Three Days (Astrid POV)
The bridal crown was supposed to sit on my head in three days.
I watched the smoke curl upward from the hall where my father was dying and felt nothing but the cold kiss of winter wind on my face. The screams had stopped a few minutes ago—the ones inside, anyway. Outside, in the village, they still rang through the darkness like bells announcing a feast of blood.
Three days.
I’d been counting them since Ivar sailed back to York. Since I’d kissed my husband goodbye on my father’s docks and promised I’d follow within the week, once I’d settled the last of my affairs.
Sail with me now, he’d murmured against my mouth, his fingers tangled in my hair. Forget the ceremony. Forget your father. I want my wife in my bed, not a sea away.
I’d laughed at him. Called him dramatic. Pulled away before he could convince me to abandon everything and board his ship right then.
Gods. I should have gone.
The raiders had come with the sunset, pouring from ships that materialized on the horizon like omens. This far inland, we’d had warning—enough time for my father to bar the hall doors and arm his men. Not enough time for any of it to matter.
Move, I told myself. Run. Do something.
My legs wouldn’t obey.
The first time I saw Ivar, I’d been planning an escape too.
Different circumstances. A feast hall in Götaland, neutral ground for jarls seeking alliance. But the same desperate need to be anywhere else, trapped by duty and my father’s cold expectations. He’d dragged me there like a prize mare, introducing me to every unwed son in attendance as “a disappointment, but useful for marriages.”
He’d been drunk. He was always drunk.
I’d positioned myself near a back entrance, calculating the exact moment I could slip away without being noticed, when a voice had cut through my planning like a blade.
“You look like you’re planning to burn this hall down.”
I’d turned. And found myself looking into the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen, set in a face that shouldn’t have been beautiful but somehow was—all sharp angles and harsh planes, cheekbones that could cut glass, dark hair falling across his forehead. He’d sat in a carved chair positioned apart from the others, his legs hidden beneath furs. His smile had been closer to a knife than anything friendly.
“Would that be a problem?” I’d asked.
His smile had widened. “Only if you don’t let me watch.”
I’d known who he was, of course. Everyone knew Ivar the Boneless, youngest son of Ragnar Lothbrok, the crippled prince who’d conquered half of England from his chariot. They said he was brilliant. They said he was cruel. They said his mind was so sharp it cut everyone who came close.
They hadn’t mentioned he’d look at me like I was the most interesting thing he’d seen in years.
“I’m Astrid,” I’d said, though he’d probably already known. “Erik’s daughter.”
“I know who you are.” He’d gestured to the empty seat beside him. “I also know your father’s been parading you past every man here like a mare at market. How’s that working out for you?”
I should have been offended. Instead, I’d laughed—a real laugh, startled out of me.
“About as well as you’d expect.” I’d taken the seat. “Most of them can’t decide whether to stare at my tits or calculate how cheaply my father might sell me.”
His eyes had dropped, deliberate and shameless, lingering long enough to make heat crawl up my neck. “Can’t blame them for the first part.”
That heat hadn’t been embarrassment. Not entirely.
A scream pulled me back to the present—closer this time, sharper. A woman’s voice, high with terror.
My father’s concubine. The one carrying his heir. The son he’d always wanted, growing in the belly of the woman who’d replaced my mother in his bed.
I pressed harder against the wall of the grain storage. My heart pounded so loud I was certain someone would hear it. The night was chaos—fire and blood and the thunder of boots on frozen ground—but I could hear her, could track her voice through the carnage.
You should help her, something whispered. You should do something.
But my legs still wouldn’t move. And when I peered around the corner, I saw two raiders dragging her toward the docks, her screams fading into the smoke.
She was going to die. Or worse.
And I was going to let it happen.
I closed my eyes as her voice disappeared into the distance, and I told myself it wasn’t murder. Told myself I couldn’t have saved her. Told myself there was nothing I could do.
None of it felt true.
Two cups of mead. That’s all it had taken for the pretense to burn away entirely.
“You’re trouble,” he’d said, leaning closer, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I’d like to.” His hand had found my knee under the table. Slid higher, his fingers burning through the fabric of my dress. “I’d like to know all of it.”
My breath had caught. “That sounds like a commitment.”
“Does it?” He’d held my gaze, utterly unapologetic about his hand halfway up my thigh. “And if it was?”
I should have hesitated. Should have played coy, asked questions, demanded to know what he meant. I’d been a virgin, untouched, theoretically saving myself for whatever political marriage my father arranged.
Instead I’d parted my legs slightly, letting his fingers slide higher.
“Then I’d say stop talking and show me where your chambers are.”
Something had flared in his eyes—surprise, maybe, and hunger, and something else I couldn’t name. His hand had tightened on my thigh hard enough to bruise.
“You understand what you’re asking for.” His voice had dropped low, rough. “You walk through that door with me, you’re not walking out the same.”
“I know.”
“I don’t share, Astrid. I don’t let go. You come to my bed tonight and you’re mine.”
The smart thing would have been to slow down. To negotiate. To think about what I was agreeing to.
I’d stood up and held out my hand.
“Then stop warning me and take me there.”
The screaming had stopped entirely now. The raiders had moved on, their work nearly complete.
That’s what finally unstuck my legs—not courage, but the simple animal recognition that staying still meant dying. I crept through the smoke-thick darkness, hugging shadows, until the ruined hall loomed before me.
I didn’t mean to go inside. But my feet carried me through the shattered doorway anyway, past the bodies of servants and warriors scattered like broken toys.
And there, near the high seat—his high seat—lay my father.
Jarl Erik, conqueror of nothing, ruler of this insignificant patch of Swedish coastline. He lay in a pool of blood that looked black in the firelight, his chest rising and falling in shallow gasps.
I should have felt something. Grief. Horror. The desperate need to hold his hand as he passed.
Instead, I looked at him and thought: He’ll never call me a disappointment again.
The thought should have horrified me. It didn’t. And that was worse.
Of all the things to remember while watching my father die, my mind gave me the walk to Ivar’s chambers.
The longest walk of my life. The shortest. His hand had engulfed mine, pulling me through corridors with a focus that made my heart race. He’d looked back at me every few steps, like he’d been checking I was still there, like he couldn’t quite believe I was real.
And then the door had closed behind us, and his mouth had been on mine, and—
Gods.
I’d never let anyone touch me before that night. Never wanted to. The sons of jarls who’d tried to court me had left me cold, their clumsy flattery and wandering hands inspiring nothing but the urge to reach for a blade.
But Ivar’s hands on my body had set me on fire.
He’d undressed me slowly, reverently, pressing kisses to every inch of skin he revealed. When I’d reached for his trousers, he’d caught my wrists—gentle, but firm.
“Let me,” he’d said. “Let me see you first. All of you.”
And I’d let him. Had stood there naked before a man I’d known for two hours and felt no shame at all, only the desperate ache of wanting.
When he’d finally put his mouth on me, I’d nearly screamed.
“Well, well.”
The voice came from behind me, and I spun to find a raider leaning against the doorway, watching me with cold amusement.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark blonde hair worn long in the Norse style. Handsome, in the way that poisonous things were often beautiful. He moved into the ruined hall with the easy confidence of a man who knew he was in control.
“Look what I found.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The jarl’s daughter, paying her respects.”
I backed away from my father’s body. My hand went to my hip, but my knife wasn’t there—I’d left it in my chamber when I’d gone to watch the sunset, before the ships appeared.
Stupid. Careless. Dead.
“I’m no one,” I said. “A servant. Let me go and—”
“Don’t.” He moved closer, and something in his expression made my blood turn to ice. “I know exactly who you are, princess. I’ve been looking for you.”
His eyes dropped to my wrist, where the serpent arm ring gleamed in the firelight. Gold, heavy, inscribed with runes. Ivar had clasped it on my wrist himself, the morning after our first night, his fingers lingering on my pulse point.
So everyone knows you’re mine, he’d murmured. So there’s no question.
The raider’s smile sharpened. “The cripple’s whore. I thought I might find you wearing his gold.”
“I’m his wife.” The word came out before I could stop it. “Touch me and he’ll—”
“He’ll what?” The raider laughed, advancing. “Crawl across the sea to avenge you? Drag himself through the mud to find your killer?” He was close now, close enough that I could see his eyes—blue, like Ivar’s, but wrong. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with winter. “The cripple can’t even walk without his toys. What’s he going to do, roll here and bleed on me?”
My back hit the wall.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he murmured, reaching for the arm ring. “And when I’m done, I’m going to take this gold back to York and tell your husband exactly what I did to his wife while she was wearing it.”
He grabbed the ring and wrenched it off my wrist, taking skin with it. I cried out—and the sound seemed to please him, his smile widening as he tucked my husband’s gift into his belt.
“What else did he give you?” His hands moved to my neck, finding the gold chain there, the pendant Ivar had clasped on me himself. “Let’s see, shall we? Let’s find all the places the cripple marked you.”
The first time Ivar had pushed inside me, I’d cried.
Not from pain—though there had been pain, sharp and bright, my body stretching to accommodate him. I’d cried because it had felt like more than I’d expected. More than just flesh and friction. He’d held still, buried to the hilt, his forehead pressed against mine, and I’d felt something click into place in my chest.
Oh, I’d thought, tears streaming down my temples. There you are. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.
“Astrid.” His voice had been strained, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding back. “Tell me to stop.”
“Don’t you dare.”
He’d laughed—a broken, desperate sound—and started to move.
The raider’s hands were at my throat now, fingers digging in, his body pressing mine into the wall. He’d stripped me of every piece of gold, every gift Ivar had given me, and now his hand was fisting in my hair, wrenching my head back.
“I wonder if the cripple’s even bedded you yet,” he mused. “They say he can’t fuck properly. That his legs don’t work and neither does his cock.” His breath was hot against my ear. “Maybe I’ll be your first. Give you something to compare when you crawl back to him.”
Something in me cracked.
Not broke—not yet—but cracked wide open, and in that crack was nothing but rage.
He had a blade on his belt.
I grabbed it.
Pain—searing, blinding—as the edge sliced through my palms. But I had it, I had it, and when I swung wild, I felt it connect. Felt the spray of hot blood across my face. Heard his scream of fury as the blade carved a line from his temple to his jaw.
He reeled back, clutching his face, and I ran.
The night swallowed me whole.
I don’t remember most of the flight. Only fragments—trees and snow and the burning in my lungs, the blood dripping from my hands and leaving a trail for anyone to follow. The sound of his voice behind me, growing fainter but not gone, screaming promises of what he’d do when he caught me.
I ran until I couldn’t.
Collapsed in a clearing, in snow that was turning red beneath me, and stared up at the stars through bare winter branches.
I’m going to die here, I thought, with strange calm. Alone. And Ivar won’t even know what happened.
The cold was settling into my bones. Not the sharp bite of wind anymore, but something deeper. The slow fade of a body giving up.
I thought about my husband’s hands. His mouth. The sounds he’d made when I’d wrapped my legs around him and pulled him deeper. The way he’d whispered my name afterward like it was sacred, like it was the only word he ever wanted to say again.
Of all the things to remember. Of all the moments to relive.
I’m dying and I’m thinking about fucking my husband.
Typical.
The darkness crept in at the edges of my vision. My heartbeat slowed—each thud further from the last, a drum losing its rhythm.
I love you, I’d told him, three weeks after that first night. Surprised by how easy the words had come.
Finally, he’d said. I was starting to think you were slow.
The memory hurt worse than the cold.
I closed my eyes and let the dark take me.
And then a voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere, amused and ancient and wrong:
“Well. This is unfortunate.”
