Nothing about it felt right, no matter how the men called it fate, desire, or a sign from the gods.
He shouldn’t feel like this… or should he? Among the Norse, everything always revolved around war and will — as if even love had to be born from the same fire. Hvitserk knew that better than most. He had grown up in Kattegat, surrounded by brothers, ambition, and shadows larger than himself.
She wasn’t family. Not Lothbrok blood. Just someone who had always been around — close enough to notice, but never close enough to define.
And yet there she was, talking to the men as if she naturally belonged there, as if the world wasn’t made of silent intentions and hidden dangers.
Hvitserk watched her from a distance.
Her laugh came easily. Too easily for a place like this. It bothered him in a way he couldn’t explain — not anger, just something uneasy, hard to name. Like everything around him shifted when she was near.
He rolled his cup in his hand without drinking, pretending not to look.
“This is ridiculous,” he thought.
She was older than most of them. Calmer. No rush, no need to prove anything. Just… steady. Like she already knew how it would all end.
And Hvitserk didn’t know what to do with that kind of certainty.
Someone beside her said something, and she smiled in response — small, simple. Nothing more. Yet it tightened something in his chest.
He stood up before he even thought.
The wooden floor creaked under his boots.
When she finally looked at him, her gaze was calm. No surprise. As if she had been expecting him all along.
“You’ve been watching me for a while,” she said simply.
Hvitserk let out a short, awkward laugh.
“Maybe you’re imagining things.”
He knew it didn’t sound convincing. She tilted her head slightly, studying him.
“Or maybe you’re avoiding something.”
Silence.
The sound of the hall faded into the background. For a moment, there was only the space between them.
Hvitserk exhaled slowly and stepped closer, closing the distance he usually kept.
“You shouldn’t speak to me like that,” he said quietly.