Dragon of the Eastern Sea. Book 1: Wolf in the Night

Bjarni was a bastard son of a nobleman by a slave woman, and he expected nothing good from life. When one winter night fate brought him together with Torvard, the young konung of Fjallieland, it seemed at first like a great misfortune. Torvard had recently quarreled with Erhina, the mistress of the sacred island of Tuall, and she had cursed him. From that moment on, every step he takes brings disaster, and he roams the seas with his retinue so as not to doom his own country. Both of Bjarni’s brothers die by his sword, and the slave woman’s son suddenly becomes his father’s only heir. Only his mother, Delbhaem, is certain that this is how it was meant to be. That fateful night she revealed to Bjarni a secret about his origin: she is the daughter of the king from the Green Islands.

Having become a wealthy heir, Bjarni sought to marry Ingebjerg, the former fiancée of his dead brother Arvid, but she refused to marry the son of a slave. Then Bjarni’s thoughts turn to going to the Green Islands and finding proof there of his mother’s noble birth.

But Torvard is heading there as well: Erhina’s curse will not let him rest, drives him to search endlessly for deeds of valor—to break the evil fate—or die.