Yet I was sworn to Alfred. I was sworn to defend Wessex. I had given Alfred my oath and without oaths we are no better than beasts. But the Norns had spoken. Fate is inexorable, it cannot be cheated. That thread of my life was already in place, and I could no more change it than I could make the sun go backward. The Norns had sent a messenger across the black gulf to tell me that my oath must be broken, and that I would be a king, and so I nodded to Haesten. “So be it,” I said.
