Page 68 of The Ashborn

Yrsa was not a tall woman by Mountainborn standards, but she carried herself as a storm would carry the rain. Her silver-streaked hair was braided tightly against her scalp with small bone charms woven near the nape.

Kaelthar’s voice deepened as Yrsa neared, his accent thickening like the mountain air—rougher around the edges now, vowels drawn like a slow blade. “Broan, this is Yrsa Darsen, Keeper of the Ancestral Flame.” He paused, then looked Broan in the eye. “And yer mother.”

Broan’s heart skipped a beat, unsure how the Vikings reacted to such news. Relief flooded him when Yrsa only nodded to him. He returned in kind, feeling stronger already after moving past any emotional greetings he was keen to avoid.

“So, it is true then,” Yrsa spoke, her voice like rolling thunder. “Our kinling has grown into a man and returned?”

“Aye,” Kaelthar confirmed. “He is here to see yer ‘usband.”

“Through the door, next to the hearthseat.” Yrsa pointed. “You make sure he stays afterward.”

Kaelthar nodded and pushed Broan forward as Yrsa continued to finish whatever task needed her attention before she was interrupted. Broan thought Yrsa was a strong woman driven by her duty. It comforted him, oddly enough. He glanced back at Ithril. She scanned the room around her, careful not to draw her weapons, but clearly contemplating it. Broan smirked.

The threshold revealed an intimate room with carvings of ancestors lining the walls, along with maps etched into the stone. At a grand table stood two men, one towering over the rest with strength. He was a carved pillar of the mountain itself. Broad-shouldered, thick-necked, arms like tree trunks, and hands calloused.

His skin bore the weathered bronze tone, rough with age but solid. His coarse, long hair, once black, now streaked with steel gray and gathered in a warrior’s braid bound with bronze clasps. A heavy beard fell down his chest, braided tightly in two cords framing a scar cutting from his temple to his jaw.

He set his pale, iron eyes on Kaelthar and Broan as they entered. Silence fell like a blade between them. The jarl stepped forward, his boots hitting the stone. His massive shadow swallowed the torchlight. Each breath he took seemed to pull the air out of the room, and Broan bore the weight of the man who bent the mountain to his will.

“My son, I presume,” the Jarl said, his voice like grinding stone.

Broan didn’t flinch. “You must be the jarl.”

A flicker of something crossed Harlik’s face. Disapproval? Interest? It passed too quickly to be sure. Kaelthar shifted beside him, tension bristling in his frame. The jarl waved a hand without breaking his stare. “Thane,” he growled to the other man at the table. “Leave us.”

The other man nodded and slipped through the doorway. Harlik watched the door close before returning his focus to Broan. He stalked around the table like a circling bear, warning them. “Mark of the Elvish?” he asked, eyes narrowing at Broan’s sigil.

“They call it the kiss of magic.”

Harlik grunted, his upper lip twitching in disdain. He said nothing but picked up a carved drinking horn and slammed it down, hard. The sound cracked across the stone.

Broan held his ground. His hands were loose at his sides, but his eyes never left the jarl’s. “You trying to rattle me?”

“I’m weighing your worth. Looks to me like the Elvish have their claws in you.” Harlik pointed to Ithril, then back to the sigil on his face.

Kaelthar bowed. “They want an alliance.”

The jarl scoffed, as if the idea soured the air. “Of course they do,” he said with a bitter drawl. “The High Elves never dirty their hands when someone else will bleed for them. And they send my son like a hound tossed back after the hunt.” Kaelthar opened his mouth to speak, but Harlik silenced him with a wave of his hand, not even sparing him a glance. “Enough from ya. Yer time as a mouthpiece for their cause is over.”

The jarl held his hand up to Kaelthar a moment longer before turning his gaze back to Broan with a weight that could split stone. “You, though. You walk in here wrapped in fur and frost, wearing the marks of the enemy, speaking like one of their own.”

Broan didn’t move. “I speak as a bridge between both people.”

“Did you know they never sent word? Not a whisper ‘til now,” Harlik growled. “We held a funeral for ya, boy. Buried you in stone and song. Then they come crawling, letters in hand, asking for alliance. Claiming yer alive like it means something now.”

Broan could relate. He only fucking learned he had a family recently as well. He grew up without one, so it didn’t bother him to continue living in that lie. This city sparked a fire in him that made him feel differently.

“Well, I’m here now.” Broan’s voice was even but edged. “And I don’t fucking speak for the Elvish. I speak for myself. The realm is in danger.”

The jarl sneered, his lip curling with disgust. “All for witchcraft.”

Broan scoffed. “Perhaps you don’t understand the magic, then.”

“And you do?” Harlik leaned forward, looming like a coming storm. “You presume to lecture a jarl in his own mountain?”

“I don’t presume anything.” Broan shrugged. “I offer truth. Ignore it, and your people will burn next.”

The jarl stepped away from his table, towering over Broan and Kaelthar. His burly hands pushed the large table out of his way, a practice Broan could tell he did often when he was angry. “We will speak no more of this alliance. I would spit you back out into the cold if it weren’t for yer ma. Make yerself scarce.”