Claimed by the Viking

Chapter 1 : Rise and Shine

The bed was moving around.

When she woke up, it's the first thing that came up to Adelheid's mind. The bed in which she was, felt like it was moving around. What a strange idea.

She opened her eyes and upon seeing the foreign room she was in, she felt anxious. It looked like a bedroom since she was laying on a large bed, but the huge cluttered desk that occupied nearly an entire wall and the many chests scattered around made her think differently: it might have been a study or a storage room.

Trying to get up, Adelheid put her foot on the ground, and realized it felt like it was moving as well. That's when she finally understood where she was: in a bedroom or an office, yes. But on a boat. She had once been on one with her father before he dropped her off in a small village. The feeling of unstability was the same as it had been then. Adelheid's stomach knotted a bit because of the swaying, but she managed to get a grip of it. She was only wearing her light undershirt and it felt cold now that she had gotten out of the furs covering the bed. Her hands were still dark from the ashes of the village.

The village.

All that Adelheid could recall was that she had been sitting in the drawing room with her nursemaid, knitting an umpteenth scarf, feeling like she might soon die of boredom. Then the bell of the watch tower had been rung and she had wondered if it was another mistake made by young Tom, who had already rung it twice by mistake in the prior month. She had gone to the window and realized that for the first time, this was no mistake. The inhabitants of the village were running around and the sound of panicked voices started to grow louder as armed men were assaulting them. She had immediatly ran in her bedroom to get her dagger and the necklet her mother had left for her before dying while her nursemaid had completely dissapeared, probably to go to the church, a safer place than the house. When she went down with idea of joining her, she saw by the window that it was too late and too dangerous: the Vikings were dragging people out of the church with no pity, even if this place was sacred. They definitely were barbarians. Her nursemaid was nowhere in sight. Seeing no other choice, Adelheid had fled by the backdoor of the house and ran as fast as she had been able to towards the forest, where she hid under some bushes, glad she had taken her green coat before escaping since it was cold outside and the color of it would help her blend in easier. She could hear a few inhabitants around her, running in the forest too, some seemed to escape successfully, others fell down and she could hear their agonizing screams, refusing to open her eyes, afraid of what she might have seen if she kept them opened.

Paralyzed, knowing very well that not moving was her only chance of survival, it's only two days later that she went back to the village, only to find it entirely burnt down, ashes still fuming under her feet. Starved and worn out, she had lost consciousness when she recognized a cut down hand that was as black as charcoal on the ground.

Those were her last memories.

Adelheid gulped down the uneasiness that was in her throat and tried to get up, not being stable enough to do so without holding onto the walls and pieces of furniture around her. Doing so, she managed to get to the desk and tried to study the different maps that were messily scattered on it. There were also different compasses and other objects she didn't know. She understood that she indeed was in not any cabin of the boat, but probably in the captain's one. She feared for some time that she might be on a pirates' ship, since rumors had it recently there had been a few around the coasts of her country.

Feeling lightheaded, Adelheid went to the chair in front of the desk and let herself fall in it. She didn't understand what she was doing here. She was pretty sure there was no scavengers left when she went back to the village after the attack, so whose ship was that?