I collapsed to my knees.
“Zara! Oh, Zara…”
My voice broke as I dropped my face into my hands, sobbing—deep, soul-splitting sobs that echoed through the empty halls of the house like mourning bells. The pain was suffocating. Endless.
I wept until I sank into a pit of blackness.
When I awoke, the world was silent—the witching hour. That fragile stretch of time when darkness held its breath and the light hadn’t yet found the courage to return.
The moon hung high in the sky, casting a pale glow like a watchful eye through the window.
It didn’t just shine. It called to me.
I rose, aching and stiff. My head throbbed, my throat as dry as ash, my limbs heavy with grief and drink. I stumbled outside into the hush of the night, where the grass shivered with dew beneath my bare feet.
There was nothing left for me here. Nothing.
If I craved redemption—if I wanted even a fragment of what I’d lost—I had to start over. Return to the past. Reclaim my life and shape it back into the glory it once held.
I’d done this more times than I could count, and the sensation still unnerved me. It began as a shimmer at the edge of my vision, subtle and surreal, like ripples dancing across still water. Then the edges of my body blurred. Light fractured around me. My hands, arms, chest—all fading into something not quite air or memory.
Even through my drunken haze, I could feel the wind brushing my skin and the chill of the earth beneath my feet. But I was no longer entirely there. I had become a ghost wrapped in shimmering light.
The air crackled.
Then I was gone.
Time unraveled around me and snapped back into place.
I landed in a mud puddle with a splash, face-first in the reeking earth of my former Viking settlement.
Christ,I thought, coughing and spitting grit from my mouth.
The acute stench of offal, rot, and animal waste hit me immediately. Someone must’ve pitched refuse from a window above. I staggered to my feet, my fine wool coat sliced with filth. Disgusted, I stripped it off and hurled it aside. My hair was tangled, damp with mud. My boots were caked in things I didn’t want to identify.
And yet?—
My heart pounded with something close to exhilaration.
I turned my eyes to the horizon. There it was—the sea—the same sea. The breeze carried salt, smoke, and ash. The sky above was brilliant blue, stretching endlessly and familiarly. The scent of firewood and fish, the clamor of blacksmiths, laughter, and dogs barking all stabbed at my heart like a memory made flesh.
I stood at the edge of the place I once ruled and loved.
Wooden huts were scattered across the landscape—some with sagging thatched roofs, others reinforced with shutters and iron nails. Smoke twisted from chimneys. Chickens darted under carts. Life went on.
I moved like a shadow through the village, slipping behind huts and walls. My coat still reeked of filth, and I couldn’t be seen like this.
Near one doorway, clean linens fluttered on a line in a tidy courtyard. I stole a pair of trousers and a plain linen tunic, tuggingthem on as fast as I could. I tossed my ruined clothes into the street like the shame they were.
Then I walked.
Into my past.
Into the place I had once called home.
Morning stretched its golden arms across the fjord, spilling light over the water like liquid fire. Even in my disheveled state, I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope stir in my chest. The place was unmistakable. Familiar, even after all these centuries.
The salty breeze carried the scent of seaweed and hearth smoke. Seagulls cried above, slicing through the quiet with their haunting calls. The sun shimmered on the crests of the waves, casting fleeting diamonds across the bay. Life pulsed all around me.
