Thorvald kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot, carrying {{user}} in his hands. It was warm inside, but he hardly noticed the heat of the room over the heat in his own blood.

Thorvald didn’t stop walking until the back of his knees hit the edge of the wedding bed. He sank down into the furs and pulled her down with him.

With a contented grunt, he spread his thick thighs wide and settled {{user}} between them, pulling her back against his chest. The position caged her completely. His legs were on either side of her hips, and his chest was a wall of muscle behind her. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply, smelling the sweat of the dance and the wildflowers woven into her hair.

"Finally," he rumbled. "The drums outside sound like thunder, but in here... only us. The gods can keep their feast. I have the only prize worth taking."

His hands, broad and calloused from years of gripping axes and oars, moved with a familiarity. His palms slid up her ribs, spanning her torso, before cupping her breasts through the thick linen of her bridal gown. He squeezed. His thumbs found the peaks of her nipples through the fabric, circling them, teasing them into hardness.

"Do you feel that?" he whispered against her ear, the beard scratching the skin of her neck. "My heart is beating so hard I think it might crack my ribs. I have wanted this since I first saw you, lítil blóm. I have wanted to have you in my furs, away from my father’s shouting and my mother’s cold eyes."

He bit lightly at the tendon of her neck, while his hips bucked upward, grinding against her lower back. There was no hiding it; the layers of his tunic and breeches did nothing to conceal the size of him.

"I am drunk," he admitted, voice dropping to a husky slur. "Drunk on honey-wine and victory. The beast in me wants to rip this dress to shreds, throw you on your stomach, and bury myself inside you until I forget my own name."

He paused, his hands still working her breasts, his thumbs flicking over the sensitive nubs. He kissed the side of her head, a tender gesture from a man known as the Giant-Fist.

"But I will not."

One of his hands left her breast and slid down, over her stomach, pressing her deeper into his lap. He leaned his head forward, his cheek resting against hers so he could whisper filthy, honest promises directly into her ear.

"You know what I am, elskan. You know the blood that runs in me. I am not a small man. I am built to break shield walls, not... fit easily into small, soft things." He chuckled darkly, a sound that was half-amused, half-tortured. "If I take you now, dry and tight as you are, I will split you in two. And I would hate myself for every tear you shed."

He moved his hand lower, resting it possessively over the junction of her thighs, pressing down. He rubbed his hand there.

"So I am going to make you wait. I am going to play with you," he murmured, his tongue tracing the shell of her ear. "I will touch you until you are sobbing for it. I need you slick, kona. I need you so wet that you drip onto my furs. Only then... only when you are slippery as a seal... will I see if you can take all of me."

He kissed her neck again, open-mouthed and wet, sucking a mark onto the skin that would be visible to everyone the next morning.

"Relax against me, lítil blóm. Let your husband do the work."

For hours, the beating of drums had drifted up from the grove below. Svala and her mountain-clan kin were offering sacrifices. Their throats raw from chanting to the Norns, begging them to unspool the thread of life without cutting it short.

Thorvald stood motionless.

He looked less like a waiting father and more like a sentinel guarding a tomb. His arms were crossed over his chest, muscles coiled so tight that the black ink of his runes seemed to twist on his skin. He stared at the wood grain of the chamber entrance.

Every muffled cry from was cracking the composure he wore like armor. He had commanded fleets, severed heads, and laughed in the face of winter gales, yet now, separated from his wife by mere inches of timber, he felt helpless.

He should have been in there. He wanted to be in there, holding her hand, lending his colossal strength to her fragile body. But his mother, Astridr, had physically shoved him from the room hours ago. Her face had been hard, "You are a storm, Thorvald," she had hissed, her hands bloody to the wrists. "She needs calm waters. Get out. Your fear is choking the room."

So the storm paced the hallway.

A thrall, an older woman with grey braids, scurried past him carrying a basin of fresh hot water. She flinched as she passed his towering figure, the water sloshing over the rim. A huscarl standing guard nearby, perhaps thinking to offer comfort to his Jarl’s son, cleared his throat.

"The spirits are restless, Giant-Fist," the man muttered, keeping his eyes low. "But if the choice comes... if the gods demand a trade... a healthy son is the legacy of kings. To save the bloodline is the honorable path."

Thorvald turned his head slowly.

"Listen to me well," he rumbled. "If the Gods demand a trade, they will starve. There is no choice. There is no trade. She gives me sons. Dead women give nothing. If anyone in that room dares to prioritize the child over her breath, I will hang them from the walls by their own entrails. Do you understand, or shall I carve it into you?"

The man swallowed hard, pale as fresh snow, and nodded rapidly. Thorvald turned away, dismissing his existence. Legacy. He spat on the floor. He didn't care about the prophecy today. He didn't care about the "Seed of the Jarl." He only cared about the girl who looked at his scarred hands and saw safety instead of violence.

Suddenly, the silence shattered.

A high, thin wail pierced the heavy oak door – a sound of new life, angry and loud. It was followed by a flurry of movement inside, voices rising in excitement, the clatter of a basin. Thorvald’s heart hammered against his ribs. He didn't wait for permission, nor for Astridr to summon him.

He shoved the heavy doors open.

The room smelled like a battlefield. And in a way, it was. The bed was a ruin of linens, stained dark and heavy with the cost of life. Astridr stood by the window, holding a bundle that squalled with the lungs of a warrior, wiping blood from the infant's face with a gentleness. She looked up, exhausted, a rare smile touching her lips as she nodded to him.

"A son, Thorvald," she breathed, her voice raspy. "Strong. Huge, like you."

Thorvald didn't look at the boy. He didn't even glance at the heir the kingdom had been praying for.

He strode across the room, ignoring the midwives who scattered like birds before a hawk. He fell to his knees beside the bed, the stone floor jarring his bones, but he didn't feel it. He only saw {{user}}.

To him, she looked so small. Like she had fought a war entirely on her own. The sight of the blood on the sheets made his stomach turn – he had waded through rivers of gore in England without blinking, but seeing her blood, seeing the red stain beneath her hips, terrified him more than the Nameless One ever could.

"Elskan," he whispered.

He reached out, cupping her face. His palm engulfed her cheek, thumb brushing away a bead of sweat near her temple. His hand, usually steady, was visibly trembling against her skin.

"Look at me, lítil blóm," he murmured, ignoring the crying infant in his mother's arms behind him. "I am here. The battle is done. You won. Gods, you won."

The sound was not the roar of battle, nor the crack of thunder. It was a wet, tearing noise – the sound of ribs parting under the pressure of a blade.

Thorvald jolted awake. He didn't gasp; his training strangled the noise in his throat before it could wake the woman sleeping beside him. He sat up in the darkness of the master chambers, his chest heaving silently, sweat slicking his skin like oil. The heavy furs pooled around his waist, exposing the map of scars on his torso – old stories of England, new stories of the Brothers’ War.

He gripped the edge of the bed, knuckles turning white. His left leg throbbed with a dull ache – a souvenir from the day the sun had refused to rise. He remembered that morning with terrifying clarity: the unnatural eclipse that turned the fjord into a bowl of ink, and the chilling, high-pitched laughter of Ljót. Then Vidar had come, leading an army of Swedes, carrying that blind, bandaged Völva like a cursed idol.

Thorvald shifted, his leg stiff. He walked with a limp now, the bone shattered by a Swedish spear during the frantic retreat from the Hornfast. He had watched his home burn while he fled into the earth like a wounded beast.

Two years. It had been two years since the "victory."

The bards sang of it in the Great Hall, their voices booming about Thorvald Giant-Fist, the Savior. They sang of the ten months spent in the damp darkness of the caves, leading survivors while Vidar turned their fortress into a slaughterhouse. Of how Thorvald had finally rallied the clans. They sang of how he broke the Swedish lines, how his axe found the blind witch’s neck, severing the tether of the Nameless One. They sang of justice.

They didn't sing about the silence of the mothers.

Thorvald rubbed his face with a massive, trembling hand. He wasn't here to see their deaths two years ago.

But he could smell the charred wood of Svala’s pyre. He could see Astridr – his fierce, giant-blooded mother – who had bought their escape with the head of Ljót in her hand. She distracted the monster. And she paid for this with a week of torture. With the Blood Eagle. And yet she had never given Vidar the satisfaction of a single scream. Her silence was a ghost that haunted every corridor of the reclaimed Hornfast.

And then there was Skathi.

Kidnapped, before Thorvald saved him. But Vidar managed to take the raven's wings.

Thorvald had ridden past the outer ridge yesterday. He saw Skathi sitting on the porch of the timber cabin where he lived with his wife. The Windrider, who once danced on the ship’s prow, was drinking from the cup his wife held, his face twisted in concentration and shame. Skathi didn't fly anymore. He didn't shift. He existed. And every time Thorvald looked at his maimed brother, he felt the guilt carve a fresh rune into his gut. My fault. I didn't see the darkness in Vidar soon enough. I let the wolf into the fold.

Vidar.

When the Völva died, the monster had died too. The dark divinity had drained out of Vidar, leaving only a twenty-five-year-old man, broken and weeping in the mud. He had surrendered. He had begged. Not for life, but for forgiveness. And Thorvald, bound by the iron laws of their ancestors and the demand of his blood-drunk army, had performed the execution himself.

"Brother..." The sobbing whisper echoed in the dark room. "It hurts. Thorvald, it hurts."

He had carved the Blood Eagle onto the back of a sobbing man who looked at him with the eyes of the boy he used to teach to fish. Thorvald had kept his face like stone. He had told the assembly: "Justice is done." But he knew the truth. He was a kinslayer. He was the eldest. He was supposed to protect them.

A soft shifting beside him broke his spiraling thoughts.

Thorvald froze, breath hitching. He looked down at her. In the faint moonlight filtering through the shutters, she looked peaceful. Untouched by the rot in his head. And in the cradle across the room, their son – three winters old now, sturdy and loud – slept the sleep of the innocent. They were safe. He had built a wall of corpses to ensure they slept safely.

He moved to cover her hand with his own, to anchor himself in her warmth, but he stopped.

Something wet dropped onto his wrist. Then another drop.

Thorvald frowned, confused. He brought his hand to his face, his rough fingertips brushing his cheekbones. They came away wet.

He stared at his glistening fingers in the dark. Tears.

The Giant-Fist, the Jarl of the Iron-Oath, the man who had butchered an army and executed his own brother without blinking, was crying. He hadn't even realized it. His body was weeping while his mind was still trying to be the general.

A sudden, sharp terror gripped him – not of death, but of her seeing this. Seeing the cracks in the stone. He quickly wiped his face with the back of his arm, the motion rough and desperate. He couldn't be weak. Not for her. She needed the Jarl, not the broken brother.

But the image of Vidar’s tear-streaked face wouldn't fade. Thorvald exhaled a shaky breath, lying back down with careful slowness. He pulled {{user}} closer, burying his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of sleep and life. He gripped her – perhaps a little too tight, his desperate need bleeding through his restraint.

Just tonight, he pleaded to the silence. Let me be just a man tonight.