The world was screaming.
Not with voices, but with futures. The elk, a magnificent bull with a crown of antlers velveted in summer, stood a hundred paces away, grazing in a clearing of moss-laden stones. To a mortal hunter, it was a perfect shot. To Ragnar, it was an agony.
He saw it all at once. He saw the twitch of its ear now, a spooked reaction to a wolf a mile off. He saw the heavy limp it would develop in a harsh winter three moons from now, the leg shattering on a patch of black ice. He saw the sickly wheeze in its chest the following spring, the disease blooming in its lungs. He saw its final, terrified moments, not at the teeth of a predator, but alone, its body giving out in a bog, its life sinking into the mire.
He saw its birth, a wobbly-legged calf nuzzling its mother. He saw its first rut, the fury and the pride. He saw the dozen calves it would sire. He saw its bones, picked clean a decade from now, bleaching white in the sun.
All of it, a cacophony of moments, a tidal wave of is and was and will-be, crashed against the shores of his mind. The present, the single, crucial moment where he stood, bow in hand, was a sliver of glass being ground to dust under the weight of it all.
A coppery tang filled his mouth. He felt the warmth trickling from his nose, down over his lips, dripping from his chin onto the leather of his tunic. Blood. His own. The price of seeing. He swayed on his feet, the yew bow feeling as heavy as a ship's mast, the forest spinning in a kaleidoscope of bleeding greens and bleeding browns.
"Breathe, boy."
The voice was a stone in the river of chaos. It didn't shout. It didn't plead. It simply *was*. Hilde. He didn't need to open his eyes to know she was there. He could feel her presence like the heat from a fire, a solid, real thing in a world of shifting ghosts.
A hand, calloused and strong, settled on the back of his neck. Her touch was not gentle. It was firm, grounding, a pressure that anchored his soul to his body. He felt the rough weave of her tunic against his back as she stepped closer, her scent filling his senses—pine, cold steel, and the faint, clean smell of her skin.
"The elk is not dying in the bog," she murmured, her voice a low rumble against his ear. "It is not a calf, and it is not sick. It is here. Now. Show me what is now, Ragnar."
Her thumb pressed into a tense knot of muscle at the base of his skull. He forced a breath, then another, the air burning his lungs. The roaring in his head began to recede, just enough. The futures bled away, leaving only the present.
He was on his knees in the dirt. Blood dripped from his chin. The elk, its head snapping up at the sudden sound of a harsh breath, stared at him with wide, dark eyes.
Hilde crouched beside him, pulling a strip of clean linen from her belt. She didn't flinch at the blood. She simply tilted his chin up and wiped his face clean with the same no-nonsense efficiency she'd use to sharpen a blade. Her grey eyes, the same shade as a winter sky just before a storm, met his.
"This is the price," she said, her voice softening just enough for him alone. "We knew the price."
He just nodded, his throat too tight for words. He knew the price. He was paying it every day.
She stood, pulling him with her. Her grip was like iron. "You are stronger than it. You are my son. You are a Vargr. Now," she said, her voice shifting back to the tone of a Thane, a commander. "The pack is hungry. Kill it."
He took the bow she offered him. His hands were steady. The storm in his head was a distant rumble. He nocked an arrow, the motion smooth and practiced. He saw the elk. Just the elk. Here. Now.
He drew the string. The fletching brushed his cheek. He loosed the arrow.
It flew true. The elk buckled, took two stumbling steps, and fell.
The forest was silent again, save for the thud of its body hitting the earth and the ragged sound of his own breathing. Hilde's hand found his, her fingers lacing with his, a silent, fleeting promise in the quiet gloom of the woods.