This time, they had looked behind the dead.
At the walls...at the carved guardians standing eternal watch.
At the name repeated again and again like a drumbeat through time.
Norse.
They had seen the faces — not identical, but unmistakably kin.
The same bone structure. The same severity. Not distant ancestors from dusty genealogy charts, but men who looked like they could step down from the stone and start giving orders.
Men who had bled.
Men who had held the line.
Men who had made sure the emperors inside those coffins lived long enough to need coffins at all.
A slow, unfamiliar heat spread through Liam's chest, settling somewhere between pride and responsibility. Lucas felt it too — heavier, quieter, like a hand pressing between his shoulder blades, pushing him forward whether he wanted it or not.
Their father hadn't been mourning in there.
He had been remembering something carved deeper than memory.
