Keir climbed the stairs to Kira’s room debating what he would say to her. He knew, of course, that she was likely still mad at him. That didn’t change the fact that he loved her. He had loved her since the day he laid eyes on her.

It was only the beginning of May, but heat beat down on him, making him sweat. He’d been hired at an archeological dig site on one of the smaller islands in the Empire, though he couldn’t say which one it was. He had about two weeks before he went off to train for his imperial majesty’s navy but his family needed money. So here he was breaking his back moving boulders. Sure, some would call these stones national treasures but Keir would only ever call them for what they were, rocks.

“Father, I don’t see the point in excavating this…temple…church…whatever. It’s not why we’re here. We’re here looking for the first settlements on the island and possibly in the Empire, so what’s the point in this excavation?” the head archeologist’s daughter asked.

Keir had heard that she was assisting Dr. Eames with his excavation but had never actually seen her. He turned to the spot where her voice was coming from. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. The girl was nearly the same height as her father and certainly wasn’t dressed like the lady she was. Like her father, she wore shorts but instead of a button down short-sleeved shirt, she wore a plain tank top. In the scorching sun, her hair was the white of freshly fallen snow. She wore boots and her hands held a trowel and brush. Keir’s staring earned him a harsh smack to the back of the head from the foreman.

“Oi! Don’t go oggling Miss Eames now!” he snapped at Keir.

“Didn’t mean to stare, sir, it’s just that I’d never seen her before,” Keir replied.

“I don’t bloody care! Now get back to work!” he snapped.

Keir sighed but complied with the order.

“Mr. Heisenburg!” the girl called.

“Yes, Miss Eames?”

“Send that young man over here.”

“Yes ma’am. Right away.”

The foreman jerked his head at Keir, indicating that he was to go to Miss Eames. Keir swallowed audibly. He couldn’t be in trouble; he needed this job to keep his family alive. He made his way to where the Eames stood. He hadn’t even bothered to put down the rock he carried.

“Dr. Eames, Miss Eames,” he greeted.

“See, I told you!” Miss Eames exclaimed, ignoring his greeting completely.

Keir furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Akira, there is no way the markings on that stone could be anything other than Norse,” Dr. Eames replied patiently.

Akira rolled her eyes and snatched the stone from his arms, as of it weighed nothing. She set the stone on the ground and turned it so one side was face up. The side now facing them was covered in elaborate paint.

“Believe me now, father?” Akira asked her father with a smirk. “And look! Norse runes!”

“Tell me what they say,” her father replied, studying the painting.

“Ulric something I am taken. I know not whence we came nor where we go. These words be my last perhaps. Should I perish, I go to Valhalla to join my mother and father at Frejya’s table,” Akira read.

“Ulric Eames?” her father asked.

Akira squinted at the runes, “Possibly, but it’s hard to make out that character. What about the painting?”

Her father frowned.

“What?”

“It doesn’t make sense for Egyptian painting to be here.”

“Wasn’t your ancestor, Ulric Eames, captured by slavers and later freed by the Wolfe of the Atlantic?”

“Akira, what does my ancestor have to do with this painting?”

“Look at it. It’s not stylized like the ancient Egyptian paintings. It’s similar to the Amarna period paintings but even more realistic. And the paint itself, only the Romans were known to have surpassed the Egyptains with their color palate. What’s strange though, is Ulric is known to have lived during the golden age of piracy, the 1700s. We know he died sometime in the mid- 1800s at close to 100. So, how did this painting in this particular style, get all the way out here? As far as I know, the Norse never went to Egypt.”

“No, but the slavers did. It’s possible this person was kidnapped from Egypt.”

“What makes you say kidnapped?”

“The skill of the painting. It had to have been done by an artisan of some sort, possibly a tomb painter.”

Keir listened in facination as they discussed the possiblities for the origin of the stone. Suddenly, Akira turned to him.

“Where did you find this stone?” she asked.

“In a pile of rubble about 200 to 300 paces from the main dig site, at a tertiary dig site,” he replied.

“Show us,” Akira demanded.

“Kira, mind your manners,” Dr. Eames chastised.

Keir watched as she raised a single eyebrow at her father. And gave him a look that said: ‘Really?’ She turned back to Keir.

“Lead the way good sir,” she said with humor lacing her words.

Keir cracked a smile as he said, “This way m’lady.”

He lead the Eames to the spot where he had picked up his boulder.

“To be completely honest,” he said. “I didn’t see the painting on the other side.”

“It was facing away from you,” Dr. Eames replied smoothly. “There was no way you could have seen it.”

Keir nodded but wasn’t convinced. In truth, he hadn’t even been looking.

“Father, look!” Akira exclaimed. “That rock wasn’t exactly a rock at all. It was part of a wall. A frescoed wall to be precise.”

“How fascinating,” Dr. Eames muttered.

The rest of Keir’s two weeks were spent helping Akira excavate around the base of the wall. The more he talked to her, the more he began to enjoy his time with her. By the time he left, he’d garnered permission from her father to write to her while he was away at training. And write he did. He wrote to her every night and told her about his training. She would tell him about the excavations she was working on and how she and her father were struggling to find a connection to Egypt. When he returned, she was waiting with his family at the train station. A month after he returned, he asked her father for permission to court her. Dr. Eames gave his permission reluctantly, while Lady Eames staunchly refused. She insisted Akira was too smart for Keir, she was beginning to study for her PhD after all. Keir didn’t mind the fact that she was smarter than him. He actually liked hearing her go off on a rant about one thing or another. Oftentimes, he would say something stupid in order to get her to go off on one of her rants. What could he say? He was certainly a glutton for punishment. That and he loved the way her whole being animated when she ranted about something she was passionate about.

For a time, everything was good. The days, weeks, and months passed peacefully. Then, a year to the day after meeting Akira for the first time, Keir got the summons for war. That same day he’d planned to ask for Akira’s hand in marriage, but fate thwarted him. So he took the ring he was planning to propose with and told her it was his promise to return to her. How could he have know the trials she was about to face?

“Du burde ikke ha kommet hit,” Askel snapped causing his memory to dissipate.

Keir looked at him in shock. He was on the floor near the top of the stairs with a giant of a dog curled around him. Prince Ehren knelt on the floor next to him, while Prince Ferros hid in the shadows.

“Forgive me, Askel,” he sighed. “I know she may not want to see me but there is something I must tell her.”

“Og hva kan det være?1” Askel replied still speaking Norwegian.

“Sannheten.2”

Askel studied him for a moment.

“I don’t think it wise for you to see her, but if it is the truth you are to tell her then you may go. However, I have one condition.”

Keir raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.

“Whatever truth you tell her, whatever secrets you reveal to her, do so in a way that doesn’t make her too angry. She’s torn enough stitches as it were.”

Keir gave him a confused look but Askel refused to elaborate. Then Keir remembered the night Loki removed his curse from her back. Over 500 lash marks covered her back and each and every one had to be stitched up that night. It had taken the court doctor nearly six hours to do it properly. And that was after a grueling eight to ten hours that Loki spent removing the curse. He gave a curt nod, after which Askel gestured for him to continue. As he made his way to Akira’s room, he barely noticed the three figures in the hall until one blocked his path. He looked down when a set of hands connected with his chest rather violently. His eyes widened in surprise.

“Princess, it is good to see you well,” he said with a formal salute.

“Come off it Xanthior!” she snapped.

“Princess?”

“You’re an arrogant, asshole of a twat, you know that?” she demanded.

Keir sighed, “Whatever it is you wish to berate me for, Princess, please feel free to do so but after I see the woman I love so desparately.”

“You love her that much?”

“I loved her from the day I met her,” he said honestly.

“Then why did my father catch you with another woman?” Askel demanded.

Keir sighed again, “Your father caught me visiting a half sister I didn’t know I had. One I thought I would never see again.”

He glanced at Tara. Her eyes burned with anger and unshed tears.

“I couldn’t have known what lay in store for all of us,” he said quietly and with sadness lacing his words. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to speak to the woman I love.”

“Then speak,” a voice said.

The entire hall turned towards it. Akira stood in the doorway to her room flanked by a large redish dog-thing and an even larger black one. Blood dripped onto the floor from wounds no one could see. Her hands rested on each of the dog-things like she needed them to be able to stand.

“Speak Keir!” she ordered.

“Jeg vil ikke gjøre dette her,3” he told her switching to Norwegian.

“Jeg bryr meg ikke om hva du vil!4” she snapped, switching flawlessly into Norwegian. “Jeg vil bare at mitt hjerte skal slutte å bryte hver gang jeg ser deg.5”

Her last words ended in a choked back sob. Tears clouded her eyes, but didn’t fall. Keir knew she didn’t want to cry in front of so many people, especially him. He had always hated seeing her cry and back then they had been more than stupid, lovesick kids.

“I wanted to explain why I didn’t write to you,” he said quietly. “But I’m not comfortable sharing it with so many people.”

Akira cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.

“You have nightmares about what you saw, don’t you?” she asked.

His head snapped up. She was still studying him through narrowed eyes.

“How did you know?” he countered.

She looked away.

“I’ve seen that look before,” she answered quietly. “It’s the look of someone who has suffered greatly and seen so much. I know that look all too well. I know the terror too. Shell shock. That’s what they call it for some. Night terrors for others. Hell. Pure, sadistic, unadulterated hell. That’s what I call it.”

She looked back at him, only briefly, and he caught a haunted look in her eyes. One he’d never seen before.

“How can you know?!?” he dmanded. “You’ve never seen war!”

“War is not the only thing that can scar you forever,” she nearly whispered.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be beaten and starved every day!” he snapped furiously.

Her eyes darted back to him again.

“You don’t know what it’s like to wish for death!” he cried.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she replied before turning to go back into her room. “Why did you never think to ask me where these scars came from or how I got them?”

Keir fell silent, as he stared at her bloody back. It looked as if she’d been flayed alive. That’s when he remembered someone saying they were lash marks.

“The whip,” he breathed.

“No, the cat’o’nine,” she corrected, turning to face him once more.

Her back looked worse than his ever could.

“How?” he managed to choke out.

“I called the Mother Superior a hell-hated scut two days after she whipped me for singing an old Norwegian lullaby my father used to sing me. I passed out somewhere aroud the 200th I think.”

Both he and Tara sucked in shocked breaths. For a moment, no one could speak. Finally, a voice broke the silence and the tension.

“Lady Akira, lie back down this instant before you lose consciousness!” it snapped.

A half-hearted smile ghosted across Akira’s lips. God, how he loved those lips.

“Relax, Uncle Arri, I was simply checking up on my brother,” she replied smoothly.

God, her voice was more gravelly than he remembered. But God, was it beautiful.

“Checking up on your brother or not, you shouldn’t be out of bed and who the bloody fuck gave you permission to call me Uncle Arri?” the voice sputtered.

“Why my goddess, Frejya, you cream faced spoonflower!” Akira exclaimed.

The second voice sputtered for a moment more before a bellowing laugh could be heard from the room. Akira, too, smiled. It was a real smile, like the ones he’d dreamed of all those years as prisoner. He watched her smile and laugh before realizing he didn’t belong. Not in her world, and certainly not the way he was. He promised himself, as he turned and walked down the steps, that he would do everything he absolutely could to belong in her world.

“Just where do you think you’re going you bawdy, bootless, beslubbering barnacle?” Akira demaded from behind him.

He turned back to her. Her chest was now bare and because he was several steps lower than she was, that put him right at eye level with her breasts. He quickly averted his eyes.

“Where does it look like I’m going, Akira?” he asked.

“You’re leaving,” she said, sadness lacing her words.

He looked up at her face and saw the deep sadness within her eyes. She was hurting. But behind the sadness lurked a hollow emptiness.

“Yes, you have a house full and it will only continue to fill as word spreads,” he replied.

“You’re leaving me to deal with the crowd of people, when you know I hate crowds and you said you had something to tell me?” she demaded, tears gathering on her lashes.

“Yes,” he said again.

She gave him a tear-filled look, before her entire face shuttered and anger replaced her sadness.

“You villanous, spur-galled, skainsmate!” she thundered. “If you leave now, don’t expect to ever come back. Don’t expect me to listen to your lies anymore!”

“Nothing I said you was a lie, my love,” he told her quietly, so the others couldn’t hear, and turned to go down the steps once more.

“Then why didn’t you write like you promised!?!” she practically screamed.

“Because I was a fucking prisoner!” he yelled spinning on the stair to face her again.

Keir had never yelled at Akira and it hurt him to do so now but he refused to be called a liar.

“We were attacked not two days out of port and our ship was sunk!” he continued. “Those of us who survived were taken prisoner. You don’t know what we suffered; what I suffered.”

He fell silent to give himself a moment to reign in his anger.

“We were starved, beaten, and forced to work. I watched my friends suffer and die and I was powerless to do anything about it. I took beatings for some when I could; gave my meager rations to those who needed it more. I did what I could to keep us all alive, but it wasn’t enough for some.”

“I know the feeling,” Akira’s voice was quiet but he heard it.

“How the hell could you know what that’s like!?” he snapped. “They died, Akira!”

“Are the wounds on my back not enough evidence for you?” she gound out. “Do you want to hear about the abuse, the torture, the starvation, the mutilation, and gods forbid the rape?”

Keir stared at her in shock. Hell, they all did. Even Askel was staring in shock.