Morning light spilt pale across the wooden floor, sharp against the stone walls. She sat up slowly, fingers curled tight in the furs. Cold air stung her arms, but she didn't shiver.
No guards. No Azgar. Nothing.
Her eyes traced the window ledge—smooth stone, a drop to the yard below. A hard climb, but not impossible. The second window faced the slope. Jagged, snow-wrapped. She could see the ridge trail winding toward the woods.
Two exits. No visible sentries. Snow too thick for a clean escape—but thinning. One more week. Seven days to vanish like a ghost. That meant six more to make herself invisible.
She stood and crossed to the door, easing it open.
It creaked faintly, but it opened.
No bar, so either trust or a message.
She sat at the edge of the cot and began combing her fingers through her hair. Silver strands caught in the weak light like silk wire. Foreign here. Too bright. Too obvious. She twisted them into a single braid, tight and clean, and dressed in the same heavy woollen garb she'd been given—neutral, unremarkable.
A knock. Then the door eased open.
It was the same older woman with the stiff leg—the headwoman, perhaps. She gave Vesaria a brief nod and waited. No commands. Just a silent expectation.
Vesaria rose without a word and followed.
This time, no one stared as she walked through the village paths. No whispers. No laughter. Only smoke curling from hearths and the low drone of winter routines.
At the workhall, a younger woman greeted her with a brisk smile and waved her inside. Vesaria returned the nod but kept her expression composed, unreadable. Already, her eyes scanned the same benches. Same hanging herbs. Same dye-stained stones.
The red-haired girl with the bark-stained apron stirred the dye vats. Fast hands. Loud laugh. Never still. The scarred older woman sorted herbs by colour and scent. Her hands never trembled—a healer. The tall woman with the tightly braided crown went in and out often, speaking to men. Oversaw others. That person was important.
Vesaria took her place quietly, peeling roots and folding hides, her eyes sharp. Never first. Never last. Just another ghost in the room.
Blend in. Be forgettable. And keep your eyes open.
Someone offered her a sliver of dried fruit. Vesaria took it.
Later, when no one was watching, she dropped it into the fire.
As midday rolled by, they gave her a new task. The wool scratched her forearms, but she bore it without complaint. Two thick bundles, knotted in twine and faintly scented with smoke and lanolin, were dumped into her arms, and she was gestured toward the slope behind the smokehouse. No words. Just pointed fingers and a vague grunt from the tall woman with the braid.
Vesaria walked carefully, steady despite the weight. The snow crunched underfoot, a treacherous, uneven crust that tugged at her balance. She memorised everything.
This trail forks left toward the stables. Those pens must house the larger beasts—goats or cattle. The gates are down that ridge. Guard rotations? Hard to say. No one watched me cross this path.
The building she was led to was squat and low, steam curling from a hole in the roof. A woman stood in the entrance—grey-haired, bundled in layers, with eyes clouded by age but sharp nonetheless. Vesaria offered the wool silently.
The old woman handed her something in return—a small, waxy bundle wrapped in oiled cloth—and patted her arm once. No explanation. What?
Vesaria blinked. Then turned and walked.
Three children played in the road, their laughter like sparrows flitting between rooftops. One had a carved horn, another tossed snow with red-mittened hands. Without pausing, she dropped the bundle into the nearest set of hands. They tore the cloth open to reveal dried fruit, something candied. She kept walking as their squeals increased.
Back in the workhouse, she barely had time to draw breath before another gesture sent her out again—this time with an empty pail and pointed directions toward the east wall.
Snow. Fresh snow for cooking? What barbarism.
She reached the drift and began to dig. It took longer than she thought. The crust wouldn't break clean. Her hands, even in furs, numbed fast. The cold seeped up her arms, into her boots, into her teeth.
Primitive fools, she snarled inwardly, with their dye pots and snow-buckets and root-broths. South of the ridge, they would have dug a well, and carried boiled water on silver trays. Here, we hack at frozen slush and hope it's clean.
By the time she had two full buckets, her sleeves were soaked, and her knees throbbed. She shuffled back toward the hall, breath curling white into the air.
And there he was.
Azgar.
Leaning against a timber post like it meant nothing. Furs unfastened, hair damp from snow. He noticed her before she could look away.
He stepped into her path. "You are freezing," he said in his halting Southern. "Why are you outside?"
She straightened the buckets in her grip. "Working."
He studied her. His voice was calm. "Your room. Is it warm enough?"
So this was a check-in now? A performance of concern?
"It suffices," she said coolly.
Azgar glanced at the buckets. "You carry all that?"
"No one offered to do it for me."
"You did not ask."
She shifted her grip, chin high. "I do not beg."
He studied her, then shrugged off the fur cloak from his shoulders. "Take this."
She didn't move. No one was around; why was he acting this way? When he stepped forward, she stiffened—but let him drape it over her.
She didn't say thank you. He didn't press. Instead, he said softly, "You need to take care of yourself. If you freeze, you can't run."
Her gaze snapped to him, a spark of heat cutting through the cold — gone in an instant. Was he teasing her?
He didn't smirk. Just stepped aside, gesturing her path clear.
"Go. Finish."
******
Inside the hall, as soon as she stumbled through the threshold, a pair of chatty women took the buckets from her. They barely verbally acknowledged her soaked state. Instead, one pressed a small towel into her hand. Another pointed to the stool by the wall.
She sank with a quiet exhale and, without thinking, removed the cloak from her shoulders. She folded it and placed it beside her.
"Fánel," a voice came from beside her.
She looked up. It was the red-haired girl from before. She motioned to the cloak and said something in a sing-song voice, eyes bright.
Another woman snorted behind her hand. Then came the teasing pantomime—a bridal veil mimed with the edge of a cloth, followed by a breathy "warlord" spoken in their thick tongue.
Vesaria stared at them. They giggled. Nudged her arm. Vesaria didn't respond, but she saw the look in their eyes. Not deference. Not resentment.
Just… normalcy. As if she were nothing special.
She took the warm bowl handed to her, pretended to sip the greasy broth, and thought—
They don't bow, even to him. So they won't bow to me. Interesting.
The horn sounded near sunset, long and low.
A ripple passed through the room. Women began folding cloth, packing herbs, and covering vats. Vesaria followed without being told. She rolled hides, wiped tools, and doused the small fire beneath the dye pot.
As they spilt out into the chill again, her limbs ached with use, her fingers rough from bark and dye.
She walked back toward the longhouse out of habit, only to pause mid-step.
No. Not that one anymore.
Her new quarters waited on the east path.
She turned and froze.
A woman ahead laughed as a man approached, grinning, snow-dusted, arms swinging. They embraced. She kissed him without shame, without urgency, in public! A child barreled into his legs. The man bent to scoop the boy up with ease.
Casual. Domestic.
She hadn't considered that there could be normalcy in this barbaric Iceland. Something tightened in Vesaria's chest. She crushed it instantly.
You do not want this.
Not from this place. Not from him.
She kept walking, arms unconsciously pulling the heavy coat closer as she made her way to her new chambers.
Inside, the hearth had burned low, leaving the room pleasantly warm despite the wind pressing against the shutters. Vesaria closed the door and stood listening for a moment before crossing to the cot. Voices drifted faintly from the yard, followed by the scrape of boots over frozen ground, but no one approached her room.
She removed the heavy cloak Azgar had given her and folded it over the foot of the cot. The fur was finer than anything else she had been provided, thick enough to keep out the worst of the cold, and she ran her fingers briefly across the dark pelt before withdrawing her hand.
She would return it eventually.
For now, it was useful.
Kneeling beside the cot, Vesaria examined the floorboards she had noticed that morning. Most fitted tightly together, their edges worn smooth by years of use, but one near the wall had lifted slightly at the corner. She slipped a fingernail beneath it and pulled. The wood resisted until she worked it loose with the narrow end of her comb, raising it just enough to reveal a shallow space beneath.
She glanced toward the door.
Nothing.
From the inside of her sleeve, she withdrew a small scrap of cloth torn from the lining of her old Southern gown. She had kept it hidden since the journey north, too insignificant for anyone to notice and too familiar for her to discard. Its pale embroidery had begun to unravel, but she could still recognize the delicate stitching that had once decorated the hem.
Vesaria folded it carefully and tucked it into the hollow beneath the board.
It was hardly a collection worth hiding. She had no provisions, no money, no weapon, and no certainty about which road would take her safely beyond the mountains. Even the scrap of cloth would serve little practical purpose if she managed to escape, but she needed somewhere to begin, somewhere to put the things she would gather without leaving them among her belongings for anyone to find.
She pushed the board back into place and brushed the loose dust from its edges until the seam looked much as it had before. Then she sat back on her heels and considered the room around her. Two windows, an unbarred door, a hearth she could tend herself. No guard standing outside to question her movements.
Azgar had given her more freedom within the settlement than she had expected, and the women had already begun treating her as another pair of hands rather than a prisoner who needed watching. If she continued working without complaint, ate what they gave her, and returned to her room every evening, perhaps they would soon stop paying attention to where she went at all.
She could endure another week.
Vesaria rose, replaced her comb among her few possessions, and settled beneath the furs. Beyond the eastern window, the mountains stood dark against the last pale light, their slopes disappearing into forests she had yet to explore.
She watched them until the room grew dim.
Soon.