GREATNESS
— 30. Farewell

  The cities of Ashton and Kattegat had been filled with both joy and celebration now that Bjorn and Ylva were King and Queen of both lands. While Bjorn rejoiced and enjoyed his newfound power, the same couldn't be said about Ylva.

There seemed to be only three people in both cities who were left saddened by the victory. Those people were Hvitserk, Halig, and Ylva.

Hvitserk found himself drinking himself half to death, burdened with the pain of losing not just the woman he loved but the child of his that he hadn't even had the opportunity to meet before Ivar took the child's life.

Hvitserk had learned the child had been born blind and with Sigurd's eyes, but he didn't care. He knew he and Freya would have loved the child anyway. It was still their child. But no, the child had been taken from him and so had Freya. He had nothing left now.

Halig was saddened as well but instead of drowning his sorrows with mead like Hvitserk or hiding away from everyone like Freya, Halig was taking a page out of Freya's book and was channeling all of his pain and heartbreak into anger. It was unhealthy but it made him fool good.

He was fourteen now. But he was still a child. Despite that, it didn't stop him from picking a fight with a random man. The man was so drunk that despite being twice the size of Halig, the latter had won and had killed the man in blind rage.

With blood covering his face, he had roared out in anger and repeatedly punched the wall of a nearby cabin until his knuckles were covered in blood. It hurt so much but it was nothing compared to the pain of losing his sister, his caregiver.

Other than Hvitserk, Freya had been the only one he had even spoken to in the year he had been trapped in Kattegat. It formed a bond he couldn't understand. A bond that made him feel almost dependent on Freya and now that she was gone, he felt lost. It was unbearable.

While Hvitserk and Halig had their own ways of dealing with their pain and heartbreak, Ylva had refused to deal with it altogether.

She tried to contain it all, but of course, it began to hurt so much that she couldn't take it anymore.

It was how she found herself standing in the woods with a wooden pyre in front of her.

Freya's body laid on top of it. She was pale and lifeless but she still managed to look beautiful in her mother's eyes.

Ylva had built the entire pyre. It made her wonder how in Odin's name Floki was able to build boats three times that size in the same amount of time.

She knew it wasn't wise for her to have done so much work on her own while being pregnant but she didn't care. No one else wanted to help her. Not even Bjorn. He was too busy with his newfound kingship.

She could have asked Gunnhild but she didn't see the point. Gunnhild had never been a mother before. She didn't know what it was like to lose a child. If Ylva had company at that moment, she wanted someone who could have understood her pain.

She thought about asking Lagertha but even if she never said it out loud, Ylva knew Lagertha didn't like Freya after Freya tried to kill her twice alongside Ivar.

With tears in her eyes, Ylva sighed as she looked down at Freya lying on the pyre. It was now nightfall and she had been working on the pyre since dawn. She expected her family was looking for her but she didn't care.

"You and I, we used to come here at least once every summer since I first took you in," Ylva spoke up, smiling sadly as she looked around, "We'd fish in the river over there and we'd make a fire right here. We'd spend the night talking about everything and I'd braid your hair. I'd tell you stories of my journies over the years and we'd fall asleep looking up at the stars."

Ylva took a deep breath and groaned, feeling some pain in her lower belly. She groaned, placing her hand on her lower back as she took a seat on the ground.

"I expect it's nothing to worry about," She admitted in a calm tone, "I'm just tired. I haven't slept much these past few days since your death. When I close my eyes, all I can imagine is the sight of you fighting for your life as Ivar choked you to death with a rope," She paused, smiling sadly as she looked downwards and ran her fingers through the grass, "Halig wakes up screaming most nights. It has gotten so bad that I just spend the night in his room, waiting for the moment to comfort him as he wakes up screaming and crying. I never realized how strong your bond was with him. Bjorn is saddened by your death as well but he tries his best to hide it. Hvitserk is beside himself and even Rorik is saddened by your death but he refuses to admit it."

"I know what people say behind my back. They think I'm a fool to be so devastated over the death of the girl who killed my brother and took my crown. They don't see what I see. They don't see that I raised you, which means I am to blame for everything you became," She explained as she pushed herself off the ground to move closer to Freya's pyre, "People love the phrase that the gods flip a coin that is how the fates of the people in our family are chosen but I've begun to realize that it is wrong. Madness and Greatness?" She asked, letting out a loud humorless laugh, "None of us are mad. You weren't born that way. Nor was Erik. And neither was my father. You were created that way. You were all taught at a young age that if you didn't amount to Greatness or if you weren't always stable, it meant that you were mad, but is that true? You have problems with your anger. What about it? I have problems with anger. So do Halig and Gyda. And so does Bjorn and Hvitserk. That doesn't mean we're mad. No one taught you to control your anger and that is why it got so bad. I handed you a sword when you were just a girl and encouraged you to kill people with it. It wasn't right. It happened with me so I assumed it should happen to you as well. But that..."

Ylva stepped back, sighing as tears filled her eyes. "That is why you ended up the way you did and that is why so many other people in our bloodline went mad. We handed a sword to a child of eight and expected him to learn to use it by age eleven before forcing them to fight in battle by the age of twelve. It happened to me. It happened to Sihtric. It happened with Erik as well," She paused and shook her head slightly, "It wasn't wise to do. It wasn't wise for any of us to do. Especially you. Like your father and his father before him, you had problems controlling your anger. It made you think you could channel that anger into killing but that it isn't right. It never was yet I encouraged it. I allowed you to slay a half dozen men when it was under attack and take Gyda and Rorik with you, expecting you to protect them. And you did. But in the process, you had to kill three men who had come after you. It wasn't right. It is my fault you had already killed more than twenty men by the time you turned twelve. I was the cause of everything you became and I am the reason you are dead."

Ylva cried out and was quick to cover her mouth. She stared down at Freya, her lip quivering as she looked devastated. "I adopted you when I was practically a child myself. I wasn't even twenty yet when I took you in. I treated you like a sister at first but then you became a daughter to me. I learned a lot from you and I like to think you learned from me as well," She explained, tears spilling down her cheeks, "You were such a hyper girl when you were younger. You couldn't keep still. You were wild and it reminded me of myself when I was younger. Ragnar assured me that like myself, you would calm down as you grew older," She explained, beginning to laugh, "It never happened, though. And in all honesty, I'm glad."

Ylva walked closer to Freya, crying as she rubbed her own growing belly. "When you first told us that Ivar had killed your child, I couldn't begin to think about what that felt like. To have your child sleeping in your arms one night only to have him missing the next day. It broke my heart to even think about it," She explained, quick to wipe her tears, "I've lost children before. In the battle in Ashton where you saved my life, I lost the child I was carrying. For an entire year, I thought Halig was dead. But now, I have actually lost a child. You. And...." She trailed, her voice cracking as she looked down at Freya, "And it's more pain than I can bear, Freya. I can't take it. First Sihtric and now you?"

"Why did you have to die, huh?" Ylva asked, crying out as she looked down at Freya, "You had your whole life ahead of you. We had defeated Ivar, you could have been happy! You could have married Hvitserk and lived a happy life with him. You could have been a mother to many children, grandchildren I would have been more than proud of one day."

She stood in place and sighed, shaking her head slightly. "It doesn't matter if you are gone from this world, Freya," She spoke softly, placing a hand on the side of Freya's face, "You shall always be in my heart. One day, I shall see you again in Valhalla, and on that day, we shall have many stories to tell each other."

Taking a deep breath, Ylva walked to stand behind the pyre. She grabbed ahold of it, grunting as she began to use all her strength to push the pyre toward the water close by. She yelled out, using everything she had within her to push it on her own.

She sighed in relief when she finally got it into the water. She walked to where she had built a fire when it first became dark and picked up the lit torch. She threw it into the pyre, watching it erupt into flames.

She began to tear up at the sight, devastated by the loss of Freya. She walked as the pyre began to float away, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Goodbye, my daughter. You shall always be on my mind. I love you. More than you could ever know. The gods took you before I was ready, but I accept this fate. For now, you are feasting in Valhalla with so many others that we have lost over the years," She admitted in a whisper, smiling sadly at the thought, "Say hello to your father and Sihtric in Valhalla, will you? One day, I shall be there to join you. I promise."

Just then, feeling a sharp pain in her stomach different from the first, Ylva cried out. She clutched her belly, falling into a kneel on the ground. She began to cry, shaking her head as she realized what was going on.

"No," Ylva cried out as she desperately shook her head, "Please, no. I beg of you. Please, please, not this one too. Not another one. Please don't take another child from me," She pleaded as she folded her hands together while begging the gods for mercy, "Please, I cannot bear it anymore."

Ylva pushed herself forward as she fell face-first onto the ground, clutching her belly. "No, no, no!"

Hours had passed Ylva had remained in that spot, lying on the ground with a blank expression on her face. The sun had come up and still, she hadn't moved. She couldn't remember when she had fallen asleep but when she woke up she found a familiar voice calling out to her.

She opened her eyes to find it to be nighttime, making her realize she had somehow slept through an entire day.

"Ylva? Ylva!" She heard Bjorn call out as she searched through the woods for her until reaching the spot he knew to be a spot she and Freya used to travel to, "Ylva, what is it?"

A worried look on his face, Bjorn rushed over to her, frowning when he saw that Ylva wasn't wearing pants and blood covered her thigh. "What..." He trailed off and sighed, looking down at the ground sadly, "How did...How did it happen?"

"It's my fault. It's all my fault," Ylva sobbed as she frantically shook her head, "Everything is my fault. Everyone around me is dying and it's all my fault."

"It's not your fault," Bjorn argued as he knelt beside her and cupped her face in his hands, "None of this is your fault."

"Bjorn, I can't take it anymore," Ylva complained, shaking her head as she wrapped her arms around him, "Please make it stop. Just make it stop. I can't take this pain anymore. Every day, the pain only becomes worse and worse. It's too much for me to take. I can't deal with it anymore."

"Ylva, Ylva," Bjorn attempted to get Ylva's attention as she tried to look away. He grabbed the sides of her face, forcing her to look at him, "Look at me, Ylva. Look at me!"

Tears rushing down her face, Ylva turned to Bjorn, a hopeless expression on her face. "You will get through this. You always do. You just need to stay strong. And I know what you're about to say. You're about to say that you're not strong," He explained and Ylva was shocked to learn he already knew what he was about to say, "But you are strong. Stronger than you think. But if you lack the strength you need to get through this loss, I promise you, Ylva, I will always be here to be your strength as you are mine. Alright?" He asked in a soft tone, pulling her closer to him, "You think you can't get through this, but you will. You thought you couldn't live without Sihtric, but you did. When you thought Halig died, you felt like you were dying, but you got through it. You will get through this too. We lost Freya and we lost our baby, but we have other children to think of. Erik is nine years old and Thyra is seven. They need us. We must be there for them. We are the king and queen of two nations. We must be there for each other if we want to get through this, alright?"

Ylva didn't respond but she still nodded. She watched as Bjorn gave her an assuring look. He wiped the tears from her eyes before standing up. He stared down at her, holding his hand out to her.

"I don't know if I can do this, Bjorn," She admitted in a whisper and Bjorn smiled at her.

"I will help you," Bjorn responded as he continued to hold his hand out to her.

Finally, Ylva grabbed ahold of his hand and allowed him to help her up. Once she got to her feet, she moved closer to Bjorn as they continued to hold each other's hands. "You will always be my side?"

"Always," Bjorn promised her, cupping her face in his hands, "We have been together for almost twenty years, Ylva. Do you truly think I would throw all of that away now?" He asked, letting out a large scoff, "We are in this together. Now and always."

Ylva stared up at Bjorn and gradually nodded her head. She smiled sadly and hugged Bjorn, who wrapped his arms around her.

Bjorn closed his eyes, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "I love you, I want you to know that," He told her in a whisper and Ylva lifted her head to look him in the eye.

"And I, you," Ylva replied, resting her head on his shoulder, "More than you could possibly imagine."

The story of Ylva the Dread and Bjorn Ironside had started out as normal and ordinary yet as the years passed, their lives became more and more complicated.

It didn't matter to them, though. As long as they were able to face it together. And they always did. They were each other's strength and when they reached their lows, the other was always there to help them get back up and remind them of who they were. They were Bjorn Ironside and Ylva the Dread, the most famous couple of their people. The Bear and the She-Wolf. They were strong alone but together they were unstoppable on the battlefield.

They had been married nearly twenty years and even then, their story wasn't finished. There was so much more yet to come.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

End of the second book! Hope you liked it :)

Check out the third book! Glory or Valhalla!! It'll take place in season 6 and I'll tell you now I'll be changing a bit if 6B.