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The throne room emptied on command, the heavy wooden doors groaning shut until only three remained: Mathias, lounging into the power of the moment; Lukas, stiff-backed and simmering with quiet disapproval; and Emil—small, pale, and utterly still.
Mathias climbed the steps to the throne with a swagger that echoed off the stone walls, the sound too loud, too careless for a room built to hold the weight of kings. Lukas followed only partway, stopping at the foot of the dais with a frown carved into his features.
“Mathias,” he warned, voice low but edged with steel, “even if you embody Denmark, you should not sit the king’s throne so casually. There are forms to respect.”
Mathias waved him off with an impatient flick of his wrist. “Forms are for people who need rules. I am the kingdom.” He leaned back, boot tapping the marble, and let his gaze slide toward Emil.
The boy stood motionless near the base of the steps, hands clasped so tightly behind his back his knuckles had gone white. Since being torn from his island, he had hardly spoken at all—only shadows in those blue-gray eyes, only silence.
Mathias didn’t like silence.
“Speak,” he ordered, voice filling the vast room. “I’ve had enough of your sulking. Say something.”
Emil’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t lift his gaze.
“Did you not hear me?” Mathias’s smile twisted. “I said speak.”
Still nothing.
Lukas moved slightly, a subtle step forward, but Mathias shot him a look that froze him mid-breath. Then the Dane rose from the throne with deliberate slowness and descended the few steps until he stood before Emil.
“Fine,” Mathias murmured. “If you're going to be like that…”
He hooked his hands beneath Emil’s arms, ignoring the boy’s startled flinch, and lifted him effortlessly—too strong, too familiar. Emil’s breath caught, but no sound escaped him as Mathias carried him back up to the throne and settled into it, placing the young nation squarely on his lap.
“Much better,” Mathias said, almost in a teasing tone, one hand adjusting Emil’s posture with the casual intimacy of an older brother fixing the seating of a child. But there was something else in the gesture, an ownership too heavy to be affection.
Tension rippled between the three like a change in air pressure. Lukas’ eyes were sharp as knives, but he remained frozen on the sidelines, powerless for now. Emil held completely still, rigid, refusing even to lean away despite every instinct.
Mathias leaned close—too close—until his breath warmed the shell of Emil’s ear.
“When I tell you to do something,” he whispered, voice a low, dangerous purr, “I expect no hesitation from those beneath me. Not from my people… and certainly not from you.”
Emil didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
But his silence, this time, was not fear.
It was defiance.
~~~
Emil’s quarters were small, dim, and far too warm compared to the chill he was used to. The fire crackled low in the hearth, casting soft gold across the stone walls. Emil sat on the floor between Lukas’s knees, his back straight, his hands folded in his lap. He hadn’t said a word since being dismissed.
Lukas’s fingers were gentle as they worked through the pale tangles of his hair, the brush following in slow, steady strokes meant to soothe. The quiet between them was familiar, but tonight it felt heavier, dense with the aftertaste of the throne room.
“Emil,” Lukas said softly, as though afraid a louder voice would shatter him, “you cannot challenge him like that.”
Emil’s shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t,” he murmured, barely audible.
“You refused him.” Lukas’s voice stayed calm, but his expression reflected worry far older than either of them looked. “And refusing Mathias isn’t the same as refusing anyone else. You know that now.”
Another stroke of the brush, slow and careful. Emil swallowed hard but stayed silent.
Lukas cupped the boy’s chin gently and turned his face enough to meet his eyes. “Listen to me,” he said, quieter still. “I have known Mathias a very long time. Long before you were found.” His thumb brushed a pale strand from Emil’s cheek. “He can be kind. He can be fun. He is… good, in ways. But his temper…” Lukas paused, searching for the right words. “His temper burns hotter than your volcanoes. And quicker.”
Emil’s gaze fell away, ashamed, stubborn, fearful—he didn’t even know which feeling won.
Lukas resumed brushing, letting the quiet settle for a moment before speaking again. “He likes you,” he said. “That is the only reason he played with you today instead of punishing you. He is still young, still drunk on what it means to rule. That makes him unpredictable.”
The brush stilled. Lukas leaned forward slightly, voice tightening with warning.
“Please, Emil. Do not make him angry. Not truly. You do not want to find out what he is like when pushed too far.”
Emil finally nodded, small and reluctant.
Not agreement.
Just understanding. And the first flicker of fear.
~~~
The practice yard was quiet when Mathias brought Emil out, too quiet for the boy’s liking. Even the guards posted nearby seemed uneasy, shifting their weight as Mathias steered Emil toward the painted archery target. The noon sun cast long, sharp shadows across the stones—shadows Emil instinctively tried to melt into until Mathias’s hand clamped down on his shoulder and shoved him forward.
“Stand there,” Mathias ordered, voice clipped with irritation. “And do not move.”
Emil obeyed, feet planted exactly where they were placed. The air felt too thin, too light, the way it does right before a storm. Before him, Mathias strung his bow, the taut snap of the string making Emil's stomach tighten. The first arrow flew past his ear so quickly it seemed to tear the air itself. Emil flinched—just once, a tiny stiffening of the shoulders. Mathias laughed.
“Oh, come now. I know you can do better than that,” he taunted, already reaching for the next arrow.
Another shot. This one buried itself in the target inches from Emil’s ribs. Emil squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to remain still. He would not give Mathias the reaction he craved. His silence was all he had left, and he clung to it like armor.
But Mathias’s grin sharpened, violent and hungry for any crack in Emil’s composure.
“Fine,” he said softly. “Let’s see how long you stay quiet, little bird.”
He drew one more arrow, slower this time, savoring the way Emil’s breath hitched. For a heartbeat, the world froze—the wind, the dust in the air, Emil’s pulse thudding in his throat. Then Mathias released.
The arrow hit him square in the shoulder.
The impact knocked Emil back a step, his cry sharp and small before he swallowed it down. Pain seared through him, hot and cold all at once, but he refused to fall. He refused to give Mathias the satisfaction.
Mathias’s smile faded into something darker, unreadable.
And then the spell broke—shouts, rushing footsteps, castle staff sprinting toward Emil as blood trailed down his arm. Mathias stepped back, bow lowered, expression almost bored as chaos erupted around him.
Emil’s vision blurred, but he stayed on his feet until someone finally caught him by the good arm and eased him toward the doors.
The infirmary was quiet except for the distant murmur of servants and the sharp, clipped voice of the physician tending to Emil’s wound. The arrow had been removed quickly—Mathias’s aim was clean, at least—but the torn flesh still throbbed with a hot, insistent ache. Emil lay back against the thin mattress, jaw clenched, trying not to show how much every breath stung. Nations healed fast, yes, but pain was still pain, sharp and humiliating.
He could hear them outside.
Lukas’s voice—rarely raised—was shaking the walls.
“What were you thinking, Mathias?”
“I wanted him to react!” Mathias snapped back, less loud but frustrated, childish beneath the bluster. “He never listens, he never answers—he just stands there like stone. I needed to teach him to report properly!”
“Shooting him,” Lukas hissed, “is not teaching.”
Emil closed his eyes. Lukas sounded angrier than he had ever heard him. Even Berwald’s low rumble was tense, though hard to decipher through the thick stone walls.
“You could have killed him,” Lukas continued, voice cracking into something raw. “You don’t aim well when you’re trying to scare someone. What if you had hit the lung? What if—”
“He’s immortal,” Mathias interrupted, though even he sounded unsure now.
“That doesn’t make him invulnerable!” Lukas snapped. “He FEELS pain. He bleeds. He’s not your toy, Mathias!”
Silence stretched—heavy, cold, suffocating.
Emil turned his head slightly toward the doorway, listening. His shoulder pulsed with heat, wrapped in fresh linen, but that wasn’t what made his chest hurt. It was the way Lukas’s voice shook. The way Berwald had spoken a quiet word—steady, grounding—that Lukas clung to.
Then Lukas again, quieter now, tired, hurting:
“He’s only a child.”
Emil swallowed hard.
He hated being called that.
He hated being treated like that.
But right now, hearing Lukas’s voice tremble with fear and fury on his behalf, the word didn’t sting the way it usually did.
Footsteps finally approached. Lukas entered first, face pale with fury, eyes sharp enough to cut. When he saw Emil lying awake, he stopped, and something in him softened—just a fraction.
“Emil,” he whispered, coming to his side. He sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling as he reached toward the bandaged shoulder but stopped short of touching it. “I told you to keep your head down… but this… this…” He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
Emil blinked slowly, his throat tight. He opened his mouth. “…hurts,” he managed, barely above a whisper.
Lukas’s jaw clenched.
Berwald stepped into the doorway behind him, silent but radiating no small amount of disapproval.
“I know,” Lukas said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
Emil closed his eyes, trying to steady the tremor in his breath.
He wasn’t crying.
He wasn’t.
But when Lukas rested a cool, careful hand on his uninjured arm, he couldn’t stop the small, shuddering inhale that gave him away.
~~~
Years had passed, but the bruise of that first arrow never left Emil—not on his skin, but in the way he flinched at raised voices, in the way he folded into silence so thoroughly it became a second heartbeat. The cruelty that once felt directed solely at him had seeped into the castle walls. Servants walked like ghosts, speaking only when spoken to. Guards stood straighter, more fearful than loyal.
Even the light seemed to dim when the Danish king or Mathias passed by.
It was on a night thick with the smell of salt and hearth smoke that Lukas quietly told Emil he’d been summoned to Mathias’s bed. The words were gentle, but Lukas’s eyes were hollowed with dread—he was old enough to understand what such summons meant. Emil bowed his head, murmured a brittle “okay,” and in that moment decided he would not be here come morning.
When the castle settled into an uneasy sleep, Emil packed a rucksack with trembling hands—dried fish, knit mittens, a knife whose edge was dull but dependable. He tied it shut, slung it over his shoulder, and slipped out through a servant’s passage he had memorized long ago. The night air bit with the coming of winter, but it felt cleaner than anything in the castle.
The docks glimmered with silver moonlight, and for a breath he felt free. He could almost see Iceland’s shores rising out of the dark sea—home, cold and wild and his.
He had nearly untied a mooring rope from a small fishing boat when a low voice halted him.
“Emil.”
He froze, fingers stiffening around the rope. Turning slowly, he saw Berwald standing a few steps away, broad-shouldered and carved from shadow. The Swede’s expression was stern but not unkind, his single visible eye soft with something like regret.
“Knew something was wrong,” Berwald said, stepping closer. “Saw you leave. Shouldn’t be out alone.”
Emil’s jaw tightened. “I’m going home.”
Berwald inhaled deeply, the sound almost a sigh. “If you run, it’ll be worse. Not just for you. For everyone.” He nodded toward the distant glow of the castle windows. “Mathias’ll blame Lukas. Or me. Or anyone he thinks helped.”
Emil’s grip on the rope tightened until his knuckles whitened. “I can’t stay there,” he whispered, the closest he’d come to confessing the truth in years.
Berwald hesitated—just long enough to show he understood. He had seen Mathias’s temper. He had seen what the Danish king allowed. He had seen the way Emil shrank smaller each year.
“I know,” Berwald said quietly. “But this… this isn’t the way. Come back. Don’t rock the boat more than it’s already rocking.”
The sea lapped gently against the hull, mocking in its freedom. Emil’s chest ached with the weight of the choice—between a cage and a storm.
But the Swede’s hand extended toward him, steady and certain. A lifeline.
“Come on, Emil,” Berwald murmured. “Let’s go home… for now.”
Emil wanted to kick, to scream, to rage against the weight crushing his ribs. He wanted to sob until his throat bled. But he did none of it. He took every splinter of fear, every shard of fury, every helpless ache, and shoved it down into the already-overflowing pit that had become his soul. It settled among everything he had ever refused to show—his laughter, his tears, the echoes of his own unheard screams—pressing into him from the inside until he felt almost hollow.
By the time they reached the castle doors again, he felt like a ghost wearing his own skin.
When he slipped into his quarters, the room was dim, lit only by a dying candle. Lukas was already in his bed, lying on his side with his back to the door. His breathing was heavy and uneven, exhaustion dragging at every rise and fall of his chest. He stirred when Emil entered, limbs moving like they were weighed down with stones.
Emil said nothing. He quietly unlaced his boots, shrugging off his cloak and overshirt with mechanical movements. The air smelled of sweat, musk, and something darker—something that made Emil’s stomach twist. Shame clung to Lukas’s skin like oil. Emil pretended he didn’t notice. Pretended he didn’t know exactly why Lukas couldn’t meet his eyes.
He slipped into the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under his light weight. Lukas let out a soft, pained exhale but didn’t speak.
Emil moved closer, fitting himself against his brother’s back the way he had centuries ago—when he was still new, still naive, still hopeful enough to believe warmth was safety. Lukas was trembling faintly. Emil pretended not to feel it. He rested his forehead between Lukas’s shoulder blades, listening to the uneven thud of a heart that had not broken but had certainly been bent.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t cry. He simply held on, as if the act of pressing himself against Lukas’s warmth could keep both of them from shattering.
For a moment, in the quiet dark, it almost worked.
~~~
Emil had always watched from the edges, quiet and unnoticed, but not blind. He saw the way Mathias hovered over Lukas—not with tenderness, but with possession, a shadow cast across every part of him. Despite the era’s condemnation, Mathias had forced a courtship into existence, stitching it together behind closed doors and beneath layers of whispered denials. Some nights Lukas returned to the quarters with a small, shy smile, like Mathias had said something soft enough to soothe him. Other nights… other nights Lukas looked hollowed out, eyes far too old, his soul scraped raw.
Mathias’s love was a storm without warning—warm sunlight one moment, a killing freeze the next. The violent oscillation carved deep wounds in Lukas and left matching fractures in Emil. Even Berwald, distant and preoccupied with the Finnish border, felt the tension rot through the foundations of the castle. Timo’s influence on Berwald—soft, unintentional, calming—had pulled the Swede away, leaving him a rare ghost in these halls. Emil was grateful for that, even as he envied it.
But Mathias… Mathias refused to let go of the idea of family. He still dragged Lukas and Emil into forced dinners, forced closeness, forced laughter. He insisted they were his brothers, his boys, his family—even as he crushed them under the weight of that claim.
It was during one of those contrived gatherings that something inside Emil finally splintered.
The table was set with roasted meat and wine, the fire crackling as if it too were trying to fill the space between them. Lukas sat stiffly to Mathias’s left, eyes downcast, fingers twisting together in his lap. Emil sat across from them, silent as usual. Mathias chattered brightly—too brightly—his smile sharp at the edges.
Then, without warning, he turned to Lukas and laughed.
“You know,” Mathias said, swirling his wine, “for someone who pretends to be so modest, you’re as needy as any tavern whore.”
The words dropped into the room like a blade.
Lukas flinched so violently his chair scraped the floor. His face went pale, his breath catching in his throat. He tried to hide it, lowering his head—but Emil saw everything. The wound. The humiliation. The resignation.
Something hot surged through Emil’s chest—hotter than anger, heavier than centuries of silence. His fork clattered onto the table as he stood. His voice, when it came, was cracked from disuse and yet sharp enough to cut through the air.
“Do not speak about him like that.”
Mathias blinked, surprised. “Emil? You’re—”
“Shut up,” Emil snapped, and the room froze. Even Lukas stared, wide-eyed.
Emil felt the dam inside him break, centuries of swallowed words rushing out before he could stop them.
“You treat him like a toy,” he hissed. “Like something you can play with, break, fix, and break again. You call us family, but you act like a tyrant. You tell us you love us, but you hurt us more than any enemy ever has. You think we’re yours to own.”
Mathias’s expression tightened dangerously, but Emil didn’t care—not anymore.
“Look at yourself. Look at the monster you’ve become. You dress up your cruelty as affection, your pride as protection. And every time he forgives you, every time he comes back, you punish him for it.”
Lukas was trembling. Mathias had gone very still.
Emil’s voice lowered, but the words carried like thunder.
“I will not sit at your table and pretend this is family. I will not watch you destroy him. And I will not let you destroy me.”
For the first time in a long, long while, Mathias had no quick retort. No booming laugh. No cutting comeback.
Just silence. Heavy and dangerous.
And Emil—small, furious, and shaking—but unbroken.
He didn’t remember leaving the room—only the sound of his own heartbeat pounding against his ribs as he stormed down the hall, each step fueled by leftover rage and something sharper beneath it. He made it only a few paces before the explosion came.
A crash—violent, unmistakable—ripped through the doors behind him. Glass shattered. Something heavy toppled, followed by the guttural roar of Mathias’s rage unleashed. Emil froze, breath caught in his throat. Another crash. Then another. Mathias was destroying the room piece by piece, and Lukas—Lukas was still in there.
The victory Emil had felt drained instantly into dread. His anger dissolved, leaving behind a cold, acidic guilt that clawed at his stomach.
What have I done? What will he do to Lukas because of me?
He didn’t go back. Couldn’t. He just turned and walked—fast at first, then faster, until the castle walls blurred behind him and the air bit cold against his face. He slipped into the forest, where the familiar embrace of trees and shadows welcomed him like an old friend.
Out here, there were no thrones. No kings drunk on power. No brittle smiles from Lukas trying to pretend everything was fine. Only the wind, the soil, the memories of a time long before he was dragged into Denmark’s orbit.
He moved through the woods with the ease of someone who had once lived in wild places. He caught fish in icy streams with numb hands, gathered berries and roots, slept curled beneath spruce branches and moss. The nights were long and cold, but he’d known worse. Before Norway found him, before he learned the softness of blankets and hearths, this had been life. Cruel, lonely, but honest.
Each night, staring at the flicker of a small fire, guilt gnawed at him. He saw Lukas’s tired eyes. Heard Mathias’s cracking temper. Wondered what punishments his words had unleashed.
But he couldn’t go back yet. He wasn’t ready.
So he stayed in the woods—three nights, maybe four—letting the cold ground soothe the storm in his chest, letting the solitude press against his bruised spirit until the sharp edges dulled.
For the first time in centuries, he existed only as he once had: a small, brittle soul surviving the world one breath at a time.
For a moment, Emil entertained the thought of slipping onto one of the trade ships that regularly sailed for Iceland. He pictured himself hidden among crates of salted fish or barrels of mead, wind tearing through his hair as the coastline receded into distance. But the thought died almost immediately. He couldn’t leave Lukas—not like this. And, for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he couldn’t entirely leave Mathias either. The pull of that stormy, cruel presence lingered in his chest, an invisible tether he couldn’t cut.
When Emil returned to the castle, he was a ghost of a boy again—covered in dirt and sweat, grime encrusting his hair and nails. Mathias barely glanced at him, and Emil felt a strange, grudging relief. He hadn’t wanted acknowledgement. The bath waiting for him in his quarters was enough: hot water steaming up the cold stones, washing away the filth of the woods and, somehow, the worst of the tension pressing at his shoulders.
Lukas appeared quietly, moving around him with practiced care. Emil sank into the water as Lukas took the basin of water and began rinsing out the tangles of dirt and twigs from his hair. They spoke softly, words barely rising above the hiss of steam. Lukas told him that the king had called for war against Sweden, but that he had managed to bargain for Emil’s freedom—he would be allowed to return home. Emil’s gaze flitted to Lukas’s wrists, where bruises marred the pale skin, dark and angry against the dim candlelight. His chest constricted.
“Come with me,” Emil whispered, voice trembling. “Big brother, come with me—please, I’m begging you.”
Lukas shook his head, eyes shadowed with weariness and restraint. “I can’t,” he said quietly, brushing Emil’s hair back from his face. “My place is here, for now. But you… you must go. Go home.”
The next morning, Emil was on deck of a small boat, the cold wind whipping at his face. Iceland rose from the sea like a promise, jagged and wild and mercilessly familiar. He would see home again, he would feel the salt in the air and the bite of the northern wind, but he would not see his brothers—not Lukas, not Mathias—for five long, aching years.
He had gotten what he wanted and yet his heart ached with both relief and guilt. He kept silent still, letting the rhythm of the waves lull him into the tentative calm of escape.
The castle faded behind him, its towers and shadows shrinking into the distance. Emil clenched the rail, knuckles white, and let the cold wind strip away everything he could not carry—everything, that is, except the heavy, unspoken ties that would haunt him for the five long years to come.