I'm so sorry for the long wait! I'm still working on getting a job so it's been high-stress for me lately but I'm looking forward to relaxing a little here soon. I hope you're all enjoying your summer (or winter, for those of you in the southern hemisphere!) and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Dagny was out of place in the seer's cabin. She was dressed for the sacrifice in a gown of pure white with gold painted on her brow and jaw. Lagertha had her hair woven around thorny golden branches into a crown. She looked like a woman of the forest, who could make paths lead nowhere and lure strangers into traps of ivy and vine.

The seer's hut was a tangle of hanging seashells, bones, and other oddities that Dagny didn't understand the meaning of. She sat down across from him when he gave a nod. She knew many people who were skeptical of the seer, if not outright afraid of him, but he'd never bothered Dagny. Not his appearance or odd manner or how he could apparently see you standing there even though he was blind.

"What do you want to know, Dagny the slave?" he asked. Her first thought was to correct him, tell him she was a slave no longer, but the seer knew that. Perhaps the seer knew all and it was Dagny's fate to forever be tied to her past.

"I want to know what will drive Ubbe and I apart," she replied. It had been a long time since she'd first felt that sensation of dread beneath the waters of the lake, a horrible pulling in her gut that told her good things would not last. But now there was Margrethe to consider and Ivar and the great army's plans after killing the Saxon kings. There were so many pieces on the board that Dagny wasn't sure she knew how to play the game.

"Ah," the seer drawled, making one word seem like three. "I should think you could answer that question without my help."

"So it will be Ivar." The seer cocked his head, as if Ivar would have far more to answer for than just this. Dagny assumed this was the only real possibility but she didn't want it confirmed. She wanted the seer to tell her she was foolish and naïve and that none of the things she saw or felt were real.

"Your fate is tied to his and that of his brothers. The pushing and pulling against each other will happen frequently." But she heard the underlying meaning of his words; fate was something that could not be avoided, regardless of how much you tried to change it. If she and the princes were linked, no amount of strife could keep them apart permanently. They would continue to bump up against one another again and again. Fate was fixed. Everyone knew it. And Dagny thought to herself that her own could be much worse than this one.

"Then what of Margrethe's fate? Am I tied to her as well?" she asked, though she'd never felt the pull to her that she had to Aslaug's sons.

"Margrethe's time is past. She will lose favor." She remembered Ubbe saying all those months ago that Margrethe's time was over. It hadn't been true then. Why should it be true now?

"What does that mean?" she responded.

"Her ambitions will be laid bare. None of them will be achieved."

"What are her ambitions?"

Dagny did not expect a straight answer since the seer was known for speaking in riddles but he replied, "She wants to be queen."

"Then Ubbe… he will never take the throne." She ran through the potential reasons for that but there were only two that seemed logical; he did not want to be king or he was killed. The room around her seemed to spin.

"Not the throne of Kattegat." Dagny perked up. As one of the elder sons, the oldest of Aslaug's brood, the thought that he would be offered Kattegat wasn't an unusual one. Bjorn had always appeared to scorn leadership of that kind, preferring to rule on the battlefield and the waves than in a great hall. Ubbe was the next option and by all accounts, even those of his brothers, he would be the right choice.

"Then he will be king elsewhere," she mused. "What of Hvitserk?" He had never seemed regal or serious enough to rule. He frequently needed to be steered in the right direction in order to make a decision. But strange things had happened before and there would have to be a reason for him to refuse.

"Hvitserk will never turn on you and you will never turn on Hvitserk, not truly," the seer responded. It wasn't the question Dagny had asked but it was a better answer than she could hope for. That there was finally something good relieved her. "Do you wish to know if you will be queen?"

The hair on the back of Dagny's neck rose. "No. I wish to know if I can prevent what will happen between Ubbe and I."

The seer smiled, Dagny having apparently passed a test, and pondered how to answer. It made her wonder when the strife between them would occur. It could be years from now, decades, when they were old and gray and feeble and hadn't carried a sword into battle for many moons. But Dagny felt that it would come much sooner than that and she did not want it to creep up on her like a shadow. She wanted to face it head on.

"Perhaps," he finally said. Dagny unclenched her fists, unaware that she'd been digging her nails into her palms.

"How?"

"Don't go on raid with the princes." As quickly as it came, Dagny's good feeling faded. She couldn't refuse to go now, not when they were leaving tomorrow, not when she was helping to lead a sacrifice for their benefit tonight. She suddenly saw herself standing on the shore beside Margrethe, watching the ships leave, relegated to housework or groveling before Lagertha for a position that was due her. She could not bear it. She had pushed for this raid, trained for it, helped plan it. She had to go.

"And what will happen while we avenge Ragnar's death that I would avoid here?"

"It is not my place to tell you that."

"And staying is the only answer?" She prayed it wasn't but the seer nodded and reached out his hand. He would tell her nothing more and Dagny had so much she hadn't asked. She took his hand, ran her tongue across his palm, and left feeling worse than before.

Dagny was once again carrying the ceremonial blade for a sacrifice. Lagertha wanted continuance with the old regime. She needed some legitimacy with the princes and anyone remaining who had been loyal to Aslaug. So Dagny was invited and dressed to match the new queen in all ways.

Lagertha's fingertips were stained with gold and she ran her thumb over Dagny's bottom lip. She resisted the urge to bite her. The queen turned around and began walking down the path cleared by the warriors and bystanders. Dagny's fingers curled around the carefully wrapped blade and she followed.

It would be a human sacrifice this night, as this raid was perhaps the most important one in years. The volunteer was a young handsome man, an earl of Sweden, ideal for the task and what Lagertha wanted to achieve with it. He was waiting atop an altar built specifically for this purpose, hands holding on to posts on either side of him.

The queen and Dagny appeared twins of light and dark, though they were dressed and styled the same. A barn owl was perched on Lagertha's right shoulder and when she walked, it would often turn its head in confusion.

Dagny cut her eyes to the right as she walked behind Lagertha. The princes stood in a line, accompanied by Floki and Helga. She felt her stomach tighten when she saw the girl from Spain with them. Tanaruz was tantamount to a slave, despite how much Helga protested, and Dagny felt for her in ways that surprised her. She was young but not young enough for her mind to have blocked the raid that stole her from her family, that perhaps killed her family. For once, Dagny was grateful that she couldn't remember where she came from or whether she had had a mother and a father or siblings. Tanaruz was understandably fragile and it wouldn't be good for her to witness this.

Ivar was snarling, even as the light from the fires made the angles of his face appear to be made from gold. None of the other princes seemed to be that bothered by Lagertha leading the sacrifice but Ivar could be single-minded in that way.

On her other side, Astrid's expression matched Ivar's. Part of her probably believed she deserved Dagny's place in the procession, even if she hadn't presided over sacrifices before.

They arrived at the bottom of the altar and Dagny said the ceremonial words before kneeling and lifting the blade for Lagertha's inspection. She kept her head bowed as Lagertha pulled the sword from its bindings and the barn owl came to rest on Dagny's shoulder instead. Though kneeling before a usurper, before a woman who did not deserve the title she'd stolen, Dagny was still taken by the ceremony. It was the drums matching the beating of her heart and the comet streaking through the sky and the owl that was digging its claws into the fur collar of her gown.

When Dagny stood, she saw that the earl on the altar showed no fear or apprehension as Lagertha approached him. She admired him for it. The queen asked the earl if he was ready and when he agreed, she lifted the sword. Its tip touched him in the middle of his bare chest. Dagny was close enough to see his skin ripple with goosebumps. Then Lagertha pushed the blade in, as easily as she might cut meat at dinner. Blood thinly streamed down his chest. Eventually, the earl's hands came to rest on Lagertha's shoulders, both of them moving together until the sword pushed out of his back and he finally tired. Rivulets of blood hit the floor of the altar, running across the wood to flow into the collection bowl.

Dagny had been attending sacrifices for many years but watching death was never an easy thing to do, noble purpose or not. She focused on Lagertha, blonde hair coming undone, cheekbones streaked with gold. She did not care for the new queen because of what had happened to Aslaug. The disrespect she'd showed her. The way a supposed champion of women would blame another for her husband's faults. But Dagny could admit she was radiant, strong enough to deal with whatever was thrown at her, and that she'd had the honor to perform a sacrifice for all of Ragnar's sons, not just her own.

Lagertha turned to Dagny and nodded. A priest retrieved the owl, which flapped its wings in protest, and a slave arrived beside her, cradling the collection bowl. It seemed deep enough to cover her entire arm in blood.

Lagertha had done her a great favor and told her to mark each of the warriors going. Normally it was something that would be performed by the leader of the sacrifice but as if sensing a repetition of what had happened at the last sacrifice thrown by a queen of Kattegat, Lagertha bestowed the honor onto Dagny. She was glad to do it. As a slave, she'd always watched and wanted to participate but she had been stuck serving, wearing tattered dresses and hoping that no raider with rising bloodlust took notice of her. Things were so very different now.

She came to stand before the princes. Bjorn was the only one not in attendance. She raised her eyebrows at Sigurd, who was now the first warrior for her to mark. He only shrugged in response but his blue eyes sparkled, like he knew exactly where Bjorn was and he'd tell for the right price. People underestimated Sigurd, Dagny had always thought. He was more a clever fox than a regular man.

Dagny dipped her index fingers into the blood, noting how warm it still seemed, and dragged them across Sigurd's high cheekbones. She put one other swipe of red across his brow, as if declaring him prince of blood and bone instead of the secretly kind person she thought he might be.

She moved to the next in line, Hvitserk. He was grinning and it almost made Dagny lose focus and smile too. His hair was a multitude of braids and loose pieces combined together, hanging down the front of his chest and obscuring part of his face. She took hold of the tie holding it all together, tossed it over his shoulder, and tucked a loose strand behind his ear. This had been done on purpose. His smile had warped into a smirk and there was a glint in his eyes that seemed to ask, Aren't you just a small bit tempted? She shook her head at him but her mouth wanted to tweak up in a smile.

For Hvitserk, she took two fingers on each hand and traced his cheeks, four streaks of red creeping down his face, blood falling onto the smooth skin of his throat and the neck of his tunic. Then she tipped each of his ears with it, for what reason, she couldn't say. She put a line on his brow as well, deciding that that would unite all of the princes.

Ubbe was next. He was stoic, lips pursed, more like he feared Dagny's wrath than that he was truly reverent for the ceremony. She had to ignore it, just as she had to disregard Margrethe clinging to his arm.

Ubbe's face was the hardest to paint because it seemed incredibly important to do something precise and meaningful. But he wasn't going into battle or performing a sacrifice. It did not need to be perfect. So Dagny wasn't sure why it felt so difficult. Finally, she just had to go with what she was feeling, as she'd stood before him for so long that she thought people were noticing.

Ubbe stiffened when she reached forward, apparently not wanting her to touch him. She couldn't blame him, when touching him before had brought this much strife to him. She placed each index finger at his hairline and pulled the streak of burnished red down across his eyelids, over his cheeks, and onto his neck. She placed blood along his jaw and in his eyebrows and down the tip of his nose and finally, across his forehead. He kept his eyes closed the entire time.

After she was done with Ubbe, Margrethe stood ready, eyes burning so brightly Dagny could swear the girl was wishing her to catch flame. Margrethe wasn't going on the raid so there was no need to mark her like a warrior. Dagny knew it would be petty but she dipped her whole hand into the bowl and flicked her fingers at Margrethe, no grace in the movement at all. No honor. Red bloomed across Margrethe's face and she squeezed her eyes shut, surprised by how quickly Dagny had moved. It had splattered her gown. For that, Dagny was rather sorry.

Ivar was the last of the princes. His hair was long and unbound and strands of it gleamed beneath the light of the torches. He bared his teeth in an expression that might be called a smile or perhaps a leer, something a monster would do before he lured you beneath the waves and had you for his own. For Ivar, she broke decorum and smiled.

She bent to his level and for the first time, she was aware of everyone watching her, of the beat of the drums and the crackling of the fire. But Ivar was staring at her, his pretty eyes hooded and made dark, and she couldn't bring herself to care about what other people thought.

For Ivar, she marked his brow first and ran red along the length of his nose. She placed a finger at each edge of his lips and dragged lines of blood down his throat. His pulse was so fast that under normal circumstances, it would have worried her. Finally, she took her thumb and put blood on his bottom lip, the way Lagertha put gold on hers. For a singular moment, she thought he was going to grab her wrist and pull her to the ground beside him. For a singular moment, she wanted him to.

She stood, face feeling warm, and did not look back at the princes before moving onto Floki, Harald Finehair, and everyone else. It was a time-consuming duty and Dagny was exhausted when it was done. The slave girl kept beside her and her arms didn't appear to quiver beneath the weight of the blood in the bowl. Dagny wanted to free her then and there, even if it meant ruining what the sacrifice accomplished. But eventually, Dagny finished marking every raider and anyone else in attendance. When it was over, she flicked blood onto the face of the slave who had helped her, remembering that Aslaug had always done her that honor too.

Now it was a time for feasting and fun and for the first time, Dagny thought she might really enjoy herself. She wouldn't be working or worried about men being untoward. She could be herself, uninhibited by anything at all. It was a freeing thought, as even the feast before Hvitserk left on raid the last time had been fraught with worry. Now, she felt proud, as she'd done a sacred duty and this raid was something she championed.

Dagny went into the great hall. In truth, she wanted to find Lagertha. Even though it would behoove her to do it, Dagny thought she owed the queen her thanks. It had been a beautiful ceremony and it was certainly something she didn't have to do.

"Dagny," came a voice to the left of the doors. It was Floki. Dagny noticed Helga was sitting at a table behind him, Tanaruz on the floor beside her, hugging her knees to her chest.

"How is she?" Dagny asked when she reached Floki's side but lowly, as she didn't want Helga to hear. She didn't seem to believe anything was wrong with Tanaruz, other than adjusting to the vastly different culture of the north.

Floki shrugged in a manner that Dagny might have called dismissive, if she didn't know him. "She's no different."

"I don't think you should have brought her tonight." Dagny had visited Tanaruz every day since Floki had asked it of her. The poor thing was scared of her own shadow and even Dagny, who did her best to appear utterly harmless, elicited a response of shrieking and hiding. It was always a difficult thing to admit when there was nothing to be done but Dagny had been healing for long enough that she could usually tell when a person was lost. Tanaruz would likely never return to herself.

"Oh, it is worse than that. She'll be coming on the raid with us."

Dagny's mouth hung open for a moment. "What?" she asked in disbelief.

Floki nodded his head toward Helga. "She won't hear anything against it. They're both coming."

"I've got an awful feeling about that." It was true enough because quite suddenly, she felt nauseated, as if she'd drunk too much wine. "Floki, I'm worried about Helga too. Taking the girl to begin with, the way she's acted about everything since the raid."

Floki looked like he agreed, a sort of resigned expression on his face. Before being freed, Dagny would never have spoken so brazenly to him. In fact, she may not have spoken to Floki at all. He was someone who had always intimidated her, though he could frequently be nice enough and he always indulged when someone asked him to tell a tale. But since Bjorn's raid to the Mediterranean had returned, Ivar threw them together frequently. Dagny found that she liked Floki a great deal and apparently, he must trust her since he asked her to help Tanaruz.

Floki eventually introduced her formally to Harald Finehair and his brother, Halfdan. As a child, Dagny had been terrified of them. Part of her still wanted to run when they smiled at her, matching grins on mouths wide enough to swallow you whole. Harald and Halfdan seemed like a pair out of the stories, singing their eerie songs and sharing women. But after speaking with them, Harald seemed almost sweet and Halfdan appeared loyal to the point of being extreme. Perhaps they were fearsome on the battlefield but in person, she liked them both.

After meeting them and some of the other raiders, Dagny found herself beside Ubbe. He was leaning against a wall of the great hall, nursing a goblet of wine. Across from him was the main table where Margrethe was sitting with Hvitserk and Sigurd while Ivar looked on angrily. Ubbe straightened up when he caught sight of her. She shouldn't speak to him, part of her warned. Not after the night before and the way Margrethe acted. Not with the way Ivar was pretending not to watch them.

"I'm sorry for what happened last night," Ubbe said before Dagny could make her way to the table. She shook her head and took up a place beside him against the wall.

"There is no need to apologize for something you didn't do," she replied. Ubbe appeared to weigh his answer.

"But I did do it. I stood to the side and said nothing. Isn't that just as bad? To watch something unfold that you disapprove of and do nothing to stop it?"

Dagny supposed that was the truth in many cases but shook her head again. "Neither of us had a choice. Hvitserk was the only one there with any agency." She looked at Hvitserk now, barely disguising flirting with Margrethe at the grand table. He was tucking a flower behind her ear. He'd done that to Dagny so many times she'd lost count.

"So you aren't angry with me?"

"It's impossible to be angry with you." He brightened up at that, his friendship with Dagny something he apparently treasured a great deal. She didn't know how to reconcile that, how to understand it, because it still seemed strange to be valued not as a commodity but as a person. "That doesn't bother you?" she asked, nodding towards Hvitserk and Margrethe. Even Sigurd appeared to totally disapprove of it.

Ubbe shrugged, a gesture that didn't seem to fit him. "I knew it would happen when she agreed to marry me. They've been close for a long time and I want her to be happy." Dagny wondered at how oblivious she must have been to not notice how friendly Margrethe had always been with Hvitserk. But she still thought Ubbe was strange for just letting it happen. If this is what Margrethe wanted, then she shouldn't have married Ubbe. "You disapprove."

"I didn't say that," she replied. In some ways, she knew why Margrethe was doing it. Dagny thought she was becoming unstable but the jealousy was something she empathized with. The power play Margrethe felt she had to make was something Dagny intrinsically understood.

"You didn't have to." He gave her a lopsided grin and she was glad that he didn't take her so seriously. "Do you want to dance?"

Dagny hadn't noticed until this moment that people were playing music, one of which was Sigurd. He was strumming a lute with impunity and he was actually unbelievably talented. But her eyes drifted to Ivar, a boy whose title should have been prince of darkness and blood. For a moment, she could see him seated on his father's throne with a crown of bone and waves of scarlet at his feet.

"And enrage Margrethe further? I don't think so," she replied. Ubbe shrugged again, like none of it meant a thing. But it would mean something to Dagny. It would certainly mean something to Margrethe and Ivar.

"It's just a dance." She turned to him, saw the way the red on his face highlighted how fair he was, how light his eyes were. The seer said their fates were entwined, that Ubbe would become a king. Dagny thought that, in some ways, he already was one.

Hvitserk and Margrethe were dancing now, closer than they had any right to be, and maybe that was why Ubbe felt the need to ask Dagny, to turn this back on them. She could feel Ivar's eyes on her, like he could hear her thoughts.

"No, it's not," she replied then began to grin. "Besides, you are a poor dancer."

Ubbe smiled back, the blood on his face starting to crack. "I'll remember you said that."

She walked away from him, sure she had done the right thing for them both, and came around the table to sit at Ivar's side. The youngest prince had followed her with his eyes for most of the night and it made Dagny feel like a doe in the forest, wary of each crunch of leaves or creaking tree. The deer dreaded the pounce and the ultimate victory of predator over prey but Dagny had been waiting for it for a long time and she was ready for him to finally strike.

Ivar's hair had grown long in the time since his raid with Ragnar and it had turned him from a boy into a warrior prince, someone out of the sagas. With his face painted, she had no doubt that people were frightened of him. She imagined him on Floki's chariot looking this way, surrounded by mist and fog and primeval forest, clad in mail and armor, hung with arm rings and swords. It was an image that burned itself into her mind. She'd seen Ivar on the chariot only once since Floki had constructed it. It made him tall and imposing and enemies would see his snarl from a great distance.

"I hate it when you don't do things just because you pity me," he said finally, without turning to look at her. He took a long drink from a goblet in front of him. They were alone at the table now. Sigurd was dancing with a serving girl, having foregone the lute, and Ubbe had managed to steal Margrethe away from Hvitserk. He gave Dagny a triumphant smile over her shoulder.

"I didn't do that because I feel sorry for you," she said, though it was a small bit the truth. Ivar always looked forlorn when dancing was about. If you asked him, he would tell you it was the stupidest activity known to man. But it didn't stop him from wanting to do it. "I would just rather spend my night with you."

Ivar smiled slyly, the light catching the blood on his bottom lip. It was the right thing for her to say. "Where were you this morning?"

"I went to the seer," she replied. This morning the cabin had been empty and the enmity of the night before had faded because when she slept beside Ivar, she could think of nothing else. She didn't remember Hvitserk's pain or Margrethe's grudge or her conversation with a drunk Ubbe in the forest. The only thing she knew was the smoothness of Ivar's skin and the warmth of his chest and the odd security she felt when he trapped her in his arms. She'd hated to leave him this morning and despised giving up the perfect way to lay her head on his shoulder and tuck her arm beneath his.

"And what did he tell you?" Ivar leaned closer, so close that his chest was pressed against her arm, that his mouth was near her throat.

"He said our fates are tied together." She folded her fingers over his, turned so that they were chest-to-chest. She did not mention that the seer had all but told her that Ivar would bring her misfortune, that he would do far worse than just driving a wedge between her and Ubbe. But the future could be malleable and men the gods smiled on one day would be cast down the next. Dagny could change it. She hoped she could change it.

"I have always known that," Ivar said, the red on his brow shining like it was still wet. "Do you agree? Have you seen the same thing?"

"I have seen you at the head of the army and I have seen you on the battlements of a great walled city and I have seen victory against the Saxons. And I will be at your side for all those things." The walled city was just a fuzzy place she'd seen in a dream. She couldn't be sure that any of it was real and she hadn't been able to ask the seer his opinion on what she could do. But Ivar clearly believed her. He thought she was always right.

"Good," he replied, smiling wide. He took her hand and flipped it over. Then he leant down and ran his tongue across the length of her palm, all the while looking up at her. Dagny had always wondered why the seer asked for this as payment. It seemed meaningless. There was no clear purpose that it served. But she understood it now. It sent something through her that Dagny had no way of explaining and she did not know if it was due to anything supernatural or just the normal way Ivar made her feel.

When the fete finally came to an end, she and Ivar went back to the empty cabin. He had barely sat down before she was draped across his chest and kissing him. Ivar tore her thorny crown from her hair with no sense of delicacy. The gold pins followed shortly after until Dagny's black hair fell in a swath down her back. His mouth found a patch of skin at the base of her throat and her head tilted back as his hands began roaming. His teeth bit down so hard that Dagny thought he might've drawn blood but she did not mind. She liked that Ivar was rough at times and that he had no intention of ever changing that.

When she pulled away, she saw gold had replaced the blood on Ivar's mouth. It was on his hands, his tunic, the skin of his neck. Dagny knew that at any moment Sigurd or Hvitserk might decide to come home. They could be waiting outside the door now, knowing that this was happening, and she did not care. It was a freeing thought.

"Did you want to dance tonight?" Ivar murmured, leaning in again. Dagny was on her knees in front of him while he sat on the edge of her bed. He knotted his fingers in her hair and pulled her head to the side, kissing the line of her throat.

"I'm only interested in dancing with you," she whispered, feeling her skin prickle. He laughed sarcastically.

"I can't do it. You know that," he said but his voice belied hurt at the thought.

Dagny leaned back and took him in. To think, there were people who didn't consider him handsome. "You have never tried. I can teach you the hand movements."

"It's not the same." His eyes were large and beneath the war paint of blood and gold, he looked vulnerable. Dagny felt like a serpent was coiling itself around her heart and beginning to squeeze.

She scoffed. "It's still dancing. Do me this favor. Just try." Ivar groaned and rolled his eyes. Pride would be the death of him.

"You're a silly girl, Dagny. I am a man of war, not some lord of flowers and forest." But he was fighting a losing battle against a smile.

"Put your hands like this," she told him and Ivar followed her, grimacing while trying to focus. It was a pattern of flipping your hands, running your fingers over the arms of your partner, deciding the right time to take their hands in yours. He was remarkable at it, as he had a memory cultivated to remember details. Dagny was rather flattered that he appeared to be taking it seriously. "You have good hands. Elegant."

He gave her a scoff. "This isn't a real dance," he said, even as he parroted her movements, dragging his knuckles down the inside of her arms.

"No, it isn't," she replied, smiling, and he laughed. It was a sound that felt like it echoed through the cabin, down into her bones. "Regular dancing is boring. It is nothing but looping your arms around your partner's neck and swaying."

"Show me," Ivar said, eyes hungry. She reached forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He did not need to be told to put his hands on her waist, the fabric of her gown bunching between his fingers. She did not want to move. She wanted to stay frozen like this, like a cursed girl in a story. "I like this better."

He was looking down at her and it made Dagny imagine she was a warrior about to pledge her service to him. But his gaze changed and suddenly she felt a maiden, nervous on her wedding day. "Thank you, Dagny," he said suddenly, his grip on her waist tightening.

"For what?" she asked.

"You indulge my every whim. I think you can read minds." She smiled and he looked at her then, as if really seeing her for the first time. "You are soft, Dagny," he said and it didn't seem an insult. "And you're beautiful. And…"

"And?" she said, wanting to smirk or joke with him. But he appeared nervous, the color leeching from his face, eyes large and unusually light. It was an expression of his that Dagny greatly treasured.

"And I want you to lock the door." Ivar was resigned now, schooling his features into neutrality, but she knew he was still anxious. She was close enough to see him gulp.

"Are you sure?" she murmured, heart pounding.

"I am utterly sure," he responded.

The calm before the storm! Some love before the storm! I just thought there needed to be a break between this chapter and next. We will be seeing England next chapter! I miss the sort of sweet Ivar from season 4, lol. But at least, he and Dagny got to have their time!