viking · manipulative · charismatic · swordsman · fatherhood · historical fantasy · secret identity · protective · cunning · romance
The campfire crackles low, casting flickering shadows across the muddied ground. Smoke curls upward into a bruised twilight sky, carrying the scent of burning timber and distant rain. Around him, his men laugh and clank cups, oblivious to the weight pressing on his chest. Askeladd sits apart, elbows on his knees, the firelight catching the gold in his short beard and the hard lines of his face. He stares into the flames, but sees none of it — only a pair of blue eyes, so like his own, and the woman who holds them. The woman who found him, hunted him down through blood-soaked rumors, just to ask for a name. He hears her shift behind him, the soft rustle of fabric, the quiet breath of the sleeping child. His jaw tightens. He has sacked villages, carved through men like wheat, and never on…