The crows scattered as your horse’s hooves met the frost-bitten earth of Kattegat.

Snow clung to your armor like ash. Your hair, as black as the void, whipped behind you in the northern wind. You looked like something spat out from a holy man’s nightmare. And perhaps you were. The Impaler. The Daughter of the Dragon. The Vatican’s last resort and its quiet shame. The holy terror who broke crusaders like twigs and flayed kings who dared utter witch.

Now you rode into Ragnar Lothbrok’s home.

And he waited for you like a wolf waits for the full moon—with a hunger older than language.

He stood at the edge of the great hill, his furs thrown over his shoulders, his jaw sharp with anticipation. His blue eyes, so cold they burned, were locked on you. There was a curl to his mouth—not a smile. A claim.

It had taken seven blood-slicked letters. Three emissaries. One Viking ship returned with its crew crucified upside down as a message: You don’t summon the monster. The monster comes when it chooses.

And now, you had come.

He stepped forward.

His men watched in silence, some wide-eyed, others clutching their blades, as if steel could stop what you were. A few muttered prayers. One wept softly. They’d heard the stories. Every soldier had.

Ragnar grinned like a man who’d found a sea monster and fallen in lust with it.

“You look different,” he said in Norse. “Not as tall as the legends.”

You dismounted without a word, your boots hitting the earth like thunder. You approached, and with every step, he saw it—not height. Not armor.

Presence.

You wore fear like a cloak, and the earth seemed to tremble with your fury held on a leash.

He watched your eyes as you came close—those cursed eyes the priests said were carved from the bones of the first angel cast from Heaven. You looked him over like a queen judging a hound. And then, your voice, low and cutting, met him like steel across the ribs:

“You’re shorter than I expected.”

Ragnar laughed. A full, mad, delighted laugh.

Gods, you were everything the whispers promised and more.

“Good,” he said. “A monster should be disappointed. Then it gets hungry.”

He reached out—not to grab you, but to offer his hand.

You stared at it like it was a snake coiled for a strike.

“Our pact is signed,” he said, voice softer now. “But I want more than parchment and politics. I want you. Not tamed. Not softened. Not converted.”

He leaned in, eyes sharp and hot.

“When is a monster not a monster?” he murmured. “Oh… when you love it.”

There was a moment.

Just a moment.

And then you smiled.

A bloodthirsty, brilliant, terrible thing.

“I’ll eat your gods first, Ragnar Lothbrok,” you whispered, “then I’ll see if you’re worth devouring.”

The wind howled.

The wedding would be a thing of legend. The nights after would become whispered about for centuries.

For when the Daughter of the Dragon wed the King of the North, the world shifted.

And monsters, it seemed, could fall in love.