Erik’s arm was numb when he rounded the corner past the fish-drying racks.
The smell hit him first salt and blood and something worse underneath.
Then the sound.
Fist on flesh.
The wet crack of it.
The Saxon was on his knees.
Same man from the docks.
The carpenter.
Older.
Forty, maybe.
His face was swelling.
One eye shut.
Blood running from his nose.
The warrior standing over him was Hrolf.
Ragnar’s crew.
Thirty, broad-shouldered, the kind of man who hit because he could.
Hrolf’s fist was raised.
Erik’s chest locked.
Twelve seconds.
Rebar through his spine.
Three floors down and help wasn’t coming.
The carpenter wasn’t looking up.
His hands were flat on the dirt.
Waiting for the next blow.
Erik’s throat burned.
The pressure he’d felt at the docks the thing that had wanted to speak when the net fell was back.
Sharper now.
Heavier.
A live wire pressed against the roof of his mouth.
Hrolf’s fist started to drop.
Erik opened his mouth.
“Stand.”
The word left his throat with weight.
Not volume.
Weight.
Like a stone dropped into still water, rippling outward, bending the air.
His iris flared.
Pale blue.
Cold fire at the edges.
The Saxon’s head snapped up.
His pupils dilated black swallowing brown and his body moved.
Not like he wanted to.
Like strings pulled him.
Joints jerking.
Feet sliding under him.
Hands bracing.
He stood.
Hrolf’s fist froze mid-swing.
His face went blank.
Confused.
Like he’d forgotten what he was doing.
His fingers unclenched.
The fist opened.
His arm lowered.
He blinked.
Erik’s right eye went dark.
Not closed.
Dark.
Like someone had blown out a candle behind it.
The world on that side collapsed to nothing.
Wet heat on his upper lip.
He touched it.
Blood.
Fresh.
Running down his chin.
His legs buckled.
He caught himself on the drying rack.
Wood bit into his palm.
His knees hit dirt.
Oswin was standing.
Frozen.
Mouth open.
Eyes locked on Erik’s face.
Hrolf shook his head.
Once.
Hard.
Like clearing water from his ears.
He looked at the thrall.
Looked at his own open hand.
His brow furrowed.
“I” He stopped.
Looked around.
His gaze slid past Erik like Erik wasn’t there.
He turned and walked away.
The thrall didn’t move.
Erik’s arms were shaking.
The vision on his right side was black.
No pain absence.
Like the socket was empty.
He tried to stand.
His legs wouldn’t hold.
The carpenter took a step toward him.
Erik raised a hand.
Palm out.
He stopped.
Not compelled this time.
Obeying.
The difference was visible in his face fear, yes, but something else underneath, something wild and bright.
Erik pushed himself upright.
Leaned hard on the rack.
His breath was coming too fast.
The nosebleed wouldn’t stop.
He wiped it with the back of his hand.
Red smeared across his knuckles.
Oswin’s mouth moved.
No sound came out.
Erik shook his head.
Not now.
He turned and walked.
One step.
Two.
Everything on the right was dark, the left doing double work.
Depth perception gone.
The ground tilted beneath him.
He made it to the side of the longhouse before his legs gave out again.
He sat.
Back against the wall.
Head tipped back.
Breathing.
The autumn wind carried woodsmoke and the low drone of someone singing a working song near the harbor, and for a moment the ordinariness of it the mundane fact that the world hadn’t noticed what he’d done was worse than the blindness.
The darkness on that side wasn’t lifting.
He closed both eyes.
Opened them.
Left: the world.
Right: nothing.
Temporary.
Had to be temporary.
His nose was bleeding.
He pinched the bridge.
Held it for sixty seconds, breathing through his mouth, tasting copper and salt.
When he let go, the bleeding had slowed.
Not stopped.
Slowed.
He could taste copper at the back of his throat.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
The word had felt like like something else had spoken it.
Something using his mouth.
His lungs.
His throat as an instrument.
The Saxon had stood because Erik told him to.
Hrolf’s fist had stopped because Erik made it stop.
No.
Not made.
Asked.
Pushed.
The warrior’s will had bent.
Not broken.
Bent.
Oswin’s will hadn’t bent.
It had vanished.
Replaced wholesale.
His left eye cracked open.
The world was flat.
One-dimensional.
The right side a hole in his skull where sight used to be.
Footsteps.
He didn’t look up.
“Erik.”
Aldric’s voice.
Erik kept his head tipped back against the wall.
“Tired.”
Aldric crouched in front of him.
Erik could see him in his left periphery.
Half a face.
One concerned eye.
“What happened to your eye?”
“Tired.”
Aldric was quiet.
Then: “Your nose is bleeding.”
“Noticed.”
“Can you stand?”
Erik tested his legs.
They felt like rope.
“Not yet.”
Aldric sat down beside him.
Didn’t press.
Shoulder close enough that Erik could feel the warmth off his arm.
Erik counted his breaths.
In for four.
Out for six.
The shaking in his hands started to ease.
Twenty breaths.
Thirty.
Forty.
The darkness thinned not gone, but thinning, like dawn through fog.
Fifty breaths.
He could see light.
Shapes.
Sixty breaths.
The fog lifted.
Vision came back in a gray wash, then sharpened.
The world snapped back into depth.
He exhaled.
Aldric noticed.
“Better?”
Erik nodded.
“Good.” Aldric stood.
Offered a hand.
Erik took it.
Let himself be pulled upright.
His legs held.
Barely.
Aldric was watching him.
Not suspicion.
Not yet.
But close.
“You sure you’re tired?”
Erik met his eyes.
“I’m sure.”
Aldric studied him for a beat.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
They walked back to the longhouse together.
Aldric didn’t ask again.
Inside, Lagertha was sharpening a blade.
She looked up.
Her eyes tracked Erik’s face.
Lingered on his nose.
Erik wiped it with his sleeve.
The blood was mostly dry now.
She didn’t speak.
Just watched.
Erik sat down in his corner.
Put his back to the wall.
His body felt like it had been wrung out and hung to dry.
Aldric sat across the hearth.
Close enough to watch.
Far enough to give space.
Erik closed his eyes.
Oswin’s face was behind his eyelids.
Pupils blown wide.
Body rising against its will.
The moment the strings pulled taut.
He’d done that.
The power wasn’t potential anymore.
It was real.
It was operational.
And it burned something out of him each time.
His body ached in places that had nothing to do with the shield drills.
Bone-deep exhaustion.
Marrow-tired.
He cataloged the damage in his head.
Nosebleed.
Temporary blindness.
Six hours, maybe, before he’d be able to stand without shaking.
Worth it.
The thrall had walked away.
He opened his eyes.
Stared at the longhouse ceiling.
The wood was load-bearing.
The beams were good.
The structure would hold.
He’d held a shield today.
He’d spoken a word that bent a man’s will.
Tomorrow he’d do it again.
The shield, at least.
The word he didn’t know.
The power had come when he needed it.
Unbidden.
Unasked.
Like his body knew the answer before his mind formed the question.
He wondered what else the body knew.
What else was waiting in his throat, his eyes, his marrow.
Across the hearth, Aldric was pretending not to watch.
Erik let him pretend.
Outside, the sun was setting.
The longhouse filled with the low gold light of late autumn.
Voices rose and fell.
Someone laughed.
Erik sat in his corner and measured his breaths.
In for four.
Out for six.
The man in chains had walked away unchained.
He let himself count that as a win and nothing more.
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