Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all it took for Adelasia's whole life to turn upside down. After being captured by the heathens raiding her city and taken all the way to the cold North, the youngest Ragnarsson takes an interest in her...
"Will you join in the battle in two days, Helga?" Alasia asked curiously as she played with the cross resting above her bosom. The two of them were seated on a riverbank, not too far away from where the ships were docked and Helga was braiding her hair. Nothing too Viking-like, she had assured, and though Alasia trusted Helga without a second thought, she couldn't help but wonder how certain people would react if she wore her hair in a Northern style.
They had arrived at Repton almost three days ago and Ivar had been occupied with the war council every day from sunset until the moon was high in the sky. She was both glad and grieved by that fact. Glad, because ever since their encounter in the church in the previous town things had returned to the painfully formal way as they had been when she had just arrived in Kattegat and because it offered her some free time to roam camp and visit Helga and Criseyde during the day. Grieved, because no matter how hard she tried to ignore Ivar and to banish any thoughts of him to the back of her mind, she couldn't deny the fact that she enjoyed seeing his face. At least, when he wasn't scolding her.
"No," Helga replied, gently tugging on one of the strands of hair. "But I will join in taking over the castle once they've succeeded on the battlefield."
Alasia let out a soft hmm, the concept of women fighting still foreign to her. She knew that in the ancient Greek stories her father sometimes told her there was a whole group of fierce female warriors called the Amazons, who would cut off their right breast so that they could handle a bow better, but she had always thought they were just that, stories. Letting go of her cross, she reached out and plucked a flower from the ground, bringing it to her nose. "I don't think you should go."
"I know you're still not used to the idea of shieldmaidens and women being equal warriors as men, but it is how we are raised and trained," Helga explained, her voice and touch soothing. "It is nothing I have not done before."
"No, it's not that," Alasia replied, her eyes focused on the many petals of the white flower. She couldn't explain exactly what she was feeling, but the thought of Helga wandering in a castle filled with Saxon warriors caused an unfamiliar and uncomfortable tug in the pit of her stomach. "I just have a feeling that something bad is going to happen."
With a swift and last tug, Helga stopped braiding, but before Alasia had the chance to get on her knees and bend over the river to admire her new hairstyle, she felt two urgent hands on her shoulder, forcing her to turn around. Looking a little surprised, she looked at Helga, who was staring back at her like she was trying to figure something out. "Tell me, what exactly is it that you are feeling?"
