Caution: This is quite a violent chapter, and while I tried to not elaborate too much on the gruesome details it may be disturbing to some readers. (I don't want to spoil people but if you're worried the content may be triggering I wrote a recap of the chapter at the end. So you can read that and then decide if you want to read the whole chapter, or just skip to the next one and still know what's going on plot-wise)

Greenland, 15th century

For once, I feel completely at ease. I'm not even cold. Gudrun's warm skin heats mine and I heat her in return. Golden curls fall across my bare chest as we lay entangled on the damp moss, watching the sunlight rise above the mountains. But the new morning isn't ours, and neither is the day that follows. All we have is the dawn. If only the dawn could last forever.

I don't have hope for us, but I have peace. I can leave now and know that Gudrun is not his, and never truly will be.

She's not mine either. She never has been. But I am hers for eternity.

I allow myself to close my eyes, drifting into beautiful dreams of eternal dawn as my head rests on her hair. Our clothes are strewn around us. We can't be bothered to pick them up just yet. Everything will have to wait for just a moment.

My lips nudge her cheek, urging her to look my way, and my hand cradles hers.

That's when a primal roar interrupts our intimate entanglement. A roar that I'm all too familiar with.

They don't call me Björn the Bearslayer for nothing. I've slayed beasts that make that sound.

As I open my eyes, the beast is mere feet from us. It snarls, displaying sharp teeth that can snap off limbs. Judging by its mangy appearance--dirty fur hanging in tufts over thin limbs--this bear is starving. Just like us, it's desperate to find anything to eat on these shores, and to a bear, we're food. Delicious sustenance served on a platter.

I jump up, pulling up my trousers in the same movement. Luckily, I never completely shed them, and the fabric was instead left hanging around my legs.

Shoving Gudrun down on the moss, I place myself between her and the hungry beast.

I've slayed a bear before. I can do it again.

But my bow has disappeared into the underbrush and my sword is safely tucked away at home. All I have is a small dagger hanging from my belt. A small but trusty dagger.

I killed a bear with that very dagger when I was twelve. Although that time, I had surprise on my side as I flung myself from a cliff down onto the predator, somehow hitting the exact right spot on its skull with the blade. Perhaps luck played a bigger part than skill on that occasion.

I don't have surprise on my side this time. The bear saw me way before I discovered it. Apparently, a massive beast is better at sneaking than I ever will be.

Hopefully, luck will be with me once again. It's all I have to rely on.

I don't even have a shirt on. But still, I believe I can do this. Because I have no other choice. I can't let the bear reach Gudrun.

So I grab my dagger firmly, knowing that if I let go we are both doomed.

"Björn, don't," Gudrun whispers behind me, lightly tugging on my pant leg. "We need to run."

"It's too late," I snap back, without taking my eyes off the bear. "It's faster than us. I need to kill it."

It may be faster, but I'm smarter. At least I hope I am. I better be, or soon it will be all over.

Crouching low, I aim to strike before the beast does. As the bear's eyes dart from me to Gudrun, I see an opportunity and throw myself toward white fur and jagged teeth, hoping to hit that one lucky spot in the back of the neck.

A giant paw with sharp claws stops me in my tracks, flinging me to the side like a leaf in the wind. Warm blood spill over my chest as I land on the wet moss. The pain catches up to me once I try to catch my breath, making me gasp in agony. Such a contrast against the gasps I just expelled in pleasure, as Gudrun I tousled in the same damp moss. Everything becomes dark for a moment as my body cringes from the impact.

Only moments ago, I was more alive than I've ever been and now I'm closer to death than ever.

I can hear the beast approaching. It's above me when I open my eyes. The glistening sun stings me back to life.

I'm not dead yet. There is still hope. That is what I have been telling myself for years anyway. No matter what hardship life throws at me--the loss of my mother and siblings, the loss of ways to escape my frozen homelands, the loss of the girl who was my only solace as the world around us shattered--there is still hope as long as I live.

But maybe today is the day hope runs out for good. With so little of it left, it was bound to happen. Hope will flow away like the blood running down my chest, allowing air from desperate gasps to escape with it.

The dagger is not in my hand anymore. I clasp desperately for it in the soft surface below while the bear growls menacingly, probably pondering which part of me is most delicious to dig into first. White fur rises high above me to shade the rising sun.

Perhaps I'll never see the sun again. This is it. Soon it'll be all dark. I close my eyes to brace myself as the beast opens its jaws. A beartooth was once the symbol of my love toward Gudrun, and a row of such jagged weapons will soon end my life.

"Björn! Here!" Gudrun's voice cuts through the darkness and pain. Something metallic lands on my hand, thrown elegantly by my love.

It's the dagger that has killed a bear before. The grip is familiar underneath my shaking fingers. A handle of walrus ivory below a steely blade.

"Run!" I yell, using up the last air in my deflating lungs. "Run Gudrun!"

No matter what happens, she needs to be safe.

I stab aimlessly in the air above me, hoping to hit something, anything.

Nothing.

Instead, a giant paw steps on my chest, making bones crackle and airways shut tight.

I try one last time. One last stab. Because I'm Björn the Bearslayer and no matter how much I wish I could give up, I can't. I won't surrender to the beast without one last fight.

This time, I hit something soft. A loud whimper rises from the beast's throat. I twist the dagger further, making the bear lift its paw from my broken chest.

With powers I didn't know I possessed, I rise with the bear. Braving myself to blink my eyes open, I see the sun again. I find myself crouched in the moss opposite the predator with my dagger deep into its eye.

With relentless energy--harnessed by the will to live--I push further, making blood squirt and brain matter turn to mush. The bear stumbles beneath me. The huge body soon falls down on the soft moss with a thump.

I fall with it, slumping down as my rattling chest reminds me that air is necessary. Everything is pain. The world dances in golden dizzy contours in the corners of my closing eyes.

"Björn!" Gudrun once again reminds me that I'm not dead yet. But hope is hard to find when blood is rising in your throat. "Hold on! I can heal you. I can save you. I promise."

I don't believe her.

Her fingers move over my torn-up chest, causing my body to convulse in agony. Fast strokes paint a pattern in blood. Runes of mysterious meaning, as I don't know everything Gudrun knows. Perhaps they're magical signs meant to mend what is broken.

"The saga will save you, Björn," she whispers as the light fades around me. A soft kiss is placed on my cold forehead. "The saga isn't over."

Saga... that's what the runes on my chest spell out. I can feel them even though I can't see them. The strokes tingle as my breathing becomes easier and hope starts to stir.

I'm still alive, lingering in the wasteland between staying and going.

"I should have known this was the fate that eventually would befall you, son." A deep voice cuts across the clearing. An ominous shadow obstructs the glimmering sunlight. For a moment, I wonder if Oden has stepped out of Valhalla to take me with him. A fate the old sagas told awaited a fallen warrior. Perhaps fighting a bear counts as dying in battle.

But the man isn't Oden, and I'm not in Valhalla.

I'm in Greenland--the most hopeless place in this world--being gazed upon by my judgemental eyes by my father as I lay half-naked and bloody next to his barely clad wife, who is cradling me in her arms. We both know we're caught, like small rodents in the path of a carnivorous predator.

My father approaches slowly, making darkness fall in his path. He appears much like a bear himself with his wide shoulders and thick pelt of a beard. "It was your mom who insisted on naming you Björn, as she kept having dreams of white bears when she expected you," he laughs, yes, laughs. His son lies mortally wounded and the man has the audacity to laugh. "Perhaps your death at the claws of such a beast is what she foresaw."

"I can save him," Gudrun counters, determination in her voice. "Björn doesn't have to die."

It's possible that my eyes are betraying me in this moment of despair, but as I gaze upon her face the etched runes on her cheeks appear to glow, blue as the sky itself and strong as the rising sun. Perhaps they're infused by her magic. The magic I refused to believe in.

"I've had enough of your tricks, girl," my father replies, bending down beside the bear to pick something out of the moss. "Don't you think I know what you do every night? You make me drink that brew to lull me into false dreams. I let you do it because bedding you aren't what I need you for."

A deranged thought crosses my waning mind: maybe he can't bed her. Perhaps that's part of where his anger toward me, and everyone else, stems from. I can do what he can't. Lust, love, and hope are still mine, while everything he ever cherished was taken from him.

Everything but me and my brother. But our presence only reminds him of what he lost.

"I have other plans for you, my wife," my father tells Gudrun in a foreboding tone. "You won't save him, but you'll save the rest of us."

I want to jump up and defend her, but I cannot. My body is still broken, despite the tingling making of the runes taking the pain away bit by bit. I can't even slay him with words, as my throat is needed to gasp for air. I try to rise to face him, but all my body does is shiver.

"Lay still, Björn," Gudrun whispers, fear making her voice tremble.

The next moment, she's pulled away from me by my father's brutal hand. "You don't need him," he yells. "He's served his purpose."

Fading blue runes and flicking red curls is the last I see of my love as she's violently whisked away. As I try to scream, blood once again bubbles into my lungs, chasing air away.

My father's furious face is all that exists in my fading field of vision. He's above me, just like the slain bear, and in his hand is a dagger dripping with blood. My own dagger, still coated in bear blood.

"Please, father..." I whimper as the world starts to turn black and mute. No glittering sun, no clucking ocean waves, no hopeful bluebells swaying in the wind.

"Out of all your siblings, I never understood why you were the one who lived." My father wields the dagger into the air. "You were always so weak. Not in body but in spirit. You're of no use to me, Björn. At least I still have Ivar, he'll make for a better heir."

I want to tell him he'll soon have no one, as he's alienated Ivar as well. But I can't betray my brother and give up his plans. And my tongue can't muster the words anyway.

"You'll be of more use to me dead, Björn," he continues, sounding like a possessed man. "The saga of Björn the Bearslayer will be told around the fire, making us remember why we came to these shores and why we can't leave. Because you gave your life to this settlement, defending us from a vicious beast."

With those words, my father plunges the dagger deep into my already crushed ribcage. He plunges the bear blood-soaked weapon into his son's heart. He plunges it right into the etched runes that promise a continuing saga.

Gudrun screams. Her guttural cry of despair is the last sound I hear.

Everything turns silent. Everything hurts. Everything disappears.

Valhalla awaits. Although I did never believe in sagas.

Recap: Björn and Gudrun awake after their intimate encounter to find a polar bear growling at them. Björn grabs his dagger to kill the animal but is seriously wounded as the beast strikes him. With his last powers, he manages to thrust the dagger into the bear's eye and kill it. But his own injuries are serious as well and he falls beside it. Gudrun rushes to his side and etches a spell of runes on his chest, which appears to start healing him. But before the spell can take effect, Björn's father discovers the couple. Furious, he shoves Gudrun to the side and grabs the bear blood-soaked dagger to plunge it into his son's chest. Björn dies (or does he?).

Author's Note: So that happened... Björn died (or did he?). Any theories on how I will attempt to write myself out of this mess?