Rage swelled inside me, thick and molten, a fury I hadn’t felt in years. It burned through my veins, dredging up the part of me I had buried long ago—the warlord, the brute, the destroyer. I clenched my fists, trembling with the effort to hold myself together.
I couldn’t watch anymore.
I couldn’tfeelanymore.
If I stayed one second longer, I’d shatter into something irredeemable.
So, I turned away and stumbled into the nearest tavern, desperate to drown the fury in anything but memory. The wooden door creaked under my hand, and I pushed inside, greeted by the scent of sweat, smoke, and stale mead.
The barkeep looked up, his expression startled—a man I didn’t recognize.
His eyes met mine.
He could see me.
For the first time today, someone couldseeme.
Of course. The ones I long to reach cannot. But a stranger with dirty hands and a mead-stained apron?Hecould interact with me.
I dropped a few silver pieces on the counter. “A drink,” I rasped.
He poured. I drank. Then again. And again.
Maybe if I drank enough, the pain would dull, the ache would fade, and the memories would wash away in amber fire. But no matter how much I consumed, the truth remained etched into my bones?—
I was not the man I used to be.
I was a ruin. A wretch. A walking consequence.
After some time—minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell—the barkeep stepped back, arms crossed. “That’s enough, man. It’s not even noon. You need to sleep this off.”
Rough hands gripped my tunic and yanked me from the stool. I barely protested as I was dragged to the door and shoved out like unwanted trash.
I fell into the dust, palms stinging, pride bleeding.
And then—laughter.
Two familiar shapes passed before me.
Ragnar. Thorstein.
My old brothers-in-arms were rough around the edges, their steps uncertain from too much drink or too many battles.
“Hello, old friends!” I called out, raising a hand with a flicker of desperate hope.
Ragnar paused, brow furrowing. “Did you hear that?”
Thorstein scoffed, hands on hips. “Hearwhat?”
“I don’t know… a voice. Sounded familiar.”
Thorstein cuffed him on the ear. “You’re probably just hearing your wife’s shrieking echo in your skull. She’s going to skin you alive for being gone all night.”
Ragnar thrust his hips in mock rhythm, hands poised as if gripping a woman’s rear. “I know just how to make her forget.”
They both burst into laughter and sauntered away, their banter trailing behind them like the last breath of a dying fire.
I sat there in the dirt, watching them disappear down the street.
