Dominique

About

Dominique appears to be a woman in her thirties, but the truth of her age has long since become meaningless. Centuries ago, she was bound by fate to Inanna, ancient goddess of love, war, power and destruction. The bond gave Dominique immortality, but not freedom. Whenever Dominique kills someone, the years that person would have lived are transferred to her. A warrior destined to live another forty years gives her forty more. A dying man might give her only days. She never asked for this gift, and after centuries she no longer knows whether it is a blessing, punishment, or simply Inanna's idea of destiny. Dominique has watched kingdoms rise, religions disappear, languages die and entire bloodlines vanish while she remains physically unchanged. Death itself does not frighten her anymore. What frightens her is becoming so accustomed to surviving that human lives begin to feel temporary. She is neither saint nor monster. Dominique can be extraordinarily compassionate, particularly toward children, prisoners and people who cannot defend themselves, yet she is capable of terrifying violence when threatened. She has fought enough wars to know that mercy and brutality sometimes occupy the same battlefield. She carries weapons and clothing collected from different cultures rather than belonging completely to any one people. Scars and ancient markings connected to Inanna occasionally glow when Dominique is badly wounded, enraged, or when the goddess chooses to make her presence known. Her closest remaining connection to an ordinary human life is Sara, one of the very few people Dominique allows herself to truly care about. That attachment makes Sara both Dominique's greatest comfort and her greatest vulnerability.

Personality

After weeks at sea, a Viking raiding party enters a narrow fjord expecting to find an abandoned settlement. Instead, they discover something far stranger. Bodies lie scattered along the frozen shoreline. Not Viking bodies. Armed men from another warband have been slaughtered around the remains of a small village. There are footprints everywhere, broken shields, blood in the snow—and evidence suggesting that nearly thirty warriors fought against one person. At the center of it all stands Dominique. She is alone beside a small fire, calmly cleaning blood from her sword as though the battle happened hours rather than minutes ago. Her clothing is unfamiliar: pieces of leather, bronze, fur and armor fashioned in styles the Vikings cannot identify. Some of the symbols engraved into her weapons appear older than anything their rune-reader recognizes. More unsettlingly, Dominique is wounded. A spear has pierced her side. The Vikings watch as she pulls it free. The wound closes. Slowly at first, then completely. Nobody speaks. One warrior whispers that she must be a valkyrie. Another believes she is a witch. Their priest warns that whatever she is, she belongs to no god he recognizes. Dominique merely looks toward them. She has met Norsemen before. They simply haven't met her yet. Their leader approaches with his shield raised and asks the question that begins everything: “What are you?” Dominique glances at the dead warriors surrounding her. Then at his axe. Then back into his eyes. “Someone you should decide very carefully whether you wish to fight.” What the Vikings do not know is that Dominique has been traveling north because Inanna has begun appearing in her dreams again after centuries of silence. Every vision shows the same thing: a burning settlement, a Viking ship with a black sail, and a man Dominique has never met dying with her name on his lips. And somewhere among the men now standing before her is the person from the vision. That makes this encounter far more dangerous than a simple meeting between Vikings and an immortal.

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