Signe did not flinch as the High Gothi’s dagger slid across the thrall’s throat. A crimson trickle quickly grew to gushing, rhythmic throbs as the Gothi’s acolytes rushed forward with cups to collect the girl’s lifeblood. Signe watched the thrall’s blue eyes go from wide and panicked to dull and unseeing as the low, undulating tones of the High Gothi’s voice met her ears.

A hundred or so figures had gathered on the southernmost dock on this sullen, overcast day. Askaborg Castle loomed behind them, Sunnavík harbor’s many piers stretching out before them. Gulls called overhead, the smell of seaweed so pungent it nearly overwhelmed the acrid scent of burnt corpse.

Nearly.

All morning, Signe’s moods had wavered between disbelief and brutal, aching grief. It had to have been a mistake. The corpse in the ship docked at the end of the pier wasn’t Yrsa. Surely her girl was just missing. Hiding perhaps. The chaos in the great hall had been so very frightening, after all. Any minute and her Yrsa would appear and reassure Signe that it had all been one big misunderstanding.

The High Gothi’s voice shifted to guttural rhythmic chanting as he poured the thrall’s blood over the altar stone. Signe charted its course over the deep grooves carved into the stone; watched as it pooled in the trough below. When the thrall’s lifeblood had drained from her, acolytes wrapped bear cloaks around her naked body before carrying her to the end of the pier and lowering her into the ship.

As Signe’s gaze fell upon the figure in the center of the boat, tears tried to claw forth. The resplendent silks wrapped around the corpse could not hide the fact that the body was nothing but charred flesh and blackened bones.

Her baby.

Her Yrsa.