It is Landing Day. I am drunk, on ale, on optimism, on life. This night restored in me my faith. It reminded me why I have come to this inhospitable place, and burdened my wife and son with a life so cold and bleak as this.

We lived. Sibbe had invited Anna and a young man named Linden. Hjorvarth and the other boy, Engli, had played the day away and fallen asleep by the fire. The four of us had gathered by the hearth with the sleeping children.

Anna and Linden sat enraptured as I recounted my discovery of the Dwarven Treasure Horde. When I was finished, as we laughed, as Linden stole the kiss from Anna that he had waited all night for, I looked across at my wife, my beautiful wife, and I saw in her eyes, for just a moment, a look of deep content and happiness. She had loved me for that moment, as she used to, and then I watched as her fear and doubts manifested.

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She remembered her illness. She remembered that this wouldn’t last, not the night, but me. Who I was pretending to be. If only she understood that this was all for her.

It is all for her.

I will find the Hall of Hrothgar, and I will live that night again. I will save Sibbe. I will save my wife. I will not let her die.

I will live a life where I see love in her eyes. I hope one day my son will come to love me as well.

THE END