Valkyries Calling
Chapter 32: The Queen of the North

Chapter 32: The Queen of the North

By the time Róisín awoke the next morning, the first thing she felt was regret.

Then heat. Then her tongue, dry and stuck to the roof of her mouth like parchment. Her skull throbbed like it was being used for target practice by the Einherjar.

She groaned and rolled over — straight into empty fur.

The warmth beside her was gone, save for the lingering scent of sweat and pine.

Firelight flickered low. The hearth was dying.

She sat up slowly, head pounding.

Mead, she realized. Not wine.

God’s blood, she winced. Norse drink hits different.

She jolted upright, immediately regretted it, and clutched her forehead as the room spun.

The memories came in pieces: the horn, the hallway, that voice, that stupid line about biting, and her stupid blush—

I didn’t even change into the shift…

Still dressed in yesterday’s linen — and fresh shame — she half-crawled, half-fell from the bed. Her legs wobbled. Her balance betrayed her. The hearth was cold, the sun too bright, and the air smelled like damp wool, leather, and… man.

She needed water. Or death. Either would do.

The hall was mercifully quiet. Down the corridor, she found the low stone arch that led to the private bath — one of but many luxuries in the king’s lodge she never expected.

Steam curled from beneath the door. Warm. Humid. Blissful.

She pushed it open.

And stopped.

There he was.

In the middle of the pool. Naked. Smirking.

One arm stretched lazily along the stone rim, his hair slicked back, steam rising off his chest like a spirit in offering.

“Well,” Vetrulfr drawled, “if I knew you were so eager to see me like this, I’d have invited you in last night.”

She gawked. Then scowled.

“I didn’t— I wasn’t—!”

He tilted his head.

“I believe I’m the one being intruded upon.”

“You’re the one indecent!”

“It’s my bath,” he said, utterly unbothered. “If anything, you’ve assaulted my privacy.”

She stared at him, red-faced, hungover, and furious.

He smiled wider.

“You’re welcome to join. But be warned — the water’s hot, and so am I.”

She threw a sandal at him. It missed. Of course. But the splash was satisfying.

And then she scampered off like a pouting rabbit.

Leaving Vetrulfr behind to smirk, and speak his thoughts aloud:

“I think she and I are going to get along just fine…”

The scent of smoke and salted bread lingered in the air, thick as the mist curling off the northern fjord.

Róisín stepped into the great hall with careful, measured steps — clothed now in a fresh woolen dress of undyed cream, simple but finely woven.

Her red-gold hair was bound into twin braids that framed her face and fell neatly over her shoulders — a style practical for work, but unmistakably youthful. The kind a maiden might wear before her first warband claimed her as bride or shield-sister.

Her eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom, where firelight danced through drifting embers and cast shadows like spirits against the beams.

It was morning in Ullrsfjörðr.

The warrior-king’s hearth was alive with quiet ritual.

No drunken songs. No raucous laughter. Only the low murmur of men speaking in their strange, biting tongue — voices thick with age and smoke, reverent and wary.

They saw her. All of them.

Dozens seated along long tables, shoulder to shoulder, their knives carving thick slabs of smoked fish, their horns brimming with goat’s milk or mead. The air was hot with breath and heat and steaming barley. And still, as one body, they looked to her.

They did not smile.

They did not leer.

They watched.

Eyes like stormlight. Faces weathered by wind and steel. The wolfskins of the north.

Not one dared whisper.

Not one dared smirk.

She walked forward slowly, uncertain where to sit. Her bare feet silent on the stones. Her heart loud in her ears.

What am I to them? she thought. A trophy? A queen? A test?

They looked upon her not with lust, but with something stranger. Harder.

Like she was a sign. A riddle. A thing to be understood before it could be named.

And beneath it all, she felt it again — the presence of him.

Even before she saw him.

Then—

A warm breath on her neck. A voice just behind her ear:

“Foolish girl… after all I’ve told you, do you still not understand? Your place is not among them.”

She froze.

The voice coiled around her like smoke.

“It is by my side.”

A hand — firm, calloused — slid into hers. Not gently. Not cruelly. Just… without question.

She turned her head as Vetrulfr stepped beside her.

Hair still damp from the bath. Beard oiled. Arms bare beneath the mantle of winter wolf-fur that crowned his shoulders. A simple circlet of Damascus steel rested on his brow, carved with motifs both natural and primal, like a relic pulled from the roots of the World Tree.

Without another word, he led her forward.

Not to the benches.

Not to the far end of the hall.

But to the dais of carved stone and timber, where two thrones waited — one immense, ancient, draped in pelt and honor.

The other smaller. Untouched. Waiting.

He guided her toward it.

And seated her beside him.

Not a slave.

Not a concubine.

Not a guest.

But queen.

The hall remained silent.

And then, quietly, almost reverently, the men of the north bowed their heads.

Róisín sat at the edge of the queen’s throne.

It wasn’t a gilded thing. No jeweled crown above it. No choir or courtier to announce her presence. But it was carved from ancient yew, smooth with age, etched in spirals and beasts she could not name.

And the space around it bent in deference.

For the first time, she felt it fully. Not captive. Not even bride.

Queen.

And not of a crumbling hillfort back home. Not of some bog-bound clan holding out against the tide.

But of this.

A city carved from the bones of winter. Newborn, yet ageless in spirit. Raised not by generations, but by the will of one man — and the hands of his people.

Its labor was local. Icelandic. Rough hands, frostbitten resolve. But the vision behind it? That had been forged far away.

In the heat of Byzantium. In the shadow of Antioch. In the ruins of Dvin and Ctesiphon.

Though she didn’t know it yet; Vetrulfr had not been a brute in the emperor’s court — he had been captain of Basil’s Varangian Guard.

Scholar as much as sword. Friend to the Basileus. Student of his wisest men.

Wherever he marched, he learned — the thousand things that turned a stronghold into a kingdom.

And here, in the north, far from emperors and eagles, he had built it.

Not a pale imitation of the East, nor a hollow mimicry of Rome — but a synthesis.

The bones of the city were Norse: steep-roofed halls, timber beams blackened with soot and adorned with carvings that whispered of gods and beasts.

But beneath those bones ran Eastern veins — mortar that would not crack in frost, underfloor vents to heat the bathhouses, gatehouses with layered defenses only Constantinople could teach.

A pagan kingdom. Ancient not in years — but in soul.

A kingdom born of two worlds.

And it terrified her.

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