The hall was carved into the stone like the mouth of some great beast, all shadows and teeth. Smoke clung to the rafters, thick with the scent of sea-salt, pitch, and sour mead. Hiccup stood straight despite the ache in his leg, hands folded behind his back, flanked by chieftains with faces carved from old driftwood and colder hearts.

Toothless waited outside. He didn’t like enclosed spaces, especially ones filled with shouting men.

“Chief Hiccup,” boomed Chief Hallgrim, a wall of flesh and furs with a voice like rolling boulders. “You come with soft words, but your dragon casts a long shadow.”

Hiccup smiled, tight and small. “So does your harbor. Doesn’t make it a threat.”

Hallgrim’s laugh shook the table. “Good! You’ve learned some teeth.”

A girl approached with a pitcher of warm cider. Thin. Almost spectral in how she moved—silent, efficient, invisible, as if she were taught to breathe only when permitted. She poured carefully, eyes lowered, hands steady. She wore plain linen, too light for winter, and Hiccup noticed the red marks on her wrists, thin as the edges of cracked parchment.

His gaze followed her, unbidden.

Who is she? A servant, obviously. Or worse. He hated how common it had become—chattel passed like livestock between chiefs, tokens of loyalty or punishment. She shouldn’t be here.

She reappeared at Hallgrim’s side, wordless, eyes downcast, pouring again. He slapped her hard. She didn’t react. Didn’t flinch. Not a twitch in her face.

Hiccup’s fists clenched beneath the table.

“Your girl moves like smoke,” he said idly, voice mild as milk, though his jaw was tight. “You train all your servants like that?”

Hallgrim snorted. “That one? Found her half-dead in the North Reach after a raid. Thought she’d die within a moon. But she’s stubborn. Like a weed in frost.”

“You kept her.”

“She proved useful. Quiet. Doesn’t eat much. Learns fast.”

A living creature, reduced to function. To tool.

Disgusting.

“And what’s her name?” Hiccup asked, gently.

Hallgrim glanced at her like one glances at a knife left on a table. “{{user}}.”

She stiffened almost imperceptibly when her name was said aloud. As though it had become foreign. Or dangerous.

“I’d like more cider,” Hiccup said.

She stepped forward, pouring again. Her fingers brushed his cup—cold, even in the heat of the hall. His own hands were warm. Without thinking, he touched her wrist.

She flinched like a struck dog, withdrawing sharply.

“Sorry,” Hiccup murmured, but she said nothing.

Then her eyes lifted. Just for a moment.

There it was again. That spark.

Toothless would have known instantly. Would’ve nosed at her, sniffed out the sorrow beneath her skin and wrapped around her like a great wing.

Hiccup bit his tongue. Now wasn’t the time. Too many eyes. Too many lies in the room.

But something had shifted.

He saw her again, later—after the meeting broke, after Hallgrim had slurred something crude and waved her off with a slap of the hand. She was gathering spilled parchment by the hearth, one knee bruised from where she’d slipped.

Hiccup crouched beside her.

“You’re cold.”

She didn’t answer.

“I can help.”

Still silence.

He let the quiet stretch, soft as snowfall.

“I know what it feels like,” he said at last, “to be small in a room full of giants.”

Her fingers paused.

“I know what it feels like to pretend you’re not angry. To carry silence like a shield.”

But that wasn’t true.

He’d never had shackles. Never been made to kneel unless it was by choice or failure. But he’d felt powerlessness in his own way. And he could recognize it when he saw it, written in every careful movement she made.

“Maybe not. But I want to understand.”

Toothless padded into the hall with a low growl, ignoring the gasps of the startled guards. He came straight to her. Pressed his nose to her side, purring like a thundercloud.

And Hiccup, in that moment, realized something sharp and bright had lodged beneath his ribs.

Not duty. Not pity.

But something far more dangerous.

Hope.

And the beginnings of love.