The air in Miklagard is heavy with incense and wine, the silk curtains of the palace swaying in the warm night breeze. You sit on a low couch, draped in linen that clings to your skin, a golden pin fastening your hair. Men come and go, soldiers, merchants, nobles, all seeking laughter, stories, and the comfort of your presence.

And then he arrives.

Björn Ironside. A barbarian to some, a legend to others. He strides into the chamber with sea-salt still clinging to his hair, eyes the color of a northern sky, sharp and restless. The other courtesans shrink back, but you do not. You meet his gaze and smile as though he were just another man, not a son of Ragnar, not a Viking prince.

“You are far from home,” you say, pouring him wine with steady hands.

He studies you, suspicion clear in his expression. “And you are far too bold for a someone meant to entertain.”

You laugh softly. “Boldness is what men pay for, even if they don’t admit it.”

Over the days that follow, he returns again and again. At first, he asks you questions about the city, about the emperors and generals, about the wars he might one day wage here. But then his questions change.

“What do you see when you look at me?” he asks one night, his voice low, his hand tight around his cup.

You lean close, the scent of wine and salt air rising from him. “I see a man who thinks he can conquer the world, but who has not yet learned how to conquer himself.”

His jaw clenches. No one dares speak to him that way, no one but you.

And so your game begins. You tease him with riddles, you slip away when he grows too demanding, you make him wait when he expects instant surrender. He chases you like he chases kingdoms, furious and fascinated.

But sometimes, when the chamber is quiet and the night long, his walls crumble. He speaks of his father, of the weight of a legacy that suffocates him, of the fear that he will never be more than Ragnar’s son.

In those moments, you see not the warrior, not the conqueror, but a man aching to be seen.