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CHAPTERSIXTEEN

VIDAR

Vidar watched the raven walk away, watched the way her shoulders drooped as if he’d caused that. She was always so regal, so put together, but he’d made her look like that. Did she pity him? He didn’t need pity. And then every time he’d been disrespectful, every moment he’d been rude, flashed through his mind, and he realized what a complete and utter ass he’d been. She hadn’t given him a choice, sure, but how could she have known? She’d felt a familiar pull to him, the same he felt to her, and latched on. He didn’t really blame her. He couldn’t. Not when something inside of him wanted to reach for her despite their situation. Munin was an honorable person. She was loyal and strong, a warrior. She deserved the respect he hadn’t paid her.

But trusting her, liking her, yearning for her, felt like a betrayal to Katla.

Vidar knew it wasn’t. He knew Katla would be anxious at the thought of him searching his entire Valhalla for her. She wasn’t the kind of Viking to be angry. She didn’t hold grudges. She wouldn’t want him to be lonely for all eternity. She was meek and something to be protected, her brains her best asset, but she wasn’t spiteful.

In the end, he’d failed at protecting her, failed her, and despite that, she’d not looked at him in accusation in those last moments. Despite hearing her scream, she hadn’t blamed him. She’d shouted the warrior’s send off as he’d breathed his last, as she’d succumbed to the same fate for being a traitor to her clan.

But try as hard as Vidar could, the memories had faded with time. He kept trying to remember Katla’s face, remember what she looked like, but each time he tried to sketch her, the facial features were wrong, or they wouldn’t come at all. He opened the sketchbook that he somehow knew Munin had left for him. Despite not realizing who she was before, it made sense now. She’d often watched him sketch as a raven, watching the long lines. He once had a book filled with drawings of her and one time, he’d gifted her a page from it, a drawing he’d done of her in flight, and she’d carted it off. He wondered if she still had it somewhere or if it had long since turned to dust.

The book opened to a blank page and Vidar tried to sketch Katla yet again, trying desperately to remember her appearance, but it wouldn’t come. The lines didn’t flow. They didn’t make sense anymore.

“Forgive me,” he murmured to her soul, wherever she may be. “Forgive me.”

But time waited for no one, and a thousand years had gone by. Vidar could only hope she’d found her family in Hel, had joined them there. In his heart of hearts, he knew she hadn’t really loved him like he’d loved her. Their marriage had been born out of survival for a woman determined to live.

With that knowledge settling in his bones, he ripped the chaotic page from the sketchbook and tossed it away. The charcoal began moving of its own accord, sketching an image that came as easily as breathing. His fingers moved rapidly, too fast to follow, as the form took shape.

When he was finished, he stared at the sketch of a woman with feathered wings as black as night, standing in a warrior’s pose, a battle axe fit for a queen in her hands. Beautiful. She was absolutely beautiful.

Vidar closed the sketchbook and bowed his head. “Forgive me.”


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