Below them, Ragnar stripped his tunic and rolled his shoulders. The new braid she’d woven that morning still held, the leather cord tight against the nape of his neck, and the sight of it—her mark on him, visible and deliberate—sent a flush of possessive warmth through her that she didn’t bother suppressing anymore.
He was broader than Freyr, heavier through the chest and shoulders, but he moved with the kind of economy that came from decades of muscle memory. Every motion stripped to its essential function. No wasted energy, no flourish. Where Freyr was quick and clever, circling and feinting, Ragnar simply waited—absorbing the rhythm of the attack until he found the gap.
And when he found it, he struck with a speed that seemed impossible for a man his size.
Their blades met with a crack that echoed off the courtyard walls. Freyr pressed forward with a flurry of strikes––fast, testing, designed to probe rather than damage. Ragnar turned each one aside with his blade angled just enough to redirect rather than absorb, conserving strength while Freyr burned through his.
He fights the way he leads.Patient. Controlled. Lettin’ the other man commit first.
“Ye’re holdin’ back!” Freyr barked, circling left.
“I’m waitin’ fer ye tae give me a reason nae tae.” Ragnar’s voice carried the flat certainty of a man who’d already read the ending of this particular story.
Freyr lunged. Ragnar stepped inside the arc of the blow, caught Freyr’s sword arm at the wrist, and used his own weight to pivot his friend off-balance. Freyr stumbled two steps before recovering, his grin wide despite the dirt on his knees.
“That’s more like it.”
“He’s been too quiet, Ragnar.”
The rhythm of the spar didn’t change. Their blades met, parted, met again.
“I ken.” Ragnar turned a cut, stepped back.
“A month wi’ naethin’?” Freyr pressed forward, his voice threaded beneath the clash of steel. “Nae a raid, nae a scout, nae even a whisper from the mainland? Douglas daesnae have the patience fer this. Which means he’s nae waitin’—he’sready.”
“Aye.” Ragnar caught the next blow on the flat of his blade and shoved Freyr back three steps. “And we’ll be ready fer him.”
Freyr recovered, circled again. “Ye should move her inland. Temporarily. Send her tae Erik on Skye until?—”
“Nay.”
“Ragnar—”
“I saidnay.” The word came out quiet, but something shifted in his stance—heavier, more final, like a gate dropping into place. “Isolatin’ her draws attention. And it would anger her.”
“Better angry than?—”
“She stayswi’ me, Freyr.” Ragnar met his friend’s eyes over their crossed blades. “Where I can protect her. That’s the end of it.”
Isolda’s fingers had gone white against the stone bench.
He wants tae send me away.
She hadn’t meant to hear. The wind had shifted, carrying their voices up to the walkway and now the words sat inside her chest like shards of something broken.
Freyr thinks I’m a liability. A target tae be moved and hidden like valuables before a siege.
But beneath the flash of anger, beneath the old familiar sting of being treated as a piece on someone else’s board, another truth surfaced—quieter, harder to dismiss.
Ragnar had refused. Not because she was useful or because sending her away was impractical, but because he wouldn’t do that to her. Because heknewher well enough to understand what exile would mean—that it would undo every fragile thing they’d built, every thread of trust she’d woven into that place and those people and the man who sat still for her braids and thanked her for her work.
Beside her, Liv set down her needle. “Ye’ve gone pale, me lady. Everythin’ all right?”
Isolda watched the two men below break apart, Freyr clapping Ragnar’s shoulder, both of them breathing hard and glistening with sweat in the fading light.
“Aye.” She unclenched her fingers from the bench. “Everythin’s fine.”
