“Erik?” I shook his shoulders again, harder this time. He was sprawled on the floor near the door, still wearing his coat, slightly damp from the snowstorm last night.
“Erik, please. Are you awake? You’re worrying me.”
I’d woken before dawn to find him still gone, the cabin cold and empty. Hours had passed with no sign, my anxiety building with each gust of wind and creak of wood that wasn’t him returning. Then, just as the first morning light began filtering through the window, the door opened, and he had stumbled inside and collapsed onto the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut off.
Now he still lay motionless, his chest rising and falling, but his eyes remained closed.
“What happened to you last night?”
Nothing.
Did Lysandra do this to him when he went to her last night?
I leaned closer, studying his face. The sharp angles of his features were still the same, and the scar through his eyebrow, but his skin was paler, probably the effect of the cold.
His eyes finally opened, and my breath caught in my throat. I pulled away, my eyes widening.
They weren’t blue anymore.
Erik’s eyes had always been ice-blue, pale, and sharp like a winter’s sky.
Now they were indigo. Deep indigo that swallowed the light instead of reflecting it. I put distance between him and me.
Erik sat up slowly.
“I’m fine.” His voice was calm, but flat. Empty of all the rough warmth I’d grown accustomed to.
He didn’t look at me, yet, just brushed snow from his coat. Then he turned, and those indigo eyes met mine.
I flinched backward involuntarily.
“I need to see Lysandra,” he said quietly, already standing and moving toward the door.
“Wait—what? Why—”
But he was already gone, the door closing behind him with a soft click that somehow felt final.
I sat there on the floor where I’d been kneeling besides hi, trying to process what I’d just seen.
His eyes.
There were so off, and I swear I wasn’t imagining it, he even seemed off himself…
* * *
I forced myself to move, to get dressed and leave the cabin even though every instinct screamed at me to follow Erik and figure our wht Lysandra had done to him. But I had work at the healers’ den, and missing it would draw attention I couldn’t afford.
I reached the courtyard, and villagers moved through their routines: hauling water, preparing for the day, and getting kids to school. The image of Erik’s now indigo eyes lingered in the bag of my mind, unsettling me terribly.
“Marielle!”
Olivia appeared at my elbow with a basket of bread tucked under one arm. “Hope you weren’t going to sleep through breakfast. Come on.” She linked her free arm through mine, chattering about something Halla had said yesterday, and I let myself be pulled along, grateful for the distraction even if I couldn’t focus on her words.
We stopped at a small outdoor stall where a woman was serving hot porridge and bread. Olivia dropped her basket of bread at the stall and pressed a bowl into my hands, along with instructions to actually eat this time. The porridge was warm and sweet and melted in my mouth delightfully. I thanked her
We finished eating quickly—the cold made lingering outdoors unpleasant—and started making our way toward the healers’ den.
Olivia was telling me about some new technique Lysandra wanted to teach us today, something about pressure points and energy flow.
“I just don’t know how she does it… I wish I knew her secret.” Olivia turned around to face me, now walking backwards.
“She probably has a lot of those… A couple of days earlier, I—”
Olivia froze mid-step, mid-word. Her entire body went rigid.
“No…” she whispered, so quietly I almost missed it.
I was still talking, caught up in my own thoughts, words tumbling out without really registering what I was saying. “—and I thought I was going to get yelled at when—ow!”
Pain shot through my arm where Olivia had suddenly grabbed me, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.
“Livi, what was that for?!” I rubbed my arm, staring at her in confusion. “Why’d you stop so suddenly?”
Olivia wasn’t looking at me; she was staring past me, her green eyes wide.
“We need to go,” her voice was tight and final.
“We’re going to the healers’ den right now?” I was confused; she wasn’t making sense.
She was pulling at my arm now, trying to drag me away. “We need to go now.”
We were heading to the healer’s den as we spoke. I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to reiterate it.
“Livi, what—”
“Please,” she said, and there was something desperate in her voice that finally made me stop resisting and look behind me, where she was looking. She tried to stop me, but it was too late.
Erik.
And Lysandra.
They stood together in the middle of the courtyard, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Lysandra’s pale hair caught the morning light like spun silver, her golden eyes turned up toward Erik’s face with an expression of such tender devotion that it made my stomach turn.
Erik was looking at her like she was the only person in the world.
Like I didn’t exist.
Like all those nights in his cabin, all those careful touches when he bandaged my wounds, all those moments where I’d thought—where I’d hoped—
None of it had meant anything.
A rush of emotions crashed through me, each one hitting harder than the last. Hurt. Confusion. And underneath it all, something sharper and more painful that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—name.
Erik had never promised me anything. Never said anything to suggest—
But then why did this feel like something breaking inside my chest?
Didn’t even glance in my direction. His indigo eyes—wrong, so wrong—stayed fixed on Lysandra like she was the sun and he was helpless to look away.
Something inside me compelled me to think. They looked perfect together. Her ethereal beauty and his rough strength. Like two halves of something whole and right.
Maybe that’s what last night had been about. Not stopping Lysandra. Not protecting the village. Maybe he’d just been going to see her. To be with her.
Maybe I’d misunderstood everything from the very beginning.
Around us, the village buzzed with excited whispers.
“They’re perfect together,” someone sighed dreamily.
“Erik finally letting someone in…”
“About time he found happiness after everything…”
Each word was a knife sliding between my ribs.
Olivia was still gripping my wrist, her fingers trembling now. I realized with a start that she was shaking—actually shaking—as she stared at Erik and Lysandra.
Did she see it too?
The way Erik’s eyes didn’t flicker or waver. The way he leaned into Lysandra like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he’d never said, “You won’t drink that,” just to keep me safe. If it was ever about keeping me safe.
Like none of it had been real.
My breath came faster, shallower. Why was I feeling like this? Why did it bother me so much? I had no right to feel this way. No claim on Erik. No reason to feel so… so…
Jealous?
Disappointed.
But I did. I so terribly did feel disappointed.
“Livi—” My voice cracked, breaking on her name.
Olivia didn’t turn. Didn’t look at me.
She just started walking, faster now, practically dragging me along.
“We’re leaving,” she said, her voice sharp. Her eyes stayed fixed straight ahead, focused on the healers’ den in the distance, refusing to look back at the scene unfolding behind us.
* * *
Halla looked up from where she was organizing supplies, her grey-streaked locs pulled back in their usual neat arrangement. “There you two are. I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost. Marielle, you look pale. Are you feeling alright?”
“Fine,” I managed. “Just cold.”
“Hmm.” Halla’s sharp eyes studied me for a moment longer, then she nodded toward our usual stations. “Well, get warmed up, and then we have work to do. Sigrid’s pregnant daughter is due any day now, and I want to make sure we have plenty of birthing supplies prepared.”
I moved to my station mechanically, pulling off my cloak with numb fingers. Olivia had already started working, her movements quick and jerky, her face carefully blank.
Neither of us mentioned what we’d seen.
The morning passed in a blur of grinding herbs and preparing poultices. Halla kept us busy with steady instructions, her presence calm and grounding in a way that made the tightness in my chest ease slightly.
Around midmorning, the door burst open with a gust of cold air and a young boy—couldn’t have been more than ten—stumbled inside, his face flushed and frightened.
“Halla!” he gasped. “Come quick! Gunnar fell—hit his head on the ice and… and… and there’s blood!”
Halla was already moving, grabbing her medicine bag with practiced efficiency. “Where?”
“Near the eastern gate—”
“Morgan, Astrid, with me. The rest of you, keep working.” Halla swept out the door, the other two healers following close behind.
Suddenly, the den felt very quiet.
Olivia and I worked in silence for several minutes. I could hear her breathing—too fast, too shallow—and when I glanced over, her hands were shaking as she tried to measure out galfrey fern powder.
We worked. Ground herbs. Mixed salves. Rolled bandages. All the familiar tasks that should have been soothing.
Around noon, one of the other healers—a quiet woman named Brenna—came over to my station.
“Marielle, could you help me with something? I’m preparing a fever remedy for the children in the east longhouse, but I can’t remember the proper ratio of elderflower to yarrow.”
“Of course.” I stood, grateful for something to do that required actual thought. “It’s three parts elderflower to one part yarrow, steeped in boiling water for exactly seven minutes…”
We worked together for a while, Brenna asking questions and me answering on autopilot, my hands moving through familiar motions while my mind remained stuck in the courtyard.
Stop it, I told myself firmly. Stop thinking about it.
But I couldn’t.
By early afternoon, my leg was throbbing again—worse than it had been in days. The persistent ache had become sharp, stabbing pains that radiated up my thigh with every step. I tried to hide it, but apparently I wasn’t successful.
“Sit down,” Olivia said quietly. “You’re favoring that leg badly. Halla will have both our heads if you make it worse.”
So I sat, trying to ignore the pain, trying to focus on the simple task of sorting dried lavender into bundles.
But my mind kept drifting.
Why did it hurt so much?
Why did I care so much?
I barely knew him. Two weeks, maybe three. That was nothing.
But you thought…
No. I hadn’t thought anything. Hadn’t let myself hope for anything. Because hope was dangerous when you were running for your life. When your very existence puts everyone around you at risk. When you were one discovered secret away from being executed as a Nyrean princess in Viking territory.
I had no right to hope for anything, least of all—
My vision blurred.
The lavender in my hands wavered, the purple flowers multiplying and swirling like I was looking through water.
“Marielle?”
Olivia’s voice sounded distant. Muffled.
I tried to stand, to tell her I was fine, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. The room tilted sideways, the walls rotating slowly around me.
The last thing I registered was Olivia’s frightened face appearing in front of me, her hands reaching out—
And then everything went black.
ns216.73.217.74da2
and then Add to home screen.