“I Can’t Bear Children,” She Told Giant Viking — He Grinned, “My Five Sons Already Love You”

Chapter 2

The question followed her home through the frost-covered dark.

Brinhild walked slowly, letting the cold air numb the confusion in her chest. The ring felt different on her finger now — heavier, somehow, as if her doubts had weight. She’d worn it so long she’d forgotten what her hand looked like without it. She’d worn it so long she’d stopped imagining anyone else’s ring taking its place.

She was so lost in thought that she almost didn’t notice the voices ahead.

“—think she’s cursed. Everyone knows it. The fever took her womb and left her hollow. What kind of woman can’t bear children?”

The words stopped her cold. She recognized the voice — Anna Thorson, the blacksmith’s wife, speaking to a cluster of women outside the weaving house. Their shadows stretched long in the torchlight, and their whispers carried through the night like poison seeping under a door.

“I’ve heard she’s been spending time at Magnus’s Hall,” another voice added. “With those boys. As if she could ever be a proper mother to them.”

“Someone should warn Stoneback. A man like that, with five sons to raise — he needs a real woman. One who can give him more children. Not some barren widow playing at motherhood.”

Brinhild stood frozen in the shadow of a storage shed, her heart hammering against her ribs. The old shame rose up, familiar and suffocating, the same shame she’d carried since old Astred had taken her hands and said, *The womb sleeps now, child. It will not wake again.*

She’d accepted it. She’d made peace with it. She’d built an entire life around the walls that acceptance had created.

But hearing it spoken aloud, in the voices of women who didn’t know her, who’d never seen her hold Ulf through his nightmares or mix remedies for Olaf’s cough or teach Leif how to identify feverfew — it cracked something open that she’d thought was sealed forever.

She was turning away when a new voice cut through the night.

“She’s worth ten of you.”

Leif. He stepped out from behind the well, his small frame trembling with fury, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“She saved my brother’s life when your healer said there was nothing to be done. She’s kind, and she’s smart, and she’s better than any of you.”

Anna Thorson’s face twisted. “She’s your father’s whore, boy. Nothing more.”

Leif launched himself at her.

The impact sent them both sprawling, and the village erupted into shouts. Hands grabbed at the boy, voices screamed for help, and Brinhild stood paralyzed in the shadows, watching a child fight for her honor while she couldn’t find the strength to fight for herself.

Because part of her, the broken part she’d carried for seven years, was afraid he was wrong.

What if she really wasn’t enough?