Isúlfr had woken with a start, pale blue eyes snapping open to snow and pine and the unfamiliar hush of a land that—increasingly—did not belong to him.

The dream had not blurred at the edges like most dreams did. No, it remained intact, intact and wrong in all the ways that mattered. A voice that was not The Mother’s had spoken to him—again—and a prophecy that did not belong to his bloodline had laid claim to his future. It spoke of wolves, of runes, of a sickness buried so deep in the land it pulsed like a second, rotting heart. It named the world Mythris, as though it had always been that. As though he were the stranger.

He did not know what to make of that. He did not like what it made of him.

When he finally stood, it was with the kind of steadiness that did not come from peace but from discipline. Snow clung to the curve of his shoulders until he shook it free—the movement quiet, almost ceremonial. For a moment, his breath rose pale into the cold, curling back toward him like the past refusing to leave.

He glanced to the treeline, then toward the sound of voices—not loud, but present, layered with purpose. They came from somewhere up the slope, where the trees gave way to clearing. He listened for a moment, allowing himself that pause—not to steel himself but to sift through what he carried: names of places and things he did not know, faces he could not yet trust. And Sólúlfur—recognizable only because she was the least unfamiliar. A figure glimpsed in visions and on mountains, her presence a thread beckoning him to fray in the wind.

He moved with that thought, climbing the slope not as a scout, nor as a soldier, but as something in between. A witness. A relic, perhaps, from a people who did not believe in ghosts that spoke outside of dreams.

But he would follow this one. For now, if only to observe the way she spoke and what she asked of those who listened.

He crested the rise without pause and took in the gathered wolves with a glance that gave little away. They stood like something ritualized—intent, alert, sharpened not by fear but by something older. Loyalty, perhaps. Duty. The gathering reminded him of the old war-meetings at Mors Kjever, before a raid or judgment, when blood still steamed fresh beneath the snow. But this was no war-band, and these wolves were not his kin.

He did not join them directly. Instead, he circled wide, his steps quiet but steady, and came to a stop some lengths off, where the trees still cast thin shadows across the slope. There, he sat—not out of deference, nor fatigue, but with the poised stillness of a creature who knew his presence was ... permitted, perhaps, but not invited. So his posture became something unassuming but composed—tail draped neatly along his haunches, shoulders square, ears pricked not with eagerness, but with attentiveness all the same. It was a prince's stillness, one trained from birth to watch before speaking. To listen, before deciding to whom, if anyone, recognition was owed.

Sólúlfur spoke, and the others listened. Her voice did not waver. It carried the cadence of command, sharpened not by arrogance but by burden—an edge he recognized. There was something ceremonial in the way she laid out the events, as though reciting the bones of a new scripture. Not just truth, but testimony. She did not ask them to believe her, only to understand.

That, at least, he could respect.

The others stood in a loose crescent, their stances varied but intentional, as if pulled into shape by some shared force. He studied them in silence, taking them not as individuals first but as a collection—fragments of something larger. There was symmetry here, a cohesion that spoke of long-held ties and an order he was not part of. Still, most were like him in color: shades of stone and storm, sea-worn ash, the quiet palette of wolves shaped by hardship and winter. It should have comforted him. Instead, it pressed down like a weight he could not quite name.

His gaze moved along the arc of bodies, pausing only briefly on each. One held herself like ice held tension—composed, pressed inward, but watchful. Another, broader in build, stood with the guarded posture of a fighter not yet called to violence but ready for it all the same. Others shifted in smaller, subtler ways—some attentive, others uncertain—but each carried the air of someone who belonged. Even those who questioned did so with the confidence of place.

Then came the red one, and Isúlfr’s eyes lingered.

He was tall, heavy-framed, shadowing one of the women as if tied by vow or instinct. The contrast of his coat—rust, cream, the burn of autumn leaves beneath frost—was jarring, even in the low light. But it was more than color that set him apart. The way he stood just behind the dark-furred woman, close but not possessive, watchful without supplication—it was familiar. Not in face or form, but in purpose. A Sword, by all appearances, though Isúlfr doubted the title would mean anything here. Still, his instincts aligned easily: this was someone trained to guard. Bound not by blood, perhaps, but by charge.

That possibility narrowed Isúlfr’s focus.

His gaze shifted—back to the woman the red one shadowed. Dark-furred, golden-eyed, she held herself with a stillness that neither deferred nor demanded, balanced in a way that drew attention without asking for it. There was weight to her presence. And if the red one was her Sword, then she was the fulcrum around which his purpose turned. Not a queen, perhaps. But something proximate. Something chosen.

A target, if ever the line was drawn.

He did not dwell on the thought, only filed it away—another name, another face, another piece to a puzzle he had not agreed to build. It folded neatly into the quiet arsenal of war-born instinct, shelved alongside habits inherited not from The Mother, but from the man who ruled Her mountains.

Still, some part of him bristled.

Not at them, perhaps, but at the way the world tilted beneath his feet. These voices, these faces—each one bound to a thread he could not see the beginning of, pulled taut by a prophecy that had no business speaking to him. They talked of curses, of sickness, of gods that did not bear Her name. He listened—not because he believed them, but because he needed to know what they believed. What they feared. What they might become.

He could not afford to be blind. So he sat—stone-still, gaze forward, the picture of quiet observation. But beneath the surface, something shifted. Not a crack—just the fine tremor of weight pressing where it had never been meant to settle.

He said nothing, made no move. But he listened.

And if the world chose to come undone, he would at least know where to set his teeth.

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