In the ancient heart of the North, where the mounds of Gamla Uppsala rise like the backs of sleeping giants against the Swedish sky, there once reigned a king named Aun. He was a scion of the Yngling dynasty, descendants of the gods themselves, yet unlike his ancestors who sought glory in the clash of shields and the bite of the axe, Aun was a man of peace. He was not a conqueror, nor was he a man of the hunt. His mind was turned always inward, toward the preservation of his own reign and the expansion of his own days. While other kings of the Svear sought to carve their names into history through blood and conquest, Aun sought to outwit history itself by refusing to leave the stage of the living.
The chronicles tell us that Aun was a wise man in his youth, maintaining the prosperity of Uppsala and the sanctity of the Great Temple. However, as the silver of age began to creep into his hair and the strength of his limbs began to wane, a cold terror took root in his heart. He looked upon the royal mounds where his fathers lay and saw not a place of honor, but a dark threshold he was not yet ready to cross. It was this fear that drove him to the heights of the sacred grove, where the whispers of the wind through the ash trees were said to carry the voice of Odin, the All-Father, the god of wisdom, war, and the dead.
In a ritual of shadow and ancient song, Aun called upon Odin. He offered not the spoils of war or the cattle of his fields, but a price far more intimate. He made a vow: if Odin would grant him a decade more of life, he would offer up his eldest son as a sacrifice. Odin, ever eager for the souls of the high-born to join the ranks of the Einherjer or perhaps merely curious to see the depths of human desperation, accepted the bargain. The first son was given to the flames and the spear, and the King’s vitality was miraculously restored. For ten years, Aun ruled with the vigor of a man half his age, his skin tightening over his bones and his eyes regaining the fire of youth.
Yet, time is a river that cannot be dammed forever. Ten years passed in what felt like a heartbeat, and the shadow of death returned to the threshold of the King's hall. True to his dark pact, Aun returned to the altar. Another son was chosen, another decade was bought. This cycle became the rhythm of the kingdom. Every ten years, the people of Uppsala watched in a mixture of awe and horror as their king remained seated upon the throne while his progeny were led to the sacred trees. Aun became known as 'Aun the Old,' a title that shifted from a term of respect to one of eerie fascination. He outlived his friends, his rivals, and his own children, watching the world change while he remained an immutable fixture of the Svear state.
As the decades stretched into a century, and then beyond, the physical toll of the bargain began to manifest in ways the King had not foreseen. Odin had granted him life, but he had not granted him eternal youth. After the seventh sacrifice, Aun could no longer stand. His legs, once capable of striding through the deep snows of the Uppland winters, became as thin and brittle as dry kindling. He was confined to a chair of state, his body wrapped in furs even in the height of summer. By the eighth sacrifice, his sight had dimmed to a grey haze, and his voice, which once commanded the Thing, was reduced to a raspy whisper that sounded like dead leaves skittering across a stone floor.
When the ninth sacrifice was performed, the King had reached an age that defied the natural order of the world. He was nearly two hundred years old, a relic of a forgotten era. At this stage, the biological clock had wound backward in a grotesque parody of infancy. Aun was so weak that he could no longer chew the meat of the boar or the bread of the hearth. He was placed in a cradle, and his attendants were forced to feed him milk and broth from a hollowed-out drinking horn, just as one would nourish a newborn babe. He lay there, a mind of ancient, withered cunning trapped inside a frame that had lost all autonomy. He was a king of shadows, ruling from a bed of blankets, yet his desire for life remained as sharp and jagged as a flint knife.
As the end of the ninth decade approached, the King made preparations for the tenth and final sacrifice. He had one son remaining, a young man named Egils. Aun commanded that Egils be brought to the altar so that he might secure another ten years of existence—years he would likely spend in total darkness and silence, fed through a tube, yet years he craved nonetheless. However, the mood in Gamla Uppsala had shifted. The people, led by the influential nobles and the keepers of the law, looked upon the pathetic, shriveled figure of their king and then at the vibrant, promising young prince. They saw the cruelty of a father who would consume his entire lineage to feed his own vanity.