On the first night of the Four Months of Dark, a Viking ship spots a boy adrift in a storm that should have killed any man.

Against his crew—and his wife—Drakkar brings him aboard

The Wolf of Winter.

He calls himself Saelar.

He is careful. Eats little. Says nothing.

He keeps to the edges of the ship—small among Vikings who kill what they cannot name.

Drakkar keeps him close. As if the boy is his to keep.

He puts a sword in the boy’s hands.

But Saelar, light as a feather, struggles to hold his ground.

Thora, Drakkar’s wife, watches Saelar with suspicion, disturbed by the closeness forming between the boy and her husband.

As winter deepens, the sea yields something impossible.

From the depths, a creature rises: Aurelion.

The Vikings strike first. Saelar tries to stop them.

Drakkar’s harpoon finds the god—awakening an old prophecy.

As it sinks, the boy goes after it—disappearing beneath the sea.

Drakkar follows him. 

But there is nothing to save.

For three days, they believe him lost.

Then he returns. 

Changed. 

Carrying something no human could bear.

And whatever they feared before…

was nothing compared to what came back with him.

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