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The Duchy of Berk sat on the edge of the northern coast, a stone giant rising out of the mist. Its walls were thick, its gates guarded day and night, and its towers watched the sea like silent sentinels.
For most people, Berk was a place of safety.
For Hiccup Haddock, heir to Duke Stoick, it was a gilded cage.
From the day he was born, the boy had been hidden from the world. Servants were forbidden to look at him too closely. Nobles were told he was sickly, frail, unfit for court. He wore heavy cloaks, scarves even in summer, his skin always covered.
Only Hiccup knew the truth of his life:
he wasn't protected because he was weak.
He was hidden because he was valuable.
But why his father never said.
Stoick's only rule was simple: Stay out of sight.
And Hiccup obeyed. Mostly.
Tonight, Berk held a feast, and the great hall was full of nobles, warriors, servants, laughter, firelight, and music. Hiccup was not allowed to join, so he slipped out to the castle gardens for some air, tugging his cloak tighter around himself. The night was cold, the moon full and pale.
Finally, he felt alone enough to breathe.
But he wasn't alone.
Not tonight.
In the shadows behind him, a man moved with the silence of a predator. No torch. No armor. Only a dark cloak and the confidence of someone who had infiltrated castles before.
King Viggo Grimborn of Vanaheim had crossed a border, climbed a wall, evaded dozens of guards all for one purpose.
To take the boy Stoick hid like a sacred relic.
He watched Hiccup for a moment. The fragile posture. The slight figure.
The faint freckles on his neck catching the moonlight.
There you are, Viggo thought.
The map everyone believed was a myth.
Hiccup turned a corner on the garden path and walked straight into the king's waiting arms.
A gloved hand snapped over his mouth, cutting off his startled breath. Before Hiccup could gasp, shout, or even think, Viggo yanked him back into the shadows, pinning him against a stone pillar with precision and strength that stole Hiccup's breath.
Hiccup thrashed.
Viggo didn't flinch.
"Quiet," he whispered, voice cold as steel. "This will be over quickly."
Hiccup tried to twist away, panic rising like fire in his chest.
Viggo leaned close, his lips brushing Hiccup's ear.
"Don't struggle, little heir."
Then — crack.
The handle of Viggo's dagger slammed sharply against Hiccup's temple, expertly delivered and merciless. A burst of white pain exploded behind Hiccup's eyes.
He collapsed instantly limbs limp, vision collapsing into darkness.
Viggo caught him before he hit the ground.
"Good," the king murmured. "Much easier this way."
With practiced ease, Viggo hoisted the unconscious heir over his shoulder, cloak falling like a dark wing behind him. Hiccup's arm swung lightly against Viggo's back as the king adjusted his grip.
He didn't waste a heartbeat.
Within seconds, he was over the garden wall.
Within a minute, he had crossed the courtyard unnoticed.
Within two, he was on horseback.
As the feast roared on in the great hall, no one noticed the shadowy rider disappearing into the night carrying the duchy's greatest secret slung over his shoulder like stolen treasure.
Hiccup Haddock was gone.
And Berk would not realize it until morning.
The world rocked beneath Hiccup.
He drifted in and out of a fogged-over consciousness, every breath shallow, every sound distant and muffled, as though he were underwater. His head throbbed where the dagger handle had struck him, sending ribbons of pain through his skull.
A deep horn sounded somewhere far away.
A ship horn.
Hiccup barely stirred.
Strong arms carried him up a plank, boots thudding against wood. The cold sea wind slapped his face, but it did nothing to clear his vision. He felt weightless, helpless, like a rag doll slung over someone's shoulder.
Someone who walked with absolute control.
Viggo.
Hiccup recognized the careful, calculated stride even through the haze.
The king barked a short order Hiccup couldn't understand the words, only the authority in them and doors creaked open. The scent of polished wood, salt, and iron filled Hiccup's senses as he was dragged into a captain's cabin.
Then, without warning - thud
Hiccup's body hit a mattress.
He groaned weakly, limbs refusing to obey him. The room spun, lit only by a single swaying lantern.
Viggo's silhouette towered over him.
"Stay still," the king murmured, though he knew Hiccup couldn't do much else.
The bed dipped as Viggo leaned closer. Hiccup felt fingers at his collar cold, methodical and then—
rrrip
His shirt tore open down the front, fabric splitting under Viggo's determined hands. The cold air rushed over Hiccup's chest and shoulders, waking him just enough for panic to flutter under his ribs.
"S... stop..." Hiccup whispered, voice barely a breath.
Viggo didn't stop.
He pushed the torn fabric aside, revealing the full scatter of freckles across Hiccup's collarbones, throat, and upper chest. In the dim lantern light, they looked like tiny embers scattered across pale skin.
Viggo inhaled slowly.
"Remarkable."
His voice carried none of the gentleness of admiration only a scholar's intensity, sharp and focused. His fingers hovered, not touching, tracing the pattern in the air.
"A map," he murmured. "A living map... etched into skin."
Hiccup blinked, vision wavering. "N... not... a map..."
Viggo finally looked at him truly looked at him.
"Hiccup," he said softly, "you have no idea what you carry, do you?"
Hiccup tried to push himself up, but his arms shook violently and failed. He collapsed back onto the mattress with a ragged breath.
Viggo caught his shoulder before he slipped sideways. His grip was firm, surprisingly steady, as he adjusted Hiccup's position so he wouldn't suffocate in his half-conscious state.
"There," Viggo murmured. "Breathe. I need your mind clear soon, but not yet."
He turned back to the freckles, studying them with unnerving precision.
Clusters.
Lines.
Shapes only ancient scholars would recognize.
He pulled a charcoal stick and paper from his belt.
"Let's test the theory," he whispered to himself.
He pressed the charcoal to the page and began copying the first line of freckles. But the moment he looked back down at the paper—
Viggo froze. The marks made no sense.
A smear of random dots, wrong shape, wrong distance.
He tried again.
And again.
Each time, the map dissolved the instant his eyes left Hiccup's skin.
Viggo exhaled, slow and sharp.
"So it is true," he said, voice low with awe. "It cannot be copied."
His gaze returned to Hiccup dazed, barely conscious, defenseless.
A treasure that could not be stolen.
A map that could not be duplicated.
Only carried.
"You," Viggo whispered, "are coming with me. For however long it takes."
Hiccup whimpered faintly, eyes half-open but unfocused.
Viggo placed his hand gently but unyieldingly on Hiccup's bare chest to keep him still as the ship lurched.
"Rest, Hiccup Haddock," he murmured.
"Your usefulness has only just begun."
The lantern swayed. The ship pulled away from Berk.
And Hiccup slipped back into darkness as Viggo continued to study him like a priceless artifact no one else would ever touch.
Morning came slowly to Berk, a pale, cold dawn spreading across the stone towers. Servants lit torches, guards changed shifts, and the air filled with the usual sounds of waking life.
But Hiccup's chambers stayed silent.
Too silent.
A maid knocked gently.
No response.
She knocked again.
Still nothing.
When she cracked open the door, the room greeted her with stillness.
The bed untouched.
The cloak missing.
The balcony door ajar, the curtains swaying in the morning breeze.
Her scream echoed through the castle.
Within minutes, soldiers swarmed the halls. The courtyard filled with alarm bells and shouting. And Duke Stoick the Vast stormed across the floor, his steps shaking the stone beneath him.
He pushed past the guards, shoved the door open, and froze.
His son's room was empty.
Stone-cold horror gripped him.
"No..." his voice cracked, raw and dissteady. "No."
Stoick rushed to the balcony, gripping the railing until his knuckles turned white.
"Hiccup!" he roared over the courtyard. "Hiccup!"
But the wind was the only answer.
A guard approached hesitantly. "My lord... there were no signs of struggle. No marks in the garden. Whoever entered..." He swallowed. "They came in silence."
Stoick closed his eyes.
Silence. Precision. A clean abduction.
Not a bandit.
Not a thief.
Someone who knew exactly what they were taking.
Someone who had learned the truth.
Stoick's heart sank like a stone in deep water.
He had failed.
He had failed the one duty that mattered keeping Hiccup safe, keeping him hidden, keeping the ancient secret etched in his son's fragile skin from falling into the wrong hands.
His thoughts flickered back to the moment he had first seen the freckles on baby Hiccup's shoulder small, scattered marks that glowed faintly in the candlelight. At first, he thought nothing of them.
But the elder scholars had gasped.
Historians had paled.
And Gothi had whispered one ancient word:
Starborn.
Chosen.
A living map.
A bearer of lost secrets treasure routes, forgotten passages, powerful relics buried long before kingdoms rose and fell. But the map did not appear on just anyone. Only on those with a pure heart, uncorrupted by greed or violence.
Hiccup.
Hiccup, who cried when a bird fell from a nest.
Hiccup, who apologized to furniture when he bumped into it.
Hiccup, who wouldn't even step on ants.
Hiccup, whose kindness was so instinctive it seemed unbreakable.
He was the perfect chosen.
And because of that, he was vulnerable.
"Too soft," Stoick whispered in agony. "Too gentle... too trusting."
He slammed his fist against the stone.
The guards flinched.
"A man came for him," Stoick growled. "A man who knows what my boy carries. A man who knows what that map can open."
The garden path below still showed faint disturbances footprints, a bent stem, a branch brushed aside. Stoick stared at the uneven impressions in the dirt, jaw tightening.
And then he saw something that made his blood run cold:
a boot print, foreign, heavy, sharp-edged nothing like Berk make.
Vanaheim.
Stoick's eyes narrowed with rage and fear.
Viggo Grimborn.
Only a king like him would dare infiltrate a fortress, slip past guards, and vanish with his prize before dawn.
Only he would know the true worth of the Starborn map.
Stoick's chest tightened until he could barely breathe.
"My son..." he whispered. "My boy..."
He sank to his knees, grief crashing over him in waves. For years he had lived in fear of this moment the moment someone learned the truth. The moment someone took Hiccup not for ransom, not for war...
...but for what lived under his skin.
Stoick lifted his head slowly, and the grief turned into fire.
"Send the ravens," he ordered, voice like thunder. "Call every loyal banner. Prepare the fleet."
His eyes burned with murderous determination.
"I'm bringing my son home."
Hiccup drifted up from darkness like someone struggling through deep water. His head throbbed. Everything swayed. A low creaking echoed around him, and the salty sting of sea air burned his nose.
A ship.
His eyes snapped open.
He wasn't in his room. He wasn't even on land. He lay on a narrow bed in a dimly lit captain's cabin wooden walls, a lantern swinging above him, shadows tilting with every wave.
And he was covered only by a thin blanket.
Hiccup's breath hitched. Panic surged through his chest. He grabbed the blanket tightly to himself, curling away from the figure seated beside the bed.
Viggo.
The man watched him with unnervingly calm interest, elbows propped on his knees, his sharp eyes studying the patterns dusted across Hiccup's bare shoulders and chest. The freckles that seemed to glow faintly where the lantern light touched them.
"Oh good," Viggo murmured. "You're awake. I was beginning to think Stoick's boy was more fragile than I'd hoped."
Hiccup's voice cracked. "Wh-why am I— Where are my clothes? What do you want from me?"
"I removed the unnecessary layers." Viggo replied smoothly.
His gaze dragged slowly over Hiccup's freckles again, intense, calculating.
"And to see them properly."
Hiccup clutched the blanket tighter. "See... what?"
"The map."
Hiccup's blood ran cold.
Viggo smiled not kindly, not cruelly, just with the expression of a man who had solved a puzzle that no one else even knew existed.
"I admit, Stoick hid you well. But your father underestimated how far a king will go when knowledge of an ancient treasure resurfaces."
He reached out not touching, merely hovering a hand above Hiccup's shoulder, following the lines of freckles with his eyes.
"Passages. Vaults. Forgotten chambers. All written across your skin. And no sketch can capture them. I've tried."
Hiccup swallowed hard, trembling. "Please just let me go home."
"Home?" Viggo leaned back, amused. "My dear boy, we are already a day from your shores."
He tilted his head, observing the fear flickering across Hiccup's face.
"And we are moving toward the first location marked on you."
Hiccup's heart hammered against his ribs.
"You can't do this," he whispered.
"I can," Viggo answered quietly. "And I will."
He stood, placing a steady hand on the bedframe as the ship rocked.
"Understand something, Hiccup. I have waited my entire life for a chance to uncover these secrets. You appeared before me like a miracle."
A dangerous softness entered his voice.
"I will not lose you. Not to Stoick. Not to anyone."
Hiccup shrank back, shaking.
Viggo opened the cabin door before glancing over his shoulder.
"You will never be permitted to leave my side. Not now. Not ever."
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Hiccup alone cold, terrified, and staring at the freckles across his own skin as the ship carried him toward a future he couldn't escape.