Silence had returned to the croft, but it was a different silence. Before, it had been a presence—a companion of contemplation, of industry, of peace. Now, it was an absence. It was the space where the sound of his voice had been, the echo of his laughter, the scrape of his staff on the earth floor. The quiet felt vast and hollow, a chamber emptied of its heart.
Astrid moved through her days with a mechanical precision. She tended her herbs. She worked her loom, her fingers flying as she finished the final threads of the fjord-and-forest pattern, the act feeling more like a burial rite than a creation. She checked her fishing lines in the cove, the icy water numbing her hands, the cold a welcome distraction from the deeper chill within.
She had thought herself strong in her solitude. She had believed she had built a life that was impervious to the outside world. But Eirik Stórbrodir had not felt like the outside world. He had felt like a missing piece of her own soul, a piece she had never known was absent until he had arrived, wounded and proud, and filled the space perfectly.
A week after his departure, the world she had kept at bay finally crashed upon her shore. She heard them long before she saw them: the jingle of harnesses, the gruff voices of men, the snort of horses struggling through the deep snow. Her heart seized. For a wild, impossible moment, she thought it was him. That he had returned.
The hope died as soon as she saw the riders. Five of them, clad in the dark wool and wolfskin cloaks of the Svartfjell, their long spears bristling against the grey sky. At their head was her cousin, Gunnar, a man whose ambition was matched only by his cruelty, his face a web of old scars and new scorn.
They reined in their shaggy ponies before her door without dismounting, a deliberate show of dominance. Gunnar’s eyes, dark and predatory, swept over her, the croft, the smoke rising lazily from the roof.
“Cousin,” he said, his voice a low sneer. “We heard a rumour. A whisper on the wind that a Stórbrodir longship found shelter in your cove during the great storm. We came to see if you needed… protection.”
Astrid stood straight, her arms crossed over her chest, her face a mask of cold neutrality. “The storm brought many things to my shore, Gunnar. Driftwood. Dead fish. The wind whispers many lies. I need no protection from gossip.”
One of the other men, a grizzled veteran named Kettil, spat onto the snow. “Gossip? We spoke to old Mani, the goat-herd who watches the coastal passes. He saw a dragon-headed ship, black and gold, beached here. He is not a man given to lies.”
Gunnar urged his pony a step closer, the animal’s hot breath pluming in her face. “So. The heir of our bitterest enemies was shipwrecked on your doorstep. And you, the daughter of Jarl Kveldulf, what did you do? Did you send a rider to your father? Did you slit the throat of the Stórbrodir pup as he slept?” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “Or did you offer him… hospitality?”
The word was an accusation, laden with unspeakable implications. Astrid felt a flush of anger heat her cheeks, but she held her ground. “I am a healer, Gunnar. A body washed up on my shore is a matter for my skills, not your politics. The man was wounded. I tended his wounds. When he could walk, he left.”
A stunned silence fell over the men. Kettil stared at her as if she had grown a second head. Gunnar’s face contorted from sneering curiosity to outright fury.
“You… you healed him?” he breathed, the words laced with disbelief. “You tended the enemy? The son of Halfdan the Grim, who has sworn to see our clan wiped from the earth?” He dismounted in one swift, angry motion, striding to stand directly before her, towering over her. “Have you lost your mind, woman? Or is your loyalty so fickle?”
“My loyalty is to life!” Astrid shot back, her own temper fraying. “Would you have me be a murderer, Gunnar? To slaughter a wounded, helpless man? What honour is there in that? We are not animals!”
“Honour?” Gunnar roared, his voice echoing in the quiet cove. “This is not about honour! This is about survival! Every Stórbrodir who draws breath is a threat to our people! To our families! By letting that whelp live, you have spat on the graves of every Svartfjell who has fallen to their axes! You have betrayed your own blood!”
His words were a physical blow, each one landing with the force of a hammer. The other men muttered in agreement, their eyes hard and accusing. She was surrounded, not by enemies, but by her own kin, and their judgment was a colder thing than any Stórbrodir blade.
“The feud is a beast that consumes us all, Gunnar,” she said, her voice trembling despite her efforts to control it. “I choose not to feed it.”
“You do not have the right to choose!” he snarled. “You carry the name Svartfjell! That name carries a duty! A duty to hate, to fight, to destroy! Your sentimental notions are a weakness we cannot afford!” He grabbed her roughly by the arm, his fingers digging into her flesh. “You will come with us. You will explain this… this treason to your father.”
He began to drag her towards the horses. For a moment, Astrid resisted, planting her feet. She looked back at her croft, her loom, her carvings, her peace. It was all being torn away.
“I can walk on my own,” she said, her voice icy with a fury that dwarfed his own.
He released her with a shove, a look of triumphant contempt on his face. She straightened her dress, her head held high. She walked past them, towards the waiting horses, without a backward glance.
As she mounted behind Kettil, the reality of her situation crashed down upon her. The life she had built, the independence she had fought for, was over. She was being dragged back to the heart of the very world she had fled, her act of mercy now branded as the deepest betrayal.
The weight of her name, Svartfjell, felt heavier than ever before—a chain dragging her down into the old, hungry darkness of the feud. She had tried to live outside the story, but the story had finally come to claim her. And she knew, with a sinking certainty, that the man she loved was now, irrevocably, the enemy.