The man did not beg.

  That disappointed Rurik.

  He had expected curses. Spit. A final defiance.

  Instead, the invader lay against the roots of a wind-twisted tree, blood darkening the moss beneath him, breathing in shallow pulls as though already half elsewhere.

  The forest was quiet around them. Only wind.

  Rurik stood over him, sword lowered. He had tracked this man across marsh and stone, through fishing villages and winter roads. Months of listening. Watching. Waiting.

  Now there was nothing left to wait for.

  The man’s eyes shifted toward him — not afraid. Simply measuring.

  A faint breath escaped him. “So. It ends here.”

  “It ended months ago,” Rurik replied.

  The invader studied his face more carefully now.

  Recognition did not come at once.

  That, too, disappointed him.

  “You don’t remember,” Rurik said.

  A flicker of irritation crossed the man’s features. “Should I?”

  “A village near the cliffs.”

  Silence.

  Then something shifted behind the man’s eyes — not guilt, not horror.

  Memory sorting through ash.

  “There were many villages,” he said.

  Rurik stepped closer.

  “It was last winter. The small village near the sea.”

  The man stilled.

  Wind moved through the pine needles overhead with a dry whisper.

  “You had the ridge,” Rurik continued quietly. “You waited until the flames drove them into the open.”

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  The man’s jaw tightened faintly.

  “You shot into the smoke.”

  A long pause.

  Then—

  “The warrior woman.”

  Rurik felt the world narrow.

  “Yes.”

  The man swallowed, breath hitching as pain deepened.

  “She ran toward someone,” he muttered. “Brave. Or foolish.”

  “She ran toward me.”

  The invader’s eyes searched Rurik’s face more intently now. Understanding settled, thin and distant.

  “Ah.”

  That was all.

  No apology.

  No defense.

  Only acknowledgment.

  Rurik crouched.

  “Did you see her?” he asked. “When she fell?”

  The man frowned faintly. “I saw a body fall.”

  “She had a name.”

  “All of them did.”

  Rurik’s hand tightened around his blade.

  “You chose her.”

  “It was a raid,” the man said, and there was no cruelty in it. “Smoke. Movement. A clear line. I loosed.”

  He shifted against the tree roots, grimacing.

  “If the gods had favored her, my arrow would have missed.”

  Rurik’s gaze sharpened.

  The man gave the faintest shrug he could manage.

  “Victory is favor. Survival is favor. That is how it has always been.”

  “And the innocent?”

  “There are no innocents in burning villages.”

  The words were simple. Worn. Believed.

  Rurik studied him for a long moment.

  Months ago, kneeling in ash with Sigrid’s blood warm against his hands, he had lifted his face to the sky and sworn.

  He had sworn to find the cruel gods who wove such endings into the world. To break whatever wheel turned love into memory and memory into dust.

  He had shouted until his throat tore.

  The sky had remained empty.

  Now, staring at the man who had loosed the arrow, he felt something colder than rage.

  “Do you believe they saw her?” Rurik asked.

  The invader’s eyelids fluttered.

  “They see everything.”

  “And chose nothing?”

  “They chose,” the man whispered. “You lost.”

  Rurik leaned closer.

  “And if I refuse their choosing?”

  A faint, confused breath left the man.

  “You cannot refuse the gods.”

  Rurik rose slowly. All his life, he had dreamed of losing faces he could not remember. Again and again.

  He feared that one day Sigrid would become like them — a blur in the dark. A grief without a name.

  He would not allow it.

  The invader coughed, blood spilling down his chin.

  “It was clean,” he muttered. “The shot. She did not suffer long.”

  The forest held its breath.

  Rurik looked down at him — at the man who had reduced her final moment to the quality of aim.

  “The gods are merciful,” the invader added weakly.

  Something inside Rurik settled into iron.

  “No,” he said.

  He stepped forward and drove the blade into the man’s chest, precise and unhesitating.

  The invader’s body jerked once.

  Then stilled.

  Silence returned.

  No thunder answered. No shadow moved between the trees. No whisper coiled around his thoughts.

  Only the sound of wind, and the slow darkening of moss.

  Rurik withdrew the blade.

  The last of them was dead.

  The men who burned his home no longer walked this earth.

  And still—

  The sky remained indifferent.

  He lifted his gaze upward.

  “When I swore before,” he said quietly, “you gave me nothing.”

  The air did not change.

  “Then hear me now.”

  His voice did not rise. It did not break.

  “I will find the law that binds this world. I will tear apart the wheel that steals as it pleases. And if you stand at its center—”

  He let the words settle into the forest.

  “I will unmake you.”

  The wind passed through the trees as if through stone.

  No answer came.

  Rurik wiped the blade clean and turned inland.

  Revenge against men was finished.

  What remained was greater.

  If the gods would not answer—

  He would force them to.