They were afraid. Not just of me—though I was the name whispered behind shut doors, the shadow turned over in fevered dreams. They were afraid of the world unraveling, of the stories passed down from grandmothers too old to walk and priests too bitter to love. They feared curses wrapped in red eyes and hair the color of twilight. They feared difference. Change. Uncertainty. And they feared what they couldn't explain.
They'd grown up on tales of witches burned and devils exorcised, of sinners swallowed by the earth and righteous fire from the sky. Most of them didn't even know what Lindisfarne was. Only that it had burned. That holy men had been slain. That God had turned His face away. And when something like that happens, people look for reasons.
And I was convenient.
It wasn't their fault the Northmen were raiding. It wasn't their fault I'd been born within walking distance of their chapel. It wasn't their fault the world was cruel and chaotic and beyond their understanding.
But it wasn't mine either. And that was what burned.
What scorched deepest wasn't the betrayal. It was the weight of knowing how little any of it truly mattered. Fear made them monsters. And it made me a target.
I felt worse for Ingrid and Einar than I did for myself. They were kind. Steady. Young in the ways that mattered, though older than me in terms of experience. They hadn't asked for this. Hadn't prayed for a strange girl to land in their lives like a fallen star. But they took me in anyway. A child who knew too much, and didn't speak enough.
They could have turned me away. Let me rot in the woods. Let the frost have me. Let the suspicion bloom into a pyre. But they didn't. They taught me how to hold a hoe. How to scrape fat from skins. How to make broth from bones and laughter from silence.
And when the fear came calling, they stood between it and me.
Even when the door cracked under a boot. Even when the shouting turned into splintering. Even when the line between mob and murder finally vanished.
Einar stood in the doorway like a wall, axe raised and jaw set. He wasn't a warrior, not by trade. But in that moment, he looked like the stories. A man who knew what mattered and refused to let it go.
Ingrid didn't scream. She didn't wail or beg. She just moved. She shoved Leofric into my arms so quickly it knocked the breath from my chest. Her hands were shaking, her lips moving without sound. But her eyes—her eyes were steady.
"Go."
"I—"
"Run, Alice."
I didn't argue. Because in that moment, I saw it. Not just fear. But purpose.
You have to live. He has to live.
No time for questions. No time for grief. So I turned.
The door cracked behind me like thunder rolling through trees. I heard the scuffle. Heard Einar's roar. Heard steel sink into something soft. A wet crunch. A scream choked off before it could finish. The ugly sounds of bravery meeting desperation.
Then I glanced once, just once, as Einar—my father—brought his freshly sharpened axe down against the first man through the threshold. He didn't hesitate. He didn't miss.
And then I ran.
Past the firewood pile where we stacked winters together. Past the fence Einar had repaired after the first storm. Past the archery stumps where I'd cursed under my breath and laughed through failure. Past the stream where Leofric had splashed water with wild delight. Past the earth mounds we'd sown with hope and compost. Past the clearing where I'd once faced wolves with nothing but a whisper of power.
I ran until the fire in my lungs devoured thought. Until my legs became splinters of pain, muscles stretched too thin. Until the wind carved through my cloak, turning every breath into a blade.
But I didn't stop. Because I wasn't just running for me.
I was running for them. For what they gave me. For what they shouldn't have had to lose.
And something broke in me. Something deep. Not a snap, but a slow tear. A rift opening between me and everything I had tried to become. Maybe it could be healed. Maybe not. But one thing was clear: I would never belong again. Not really.
I found a hollowed-out tree, its trunk rotted from the inside but just spacious enough to shelter us. The bark flaked like old parchment, and the air inside carried the scent of damp decay, but it was shelter—and that was enough. I gathered the driest kindling I could find, hands trembling from fatigue, and coaxed a fire to life with what little energy I had left. Each spark felt like a miracle. When the flames finally caught, I let out a long breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding, the light dancing in my sore, swollen eyes. I was grateful I'd practiced fire-making again since the wolves. That small, stubborn habit had bought us warmth. And so, with Leofric pressed close and the flickering heat guarding the hollow like a sentry, we waited.
Night fell, and the stars blinked like distant eyes.
Then night fell again.
I hoped my parents would find me. Hoped they'd fought them off. That they were just delayed. That they were tracking us through the woods. That any moment now, I'd hear Einar's voice, or feel Ingrid's arms wrap around me.
But only the wind came. And the cold.
It crept in slowly, like guilt. Each hour pressing tighter. My cloak, lined with rabbit fur, barely held the warmth. My fingers blistered. My lips cracked. My toes turned numb.
But I held Leofric close. I didn't let him cry. Couldn't risk it. I rocked him with numb arms, whispered lullabies I half remembered. Snatches of song. Nonsense from a world long gone. Fairy tales from both lives.
Each creaking branch became a pursuer. Each birdcall a warning. Every breath drawn in was a risk. Every sound a knife.
I wasn't going to lose him too.
By the second sunrise, my joints were useless. My body ached with fatigue. But I couldn't sit and wait any longer. The silence had turned into screaming.
So I walked.
I followed instinct. Bent twigs. Shifted snow. The quiet whisper of memory. Nothing looked the same. The world felt wrong. Tilted. Hollow. Like it had lost its color.
But then I saw the smoke. Thick. Oily. Black.
Far too much for a hearth.
Too much even for just our home burning.
My heart turned to stone.
The Norsemen had come. And the village had paid the price.
I reached the edge through the trees. It was a graveyard. Homes reduced to skeletons. Fields flattened. Carts overturned and blackened. Bodies everywhere—some armed, some not. The church lay in ruins. Its once-proud cross cracked in two, leaning like a wounded soldier.
They hadn't stood a chance.
I wanted to turn back. To flee. To run until my legs gave out. But I had to know.
Our house was burning. Or had burned. The smoke still rose, stubborn and dark.
I stepped lightly, Leofric bound tight against my back. He didn't move. I didn't speak.
When I reached the front path, my heart shattered.
Einar lay by the door. Axe in hand. Body still. Three others around him. Blood turned the snow black. One man had a blade still lodged in his chest. The ground was soaked and disturbed. A battleground.
He died on his feet.
Ingrid was near the back. Curled around the rear threshold. Arms open, as if pushing us onward even in death. Her skirt was scorched. Her hair tangled. Her face turned toward the woods she'd told us to flee into.
She had held the line.
My knees hit the ground. I don't remember the fall. Only the snow, and the way it felt against my skin. Wet. Cold. Indifferent.
The tears came before I realized I was crying.
I wanted to say something. Anything. But all I could think was this:
I knew. I had known this would happen. I had been waiting for it since I opened my eyes in this world.
I had prepared. For war. For fire. For grief.
But not like this.
Not Einar's patience. Not Ingrid's warmth. Not the family we had become, bit by bit, in stolen moments.
It wasn't fair. And I hated how unsurprised I was.
I hated how natural it felt to kneel in ashes.
Like I'd been born to destroy things.
And worst of all— Part of me still wanted to forgive the villagers.
Even after this. Even now.
Because fear does that. It makes people monsters. It makes them desperate.
Maybe they thought they were saving something. Maybe they thought they were righteous.
But they weren't.
All they had done was light the fire that guided the raiders to them.