Viking’s Claim by Brynn Paulin

We are in the old world, but apart from it

Auden:
My people didn’t fade into humanity, melding into them as seasons changed. We disappeared. We found a way to go on, a way to thrive and let our power flow. We are one with today’s people yet apart from them, traveling between the modern world and New Midgard through our magical portals.
Today’s Earth does not know of our magic, does not know of our ways. We are separate, and contact with old humanity is forbidden.
Then I see her.
She’s mine, and I’m taking her.

Echo:
I’ve seen him over and over for the past six months, almost as long as I’ve existed in silence. He’s always in the same place. Always on the same day. Always watching me.
If he speaks to me, I don’t know. All I hear is the echo of the screams, the never-fading memory of what happened to change my life. I’m lost in my own world, unable to reach for what I want and unable to communicate with this stranger, who watches me like one obsessed.
I should be frightened, but I’m not. He’s the only constant in my ever-changing existence.
Then my existence tilts again. I don’t know this place. I don’t know these ways. There’s only him—and all the people who despise my intrusion into their community. And even the man who’s brought me here may be unable to keep me. Not if his people have their way.
But now that I’ve seen their world, I can’t go back to mine. Which leaves me one fate. And it’s not life.