A dream of ash clung to him.
Ragnar jolted awake with a sharp inhale, sweat cooling against his skin like frostbite. For a moment, he wasn't lying on his straw-stuffed bedding in Clan Vargr's longhouse—he was somewhere vast and broken, surrounded by the corpses of gods he did not yet know. A blackened weapon pulsed in his hand like a living heart. A woman with raven hair and blood-streaked wings stood beside him. The sky was bleeding.
He blinked, and it was gone.
Only the flicker of early dawn seeped through the cracks in the wooden wall. The smell of grain, smoke, and damp furs grounded him back into his place: the lowest row of sleeping mats reserved for the clan's field hands and lowest-born.
His breathing slowed. He pressed his hand to his chest. His heart was still thundering, like it was trying to tell him something.
But dreams didn't matter in Clan Vargr.
What mattered was rising before the sun to labor in the fields and not collapsing under the weight of life you were born into.
He sat up, rubbing stiffness from his neck.
Figures moved silently around him—the other lowborn youth dragging themselves from sleep to begin their day. No one spoke. Words were precious and rarely wasted this early.
Ragnar stood and stepped outside.
Cold morning air bit his skin. The sun had barely lifted, fog curling along the earth like a hungry thing. The wooden palisades around the village were tall, jagged, and intimidating—designed by warriors for warriors. But Ragnar had always noticed something no one spoke aloud:
The palisades were strong, yes… but the people behind them were not equal.
Warriors trained near the center of the settlement, their shouts harsh like steel meeting steel. Lowborn like him were kept to the fringes, where the fields stretched outward and noble-born eyes rarely bothered to look.
A voice broke through the fog.
"You look like you fought the night with your face."
It was Eivor.
She leaned against one of the fence posts, arms folded. Already awake, already watching. Her hair, dark as a raven's wing, had been poorly braided by hand—likely her own. She wore a battered tunic and bandaged knuckles, a telltale sign she'd been punching bark again. She always trained before the others woke. Always.
"What was it this time?" she asked as Ragnar approached. "Another nightmare of wolves chewing your toes off because you stole their dinner?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Eivor narrowed one eye at him. "Ragnar."
"…I saw something," he admitted, quietly. "Fire. Ash. A weapon… alive. And—"
"And?"
"A woman. Not a girl. A woman… with raven wings."
She snorted lightly. "Dreams and fate are for priests and nobles. Not for dirt-footed farmer boys."
He expected the mockery to sting, but coming from her, it was just part of their rhythm—sharpened words exchanged like wooden practice blades.
"You're awake early again," Ragnar replied, eyeing her wrapped hands.
"Training," she said. "Unlike some of us, I don't have dreams to fight my battles for me."
He followed her gaze toward the center training grounds. Highborn youths were sparring with dulled blades under a warrior's supervision—sons of established fighters and bloodlines praised by name in feast songs.
No one like Ragnar or Eivor was waiting for them there.
Lowborn remained lowborn. That was the way.
But Ragnar did not accept "the way."
He watched the sparring match for a moment, then muttered, "They act like the gods kissed their foreheads at birth."
"They act like that because the clan tells them they were," Eivor said bitterly. "Warrior bloodlines get praised before they shed a single drop of real blood."
"And the rest of us are told our place is to provide for them," Ragnar muttered.
"To bend," Eivor added.
"To bow," Ragnar said.
"To die nameless," Eivor finished.
A silence stretched as they stared at the warriors being groomed for glory.
Eivor flexed her bruised fingers. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Ragnar cracked his knuckles unconsciously. "That we should be training instead of talking?"
She grinned—a feral, sharp expression. "Then grab a stick, farmer boy."
---
They moved to the far edge of the settlement, where unused timber lay stacked. Ragnar picked up a sturdy staff. Eivor already had a wooden axe handle she'd modified for practice.
They began sparring.
Eivor was faster. Her movements were sharp, efficient, honed through relentless self-taught drills. She struck like a raven darting for the weak point.
Ragnar was slower, but his strikes were heavy, purposeful. Each blow carried the stubborn force of someone who refused to break.
She knocked him down twice in the first few minutes.
He got up both times.
"You're still swinging like a farmer cracking roots," she said, circling him.
"That's because roots don't die easy," he replied.
"Neither do warriors," she grunted, lunging again.
His block was sloppy, but held. His counter-strike forced her to retreat three steps.
They clashed again. Wood scraped wood. Breath fogged the air.
After a dozen more exchanges, Eivor finally stepped back, panting lightly. Ragnar was gasping harder, aching… but still standing.
"You're improving," she admitted. "Barely. But improving."
Ragnar exhaled, sweat clinging to his brow. "One day, I'll beat you."
Eivor smirked. "One day, I'll enjoy watching you try."
A heavy silence followed—different this time.
There, in the fog-hidden corner of the settlement, two lowborn youths, bloodied only by training and not yet by war, shared a quiet understanding:
They were not content to remain in the dirt.
Ragnar looked again towards the warrior grounds, then at his own bruised hands.
He didn't speak a vow aloud.
He didn't need to.
Because deep within him, something from that dream still lingered.
A flame. A howl.
And a promise unspoken:
One day, I will not bow.
One day, the world will kneel to me instead.