The Wind Whispers, ㅤ ㅤAethelstan

Chapter I: the wind whispers

          CHAPTER ONE: the wind whispers

                SOMETIMES, ON PALLID days as such, when the wind hums lowly and the draft is nothing but cool air filtering through the cracks in Helha's stone-walls, she finds herself dangling from the edge of her wooden balcony. The air is always frosty on this side of the storm and her breath makes funny patterns in the glazed windows.

Her palms are out-stretched, tinged with streaks of purple from her lessons the day prior, and stars scatter her vision. She's wrapped in her brother's furs, and she wonders what it would be like to have dragons during moments like this, when her home doesn't make her feel violently ill and exhausted, what it would be like to fall and be caught by a great big beast with glittery scales and golden eyes. The thought enthrals her, but it is just a thought, and girls like Helha are not allowed to crave things they will never touch. "If the gods are real, then why can't dragons be to?" She asks her ma. But the wind maintains its silence, and her mother's ashes are scattered far from here. 

The memory, when it comes, is not a pleasant one, and Helha wakes with a pained jolt. The cold bites at her exposed flesh, sinking its teeth deep, and she thinks that it'll never release her from its clutches.  Black dots scatter her vision, temporarily blinding her, and all she can feel is the pounding in her head from the ale the night prior, either that or she's facing the aftermath of a serious concussion. 

Has the plan failed? And her hands begin to shake from where they are bound behind her back. She is alone out here and the trees looming above look a lot like ghosts.

Panic begins to infiltrate the silence and her eyes dart around, frantically searching.

"Looking for this, Lady?" It is then that she realizes she is not alone out here.

She cranes her neck towards the sound, and her heart drops. Escaping seems like the least of her problems because Aethelstan is still alive and Aethelhelm will not let her live for this, this sin of which she has committed. 

She scowls then, and the boy's gaunt expression disappears for a second, though the men flanking him on either side look equally as grim as her, if not more.

He is not supposed to be standing, he's not even supposed to be alive. Biting her lip, she tilts her head towards him. "Pray tell why I am bound?"

Aethelstan, still observing her, does not make a sound, instead the Irish man beside him begins to speak, his harsh accent making her flinch.

"Well, little lady, you were trying to kill Aethletsan, were you not?"

She shakes her head then, violently. "You must be mistaken, gentlemen. I was travelling in their company," she nods towards the bloodied corpses beside her, "when they began to attack the king's bastard... I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I played no part in this. I'm just a lowly alehouse whore." The words taste like poison in her throat and she hopes her torn clothes make the lie a little bit more believable.

"Aye you are, and I'm a bloody heathen," snorts the Irish man, hands resting on his belt.

Aethelstan speaks then, "and why would a lowly alehouse whore be carrying a dagger embossed with a Viking seal?"

"Protection," Helha spits out. "Women are never safe in a man's company."

Aethelstan nods at this and she raises her brow in surprise, then her breathing begins to shallow. She tries to move back, hands scraping against the muddy ground. She can feel the dirt pressing against her skin, molding shapes into the palm of her hands, but she does not stop until her back is pressed flat against the great oak behind her.