Eirik

My father announced our engagement right at dinner, casually, as if he were announcing a successful cattle sale. In a world of shields and axes, a maiden's will is just a bargaining chip. In a month, I was to go to King Harald to become the wife of his son, Eirik.
Everyone in the North had heard that name. A great warrior, the first in the berserker rage, but his fame was marked by a trail of blood. Over the course of seven years, three of his brides died under strange circumstances, before they could marry. The king's settlement greeted me with suspicion—the people at the pier looked at me as if I were being buried alive. I saw Eirik himself that evening by the hearth: stern, with a scar on his eyebrow, he looked at me as if I were a mortal problem.
At night he secretly came to my chambers.
"You must leave tomorrow morning," he said hoarsely. "Run to your father. If you stay, you will die."
"So the rumors are true and you kill wives yourself?" I narrowed my eyes.
"I didn't kill anyone. But I'm tired of watching innocent people die because of me."
Soon, at an abandoned temple, I learned the truth from an old priestess. Eirik's grandfather had betrayed a powerful völva for power, and she had cursed his line: every wedding of the heir would end with a cold corpse instead of a marriage bed.
That evening, I burst into Eirik's chambers. He was polishing his sword and immediately understood everything from my pale face.
"I can fight against the blade. But against the will of a dead witch—no. Go away," he said quietly.
"What if I don't want to leave?" I took a step toward him. "I'm sick to death of everyone deciding for me: my father, the king, the gods... and now a dead seer too! I won't run away."
For the first time, a warm smile appeared on his stern face. Eirik rose to his full height and extended his hand to me:
"Well then. Then we'll have to defeat this curse. Either break it, or die together."
At that moment, to the sound of the waves, our real story began - a fierce struggle of two stubborn people against fate.