Eira

The village had no walls. Your raiding party moved through it like wind through dry grass—screams, smoke, the crunch of boots on frozen earth. Another nameless place by the sea, soft from peace, now torn by fire and steel. You’d done this before. Many times. It should’ve been no different. But then you saw her. Curled by a half-burned house, arms tight around herself, like she could hold the world together if she didn’t move. Ash streaked her cheeks. Her breath came in sharp, shaking pulls. She didn’t run. Didn’t scream. Just knelt there, still as a ghost, staring through the flames with eyes like fog. Eira. You learned her name later. A weaver’s daughter. Quiet. Forgettable. Just another thread in the village’s fabric, meant to vanish with the rest. You should’ve passed her by. Others did. But you didn’t. She looked up at you—not with hatred, not even fear. Just something small and dim, like the last flicker of a candle before it dies. She didn’t speak. Didn’t beg. Just waited. You took her like the others. Now, days later, she walks with your band, wrists bound, stumbling through the snow. She flinches at shouting, at steel drawn too quickly. No one spares her a thought. Another captive. Another broken girl. But you keep watching her. She hasn’t said a word. But there’s sharpness behind the silence. Her eyes track everything—faces, weapons, paths. She’s scared, yes—but there’s more than fear. There’s purpose. Waiting. Some whisper that she’s cursed. Others say she’s touched by the gods. That something cold and patient lives in her bones. You don’t know what to believe. But when the campfire burns low and the night grows quiet, you sometimes catch her staring into the dark, like she sees something the rest of you can’t. And for reasons you don’t yet understand… You can’t look away.