Her feet carried her to the top of the hill that overlooked the southern half of Ravensthorpe. The waters of the Nene river shimmered in the distance as the cloud cover broke and children gathered around Reda's tent to listen to stories of his travels. Everything was as it should be. Noone other than herself could be blamed for ruining such a perfect day, nor for the cement that filled her stomach as she dreaded the talk she needed to have with Randvi.

The vacant cabin had not been far, and the two had made it back almost to where she had left them by the time she arrived back from her visit with The Seer. They seemed to get along well, and if were any other set of circumstances, they would probably make fine friends, but she could not allow Randvi to continue to be played. She had gotten herself into this mess and it was time she faced all of her demons and the consequences they had brought.

Her footsteps were slow, but purposeful as she made her way down the hill. She took a few deep breaths as she made her approach, concentrating on the gravel that crunched underfoot instead of her own racing heartbeat to calm her head before she spoke. The smiles that greeted her both seemed just as unsure as hers. Death and a broken heart had almost taken her, but she was not sure if there was any other moment that had made her want to keel over than right now.

"Eivor, I did not expect to see you so soon." Randvi walked towards her, her eyes squinting in concern. "Did your visit with The Seer go as you expected?"

Eivor's heart sank and her voice fell. "I do not think anything is going as I expect it to."

Randvi swallowed. "Were you ready to talk, then?"

"Yes, I think so." Her eyes found Ciara. "If you will excuse us."

Ciara nodded with knowing eyes and forced a smile before taking her leave.

The expression that wore on Eivor's face as they approached the longhouse was that of one who had drank too much mead and then ran around in the blaring sun: pained and ready to vomit, and if there was more than just a stale hunk of bread in her stomach and Valka's strange mixture, she was sure that she would have thrown up by now. A swallow before they entered the shade of the longhouse kept the creeping nausea down and the new squeak in her boot filled the silence that lingered over them.

There was an audible gasp as she motioned for Randvi to walk past the haphazardly discarded furniture and various objects strewn across the room so she could close the door behind them.

"Eivor, what has happened?" Her fingers touched her lips as she looked around at the wreckage before her; Eivor could not help but silently agree that the state of her room was a shock. She had taken no time to absorb the wreckage she had caused.

A sigh pressed past her lips as she kicked knickknacks away to make a path towards the trunk at the end of her bed all the while wondering if that was the right choice as she looked at the mess of sheets, but it was too late now to turn around. She had made her bed and laid in it, and now it was time to tear off the covers.

"I have been battling some things in my mind." She sighed as she sat and took in the shocked expression that lay barren across Randvi's face and followed her eyes to the floor and the walls. She had knocked down more than what she had thought and silently groaned at the thought of having to pick it all back up.

"I think they have gotten past your mind, Eivor." Randvi gaped.

"In a way." She knew it was not the statement she meant, but what Randvi said fit all the same. "Randvi, there are some things I must confess to you, they are not easy for me to say and I do not feel they will be easy for you to hear, but I do hope you will stay long enough to hear what I have to say." Her eyes met Randvi's that held onto a pain that did not know why it was there yet.

"Go on." The words came out dry and pained as she firmed her stance in the middle of the room and tore her eyes from the wreckage.

A sigh emanated from deep within her before she spoke; Eivor was prepared to have daggers thrown at her head, and she deserved it.

"I have not been honest with you about why I have been so out of sorts since I returned from Ireland. Something happened there that tore me at my core and I have not been able to find a way to cope with all that I was feeling…am feeling. The deaths I have experienced, the friends I have lost, they did nothing but exacerbate the situation, but all of it was a nice excuse to mask the real problem." She kept her eyes glued to the floor as she spoke the next lines; if Randvi were going to kill her, she would rather not see it coming. "I met someone in Ireland, someone who made all of my problems feel so small. She made me feel something that I had never felt before. We spent a fair amount of time together while I was there since she was assigned as my main contact with Flann, and I grew interested in sharing more and more of my time with her. Eventually, we spent time with one another." She paused and let Randvi absorb the information before continuing. "So much happened in a short amount of time and before I returned home, things went downhill. Flann and I, we wound up in a situation where I was almost forced to kill her to save him and those in Flann's kingdom, but I found a way to spare her for my own selfish need. To my dismay, she decided it was best she leave and never return. I waited. I tried to find her, but the woods of Ireland were her domain, so I had no choice but to leave. It was my desire to bring her to Ravensthorpe, to make her mine."

Deafening silence filled the air when the last of her words left her tongue. Randvi's boots had not wavered from Eivor's down-turned vision and no objects had been flung at her head. She waited for some form of response from Randvi but none came, so she continued. She had dug to the bottom of the Earth and had nowhere else to go.

"When I returned, I realized what I had done. The guilt I felt when I saw you, when you touched me, it made me sick. I did not think of how I would hurt you while I was away, and I only thought of myself. I have been plagued with shame and guilt ever since my return, and it has eaten me alive." Her voice grew quiet as she spoke her next words. "But I have not been able to stop thinking of her. The thought of her has plagued me just as much, if not more, than the infidelity and it has driven me to madness."

"Why are you telling me this? You could have gone your whole life keeping it a secret. Why tell me now?" Randvi's voice cracked.

"I tried to move past it, to make us work again, but I could not get her out of my mind. You and I, we filled a missing piece that each other needed in our shared time of crisis, but I no longer feel that we serve that purpose for one another anymore. My heart craves more. It craves something that I cannot describe, but it is something that you cannot give me." The sniffling of tears broke her train of thought; she could not look for fear of stopping to save Randvi's heart. She needed to finish, she needed to know. "When Azar arrived, I saw visions and heard the songs she used to sing with such vividity that I thought I had finally succumbed to the madness I had brought upon myself. I thought I had moved past the ordeal, but the torment continued. I thought it was my punishment for what I had done to you. I tried to drink her away, but she would not disappear; I tried to forget. I tore my room apart as I dealt with the insanity and then…I chased her. I followed the voice that sang the songs that would kill me; I hunted her in the middle of the night like an animal." Eivor sighed and put her head in her hand. The atmosphere of the room choked her as she fought back tears of her own. In closing this chapter of her life, she was losing a friend; she was hurting someone she loved so she could pursue her own happiness. Death would be more pleasant. "I found her. What I thought were visions were mere glimpses of her as she battled her own thoughts. She smuggled herself here on Azar's ship and has been living in the woodlands Ravensthorpe in secret until the night before her scheduled departure."

"This woman, she was from Ireland?"

Eivor knew the lines that had connected for Randvi. "Yes."

A manic laugh echoed through the room. It started softly and grew as Randvi went from upset to angry. Her emotions mixed viscously as she put it all together. "You had me showing her around and giving her a place to live while you've been seeing her under my nose?" Her eyes filled with anger as she approached, her arms now open and flailing.

Eivor did not move and was ready and willing to accept the punishment that Randvi saw fit. "I did not mean for it to get this far. I was not sure how to deal with the situation; it all happened so suddenly. I needed to talk to the Seer, to clear my head, before I came to you."

"You could have at least tried to hide the evidence that you two shared a bed last night." Randvi barked.

"I am sorry, Randvi. I did not mean to have this all come to light this way."

"I do not believe that you are sorry for what you have done." Her voice fell, pulling the gravity of the world down on top of them.

"I am not..." she pushed through the pain of watching Randvi's world come crashing down. "I am not sorry for loving her; I cannot be sorry for what my heart desires. I am sorry that my actions have hurt you, that I did not come to you sooner. To lose you and Sigurd are my greatest fears, but I cannot go on any longer feeling as though I am missing a part of my heart. I have felt nothing but pain for almost two years and I have the opportunity to relieve it. I cannot let that go. It does not bring me joy that my choices have brought you pain. I have led you on when I knew that our arrangement was no longer fulfilling, hoping that things would change and I would forget and move on and be happy. It was wrong of me and I am sorry that it took this long for me to come to you with the truth. I am sorry."

Randvi stood in silence for some time before speaking. "I think I am going to need some time to decide where I would like to go from here. This…I cannot be here with you after this."

"I understand. I do not expect that you will want to speak with me after this has settled, but I do hope you will stay. Ravensthorpe needs you. We would not have gotten this far without you, Randvi. I beg of you to consider staying once you have had time."

"I will consider it, Eivor, but I will not promise it."