Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all it took for Adelasia's whole life to turn upside down. After being captured by the heathens raiding her city and taken all the way to the cold North, the youngest Ragnarsson takes an interest in her...
A/N: For those of you interested, I have also started an Aemond Targaryen fanfic. I would appreciate it if you could check it out (: https://www.wattpad.com/story/324136979-book-of-faces-%E2%88%BF-aemond-targaryen
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A broad smile came to Alasia's face as soon as she noticed Imeldina's eyes flutter open. Immediately, she grabbed the cup that stood on top of Imeldina's nightstand, filled with honey water and some herbs that should relieve her pain. Gently, cradling her sister's head, Alasia placed the cup to her pale lips. Imeldina's fingers wrapped around the stem weakly, and she took a small sip of the fluid. Alasia waited patiently until her sister signalled that she was done, before placing the cup back on the nightstand and taking a very careful seat on the mattress next to her younger sister.
"I am so glad to see you awake, my dear sister," Alasia said kindly. She reached out, stroking the rosy and hot cheek of her sister. "How are you feeling?"
"I feel like a thousand horses have trampled over my body," Imeldina replied, offering her older sister a weak smile. "But nothing I cannot manage."
"I shall have one of the servants call Hvitserk," Alasia said hastily, already turning around so that she could slide off the high bed. "He has been at your bedside for the entire night. Only an hour ago I send him away so that he too might sleep."
"No, wait," Imeldina said, her good hand reaching out and grabbing Alasia's. "Let him sleep. I am not planning on going anywhere soon and I want to talk to you, sister."
Smiling, Alasia lowered herself back onto the mattress, her thoughts going to Ivar's warning words about hovering over her sister and the consequences that may follow from it. Her eyes fell onto the bound and broken hand of Imeldina and an overwhelming wave of guilt crashed over Alasia. She always treated her sister with the utmost care, knowing exactly how fragile her body was, but when she had seen her smelling those awful flowers, it was like something else had taken over her body and forced her to act so recklessly.
"I am so terribly sorry about your hand, Imeldina," she said. "I never meant to-"
"Do not speak such nonsense," Imeldina countered hastily, effectively shutting her older sister up. Now it was Imeldina's turn to smile, even though it looked pale in comparison to her usual smile, which was able to light up the entire world. "I'm very thankful that you smacked away those flowers. Had you not, I might have sniffed more of the poison and well, Gods knows, what would have happened then."
