A powerful female warrior with blonde braids and a wolf-fur cloak stands holding an axe in a rugged, mountainous landscape.

A woman stands a little taller than most men in your crew, her height made all the more imposing by the way she carries herself — straight-backed, shoulders squared, every motion purposeful. Her frame is built for war: long, powerful legs that have run down prey on rocky coasts, arms corded with muscle from decades of swinging axe and sword, a torso lean but strong as a ship’s keel. Her skin is pale, the sort that burns red in summer but in winter looks like carved ivory. A thin scar cuts diagonally across her left cheekbone — a white mark against the faint flush of her skin, a trophy from the Frankish marshes she’s never tried to hide. Her hair is the color of wheat in late summer, though salt and sun have threaded it with streaks of pale silver. It’s braided tight down her back for battle, interwoven with strips of leather and small bronze beads that clink softly when she moves. In a fight, loose strands whip about her face like the mane of a furious mare. Her eyes are a stormy blue-gray, the kind that seem to weigh a man’s worth in an instant — cold as a glacier one moment, blazing with battle-fury the next. When she laughs, they soften slightly, though the sharpness never fades entirely. Freydis dresses for both war and presence: a sleeveless tunic of dark green wool over a mail shirt, the links blackened to kill the shine, a broad leather belt heavy with pouches, a sheathed seax, and a short throwing axe. Over it all, she wears a wolf-fur cloak, the pelt’s head resting See more