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...
A/N: I have never really strictly followed the storyline as in the series, but from this point onward it will deviate even further from the series, so that's just a heads-up (: without further ado, enjoy the chapter <3
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The moment the Völva started with her Seidr, Ivar and Hvitserk were banished from the hut. According to the woman, the hut should not be entered by those who had no need for healing, lest they wanted to inflict a need of healing on themselves, until she was done. Ever since the shabby wooden door closed, Ivar had been pacing outside. In the meanwhile, the moon had replaced the sun and the stars looked down on him, but his worry had not been lessened. He had seen the look on the woman's face when his brother had carried her in, and it didn't promise much good.
"Brother," Hvitserk said, shaking him out of his trance of thought. He came walking from the woods, for the Völva's cabin was in a desolate place. A place where no one would be bothered by the occasional screaming except for an owl or a deer. "You need to sleep."
"I don't need to do anything," Ivar replied with a tone that suggested he was more than annoyed. He stopped walking, ready to lash out at his brother, because that was always his first reaction, but bit his tongue at the last moment. The look of worry on Hvitserk's face had not escaped Ivar's notice, nor the way he had carried Alasia all the way from the shed where she had been kept prisoner through the woods and to the healer's cabin. "But I cannot leave until she is done healing Adelasia."
"I will wait here," Hvitserk replied, shrugging casually. "While you rest. If the Völva is done, I will bring Adelasia to my cabin so she can rest."
Ivar considered his words for a while, before giving his brother a nod. "Bring her to mine instead."
Hvitserk frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "What about King Harald?"
"What about him?" Ivar replied agitatedly, making a dismissive wave with his hands. Though the conquer of Kattegat with the help of his uncle's Frankish troops had gone as smoothly as it possibly could have, he longed for nothing more than to settle his reign as Kattegat's King and begone with all strangers not belonging here. "I won Kattegat for the fool and now I am its King. There is nothing he can say of the things I do or do not, not if he wants to leave with his tongue."
Hvitserk nodded quietly. "As you wish, brother."
Ivar gave his older brother one last look, before grabbing his crutch from the side of the hut and starting the painful route back to his own cabin. While he walked along the edge of the forest, his mind was tormented with Adelasia and how she had looked when Hvitserk had laid her down on the narrow bed. Her eyes were swollen shut and bruised, her hands red from blood as if she was painting with it, but the worst had been revealed to him when the Völva had rolled her on her side. Her back was mutilated. There was one big cross, running all the way from her neck to her tailbone and from her right shoulder to her left, and many smaller ones around it until there was barely an inch of uncut skin left. Most of the wounds were angry red and infected, and it filled him with a rage and anger he had never quite felt before. He had intended for Lagertha to suffer before her death, but now she was going to experience something worse than Niflheim, worse than the fury of the Valkyries, worse than anything she could ever imagine.
