Every man tensed.

“See?” one hissed, stepping back. “She wakes. End it now!”

The blade rose again.

Thoren moved faster.

In one motion, he shoved the man’s arm aside and drew his own weapon—not raised to strike her, but angled outward, a barrier between her and the rest.

“No one touches her.”

The surf crashed harder, wind whipping cloaks and hair across their faces. For a moment, it felt like the world itself held its breath.

“You’d draw steel on your own brothers?” Eirik’s voice dropped, dangerous now.

“I’d stop you from doing something you can’t take back,” Thoren said. His grip tightened around the hilt. “Look at her.”

Reluctantly, a few did.

She was trembling. Barely conscious. Lips blue from the cold. Not a warrior. Not a threat.

Just a girl who had washed ashore and hadn’t died—yet.

“If the gods wanted her dead,” Thoren continued, quieter now but no less firm, “the sea would have taken her. It didn’t.”

A long silence followed.

The men exchanged glances, unease shifting into something heavier—doubt, perhaps. Or the fear of angering forces they did not fully understand.