Fated - [Bjorn Ironside]

~4~

In some ways, Bjorn's sacrifice had been heard. However, Eldyn wondered how favorable the gods had truly been to his call.

They had indeed returned from the west, but with their return came violence. A violence that bubbled between Heraldson and Ragnar. Apparently on their raid, one of the earl's men, Knut, attempted to rape Lagertha.

Regardless of who murdered the snake, Eldyn was happy that he was no longer amongst the living. Life was too sacred for what he'd done, nor was Valhalla's gate. 

He belonged in Hel.

Ragnar stood trial for Knut's murder, but was acquitted on the testimony of his brother, the man that almost tried to strike down Eldyn in Lindisfarne. Perhaps the giant had some semblance of a heart within. However, whatever semblance of peace following Ragnar's release was short-lived—for the earl wanted him gone.

It was an attack on the night of their return. Eldyn saw a flurry of blades, blood, and mead. Athelstan had pushed her behind him and to the side with the Lothbrok children. Gyda clung to Eldyn, hands intertwined as she watched the carnage take place. Bjorn stood before the two of them as Lagertha acted as the true shield-maiden she was—the son's arms outstretched to cover Gyda and Eldyn. It was a such a flurry that Eldyn forgot all about her feud with the boy—but rather it brought forth to her mind the horrors of her past, and she froze.

She remembered the words he screamed at her in his language, as he pulled her to the side and away from the downward swing of an axe. 

"Take my hand, you idiot girl!" 

His words were blunt, but woven within his tone was a frantic kind of desperation, the kind that Eldyn screamed to the gods when she tried to awake her father. 

They fought off the earl's men that night, but not without cost.

Now, days later back on the farm, Eldyn felt the tension that lingered between the homestead and Kattegat—the murderous string that threatened to snap between the two dominions.

The family was quiet, for they barely spoke due to Ragnar's foul mood that had stemmed from the loss of one of his close friends that night—who died at the hand of the earl's men. Like cowards, they came for him when he was not looking, and therefore was denied the glory of Valhalla, to die without a sword in hand or in the glory of battle.

Bjorn was quiet, too. He stopped his remarks to Eldyn. It seems that more than men had fallen that night.

Even Gyda stopped with her inquisitive asks of Athelstan to mediate her conversations between herself and Eldyn.

Eldyn never thought that living as a slave here could be worse—but she was wrong.

---

"Ragnar sits on the cliff a lot," Eldyn commented towards Athelstan. "I heard you mention to Lagertha that he is plotting something. Do you think he is planning the earl's death?"