"Ragnar."
The voice came from somewhere above him, soft but insistent. It pulled at him like a rope dragging him up from deep water.
"Ragnar, wake up."
He knew that voice. Didn't he? The sound wrapped around his name in a way that felt familiar, like hearing a song he'd forgotten he knew. But when he tried to place it—tried to attach a face, a memory, anything concrete—his mind gave him nothing. Just empty space where something should have been.
His eyelids felt heavy, crusted with something he couldn't name. He forced them open.
The sky above was gray, morning light filtering through clouds that looked bruised and swollen. His back pressed against cold earth, and his body ached in places he couldn't quite identify—a dull, pervasive soreness that suggested he'd been lying there for hours.
A face appeared above him, blocking out the sky.
A woman. Tall, from what he could tell even from this angle. Dark skin that caught what little light managed to break through the clouds, and amber eyes that studied him with an expression caught somewhere between concern and irritation.
Her hair was black, coiled and braided with what looked like silver thread woven through it. She wore leather armor, scratched and worn, with a sword strapped across her back.
She was beautiful.
He had no reaction to that fact. Just noted it the way he might note the color of the sky or the temperature of the air.
"You going to stare at me all day, or are you going to say something?" She extended her hand down toward him.
Ragnar blinked. His mouth felt dry, his tongue thick. "I..." The word came out rough, unused. He swallowed and tried again. "Who—"
"Very funny." She grabbed his wrist without waiting for him to take her hand and hauled him upright with surprising strength. "Come on. We don't have time for whatever this is."
He stumbled as he stood, his legs unsteady beneath him. The world tilted slightly, then righted itself. He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but the words died when her gaze shifted past him and her expression changed.
"What the hell?"
Ragnar turned.
A woman lay on the ground behind where he'd been. Naked, her pale skin almost luminous in the dim light. Her body was twisted at odd angles, one arm bent wrong, her face covered in dark bruises that stood out against that strange, glowing skin. White liquid—not blood, something else—had pooled beneath her, seeping into the earth.
And she wasn't breathing.
"Who is that?" The dark-skinned woman moved past him, crouching beside the body. She pressed two fingers against the pale woman's neck, checking for a pulse. "Ragnar, who is this?"
He stared at the body. Something flickered in the back of his mind—a flash of light, the sensation of heat, a voice that wasn't quite a voice—but it slipped away before he could grasp it.
"I don't know," he said slowly.
"You don't know." The woman looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. "You were lying right next to her and you don't know who she is?"
"I just woke up." He ran a hand through his hair, found it matted and dirty. "I can't... I don't remember."
The woman stood, brushing dirt from her knees. She studied him with those amber eyes, searching for something. "Are you serious right now?"
"I don't—" He stopped, frustrated. How did he explain that his mind felt like a book with half its pages torn out? "I know my name. Ragnar. But I don't know yours. I don't know where we are or how I got here or who she is." He gestured at the pale woman. "I don't know anything."
The dark-skinned woman's jaw tightened. For a moment she looked like she might hit him. Then her expression shifted to something harder to read—confusion mixed with what might have been worry.
"You mean you slept with a stranger you met in the bush and suddenly lost your senses?"
"No, I didn't! I can't remember anything, but I'm sure we didn't have sex. I mean… she looks like she fought a bear. What kind of man has sex that rough?"
She turned back to the pale woman. "We'll deal with your so called memory problems later. Help me with her."
"She's alive?"
"Barely." The woman crouched again, sliding her arms under the pale woman's shoulders. "Get her legs. Carefully—she's hurt bad."
Ragnar moved to obey before he'd consciously decided to do it. His body seemed to know what to do even if his mind didn't.
He lifted the pale woman's legs as gently as he could, surprised by how light she felt. Her skin was cold beneath his hands, but not the cold of death.
Something else. Like touching marble that had been left in winter air.
They carried her between them, moving across rocky ground that gradually gave way to a dirt path. Ragnar's arms burned with the effort, but he didn't complain.
The dark-skinned woman set a brisk pace, her breathing steady despite the weight she carried.
As they walked, Ragnar looked around.
Trees lined the path—twisted, gnarled things with bare branches that reached toward the sky like pleading hands.
The underbrush was thick and thorny, choking out anything that might have once grown green here. Everything looked sick, like the land itself was diseased.
But the strangest part was how "new" it all felt.
He knew he should recognize this place. Some part of him insisted he'd walked this path before, had seen these trees, had breathed this air.
But when he tried to remember specifics, his mind gave him nothing. Just vague impressions, like trying to recall a dream after waking.
"What happened here?" he asked.
The woman glanced at him, her expression sharp. "What do you mean what happened?"
"The trees. The land. Everything looks..." He searched for the right word. "Wrong."
She stopped walking. Set down her end of the pale woman carefully and turned to face him fully. "Are you mocking me right now?"
"No, I—"
"Because if this is one of your games, Ragnar, I swear by every god that isn't listening, I will leave you and your mystery woman right here." Her voice had an edge to it, something dangerous beneath the surface. "We just spent two days fighting off the Easterns that almost wiped out half the village. People are dead. Good people. And you want to stand here and pretend you don't know why the land looks 'wrong'?"
Ragnar felt something twist in his gut. Not memory, exactly, but recognition of the pain in her voice. "I'm not pretending."
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then the woman's shoulders sagged slightly, some of the tension leaving her frame. She looked tired, he realized. Exhausted in a way that went deeper than physical fatigue.
"Pick her up," she said quietly. "We're almost there."
They continued in silence.
The path widened, and soon Ragnar could see buildings ahead. A village—small, maybe a few hundred people.
The structures were wooden, rough-hewn, built for function over form. Smoke rose from some of the chimneys in thin gray streams that blended with the overcast sky.
But something was off. The buildings near the edge of the village were damaged—walls broken, roofs collapsed, scorch marks blackening the wood. And as they got closer, he could see people moving between the structures with a kind of weary urgency that spoke of recent disaster.
The dark-skinned woman led them toward a larger building near the village center. A crude red cross had been painted on the door—a symbol Ragnar recognized even if he couldn't remember why.
Clinic. The word appeared in his mind unbidden.
They pushed through the door.
The smell hit him first—blood and sweat and something sharp that made his nose itch. Antiseptic, maybe.
The main room was packed with people. Some sat on benches lining the walls, holding injuries wrapped in makeshift bandages. Others lay on cots arranged in rows, groaning softly or staring at nothing with hollow eyes.
A woman with gray hair tied back in a severe bun looked up from where she was wrapping someone's arm. Her eyes went wide when she saw what they carried.
"Lyra, what—"
"She needs help." The dark-skinned woman—Lyra, apparently—moved toward an empty cot in the corner. "Now."
The gray-haired woman hurried over, her hands already moving to check the pale woman's pulse, her breathing, the strange wounds that leaked white instead of red. "What happened to her?"
"We found her." Lyra laid the pale woman down with surprising gentleness. "That's all I know."
The gray-haired woman's lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn't ask more questions. She called for assistance, and two younger women appeared with cloths and water and tools Ragnar didn't recognize.
"Out," the gray-haired woman said without looking at them. "I can't work with you hovering."
Lyra nodded and turned toward the door. Ragnar followed, his eyes still scanning the room. So many injured. So much pain concentrated in one space. His chest tightened with something he couldn't name—sympathy, maybe, or horror at whatever had caused this.
He was so focused on the wounded that he didn't see the person rushing toward him until they collided.
The impact sent them both stumbling. Ragnar caught his balance quickly, his body reacting with an ease that surprised him.
"Sorry," he said automatically. "I wasn't—"
The person—a man, middle-aged with a scarred face and angry eyes—looked up at him. For a moment Ragnar thought he might apologize too. Then the man's expression twisted into something ugly.
"Thief," he spat. Literally spat, a glob of saliva that hit Ragnar's chest. "You've got some nerve showing your face here."
Ragnar stared at him, confused. "I don't—"
"Fuck off, you son of a bitch."
Something about the man's face tugged at Ragnar's memory. Not a clear recollection, but the ghost of one. Had they known each other? Fought?
"I'm sorry," Ragnar said quietly. He didn't know what else to say.
The man's eyes widened, then narrowed. "You're sorry." He said it like the words were poison in his mouth. "After everything—after what you did to me, to my family—you're 'sorry'?"
"Garik, that's enough." Lyra appeared at Ragnar's shoulder, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Not threatening, exactly, but present. "Walk away."
Garik looked between them, his jaw working like he wanted to say more. Then he made a disgusted sound and turned, shouldering past Ragnar hard enough to make him stumble again.
Lyra watched him go, then turned to Ragnar. "What's wrong with you? Where's the rage inside of you? You really don't remember him?"
"Should I?"
Her expression was unreadable. "He used to be your best friend. Before the land dispute. Before you..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Come on. We need to talk."
They left the clinic, stepping out into air that felt cleaner despite the general decay around them. Lyra led him away from the main door. When they were slightly away from the crowd, she turned on him.
Fast—faster than he expected. One moment she was standing normal, the next she had him pinned against the wall, her forearm across his throat and an axe in her other hand, the blade resting against his neck.
"Tell me the truth, no more games," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "What's my name?"
Ragnar's pulse jumped. The axe was sharp enough that he could feel it even without pressure, a line of cold against his skin. He met her eyes and saw genuine fear there beneath the anger.
"I don't know," he said.
"Bullshit."
"I don't." He kept his voice steady, didn't try to pull away. "I know your face. I know I should know you. But I can't remember your name."
"Lyra." She pressed the axe a fraction harder. "It's Lyra. We've known each other for eight years. You saved my life twice. I saved yours once. You were at my brother's funeral and I was at your—" She stopped abruptly, something painful crossing her face. "You really don't remember?"
"No."
They stood frozen for a long moment. Then Lyra's arm dropped, the axe returning to her belt in one smooth motion. She stepped back, running a hand over her face.
"What happened to you?" she asked, and this time there was no anger in it. Just exhaustion and worry.
"I don't know that either."
"The woman. The one we brought in." Lyra looked toward the clinic. "She must know something. She was with you when I found you."
"Can we talk to her?"
"Once she's stable, maybe—"
"Lyra!"
They both turned. The gray-haired woman from the clinic stood in the doorway, her expression grim.
"She's gone," the woman said simply. "I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do."
Ragnar felt something sink in his chest. He hadn't known the pale woman, couldn't even remember her, but the loss still hit him like a physical blow.
Lyra swore, short and vicious. "How?"
"Her injuries were too severe. Internal damage I couldn't reach." The gray-haired woman shook her head. "Whatever happened to her, it wasn't something that could be fixed with medicine."
Lyra turned back to Ragnar, and he could see the frustration in every line of her body. "She was our only lead."
Ragnar opened his mouth to respond, but the words never came.
His vision blurred.
The world tilted sideways, and suddenly he wasn't standing in the alley anymore. He was somewhere else—everywhere else.
Light exploded behind his eyes, brilliant and painful, and with it came a voice that resonated in his bones.
[Congratulations, Ragnar. You alone carry the Seed now.]
Words appeared in the air before him, glowing like they'd been carved from starlight:
[THE SEED OF SALVATION HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED]
[BEARER: RAGNAR]
[STATUS: ACTIVE]
He tried to speak, tried to ask what this meant, but his throat wouldn't work. The light grew brighter, consuming everything, and distantly he heard Lyra calling his name.
Then the ground rushed up to meet him, and everything went dark.