The Ageless Promise

Olso’s son, Freya’s rival, and now jarl of what is left of Mistreach.

An Ulfar in his thirties, tall and well built, with dark hair tied back at the nape and a beard a little too well kept for a village chief: just right for someone who wants to be taken seriously. His dark eyes are always calculating. He is clever, with the kind of intelligence that knows how to listen, wait, and then act at exactly the right moment; nothing he does seems impulsive.

He does not see himself as a traitor. He sees himself as the only one with the courage to make impossible choices while everyone else was paralysed by ideals, and if some of those choices cost lives, for him that is simply the price of being practical. His violence is never passion: it is a tool.

After the fall of Mistreach the old jarl died in Birka, and Ivar became jarl. His first decision was to refuse any help from the MHI and lead the refugees back north to found a new village on their own. Since then he has turned those who stayed with him into brigands raiding caravans, at open war with the MHI; the few families who refused to follow him fled with Elsa and Gunnar. When Bjorn finally challenged him for the leadership, Ivar killed him.

“Freya sees the world as she would like it to be. I see it as it is.”