THE VIKING KING'S BRIDE

⚔️ THE BLOOD THAT DOES NOT STAINED

The grand stone thoroughfares in which Alice used to look from her high balcony were now choked with ash and debris.

Viking warriors patrolled the narrow lanes in pairs. They were massive, broad-shouldered men with braided hair and axes slung casually over their shoulders, their deep voices booming over the weeping of the locals.

The city guards had been entirely disarmed, some lay dead in the gutters, while others were forced to haul heavy crates of stolen gold and grain toward the harbor.

Freddy led her toward a dilapidated tavern called The Gilded Anchor, now a sanctuary for the desperate.

Inside, the air was thick with the smell of cheap ale, sweat, and fear. Strangers sat huddled around small fires, whispering in hushed tones about the palace's surrender. Alice sat in a dark corner, her sharp ears catching every scrap of gossip.

"They say Princess Margaret didn't even shed a tear when the King surrendered," a scarred old fisherman hissed, slamming his wooden mug on the table.

"She’s already parading around the upper court, acting like she’s the one who conquered the Northmen."

"Aye, but she hasn't seen her groom yet," a young weaver replied, shuddering.

"The scouts say the Viking Warlord is a monster. Old, mangled from a hundred battles, and so crippled he has to be carried onto the field. They say he drinks blood from the skulls of his enemies just to stay alive."

Alice leaned forward, her brilliant mind piercing through the exaggerations of the tavern gossip. An old, disabled king? she thought, analyzing the strategy.

If the Viking king is truly incapacitated, who is really commanding those twenty-five ships? Who organized an invasion so perfectly timed that their coastal defenses collapsed in one day?

Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the tavern were kicked open.

The chatter died instantly. Three Viking warriors stepped into the dim room, led by a man who did not fit the description of the ragged raiders. He wore an intricate coat of chainmail, and a heavy iron amulet shaped like a raven hung against his chest. His eyes, calculating eyes scanned the room.

"All able-bodied wenches and boys outside!" the leader barked in a broken common tongue.

"The High King commands a feast for his wedding tomorrow. The palace kitchens require hands to pluck the fowl and scrub the hearths. Move, or feel the bite of the whip!"

Panic rippled through the tavern. Freddy immediately reached for the hidden skinning knife at his belt, his eyes darting to Alice in absolute terror. If she was dragged into the palace, Margaret would recognize her instantly.

But Alice’s mind worked faster than any blade. She reached out and firmly caught Freddy’s wrist, pressing it down before he could draw his weapon.

"Don't," she breathed, a daring plan forming in her mind.

"Princess, no, Don't go back there.." Freddy whispered frantically.

"They are just looking for nameless servants Fred. The palace is a huge place, I know every secret passage, and the kitchens are underground. If I stay here, I am just a target in the slums. If I go inside, I can see my sister’s play for power firsthand. I can find out who this Viking king truly is." Alice said.

Before Freddy could protest further, Alice stood up from the shadows. She let her knees tremble, playing the part of a terrified, starving peasant girl perfectly. She stumbled forward into the center of the tavern room, her head bowed, her tattered cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

The Viking leader warrior glanced down at her stained face and her shivering frame. He scoffed, clearly seeing nothing but a frail, useless girl.

"You," he grunted, pointing a finger at her.

"Get to the cart outside. Try not to die of fright before the stew is made." the Viking warrior orders.

Alice nodded submissively and walked out into the freezing night air, climbing onto the back of a wooden flatbed cart alongside a dozen other weeping peasants.

As the cart began to roll up the steep hill toward the grand palace gates, Alice looked back at Freddy, who stood in the tavern doorway, watching her with a mixture of awe and dread.She was going back to the palace she had been hunted from, not as its princess, but as its shadow.

The iron-studded kitchen doors slammed shut behind Alice, sealing her inside the underground belly of the palace. The air here was a suffocating mix of roasting grease, scalding steam, and panic.

Dozens of servants scurried like ants, screaming over the sizzle of massive wild boars turning on iron spits.

"You! New girl!" a stout head cook screamed, shoving a rusted knife and a heavy basket of unwashed mountain tubers into Alice’s hands.

"Get to the corner and start scraping! If the Northmen find dirt in their stew, they'll skin us all!"

Alice nodded dumbly, keeping her head low.

She hurried to a dark corner near the back scullery, directly beneath the stone dumbwaiter shaft that connected the underground kitchens to the royal chambers above.

Because of her sharp mind, Alice knew every architectural secret of this castle. She knew that the ventilation flue behind the scullery hearth acted like an ear trumpet, carrying voices directly down from.

Princess Margaret's private dressing room. As she aggressively scraped the dirt off a root vegetable, she leaned her head closer to the stone flue. The roaring heat of the fires masked her movements.

Above her, the frantic and high-pitched voice of her eldest sister, Princess Margaret, echoed clearly down the stone pipe.

"Be careful with that lace, you clumsy fools!"

Margaret shrieked, followed by the sharp sound of a slap.

"If my wedding gown is ruined, I will have your hands cut off!"

"Forgive us, Your Highness," a terrified maid whispered.

"Highness?" Margaret hissed, her voice dripping with venomous anxiety.

"Tomorrow I will be a Queen! But a Queen to what? A broken, rotting barbarian! Where is the Seer? He promised me absolute power in my dreams! He said if I got rid of my sister Alice, the throne would be mine cleanly!"

Alice’s grip tightened on her knife, her eyes sharpened on her anger. The Seer knew all of these things, they are the reason for this fallen kingdom. Hearing her sister openly confess to the plot sent a cold wave of fury through her veins.

The next there is a deep, raspy voice suddenly spoke from the shadows of Margaret’s room above. It was the Seer himself. He had somehow entered the palace alongside the invaders.

"The throne is yours, Queen Margaret," the Seer croaked, his voice sounding like dry autumn leaves scraping across a grave.

"Your weak sister is dead, buried beneath the mountain snow. Her blood does not stain your hands. Now the crown is yours."