The air was damp with the memory of last night's rain when the first light touched the hall's rising frame. Mist curled low around the cliff path, ghostlike and quiet, as if the land itself paused to watch this place grow.
Most of the workers still slept in the lower huts, but Sigurd was already awake.
He stood barefoot on the timber floor of the half-formed hall, breath slow, arms loose at his sides. He'd risen before dawn, drawn by something he didn't fully understand—only that he wanted to belong to this place… to something greater.
He widened his stance, bending his knees just slightly. One hand hovered near his thigh. His chin lowered. His eye narrowed toward the dark entryway as though watching prey just beyond sight.
Trying to stand like him.
Trying to feel like the legends whispered:
That when Ragnar faced enemies stronger and more numerous, he didn't rush… he waited like a wolf in tall grass, silent and coiled, until his moment came.
Sigurd tried to hold that stillness.
For a heartbeat, he almost believed he felt it.
Then a wooden step creaked behind him.
He stiffened, stumbled, nearly falling.
Ragnar stood at the hall's edge, silent as stone, arms crossed, broad frame blocking part of the rising sun behind him.
Sigurd's breath caught in his chest.
Ragnar said nothing. He didn't scoff. Didn't correct him. Didn't encourage.
He simply watched him for a long, quiet moment with that single storm-hardened eye.
Then he turned away and walked toward the far side of the hall, where new stone was being marked for the lower foundation wall.
Sigurd stood frozen until his pulse calmed. Only then did he release a shaky breath. He didn't know if he had embarrassed himself.
But Ragnar had not stopped him.
For a boy like Sigurd, that felt like permission to try again.
—
Near the edge of the cliff, Torva trained alone, repeating the striking drills given to younger trainees by village mentors. But her stance was different now—less rigid, more fluid. She took her time before striking, waiting and measuring each moment instead of rushing. When she moved, it was like she did so from instinct rather than fear.
Eivor passed her on the way back from checking the perimeter.
She paused mid-step.
Torva hadn't noticed her watching.
The girl finished a strike, then exhaled in calm, controlled silence. Not triumphant. Not shaken. Just steady.
Much like Eivor herself, long ago.
Eivor said nothing, but there was a faint glint in her eye that hadn't been there before.
She continued walking.
Torva only realized moments later who had been watching. Her heartbeat skipped—but not from fear.
From hope.
—
By midmorning, the hall was waking. Work began, fires rekindled, tools readied.
But something had shifted in the air.
Ragnar stood on the threshold of the hall, Eivor beside him, Hakon checking the boundary stakes, Brynja pacing at the beams like a caged battle-hound waiting for someone to test her patience.
And far down the path carved into the mist—
Figures appeared.
Twelve of them. All women.
Wounded, travel-worn, yet walking in disciplined formation as though an army of ghosts marched behind their steps.
A faded serpent sigil was sewn into their tattered cloaks.
Clan Ormr had come.
And fate walked with them.
They emerged from the morning mist like revenants—twelve women moving in tight formation, shoulders squared despite exhaustion, cloaks torn but not discarded. Each bore either a blade, a scar, or a burden openly worn in their eyes.
Their armor was mismatched and battered from long travel, but every piece had once been crafted in a unified style: curved plates and scaled patterns, echoing the serpent that once defined their identity.
Most carried round shields etched with a faded sigil: a serpent devouring its tail.
Clan Ormr.
At their front walked a young woman no older than nineteen.
Her hair was dark gold, braided back from a face too stern for her years. Dirt stained her jawline, but her posture remained noble—royalty trying very hard not to look broken. A fraying black-and-green cloak fell to her thighs, clasped with a serpent-shaped brooch that had been hastily re-bent after being partially crushed.
She did not look at the structure first.
She looked at Ragnar.
He stood at the entrance to the hall, back straight, arms slightly crossed. Eivor stood at his right, silent but unflinching. Brynja coiled to his left like a wolf itching to see violence. Hakon observed just behind, reading the newcomers with soldier's caution.
The leader of the Ormr band slowed her steps and raised her chin.
Her voice, when it came, was hoarse but regal.
> "I am Thyra Ormrdottir, daughter of Jarlskona Víðris of Clan Ormr—exiled heir to a hall now stained by my aunt's betrayal."
Several of her shieldmaidens lowered their heads in restrained grief or anger.
Thyra continued, never breaking Ragnar's gaze.
> "We seek passage. Shelter. Purpose. If this hall is what they name it—Vargrhall—then I ask to speak to its Wolf."
At the utterance of the name, Ragnar's eye flicked faintly—but he neither confirmed nor rejected it.
Instead, he began walking forward.
The weight of his presence crashed through the air like a drawn blade.
Thyra held her ground.
The shieldmaidens behind her braced unconsciously.
Eivor's fingers brushed her spear haft.
Brynja grinned, whispering, "Oh, this will be fun."
Hakon's expression hardened—ready to act in a heartbeat.
Ragnar stopped at arm's length from Thyra.
For a silence that stretched like a taut bowstring, he simply watched her.
Not her words. Not her posture.
Her soul.
Thyra kept her head high, but her breath came slower now—as if she knew she was being judged at a level deeper than flesh or oath.
Then—
Ragnar moved.
His hand shot out like lightning.
His fingers clamped around her throat.
Her back slammed into one of the unfinished support pillars, the wood cracking slightly from the force. The impact knocked breath from her lungs—but not the pride from her eyes.
Her shieldmaidens reacted instantly:
– One screamed her name.
– Two half-drew blades.
– Three stepped forward in fury.
– The rest froze in an instinctual mix of terror and rage.
"Hold," Thyra choked out, even as Ragnar lifted her partially off the ground.
Her voice was strained, but her command struck like steel. The shieldmaidens halted—fury trembling in their stances—but they obeyed.
Ragnar's grip tightened.
And then—
Fate opened beneath her.
---
In the space of a heartbeat, Thyra was no longer on the cliff.
She was there.
In a hall fully completed, carved in blackened wood and bone, echoing with chants of wolves and thunder. A great throne rose above all—a brutal masterpiece of power shaped like jaws ready to devour kings.
Atop it sat Ragnar—older, wild, crowned by stormlight. His single eye blazed with lightning and blood. His cloak was made of winter wolf pelts, dragging across a floor stained with victory and ruin.
Around him stood women—thirteen in total.
Eivor—raven-eyed, cloaked in black, standing at his right side like his First Fang.
Brynja—laughing, spattered in blood, leaning on her spear like a war-goddess.
Herself—Thyra—kneeling just behind them, armored in serpent-wolf steel, awaiting command with fevered devotion.
And nine more whose faces she could not yet see—but whose power filled the hall like thunder's daughters.
When Ragnar raised his hand, every woman in the circle knelt.
Including her.
And it did not feel like humiliation.
It felt like home.
—
Thyra gasped as the vision snapped.
She was back against the pillar, Ragnar's hand still at her throat, his storm-lit eye unreadable.
Her heart roared.
And before she could stop herself, barely louder than a breath:
> "...My king."
Brynja barked a delighted laugh.
Hakon's hand tightened on his axe.
Eivor's expression did not change—but her gaze grew colder.
Ragnar's grip released.
Thyra stumbled but did not fall. She steadied herself and stood—not as a broken woman, but as one who had seen something worth surviving for.
Ragnar turned away.
His voice was calm—dangerously so.
"Earn your place… or bleed trying."
Then he walked back toward the hall.
Thyra lowered herself to one knee.
Her shieldmaidens, uncertain but loyal, followed suit.
Their exile had ended.
Their trial had begun.