Hey guys! I hope that you've had a great holiday season and that you are ready for the New Year. I'm making the same resolution that I failed at this year and that's to update this once a month. I'm planning on sticking to it in 2019. Thank you so much for all of the reviews, follows, and faves. A review actually inspired me to write this chapter from the perspective of Hvitserk so thanks for that and all of your kind words! How are you guys enjoying the new season? Sorry that not a lot happens this chapter but I felt it was getting long. See you soon!

The Saxon church was dark and cold, illuminated only by the dim light of a full moon. Hvitserk did not care for the cathedral with its high rafters and colored glass. But it was where Dagny had retreated after cleaning Sigurd's body, after Ivar buried his face in her chest, crying with remorse over what he'd done. Hvitserk had been there for it all, worried that if he left Dagny on her own, something ill would be befall her.

Ivar had come to her quickly, immediately after Hvitserk pulled her away from the body and helped her clean up. He'd stood in the corner of the room, watching warily, waiting for Ivar to deliver a blow that never came. Hvitserk never really believed that Ivar would intentionally harm Dagny but then, he had never exactly believed that Ivar and Sigurd's rivalry would end in death. He couldn't be certain what would happen. So he stayed.

"I didn't mean to kill him," Ivar had murmured to her, eyes glistening. It was as if he didn't even realize that Hvitserk was there. "Everyone will think I intended it but I did not mean to kill him."

"I know you didn't," she'd responded and he had wrapped his arms around her waist, his face against her chest, crying. Dagny didn't seem to register what Ivar had said or the pain he was evidently feeling. It took an inordinately long time for her to place a hand against his shoulder and draw him closer, almost like she too was expecting that blow.

Now, walking through the nave of the dark church, Hvitserk wondered if she believed Ivar. He could say what he wished but no one could overlook the violence and malevolence that had been ever present in Ivar's relationship with Sigurd. And few would ever doubt that Sigurd's words were true.

Dagny was sitting on one of the remaining benches, staring at the broken altar in front of her, trying to figure it out. She probably wanted to be alone, Hvitserk thought. Why wouldn't you want to be when you had been humiliated in front of everyone you knew and respected? But there was no longer any lock on the cathedral's massive doors and men who were loyal to Ivar had seen her come in. Men who had laughed when they saw Hvitserk follow her.

She turned and he took a shaky breath. He couldn't remember ever seeing Dagny cry, not when they were children, not when she was yelled at or chastised, not when she'd been given a beating by the old kitchen thrall for somehow messing up their dinner. If she started now, he wouldn't have any idea of what to do because in truth, what could he say that would make things better? No one came to Hvitserk for comfort. No one came to Hvitserk for much of anything at all. But Dagny's dark eyes were clear and in the light of the moon, she looked otherworldly, pale and taut as the bowstring she favored. She let out a breath of relief when she saw it was him.

Hvitserk sat beside her on the pew, still not understanding the way the altar had enthralled Dagny, but he didn't ask. He didn't tell her that it wasn't her fault or that she shouldn't regret anything or that she should consider another place to sleep. He didn't speak at all and nor did she. It made Hvitserk think of all the times in the forest that he'd sat beside Dagny under thick tree branches and they'd eat together or he would help her polish their training weapons or watch her embroider, mostly in silence. Sometimes they'd just sit together and do nothing at all. They were quiet, peaceful times and Hvitserk had always enjoyed them because it never felt like they should be talking. It just felt nice. Against all odds, against the cold and the dark and the damp, this felt nice too.

Beside him, Dagny's shoulders shuddered and he wondered if this was it, if she was finally breaking down. He put his arm out, hovering behind Dagny for a long while before he actually committed to the gesture. She stiffened slightly before turning into him. She was still shaking as her hands gripped the wings of his shoulders, as she took ragged breath after ragged breath.

"It's all right," he murmured finally, smoothing her hair down, feeling the unnatural cold of her skin.

"I knew it was coming," she whispered desperately. Still, she did not cry. "I saw it and I did nothing."

"There was nothing you could have done," he said. Dagny nodded against his shoulder but she didn't believe him. How could she? Sigurd was dead and it appeared to be over something that she had done.

Sigurd's ship burial was a solemn affair and it was the first time Hvitserk had seen Ubbe since the night before. Dagny stood behind Ivar, her face a mask. The boy before her looked just that, a boy, not a war leader or ruler. Just the petulant child Sigurd had decried him as. People were already talking, whispering heatedly behind their hands as Ubbe placed Sigurd's sword in the ship and grimaced at Ivar. Dagny did not look at Ubbe. Her eyes were on Sigurd's pale face, her lips drawn tight. Hvitserk didn't need her to say it. He knew she felt responsible for his death and already, that was much of what the army murmured.

Ivar reached for her, blue eyes burning, and Dagny hesitated for the briefest moment before placing her hand in his. It was quiet around Sigurd's body but it was a gesture that sounded loud. Hvitserk did not know whether to feel relieved or worried that Ivar apparently had no intention of tossing Dagny to the wayside.

Afterwards, the brothers and Dagny retreated into a Saxon house. There was food on the table but it was untouched. Bjorn stood, seemingly worried to sit down and get locked in conversation. Dagny's hands were shaking, so badly, in fact, that she hid them beneath the table.

Hvitserk placed his hand on hers to stop the trembling and gave her a weak smile. The bench across the table from them was empty. It was where Sigurd should be sitting, mean and sarcastic. Hvitserk hadn't had the heart to sit there when they came in from his ship burial. At least, he told himself it was for that reason that he'd sat beside her and not just to put an obstacle between her and Ivar.

Ivar and Ubbe were at the heads of the table and the symmetry of it wasn't lost on anyone in the room. Both of them looked ill, their skin the pallor of a fevered sickness that sapped all strength. But beside him, Dagny looked worse, curling in on herself like she was recovering from a physical blow.

"I know what you're all thinking," Ivar said finally, his voice barely understandable above the pouring rain outside. He kept his gaze on the table and Hvitserk was unsure if that was because of his shame or because he feared his own rage. "But it isn't true. I didn't mean to kill him. He made me do it."

Bjorn scoffed and out of the corner of his eye, Hvitserk caught Ubbe's stoic façade beginning to crumble. Dagny's fingers tightened around his own. She didn't even seem aware of it.

"He taunted me," Ivar continued, finally looking up. "He made fun of me. What was I supposed to do? What kind of a man tells lies about his own brother?"

"And what lies did he tell?" Hvitserk asked drily. He thought of Sigurd on the dais, his blood staining the wood red, of Dagny pale in the moonlight in a Saxon church, sitting up all night rather than sleeping.

"You know that as well as I do, Hvitserk. You all know it." For the first time, Ivar dragged his eyes to Dagny, eyes so icy blue that they chilled Hvitserk in a way they never had before. Taking her hand at Sigurd's funeral was, perhaps, nothing but show. Ivar had been humiliated far worse than Dagny or Sigurd and he was not like to let anyone forget it.

"He said you weren't a real man," Ubbe said, his voice raspy from exhaustion. Hvitserk cocked his head at that but Ubbe did not return his gaze. This was not the true issue and nothing would be solved until it was addressed. Still, Hvitserk would never be the one to bring it up. Why draw ire that he hadn't earned?

"And what would you have done if he had said that to you, Ubbe?" Ivar snarled.

"It does not matter," Dagny finally said. Hvitserk sat up straighter and Bjorn looked on, wary. "He said that to rile you but it wasn't true. It isn't true."

"I did not see you stand for me, Dagny," Ivar replied, his tone as cold as his gaze.

"Because it was a meaningless insult. Even if correct, what bearing does that have on your prowess as a warrior? What does it take away from your intelligence or your charm? Nothing." Ivar showed no reaction but the slightest shrug of his shoulders, as if he was finally relaxing. Hvitserk wondered if this was a normal conversation between them, if Dagny was forced to stroke his ego every time someone disagreed with him. Nothing about that would be enjoyable or sexy, except to Ivar. But it occurred to him that Dagny must like it or else she would never have bent to his whims. She wouldn't have listened to Ivar when he told her to cast Hvitserk aside. She wouldn't have averted her gaze every time Ubbe looked at her. Maybe she wouldn't even be on this raid. To be someone he felt he knew in his bones, someone he could predict and understand even as other things seemed insurmountable, sometimes Hvitserk thought he didn't know her at all.

"Dagny is right, Ivar," he said. "So it makes a poor excuse."

"You would all rather I sit back and be made a fool of?" Ivar demanded. "I could not do it but still, I swear to all the gods that I never meant to kill him. Anger overcame me and I wasn't thinking. I am truly sorry."

Ivar met Dagny's eyes once more before crawling outside into the rain. Hvitserk felt nothing and thought it was a hollow apology, that Ivar had practiced the words enough to say them but not to impart emotion. But Dagny's face had gone pale, pale with guilt and grief, and Hvitserk put his arm around her shoulders again. He'd guided her to the ship burial like that. It was as if she was in a trance.

At long last, Dagny cast her eyes on Ubbe, at his hunched shoulders and clenched hands. Hvitserk thought he must have been mistaken to think guilt colored her face because she looked to Ubbe like she had since he'd returned from raid; like Ubbe was a king and she was a member of his guard, like any decision he made would be the right one and she'd follow it, even if she disagreed. Other people could fault her for that but Hvitserk wouldn't. If all your life, you'd taken orders and paid heed to others, you couldn't wake up one morning and decide you weren't going to do it anymore.

"You cannot leave Ivar in charge of the great army," Ubbe said, looking to Bjorn.

"That is your affair, Ubbe," Bjorn replied. "You're his big brother. You take charge. I told you, this is none of my concern."

"In what way is this not your concern?" asked Dagny. "You make your grand play to be the leader of the forces here and now that there is conflict, it suddenly no longer matters to you?"

Bjorn crossed the room and leaned on the table in front of her and Hvitserk. It was something that intimidated most people but Dagny did not flinch. "I am not interested in pettiness and games of envy and pride. My fate lies in the Mediterranean."

"These games of envy and pride have left your brother dead," Dagny responded and Bjorn's mouth hardened. Hvitserk went stiff because in a fight between them, he was unsure of whose side to take. It would be expected to go with Bjorn but Dagny… He couldn't let her be alone.

"I like you, Dagny," Bjorn said begrudgingly. "You're clever because you know when to be quiet and when to speak up. Now is a time to be silent because if you say the wrong thing, Sigurd will not be the only one left dead."

"Ivar wouldn't hurt Dagny," Ubbe said.

"How do you know that? Did you make sure to find that out before you slept with her?" Ubbe flinched as if slapped. Dagny, who had already begun to hear variations of the same thing said among the army, did not react. "We could use a healer."

"What?" she asked.

"In the Mediterranean, it is dangerous and we could always use a healer." Hvitserk was impressed because it meant Bjorn looked on her favorably. It was true enough that a healer of her skill was always needed wherever Bjorn was concerned and perhaps even truer that medicine was her gift. It wasn't a bad idea and in fact, would probably help her. But Dagny only looked back at the eldest Ragnarsson with her eyes wide.

"I can't go with you," she murmured. "I belong here, in England."

Bjorn leaned back and crossed his arms. "Think on it. We leave at dawn."

Hvitserk and Dagny were soon all that remained in the Saxon house, sitting closely side-by-side, watching the rain turn the courtyard to mud. Dagny slouched onto the table, propping her chin up with her hand. She hadn't slept at all overnight. She'd just kept her resolve and continued to watch the looted altar, like someone might finally decide to come back and steal what was left.

"I did this," she murmured and against the rain, her voice sounded weary with age. In a strange way, it echoed that of the seer.

"No, you didn't," he responded in a tone that brooked no argument. She tilted her head toward him, still resting her cheek in her hand.

"You don't understand. I all but swore Sigurd an oath. I never said a word about him to anyone and certainly not to Ivar." Suddenly both hands covered her face and again, Hvitserk feared that this was it. But she pushed her hair behind her ears and let out a tired sigh.

"No one could think that you had. Sigurd would have realized it if he hadn't acted so quickly." He placed a hand on her shoulder, the way he would his brothers, and something about the gesture seemed to help her relax. "Everyone knew that Sigurd liked men as well as women. It wasn't a secret, though he clearly wished it were one."

"You knew?" she asked lowly.

"Ubbe and I have known for years and you're familiar with Ivar. The way he used to crawl around so quietly and see and hear things that were none of his concern. He probably spent many days in the forest, looking through the trees at Sigurd's secret affairs." Dagny's face leeched of color, the way it had at the feast just yesterday.

"Yes," she replied, "I know just what you mean." She had to be pondering how many times Ivar must have spied on her in the woods, how he managed to learn everyone's schedule and follow whoever was the most interesting. It was how Ivar had spent much of his time in their youth and Hvitserk thought he'd become so exceptional at not being seen that he continued to do it now.

"So you see, you shouldn't be feeling this guilt about Sigurd. It had nothing to do with you." That wasn't strictly true but what was the point in telling her something she was already aware of?

"Some of it did." Hvitserk shook his head at her. This way of thinking, of continuing to turn it over and over in her mind, would be destructive. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course, you can tell me anything." Hvitserk was used to being left aside, to not being included in plans or leadership, to somewhat being forgotten about. Dagny had never done any of those things to him but part of him feared she would start to do the same now. Before, she was a slave and Hvitserk was perhaps the only friend she had. Now she had Ubbe, Ivar, Halfdan, and in another life, she might have had Lagertha and Torvi.

She leaned closer and he felt he should do the same. What was it to be such a weight on her? He would have thought her affair with Ubbe was the biggest secret she had.

"I see things, Hvitserk," she murmured, voice incredibly low though they were the only ones in the room. "I saw Sigurd's chest covered in blood before Repton, his armor rusting with it. I saw that and didn't warn him. I did nothing, nothing but lie to myself about it." She sucked in a breath that seemed to pain her and her eyes took on the slightest sheen. Hvitserk believed her and part of him was not surprised. He'd known it down deep, the same way he innately understood the phases of the moon or the stories of the gods. Hvitserk himself had seen the Allfather atop the craggy cliffs of Gibraltar, heralding Ragnar's death. And his mother had always favored Dagny, favored her above all other slaves.

"I have seen things in battle as well, things that weren't there," he said, despite knowing she was telling the truth. "It's not unusual. Adrenaline, fear, they cause you to hallucinate. It happens to even the most battle-hardened warriors."

Dagny looked down at the table, as if struck, and it was difficult to ignore the pain on her face, to look past the way she had obviously decided to trust him with this. But Hvitserk had only the thought of protecting her, of keeping it from people who would not understand. There were men in this army, men in his family, who would condemn her for it. Men who would see her sequestered in the woods, good for nothing but curses and foretellings, growing old as the völva she was. Being thought of as a seer made for a lonely life, one where you were continually used by others for their own purposes, and Hvitserk thought Dagny had been used enough.

"Your mother warned me not to tell you, not to tell anyone but Ivar. It was the last thing she said to me," Dagny muttered. Hvitserk wondered how long Aslaug had known, if she'd seen it the day she bought Dagny at the market. He wondered why Dagny had chosen to trust him at all.

"Even if you did see something, why would you have reason to believe it would come true? There was no point in warning Sigurd about something that may not come to pass."

She gulped and Hvitserk thought the way the line of her throat caught the light did indeed make her look like a witch. A witch who could grant your deepest desires or call monsters from down below the waves to tear your longships apart. "Because I have never seen anything that did not take place."

And what do you see, Dagny, when you look at my brothers? he thought. What do you see when you look at me?

"That sounds like a burden but it still does not mean you are at fault," he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dagny looking at him like he'd had every opportunity to abandon a sinking ship and yet stayed aboard anyway. "I believe you and I'm honored that you'd trust me to know this but my mother was right. You can't let anyone else find out what you can do."

"Yes," she agreed, "opinions of me are already poor and they can only be growing worse now that they know of Ubbe and I." Growing worse? he thought. No one would even think to care about it but Ivar and perhaps Harald. Of course, there would be teasing and jokes but what should have been the worry was whether people honestly wanted to place the blame for getting Sigurd killed at her feet.

"It wouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone close to you," he said without thinking. Dagny turned back to him, shoulders stiff. The fingers of one hand were digging into the wood of the table.

"You knew?" she asked, as if either one of them had ever bothered to hide that something had transpired between them. It was more than offered freedom and swearing an oath of fealty, which Dagny had all but done to Ubbe. It was a question of why Ubbe thought to free her in the first place, when Hvitserk had wanted to do it for years and been stalled. It was in Ubbe crossing the battlefield at Repton to slay a man who had knocked Dagny into the mud while Hvitserk was held back by an onslaught of Saxons; something that most men wouldn't have thought to do in the midst of fighting for a friend or even a lover. And most of it all, it was how Dagny seemed tuned to Ubbe's every move. She knew where he was at all times, would perk up at the sound of his voice coming from across a room, would turn almost imperceptibly towards him when he sat down beside her. If this was friendship, it seemed something worse than love.

"Dagny," he started, shaking his head, "if anyone bothered to pay attention, they knew."

She balled her hands into fists. "How?"

"You joke with him when you've always been so serious," Hvitserk responded and his tone must have sounded hurt because she started to look vaguely sick. "Even when you disagree, you follow his decisions. Your face lights up when you talk to him."

"He married Margrethe," she said quickly, as if embarrassed.

"Would he have done that if you'd told him not to?"

Dagny suddenly seemed far away, contemplating things that must have taken place months and months ago. Had Ubbe given her an ultimatum and demanded she make a decision? That didn't seem like Ubbe at all. Or had he married Margrethe because the poor girl loved him and he'd decided to put whatever was between him and Dagny aside? Either way, he'd acted without taking Hvitserk's feelings into account. Either way, it was sad.

"I objected it the moment he told me because Margrethe had betrayed him before. But he didn't listen," she said. He would have listened, Hvitserk thought, if you'd cast Ivar aside, if your objection to it had come with kissing beneath the bowers of the forest and tracing patterns on his skin with your fingers. Ubbe was harder to figure out than Dagny had ever been but there was something in his gait now that was different, something that had changed while Hvitserk had been on raid in the Mediterranean. "But none of that matters now. He is married and nothing that passed between us meant anything serious. All we've ever been is friends and what happened was a favor he did me."

Hvitserk arched a brow and it all came out tumbling out of her mouth. The line on Margrethe's throat where Ivar had tried to kill her for disappointing him, Ivar calling on Dagny the night before he left with their father, asking Ubbe to teach her so what happened to Margrethe would not be repeated, how different it was between them automatically, Dagny's witness of their mother's death, the injury to her leg, denying the freedom offered her by Lagertha, the days that bled into months with Ubbe in the forest.

It was very bad indeed. Once or twice, even multiple times, could have been blamed on the tragedy of Aslaug's murder, Dagny's first kill, believing she'd never walk without a limp again. But the first time, the time that had marked Dagny and Ubbe's affair as special, had happened long before that. If Ivar wanted to be angry, that is what would enrage him most of all and Hvitserk could not blame him for it. Ivar was clever and quick and no doubt, he'd picked up on the changes in Ubbe and Dagny immediately. It wouldn't be that Dagny asked or even that it had happened when emotions were high, it would be that Ubbe agreed to it. It would be that the brother who had encouraged him to pursue her had done the same.

"Ubbe has been kind to me and I owe him my life many times over. He is as good as a blood brother to me. I would swear an oath to him or pledge him my sword if he asked. But he does not love me. I do not love him, not in that way." But her eyes looked wistful, like just outside the doors of the Saxon manor was the meadow in the forest and she could see herself crowned with flowers and Ubbe's tunic open at the neck. But she sobered quickly, as the rain outside began to turn to snow. Hvitserk had had many a summer lover before and so he knew the sting she must have felt when it was done, when the flowers wilted and the sun became covered by clouds, when dark fell early and the frost crept up the trees.

"Well, there was something more than friendship. Otherwise, Ivar would not care nearly as much," Hvitserk said, knowing the fact that Sigurd had said it all publically was what had gotten him killed. It was not so much that it had happened as it was that now the entire army could think Ivar, someone they already inherently looked down on, had been cuckolded. Hvitserk could not look into the future as Dagny apparently could but he did not need to. Perhaps they could try to patch things over but what was between Dagny and Ivar would die a slow death, full of pain for the both of them. And when it was done, Hvitserk would still be there, unsure of whose side to take.

"But if it's gone now, what does it matter?" she asked, like she really believed the words.

"To Ivar, it will matter that he was embarrassed before the army like that and because men will take Sigurd at his word. They will think you too frightened to oppose Ivar, they will think Ubbe is a coward for letting you stay with him, they will think you are still a slave in thrall to your masters."

Dagny nodded, having been thinking along the same lines. Hvitserk didn't usually have the opportunity to voice his opinion so clearly, let alone have it be heard. "That's why I need to speak with Ivar now, when I have the courage to do it."

Hvitserk's stomach tightened. "Is that such a good idea? You know his temper, wait for it to cool."

"You think he'll hurt me?" It was a genuine question. She didn't sound like she doubted it to be true, like she normally would, and Hvitserk knew then that things were changing. Dagny would no longer be able to look at Ivar the way she used to, full of hope and support, as if looking on beauty for the first time. Now she would see him unmasked, the way Hvitserk had always seen him. Beneath good looks and manipulation and a mind sharper than the finest blade, Ivar was cruel. He hadn't killed Sigurd because of the words he'd spoken. He'd done it because he wanted to. He hadn't forced Dagny to give up Hvitserk because of some phantom pain he felt at her having desires that didn't pertain to him. He'd done it to control her. And Dagny had never once looked past his pretty eyes and smooth skin or the fire in her blood he could make her feel. Sigurd's death would usher in a new age, one where Ivar would no longer have to conceal his true self, and it would not be favorable to Dagny.

"I don't know what he'll do," Hvitserk said. "That is what worries me. Perhaps if you go in and apologize, whether you are sorry or not?" Neither Ubbe nor Dagny was sorry. If they were, apologies would have been made formally in front of the entire family. Ubbe had said little since Sigurd's death and nothing that so much as resembled guilt.

"No," Dagny replied sternly. "I cannot speak to him and act apologetic about it. I tried to tell him the truth many, many times and he turned away from it. I can do a multitude of things but I cannot lie and say it was a mistake, that guilt and despair are tearing me apart. They aren't! They never have! I'm sorry to have dragged Ubbe into it, I'm sorry I didn't tell Ivar the truth whether he wanted to hear it or not, but I'm not sorry to have done it. I will not lie and say that I am."

"I admire that, Dagny, but there comes a point when you must concede."

"No. If we are ever to repair what happened, it can't start with lying." That implied that there was something to repair in the first place, which Hvitserk very much doubted. But Ivar had a hold on Dagny and it was something he would never understand.

"He'll be angry," he murmured, thinking about that line on Margrethe's throat, how sweet she'd been before and how changed she'd been after. Dagny was taller and physically stronger and she could take a hit without backing down but Ivar knew everything about her. He knew every inch of her body and even confined to the ground, he would outmatch her. All it would take is for her to get too close, for her bad leg to get within reach, and Ivar would have her on the floor, his hands around her throat.

"Hvitserk, I can do this," she said and smiled a tight-lipped smile. She put her hand over his. "I promise you that I will not let my guard down. I won't let him touch me." The words sounded pained, as if she was setting out to sea and knew it would be a long while before she set sight on land again. He never would have thought Ivar's touch was something to be grieved.

"Then you will let me go with you," he said. Her eyes brightened and she looked happier then than she had in a while. As a slave, she'd always been easy to smile and laugh. It was one of the things he liked best about her.

"I saw the seer before coming on raid." His skin prickled. Hvitserk never went to the seer and he wanted to know what use there was in her seeing one. "He told me that you and I will be friends until death and that we will never turn on each other."

Hvitserk relaxed. "I have never known him to give prophecies that are good." Dagny appeared strained, like there was far more to it than that, so he asked, "What do you see when you look at me?"

"A good man," she replied. It could be much worse than that, he thought.

"What of Ivar?"

"A powerful man."

Hvitserk swallowed and asked, "And Ubbe?"

Dagny took a deep breath and said, "A king." Hvitserk didn't take it literally because it was the way she'd always looked at Ubbe, as if he were a lord, a gold-giver, but it still vaguely pained him. Would he never gain recognition or respect? Would he always live in the shadow of his brothers?

"Of the three," she said, her fingers suddenly gripping his shoulder, "I would rather be a good man."

Not long afterwards, they were walking to the Saxon palace, where Ivar had taken up residence. Hvitserk still felt uneasy about it, as if they were going to tease a bear rather than talk to his younger brother. Dagny stood straight as she walked beside him, willing everyone they passed by to know she wasn't scared. Of all the things Sigurd had said, that was the only one Hvitserk didn't believe. Dagny seemed frightened of nothing.

She stopped outside of the palace for a moment and looked up at it, admiring it. "I'll hate to leave this place," she said.

"You will come back one day, no doubt to deliberate with the king of Wessex on your farm," he responded and she smiled, a real smile that wasn't colored by Sigurd's quick death or what Ivar might say when she entered the corridor. It felt wrong to think but Hvitserk suddenly wondered if Ivar ever called her beautiful or if it was just always about him.

"I think you're right," she said but her expression suddenly dimmed, as if when she entered Wessex once again, Hvitserk wouldn't be with her. He felt cold at that because why would Dagny return without him or his brothers?

A man took Dagny by the arm suddenly. She reached back to strike him but something stayed her hand. This warrior was one who had been lounging by the palace, one who was likely working for Ivar. How he had bought men's loyalty, Hvitserk would never know.

"I am no prince," the man said, leering, "but my brothers and I like to share as well."

Dagny's eyes widened and wrenched her arm from his grasp. "Touch me again and I'll-"

"You'll do what? You are nothing more than a slave still following her old masters' orders."

Hvitserk grabbed the collar of his tunic and pulled him forward so quickly that Dagny gasped. "Do not ever speak your filth to her again. Dagny may have been a slave once but she is a slave no longer," Hvitserk said loudly enough for everyone in the courtyard to hear. Across the way, he saw Ubbe, dark circles under his eyes and a cup of ale in his hand. "Touch her again and you'll invoke Ivar's wrath."

The man snorted, as if there was nothing about Ivar to fear. As if Ivar would soon no longer have any use for Dagny.

When he turned back, tears had finally filled Dagny's eyes. Hvitserk couldn't discern whether that was because she'd finally reached her breaking point or if it was all to do with potentially losing Ivar. It was hard to lose your first love, Hvitserk knew, harder still to move on from it.

"Thank you," she said and harshly wiped her eyes. Hvitserk thought it was pitiful that after all this time, she still acted like every bit of kindness shown her was the first she'd known of it. But then, Hvitserk supposed as a slave, she wouldn't been very familiar with compassion. "I told you that you were a good man."

"It's a shame. I try so hard not to be," he replied. It was something he'd said to her before, a long time ago, and the corners of her mouth tucked up now. "You don't have to do this now, not today."

"If I don't do it now, I will never do it." She took a deep breath, ascended the steps to the palace and pushed open the door.