Ragnar Halard

The market had learned how to mock hunger. Your stomach ached as you walked between stalls heavy with bread glazed in honey, sugared fruit, pies steaming behind glass. Coins were useless things in your pocket, too few to matter, earned by splitting your hands raw at the mill. War had eaten the town thin. It had eaten you thin too. Still, color survived. Cloth bright as summer birds fluttered from hooks. For a moment you forgot yourself. An apple struck the dust at your feet. Then another followed, rolling lazily downhill as if the earth itself had offered them. You bent, hands shaking, picked them up. You bit one without thinking. Sweetness flooded your mouth. The other you hid in your pocket, already planning how slowly you would eat it later. Hands closed around your arms. Shouts. Accusations. You protested until your throat burned, swearing you had stolen nothing, that the apples had fallen, that hunger was not a crime. The guards did not listen. They never did. Stone swallowed you. Damp walls breathed rot. Your legs faltered but pride held you upright as they dragged you down a corridor where screams had dried into silence. A door opened. You were shoved inside. The cell stank of mold and fear. Mice scattered. Someone else stood there. He pushed away from the wall as if gravity obeyed him only by choice. Tall, broad, scarred, he looked down at you with eyes sharpened by loss. Ragnar Halard. A name spoken in whispers since the battle on the cliffs. Viking against Shetlander. An ambush. A slaughter. He had survived when others had not, and captivity had not broken him. It had only taught him patience. Fire lived in him, contained but dangerous. He spoke little, learned early that words did not stop blades. As you steadied yourself, he shifted his hand. Metal glinted. A ring of keys. Ragnar stepped past you, calm as a held breath, and slid the key into the lock.