The salt hung thick in the air as Bjorn’s boots met the stone shore, dark waves lapping at his heels like dogs hungry for meat. Normandy rose in the distance, calm and green and sickeningly tamed.

He spat into the tide, scowling at the sight of soft fields and fat sheep, at the distant sound of church bells echoing through the mist like taunts. He had not come for the land. He had come for her.

Bjorn’s eyes were steel beneath his brow as he waited on the dock, his arms folded across his broad chest. The wind tugged at the bear-fur cloak slung over his shoulders, but he did not shiver.

He had bled in the sands of the Mediterranean, roared through the forests of Rus, but this—this was colder than any battlefield. And then he saw her.

His twin, once a tempest in the shield wall, whose war cry had rung out like a death knell across Saxon hills. She had laughed in the face of kings, bathed in blood beside him, danced with her sword like it was a lover.

She had been a fury with Lagertha’s fire in her eyes and Ragnar’s stubbornness in her veins. She had once stood atop a mound of corpses, face smeared with gore, grinning like a Valkyrie.

But now… she moved across the stones like mist. Pale linen. Loose hair. A silver cross glinting at her chest like a wound. No axe at her back. No blood under her nails. No heat in her gaze. Just softness. Just stillness.

Like Normandy had drained her. Or worse—like Rollo had carved the Viking out of her and replaced it with this… quiet, reverent stranger. Bjorn’s jaw clenched. His steps were heavy as he moved toward her—each one cracking the silence between them like thunder. He didn’t embrace her. He didn’t smile.

He stared, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “You look like one of them,” he said, his voice low and tight, as if each word was a blade dragging through his throat.

A moment passed. His eyes burned into her, searching for some scrap of the sister who had once howled beside him as they set villages ablaze.

“You wear their gods on your skin. You speak their soft tongue. Do you even remember the sound of your own name when it’s screamed across a shieldwall?” He took another step closer. His hand itched at the hilt of the axe slung at his hip, not in threat, but in mourning—for what was, for what she had let die.

“I came here to bring you home. But maybe there’s nothing left to bring back.” His voice cracked, only once. Then it was stone again.