The tide was retreating, dragging foam and broken shells back into the gray sea when they found her.

At first, no one spoke. The men simply stood there, boots sinking into the wet sand, axes and shields glinting faintly under the pale sky. She lay half-buried near the driftwood, dark hair tangled with salt and seaweed, clothes foreign—too fine, too strange.

Then Eirik spat into the surf. “She doesn’t belong here.”

“No,” another agreed, stepping closer, nudging her side with the end of his spear. She didn’t stir. “And things that wash ashore unbidden rarely bring fortune.”

A murmur spread among them—low, uneasy, like distant thunder. Someone muttered about curses. Another about spirits that wore human skin.

“Kill her,” Eirik said flatly. “Quick. Before she wakes.”

Steel whispered as a blade slid free.

But before it could fall, a hand caught the man’s wrist.

“Stop.”

The single word cut sharper than any weapon.

They turned. Thoren stood there, broad-shouldered, unmoving, his grip iron-tight around the raised arm. His gaze flicked from the blade to the woman’s face.

“She’s breathing.”

“That doesn’t make her harmless,” Eirik snapped, trying to wrench free. “It makes her a problem.”

Thoren released him slowly, but didn’t step back. Instead, he moved forward, placing himself between them and the woman. He crouched, pressing two fingers to her neck. A pulse—faint, but there.

Alive.

Her lips parted slightly, a broken sound slipping out—something soft, unfamiliar. Not their tongue. Not anything he knew.

“She’s no one’s kin,” someone said behind him. “No markings, no colors. She could be a spy. Or worse.”

“Or just a woman who nearly drowned,” Thoren replied, his voice low.

Eirik laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You’ve grown soft.”

At that, Thoren’s head snapped up. The look in his eyes was enough to quiet the others for a heartbeat.

“Soft?” he echoed. “Because I don’t kill an unconscious woman on the shore like a coward?”

The word hung there. Coward.

Several men shifted uncomfortably. But Eirik only sneered. “You’d risk all of us for a stranger? You’d bring her into the village? What happens when she poisons our food? Slits our throats in the night?”

“She can barely breathe,” Thoren shot back.

As if to prove him right, the woman stirred. A faint, shuddering inhale. Her fingers twitched against the sand, nails scraping weakly as though she were trying to anchor herself to the world.

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.

Eirik exhaled sharply through his nose. “Or the gods sent her to test us.”

“Then I choose not to fail that test.”

Another pause.

Then, with a muttered curse, Eirik stepped back. “Fine. But if she brings misfortune—”

“I’ll answer for it,” Thoren cut in.

That seemed to settle it, though no one looked pleased.

Slowly, deliberately, Thoren lowered his sword and sheathed it. Then he bent and slid his arms beneath the woman, lifting her from the cold sand. She was lighter than he expected—fragile, like something that might break.