Chapter 13: The Blood Eagle's Shadow
Under moonlight that painted the world in silver and shadow, Paul crouched at the edge of Borg's hall with nineteen other warriors, watching his Weekly Vision become horrifying reality.
Every detail matched perfectly—the guard positions, the timing of patrols, even the specific door that would lead them to their target. But having perfect knowledge of what was coming didn't make it feel any less like stepping into a nightmare.
"In two hours, we'll have captured Borg. In three days, I'll watch Ragnar kill him in ways that will haunt my dreams forever."
Paul activated Odin's Whisper, draining his mana completely for the two minutes of perfect precognition that would make this capture flawless.
[ODIN'S WHISPER ACTIVATED]
[DURATION: 120 SECONDS]
[MANA COST: 100% CURRENT MP]
[REMAINING MANA: 0/18]
The world split into reality and perfect future, and Paul became the ghost that guided twenty killers through darkness with supernatural precision. He whispered position calls so quietly they were barely breath, but each word placed Viking steel exactly where it needed to be.
Guard turning corner in three seconds. Throat cut without sound. Body dragged into shadow.
Second patrol approaching from the east. Two men, drunk on duty. Knives between ribs, no time to scream.
Main door, barred from inside. Window on south wall, unguarded. Three warriors through, open door from within.
Paul moved through Borg's hall using vision-memory as his guide—left corridor, third door, guards at two positions who died before they understood what was happening. The Vikings flowed like water through passages Paul had never seen before but knew with absolute certainty.
They found Borg in his sleeping chamber, alone and vulnerable, waking to Ragnar's hand over his mouth and cold steel at his throat.
"Hello, old friend," Ragnar whispered with mock gentleness. "We need to discuss your recent behavior."
Borg's eyes widened with recognition and terror, but Ragnar's grip allowed no sound beyond muffled breathing. The capture was perfect—no alarms, no fighting, no casualties beyond the guards who'd died in silence.
They extracted through the forest escape route Paul had seen in his vision, Borg bound and gagged, carried like cargo between Vikings who'd lost friends to his betrayal. The entire operation took less than an hour, executed with surgical precision that left no witnesses and no survivors to raise pursuit.
When they were safely clear of Borg's lands, Paul collapsed against a tree, his mana completely depleted and his body shaking from mental strain. The perfect execution of his vision felt like victory, but the cost was written in the tremor of his hands and the gray static at the edges of his consciousness.
"Complete MP depletion. I'm running on fumes and willpower."
[SEVERE MANA DEPLETION DETECTED]
[RECOVERY TIME: 72 HOURS TO FULL CAPACITY]
[WARNING: CONTINUED STRAIN MAY CAUSE PERMANENT DAMAGE]
The Vikings whispered among themselves as they rode toward Kattegat with their prize, their voices carrying a reverence that made Paul's skin crawl.
"The seer sees everything. Even into our enemies' dreams."
"He guided us like we were his own hands."
"Odin's gift has never been so clear."
Paul closed his eyes and tried not to think about what came next.
Three days later, his mana restored and his strength returned, Paul stood in Kattegat's central square with the entire settlement gathered to witness justice. Borg knelt bound to a wooden post, stripped to the waist, his face bearing the particular pallor of a man who knew exactly what was coming.
"Blood eagle. The most brutal execution in Viking tradition. I know what Ragnar's going to do, and I know I have to watch."
The crowd was silent with anticipation. Men, women, children—everyone who'd lost something to Borg's betrayal, gathered to see their pain answered with pain. Paul understood the logic, the cultural necessity, the historical context.
Understanding didn't make it any easier to watch.
Ragnar approached with ritual solemnity, his seax catching firelight as he began the procedure that would transform a man into a symbol. The blood eagle was ancient justice—ribs severed from the spine, lungs pulled out to form "wings," death coming slowly through agony and blood loss.
It took forty minutes.
Borg screamed until his voice broke, then continued screaming in silence, his mouth open in soundless agony while Ragnar worked with methodical precision. The crowd watched with stoic approval or vocal encouragement—this was their culture, their justice, their way of ensuring that betrayal carried consequences beyond death.
Paul watched because turning away felt like cowardice, but every second burned into his memory with the clarity of system-enhanced perception. This wasn't television violence with cuts and music and comfortable distance—this was a real man dying in real agony for real betrayal, and Paul's modern sensibilities fractured under the weight of historical brutality.
When it was finally over, when Borg's suffering ended and the crowd began to disperse with satisfied murmurs, Paul staggered away from the square and vomited behind a building, his hands shaking with something beyond simple nausea.
"I enabled this. My vision made this possible. Does that make me complicit in what just happened?"
He was still retching when soft footsteps approached. Paul looked up to find Lagertha watching him without judgment or mockery, her expression carrying the kind of understanding that came from intimate familiarity with violence and its costs.
She sat beside him in the dirt without speaking, offering presence instead of platitudes. The silence stretched between them, broken only by Paul's occasional dry heaves and the distant sounds of the settlement returning to normal life.
"Some things are meant to sicken us," Lagertha said finally. "It means we're still human."
"Does it get easier?" Paul asked, his voice hoarse.
"No. You just learn to carry it differently."
Paul wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. "I saw this coming. I enabled this. Does that make me complicit?"
Lagertha was quiet for a long moment, considering the question with the seriousness it deserved.
"Borg killed innocents," she said finally. "Children, elders, people who'd never raised a weapon against him. You saw justice done. Brutal justice, but justice."
Paul wasn't convinced, but he accepted the framework she offered. In this world, in this culture, justice was measured in blood and pain. His modern morality was a luxury these people couldn't afford.
"You stayed to see it through," Lagertha continued. "That takes strength."
"Or stubbornness. Or stupidity. Hard to tell the difference sometimes."
They sat together as evening fell over Kattegat, two people bound by shared darkness and the understanding that violence carried costs beyond the death of enemies. Paul realized that Lagertha's strength wasn't the absence of feeling—it was the willingness to carry the weight anyway.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEATH'S DOOR]
[REWARD: +0.6 STAMINA, +0.3 STRENGTH]
[SYSTEM POINTS EARNED: 200]
[TOTAL DEBT: 1,575 SP REMAINING]
[MENTAL STRAIN WARNING: SEVERE PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS DETECTED]
[CONTINUED EXPOSURE TO TRAUMA MAY AFFECT VISION CLARITY]
That night Paul lay awake seeing Borg's death replaying behind his eyelids, understanding for the first time that the system's costs went beyond mana points and statistical drain. Every vision he received, every future he witnessed, became part of him forever—and some futures were heavier than others.
The price of seeing everything, he realized, wasn't just the magic it required.
It was carrying every vision forever, even the ones that broke something essential in the watching.
[NEW STATS: STR 1.8 (18 HP), STA 2.4 (24 MP), AGI 2.4, MAG 2.2]
[PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: MODERATE TRAUMA ACCUMULATION]
[RECOMMENDATION: EMOTIONAL GROUNDING ADVISABLE]
Paul closed his eyes and tried to sleep, knowing that tomorrow would bring new challenges, new choices, new opportunities to prove himself worthy of the power he'd been given.
The question was whether he'd still be human enough to care about the cost by the time he'd finished paying it.
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