There was nothing and then suddenly, everything.

I lurched awake, blinded by torchlight and the blur of shapes around me. Too hot, too cold, too hot again. My limbs weren’t working right, and I didn’t remember where I was. My lower body felt as if a steamroller had smashed it. Everything hurt. I struggled to lift my arms, to clear my sight, to breathe without wheezing.

Someone leaned over. I couldn’t make out the face, but he or she pushed me down and spoke words my brain couldn’t make sense of. Was someone screaming? Why couldn’t I wake up completely? Why was my lower abdomen on fire? This wasn’t temporal displacement; this was something completely different.

I was lost to my senses. Bewildered, terrified, I rested still and struggled to catch my breath.

The brain fog began to clear. My senses righted themselves, with my vision clearing first. I recognized the familiar A-frame ceiling of the tiny cabin where Thora abandoned me. Hadn’t I left this place?

I tried to move – and was hit with excruciating pain from between my legs.

“You must be still,” Asvald said, his scarred features hovering over mine. “The twins were not kind to you.”

Twins.

And then I remembered. “Did you poison me?” I whispered.

Asvald dropped his gaze. Red rimmed his good eye and made his nose glow. He had been crying. “Forgive me, Yosee,” he said. “I saved your twins first and then you. But I do not know how well you will fair after all you have been through.”

“Feels like the twins tore a hole in my body,” I said with a grimace. I didn’t try to move again. I could feel all my limbs, which I took to be a good sign, though I was too scared to see the post-birth damage.

“I did,” he replied. “To stop the poison from reaching them.”

Fear robbed me of breath briefly. I wasn’t okay – that much I could tell.

My eyes watered. “Are they alive?” I asked through a tight throat.

“They are.” He motioned Sigrid over.

The slave held two bundles, one in each arm.

I started crying out of exhaustion, relief, and pain.

“Your son.” She handed me one of the babies. The tiny baby was asleep, his hands balled up in fists and squished features relaxed. A shock of black hair reminiscent of Batu’s was on top of his head, and his eyes were almond shaped, like his father’s.

“He’s tiny,” I breathed. His scent was that of … joy. I couldn’t identify the smell except that he was everything right in the world.

“Your daughter,” Sigrid said with a faint smile and handed me the second bundle.

I struggled to hold them both and squeezed them against me. My little girl was just as delicate, with wisps of black hair and the same gorgeous eyes.

How was it possible both of these treasures came out of me? I had never done anything right in my life and yet, here I was, with the two most perfect gifts in existence. I didn’t deserve them.

“We are safe,” Asvald said. “The twins are healthy. Did Freyja bless you with names?”

“Not yet,” I whispered and held the warm bundles against me. I didn’t ever want to let them go.

“We can call the boy Wagon-sen, since he was born in a wagon,” Asvald said with one of his faint smiles.

“I don’t think anyone wants to be known as Son of a Wagon,” I replied.

Something dark slid through me. The world shifted out of focus as it often did after I time traveled. I was stuck in my senses, drowning in the ether that separated time.

See me. Hear me. Touch me. Taste me. The chant Batu recited to ground me whenever I fell into one of these states echoed softly in my mind. I drew a deep breath and forced myself to recall where I was.

My surroundings crystalized, and I released the breath. My twins were no longer in my arms, and I reached for them automatically, feeling empty without them beside me.

“You need rest,” Asvald said quietly. “You lost a lot of blood.”

My eyes found my children in the arms of Sigrid, who sat against one wall nearby. Thora’s two boys were curled up together at the fire, sleeping, and Sigrid’s daughter sprawled out beside them.

“We’re not calling him Wagon-sen,” I whispered.

“Rest, Yosee. You can name your children later,” Asvald said. He placed a wooden cup to my lips. “Drink this.”

I obeyed. Within minutes, I drifted off to the best sleep I’d had to date in the Viking Era.

* * *

The next few weeks passed in a haze of pain and tears. Asvald had not been joking about tearing a hole in me. He had cut through my pelvis and somehow managed not to puncture anything but my womb, cervix and vagina and all the muscles and tissue keeping them inside me. He had literally cut the twins out, likely after they had already started to breach, or the damage would have been to my intestines a hair above where he began the dangerous surgery.

I didn’t have to look twice at the damage to understand I’d never bear another child. No part of me cared about that, though, not when I had two healthy babies and no intention of having sex ever again.

The twins were … beautiful. Loud, messy, cranky and perfect. No names came to my mind or to Asvald’s, and caring for the babies was a group effort. I couldn’t walk for the first two weeks. Asvald left twice and returned with food and the grim news that the invaders had burnt the village, and surrounding farms, to the ground. What was worse: the first big freeze had then fallen over the area, causing even more deaths to those who had no shelter and no ability to create one while the elements raged.

The village was annihilated. As far as I knew, we were the only survivors from Thora’s farm, which had been likewise razed, and all the belongings and animals stolen. But the worst news by far: every possible food source was gone, unless we hunted or fished for it. According to Asvald, who ventured out several times, the raiders had slaughtered most of the animals while the rest froze or wandered into the forest, where they were likely eaten by wolves. The barrels of preserved vegetables and grains stored in the kitchen and behind the house were gone, along with any milk, mead or wine. No more dairy or eggs, no bread, no vegetables or fruits … our choices were wild stags, boars, or rabbits and fish.

The cabin I had hated the first time around became a refuge for those of us who survived. It was cramped and miserable at times, either too hot or too cold, and filled with the sounds of screaming babies and Thora and Sigrid’s restless children.

But it was home for now and a place to recover before I had to face the real world again.

The third week, Asvald allowed me to sit, stand and walk within the cabin. I was in pain no matter what I did, and the movement helped the atrophied muscles of my legs feel better. Sigrid taught me how to swaddle the twins in cloth and strap them to my body. I kept them there most of the time, breastfeeding when they were hungry and walking around the interior of the cabin under Asvald’s close supervision.

With four pairs of eyes in a space no larger than twelve by twelve feet, I didn’t have the chance to text Carter and tell him I was alive. I didn’t feel like he deserved to know at this point anyway after all the shit he’d pulled.

Five weeks after giving birth, on a rare day without snow or icefall, Asvald finally allowed me out of the cabin. My first breath of fresh air was beyond freezing. My twins were snuggly tied to my body and covered by two cloaks. I desperately needed some alone time. Processing all that happened, that I’d barely survived, and the fact I was officially a mother, left me close to panicking most days.

I shuffled through the snow around the cabin. My lower abdomen was still healing, thanks to Asvald’s efforts. The muscles of my pelvis felt like jelly, but only scars remained on the surface where he had cut me. The accidental poisoning seemed to have no lasting effect, and I was steady on my feet.

I paced in front of the cabin for a few minutes until certain my body would support me. I’d lost enough weight for my hipbones to protrude. A combination of little food, breastfeeding, and pain caused me to shed my pregnancy weight plus another twenty or thirty pounds. I was weak to the point of frail – but grateful to be alive.

Relieved my body functioned for the most part, I left the front of the cabin for the trail Asvald had trampled down through the snow leading into the forest. I walked a short distance away and paused, breathing in deeply and hugging the twins to me. They were usually quiet and content to sleep when I moved. They saved their screaming fits for when we went to sleep or when they were hungry.

With a glance towards the cabin, I plucked the phone from my pocket, expecting to see a million messages from an angry or otherwise upset Carter.

Nothing.

“What an asshole,” I muttered. Didn’t he care at all about what had happened? Or … did he not know? It didn’t seem possible something happened he wasn’t aware of.

I texted him. I’m still alive, thanks for asking. I lowered the phone and gazed into the forest.

How the hell had Asvald and the tiny Sigrid carried me through the forest?

Shaking my head, I looked at the phone and waited.

Good. Read Carter’s unusually brief response.

How did he do that? Piss me off with only one word?

I shoved the phone in my pocket and shrugged my shoulders carefully so as not to disturb the twins. Exchanges with Carter left me tense and upset. How did I always let him get to me anyway?

“Do you want me to hold Wagon-sen and Freydis?” Sigrid called from behind me.

I faced her with a smile. “We’re coming in. Thanks, though.” Dismissing Carter from my thoughts, I retreated towards the cabin and entered.

Asvald relaxed when he saw I was well. The mystic had stopped wearing his hood around the others, who had likewise grown accustomed to his mutilated features and no longer stared or whimpered, in the case of the younger children.

“I want to tell Wagon-sen about his father,” Thora’s oldest boy, Bjorn, said and approached. He held out both arms as he had been taught by Sigrid.

I unwrapped the little boy and gently placed him in Bjorn’s arms. Thora’s son was close to fourteen, on the small side, but genuinely liked the twins. Bjorn took my son to the fire and sat down, speaking quietly about Ivar and all the battles Ivar had fought.

Unwrapping the little girl, whom everyone nicknamed Freydis, I cradled her and sat, lest I rip my lower abdomen open. It still didn’t quite seem real that this tiny doll had come out of me, or that any god in any era would entrust the fragile little girl to me to care for. Hadn’t I proven myself to be completely incompetent as a survivalist?

Tears stung my eyes. When I stopped to think about being responsible for two lives … I was very quickly overwhelmed by my feelings.

“I’m well, Asvald,” I said, feeling his intent gaze on me. “Thanks to you. We’re all well.”

“It is a gift from Odin. None of us should have survived,” he said, not for the first time since I awoke. “We still may not, if I cannot find us food.” These words were for me alone. Sigrid had joined Bjorn, his little brother Liev, Kolfinna – Sigrid’s daughter – and my baby boy, who I refused to call Wagon-sen out of principal.

“The survivors have moved on?” I asked, referring to those few remaining dwellers of the small town.

“They have or are unwilling to sell what livestock they have. Few will survive this winter,” he replied quietly. “We have no more gold to barter with.”

I lowered my eyes to Freydis in my arms. Worry penetrated me, along with fear. There was never a middle ground in any of my adventures. Either I barely survived or … I didn’t want to imagine any other scenario when it came to my children.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“I can hunt and fish. The good fishing holes are closely guarded by those who understand their worth. It will require me to use … the cup,” the mystic said. “I know you disapprove of killing the innocent. I would trade it to someone with weapons or meat or guarding the fishing holes. No one else.”

Hesitating, I looked towards the fire, where the children gathered. My eyes lingered on Batu’s and my son. To think Thora could have cost me my little boy, or the angel in my arms … My children hadn’t seemed real, until they were born. The moment I first laid eyes on them, I understood maternal instinct on a level I wasn’t able to imagine before.

“Asvald,” I said softly. “I never should have judged you for doing what you did to protect us. I apologize.”

“We both did what we believed was right,” he said with his normal gentle diplomacy.

My eyes lifted to his. “Do whatever is necessary for us to survive.”

“You understand now,” he said with one of his faint, half smiles.

“I do,” I replied. “You’ve been right all along. I don’t care who you give the Death Goblet to, as long as my children live.”

If anything, Asvald appeared relieved. “They will, Yosee. You as well. My vision showed me this,” he said.

“You never told me the entire vision,” I said. “What else was revealed to you?”

“Much more than I can tell you now,” he replied.

The mystic took his visions too seriously for me to press him. “But we survive.”

“Yes. And I am to do whatever it takes to ensure this.”

“You are the most valuable treasure in this world,” I told him. “I have never met anyone who’s acted as selflessly as you have.”

“My god has entrusted me with a sacred duty,” he said solemnly. “Who am I to fail him?”

I smiled. Something told me Asvald would have done the same for anyone he cared about. He was too good of a person not to.

“Wagon-sen!” Bjorn said, holding up my baby while Thora’s daughter giggled.

Every time one of them joked about the name, I felt … ill. Not the kind of sickness that originated in my stomach or elsewhere in my body. This was deeper, too deep for me to understand let alone explain. I hated it without understanding why.

“That’s not his name,” I said quietly to the boys.

“Have you chosen one yet?” Asvald asked.

I sighed. I had to be the worst mother in any era. Not only were my children stranded in a hut in the forest in the dead of winter, but I hadn’t even named them. “No,” I said with some frustration. I had yet to wrestle through how I named children born in the Viking Era to a twenty-first century Californian mother and a Mongol father.

“Ivarbjorn Gunnarsen was his father and Gunnar Ulfbjorn his grandfather,” Asvald said. “Perhaps Ulfbjorn Ivarsen, after the two great warriors from our village?”

It was a mouthful, and it was different. Batu and his Mongol heritage weren’t at all represented in the name, but it would definitely pay homage to the women and men of this era behind the survival of my twins. If I ended up stuck here, no one would know the twins weren’t from around here.

“I like it. Ulf for short,” I decided. “And Freydis for my girl.”

“Very fitting,” Asvald agreed. “Although I believe Ulfbjorn will always be known as Wagon-sen to those who know his story,” he said with a smile.

My eyes went to the baby waving his hands as he tried to reach out to Bjorn. Ulf’s eyes had begun to change from murky brown to blue, while Freydis’s remained the same dark brown.

“What is it?” Asvald, ever vigilant, asked. “Are you well?”

“Yes. Just thinking,” I replied. “He looks like his father.” Sometimes, though, when I looked at my son … I saw someone else. He was familiar to me in a way Freydis was not, and I couldn’t rationally explain such an absurd thought.

Shaking the sense away, I smiled down at Freydis, whose eyes had cracked open.

“I will leave now,” Asvald said and rose. “Send Sigrid after me, if you fell unwell, or if any of the children fall ill.”

Accustomed to his parting advice, I nodded absent-mindedly. I wasn’t certain how we were going to raise five kids when the village and all the people had been destroyed. It took a community to survive in this era, and we were three adults, five children strong. We definitely could have used more adults.

I wasn’t certain Asvald would keep Sigrid around, once she lost her use to us. I hoped he saw the value in having two people to care for the kids, but if his vision had singled her out, I wasn’t about to object if she received the Death Goblet after my failure to understand Thora was a threat. Because I didn’t know the details of the mystic’s vision, I’d never trust the welfare of my children to anyone Asvald didn’t approve of.

As for Carter … I wasn’t going to ask him anything anymore. Twice I’d almost convinced myself to destroy the phone in the hopes I could be lost to history. However, I retained my foolish hope that Batu could find me, as long as I had the phone to mark my place in history.

Leaning against the wall, I watched the three boys, Kolfinna and Sigrid, unable to identify most of the emotions running through me. I wanted to cry, but it wasn’t out of sadness or fear or any other negative feeling. I felt … awed. Amazed to be alive and awed by the health and beauty of my children. Closing my eyes, I rested my head back against the drafty wall and relaxed. We had enough food for one more day but somehow, I knew Asvald would come through for us.

Carter never would have placed the loyal mystic in my life, if he would fail me.

* * *

Asvald returned the next day with weapons, a bucket full of fish and the carcass of the kill he had also stolen from the hunters he poisoned. He slung the boar down in front of the cabin and bent over, panting from his journey. Leaving the twins with Sigrid, I exited the warmth of the cabin and approached, eyes on the boar.

“How can I help?” I asked, hating that I wasn’t healed enough to be more useful. I slept more than the twins.

“Gut and skin the boar,” he said and straightened. “It’s too big to bring into the cabin. We’ll have to roast it outside. We can toss the entrails in the ravine to keep the wolves away.”

I swallowed hard and gazed at the boar. Batu had once handed me a rabbit to skin, and I almost cried. The dead animal at my feet was much larger. If the sight of blood nauseated me, what would the guts of an animal do?

One of the twins – probably Freydis, who was fussier – cried, and my eyes shifted instantly to the door I had left cracked open, so I could keep an eye on the kids.

Their survival, and mine, was dependent on me learning to do things I sometimes wouldn’t like to do. Such as skinning a boar or learning to chop wood or maybe even fishing or hunting with rudimentary weapons.

“Can you teach me how?” I asked a little uncertainly.

Asvald withdrew a knife and knelt.

I steeled myself and stood beside him. I began to realize I had never fully believed I wouldn’t return home. It was this hope that led me to keeping the phone and to holding back from complete integration in any of the societies where I ended up. Even with the Mongols, where I felt most at home, I had limited myself. They didn’t press me to find my calling, and I didn’t go out of my way to adjust.

With bile rising in my throat as I watched Asvald slice open the boar, I couldn’t deny the truth any longer. I was never going home. Taylor, my first husband from the nineteenth century, had once told me the method of time travel Carter used was irreversible. I could only go back in time, not forward, where as those agents working for Carter’s enemies had mastered the ability to go forward and back.

My children would never go to preschool or prom or drink espresso while choosing their colleges. I would never take them to meet my aunt and uncle.

They were going to be raised in the Viking Era, and if I wanted them to survive, I had to stop pretending like I was ever going home and accept my place in time.

I had to be more like Asvald, who wouldn’t sway from his sworn oaths, or like Ivar, a warrior whose life revolved around murdering people and stealing their valuables. Or like Batu, who took duty to the level of religious and who had murdered an untold number of people and traveled back and forth in time to find and save me. Or even like Taylor, who had died believing in me for reasons I would never understand.

I had to become as dedicated and ruthless about survival as the men in my life. It was easy to rely on others, to make excuses for not accepting responsibility for my own fate. But with the twins …

If I didn’t become the person they needed me to be, they weren’t going to make it, and neither was I.

The new me started today. I no longer had a choice.

With tears in my eyes, I held out a trembling hand. “Let me do it,” I told Asvald.

He glanced up at me and then back. As if sensing I was struggling, he didn’t ask me if I felt up to it. I didn’t, and if he gave me an out, I’d take it. Either way, I was going to end up sobbing today.

He stepped aside.

I knelt and drew a deep breath. “Tell me what to do.”

“The meat is beyond the entrails,” he started.

Steeling myself against the gory duty ahead of me, I listened closely and followed his instructions to the letter. I gutted the boar and stopped when Asvald assured me we could roast it with the skin on.

He left me to gather wood for a bonfire.

I stared at the bloody mess, surprised to discover I wasn’t about to throw up. Cry? Definitely. If anything, I was almost proud of myself for doing something that once left me sick enough to pass out. I would never make a good Viking woman, but as long as I did what I had to in order to save my kids, I didn’t care what others thought of me in this foreign world.