Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
PROLOGUE ❝ blood rite ❞
*warnings for murder, abuse, child marriage, and a brief mention of spousal rape*
980 A.D.
The night before she was wed the first time in the Christian traditions, Dagmar almost killed her father.
To squander all her petty dreams of wielding a sword like her brother (and to, though she wouldn't find this out until much later, rid his house of all the magic he could), he sold her to the first suitor that sought her hand; a boy named Ecgbert, the eldest son of one of the few Saxon families that made the trek to the New World with them, who had been nearly four years her elder and known for bouts of cruelty. Dagmar, terrified of the wifely duties that would have been expected of her in a marriage to a violent man who did not believe in her gods and of abandoning her siblings with a father that could only love her because of her resemblance to a sister that was forever lost, protested the match.
"I'll be good," She told him, kneeling by his feet while he sharpened one of his blades, "I will do my weaving with mother, and look after Niklaus, and never complain about Finn getting to play with swords ever again."
But all of her begging was for nought.
Mikael just held her chin with a calloused hand. "You will wed the Christian and rule over his house, and your sons will be great warriors and blacksmiths and priests. They will bring forth a new age."
Then he kissed her on the temple, marking her for death. And, as she, with the bitter taste of his betrayal sitting on her tongue, watched all her worth be boiled down to the exchange of a pouch of silver coin and the shake of a hand, she swore that, if she could not save herself from being wed, she could at least save her mother's other children from him.
So, she hatched a plan.
For the entire year
For the entire year leading up to the wedding, the thirteen and then fourteen-year-old tested methods with which to end his life. She snuck off to ask their lycanthrope neighbors about the local flora, and tested his limits with the mead that the neighbors made, and hid to burn offerings to her dying gods in hopes that they'd give her the strength to do it nearly every day until the day came.
She got him drunk at dinner that night, silently refilling his cup every time he drained it until he was a slurring and stumbling mess.
Then, once everyone went to bed, Dagmar crept up to him as he snored and pulled a dagger from her sleeve.
The blade glittered under the light of the moon as she lifted it over her head. She knew how to do it-- she was the child of a warrior and a witch, and she'd seen more rituals than any of her siblings, even her mother's precious Finn-- but, before she could do it, the flutter of a bird's wings startled her.
