hell on earth,, i. the boneless

III

blessed are the meek

Several weeks had passed and Helena was no closer to her father than she was when she first arrived.

Helena had also not ready either letter that her mother had handed her before saying goodbye.

Hel spent most of her time alone, whether that being praying, sewing or reading, she always seemed to find herself without company.

She didn't like her new room. It was too large and every noise echoed off of the walls. In the dead of night, Helena thought she could hear screams, but her handmaiden Alys, told her it was just the wind howling through the keep.

Helena had met her half brother a handful of times, finding Aethelwulf to be a kind and noble man - but not a brother. The two had sat mostly in silence and offered each other soft smiles; feigning interest at water was going on around them.

Helena would sit with her brother, father, and his close council for every dinner.

Helena was two days from being sixteen when she was summoned into the throne room at peak day.

Helena's blonde curls were pinned half up and half down, the strands offering her face no concealment. She now wore fashionable dresses with intricate stitch work, despite not being royal in the eyes of the law yet.

"The Lady Helena, daughter of his grace King Ecbert, King of Wessex."

She was announced and began to walk into the hall, picking at the skin of her nails, a rotten habit she had picked up since departing from her old home.

The hall was eerily quiete and the people in it were nervously still, including her father, which seemed an impossibly sight.

The wet wind banged again the window, crying to be let in, shaking the very glass that settled in the panes. The lights all flickered with the slight draft that uneasily flowed through the keep.

It was then that her father informed her she was being sent away. To the North.

Helena was being sent to offer her hand in marriage to a Viking King who wished to kill King Ecbert and savage his lands and citizens.

The room seemed to spin, though every person in it seemed to be deathly still, corpses.

That was when Helena realised that her father was an evil man.

He had never intended to legitimise her, he only sent for her so he would not have to endanger himself or his real child in a war.

She had been the fool her mother once was, and now by a week's time she would most likely be dead. A daughter for a father. What a cruel thing, she supposed.

That this king lost his father and in return he would kill an irrelevant girl. She would die for a place she never knew long enough to call home, for people who would not mourn her, for a father that did not know her.

"But you've not written for the pope, I am not your daughter in the eyes of our Lord, or in law. My place is here, with you." Helena sputtered out, eyes frantically searching for someone who would agree.

Although, all she got was the members of court avoiding her gaze and she knew they were all happy with this outcome, with using her to save their own necks.

"Your place is in the north." Ecbert told her. "And my word is the law, I am your King." He reminded her of the last part.

But no, he wasn't her king and this wasn't her home.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to be ignored by her mother. She wanted to get scolded by her aunt for eating the last piece of bread. She wanted to get called a bastard by a rough boy from town. She wanted anything that wasn't this, now.

"I can't live there. You can't send me away." Helena made eye contact with the one person that would not look elsewhere, her brother. Aethelwulf stared at his half sister, feeling the guilt of their cowardice. He had said to his father that they couldn't do this, yet Ecbert reminded him; what is one head compared to one thousand, compared to their own. "Please, they are heathens, murders!"

In her time at the keep, Helena had taken to listening to the tales of battle and actions of the Viking's at court, disgusted yet intrigued by this strange civilisation.

"And you are a bastard!" The King cut her off, standing up and bellowing loudly and cruelty, before composing himself. "But, you are my daughter nonetheless. You will go to the north and offer yourself to king Ivar." Ecbert made his way to his fair daughter, stroking the tops of her hair and cradling her face.

"You will the be salvation for your country, your family. And then, when I see you next you shall be legitimised, as promised." He feigned softness and care.

Helena knew that her fate was set.