Torches weren't allowed.
Not for this.
If a flame was seen from the wrong angle, Svein would hear about it before the smoke even faded—and then Haraldson would hear, and then everything would end the way Haraldson liked: slow.
So we met in the dark, in Erik's house, where the walls were thick and the fire was kept low and the men inside spoke like the gods themselves were listening for gossip.
I stepped in with Rollo at my back.
Six heads turned.
Torstein first—broad-shouldered, calm-eyed, the kind of man who didn't waste words. Arne sat beside him, one eye hidden under leather and scar tissue, fingers drumming the haft of his knife like he was already bored. Leif leaned forward like a hungry dog. Erik—older, weathered—watched me as if he'd seen boys with big ideas die for less.
And then there was Knut, Haraldson's half-brother, sitting in the corner like a shadow that had learned to breathe.
That made my stomach tighten.
If Knut was here, this meeting was either a miracle… or a trap.
Rollo cleared his throat, loud in the quiet.
"Well?" he said. "We've risked our skins coming here. Say it."
I didn't waste time.
"We sail west," I said. "Soon. Before Haraldson can stop us."
Silence.
Then Leif scoffed, loud enough to earn a sharp look from Erik.
"West," Leif repeated, like he'd heard a child claim he'd wrestled a troll. "There is no west. There's just water until you fall off the world."
Arne nodded once. "East is known. East is silver. East is slaves. East is alive."
Torstein didn't speak right away. He just watched me.
"What changed?" he asked. "Last year you talked about west. The year before that too. Talking doesn't make ships float."
I felt Ragnar's stubbornness rise—hot, familiar—but I forced myself to keep my voice level.
"I have a way to hold our course," I said.
Knut's mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something colder.
"By staring at the sun?" he said. "You'll stare at the sun until you go blind. Then Haraldson will be pleased. Less noise."
Rollo's shoulders tensed like he was about to lunge across the room.
I lifted a hand—not because I was afraid of Rollo starting a fight, but because I couldn't afford it.
"I'm not asking you to believe a story," I said. "I'm asking you to look."
I reached into my pouch and pulled out the wooden disc—smooth, carved, with notches around the edge and a short peg rising from its center.
The sun board.
Even holding it made my skin prickle, because the memory attached to it wasn't mine: a traveler's grin, the smell of strange herbs, words about the horizon and lands that ate gold like bread.
I set the disc on the floor.
Then I placed a shallow bowl of water beside it and floated the board so it could level itself.
A few men leaned in despite themselves.
"The peg casts a shadow," I said. "At midday, the shadow's length tells us our place. If the shadow grows too long, we've drifted. If it shortens too much, we've drifted the other way."
Leif squinted at it. "And when clouds cover the sun?"
I pulled out the second thing the traveler had given me: a pale crystal, no bigger than a thumb, smooth and cold. It caught what little firelight there was and broke it into a faint, ghostly shine.
"This helps find the sun even when it hides," I said.
Arne leaned back, unimpressed. "Or it's a pretty rock."
"Maybe," I said. "But the board is not magic. It is wood and shadow. And I've tested it."
Erik's eyes narrowed. "Where?"
"On the fjord," I answered. "Different times. Different days. It holds steady."
Torstein finally nodded, slow.
"So you have a tool," he said. "A toy, maybe. Not proof of land."
"Land exists whether we believe in it or not," I said. "And even if we find nothing—if the gods laugh and we die in open water—then we die trying for something new."
Knut snorted. "Pretty words. Words don't feed children."
I turned to him.
"No," I said. "Silver does."
That got their attention.
I let the silence do its work, then spoke the plain truth that mattered to men like these.
"East is thin now," I said. "More ships every year. More men fighting over the same villages. The same coins. The same scraps. Haraldson sends us there because it keeps us hungry enough to obey."
Rollo's face tightened, but he didn't argue. He hated Haraldson, and everyone knew it.
"If we find land west," I continued, "we find a shore that doesn't know our names. We find monks who don't carry axes. We find silver that isn't guarded by men who raid for a living."
Leif's eyes flickered, greedy despite himself.
Torstein rubbed his jaw. "And Haraldson?"
"We don't ask him," I said.
That landed like a stone dropped in still water.
Arne chuckled, low. "So we become outlaws."
"We become free men," Rollo cut in, voice hard. "And we do it as equals."
The room shifted.
That mattered.
Because one fear sat under all the others: that Ragnar would lead them into hell and then keep the best of the profit like a little earl of his own.
Rollo stepped forward, eyes sweeping the men.
"No one is above anyone on this voyage," he said. "No lord. No earl. No favorites. We share the risk, we share the reward."
Knut raised an eyebrow. "Even you?"
Rollo smiled, but there was nothing friendly in it.
"Especially me," he said. "I'm tired of crawling for scraps too."
Erik stared at me. "And you agree?"
I didn't hesitate.
"All equal," I said. "And the spoils split fairly."
Torstein held my gaze a moment longer, then nodded once.
"Then speak the oath," he said.
My pulse kicked.
This was the real test.
Words were easy. Oaths were binding.
I reached for my arm ring—thick, worn, honest metal—and held it out.
"One by one," I said. "You swear on the ring. Not to Haraldson. Not to Kattegat. To each other. That you will not speak of this. That you will not run to Svein for favors. That you will sail with us."
They moved.
Torstein first, because Torstein was always first when it mattered. His hand closed around the ring, grip like an anchor.
"I swear," he said, simply.
Arne followed. "I swear," he said, with a shrug that didn't hide the gleam in his remaining eye.
Leif swore too—too fast, too eager.
Erik swore, slower, like he was measuring the weight of every word.
Kauko—silent, broad—said nothing at all, just pressed his hand to the ring and nodded once. That was his oath.
Then Knut stood.
The room tightened.
Knut's fingers touched the ring.
"I swear," he said.
And my skin crawled.
Maybe it was my own fear talking. Maybe it was Ragnar's instincts. Maybe it was the simple truth that men close to power never let go of power without a reason.
But I felt it anyway.
A cold thread under my ribs that whispered: watch him.
When the oaths were done, Torstein spoke again.
"When?" he asked.
"Three nights," I said. "Before dawn."
Leif blinked. "That soon?"
"Yes," I said. "If we wait, Haraldson finds out. And if Haraldson finds out, he kills us one by one."
No one argued with that.
Rollo leaned toward me, voice low.
"If we're doing it," he said, "we do it clean. No hesitation. No second thoughts. We leave like thieves."
I nodded.
"Good," Torstein said. "Tell us where to meet."
I gave them the place—by the boats, where the new ship was hidden, away from the main harbor where Haraldson's eyes were thick.
Then, just before we broke apart, Erik asked the question no one wanted to say out loud.
"And if one man betrays the oath?"
No one looked at Knut.
But everyone heard the silence.
I met Erik's gaze.
"Then he dies," I said.
Simple. Old. The way things had always been done.
And the only way to keep men honest when fear and silver start whispering in their ears.
Lagertha didn't raise her voice when I got home.
That was worse.
She was sitting by the hearth, mending a strap with practiced hands, Gyda asleep beside her. Bjorn watched me from the doorway, too alert for a boy who should've been tired.
Lagertha looked up once.
"You were with Floki," she said.
Not a question.
Then: "And with Rollo."
I didn't lie. Lying to her was like trying to hide blood in snow.
"Yes," I said.
She set the strap down slowly.
"Then you're going," she said. "West."
Bjorn's eyes widened, hopeful and hungry.
Lagertha ignored him and stood.
"You stood in the Earl's hall today," she said. "You heard his threat. You know what he will do if he finds out."
"I know," I said.
"And you still choose this."
I held her gaze.
"Yes."
For a moment, something like grief flickered across her face—gone as fast as it came.
Then she stepped close enough that I could smell smoke in her hair and iron on her skin.
"You want to know what's real?" she said quietly. "Real is this house. Real is Bjorn. Real is Gyda. Real is the field that needs plowing when you're off chasing a horizon."
Her words hit because they were true.
Tradition. Home. Work. The steady things men forget when they dream of glory.
"I'm not chasing glory," I said.
Lagertha's mouth tightened.
"All men chase something," she said. "Even when they swear they aren't."
Bjorn couldn't hold it anymore.
"Take me," he blurted. "I'm a man now. You gave me the ring. I can fight."
Lagertha's head snapped toward him.
"Sit," she said, sharp.
Bjorn stiffened but stayed put, defiant.
I looked at him. My son—Ragnar's son—eyes bright with the need to prove himself.
And I hated what I had to do.
"No," I said. "Not this time."
Bjorn's face fell.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because you're my son," I said. "And because I need you here. Your mother needs you here. Your sister needs you here."
That didn't satisfy him. It wouldn't. Boys don't understand the cost until it's carved into them.
Lagertha watched me with that same steady gaze she used on wounded men.
"You will come back," she said.
It wasn't hope.
It was an order.
"I will," I said, even though part of me didn't believe promises meant anything on open water.
She nodded once.
Then her voice dropped, softer—but no less deadly.
"If you don't," she said, "I will raise Bjorn to hate your name."
That was Lagertha: love sharpened into a blade.
I didn't flinch.
"Fair," I said.
She picked up the strap again, mending like it was the only thing keeping the world from tearing apart.
The Seer's place smelled like rot and incense and damp earth.
Bjorn hated it there. I could see it in the way he held his shoulders tight, like he expected claws to come out of the shadows.
The Seer sat in the dim, head tilted as if listening to voices the rest of us couldn't hear.
When he spoke, it wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
"Ragnar Lothbrok," he said, voice like dry leaves.
Bjorn swallowed.
I stepped forward.
"I want to know if the gods favor my journey," I said.
The Seer's blind eyes lifted toward me anyway, and it felt like being seen too clearly.
"The gods favor you," he murmured. "Today."
The word hung there, sharp.
"Today," I repeated.
He smiled—thin, strange.
"They give," he said. "And they take away."
Bjorn shifted, uncomfortable.
The Seer's head turned toward him.
"And this one," the Seer said. "This one will become greater than you."
Bjorn's eyes widened.
My chest tightened.
Not with pride. With fear.
Because greatness in this world always demanded payment.
I forced my voice steady.
"Will I die on this journey?"
The Seer's smile widened as if I'd asked a child's question.
"Everyone dies," he said.
Then, softer: "But not everyone is remembered."
I wanted to press him. I wanted certainty. I wanted the future laid out like a road.
But the Seer didn't deal in certainty. He dealt in hooks—words that lodged in your mind and dragged you toward whatever fate waited.
As we left, Bjorn grabbed my sleeve.
"He's mad," he muttered.
"Maybe," I said.
Bjorn scowled. "Then why listen to him?"
I looked down at my son.
"Because even mad men sometimes speak the truth," I said. "And because men like us don't get to pretend the gods aren't watching."
Bjorn didn't like that.
But he remembered it anyway.
Floki was waiting by the hidden shore when I came down again.
He was covered in tar and sawdust like a man who'd rolled in his own obsession. His eyes glittered.
"Come," he said, barely containing himself. "Look."
The ship sat there like a secret.
Sleeker than the others. Built to cut open water, not just crawl along coasts. The lines were wrong in the best way—new, daring, almost arrogant.
Floki touched the hull like it was alive.
"She is beautiful," he whispered.
"She's wood," I said, but my voice didn't carry conviction.
Floki laughed, offended.
"She is more," he said. "She is a promise."
He shoved it into the water himself like he couldn't wait for help.
The ship floated.
For a moment, I didn't breathe.
Then it held steady, rising and falling with the tide like it had always belonged there.
Floki looked at me like a priest waiting for worship.
"Well?" he demanded.
"She floats," I said.
Floki's grin split his face.
"She lives."
We tested it fast—no ceremony, no songs. Rollo came too, and Torstein, because Torstein wouldn't trust his life to anything he hadn't seen with his own eyes.
We pushed out into the fjord, oars biting.
At first, it felt ordinary.
Then the wind shifted.
And the ship moved—clean, quick, responding like it understood what we wanted before we said it.
Floki threw his head back and laughed, wild and joyous.
"She loves the sea!" he shouted. "She loves it!"
Then, like the gods heard his boasting and decided to remind us who really owned the water—
The wind died.
Not softened. Not eased.
Died.
The fjord went flat as hammered iron.
The ship slowed, stalled, and suddenly the current took us, pulling us sideways toward jagged rocks that waited like teeth.
Torstein's voice snapped out. "Oars!"
We drove the oars down, muscles straining, but the water felt thick, wrong, as if something below was dragging at us.
The bow swung too close to stone.
Rollo shouted. Floki swore. One oar struck rock and splintered with a crack like bone.
For a heartbeat, I saw it—clear as a blade:
A ship in a storm. Men screaming. Black water swallowing wood and flesh.
Then the current released us as suddenly as it had seized us.
The wind returned, light but enough.
We pulled away, breathing hard, faces tight.
Floki stared at the broken oar like it had betrayed him personally.
"She is perfect," he muttered, furious. "It is the sea that is cruel."
Torstein wiped water from his mouth.
"That current cost us an oar," he said. "What will the open sea cost us?"
I looked out at the horizon.
"We'll pay," I said. "Like everyone does."
Rollo's gaze lingered on me, sharp.
"You looked like you'd seen a ghost," he said.
I didn't answer.
Because I had.
Or something close enough.
On the shore as we came in, I caught a figure standing too still near the trees.
A man.
Watching.
Then gone.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was a fisherman.
Or maybe Svein's eyes were already turning our secret into a noose.
Three nights later, before dawn, the cold bit like a wolf.
We met in silence.
Torstein. Arne. Leif. Erik. Kauko. Rollo. Floki.
Men with dark faces and steadier hands than they had any right to have.
I counted them twice.
Then again.
One man was missing.
Knut.
Rollo swore under his breath.
Arne's hand drifted toward his knife.
Torstein just stared at the empty place where Knut should've stood.
"He swore," Leif whispered.
"And he lied," Erik said, voice flat.
Floki's eyes darted toward the settlement. "We leave now," he hissed. "Before the rats wake the cats."
My pulse hammered.
This was the moment.
The point where tradition and obedience demanded I stop.
And the part of me that had always looked beyond the shore—Ragnar's part, and something modern inside me too—demanded I step off the edge.
I looked at the men.
"We go," I said. "If Haraldson comes, we run. If he catches us, we fight. But we go."
Torstein nodded once.
No speeches. No cheers.
Just men accepting the risk like they'd accepted winter all their lives.
We shoved the ship into the water.
Floki practically trembled as he climbed aboard.
Rollo took the prow. Torstein took the oars. Arne settled into a place where his bow could breathe.
And as we pushed off into the dark, the settlement behind us stayed asleep—peaceful, unaware it was about to wake into a different world.
Or maybe it wasn't asleep at all.
Because far above, on the ridge near the hall, I saw a torch flare.
One flame.
Then two.
And in the distance, a horn sounded—low, ugly, unmistakable.
Rollo turned, eyes wide.
"They know."
Floki spat into the sea.
"Of course they know," he snarled. "The gods love drama."
I didn't look back again.
I set my hands on the steering oar and faced west—into darkness, into open water, into whatever waited beyond the horizon.
Behind us, Kattegat began to wake.
Ahead of us, the world had no map.
Only stories.
And now, oaths