Eirik woke to a silence so profound it felt like a physical presence. The storm’s fury had vanished, replaced by a heavy, muffled quiet, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire and the slow, even rhythm of Astrid’s breathing from across the room. A pale, greyish light filtered through the smoke hole, illuminating dust motes dancing in the still air.
He lay still for a long moment, taking stock. The pounding in his head had receded to a dull ache. The pain in his leg was a deep, persistent throb, but the sharp, tearing agony was gone. He was alive, and he was healing. The knowledge was a stark, unwelcome truth. He owed his life to the daughter of Kveldulf Svartfjell.
Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself up onto his elbows. Astrid was asleep on a pallet of furs near the door, wrapped in a thick wool blanket. Her face in repose was softer, the fierce intelligence in her eyes hidden. The single braid of her hair lay over her shoulder like a pale serpent against the dark wool. She looked younger, vulnerable. The sight sent a confusing jumble of emotions through him—pity, a flicker of protectiveness, and a swift, sharp shame for feeling either.
His gaze then travelled to his weapons belt, hanging on the peg. The familiar, worn leather, the hilt of his seax, the pommel of his sword. They called to him, a siren song of his old life, of power and control. If he could just reach them…
He moved his good leg, testing his strength, and began the slow, arduous process of shifting his body. Every movement sent fresh waves of pain radiating from his injured shin. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth as he stifled a groan. He managed to swing his legs, the good one and the heavily splinted one, over the side of the pallet. The packed earth floor was cold beneath his bare feet. The distance to the wall seemed a vast, impossible chasm.
He took a breath, preparing to push himself up, to try and hop, when her voice, calm and clear, cut through the silence.
“The floor is cold. You will catch a chill.”
He froze, his muscles locking. She hadn’t moved, her eyes were still closed.
“How did you—?”
“I could hear you thinking,” she said, her eyes opening now. They were clear and alert, holding no trace of sleep. She had been awake the entire time. Watching him. Testing him. “And your breathing changed. You are not as stealthy as you believe, Eirik Stórbrodir. And even if you were, you would not make it three steps from this croft before you collapsed. The snow is thigh-deep.”
A hot flush of humiliation and anger warmed his neck. He felt like a chastised child. “I am a prisoner, then.”
She sat up, the blanket pooling around her waist. “You are a patient. There is a difference. A prisoner is kept against his will for a purpose. You are here because your body is broken. When it is mended, you may leave. The purpose is your health, not your captivity.”
“Semantics,” he grumbled, slumping back against the furs, defeated. The effort had sapped what little strength he had, and a cold sweat coated his skin.
“Truth is not semantics,” she replied, rising with her usual fluid grace. She moved to the fire, adding a few pieces of peat. “It is the foundation upon which a healer works. A falsehood, even a comforting one, can kill as surely as a sword thrust.” She filled a cup with water from a skin and brought it to him. “Here. The fever tries to return. You must drink.”
He took the cup, his fingers brushing against hers. This time, he was prepared for the jolt, but it came anyway, a spark of connection in the cold, tense atmosphere. He drank deeply, the cool water a blessing on his dry throat.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked again, the question more a plea for understanding than a challenge this time. “You risk everything. If your father’s men found me here…”
“They will not,” she said, her tone final. “This cove is mine. It was my mother’s. It is… tolerated. My father has little interest in what happens here, so long as I do not openly shame him. And harbouring a wounded Stórbrodir from a storm would be seen as the deepest shame.” She almost smiled, a bitter, fleeting thing. “So, we will not tell him.”
We. The word hung in the air, a tiny, fragile alliance forged in secrecy.
The morning passed with a strange, domestic rhythm. Astrid prepared a simple breakfast of porridge sweetened with a drop of precious honey. She checked his bandages again, her touch clinical and sure. She did not speak unless spoken to, and her answers were brief, factual. Yet, her silence was not hostile. It was… observant.
Eirik, trapped with nothing but his thoughts and the sight of his enemy-turned-saviour, found his mind turning inward. He studied her as she worked. He watched the way she hummed a low, tuneless melody under her breath as she ground herbs with a mortar and pestle. He saw the careful pride she took in the order of her small domain. This was not the den of a monster. This was the home of a person. A capable, intelligent, and fiercely independent person.
It contradicted everything he had been taught. The Svartfjell were supposed to be brutish, cruel, conniving. They were the ones who raided their outlying farms under the cover of fog, who poisoned wells, who spat on the graves of his ancestors. He had been fed these stories with his mother’s milk, had seen the grim nods of his father’s huscarls when the name ‘Svartfjell’ was uttered. Hatred for them was as natural as breathing.
But Astrid did not poison wells. She healed wounds. She did not raid farms. She lived in solitude, tending her herbs and her loom. The cognitive dissonance was a physical discomfort, a nausea in his soul.
“You are staring,” she said without looking up from her grinding.
“I am… trying to understand,” he admitted, the confession feeling dangerous.
“Understand what?”
“You.”
She paused her work, her shoulders stiffening slightly. “I am not a riddle to be solved. I am a woman living her life.”
“A Svartfjell woman,” he pressed, the name a deliberate prod. “The daughter of the man my father calls ‘the Old Wolf of the Black Mountain’, the one who ordered my uncle’s hall burned with his family inside.”
Astrid’s head snapped up, her eyes flashing with a sudden, cold fire. “And my mother’s brother was slain by your father’s own hand at the Battle of the Frozen Lake, his body left for the foxes and the ravens. His wife, my aunt, died of grief before the spring thaw.” She set the mortar down with a sharp click. “Shall we continue this tally, Eirik? I assure you, my list is as long as yours. I could recite the names of the dead until this fire turns to ash. Is that what you wish to hear? Will it make your hatred sit more comfortably in your gut?”
Her words were like a physical blow. He had wanted to provoke her, to see the monster he expected, but the raw, personal pain in her voice was not monstrous. It was human. It was a mirror of his own.
“No,” he said, his voice low. “It will not.”
The fire crackled between them, the only sound in the tense silence.
“The feud is an old, hungry beast,” Astrid said after a long moment, her voice quieter now, laced with a profound weariness. “It does not care who feeds it, so long as it is fed. It consumes good men, wise women, and the futures of children who have done nothing but be born on the wrong side of a mountain. I have chosen to stop feeding it. Here, in this croft, the beast does not enter.”
Eirik looked at her, truly looked at her, sitting proud and alone in her small fortress of principle. He saw not an enemy, but a refugee. A refugee from the same war he was still fighting.
“My men,” he said, changing the subject, the weight of her words too heavy to bear. “When they come, there will be no trouble? Your truce will hold?”
She met his gaze, the fire in her eyes banked to embers. “It will hold. Bjorn struck me as a man of his word. He gave me his oath that his men would offer no violence in return for your care. I believe him.”
“You trust the oath of a Stórbrodir?” The concept was astounding.
“I trust the eyes of a man who cares for his chieftain’s son,” she corrected softly. “I trust the practicality of a warrior who knows his leader’s life hangs in the balance. That is a language I understand.”
In that moment, Eirik felt the last of his warrior’s bravado drain away. He was not a powerful jarl’s son in this room. He was a bargaining chip, a responsibility, a patient. His survival depended on the honour of his men and the mercy of his enemy. It was the most humbling experience of his life.
Later, as the short day began to wane, a new sound echoed in the cove outside—the distant, muffled crunch of many boots in deep snow, and the familiar, booming voice of Bjorn.
“Hail the croft! We come in peace, as sworn! We seek Eirik Stórbrodir!”
Astrid moved to the door, pulling aside the heavy seal-skin curtain. She did not open it fully, but stood in the narrow opening, a slender silhouette against the blinding white of the world outside.
“He lives,” she called out, her voice carrying clearly in the crisp air. “He is healing. You may approach. Two of you. No more.”
Eirik’s heart hammered against his ribs. The outside world was crashing in. The fragile, insulated reality of the croft was about to shatter. He saw Astrid’s hand, resting lightly on the frame of the door, and noticed for the first time that it was trembling, just slightly. She was not as calm as she appeared. She was risking everything, and she was afraid.
The unwelcome truth settled deep within him, colder and more terrifying than the snow outside. He was no longer sure who the enemy was. The real danger, he began to suspect, was not outside the door.
It was the treacherous, unwelcome seed of respect and understanding that had taken root in his own heart.