The silence that followed Astrid’s quiet declaration was heavier than the snow-laden roof, thicker than the peat smoke coiling in the air. Eirik’s body, which had begun to relax into the warmth and the dulling embrace of her potion, was now a taut bowstring. Every instinct, honed by a lifetime of suspicion and stories of Svartfjell treachery, screamed at him to move, to fight, to put distance between himself and this woman. The throb in his leg and the pound in his head were brutal reminders of his helplessness.
He was a stag caught in a pit, and the hunter was sitting calmly beside him, her fjord-blue eyes watching him process his captivity.
“You know my name,” he said, his voice a low rasp. It was not a question.
“I know your name,” she confirmed, her gaze unwavering. “I know your father’s name. I know the dragon-head of your longship, the black and gold of your sail. The Stórbrodir are not strangers to these shores, even if they are unwelcome.”
She rose from the stool with that same fluid, economical grace and moved back to the fire. She did not look at his weapons on the wall, a taunt in their proximity and inaccessibility. Instead, she lifted the iron pot and poured more of the steaming liquid into a clay cup. She brought it to him, placing it on a small, upturned log that served as a table beside his pallet.
“Drink,” she said. “The threat to you is not in the cup. It is outside these walls, in the storm that has passed and in the world that awaits. If I wished you dead, Eirik Stórbrodir, I would have left you for the gulls on the beach. Or I could have simply not stitched your leg. A wound like that, left to fester… it’s a slower death, but just as certain.”
Her logic was as cold and sharp as a skald’s knife. He looked from her face to the cup, then back. The simplicity of her statement was its own form of persuasion. Why go to the effort of saving him only to poison him now? It was a waste of good herbs. He picked up the cup, the warmth seeping into his chilled fingers. He drank. The bitterness was a familiar anchor in a world that had tilted on its axis.
“Why then?” he asked, the question torn from him. “Why save a Stórbrodir? Your father… Kveldulf.” He said the name as if it were a curse, and in his household, it often was. “He would flay the skin from your back for this mercy.”
A shadow, fleeting and dark, passed behind her eyes. It was the first crack he’d seen in her composed facade. “My father’s wishes regarding this croft and its occupant are… complicated. I make my own choices here. And a body washed up on my shore, breathing, is a matter for a healer, not a chieftain’s daughter. The feud does not dictate the tides.”
Chieftain’s daughter. The confirmation sent another jolt through him. He was not just in the home of a Svartfjell clansman; he was in the sanctuary of the enemy jarl’s own blood. The political ramifications of his situation were as dangerous as the physical ones. His capture, or even his death here, could be the spark that finally ignited the all-out war both clans had been circling for years.
He fell silent, his mind racing, assessing escape routes, evaluating his strength. He tried to shift his leg, and a white-hot brand of pain lanced from his shin to his hip, forcing a sharp hiss through his clenched teeth. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“I said, do not move,” Astrid’s voice was flat, devoid of sympathy but full of authority. She knelt beside the pallet, her movements purposeful. “The bone is not broken, but it is a severe bruising. The muscle is torn. The splint and the poultice are to keep it stable and draw out the swelling. You will undo my work.”
Before he could protest, she had her hands on his leg, her fingers probing the area around the wound with a firm, professional touch. He flinched, but her grip was like iron.
“Be still,” she commanded, her tone leaving no room for argument. It was the voice of someone utterly accustomed to being obeyed in matters of her craft.
He watched her, the top of her golden head bent over his leg. He could smell the scent of her hair—clean, like crushed pine needles and the cold air. It was a disconcertingly pleasant smell in such a disconcerting situation. Her fingers, despite their strength, were surprisingly gentle as she checked the linen bandages, stained dark with a pungent salve made of bog myrtle and yarrow.
“You are skilled,” he admitted grudgingly, the words tasting strange. Praising a Svartfjell felt like a betrayal of its own kind.
“I am,” she replied without a trace of false modesty. She did not look up. “My mother was the most gifted healer in our clan. She taught me before she died. It is a more useful art than needlework or gossip.”
He leaned back against the furs, his head spinning from the pain and the strange reality of his predicament. His eyes wandered the croft. It was a testament to a solitary, self-sufficient life. Bunches of drying thyme, angelica, and juniper hung from the rafters. A well-used loom stood in one corner, a half-finished blanket of grey and blue wool upon it. A finely carved chest, likely containing her personal effects, was pushed against the wall. A hunting bow and a quiver of arrows, along with a slender spear, were within easy reach of the door. And on a high shelf, away from the fire’s smoke, sat a row of small, intricately carved wooden figures: a bear, a wolf, a seal. The work was delicate, expressive. It was a side of Svartfjell craft he had never seen—not the brutal, functional artistry of weapon-smithing, but something quieter, more personal.
“You live here alone?” he asked, the question emerging before he could stop it.
She finished re-tying the bandage and sat back on her heels, wiping her hands on a cloth. Her gaze met his, guarded. “I do. It suits me.”
“It is dangerous for a woman. Even a… skilled one.”
A faint, cynical smile touched her lips. “Less dangerous than a longhouse full of politics and prying eyes. Here, the only dangers are the ones I can see coming: a winter wolf, a bad harvest, a storm.” Her eyes flickered to his weapons on the wall. “Until today.”
The implication hung between them. He was the new danger. The intruder.
The day wore on, the light from the smoke hole fading from dull grey to deep twilight. Astrid moved about the croft with a quiet efficiency that was mesmerizing to watch. She fed the fire, prepared a simple stew of salted fish and barley, and checked the seal-skin covering the single, small window against the biting wind. She spoke little, and Eirik, trapped in his bed of furs, had nothing to do but watch her and listen to the wind’s mournful song.
It was a unique form of torture. He was a man of action, of the open sea and the marching trail. This forced stillness, this helpless confinement in the heart of enemy territory, was a cage far more effective than any iron bars. And his jailer was a quiet, self-possessed woman who seemed to regard him as little more than a complicated chore.
She brought him a bowl of stew and a piece of hard, dark bread. He ate in silence, the food simple but good. His body craved the sustenance, another humiliation. He was relying on her for his very survival, bite by bite.
“My men,” he said finally, breaking the long silence. “Bjorn. When will they come?”
“When the weather clears enough for them to navigate the cove properly. When they have ensured your ship will not sink. A day. Maybe two.” She was sitting by the fire now, working on a piece of leather with a sharp awl, repairing a worn strap on her boot. “They know you are here. They know you are alive. That is enough for now.”
The certainty in her voice was absolute. She had established a truce, a set of rules, and she expected all parties, including his own hardened crew, to abide by them. Eirik found himself both resentful and reluctantly impressed.
As true darkness fell, the croft shrank, the circle of firelight becoming their entire world. The wind howled outside, a reminder of the wilderness that surrounded them, but inside, it was warm. Dangerously warm. Comfortable. The furs were soft, his stomach was full, and the pain in his leg had subsided to a deep, manageable ache. The simplicity of his needs—shelter, food, healing—stripped away the complexities of his station and the feud. Here, he was not a chieftain’s son. He was just a wounded man.
He must have dozed, for he jerked awake to the sound of a log shifting in the fire. Astrid was still there, silhouetted against the flames, her braid gleaming. She was sharpening a small skinning knife on a whetstone, the rhythmic shhh-click, shhh-click a strangely peaceful sound.
“You should sleep,” she said without turning. “Sleep is the best healer.”
“It is difficult to sleep in a wolf’s den,” he murmured, the exhaustion making him more honest than was wise.
For the first time, she turned to look at him over her shoulder. The firelight carved her profile in gold and shadow, highlighting the sharp line of her cheekbone, the soft curve of her lip.
“Perhaps,” she said, her voice quiet but clear in the small space. “But remember, Stórbrodir, it is the wolf who is wounded and in the den of the healer. Not the other way around.”
She turned back to the fire, leaving him with those words. And as Eirik lay in the warm, herb-scented darkness, listening to the sound of her breathing and the soft scrape of steel on stone, he understood the true nature of his cage. It was not made of sod and timber. It was forged from her mercy, his own helplessness, and the terrifying, disarming realization that the enemy he had been taught to despise his entire life had, in a single day, shown him more genuine compassion than he had ever received in the cold, politically charged halls of his own home. The walls of hatred he had built around himself all his life had, in this quiet, remote croft, developed their first, perilous crack.