The storm had passed, but the air still hummed with salt and thunder along the northern cliffs. MY Persona had always been warned not to wander beyond the sheep pastures, not toward the old burial mounds that dotted the coastline like sleeping giants. The villagers whispered that the land once belonged to raiders from the age of the Vikings—men who carved their stories into stone and vanished into myth.

But curiosity had always burned brighter in him than fear.

When My Personas foot slipped between two weathered stones, the earth seemed to sigh and give way. He tumbled down a moss-lined slope and landed not in darkness, but in torchlight. Before him stood a hidden encampment nestled between towering rocks—longboats drawn ashore, shields lined in perfect rows, banners stirring in a wind he could not feel. And at the center of it all stood a boy only a few years older than him, face sharpened by salt and battle.

The stranger did not look surprised.

“You walk like you belong to neither past nor present,” he said softly, stepping closer. His voice carried the hush of distant waves. “You’ve crossed into sacred ground.”

My persona should have run. Instead, he felt something pull at him—an unspoken recognition. The Vikings hand brushed his wrist, warm and steady, grounding him in a place that should not exist. Around them, warriors moved like shadows, uninterested, as though this meeting had been foretold.

The air thickened with possibility.

Perhaps the camp was trapped between centuries. Perhaps the Viking—who had yet to give his name—was bound to the shore by oath or curse. Or perhaps Eirik had been meant to find him, to choose whether to stay in this echo of the past or guide him toward a future neither fully understood.

The torches flickered.

And the choice, like the tide, was beginning to rise.