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The need for revenge, for the blood of his enemies, intensified to a fever pitch within him. He threw himself back into the battle, pursuing Elgr. But no cut, no thrust, no life he took brought him relief.

Finally, he closed in on the other jarl. The man was his age and their lands bordered each other, but they had never been friends. Elgr had always seemed envious of whatever Andor had, from his fierce warriors to his hearty crops to his beautiful wife.

“Come here, you worm!” Andor roared, pointing his sword in Elgr’s face. “Fight me. You will pay for her death.” Elgr was as tall as Andor but soft around the middle, while Andor was a fighter, honed from months of battle. There would be no contest in a fair fight—something Elgr knew little about.

“Pay for her death?” Elgr glanced at Andor, jostled the man he was fighting off and made his way to him, hunger for Andor’s death in his eyes. “She just paid for being your wife.”

Elgr thrust his sword towards Andor, and Andor deflected it. “Ubba always gave me the best raids until you came along,” Elgr yelled. Another thrust. “He should have given me the task to get the Bible.” Clunk. “This silver and treasure are mine.”

Andor roared and attacked, hammering at Elgr’s shield with Dragon’s Trouble. “You. Pig. Loki’s. Son.”

His rage burned him, the sight of Svana’s dying face, her voice ringing louder than the battle around him.

“You. Will. Pay.” His words knocked against the shield with each bash.

He took his ax out and, with his other hand, slammed it into the shield and split the wood. The ax stuck, and he jerked hard, sending the shield flying to the side.

“This is for burning my village,” Andor roared and thrust Dragon’s Trouble into Elgr’s stomach. He pulled back and stabbed him again. “That was for my people.” Elgr fell to his knees clutching at his stomach, and Andor swung his sword and cut the man’s head off. “And that was for Svana.”

As the battle continued to whirl, bang, and burst in screams around him, he stood still, his chest rising and falling heavily, his muscles still tight with fury. He had his vengeance.

But what now? He did not feel satisfied. He had not been redeemed.

It had not brought Svana back.

Nothing ever would.

Her voice rang in his ears. “Why were you late…? Are you whole…? I wanted to be a good wife to you…” The screams of unprotected women and children from the village joined Svana’s voice. Then the clunking of weapons. Andor’s fists clenched. Panic, guilt, and the pain of loss all mixed within him like a whirlpool in a storm.

As Elgr’s men saw the death of their leader, they began cowering, retreating, and Andor’s warriors killed them or let them run.

When the battle was over and the village stood still, littered with the dead and the injured, Andor took Svana’s body to the fjord. He gently laid her on the pebble beach and straightened, watching the descending, misty dusk as smoke dulled the setting sun.

“What now, Jarl?” Fridstein said, standing next to him. Andor heard the same sadness in his sword-brother’s voice that tightened his own chest. “When do we start rebuilding Hvaldalen?”

Andor stared out into the distance to where the fjord disappeared. “We do not. There are too many ghosts here, too many reminders. I will go back to serve Ubba. I will take Svana’s parents, give them a farm. Land there is richer and more fertile. Ubba owes me. All surviving families are welcome to come. They lost their livelihood because I failed to protect them. This is the least I can do.”

Fridstein frowned. “This is not your fault, brother.”

Andor lowered his head and shook it, his vision blurred, and the muscles on his cheekbones trembled. “I broke my promise. And I must pay for it.”

“The best thing to do is to stay and start anew. Rebuild. Give your people back their homes. Be their jarl.”

Andor let out a shaky breath. “All there is left for me is battle. I will not remain in the place that breathes with the memory of my wife.”

Fridstein pressed his lips into a thin line within his beard. “Your father would have wanted you to find a new one.”

He might as well have stabbed Andor in the gut. “I can never take another wife, Fridstein. Do you not see? I cannot protect the ones I love.” He looked at the charred skeleton of the home he would never return to. “I will not endure this again.”

CHAPTER ONE

Los Angeles, January 8, 2019

“That’s better, Brad,” Cathy said as she lifted the breathing tube to wipe the remaining shaving foam from her fiancé’s chin. “I can see your face again.”

She studied him, hoping for a twitch, a flutter of eyelashes, or any other sign. Nothing moved except for the pump of the ventilation machine next to him and the line of his heart monitor.

She forced a smile and said, “I believe in miracles. I believe you’ll come back to me.”