The journey across the Channel was gray and unkind. Salt wind lashed the banners of East Anglia as Eadric's ships made for the port of Quentovic. Behind him, England smoldered — fractured, faithless, and bleeding. Ahead lay the court of the Franks, where kings smiled while counting knives behind their backs.
Eadric stood at the prow, cloak snapping in the wind. His men knelt behind him, but he did not bow to any storm. The boy from another world — the gamer, the outcast — had long since burned away. What remained was a king.
The court of King Charles the Bald glittered beneath painted rafters and banners heavy with lilies. Courtiers murmured like bees around honey, silks and gold glinting as the young foreign monarch entered the hall.
At the far end of the dais, Charles rose from his throne. His beard had turned to silver, but his eyes still carried the weight of command. He studied Eadric with quiet recognition, not surprise.
"So this is my daughter's son," Charles said, voice carrying through the hall.
Eadric inclined his head — not in servitude, but in honor between equals. "Your Majesty," he said evenly. "I come not to beg, but to bind what blood has been broken."
The murmur deepened. No man addressed the King of the Franks so plainly. Yet Charles only smiled, weary but fond. "You have your mother's fire. She defied me once to wed a Saxon king — I see that defiance did not die with her."
"I would call it faith, not defiance," Eadric replied. "Faith in what England might be."
Charles stepped down from the dais, motioning the guards aside. "Then faith is what we share."
The two kings clasped forearms — a gesture of warriors, not courtiers. Around them, the nobles of Francia watched in uneasy silence.
That night, the hall filled with music and cautious celebration. Eadric sat beside Charles, speaking of war, of faith, of the Northmen's spreading plague. The old king listened as one who had seen too many worlds fall to pride and ambition.
"You seek aid," Charles said at last. "But you seek it as a brother, not a vassal. I honor that."
"I seek to save what my people still hold," Eadric replied. "If England falls, Francia will be next. Ivar means to carve a new world in our ashes."
And the Northman Rollo — brother to Ragnar — writes to me as well," he said.
"He promises peace if I stand aside… and war if I do not."
Eadric's jaw tightened.
"He will not keep peace. He serves Ivar's ambition as much as his own."
Charles nodded slowly.
"Perhaps. Or perhaps he tests us both — to see which king's faith will brea
"Perhaps," Charles murmured. "Or perhaps he tests me — and you. Blood and sea bind him to both our shores."
Silence hung between them. Then Charles leaned close, voice dropping.
"I will not send you my armies. I cannot. My nobles are restless, my coffers thin. But I will send ships, coin, and men enough to remind the North that the Franks do not forget their kin."
Eadric bowed his head slightly. "Then you will have my oath — and my friendship. Not as your subject, but as your equal."
Charles smiled, eyes softening. "You speak like your mother. And I see in you what I once hoped for her — a ruler both wise and unyielding."
When the feast ended, Charles walked with him to the courtyard, where snow drifted through the torchlight.
"England's fate is written in blood," the old king said. "But you, Eadric — you carry more than England. You carry two worlds, and two crowns' hope."
Eadric looked to the east, where the dawn would soon rise over the sea. "Then I will not let them down."
Charles placed a hand on his shoulder. "Nor will I. Go — and when my banners cross the Channel, the North will know what bond they have broken."
The wind caught the torches, scattering sparks into the cold night.
And in that light — fleeting, golden, and fierce — two kings stood not as supplicant and sovereign, but as equals bound by blood, by loss, and by destiny.