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...
Alasia was laying on her bed, her small room only lit by a single candle on her nightstand. She had changed into her nightgown, but sleep had not yet taken her. On the floor, her sister and brother had been sleeping soundlessly as the evening turned into night, but her mind was tormented by thoughts howling through it. Most of them were on Ivar, which was the exact reason she had made a curt trip to the old library and picked one of the books telling the tales of a most virtuous lady. Where she might have found such reading pleasant once, the tedious tellings of the perfect Christian little lady now bored her and only fuelled her thoughts about the one person she didn't want to think about.
Letting out a defeated sigh, she closed the old book with a loud thud and placed it on the nightstand more carefully, not wanting to wake up her siblings. She took a short moment to watch them, both looking like little angles as they slept. Antonio had his thumb stuck in his mouth and she made a mental note to put his thumb in vinegar before he went to sleep the next night, Imeldina looked like a princess with her halo of golden curls protecting her.
Just as she was about to turn onto her side to blow out the candle, a knock came on her door. Frowning, she grabbed the candle at its handle and swiftly moved in between the two mattresses to the door, wondering who in heaven's name was knocking at her door at this time of night. She opened the door just a crack, hiding most of her body behind the wood as her blue eyes landed on the head thrall Gyda. The woman looked particularly distressed this night, and already Alasia felt a sense of dread coming over her. "Is it Prince Ivar?" she asked, raising her eyebrows high. Gyda gave a single, affirmative nod and Alasia grimaced. "One moment."
She closed the door again and placed the candleholder on the wobbly table next to the door. Hopping over Imeldina's sleeping frame, she opened the doors to the closet that held all of her handmade dresses, as well as the ones Ivar had gifted her. Hastily, she plucked the first out of the closet and threw it over her night dress, not bothering with all the cords of her corset and grabbed the candle once more as she slipped out of her room. She gave a quick nod to Gyda, who began walking into Ivar's room with the speed of a woman with the devil on her heels. Alasia only just managed to keep up.
As soon as she entered Ivar's chambers it was like she had stepped into a scene of Niflheim. The fire in the hearth had been stoked too high and gave too much warmth, a poor girl was trying to undo Ivar's metal casts only to get her arms squeezed by the said prince as he pushed her away with a harsh insult, other thralls with expressions of fright on their faces were filling buckets with water and dipping rags of cloth in them while two guards at the door watched all of it unfold like it was the most ordinary thing to happen. Alasia stopped mid-step, trying to take all of the chaos in, before taking a deep breath to yell orders of her own. "Everybody out," she said clearly, looking at all of the thralls before turning to the two guards. When all of them looked at her like she was the biggest fool at court, she frowned. "Now!"
