The Voice in the Hearth
Summary: Night in Windhelm. Sigrun prays to Talos while four-year-old Saviik hums by the fire; his song swells the flames beyond nature—the first clear sign that their secret cannot hold.
(No previous part to echo.)
Wind pressed its palm against the shutters, testing the iron catch, and the old house answered with a soft wooden groan. In the shrine-room off the main hall—no larger than a pantry, walls hung in blue cloth to drink sound—Sigrun knelt before a small, hidden altar. A simple thing: a disk of hammered steel etched with the old rune for will, a sprig of mountain juniper bound in a leather thong, a candle guttering low. She kept her prayers quiet enough that even the stones would have to lean close to hear.
"Talos, Stormcrown," she breathed, each word shaped like a measured step. "Make my hand steady, my sight true. Let the storm I called not break what I swore to keep."
From the hall came the small clatter of wooden soldiers, then the hush that meant a child had remembered he was supposed to be quiet. Sigrun let a smile touch the corner of her mouth and rose, smoothing the fur at her shoulders. She pinched the candle out with bare fingers, the little sting a proper end to prayer, and stepped into the warmth where the family lived.
The hearth threw a steady orange across the rushes. Saviik sat cross-legged on a wolfskin, soldiers ranked before him in uneven files, a carved hawk toppled on its side like a fallen banner. He had dragged one of the stools close enough that his toes could rest on the first charred brick of the fire's lip. The boy's hair caught the light like pale straw in summer, though this was Windhelm's winter and always had been.
"Little storm," Sigrun said softly, so the sound would carry no farther than him. "It's time soldiers sleep."
He looked up without turning his head, the way owls do—watchful, unhurried. He did not speak. He rarely did when she came from the shrine; as if some part of him understood that words in that moment should be used carefully.
"Soldiers sleep," she repeated, more playful, reaching for the nearest wooden man. "Even heroes."
Saviik drew the hawk upright with two fingers, then placed it in her palm. "He watches," he said, and the voice was small but sure, as if delivering a report.
"He does," Sigrun agreed. "From a high place. But even hawks must close their eyes."
She sat with him on the wolfskin. He leaned against her knee without looking, the automatic weight that children give to those they trust. The fire breathed. The house breathed. Above, somewhere down the long corridor, a guard's bootheel tapped once and stilled, the man reminding himself not to intrude on the Thane's domestic hush.
Sigrun lifted the hawk and turned it, admiring Stenvaara's careful knife-work in the feather lines. "Sten will scold if you chip him again," she said, aiming for a smile to warm her own lips.
Saviik's mouth made the shape of a smile but didn't find it yet. He reached toward the hearth with a flat palm, holding it out to the heat like a cat to a window of sun.
"Not too close," Sigrun said.
He drew back exactly the distance she imagined, no more. Still watching the flames, he began to hum—barely. A thread of a tone at first, the note children use when they are building a tune out of air. But it did not waver like most children's sounds. It steadied, gathered, and found a second tone within it, as if a deeper throat joined the small one from somewhere in the chimney stones.
Sigrun felt the hairs on her forearms lift under the fur. "Saviik," she began, intending to guide his hand away from the fire again, gentler.
The hearth answered him.
It was not a leap or a crack or the spit of sap. It was a breath inward—flames drawing close to the log's black heart as if listening—and then a slow, deliberate rise. The orange bled to white at the core, a tight knot. Heat pressed outward all at once, not angry, not wild; authoritative. Candle flames on the mantel leaned their slender bodies toward the hearth, obedient to a wind that came from inside the fire. The draught shifted. Something in the chimney throat made a low note, and Sigrun's prayer-cool skin warmed on the face as if a summer door had opened.
She did not move.
Saviik kept humming his steady thread, eyes half-lidded, that little furrow between his brows that meant he was concentrating very hard and did not know on what. When he breathed, the fire matched him. When his hum thickened at the back of his mouth, the heat grew rounder, less sharp. When he dropped the note a hand's breadth lower, the flames settled, as if lulled.
"Little storm," Sigrun whispered, not to stop him now but to anchor him. "With me. Breathe with me."
She set her palm against his back and breathed—a soldier's measured in and out. The boy's spine rose and fell with her. The humming unwound on an exhale, became simply breath. The fire softened to its earlier shape, orange again, the white knot collapsing as neatly as a fist unclenching.
He sat very still. Then he blinked, as if coming back from a long look.
"Warm," he said, testing the word for exactness.
"Warm," Sigrun agreed, though her own heart beat hard enough to make the fur at her collar tremble. She did not look toward the corridor; she did not wish to make what had happened any larger than the shape of this room. "You did well. You listened when I asked."
Saviik's hand hovered toward the hearth again, then retreated of his own accord. He glanced up at her to see if that pleased her. She allowed it to show on her face, the approval, the pride. Then, because wisdom lives with pride and must bite it sometimes, she took his small hand and turned it over. His palm was pink, not burned.
"What did you hear?" she asked, keeping her voice plain and unafraid.
He searched the corner of the ceiling as if the word might be stashed there. "A…mmm." He shaped the sound again, and for an instant the mantle's candle shivered. He stopped at once, startled, and looked up in apology.
"It's all right." She encircled his fingers with hers, firm. "The house is old. It rattles when boys are brave."
He considered that. It satisfied him. He nodded once, solemn, then lifted the hawk and pressed it into her hand as if returning a standard after battle. Sigrun placed the toy precisely on the mantel under the candlesticks, beside a rough-cut rune of home that Marvahl had whittled from driftwood and declared holy.
A guard's heel tapped again far down the hall—two quick beats, a warning that someone approached. Sigrun turned her head a fraction, listening with the same stillness she gave to her prayers.
"Back," she murmured, and Saviik, understanding more of tone than word, gathered his soldiers swiftly, palms scooping them into the pouch he kept under the stool. He slid to his feet without complaint and stood beside her knee, a small thing trying to be a straight one.
The steps stopped before the arch. Julkaar's voice, pitched low to carry without echoing: "Mother?"
Sigrun lifted her chin. "Come."
Julkaar stepped into the hearthlight with the careful confidence of a cat who knows which boards creak. Her cloak shoulders glittered with a skin of thawing frost; she had been on the balcony again, listening to the city breathe. Copper threads in her hair caught and threw the fire's color. Her pale green eyes flicked over the room, weighing everything in a heartbeat that looked like idleness.
"Justiciar Vaenor has entered the Palace," she said. "Not a courtesy call. He brought scribes."
Sigrun's jaw set so slightly it could have been a trick of light. "How many?"
"Six I could count," Julkaar replied. She glanced at Saviik without letting her gaze linger. "He is asking questions about household ledgers. Names. Tithes. Shipments to and from the docks."
The boy's hand had strayed toward the hearth again, not to touch, just to feel the warm push of its breath against his skin. Sigrun placed her fingers lightly on his wrist and the hand stilled, obedient as a trained hound.
"Stenvaara?" Sigrun asked.
"In the yard, breaking frost from the men's greaves," Julkaar said, a hint of approval under the dryness. "She'll walk the city wall at midnight." She hesitated, a rare thing. "He looked at the manor, Mother. Not long. Once, as if he were remembering something he meant to do later."
Sigrun rose. Her shadow crossed the hearth, and for a moment the flames seemed to lean away from her as soldiers do when command steps through their ranks. She straightened the fur at her shoulders and let her hands fall to her sides, the posture that calmed the room.
"Bring Sten," she said. "Quietly. We will greet our guest with a house that knows its own name."
Julkaar nodded and turned, already a moving thought. At the arch she paused—the small glance again at Saviik, then at the hawk on the mantel. She touched two fingers to her brow in a salute without a smile and slipped into the corridor's dim.
Sigrun looked down at her son. He was watching the place where his sister had been, as if memorizing the shape she made in the air.
"Little storm," Sigrun said, and it was both a title and a prayer. "We will play a new game. It is called stillness. Can you be stone for me?"
He squared himself, serious. "Stone," he said.
"Good." She crouched to his height, so her words would go straight into him without needing to bend. "When we are stone, we breathe quiet and keep our hands where our mother can see them, yes?"
He placed both palms flat against his thighs, fingers spread, the exactness of a soldier taught well. He looked up, waiting for the next command.
Sigrun's eyes went to the hearth. The fire was ordinary again. The room smelled of juniper and warm wool. Outside, Windhelm's wind put its shoulder to the shutters once more, and the iron catch held.
"Stone," Sigrun repeated, and the house, as if it understood the rule, settled its old bones to listen.
Windhelm's night wind had not rested.
By the time the first knock came—three crisp, measured raps against the front doors—the shutters rattled again and the snow hissed against the eaves. Sigrun lifted her head at the sound, already halfway across the hall. Behind her, Saviik sat motionless on his stool, hands flat on his thighs as she had told him.
A second set of knocks followed, not louder, only more deliberate.
Julkaar returned first, breath visible, cloak still powdered white. "He's at the gate. I told the guard to delay a count of sixty. Sten is on the stair."
"Good," Sigrun said. "Bring the boy's things to the upper chamber. Quietly."
Julkaar moved to obey, soft-footed across the rushes. Sigrun touched Saviik's head once, a whisper of a gesture. "Stone, remember."
He nodded without speaking.
The front doors groaned open. Cold entered like a tall guest before the shorter ones could follow.
Justiciar Vaenor stepped across the threshold without appearing to notice the temperature. His retinue of six scribes fanned out behind him, gold trim gleaming against black cloth, faces half-shadowed beneath hoods. Each carried a small satchel of parchment rolls bound with Thalmor seals.
Sigrun stood waiting halfway down the hall; her face was the still water they would find no reflection in.
"Lady Storm-Thane," Vaenor said, bowing a fraction too shallow to be respectful, "Windhelm honors her guests with warmth even in such bitter air. May I remark upon the efficiency of your household? We were admitted with remarkable promptness."
"Efficiency," Sigrun answered, "is the courtesy due to travelers who come unannounced."
The Justiciar smiled—thin, polite, entirely without joy. "Then I am doubly grateful."
He removed his gloves slowly, as if divesting himself of ceremony. His hands were long, immaculate, the color of candle-flame seen through paper. One of his scribes began unpacking ink and parchment at the side table as though the manor were an office long prepared for them.
Ulfric entered from the west corridor with the deliberate step of a man who intends to look neither hurried nor inconvenienced. "Justiciar Vaenor," he said, and the formal greeting filled the space like an anvil's tone. "I trust the Dominion's envoy finds Windhelm adequate to his standards."
Vaenor turned slightly, bowing again, the motion exact. "Adequate and curious, my lord. The air here vibrates with… conviction." His amber eyes drifted past Ulfric to the hearth, lingering there as though listening.
Sigrun's heart tightened. The fire was still. Thank the gods.
"The Dominion," Ulfric said, "has no jurisdiction within my hall. To what purpose does a Justiciar bring scribes and questions at this hour?"
Vaenor clasped his hands behind his back, strolling a few paces as if admiring the tapestries. "Our Concordat allows inquiry where heresy may endanger the peace we have so painstakingly preserved. There are whispers of unauthorized shrines to the Ninth Divine." He looked back, the smile still soft. "Surely, Jarl Ulfric, you would wish such blasphemy corrected before rumor tarnishes your name."
Sigrun felt Julkaar's return rather than saw it—her daughter's silent presence in the doorway, cloak removed, posture casual. A signal that Saviik was safely upstairs.
Ulfric's voice was steady. "Windhelm's worship is loyal to the Empire's law."
Vaenor's gaze flicked to Sigrun. "And your lady's?"
The question hung like frost in air.
"My lady's faith," Ulfric said, before Sigrun could answer, "is her own."
Vaenor inclined his head as though conceding a minor point on a long list. "Indeed. I had the privilege, years ago, of interrogating another warrior of equal fervor—yourself, in the late war. You bore pain with admirable silence. I see that discipline remains."
Ulfric's jaw set, but his voice stayed civil. "Your memory is long."
"It is my trade." Vaenor drifted toward the mantel. The hawk carving caught his eye. He reached as if to touch, then paused an inch short, fingers hovering. "Charming. A family piece?"
Sigrun's reply came smooth and immediate. "A local craftsman's gift for loyal service. We keep it to honor diligence."
"A noble habit." He let his hand fall. "Such diligence, I hope, extends to the education of the young. I have seen few children since entering Windhelm's keep. Do your halls grow quiet in winter?"
Julkaar stepped forward lightly, voice like silk over glass. "The Storm-Thane children study abroad, Justiciar. Politics, trade, language. Our father believes Skyrim should understand her allies before she challenges them."
Vaenor turned to her fully for the first time, weighing the words, then smiled faintly. "Wisdom rare among Nords." His eyes shifted back to Sigrun. "You must be proud."
"I am."
A long pause. The hearth cracked once. Vaenor's pupils narrowed a fraction, his head tilting as if he'd heard a whisper behind the flame. The sensation prickled through Sigrun's spine, the same pulse she'd felt when Saviik's hum had changed the fire's breath.
"Curious draught," Vaenor murmured. "The air seems… warmer near this hearth."
"Windhelm's stone keeps its heat well," Sigrun said evenly. "A blessing in such weather."
He regarded her for one more heartbeat, then turned away. "Of course." To his scribes he said, "Note the household cooperative and loyal. No evidence of heresy."
The quills scratched.
Ulfric moved a half-step closer, enough to reclaim the hall. "If your report is satisfied, I would see your men fed before they return to their quarters."
Vaenor replaced his gloves. "Your hospitality honors the Empire." He bowed—precisely the same fraction as before—and signaled his retinue. As they filed out, he looked once more toward the stairs, eyes narrowing slightly, then softened into that unreadable courtesy again. "May your hearth remain ever bright, my lady."
Sigrun inclined her head. "And your road untroubled."
The doors shut behind them with a breath of cold that rippled the fire.
Julkaar exhaled first. "He heard something."
"I know." Sigrun crossed to the hearth, laid her palm against the mantel stone, and whispered, "Be silent now." The heat beneath her skin eased, obedient.
Ulfric's gaze stayed fixed on the door. "He will return."
"Yes," Sigrun said. "And next time he will not ask questions. He will count answers."
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked—the sound of a small body shifting in sleep. Sigrun looked toward the ceiling and closed her eyes.
"Then we have little time," she said. "The boy must be sent away before the snow thaws."
Windhelm's midnight sounded like breath held too long. Snow whispered against the glass panes, the city below half-buried in white silence. The manor's corridors smelled of tallow smoke and iron—every hearth banked low, every candle a tiny heartbeat of light.
In the room above the great hall, Marvahl turned in her narrow bed. Her lips moved with words she did not know she spoke. The fire in her dream was not red; it was blue, like sky seen through tears. A child walked through it barefoot, untouched, and the flame bowed away from him as reeds part for water. Behind him marched tall shadows in gold and black. When he turned his face, she saw her brother's eyes—bright as frost, patient as stars—and the snow beneath his feet began to melt into rivers of light.
She woke with the taste of ash on her tongue and whispered, "He must go." The sound vanished into the rafters.
---
Below, Sigrun stood before the hearth where the boy had hummed. She had not changed out of her armor. The mail at her shoulders caught the firelight in soft, uneven halos. Across the room, Ulfric watched her with his hands behind his back, posture rigid but eyes tired.
"He slept," she said, not looking at him. "Peacefully. As if the world were not sharpening knives outside our walls."
"It always sharpens knives," Ulfric answered. "We dull them by standing."
Sigrun's laugh was quick and without joy. "And when they break upon us, who bleeds? We've both seen what the Thalmor do when they smell divinity."
"He is four years old," Ulfric said. The words came out as if he were reminding himself. "The gods would not curse a child with such attention."
"The gods have done worse." She turned now, eyes bright, jaw set. "You felt it too when he sang. The fire obeyed him, Ulfric. Not his body, not his lungs—the Voice. Our son carries it. The Thalmor will see it the instant they look too closely."
He held her gaze, the soldier and the lover both present. "You would have me send him away to be raised among Imperials? Among the very people who chained me, who spat on Talos's name?"
"I would have you keep him alive," she said, soft but absolute. "Alive, even if it means exile. Rorik Veyne owes you his life. His house in Cyrodiil stands under Imperial favor; no Justiciar will search it. Xala is there—she's of good blood, unremarkable enough to make him invisible."
Ulfric stepped closer, the distance between them closing to the span of breath. "And you? You will tell the people their Thane sent away her only son? The city already whispers that the Thalmor walk our halls."
"I will tell them nothing," she said. "Windhelm believes what its Jarl believes. You will command silence, and they will obey. They have always obeyed you."
He looked down at the fire. It burned low, steady, unremarkable. "He will not remember us."
"He will." Her voice softened. "Children remember the rhythm of hearts that held them. He will know. And when he returns, he will be strong enough to stand beside you rather than behind."
Ulfric's fists unclenched slowly. "You speak as if you have seen it."
"I have seen enough to know the cost of waiting." She exhaled, the sound nearly a sob but caught before it broke. "Marvahl dreams of him walking through snow that burns. I will not wait for the dream to find him here."
The room fell silent except for the low hiss of the coals. Snow shifted against the windows like someone brushing past outside.
At last Ulfric nodded once, heavy. "Tomorrow at dusk. Before the port freezes again."
Sigrun closed her eyes and let the relief hurt as it came. "I'll write the letter to the Veynes."
Ulfric crossed the distance between them and placed a hand on her shoulder, the gesture awkward for a man who led armies but faltered in comfort. "You always were the stronger."
She covered his hand with her own gauntleted one. "No. Just the colder. One of us must be."
They stood like that a long while, watching the embers settle.
From the stairwell came a whisper—Marvahl, pale, clutching her blanket around her. "He was walking in fire," she said, voice trembling with certainty. "And the fire was singing his name."
Sigrun went to her, knelt, gathered her close. "Then we will send him where the fire cannot reach him yet."
Ulfric looked up the stairway toward the child's room, then toward the snow-smeared window. "Let the storm bear him," he said quietly. "And may it forget how to find him until he is ready."
---
The fire burned down to a red thread of coal. Outside, Windhelm slept under the white hush of dawn's approach. Somewhere beyond the walls, the first gull cried over the river—sound of distance, sound of leaving.
Windhelm's walls were white to their knees. The snow had stopped, leaving the air sharp and soundless. No torches burned along the back courtyards of the Thane's manor; only the glow from a single lantern marked life within.
Inside, the household moved as if the walls themselves were listening. Julkaar stood over the long table, quill poised, drawing columns of figures that looked like trade accounts but hid a coded route—ports and names that would never appear in any ledger. Her ink barely whispered.
Across from her, Stenvaara adjusted the straps of a small traveling pack, her fingers methodical, each knot tied as if to bind her own composure. Marvahl held a folded cloak in her arms, the fur pressed against her face for warmth or courage.
At the hearth, Sigrun fastened her own cloak, the blue-stitched one she had worn in every campaign, and knelt before her son. Saviik watched her with solemn patience, already dressed in a small wool tunic, boots lined with rabbit fur, a traveling pack half his size slung at his shoulder.
"You'll keep the pendant under your shirt," she told him, sliding the small steel rune of home onto its cord. "Always. No one must see it, but you must never forget it."
He nodded, little hands gripping the cord as though it might lift him.
"Do you understand where you're going?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Far."
"Yes," she said. "Far, but not away. There's a difference."
He blinked, unsure, but accepted it.
Stenvaara knelt next to them. "Little brother," she said, voice low, "you'll have to carry this yourself now." She placed the small wooden hawk—the one that had stood watch on the mantel—into his hand. "If it breaks, fix it. If you lose it, find it. That's the rule."
Saviik turned it once in his fingers, testing its weight. "He watches," he murmured.
"Then he'll watch you," Stenvaara said.
Julkaar came from the table, wiping her fingers free of ink. "I've arranged for the Veyne ship to sail before dawn. The captain thinks he's carrying a merchant's ward and his nurse." She looked at her mother. "No one will question it."
Sigrun inclined her head. "Good. You'll stay behind me when we go. No words, no looks."
Marvahl stepped forward last. She reached up on tiptoe and touched Saviik's cheek. "When the snow sings," she said, "that's me. Listening."
He nodded seriously, as though this were a rule of magic he could obey.
A distant bell from the harbor struck once, the sound flat and colorless in the cold. Time.
They left through the servants' passage, torches unlit. The air in the corridor was sharp enough to sting the throat. Ulfric waited at the lower door in a dark cloak, hood drawn low. He said nothing when they approached, only lifted his hand, palm outward—a blessing, a farewell, both.
Outside, the courtyard was a sheet of frozen silver. The footprints they left behind filled slowly with new snow as if the city were erasing the trail before it was made. Beyond the stables, a narrow postern gate opened to the sloping path that led down to the docks. The White River moved sluggishly beneath its crust of ice, the moonlight breaking across the current in shards.
At the last turn before the pier, Ulfric stopped. "I can't go farther," he said quietly. "If anyone sees me…"
Sigrun understood. She turned to face him; neither spoke of fear or prophecy, only of the simple fact that love could not travel in both directions tonight.
He looked down at the child, at the hood drawn low over pale hair. "Saviik." His voice caught once, then steadied. "Be good to those who guard you. Learn their ways. When you are strong enough, come home."
The boy stared up at him, trying to fix every line of that face in his memory. "Home," he repeated softly.
Ulfric laid a hand on his shoulder, heavy and warm. "Remember the wind on this night. It's Windhelm's breath, not goodbye."
Then he turned and walked back up the path, cloak vanishing into the snow. Sigrun watched until the darkness folded him away, then led the others down to the pier.
A single ship waited, its sail furled, the Veyne crest—a silver rose on deep blue—barely visible in the gloom. The captain bowed wordlessly. Behind him stood a small girl with fiery hair and wide green eyes: Xala Veyne, bundled in furs, curiosity bright on her face.
Saviik hesitated at the gangplank, glancing back. The sisters stood together at the pier's edge—Stenvaara upright, Julkaar with hands clasped behind her back, Marvahl wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Sigrun bent and wrapped him in her arms, holding on until the boy's pack pressed between them.
"Look to the hawk when you wake," she said. "He'll remind you which way home lies."
He whispered something she couldn't quite hear; it might have been her name, or only the breath before tears. She let him go first, small boots clattering on the planks, the wooden hawk clutched against his chest.
Xala reached out, took his hand, and together they crossed to the ship.
Sigrun remained on the pier, the snow thickening, the river carrying the vessel's reflection down into blackness. The sails rose slowly like wings. The hull turned east, then south, following the faint current toward Cyrodiil.
She stood until the last hint of mast vanished into the white. The cold bit through fur and armor, but she did not move. Only when the wind shifted did she speak, her voice barely more than breath.
"Let the storm bear him," she said to the empty air, "and bring him home when the gods remember mercy."
The wind answered with a sigh through the moorings. Above, the clouds broke for a heartbeat and stars burned through—hard, bright, unblinking.
Windhelm slept again, unaware that one of its storms had already left to find another sky.
Morning crawled across the east wall in thin gold bands. The snow had crusted overnight, and when the first watchman trod across the courtyard his boots made a noise like breaking glass.
Inside, the manor smelled of smoke and steel polish. Sigrun sat at the long table where Julkaar's ledgers still lay open, her fingers tracing the grooves of dried ink. A cup of water stood beside her untouched; the thin film of ice on top showed how long she had sat unmoving.
The door at the far end opened without announcement. Ulfric entered, his cloak heavy with frost, his face unreadable. For a while he didn't speak. He simply looked at her—the stillness of command against the stillness of prayer.
"It's done," she said.
He nodded. "The ship cleared the river. By nightfall it will be beyond the marshes."
Sigrun exhaled, the sound small, but it seemed to loosen something in the walls. "Then the worst of the danger is behind us."
"The worst," Ulfric repeated quietly, "is what we chose."
He came to stand beside her. On the table lay the wooden hawk's twin—the one she had kept for herself. He picked it up, turned it in his hand.
"I told the council," he said, "that the Thalmor's inquiry found nothing. They were content. For now."
"For now," she echoed. "Until Vaenor remembers the warmth of our hearth and wonders why the stone felt alive."
Ulfric set the carving down carefully. "When he returns, I'll be ready."
"And if I am gone before then?" she asked.
"You won't be," he said, and for once there was no steel in the answer—only conviction worn thin from use.
They stood in silence. From the yard came the sound of armor being buckled; Stenvaara drilling the watch. A shout of command, then laughter—the kind that hides fatigue. Life continuing as it must.
Ulfric's gaze went to the high window where the snowlight spilled across the floor. "There will be war," he said. "Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Every whisper of Talos will become a banner. When it comes, I'll have to stand before them as the Storm they think I am."
"And I," Sigrun said, "will be the edge of it. But we hold fast. We hold until he returns."
He looked at her, the harsh lines of his face easing. "You still believe he will?"
"I do," she said. "The gods do not waste storms; they send them ahead of what's coming."
Ulfric reached out and covered her hand with his. Between their palms the hawk's wooden wings pressed flat, trapped but unbroken. "Then we'll wait," he said. "And when he comes home, he'll find Windhelm ready to greet him."
She met his eyes. "Swear it."
He drew a breath, slow and deliberate, and let it out as if shaping a Shout. "By breath and by voice," he said, "the Storm shall guard its own."
Sigrun closed her hand over his. "By blade and by blood," she answered, "the Storm shall not forget."
Outside, the sun climbed above the eastern peaks, pale and cold, painting the river in shards of light. Somewhere beyond that horizon a small ship moved steadily south, a hawk carved in its prow, carrying the faint echo of two oaths sworn in the north.
The fire in the hall stirred itself, rose, and settled again. Its warmth reached neither of them fully, yet both turned toward it as though listening for something only the flames could promise.