Their father had come home in a state that night and packed a bag for Asa and Alrik, telling her to go to the next town over where an old friend of his had gone looking for work. He had refused to tell Asa what happened, only that the village was no longer safe for them. The plan had been for her parents to follow after her the next day, once her mother was well enough to travel. Asa waited a full two weeks in the next village before she gave up hope of her parents coming for her.
A month after this she returned home to the village, wanting desperately to know why her parents had abandoned her, only to find the village in ruins. Homes had been burnt to the ground and bodies, or what remained of them after the animals took their fill, littered the ground. Asa had been horrified and when she went to her home she could not find any sign of her parents. Realising that she was in fact, on her own, Asa swore to herself that she would watch over Alrik as Tatia had asked of her and strive to give him as good a home as she could. Asa had done the best she could to honour the dead, creating a rudimentary pyre on which to burn the bodies. After collecting anything of value that she could find, she returned to the other village where Svanhvit's friend had been offering her a home and watching over Alrik while she went home.
ketill, asa's fiance
For the next several years Asa got into a routine, she worked around the village for anyone who required help, becoming proficient in all manner of trade, and raised Alrik as her own. By eighteen Ketill, the son of Svanhvit's friend, had given her an offer of marriage that Asa had been nervous about accepting. She had known that she was already well past the age of marrying, but she could not bring herself to accept when she knew that she did not love Ketill. He was kind and generous, but Asa knew that he was not the one for her. After a year she agreed, more so because Ketill had agreed to take Alrik on as his own son, and the two began planning their union. Still ambivalent over the matter, Asa dragged her feet in the planning process for almost two years, Ketill had only put up with this because he was in love with her.
the vampire responsible for her death
Three weeks before their union was to take place vampires, came to the village. Tales of the monstrous beasts who fed off the blood of the innocent had swept the land over the past few years, Asa being the only one with any suspicions of the true origin of the species. People around the village became terrified to leave their homes left the monsters get them, many people had been taken and killed but no one stood up to fight for the dead or themselves. One day while Asa had been collecting roots and herbs with which to prepare dinner that night, a vampire who had been hiding in theshade of the trees had attacked her. Not willing to die without a fight, Asa had fought back against the man, clawing, punching, biting, and kicking all in the desperate hope to get free. During this struggle Asa unknowingly ingested the vampires blood when she bit him. The vampire had drained Asa enough to leave her on the point of death and left her alone in the woods. Asa had lain there for hours, going in and out of consciousness before finally succumbing to her wounds.