermented honey masked her sharp inhale when Harald's thumb pressed deliberately into the hollow beneath her thumb—testing her pain threshold or perhaps the ink's set, she couldn't tell.
By the third round of drinking horns, the longhouse air hung thick with smoke and laughter. Gunnar's booming voice rose above the din as he recounted their last coastal raid—how Yrsa had scaled a palisade with nothing but her seax between her teeth. Harald's knee nudged hers beneath the table during the embellished parts, his smirk hidden behind his cup. When Vestgir launched into an off-key rendition of The Lay of Kraka, Harald seized the distraction. His calloused palm slid over her freshly inked wrist, tugging her toward the shadowed alcove behind the ale barrels.
Yrsa let herself be pulled, her pulse hammering where his fingers circled her serpent-marked skin. The spilled mead on the floorboards stuck to her boots as they slipped past a group of warriors arm-wrestling over someone's last copper coin. Harald's back hit the wattle-and-daub wall with a soft thud, his free hand coming up to cradle her jaw—rough from frost and blade calluses, yet impossibly gentle. His thumb brushed the scar on her chin, the one she'd gotten at fourteen trying to throw an axe like Vestgir.
Then she saw her. Across the smoky hall, Yrsa's mother stood by the loom with a spindle dangling from her fingers—but her sharp eyes were already fixed on the alcove's shadowed edge where Harald's hand still gripped her daughter's wrist. The knowing curve of her lips wasn't the indulgent smile she gave to Vestgir's drunken antics or Thror's exaggerated battle tales. This was the look of a woman who'd once stolen away with a young chieftain herself, three decades past.
Yrsa's breath hitched. Her mother's raised eyebrow spoke volumes—the same way it had when she'd caught her daughter filching honeycakes at six winters old, or scrubbing blood from her first seax at twelve. The spindle twirled between her fingers once, deliberately slow, before she turned back to her weaving without a word. Approval or warning? Both, perhaps.
Harald was in a trance of passion, placing soft kisses along her collarbone, his hand lightly roaming up and down her hips—each touch sending fresh sparks through her despite the lingering sting of fresh ink. His lips paused when his fingers found the welted skin beneath her tunic where the serpent's tail curled over her shoulder. "Still tender?" His breath warmed the hollow above her clavicle, his thumb tracing the swollen edges with deliberate care.
Yrsa answered by grabbing his face with both hands—her left fingers still tacky with malachite dye—and crushed her mouth against his. The kiss burned hotter than Helga's needles, her teeth catching his lower lip in a way that made him groan into her mouth. His hands found her waist beneath her tunic, callouses scraping the sensitive new runes along her spine as he hauled her flush against him. The rough wall scraped her knuckles when she braced herself, her other hand fisting in his braids hard enough to tilt his head back.
Harald's fingers slipped beneath her belt with practiced ease, dipping past the woollen edge of her leggings to find slick heat. His thumb pressed against her in slow circles while two fingers worked deeper—the stretch deliciously rough against her tender flesh. Yrsa bit down on a gasp as his fingers curled just right, the pressure building low in her belly like coals stoked before battle. The sensation warred with the fresh sting of her tattoos—each thrust of his fingers sending sparks up her spine.
She gripped his wrist while stifling a gasp, her nails digging crescent moons into his tendons. Her vision swam as Helga's ointment mingled with Harald's sweat—pine resin and salt and something darker—until she couldn't tell whether the throbbing came from needle wounds or the pulse pounding between her thighs. The squeak of ale barrels shifting nearby went unnoticed as Harald nipped at her earlobe, his teeth sharp enough to draw blood if he chose.
His finger slid deeper with each retreat, the calloused pad catching on nerves that made her hips jerk forward. She tasted iron—had bitten her own lip—and the metallic tang blended with the malachite still staining her fingertips from Jörmungandr's scales. The rhythm matched the tattooing's tempo: deliberate, practiced, each stroke embedding something permanent beneath her skin.
The alcove's shadows hid how her thighs trembled, but not the way her breath hitched when his thumb found the swollen crest just above his fingers. A warrior's discipline kept her silent, though her teeth sank deeper into her lower lip. Harald's free hand gripped her hipbone, anchoring her as his touch grew bolder—the heel of his palm grinding against her while two fingers slipped into her.
Yrsa's head thudded against the wall as pleasure coiled tighter than the serpent on her arm. The rough wood scraped against her braids, sharp as the sparring yard dirt. His breath was hot against her neck, smelling of fermented honey. Every drag of his callouses sent fire licking up her spine—right where tattoos now burned beneath her tunic.
Her hips jerked forward—once, twice—before she shoved his wrist away. Blood pounded in her ears louder than Vestgir's drunken singing. "Not here," she growled against his mouth. Not with her father's advisors three paces away debating spring raids, not with her mother's knowing gaze still prickling across her shoulder blades like sunlight through a knife slit.
Harald's fingers lingered, slick between them. His breathing hitched when she tightened her grip on his wrist, her nails pressing half-moon divots into his skin. The ache between her thighs throbbed in time with her fresh tattoos, but she forced his hand back onto her belt with a warning glance. Later. When they wouldn't risk Gunnar spotting them and assigning Harald to a month in the wilderness outpost.
Their kiss broke with the wet sound of parted lips—too loud in the shadowed alcove. Harald dragged his tongue across his bottom lip, tasting her there, before pressing one last firm kiss to her mouth with a promise in it. Then he slipped back into the smoky chaos of the hall, his hips brushing hers with deliberate friction as he passed, making her breath catch.
Yrsa exhaled sharply through her nose. The throbbing between her thighs refused to quiet. She glanced toward the loom—empty now—then down at her own hands, fingers still curled into fists at her sides. The malachite-stained one twitched.
She waited three heartbeats—long enough to ensure Harald had truly rejoined the warriors—then shoved deeper into the alcove's shadows. Her belt hit the packed earth with a muted thud, followed by the whisper of wool leggings sliding past her hips. The cold air bit at her exposed skin, raising gooseflesh along her tattooed thighs. The contrast was delicious: icy drafts against overheated flesh, the lingering sting of fresh ink meeting the deeper ache of unspent tension.
Her tunic hitched higher as she palmed her own breast—no hesitation, no maidenly shyness. The firelight from the hall caught the peaks of her nipples as she pinched one between thumb and forefinger, the sharp pleasure-pain syncing with the throbbing ink on her back. Callouses scraped sensitive skin as she rolled the bud between her fingers, imagining Harald’s rougher touch. Her breath came quicker now, each exhale visible in the cold air.
Two fingers slicked between her thighs—no teasing, no slow build. The first thrust was deep and punishing, her knuckles pressing against herself with bruising force. The alcove’s shadows concealed nothing from her own touch. She curled her fingers just so, the heel of her palm grinding against the swollen crest in perfect counterpoint. The sensation was raw—too much and not enough—her hips jerking forward to meet her own hand like a sparring partner’s thrust.
Woodsmoke and spilled ale couldn’t mask her own scent—musk and salt and the faint metallic tang of malachite still staining her fingertips. She bit down on her inner wrist to stifle a groan, teeth denting fresh ink where Jörmungandr’s fangs met her pulse point. The pain anchored her, sharpening the pleasure coiling low in her belly. Her back arched despite the wall’s rough scrape against her spine, the runes there burning as if Helga’s needle still bit into her.
She grabbed a discarded wool blanket tossed over a barrel—some drunkard’s forgotten bedding—and wadded it against her mouth. The rough fibers scraped her lips as her thighs trembled, the orgasm cresting like a wave against a longship’s prow. Her moan vibrated into the wool, swallowed whole by the fabric and the raucous hall’s din beyond the alcove. Pleasure seared through her, molten as forge-fire, leaving her gasping against the blanket’s scratchy embrace.
The aftershocks made her legs buckle. She caught herself on the ale barrel’s edge, fingernails digging into the wood’s splintered grain. Her breath came in ragged bursts, each exhale steaming in the cold air. Between her thighs, the slick heat of release mingled with the throbbing sting of fresh ink—a delicious contradiction that left her dizzy. She pressed her forehead against the barrel’s cool surface, waiting for the hammering of her heart to slow.
When she finally straightened, the wool blanket was rough against her fingers as she wiped them clean. The fabric smelled of stale mead and sheep’s lanolin, but it absorbed the evidence of her pleasure without complaint. Her leggings stuck to her damp skin as she pulled them up, the coarse wool chafing tender flesh. She adjusted her tunic with a practiced tug, ensuring no telltale creases betrayed what she’d done in the shadows.
The feast roared on, oblivious. Yrsa emerged from the alcove with her chin lifted, her braids slightly tousled from the wall’s scrape. No one glanced her way—not the warriors arm-wrestling over a dented helm, not the thralls refilling ale horns, not even Vestgir, who’d collapsed onto a bench with his head lolling against a barrel. Only the firelight flickered across her path, licking at her boots as she strode toward the high table.
