Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all it took for Adelasia's whole life to turn upside down. After being captured by the heathens raiding her city and taken all the way to the cold North, the youngest Ragnarsson takes an interest in her...
She watched in amazement as the battle unfolded underneath her. Screams echoed through the courtyard, some of men dying, others of men triumphing, but altogether forming an overwhelming source of noise. Ivar, as well as the warrior bishop Heahmund, were redirecting their troops from one point to another, the first only being successful. Men of both camps littered the ground, some still breathing and others long silenced, but a rough look indicated that most of them were Saxons with their shiny armour. Alasia smiled softly, tapping her fingers impatiently against the concrete of which the window was made as she let her gaze wander over the troops.
"Aren't we on the wrong side?" Imeldina asked suddenly, her voice hesitant. She too was watching the scene develop underneath her, but her face lacked the triumph and confidence of her older sister. Instead, she fumbled nervously with her hands as her eyes flickered all over. "Shouldn't we pray for papa's and Marcuccio's health?"
"Do you wish to return to them?" Alasia returned the question, giving her younger sister a sharp look. Only yesterday her sister had seemed so full of assurance, so certain that her place was at her older sister's side, because there was no way their father and mother would take her back after the betrayal, but now her words made Alasia doubt. "Are you having second thoughts?"
"No," replied Imeldina resolutely. Her blue eyes met with Alasia's and there was a fierceness on the younger girl's face that was unmatched. "Marcuccio never paid me any attention, mother hated my presence and father avoided me like I was the plague instead of his daughter. My place is at your side with Antonio, wherever that may be."
"But?" Alasia asked, raising her eyebrows high.
Imeldina let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world. "But still it seems against all values that I should wish for the death of my family."
"Pray if you must, then," Alasia replied, brushing a golden curl behind her sister's ears and giving her a sweet smile. She didn't bother to tell her sister that after the battle there probably wasn't much to pray for, except for the acceptance of their souls into heaven. She let her eyes wander back to the battle in front of her, just in time to see Hvitserk hack down a man like one might stick a knife into butter. It was obvious that the Saxons were losing, badly, but there appeared to be no plans for retreat yet.
Suddenly, in the middle of the crowd, her eyes found those she had looked up to for so long. She remembered those eyes with the crinkles surrounding them as her father laughed at one of her childish comments and with stern lines as he reprimanded her after doing something wrong. Now they had neither lines, nor crinkles, but as her father looked at her they held a venom she had not ever seen before. Her heart skipped a beat before freezing over, and a chilly smile came to her lips at the realisation that he was blaming her for their defeat, it was obvious from the expression on his face. He raised his sword in her direction, showing more emotion than he had during the entire audience in which her mother had shamed her, but Alasia simply kept on looking at him, still as a statue. A very smug statue, at that.
