Thora

Thora is a small girl, younger than her brother Sture, with the slight frame of a child not yet in her teens.

Frightened and tender-hearted, Thora is quick to fear the worst when she and her brother are seized, dreading that they will be put to death. She leans on Sture for comfort and cries out for him when they are pulled apart, her distress laying bare how deeply she depends on him. Her care flows back the other way as well, shown when she tends to his wounds once the punishment is over.

Thora's father, Snorri, rented farmland from Ketil before he left one day to sell vegetables and vanished for good, leaving behind an ailing wife and three small children. With no working adult remaining and the family too burdensome for neighbors to absorb as servants, Thora and Sture turned to stealing food from the estate simply to stay alive.

They were undone when Snake coaxed a confession out of them, claiming the farm's flour sacks bore Ketil's name inside and promising a lighter sentence if they admitted the theft before he tipped the bag empty. Bound and brought before Ketil, a terrified Thora feared for their lives until Sture steadied her. After Thorgil called for each of them to lose an arm and Pater countered by proposing servitude to repay the debt, the ruling was eased to ten blows apiece. Sture insisted on taking her share too, and she was hauled away sobbing while he was beaten. Afterward she stayed by his side, nursing his injuries.