Valkyries Calling

Chapter 43: Ynys Rós

Spring turned to summer, and summer began to fade before long as well. Over these months, Vetrúlfr chose to rule his kingdom rather than focus on raiding the coasts.

If there was one thing he had learned in Byzantium, it was that people had short memories. If an attack were to occur once or twice a year, people learned to grow accustomed to it.

And before long, it became a normality; a seasonal event to prepare for.

But do it every day, and now that is an invasion that demands to be taken seriously, with all the might the victims could muster.

Besides, there were more soldiers to train. More fortifications to build. More armor and weapons to forge. More fields to sew.

Crops flourished under the agricultural reforms that Vetrúlfr had introduced, and granaries were constructed across the realm.

Any excess was given freely to other Jarldoms, Thanedoms, and villages that bore his sigil.

While Vetrúlfr saw to these changes, Róisín studied the path of a druidess.

She spent her days reading the tomes Vetrúlfr acquired on her behalf with silver, doing her best to pursue the way of her ancestors, to master her sacred blood.

Eventually, the day came when Vetrúlfr approached his wife in his personal library. Her face was buried in a book, her belly plump with his child. She did not hear him enter, too enraptured with the vellum text beneath her tracing fingers.

The warmth of his breath whispered in her ear, and she shuddered in surprise.

“You should pack your things,” he murmured. “We’re going on a short voyage. There is something you have yet to learn… something that is very important for our future.”

Having calmed her heart after realizing it was the man she had married, Róisín sighed deeply.

“Don’t scare me like that! It’s bad for the baby. Wherever you wish me to go, I will follow… You simply need to ask next time.”

Vetrúlfr chuckled as he swept her into his arms.

“Perhaps I’ll just carry you like this instead.”

In the end, the two of them found themselves aboard the Frostrtönn, heading once more toward the shores of Vestmannaeyjar.

Their journey took several days, but when they arrived, it was not at the main settlement of Heimaey. No, they landed on a smaller island: Elliðaey.

Even from the sea, Elliðaey seemed unlike any other isle. Shrouded in mist, its cliffs rose like broken altars from the waves, and gulls circled overhead as if bound to unseen rites.

A grove shimmered faintly beyond the fort’s rising stone, and for a moment Róisín felt as though she were staring not into the future; but into the past returned.

Under Vetrúlfr’s order, since the day he had claimed Róisín as his own, a secret project had been underway.

Here on Elliðaey, a fortress was being built around the island’s heart, its labor performed by a mix of Norse freemen and Gaelic thralls taken during the raid on South Galway’s coasts.

But these thralls did not look the part.

A sacred grove had been planted and carefully tended. Its saplings, birch, rowan, alder, hawthorn, young and growing in soil ferried from Ériu, blessed with chant and flame.

Standing stones encircled the grove, carved anew with ogham and rune, a fusion of tongues not seen since before the fall of the druids.

The caretakers wore emerald cloaks, stitched with Celtic knotwork and plaid, their shoulders crowned with the furs of red deer. They spoke softly in Gaelic, whispering prayers and songs of old. They looked not like prisoners; but pilgrims.

Róisín turned to her husband, suspicion furrowing her brow.

“These people… I recognize some of them from the priory. Are they not your thralls?”

Vetrúlfr smirked and pointed to the guards above, standing vigil on the cliffs; but facing outward, toward the sea, not inward.

“Not at all. These men and women are your followers. This island was consecrated with the blood of your kin centureis ago. And here, you will build a new Ynys Môn. A new druidic college. A new center of worship for the gods of your people.”

Then she noticed the guards.

They did not wear the ochre-brown shields of Vetrúlfr’s army, but bore emerald triskelions. Their helms were crowned with stag-hide, their cloaks fastened by brooches carved in spiral and knot. Their swords, of damascene steel, had hilts shaped like the heirlooms of petty kings from Ériu.

Norse, they were by blood and warcraft. But here, they were the sacred guardians of druids.

She stared at her husband in disbelief. Her hand gestured silently to herself.

Vetrúlfr nodded, smiling.

“Yes. This is your island. And that of your people. Here, you will revive your faith and culture. Here our two peoples will unite. This island, which shall henceforth be known as Ynys Rós, will be the refuge of Celts who no longer wish to suffer beneath the yoke of the Church. And you will be its Arch-Druidess.”

It wasn’t much. Not yet.

But the moment her foot touched the sacred soil, Róisín felt it. Something ancient stirred beneath the moss and wind. The land welcomed her.

Arch-Druidess.

The word felt impossibly heavy, yet utterly right.

Not because she claimed it.

Because the island spoke it first.

Róisín knelt upon the dark soil of the sacred grove, her fingertips brushing the moss that clung to the roots of the Irish saplings.

She closed her eyes, heart heavy and full. In the Old Tongue. Scarcely spoken aloud since her grandmother’s day; she whispered a vow not taught, but remembered:

“By oak, ash, and thorn… by bloodshed and blood reborn… I vow to guard this isle and kindle anew the sacred fire of my people. May the gods of land and sea hear me, and mark me as their own.”

A breeze stirred the leaves above. And for the briefest moment, the whisper of wind sounded like a chorus of ancient voices, murmuring approval.

Vetrúlfr said nothing as she spoke. He merely watched. Not as a king, nor conqueror, nor husband. But as a man witnessing prophecy made flesh.

He had built many strongholds, commanded fleets, and slain mighty men… yet none of it felt as lasting as what now bloomed on this windswept isle.

Let Rome build its cathedrals, he thought. Let kings in the south fight over thrones of stone and gold. This… this is a flame worth guarding.

One of the druids-in-training, a flax-haired girl no older than fifteen, approached Róisín shyly and presented a bundle: a robe of emerald linen, a torque of twisted bronze, and a staff of carved yew topped with a raven feather.

“We knew you would come,” the girl said. “The visions spoke of you… and of the child you carry.”

Róisín’s breath caught. The wind rose. The saplings bent but did not break. She took the robe, and with Vetrúlfr’s help, draped it over her shoulders.

Vetrúlfr placed a laurel wreath placed on the girl’s fiery head, and with it the Arch-Druidess had been crowned on the island of Ynys Rós.