The public execution was a masterpiece of political theater. It proved to the citizens that the Law protected everyone, and it terrified the foreign merchants into absolute compliance.
But theater ends when the sun goes down.
It was 3:00 AM. The city of Axiomra was asleep. The heated stones of the floor kept the master bedroom warm.
Astrid was sleeping soundly, her copper hair spilled across the furs.
Bilal was awake.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, doubled over, clutching his stomach. A deep, agonizing pain twisted in his gut. It wasn't an ulcer. It wasn't bad meat. It was the physical manifestation of profound psychological trauma.
He stumbled out of the bed, walking silently to the washbasin. He splashed freezing water on his face, gripping the edges of the wooden table so hard his knuckles turned white.
"I snapped his neck," Bilal thought, his breathing ragged and shallow. "I felt the bone crush against my heel. I took a human life. I am a murderer."
In 2026, Bilal had been a biology student. He had valued life above all things. He knew the intricate beauty of the human nervous system, the fragility of the spine.
And today, he had destroyed one without a second thought.
The Viking world glorified killing. They sang songs about the splatter of blood and the crunch of bone. They believed men who killed went to Valhalla.
But Bilal was not a Viking. He was a Muslim. He believed in the sanctity of life, that killing one innocent person was like killing all of humanity.
He knew Sigurd was not innocent, but the visceral, tactile memory of taking a life disgusted him to his very core.
He fell to his knees on the stone floor, pressing his forehead against the cold rock, tears of sheer spiritual exhaustion leaking from his eyes. His stomach rolled in violent nausea.
"Allah, forgive me," he whispered into the dark. "I did not want to be this monster. I only wanted to build a farm. I only wanted to keep them warm. Why do they make me kill them?"
He sat in the dark for an hour, wrestling with the demons that hid behind his eyes.
He realized the terrifying truth of his existence: To build a paradise of peace and human rights, he had to become the most violent, ruthless creature in the hemisphere.
He had to absorb the sins of the world so his daughters wouldn't have to.
A soft hand touched his bare shoulder.
Bilal flinched, looking up. Astrid was kneeling beside him in her nightgown.
She didn't look at him with fear, nor did she glorify the violence like a typical Viking woman might. She looked at him with profound, tragic understanding.
She knew he wasn't sick in his stomach. She knew he was sick in his soul.
She didn't speak. She just wrapped her arms around his thick, heavy shoulders and pulled his head against her chest. She rocked him slowly in the silence of the night.
"It is done, my Giant," she whispered softly into the dark. "The girl is safe. The city is safe. Let the ghosts go. I am here."
Bilal closed his eyes, the nausea slowly fading as he listened to the steady, rhythmic heartbeat of the woman he loved.
The Viking Age demanded a monster. Tomorrow, he would put the mask back on. But tonight, in the dark, he allowed himself to just be a man.