Chapter 30: The Night of Knives
The great hall of Kattegat rang with celebration that felt like a funeral dirge to Paul's supernatural senses, every laugh and toast carrying undertones of violence that would spill blood before dawn touched the harbor.
"They're celebrating survival while death positions itself in the shadows. And I have zero mana to confirm what my instincts are screaming."
Paul sat beside Lagertha at the high table, watching Horik's warriors position themselves with the casual efficiency of people who'd done this before. Eight men spreading through the hall like infection, each one checking sight lines and exit routes with the particular attention of soldiers preparing for slaughter.
His Premonition Sense fired constant warnings, but without mana to activate proper visions, Paul was reduced to reading body language and tactical positioning through exhausted perception that felt unreliable after months of supernatural enhancement.
"This is what normal people feel like all the time. Operating on incomplete information and hoping their guesses are right."
"It's tonight," Paul murmured to Lagertha, his voice barely audible under the din of celebration. "Spread the word—loyalists stay armed, children guarded, Floki ready."
Lagertha's hand found his beneath the table, a brief squeeze that acknowledged the warning before she began signaling her warriors with gestures so subtle they looked like casual movements. Paul caught Ragnar's eye across the hall and nodded once—a communication that carried weight accumulated through months of shared danger and mutual respect.
Ragnar's face hardened almost imperceptibly, the shift from celebration to readiness visible only to someone who'd learned to read the king's moods through battlefield crisis and political necessity.
"He understands. The warnings reached him, Floki followed through, and they're ready for what's coming."
Horik rose to make a toast, his cup raised high and his voice carrying to every corner of the hall.
"To victories and new beginnings!" he announced, looking directly at Ragnar with the particular smile of someone enjoying private knowledge. "To those who seize opportunities when they present themselves!"
Paul's hands shook—partly from mana exhaustion that left him feeling hollow, partly from adrenaline that came with watching assassination preparations unfold in real time. He lifted his own cup and drank ale that tasted like copper and dread, waiting for midnight and the sound of steel meeting flesh.
"You magnificent bastard. You have no idea that your trap has become our trap, that your opportunity has become your grave."
The attack came with the silent efficiency of people who'd killed sleeping families before. Horik's eight warriors moved through Kattegat's streets like shadows given substance, converging on Ragnar's quarters where his children should have been sleeping defenseless.
They found Floki's warriors waiting instead.
Paul heard the first clash of steel from across the settlement—the sound of carefully laid plans meeting superior preparation. He rose from his bed with the particular alertness of someone whose survival depended on immediate action, drawing his Fate-Carved Seax with hands that remembered the weight of death even when his mind felt sluggish from magical depletion.
"No mana. No potions. Just steel and whatever's left of my training after three months of hell."
The great hall erupted into chaos as Horik's remaining conspirators realized their coordinated strike had become a counter-trap that turned hunters into prey. Paul moved through the violence with reflexes honed by supernatural enhancement, even though the enhancement itself was gone.
A warrior lunged at him with an axe that would have split him from crown to groin. Paul sidestepped with timing learned from months of Odin's Whisper training, his seax finding the gap beneath the man's ribs with surgical precision. Blood sprayed across ancient pillars as the conspirator dropped, his eyes wide with surprise at being killed by someone who fought like he could see the future.
"Muscle memory. Pattern recognition. Three months of supernatural training doesn't disappear just because the magic is gone."
Lagertha and her elite warriors moved through Horik's forces like death made manifest, their enhanced training and superior equipment turning what should have been even odds into systematic slaughter. The battle lasted eight minutes from first clash to final death—long enough for violence to spread through the hall, short enough to prevent Horik's backup plans from taking effect.
Horik himself tried to flee when he understood that his conspiracy had been anticipated, countered, and turned against him. But Ragnar intercepted him at the hall's entrance with the particular fury of someone whose family had been threatened by trusted allies.
"Three months of Paris frustration. Political betrayal. Threatened children. All channeled into pure violence."
The fight between kings was brutal and brief. Horik had skill and desperation, but Ragnar had rage that came from understanding how close he'd come to losing everything that mattered. The final blow opened Horik's throat with an axe strike that painted the doorframe red, the would-be usurper's blood staining wood that had witnessed the rise and fall of ambitious men for generations.
Ragnar stood over the body, breathing heavily from exertion and the particular relief that came with surviving betrayal that had been methodically planned over months.
"The crow fell," he announced to the hall full of corpses and survivors. "The eagle's nest stands."
His eyes found Paul across the carnage, and something passed between them—acknowledgment of warnings delivered and heeded, of trust honored despite personal tensions that couldn't be easily resolved.
"Your warning saved my family," Ragnar said simply.
Paul tried to nod, to respond with appropriate gravity to the moment, but the world spun around him like water flowing down a drain. Mental and physical exhaustion hit simultaneously—the accumulated cost of months without proper rest, supernatural abilities pushed beyond their limits, and the particular stress that came from orchestrating events while unable to directly control their outcomes.
He collapsed unconscious as system diagnostics registered critical overload and initiated emergency shutdown protocols to prevent permanent psychological damage.
[SYSTEM EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED]
[CRITICAL STRESS LEVELS DETECTED]
[MANDATORY RECOVERY PERIOD: 72 HOURS]
[PREVENTING PERMANENT MENTAL DEGRADATION]
Paul woke three days later in Lagertha's private chambers, sunlight streaming through windows that spoke of time passed beyond his awareness. His mind felt clearer than it had in months—the forced rest had restored clarity that he'd been burning away through constant supernatural usage.
"Did we win?" he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.
Lagertha looked up from the scrolls she'd been reading, her expression carrying relief mixed with the particular exhaustion of someone who'd spent three days wondering if the person they loved would wake up intact.
"Obviously. You're alive."
She filled him in on the aftermath while he processed the return of mental acuity that felt like emerging from fog into clear air. Horik's conspiracy had been completely dismantled, his surviving supporters either dead or fled to territories where their treachery would be remembered. Ragnar had been crowned King of Kattegat officially, his authority confirmed through survival and the loyalty of people who understood that some threats could only be detected through supernatural foresight.
"They call you the Seer Who Sees True now," Lagertha said with the particular pride of someone whose partner had proven himself through competence rather than luck. "Even Ragnar admits you saved everything."
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: KINGMAKER]
[REWARD: +0.8 MAGIC, +0.5 AGILITY]
[SYSTEM POINTS EARNED: 600]
[TOTAL SYSTEM POINTS: 2,575]
[MENTAL STRAIN: RESTORED TO 75% CLARITY]
[WARNING: EXTENDED REST PERIOD MANDATORY - 30 DAYS MINIMUM]
Paul sat up carefully, testing his balance and finding his body functional despite three days of unconsciousness. The system warnings about extended rest carried weight that he couldn't ignore—he'd pushed himself to the breaking point and survived only through emergency protocols that might not save him a second time.
"I've survived Paris and Horik both. Altered timelines successfully. But the cost is written in system warnings and the knowledge that I can't sustain this pace indefinitely."
[NEW STATS: STR 2.9 (29 HP), STA 3.5 (35 MP), AGI 4.9, MAG 4.4]
[HORIK CONSPIRACY: RESOLVED]
[PAUL'S REPUTATION: LEGENDARY STATUS ACHIEVED]
[NEXT PHASE: RECOVERY AND CONSOLIDATION]
Outside the window, Kattegat continued its daily existence under the rule of a king whose family lived because supernatural warnings had been delivered by someone who understood that some futures could be changed through careful preparation and the willingness to pay whatever price survival demanded.
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