Stood there and watched you walk away
From everything we had
But I still mean every word I said to you
Something keeps me holding on to nothing
Come on, come on, don't leave me like this
Jaehaera and the others continued on. Killing the danes around them, and every muscle in her body cried for her to stop. The only thing pressing her forward was the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Their circle that they had once had became more of an oval at best. Rickon and Uhtred raised their heads in horror once they heard more shouts and yells coming from the wood. Jaehaere had killed another dane and almost cried from exhaustion, they couldn't last anymore she thought. Then they recognized the men on horses.
It was Steapa and Edward. Jaehaera's heart pumped more adrenaline through her at the sight and she swept the leg from under a dane and stabbed him in the throat. "Edward!" she heard her father shout to his men. "Edward and his army!"
He and his men kept coming from the wood, attacking the danes that threatened to destroy her and her father's men. "Stand!" Haesten shouted to his warriors. "Every man is to stand!" A few of his men began to run for their lives. Jaehaera saw Edward cut off the head of a man as he rode toward the heart of the battle.
Finan and Uhtred caught sight of Skade. "She's why we're here, Lord," Finan reminded her father. "Take her." Together Finan and her father started toward Haesten and Skade.
Across the battlefield, Rickon, Sihtric, and Jaehaera put the fear of the gods into the danes around them. The danes watched in fear as the girl and her boys gain a wave of fury with Edward's army now with them. Jaehaera twisted the sword from the Dane's hand like her father and used it to kill the dane. She now had two swords. Jaehaera tossed it to Rickon, as he worked better with two, she had seen it once before.
She heard her father yell, and she lifted her head in fright. Jaehaera saw him looking around the battlefield for Haesten and Skade, but they were nowhere to be found. This had all been for nothing, she thought with fury. She roared in anger as she also decapitated a man, and he and his head fell to the muddied ground that had once been white with snow. Now the battlefield lay covered in mud and blood.
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Jaehaera stood with her father as a few of the men gathered the prisoners from the now-finished battle. "Lord," Sihtric's voice called and Jaehaera turned at once. "It is Osferth." Jaehaera's heart fell a thousand feet as she rushed to Sihtric. He leads them to the baby monk, his hand firmly in hers.
When they got to the tent he lay in, she saw him clutching his cross in his hand as he coughed. She moved beside Finan and began to look for where he had been wounded. She batted Finan's hands away as they blocked her own. "Shh, shh," She comforted him as he grunted in pain. He lay with blood on his head, but it didn't seem to be his own. "You are alive," she told him, "maybe your God has been looking over you, yes?" she smiled at him and he returned it painfully. The men watched as she tended to his wound quickly. They weren't severe, but they were bad. He would live by a miracle from the gods.
"Did you see me fighting, Lord?" he asked her father. Jaehaera smiled and wiped the blood and mud from his face gently.
"I did," her father answered proudly. "It was a sight to behold." he turned to his daughter, "Jaehaera? Is he going to be alright?"
Jaehaera nodded, "yes father," she answered. "He has a few broken ribs, and he hit his head rather hard, but he will live." she smiled.
"I hoped I killed a few at least," he murmured. Then he grunted in pain once more.
"You gave many a sore head," her father teased.
"I feel cold," Osferth told them.
"Because it is winter, you fool," Rickon answered the baby monk with a smile.
"You were a warrior today Osferth," her father encouraged, and the others around nodded in agreement.
"Am I to die, Lord?" He asked her father. "I do not fear it."
Jaehara flicked his head gently, "do not you hear me?" she taunted lightly. "I forbid it. You will be alright, I swear to you."
"You dare die baby monk," Finan commented, "and I will kill you myself."
"Right," he answered the Irishman, "I'll try not to then."
"It will hurt to breathe, that is why you feel you are dying," Jaehaera further explained. "But, once again, you are not."
"We will return to Aethelflaed's estate," her father informed them all. "You will recover there.
"Osferth nodded weakly, "yes, Lord," he answered.
"What of Skade?" Sihtric asked while Jaehaera continued to tend to Osferth. She glanced at him sourly at the mention of the witch's name.
Uhtred's head fell. "She's been taken by Haesten," her father answered. Jaehaera's grip on the cloth tighten as she cleaned the blood from Osferth's head still. Leaving her own bloodied face alone.
"Then nothing has changed," Sihtric commented. "We remained cursed still." She looked up at him for a second and saw the disappointment on his face.
Jaehaera also saw her father roll his eyes at what Sihtric had said. He is right, father, she thought. "I am cursed," he corrected.
"It touches us all, Lord," Rickon agreed with Sihtric. Finan helped Jaehaera with Osferth as the others talked.
"It fucking continues," Sihtric spoke with annoyance before leaving the tent with Rickon after looking down at his injured friend. Jaehaera sighed and looked back to Osferth.
She gave him a weak smile when they made eye contact. Finan and Uhtred soon left as well. "Are you alright, Lady?" he asked her sweetly. She smiled and nodded. "You do not look it, the smile didn't reach your eyes."
"I am alright," She answered him. Then she paused. "I don't know, Osferth. It's silly, especially now. Rest, you will need it." she commanded him as she picked everything up around him to leave. Osferth didn't press any further and just nodded weakly.
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Uhtred had reclaimed Beamfleot after winning the battle against the danes, and they all sat within its walls. They gathered back their strength as they waited for her father to instruct them to leave for Aethelflaed's estate as he had planned.
Before they left for Aethelflaed's estate Finan, Rickon, Jaehaera, and Sihtric all found a cart for Osferth to ride in as he could not ride his own horse. As they rode Finan and Jaehaera followed the cart as her father instructed. Rickon and Sihtric were to keep watch over the prisoners as they rode. Jaehaera made a funny face at the boy and he smiled.
Once they reached the gates, they entered and soon they were gathered in the hall, eating with everyone. Sihtric stood with Finan, Jaehaera, and Rickon like always. Her father sat alone. Sihtric wrapped his arms around the girl and held her close to him, her back on his chest, and his chin atop her head. They had decided to tell her father and Rickon about their relationship and she felt a weight lifted from her. It came as no shock to Rickon when he found out. He had been suspecting for months after he saw them leave the inn together the other day. Uhtred took his daughter's feelings for the dane boy rather well, though he did threaten Sihtric's life, as did Finan if he ever hurt her.
Uhtred placed a hand on Finan's shoulder as he walked from the hall. Jaehaera noticed that not long after, Aethelflaed followed. Sihtric felt Jaeheara stiffen in his arms and the others noticed as well. "What is it?" Sihtric asked her.
She shared a look with Finan and he shook his head, he knew what she was thinking. "Nothing, I'm just sore is all," she lied, but they didn't press her. She listened and laughed with the three men as they spoke. The celebration made her feel a tad better standing with her three men. She wished Osferth to be in the hall as well, but he had to rest.
As others left the hall, a table emptied and the four sat down together, waiting for her father to return. The prisoners had entered the hall to be fed, and Jaehaera watched with a raised eyebrow. She rested her head on Sihtric's shoulder, and he went to rest on hers as well.
The hall fell a bit silent as her father entered. "How's Osferth?" her father asked her when he had reached them.
Annoyance toward her father threatened to turn to anger, but she swallowed it. Finan rested his head in one of his hands. "Sleeping," she answered, glancing back at the prisoners, "as we should all be."
When her father sat down she felt Sihtric stiffen and she looked at him with concern, but he shook his head. "As soon as he's recovered," Finan began, "we should attempt to recover Skade."
Jaehaera, Rickon, and Sihtric rolled their eyes at the thought. "Once again," Sihtric commented with annoyance. Jaehaera looked at him once more.
"So long as she is free, Lord, you are cursed," Finan added. She nudged Sihtric and made a face that asked what was the matter with him.
"Skade is with the Danes," her father answered. "We cannot reach her. We will not chase her to our deaths."
"Death will find us regardless," Sihtric answered her father. They shared eye contact for longer than Jaehaera cared for, and she held his arm.
Uhtred narrowed his eyes at the dane boy. "Do you have something to say, Sihtric?" her father questioned and her heart began to race.
"He does not," she answered for her love.
"Except that, enough of us have died already," He ignored her, and she shook her head at him once more.
"You are a warrior," Rickon told him while Sihtric and Uhtred continued their staring match with each other. "Death is a hazard." Sihtric looked back at his cup, he could feel Jaehaera give him a warning look as she continued to hold his arm.
"I've decided to go to Ragnar," Uhtred told him, and she looked at her father. "I must help him find peace. Jaehaera will come with me." She nodded at her father.
"All you will find at Ragnar's graveside is ghosts," Sihtric told her father, and she yanked him toward her.
"Sihtric," she warned him in his ear, and he tensed.
There was another moment of silence between the five of them. "You three will keep watch of Aethelflaed, and you will rest," he instructed. Then he got up to leave.
"No man who serves Uhtred can rest," Sihtric spoke and Jaehera gave him another warning look before nudging him. "Not until Skade is recovered."
"What is the matter with you?" she asked him quietly. "Stop this."
Sihtric looked at her. Jaehaera looked at him with a mix of emotions, he knew she felt the same, but wouldn't say it to her father. They all wouldn't. Hurt, and confusion were the leading emotions she gave him. Finan huffed, "Sihtric, you are drunk and tired," the Irishman spoke. But Sihtric wasn't drunk, and neither were the other two.
"Yes, I am tired," Sihtric agreed while looking at Finan. Then he turned to her father. "Tired of marching north and then south, being called a traitor, of abandoning our families. For what?" he asked.
"Sihtric, stop it," she pleaded with him quietly.
Uhtred walked back to them, "then leave, boy," he told Sihtric. Her heart sank a bit.
"You don't mean that," Jaehaera answered Uhtred, but spoke to both her heart and her father.
"If you are unhappy in my service, leave!" Uhtred commanded as the others watched. "I do not know why you could be, you have the affection of my daughter you desperately proclaim every chance you get."
Sihtric broke from her and stood up, sending the bench that sat at back. It whined against the wood floor. "I have fought for you!" Sihtric yelled, and Jaehaera went to pull him away from her father. Sihtric shrugged her arm off, his focus remaining on Uhtred.
"You fight because you enjoy it," Uhtred laughed.
She tried again, "Sihtric stop this please," she pleaded with him once more. He couldn't leave, not like this. "Father," she looked at Uhtred, dread building in her.
"You would dismiss me as easy as this?" He asked her father angrily. The two men are inches away from each other, ignoring Jaehaera. Finan and Rickon stood as well now.
"Stay or go, I do not care," Uhtred answered.
"Father," Jaehaera warned. She looked up at Sihtric from next to him. "He does not mean that. He does care."
"Let's all sit," Finan suggested angrily, trying to defuse the tension, but it did not seem to work as no one moved. Jaehaera tried to move him to go sit back down, but he did not budge.
"Stay or go Sihtric Kjartansson," her father told him. "It is your choice. But just so you know, you leave me, you leave my daughter as well. It is your choice. Make it!"
Sihtric looked at Jaehaera, Finan, and finally Rickon. "If you wish to make the square," He began and Jaehaera shook her head. "Uhtred of Bebbanburg, let us do it."
"Sihtric stop this madness, now," Jaehaera commanded. "This is utter foolishness. You both need to leave each other and relax."
"There will be no squares made," Finan agreed, once more stepping between the two men. "No fighting, just sleep!" Jaeahera nodded in agreement, trying to make Sihtric move back with her once more. The Irishman looked between the two and at Jaehaera. "Jesus," he whispered. He turned to face Sihtric and stood next to him. "Get the prisoners back with the pigs, bound."
"Sihtric!" her father shouted, and it made Jaehaera jump slightly. The two both turned to face him. "I will leave at first light with Jaehaera, but I will return and if you are here still then I will kill you."
"Father!" Jaehaera gasped, going to stand between them. "Don't do this, either of you. Please, we have all lost so much already."Her father didn't say anything, instead left the hall. No one spoke, and Jaehaera turned to look at her love with sadness in her eyes. She took his hands in hers, he looked at her with glassy eyes.
"Why?" Rickon asked Sihtric.
Sihtric pulled his hands from Jaehaera and flung the cups from the table unto the floor. She flinched away at the sound and backed away from him. Sihtric turned to Rickon. "He has cursed us all!" he shouted at his friend.
Jaehaera stood away from the men, not knowing what to say or do. "She has cursed you all, and he allows it," the prisoner Dagfinn pointed out.
"Shut your mouth," Finan told the man.
"Abandon him, boy," Dagfinn advised Sihtric. "It is your only chance." Jaehaera shook her head. "You're a Dane first and last." Finan motioned at Rickon.
Rickon stood and slammed Dagfinn's head down on the table. "What did the Irishman command? Hmm?" he commanded Dagfinn. "Quiet!"
Sihtric spat on the floor before turning to leave. "Sihtric," she caught him by his sleeve, "Sihtric, please just apologize, my father will forgive you. You wouldn't have been saying any of this if you hadn't been exhausted and drinking half the day."
"Jaehaera, please," Sihtric turned to her, "you know as well as I do that I am right. You have even said it, he's weak. He does not care for you, or for me. He said it to me just now."
"Sihtric it was a lie, he does care," She pleaded.
"Are you going to come with me, or are you staying?" He asked her.
Jaehaera looked at Finan and Rickon for help, but they looked at a loss for words, "Sihtric," she began but didn't answer fully. Uhtred is her father, she thought, she couldn't leave him.
"I get it," Sihtirc answered flatly. "I saw you with Osferth."
"Sihtric," she began weakly, "Sihtric, that's nothing." He didn't say anything before turning to leave the hall like her father had just done. "Sihtric," she followed after him into the cold night air. She hated the cold. "Sihtric where are you going?" Rickon and Finan stood as she left and shared a look.
"I will find a way to Cnut," Sihtric told her as he continued to walk away from her.
Jaehaera shook her head, "Sihtric do not do this, please," she told him once more. "You will regret it if you do, I know you will," she continued. "We all need sleep, when you wake up in the morning we will all know just how foolish this is."
"No, it's not," Sihtric turned to her abruptly and they both stopped. "It's not foolish at all."
"Betraying my father like this is foolish, Sihtric you know it," she reminded him. "Haven't we suffered enough, haven't we all lost enough? Why do you have to go and add one more?" Rickon and Finan watched from the hall.
"I will not stay here and suffer more," Sihtric told her. "That would be foolish. Neither should you."
"Go then!" she shouted at him, making him flinch slightly. Her frustration and hurt began to take over. "But don't think for one second that when you come back, because you will come back, that every thing will be as it was."
"What?" he asked her, walking closer to her. "The sneaking around? Hiding? You not wanting anyone to know about us until it is convenient for you? Me always having to be there when you break? Sorry, Jaehaera, but maybe I don't want that anymore."
"Sihtric," Finan warned.
"You think I want you?" Jaehaera shot back at him, getting closer to him as well. Heat rose in her chest. "A constant reminder of who burned my grandparents to the ground, and whored my aunt. You think I want this?!"
"Jaehaera, Sihtric, stop this now!" Finan commanded as he walked closer to them.
The two looked at each other for a few moments. "Sihtric, I will go with you," she told him. "Just, just please do not go to Cnut or Haesten, please."
"No," Sihtric answered her. "No, I do not want you to come with me. It will save you from being reminded of Kjartan."
"If you go to Cnut, we are done," she told him as he turned to leave her. Sihtric did just that, he walked away. "I swear to you Sihtric Kjartansson when we meet on the battlefield I will kill you," she called to him. Her heart broke as he stopped for a second before continuing to walk to the stables. "Sihtric!" she called for him, voice breaking. Sihtric kept walking to the stables as tears began to fall. Finan came to stand by her and went to put a hand on her shoulder. Jaehaera shrugged it off and wiped her cheek while sniffling. She walked past Finan and Rickon without another word. She went to sleep in her cold bed without her lover for the first time in almost a year.
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Uhtred and Jaehaera only made conversation when necessary, other than that they didn't speak. Soon they reached the lake near Loidis where her uncle Ragnar lay underneath stones. She got off of her horse first and waited for her father to walk to his grave. Sihtric had been right, nothing here felt like Ragnar, it only felt heavy and ghostly. Like the Saxon graveyards felt. She hated it and hated how Sihtric haunted her thoughts.
The water closest to the bank had already thawed, leaving the rest covered in ice still as summer drew near. Jaehaera stood and closed her eyes as the breeze came in. Uhtred crouched by his brother's grave. "I knew the two of you would come," Brida's voice greeted them. Jaehaera flinched slightly at her voice, not expecting it. Her father hadn't as well as their reaction had been the same. The woman carried two fish in her hand as she walked toward them.
The three gathered around a fire and didn't speak much until nightfall as they ate. "He calls to me in my dreams," Brida told them. Jaehaera knew the feeling. He had been doing the same to her. "From Niflheim." Jaehaera and her father looked up from their food. "Asking me to help him cross from Hel into Valhalla."
"If there is one thing I could do, it would be that," her father told Brida honestly.
"You are here because you want forgiveness," Brida replied to her father. She noticed how Jaehaera just looked down and didn't say anything or give a look like normal. "You abandoned him three times over."
"That was through fate, not choice," her father answered. Brida scoffed before dowsing the fire with her water. "What are you doing, we will freeze." Jaehaera looked up at her father. Ragnar faces much worse than this she thought. Jaehaera got up as well without a word.
"Niflheim is much colder than you will ever be," Brida reminded Uhtred.
"If Ragnar suffers, then so shall we," Jaehaera spoke lifelessly as she began to sit against a nearby tree away from the two.
"There will be no comfort for you here," Brida told mainly her father before going to lie down at the spot she had chosen. "I'm going to sleep."
"Wrapped in fur?" her father questioned. He sighed as Jaehaera and Brida both did not answer him. Jaehaera listened to her father as he spoke to his brother and Jaehaera muffled her tears.
She awoke once more in the night and she went sleepily to sit next her her uncle. "I do not know what to say, uncle," she told him softly and quietly. She also didn't know that her father and Brida also lie awake, listening. "I don't know for certain if you can hear me or not, but I want you to know I did not mean the words I spoke to you." she sniffled once more in the cold and wrapped her furs around her. "It seems they rang true, and I did not mean to curse you to Niflheim and away from your parents." she looked out to the lake and gave a sad smile. "Even though Brida said there would be no comfort, I look out around us and can't help but think it's beautiful. That it would be a place you would have told me about when I was younger as you often spoke about your travels and adventures. The gods know how I worshipped you and my father as a child. I wanted to be just like you, uncle, and still do."
Jaehaera looked at the stone that covered his head, and a lump appeared in her throat. "I wish you were here, you would know what to do like always. My father thinks he knows what he is doing, but we are broken Ragnar, scattered. Sihtric left," she whimpered, "you always liked him," she smiled weakly. "He's gone and I, I feel more lost without you, my mother, and him beside me." A tear fell as she wiped it away. "It feels like nothing can ever go right anymore, not for long at least. But you know all about that, you are in Hel," she sobbed quietly. "Gods, I hate you, I hate my father, and I hate Sihtric. You were supposed to be great, this is not how you were supposed to go, not like this, not without honor. You died alone," she whimpered. "Alone and without comfort." she placed both hands on the headstone and rested her head on her hands and sobbed once more. "I needed you," she choked out. "I need you now, uncle. Give me your strength and wisdom. Your love and your life," she cried softly. "You have all of mine...until the end."
Jaehaera sat awhile next to her uncle until she found herself asleep next to the grave. She wrapped herself tightly in her furs and she dreamt of her mother and uncle. Ragnar placed a comforting hand on the girl's cheek and rested his head on hers.
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Jaehaera had fallen asleep next to Ragnar but awoke next to the fire now relit in front of her. Her father had moved her in the early morning to keep her warm. She squinted in the morning light as her aunt awoke as well. They found her father's horse still tied to one of the trees along with Mareridt. They looked around more and saw three horsemen a few yards behind them in front of the other side of the river, and they got up at once. Brida shielded her face from the sun to look out at them, and Jaehaera did the same.
"Do you know them?" she asked her aunt as her father returned back to them.
"They look like Danes," Brida answered.
"Right, but do you know them?" Her father asked once more, and Jaehaera looked at him flatly.
"No," Brida answered sharply.
He continued to walk to them and place the game her had down. "We should leave," he told the women. "We can eat later." Jaehaera didn't feel like eating either way, it did not matter to her, but she did wish to stay here a while longer. It was beautiful here, peaceful as the Saxons would say.
"To go where?" she asked her father tiredly.
"To a shithole village on the road to Legaceaster," he answered as he bent down to gather their things. "I do not know how we can help Ragnar escape Niflheim," he told Brida, "but I will not return to my own life until I've tried."
"What is at this village?" Brida asked Uhtred.
"A seer," he answered. Jaehaera took in a deep breath and closed her eyes to remind calm down as Sihtric and her had practiced. Yes, because seers have worked in our favor many times before, she rolled her eyes once she opened them again. "Do you remember Storri?" Uhtred asked Brida.
The woman seemed to recognize the name. "Storri is a piece of shit," she answered flatly.
"He is," Uhtred agreed, "but he was Ubba's seer," her father explained, "a sword dane's seer. If any man will know how to reach a lost warrior, it is him." her father looked across the lake, and the horsemen were no longer there. "They have gone. We can be at the village in two days."
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After a long journey to the village, and back to Ragnar with the knowledge given to them by the shitstain Storri. How to save Ragnar and also how to kill a curse. All she wanted to do was rest in her bed. Rest in the arms of Sihtric, but she could not do that. She knew in her heart that she would never kill him, but she could not take back what she had said.
Nothing she said had been true. He did not remind her of Kjartan, far from it. Her words shoot to kill when she's mad. She would always regret the words spoken. The night he left felt too real and honest to have been fake. She wished it had been fake. He had promised. He had promised it would be the two of them, fighting side by side together until the end. How could he throw it all away so easily it seemed? It did not make sense to her. She remembered the words spoken all too well, how he looked when he walked away from her. He as well as Ragnar and her mother haunted her dreams.
In her dreams, they danced, danced as they had in Witanceaster. Where she first felt herself fall or him. His hands fit in hers like a puzzle piece. He fit like a missing part of her soul, a gift from the gods. And now she was without him. Her heart, and her anchor.