She appears in a churchyard unaware if this is dream or reality. Christian graves surround her, a kirkyard perhaps plucked from one of Finan’s many stories of his homeland with monuments and imposing figures of religious icons that cast foreboding shadows across overgrown moss and piles of crumpled and dead autumn leaves. Stones mark graves but Stiorra can’t quite make them out, the names and dates all jumbled together like a foreign language she can’t decipher. There’s a growing sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, an overwhelming bad omen of recognition of a truth she refuses to let herself accept. They are all the final resting places of everyone she’s ever loved or will; the extension of her father’s men she considers family, her brothers and parents as well as the names of those she has yet to meet who await her future. The names of a great love and children she does not recognize and is no longer sure she’ll ever meet in the land of the living. The carved letters of constructed epitaphs begin shifting, rearranging themselves with the piercing screech of stone against stone as they halt into place in entirely new order. She can read them clearly now, the exact names and dates of expiration on each and every one and as she draws closer to one, the others become hazy and illegible once more as if one death affects the others in a sequential succession.
The panic rises in her chest, finding Oswald’s name first and then Sihtric and even her mother all given what appears to be proper Christian burial they would not have wanted or chosen. Stiorra can feel their presence here, all of them and their restlessness only grows with every step she takes further onto hallowed ground. There’s an impression of places, an unmistakable and unseen mark of its history forever imprinted into time and lasting only in the memories of those who experienced it before their stories too fade. She knows something sinister has occurred here but doesn’t know what atrocity was committed here. The winds pick up as she makes her way further into the churchyard, the leaves rustling in threatening swells like nature’s threat to express unwelcome discontent in an effort to make Stiorra turn back around.
She’s taken by a sudden gust of wind, catching herself against the force of it but one of her feet strays from the cobbled path and onto the overgrown earth covering one of the graves of her deceased beloveds. She recognizes the mistake she’s made, acknowledging as a living being this isn’t a place she’s allowed to be but before she can pull her foot back to safety the grounds begin to shift beneath her. The dirt rises and rolls beneath the grasses like the rolling boil of a cauldron but dirt begins crumbing and rolling away as the mound unearths itself. It is a skeletal hand that protrudes from the ground; gangly indiscernible fingers of bone with bits of decaying flash still dangling at the wrist. The fingers snake their way around Stiorra’s ankle, menacing and tight like a manacle and unrelenting even as she tries to pull away. She tries to scream, to cry out for help out of fear for what’s happening but as she opens her mouth in terror no sound comes. Desperately, she looks to the headstone in hopes of recognizing who it may be but again the letters have rearranged and she can’t make it out. There’s pain in her leg now, as the hand continues to constrict and she fights against it with all of her strength but to no avail. The hand is trying to drag her, pull her closer so it too can pull her beneath the earth.
The winds are howling now, the screams she’s unable to produce and the other graves surrounding her begin to rumble and shake just as the first. All of the dead have become disturbed now, somehow awoken by the commotion and every desiccating body begins rising to the surface. Stiorra realizes it isn’t the winds she hears, but the screeching cries of the dead calling out to her, inviting her to join them in the depths below. It dawns on her like a chill sent down her spine to incapacitate and paralyze her that no one here was buried when they died… Every person she’s ever loved ended up trapped here the same as she and were pulled into the ground being buried alive. It is the restlessness she felt when she first arrived, they’ve all been trying to get out for so long and she was somehow the key to their release. She too is to fall victim to their fate, buried until granules of dirt fill her lungs and silence her for all of eternity.
She will be Stiorra Uhtredsdottir no longer, another forgotten and unmarked grave in her place to be lost to time just as the others. More hands rise from the ground, all in varying stages of decay as they take hold on her, impossible to differentiate how many or to whom they belong but they’re all clawing at her and dragging her down as she falls to her knees. Their calls begins to take on a sweeter sound, enticing her to relent and give in to death as she bows her head to yield to them. She can feel the bone scratching and cutting into her skin but she makes no further effort to escape their clutches. This is all only a dream and she knows she will soon wake safely in the bed of her parents, find them both safe and comfortably asleep… right?
As the grounds begin to envelop her, Stiorra’s panic rises in an overwhelming wave as she wonders if this is really a dream at all or what happens if she is buried before she wakes? Is this how death comes for you in sleep? She is too young to die, too unwilling but just as she musters the strength and courage to fight back, it is too late. They begin dragging her deeper into the earth until everything goes black and silence becomes her only companion.
Stiorra wakes in a cold sweat, bolting upright in her own bed as she sucks in heavy breaths still feeling the weight of the earth pressing against her chest. She looks around wildly in the darkness, still hearing the howling screams of the wind only to realize the shuddering screams are her own. Piercing the calmness of the night, it’s her fitful sleep and curdling screams that wake her parents causing Uhtred to instantly draw his sword before both of them appear in haste to find tears streaming down her cheeks and unable to catch her breath as she clutches at her covers.
