The Vikings were able to take York almost too easily. I waited behind until the sounds of battle died down before going inside the city. Already, I saw bodies of civilians and guards. I shook my head slightly and continued heading straight towards the cathedral.

When I entered the cathedral, half of me wanted to turn back around. Just three days ago, I had been here and everything was calm and normal. But now corpses filled the floor, dark blood pooling around them. A boy who looked to be around the age of two years old sat between people who must've been his family and he wailed, their blood soaking his clothes. A nun with a bruised face was leaning against a pillar, her eyes wide and unblinking. Where were the other two nuns? I went deeper into the cathedral as Vikings milled around me, looting the bodies and near comatose people around them.

I found the nun from the other day in the front corner of the cathedral. I looked from the nun's pushed up skirts to her wounded looking eyes-the nun with eyes like mine. I shook my head and walked to the nun, helping her into a sitting position. She was numb enough to let me sit her up and adjust her skirts, pulling them down again before I got up and left her.

The body of the other nun was closer to the front, but she looked like she hadn't been raped. She didn't have any wounds on her at all it looked like. I moved past her body with what was starting to feel like sadness until I found the young priest's body. He had molten gold covering his mouth as if someone had poured it directly down there.

"That's just excessive." I said to no one. The sooner this war was over, the better I'd feel. I walked towards the back of the main hall, going into the corridor that led to the rooms that the priest and nuns might've used for day to day business.

Harald Finehair was in the first room, in what looked like a small library. Finehair was ripping books and scrolls from the shelves, trying to see if there was something behind them. I blinked at him and continued down the corridor.

The windows to my left gave me a view of the private gardens of the cathedral. When a door to the gardens came up, I opened it and looked outside. A wall was surrounding the gardens, separating it from the cathedral and the rest of York. I heard someone sniffling as I started to go back inside. I slowly left the doorway and followed the sound of the soft crying.

I found a woman dressed in bright blue hiding among the rose bushes. A little girl around the age of seven was half hidden in the woman's skirts. The little girl's blond hair was disheveled and there was a smudge of blood on her cheek. The woman saw me and flinched away, her green eyes wide and terrified but she refused to look away.

There was an iron barred gate tucked in the corner of the gate and the cathedral. From here I could see the latch on the gate. I looked back down to the woman and the child. In Saxon I said, "Wait until the fighting noises die down. Then escape through that gate and go home. Just barricade yourselves in your home and you should be fine."

The woman looked shocked that I was speaking Saxon but she nodded quickly in understanding. I turned and started to walk away, but then, "How long will this last?"

"I don't know." I answered truthfully. I started to walk away again.

"Why are you being helpful?" She asked again.

I sighed heavily. "I'm tired of needless violence." And with that, I was finally able to leave the gardens. When I was back inside the corridor, I tried looking for a way to lock the door. But if I put a piece of furniture in front of the door, that would just tip off to the Vikings that there was something in this garden.

The other rooms of the cathedral were filled with Vikings looking through drawers and shelves and trying to find anything of value. The treasures of the cathedral would be in the main hall or in the storage rooms underground. I told the Vikings tearing through the offices this and they immediately rushed off to go find the entrance to the storage rooms. When they were gone, I walked into the office and started sorting through the scrolls and books.

A lot of these were proofs of marriages, money notices, proofs of charity work, and the books were version of the Bible in multiple languages. I stacked everything neatly before leaving the room.

The main hall had been cleared of the bodies and a few of the Viking thralls were scrubbing at the blood stains on the floor. A couple of them were near each other, their heads bent close to each other and whispering that stopped immediately when they saw me. One of them, a girl with rare red hair, dipped her head in a way of greeting before going back to the floor, scrubbing hard at the blood stains. The other one, the one with hair like pale gold, continued watching me carefully as I walked past them.

I found the raped nun sitting with her knees tucked to her chest. I approached her carefully. "Do you have anywhere else to go?" I asked her quietly. "I think place is going to be filled with Vikings."

The nun looked up at me with her dark eyes looking dull. "This is God's house."

I glanced around. The blond thrall who had stared me down was still watching me. "I don't think it is anymore."

The nun stood up carefully and I walked with her out of the cathedral. She adjusted her habit. "I know a place I can stay within the city walls. I will also pray for you and these heathens, for God to have mercy on your souls."

"I appreciate that." I said honestly and the nun walked down the steps and walked away from the cathedral with her head held high. I watched her go until she disappeared down the street before turning back around and going back inside.

Some Vikings were pushing the pews into a more central location. The thralls were still scrubbing the blood stains, and I noticed one of the Viking men push one of the thralls out of the way with his foot.

A woman I recognized as one of the healers approached me. "Runa," She said with a nod. I blinked and nodded back. "I'm Hillevi, in case you didn't know. And I was wondering where the healing station should be set up?"

I blinked again and Hillevi looked around the main hall. "I cannot find the sons of Ragnar anywhere." Hillevi explained. "And they trust your opinion, so that means I trust your opinion. A few people got hurt in this attack, and they'll need to be taken care of soon."

I nodded at that. "Follow me. There should be an infirmary somewhere in this cathedral."

"Should there?" Hillevi asked. I assumed she was thinking I'd designate a corner of the cathedral to her or maybe a spot outside or even in a different building. I led Hillevi down a different corridor and into an infirmary. The room was fairly big, hadn't been raided yet, and Hillevi's eyes went wide when she saw it.

"This'll work, right?" I asked.

Hillevi nodded. "This will be perfect. Thank you, Runa."

I smiled at her before leaving, going back into the main hall. The thralls were finished with their work, despite the fact that the floor was still faintly red, dark and red-brown against the tiles. I kicked at the stain with my toe.

"We couldn't get all of it up." The blond thrall from earlier said. Her voice was high pitched and airy sounding. I looked at her and she took a small step back."We've tried to since the bodies were taken out."

I kicked at the spot again. "It'll be fine. I think this piece of the floor is going to be the last thing on anyone's mind." The thrall smiled and nodded before leaving me alone. As she left me, the sons of Ragnar entered the cathedral, moving slowly so that Ivar could keep up with them. Harald was with them and it sounded like he was arguing with Sigurd.

"I am simply saying that Lagertha is not right for that throne." Harald was saying. "Svein came in the night, and he has been to Kattegat fairly recently. Lagertha has become indecisive-"

"And you think you would be a better suit for Kattegat?" Sigurd interjected.

"We'll discuss this more in private, King Harald." Ivar said before whispering something into the older man's ear. Finehair grunted but didn't say any more. Ivar limped away from him and towards me, completely ignoring the thralls nearby. "Is this place cleared out?" He asked me.

"The bodies are being burned out front, as you must've seen." I said, nodding to the front door. "Any townspeople who were in here and still alive were sent somewhere else. Also there may be some Vikings in the underground vaults looking for valuables."

"So all the Saxons are gone?" Ivar asked.

"Almost," I admitted. "There is a woman and child in the gardens, but I hid her and told her to leave through the garden gate when the fighting noise died down."

Ivar was smiling at me. "Good job. No one has troubled you, have they?" I shook my head and Ivar pecked the top of my head. "How does it feel having power again?"

I snorted at him. "I'm confused by what you mean by 'again'." Ivar raised an eyebrow at me, the dried blood on his face cracking slightly. I felt myself smile without thinking. "It feels like I have a purpose other than translating for you and your brothers."

"Of course you have a purpose more than that." Ivar said, shrugging his massive shoulders. He was smirking at me and I laughed out loud at what he was implying.

"A purpose more than translating and sleeping with you, Ivar." I hissed, lowering my voice. Ivar laughed at me and poked my side with his fingers. I could still hear Sigurd and Harald having a hushed argument and Hvitserk had disappeared, along with the redheaded thrall. Her blond companion was speaking to Ubbe about something.

Ivar and I moved farther away. "What's Harald so upset about?" I asked.

"He wants to be king of Norway." Ivar replied. "Kattegat is still considered the sort of capital, and as long as that is Lagertha's home, she is considered the queen of all Norway."

"So Harald wants Kattegat?" I asked, even though that felt like the right answer. Ivar nodded and looked over his shoulder to Sigurd and Harald.

"Kattegat is our home." He said. "Our queen mother always wanted one of us to take our father's throne. We want Harald to keep his own throne in Denmark. But he is an ambitious man and refuses to let go of the thought of being king of Norway."

"So now it's how do you keep a powerful ally pleased while keeping a hold on your own throne?" I finished.

Ivar smiled wolfishly at me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "Exactly!"

"Say you eventually please Finehair over there," I said, lowering my voice to avoid being heard. "Which of you brothers will get that throne?"

Ivar looked down to me, his eyes gleaming and telling me the answer. "Whoever takes it."

Ubbe finally left the blond thrall, looking annoyed and he joined me and Ivar. "She has no idea where Hvitserk went to."

"Hvitserk will come back once he and the slave are done." Ivar said dismissively.

"We need to plan for an attack soon." Ubbe said darkly. "Ove returned with his scouting party. The Northumbrians were closer than we thought."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The Northumbrian army and their new king were just thirty miles north of here when we took this city." Ubbe explained. "They will be here by nightfall."

Ivar's gaze had darkened. "They cannot take the city back."

"We need to better fortify the walls," Ubbe said. "We took this city almost too easily. We still have people on the outside, bringing in all our supplies. If we expect to hold this place, the walls must be stronger, the gates locked, no one allowed in or even out."

"That'd be doable except for one part of the city." I said. "Follow me." I ducked out from under Ivar's arm and led the two of them into one of the offices down the corridor. Ubbe and Ivar entered the room after me, looking intrigued. I pulled out a map from one of the stacks I had made and laid it out on the desk. "This entire area of this city is from when the Romans built it. According to those papers," I pointed to another stack I had made. "That's the area of the city where it was more impoverished. The walls are not as strong and it would be months of work to get them strong again."

Ivar's eyes were lighting up again. "Then we let them in." He said quietly. Ubbe had enough time to turn with his mouth wide open, ready to argue, before Ivar continued. The more he talked about trapping the Roman neighborhood, the more brilliant a plan I thought it was.

By the time Sigurd joined us, there was a plan to start setting up the Roman part of the city. By the time Hvitserk finally found us, we were starting to leave to get the plan in action.

"You can go scout the Northumbrians." Ubbe said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Take a dozen good men and go see where they are exactly." Hvitserk grumbled about it but left anyway.

"You sure it's safe beyond the wall?" I asked Ubbe once Hvitserk was gone. "What happens to us if Hvitserk gets caught?"

"Hvitserk won't betray us, Runa." Ubbe replied, patting my shoulder reassuringly.

Sure enough, Hvitserk returned right around sundown. He told us that the Northumbrians had made camp about a mile out from the city. "It won't take them exactly that long to find out about that weak spot."

"I'm praying to every god there is that they find that weak spot." Ivar said darkly. I thought about how Queen Kwenthrith said that Aethelwulf was marching up here, to join his forces with Northumbria.

"When the army of Wessex gets here," I started slowly. Everyone, all the leaders of the Viking army looked to me with narrowed eyes. "They'll join up immediately. Queen Kwenthrith informed me that they'd be joining their houses again as well. Once Prince Aethelred and Princess Blaeja are wed, both armies will have to stay until the other leaves."

"So we delay a wedding?" Finehair asked, sounding unsure.

"Not necessarily." I said. "I'm not sure how Vikings do it, but Saxon weddings are a bit of a big deal. Without a priest, it can't happen. Even if they had one, they wouldn't be able to skip out at least a week's worth of time for the newlyweds to act married."

"So after marriage, you Saxons fuck for at least a week straight?" Hvitserk asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

Without looking at Ivar, I said, "At the least. In times of peace, it's more like a month."

There was a hushed muttering as the leaders tried to figure this out. Earl Asmund from somewhere in Norway looked back to me. "So in this situation, this nephew of yours and his wife would be excused for a few days to get familiar, but everyone else would…?"

"Everyone else would have to abide by the wedding games." I said. When my answer was met with blank stares, I explained. "Wedding games where the people who witnessed have ten days to act likes fools and get drunk in the name of celebrating the marriage."

Finehair looked to where Ivar was sitting beside me. "We could use that. Wait for those Saxons to get married and while everyone is preoccupied, strike and kill any Saxon we find."

"But then the two kingdoms would be even more united than they already are." Ove said from his father's side. "It makes more sense to just kill the groom before the wedding."

"But there's another prince from Wessex." Sigurd pointed out. He glanced to me. "You have another nephew, right?"

I nodded and swallowed as Sigurd looked back out to the other leaders. "If the first prince dies, what's stopping them from marrying the girl to the other brother?"

They started muttering again and Hvitserk leaned past Ivar to me. In a lower voice, "So when you married Kenton, did you and he have a week of fucking or a month?"

"Hvitserk!" I hissed at him.

Ivar turned his head and he and Hvitserk met eyes. I could barely hear what Ivar was snarling at his older brother, but his body language was ringing loud and clear. I looked away from them to where Ubbe was on my other side, his leg bouncing.

"So we kill the girl!" Earl Frode announced in a loud voice. It was clear he was joking, but judging by the looks on others faces, they were beginning to take that as a serious offer.

The conversation went from debating killing a seventeen year old girl to killing the new kings of Northumbria and Wessex. I sat in silence this time, listening to these men debate blood eagling my only brother. Then the conversation was back to this marriage pact and how it could be avoided.

"I know you were jesting, Frode." Earl Asmund was saying. "But if this girl dies, then there is no leg for this marriage pact to stand on. The Northumbrian king has no other sister to bargain. Killing one girl is much simpler than killing two warrior princes."

I had a thought in my head, one that had to do with whoever took control in East Anglia when all of this was done. Princess Blaeja could be a queen in either Wessex or East Anglia.

The meeting eventually ended when the wine ran out. I remained in my seat as the earls left, until it was me and Ragnar's sons left.

"You've been chewing on your lip for half that meeting." Ivar finally said once the door was closed. He shifted in his seat to face me. "What're you thinking about? And why won't we like it?"

I immediately looked to Ubbe. "You remember how I said whoever takes control of East Anglia will have to adopt some Saxon customs?"

Ubbe sighed heavily and nodded, looking he knew where I was going. I looked to Ivar, Hvitserk, and Sigurd. "It is entirely possible to end the engagement between Aethelred and Blaeja. It'd be hard to do and a lot of convincing for King Ecgberht, but it's technically doable. And that's by getting her engaged to someone else. Someone who has equal standing with Aethelred, someone who is technically a prince and has their own kingdom to offer."

Ivar was the first to catch on. "No."

"I thought of that about twenty minutes ago." Ubbe told me, nudging me in the side with his elbow.

"No." Ivar repeated.

Sigurd stood up and was pacing. "'It'd be a lot of convincing for King Ecgberht' no shit!"

"Fuck no." Ivar repeated.

"I heard you." I said to Ivar. To Sigurd I said, "I also said it'd be hard."

"Why would King Ecgberht even agree to give his sister over to the men who killed their father?" Sigurd asked. Hvitserk had gone silent and he was staring at the table in front of him. Ivar was glaring at me as if I had already gone through with the plan and he was supposed to get married in two days.

I shrugged. "I never said we'd do it. I'm thinking this through a Saxon perspective, Sigurd. Princess Blaeja is a pawn in this war. Whoever marries her also gets an alliance from Northumbria. I was honestly thinking of putting her with Magnus of Mercia, but Kwenthrith is insistent about marrying him to a Viking girl."

"So if one of us married her," Hvitserk started slowly. "Then what? We get a throne in East Anglia, and her as a wife?"

"You'd marry her, have heirs with her, keep Northumbria far away by having their princess at your side." I said. "That's all marriage pacts between kingdoms are; hostage situations in which the hostage is married to their captor."

"Oh, is that how you felt?" Ivar asked, sounding bitter.

"I knew that's what it was." I snapped back at him. "I didn't get to meet Kenton until a few days before the actual wedding. My marriage was for a stronger alliance with King Aelle. King Aelle wasn't happy with how the Wessex royal family was acting with his daughter and I'm still just a bastard. I couldn't marry his actual son so I was given to a lesser cousin of his. It's all politics with nothing personal tied to it."

They were silent after I was finished. Hvitserk narrowed his eyes at my words and looked to Ubbe. "How come you're not involved in this?"

"I'm already married." Ubbe said bluntly. Ivar narrowed his eyes and looked at me.

I stood up. "It will odds are not happen, so stop shitting yourselfs about it. But whoever does settle East Anglia will more than likely have to take a Saxon wife; Blaeja is just the best option for that. Now if you'll excuse me." I stalked out of the room and closed the door behind me.

Ivar ended up joining me in our room about fifteen minutes later. I was still pacing as he entered and he watched me for a while before sitting on the edge of the bed and he began to undo the braces on his legs. We stayed in silence for only two minutes before Ivar turned and face me.

"So whoever takes control of East Anglia," He said. "They would have to take a Saxon wife?"

"If they want to be taken seriously by other kingdoms and any of the lords and ladies in East Anglia, yes they'll have to." I said grimly. Ivar was still looking at me expectantly and I smiled and shook my head. "I know what you're thinking, Ivar."

"What am I thinking?" He asked, his voice getting that dangerously playful hint in it. I sat beside him on the bed.

"You're thinking that if you're the one who takes East Anglia," I started as he rested his head on my shoulder. "That you could marry me and that'll work. Which it wouldn't. I'm still a bastard child, Ivar. If you were the one who took East Anglia, you'd have to get a wife with real standing."

Ivar threw himself down on the bed. "Fine. I marry this Northumbrian princess and have heirs with her, but keep you as well. You'd be my real wife."

"I don't think that'd fly over well." I replied. Ivar snorted and his hand started tugging on my clothes.

"Please get these off and talk politics to me." Ivar said, grinning broadly at me.

"I don't think talking about marriage pacts and politics is the best for pillow talk." I said, standing up and removing the dress I was wearing. Ivar sat up and practically clawed his shirts off, revealing his bare chest. He still wouldn't take his pants off all the way, but that didn't matter much.

I got back on the bed and straddled Ivar, planting my knees on either side of his waist. Ivar sat up, nearly knocking me off balance but he wrapped an arm around my waist to keep me sitting on his lap.

"I am serious, Augusta." Ivar said in a low voice. "If none of the others do it, I will take East Anglia and hold it until my dying day. And then my children will hold it after me until the end of time. As long as I get to have you by my side, I do not care about where we end up."

I felt like that wasn't true, even though my gut started squirming at the sound of his words. I kissed him anyway before pushing him back down onto the bed.