38. The Return Home
XXXVIII
THE RETURN HOME
Erik galloped along Mortlande’s barren fields through the night and into the next day. He had to catch Henry’s retreat and reach Seren before the blade. He pushed Viggo hard, and the horse, nearing the end of its warrior life, trusted Erik as if the beast knew it was its last run.
The sun set as December’s winds rushed past as Viggo raced without all the armor’s added weight. Erik raised in the saddle despite his burning thighs and leaned into the beast to keep the air enveloping them like they were one, and for warmth against the cold.
“Faster!”
He dug his heels in, and Viggo ran as if running for his life.
Erik’s fingers were stiff on the reins. The wind tore at his eyes, making everything blur. The two hand axes sheathed on his belt thumped cold against his back. His tunic clung to his damp skin, sweat frozen by the wind, threatening to tear apart at the seams.
He couldn’t feel his ears or his nose by the halfway point. The stallion’s breath fogged, as did his own. But he forced the horse into another burst of speed.
Castel Thornwyck rose through the winter mist like a blackened crown, and Erik bellowed with every shred of breath left in him, “Open the gate!”
The drawbridge lurched downward.
Viggo understood the urgency in his rider’s voice. Viggo surged forward, trembling with heat, foam streaking his chest. Erik felt the stallion falter beneath him, but the horse—loyal to the bone—did not slow.
He tore across the bailey at arrow point. Guards shouted warnings. He ignored all and ignored the fact that the host had already settled in the bailey.
The wind had ripped his tunic to shreds. The neckline hung open, the bodice split; the cloth cracked with frost against his skin. Odin’s spear and the Valknut stood bared across his body like war paint, black against winter-paled skin.
“It’s Commander de Montfort!” someone cried. “He lives!”
It meant Henry had told them he was dead.
Erik dug his heels in. Viggo lunged. Guards scattered.
He ducked beneath the inner gate, vaulted the bridge to the keep, and didn’t wait for the stallion to stop. He slammed off the horse as Viggo skidded over the timber, panting hard.
Pain flared up Erik’s spine, his legs begged to buckle—but he forced himself forward on pure will and love.
Took three stairs at a time.
Shoulder slammed stone.
Breath tore out of him in bursts.
“Seren, stay with me,” he begged under his ragged breath.
As if answering, Seren’s voice echoed down the spiral stairs. “In the name of the Father . . . ”
His heart pounded and twisted. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe he wouldn’t make it in time. He gritted his teeth and tore up the stairs, boots slamming stone. The roar in his ears wasn’t just exertion—it was terror that he would be too late.
The great hall burst into view as he rounded the last curve. Geoffrey stood over her, sword lifted, the blade catching the dying light.
Erik didn’t slow.
He ripped both axes from his belt in one harsh pull.
His boots pounded the wood floor, garnering attention.
He swung.
The axes crashed onto the sword’s crossguard with a crack that echoed through the hall. The blade tore from Geoffrey’s hands and clattered across the floor.
Momentum carried Erik forward—straight into Geoffrey’s back. His shoulder slammed into the man hard enough to send him skidding on his belly.
A guard lunged at him.
Erik flipped one axe in his hand and drove the butt end into the man’s forehead. The guard crumpled but would live.
A second guard charged. Erik kicked him square in the chest—felt ribs give but not break. The man collapsed backward.
Erik pivoted, breath ragged, chest heaving, voice raw from cold and sprint and fear.
Then he bellowed—a guttural, feral sound that froze the hall:
“I am not your enemy!”
He stepped around Seren, into her space, to put himself between her and Lord Henry—to shield her body with his own. No one was going to touch her, not while he was alive.
Behind him, Geoffrey pushed up on an elbow, touched the back of his neck, and stared at his fingers as if expecting blood. Finding none, he looked to Erik instead. A silent exchange passed between them—stunned respect, or something closer to surrender. Geoffrey knew how easily he could be dead.
Erik only hoped it was enough to clear the water between them—maybe have an ally if it came down to it.
Seren’s forehead pressed against the back of his trembling thigh, her fingers grazing the torn fabric by his ankle.
Her breath hitched.
His chest seized.
He glanced down, and the sight almost undid him.
He swallowed hard, forcing air through a throat lined with ice.
This was neither the place nor the moment to break—but seeing her alive, weeping, touching him as though afraid he might vanish again—it cracked something deep inside him. It melted the iron in his spine.
Her mouth was ajar. Her chest rose and fell in an unsteady rhythm. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her knuckles were white around the cross in her hand.
“You’re alive?” Her whisper trembled so faintly he barely caught it, but it struck his heart.
Alive.
For a moment, he believed she had called him back from death itself—his Valkyrie, touching earth instead of Valhalla. Some wild part of him begged any god who would listen to hold him upright, because for an instant, he wanted to fall to his knees before her.
He’d made it.
He’d reached her in time.
Henry’s laugh split the room and his thoughts. “So you rose from the dead and returned to your savage roots. Is that it, Payen de Montfort?”
Erik’s eyes snapped to his lord—a blurry streak, focus lagging until it settled on Henry. He rasped, “Chief Madoc’s message is this:”—he gulped air—“The northern chiefdoms are marching on Castel Thornwyck. He will kill everyone in this keep if you harm his daughter.”
“Let him try,” Henry said with a flippant wave of his hand. “Madoc is nothing compared to my stone citadel.”
Erik’s body was spent past reason, but still he bared his teeth and stood tall. The room spun, but he fixed his focus on Henry.
“Not just Madoc,” Erik spat through clenched teeth, breath tearing at his lungs. “All the chiefdoms.”
He licked his cracked lips. His chest hammered with breath that didn’t seem to come fast enough. He thought his ribs might split. His arm spasmed; his vision blurred. Exhaustion was fighting back against the surge he was using to stand.
“Still, Payen—did he hit you in the head too hard? This is Castel Thornwyck, and you are disobeying my order. Shall I bring your whelp up to remind you who gives the orders here?”
“Ragnar is dead,” Seren said behind him.
His son’s name echoed in his skull, a hollow, ringing ache.
“What?” Henry and Erik said, their gazes snapping to her.
Erik faltered at the knees.
The words replayed in his ears.
Ragnar. Dead.
He staggered. His legs quivered beneath his weight. A sound broke from him—half-breath, half-plea—as if denial were trying to claw its way out of him. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Seren didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on Henry. Erik’s brow furrowed as she spoke again.
“Half a year ago, Ragnar died,” she repeated, with a voice too calm for the words she said. “We buried him with the souls in Mortlande, beside his mother’s ashes.”
Erik’s heavy breath turned uneven. He saw his boy in flashes—bare feet on rushes, soft laughter. To never hold him again. To never see him take a wife, hold his own child—everything he had done to keep Ragnar alive—every compromise, every wound, every surrender—all in vain.
The keep held its breath.
The axe twitched in Erik’s hand.
Henry took a half step back.
Erik’s face twisted—grief detonating into rage. He turned toward Henry, ready to strike, but Seren’s voice cut through him.
“Now, Lord Henry, see if your two decades of cultivating loyalty in this savage have paid off.” She lifted her chin, holy and dangerous in the same breath. “Is he still loyal to the souls in this keep—the home he has guarded for so long—or will he try to take your life?”
Erik paused.
What was she doing?
Telling him not to kill Henry?
Had she lied about Ragnar? She’d called him a savage. She’d never do that.
Was Ragnar alive and hidden, protected?
Was she buying time?
Planning something?
She was kneeling—about to lose her own life. What plan could she possibly have?
He stared at Henry, breath shaking and mind racing.
He twirled the axe in his hand—blade up, then down—caught between vengeance and restraint, between the urge to kill and the woman who had just shattered his world with a single sentence.
Seren’s words shifted the air of the hall. The guards hesitated. The servants’ eyes flicked between lord and commander as if weighing which of them God favored—false piety or the pagan.
Erik’s grip tightened on the axe. The entire hall froze in the brittle moment.
Henry seemed to feel the hesitation, the shifting loyalty, and the danger he’d created with his own threats. A muscle ticked in his jaw. His voice cut with panicked fury buried under it.
“Enough,” he snapped, voice cracking with fear wearing authority’s mask. “You will not mock me in my own hall.”
His eyes cut to Erik. They were cold and final. “I’ll remind you who commands this keep. Prove your loyalty, savage.”
He jabbed a finger at Seren.
“You will execute her for treason . . . now.”
Erik refused. His words came out in spurts, sealing his decision and trust in the woman he loved.
“I care about the souls in this keep, Lord Henry. I’m proving it to you now that I will not execute your wife.
” He gathered what remained of his strength to stand upright and speak discernibly.
“Her death means months, years, under siege and plague. Madoc vowed every soul would burn. Her life is your life. They’ll be here at noon on the morrow. There’s nowhere to run.”
Feet shifted behind him. Hesitation thickened the air.