Eirik

My father announced the engagement right at dinner, casually, as if he were talking about a successful purchase of livestock. In a world of shields and axes, a maiden's will is nothing more than a bargaining chip. In a month, I was to travel to Konung Harald to become the wife of his son, Eirik.

Everyone in the North had heard that name. A great warrior, first in the berserker's rage, but a trail of blood followed his glory. In seven years, three of his brides had died under strange circumstances before reaching the wedding day. The Konung's settlement greeted me with apprehension—the people on the pier looked at me as if they were burying me alive. I saw Eirik himself in the evening by the hearth: stern, with a scar on his eyebrow, he looked at me as if I were a deadly problem.

At night, he came secretly to my chambers.
"You must leave tomorrow morning," he said hollowly. "Run back to your father. If you stay, you will die."
"So the rumors are true, and you kill your wives yourself?" I narrowed my eyes.
"I have killed no one. But I am tired of watching innocent people die because of me."

Soon, at a deserted shrine, I learned the truth from an old priestess. Eirik's grandfather had betrayed a powerful völva for the sake of power, and she cursed his lineage: every wedding of the heir must end with a cold corpse instead of a marriage bed.

In the evening, I burst into Eirik's chambers. He was polishing his sword and understood everything immediately from my pale face.
"Against a blade, I can fight. Against the will of a dead witch—I cannot. Leave," he said quietly.
"And what if I don't want to leave?" I stepped toward him. "I am sick to death of everyone around me deciding for me: my father, the Konung, the gods... and now a dead seeress! I will not run."

For the first time, a warm smile appeared on his stern face. Eirik rose to his full height and extended his palm to me:
"Very well. Then we shall have to defeat this curse. Either break it, or die together."

In that moment, amidst the sound of the waves, our true story began—the fierce struggle of two stubborn souls against fate.