Fionn turned fully to face the man in question. “You carry yourself like a king of men. But you bow to no one.”
“I don’t do crowns,” Viper said flatly. “But I protect what’s mine.”
Fionn’s eyes gleamed. “Then you are Fianna in truth.”
Ward tried not to make a sound. But the sheer impact of that moment—the acknowledgment, the weight of it—hit him square in the chest. Viper didn’t flinch or look impressed. He just dipped his chin in acknowledgement like he’d heard stranger things.
Who knows? Maybe he has.
“And him?” one of the Fianna asked, gaze falling on Ward.
Ward felt every eye turn toward him. He straightened and tried to ignore the sweat plastering his shirt to his back. “Ward Sutherland,” he managed. “Dr. Ward Sutherland. Archaeology. Linguistics. Definitely not a warrior.”
“You are of the blood of the druids who bound me,” Fionn said, his tone both unnerving and unreadable.
Ward swallowed hard. “Not by choice.” The tension in his shoulders only eased when Bran—now wolf again—trotted over and pressed his side against Ward’s thigh in a strange show of solidarity. The message was clear. The hound trusted him. That had to count for something. He hoped.
Viper moved to stand slightly in front of him. “He is under my protection.”
The growled statement sent a shiver down his spine, both thrilling and terrifying in equal measures.
Fionn studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. “Scholar or not, he withstood the fire and did not flee. There is strength in that.” He turned back to the Fianna and pointed at Ward with his thumb. “He helped me to escape the prison that held me. Do not kill him.”
Yeah, if you could not kill me, that would be awesome.
Ward blinked and stepped closer to Viper. “Thanks. I think.” The stench of blood hung heavy in the smoke-filled air. He stood still as the Fianna moved through the battlefield. There were no words, shouting, or celebrations. Only the work of warriors who’d survived, gathering the fallen, stripping the enemy of their weapons and valuables, and stacking the crude blades and broken shields in solemn silence. It was so methodical, so reverent, that it took Ward a moment to realize it wasn’t exactly looting but more of a ritual.
Oisín knelt beside a downed charioteer, wiped blood from the man’s face with a cloth soaked in wine, then laid three coins—small, round, and stamped with a triskele—over his chest. Hemurmured something in Old Irish that Ward’s half-fractured linguist brain couldn’t fully translate. Then he pressed his hand to the earth, and the ground opened beneath the body in a ripple of golden light. There was no sound, and no explosion of force like Ward thought there would be—just the subtle parting of soil as if the world had accepted the dead and tucked them away.
“What the…” He blinked. “Did he just bury him with a prayer and a glowy coin?”
“Magic,” Juice said from beside him, voice low as if speaking louder would somehow dishonor the moment. “Trace told me that the Fianna don’t leave any battlefield with ghosts in their wake.”
It wasn’t just Oisín doing it. All across the field, Fenian warriors dropped to their knees, murmured chants, gave last rites with reverent touches, and final blessings. The coins—some silver, others bronze, all etched with that ancient triskele—were pressed to wounds, to hearts, and to brows, and each time, the earth accepted the offering. The bodies sank as if they’d never been there at all.
The broken blades and snapped spears were collected in piles and ringed with fire, but the flames weren’t natural. They burned cold, white, and blue, flickering in silence. There was no smoke or ash. Just the sense that something old was being laid to rest properly.
Reaper crouched beside one pyre, hands on his thighs, watching the fire consume the weapons of war with quiet awe. “That’s some Viking shit right there,” he muttered.
“No.” A nearby warrior shook his head, his voice deep and accented with something wild. “Vikings stole it from us.” Hegrinned and pointed to his chest. “I am Caílte mac Rónáin.” His twin blades crossed his back where they hung in intricate scabbards.
“Reaper.”
I knew it. I knew it was him.
It was blowing his mind how much of the myths and legends he’d both read and heard had more than a grain of truth to them.
Fionn walked slowly among the men—both Fianna and SEAL alike—offering quiet words and touching shoulders. Bran paced beside him, his head low, ears flicking as if he could still hear the heartbeat of the battlefield fading into the moss. A faint wind curled through the trees, stirring the feathers tied to spear shafts, lifting strands of hair from blood-caked faces. It should’ve felt oppressive and exhausting. But instead… to Ward, it felt exhilarating. To witness an event such as this was beyond his imagination or wildest dreams.
He turned in a slow circle, the reality of what he was seeing still at war with the part of him that clung to science and logic. But there were no bones to dig here, and no artifacts to catalog. Nor were there ruins or glyphs. Here, there were only stories brought to life, legends kneeling beside the dead, and magic that felt older than time pressing at his skin. He whispered to himself, “This has to be a dream, because there is no other logical explanation for history and legends to still breathe and walk among men.”
“It is us who walk among the giants of history and legend.” Viper paused beside him. “Not how you planned your day to go, huh?”
“No.” Ward’s fingers twitched around the strap of his pack—the one he’d clung to since the start of the mission, like it somehowtethered him to the world he knew. But the world he knew didn’t look like this. It didn’t breathe in sacred rites and bury its dead with glowing coins and whispered songs. It didn’t send warriors of myth onto the field in chariots with blades that shimmered like starlight. This place… this was something else. “It’s so impossible my brain hasn’t quite caught up with itself.”
“Mine either.”
They watched as another warrior knelt beside a fallen foe, pressed his palm to the man’s chest, and muttered a word that made the very air crackle. The enemy’s weapon, a jagged, bone-handled spear that had nearly gutted Reaper, shuddered, turned to dust, and was carried away on a breeze that hadn’t existed a moment before. Not even ash remained.
