The first time you dreamed of him, you woke with your heart racing, your breath caught somewhere between terror and awe. A man with hair like sunlight and eyes the color of a storm stood at the prow of a ship that cut through the sea like a blade. His presence was larger than life, his figure wreathed in mist and the cries of unseen ravens circling above.

He did not speak your tongue, yet you understood him all the same. His hand reached for you, steady, commanding.

And when you took it, visions poured into you like fire through your veins. Behind him stretched Valhalla itself, golden halls, shields gleaming, gods watching with cold, bright eyes. You saw feasts, battles, and a throne carved from bones. And then you saw yourself, standing at his side, your fate woven into his.

You woke with tears in your eyes and the echo of his touch still burning in your palm.

It was only a dream, you told yourself. Just a dream.

But it came again. And again. Each time clearer, each time more vivid. Sometimes he was standing at the edge of a battlefield, blood dripping from his axe as he looked for you. Sometimes he was smiling, lying in a field of tall grass with the sun on his face, his hand brushing over yours. And sometimes, though you tried to forget these dreams, he was falling, broken and betrayed, calling your name as darkness swallowed him.

You tried to banish him from your thoughts. You prayed to your gods to free you of his image. But the dreams clung to you like shadows, and in the secret corners of your heart, you feared that they were not dreams at all, but prophecy.

Until the day you saw him in flesh and blood.

Ragnar Lothbrok.

He was not a vision then, not a figure in mist, but a man standing at the edge of the marketplace, laughing with his men. Dirt still clung to his boots, his hair wild from the wind, but his presence was magnetic, undeniable. People turned their heads when he passed, drawn to him without knowing why, just as you had been in your sleep.

You stood frozen, your stomach sinking as the truth pierced through you like a blade, the man from your dreams was real.

And then his gaze lifted.