The journey back to Ullrsfjörðr from Vestmannaeyjar was far less harrowing than the voyage out. The seas challenged Vetrúlfr and his crew, but not in the way they had before.
This time, the waves did not seek to devour, but to test. Njörðr himself seemed to watch from the wind and the tide, not as a tormentor, but as a silent judge nodding his approval.
The voyage became a ritual; a victory lap for those who had braved the coils of the Jörmungandr and lived to boast of it.
And when the prow of Frostrtönn pierced the fog of his harbor, drums thundered across the fjord like war calls echoing through time. They heralded not just the return of a chieftain, but the arrival of a chosen son of the gods.
---
Róisín had spent the last several days adrift in thought, wandering the vast mead hall Vetrúlfr called home.
