Page 19 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Jorrund gasped beside me, his hand flying to his open mouth.

The Svell chieftain was dead.

And when I opened my eyes, looking up to the clear blue sky, where the thin spread of clouds was pulling in delicate lines, the All Seer was suddenly gone.

Vigdis screamed in the distance, his face broken in two as his eyes found his brother. And then they were running. All of them.

And it reignited—the sound. It rose around us, filling the forest until I could feel the pulse of it under my skin.

The young Nadhir stood, his hands hanging heavily at his sides, his chest rising and falling beneath his armor vest. He took a step, hitching to one side, and when he looked down, he stilled. Blood seeped from a tear in his vest where a blade must have cut him.

He was the only Nadhir left standing and I watched the realization sink into his face, his chest heaving with breath as every Svell in the glade ran toward him. The swarm of bees in my head screamed, ringing in my ears. I pinched my eyes closed against it and when I opened them again, arrows were flying. But not from the glade. From the forest.

They dropped the Svell one by one and three riders appeared in the trees, their mouths open as they shouted at the Nadhir. He ran toward them, his hand pressed to his side, and more arrows whistled through the air as they shot them one after the other, finding their marks in the distance.

My heart stopped as my eyes landed on a set of pale hands clenched around a bow in the trees. Hands covered in black marks. I blinked, stepping forward out of a beam of bright sunlight, but this was no vision. A man covered in the marks of the Kyrr was crouched low over his horse, pulling another arrow from his back as the Nadhir ran.

I opened my mouth to call out, but no sound came. The beats of my heart tangled up, skipping so fast that my vision began to blur. The Kyrr man dropped the bow over his head as the Nadhir pulled himself up onto one of the horses and I held onto the tree beside me as they took off, disappearing into the forest.

And when I finally turned back searching for Jorrund, he stood frozen in the trees, his horrified gaze still fixed on the bloodied body of the Svell chieftain.

Lying dead at his feet.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HALVARD

Every Svell left standing ran toward me, swords and axes swinging.

The emptiness of the forest behind me stretched in every direction. There was no way to outrun them. No way to hide. Their chieftain lay on the soft earth before me and the only answer for that was death.

But as I watched them rush toward me, I realized that it was an end I’d welcome. It was an end that the gods would favor and that Aghi would be proud of. At the very least, I’d been able to avenge him before I took my last breath. And that was something.

I stood taller despite the pain widening at my side and pulled the axe from the sheath at my back. The breath in my chest calmed, lifting in white puffs before me, the scent of soil and sap thick in my lungs.

Mýra’s words came back to haunt me, the sight of herlooking up into my face finding me as clearly as if she stood before me now. She’d been right. So had Latham. And when my family made it back to the fjord from the mountain, they wouldn’t find me. Like Aghi, I’d be waiting for them in the afterlife.

Just as the thought skipped across my mind, a whistle rang deep in the forest and I blinked, going still.

Vigdis and the Svell closed in on the stretch of ground between us, screaming, but arrows suddenly fell from the sky, arcing over my head and hitting their marks before me. Svell warriors hit the ground hard, sliding over the forest floor, and I turned, searching the trees.

I knew the call that echoed out, though I hadn’t heard it since I was a boy. It was an old Aska battle signal. But every Nadhir who’d come with us from Hylli was lying dead in the glade behind me.

Horses appeared in the thick brush, three riders hunched over their saddles with bows lifted and arrows drawn. That’s when I saw him. Asmund.

I pivoted on my feet and ran for him, the agony alive at my side piercing deeper with every draw of breath. Asmund and the raiders tore through the forest ahead, their horses kicking mud and moss behind them, and I pressed the heel of my hand into the opening of my vest, growling against the sting, running faster.

I didn’t look back, weaving through the trees and pushing the swell of pain from my mind. I didn’t have to look to know I was losing blood too quickly. I could feel it in theweakening of my muscles and the stuttering flicker of my thoughts. I focused on the black horse ahead, throwing myself forward with the last of the strength I had left.

An axe flew past my head from behind, slamming into a tree, and the splinters hit me in the face as I slid to a stop. Bard’s horse slowed as it reached me and the bow rose before him, his back straight as he sighted down its line. He shot arrow after arrow over me as I hobbled past him, toward Asmund.

“Hurry!” He reached a hand down for me and I took his arm, pulling myself up onto the saddle behind him and throwing my leg over the horse.

In the trees ahead, the Svell chieftain’s brother stood still, his fists clenched at his sides and his black eyes pinned on me as his chest rose and fell with heaving breaths.

We took off and I looked back once more to the sunlit grass where Aghi lay dead. My throat tightened and I hunched forward, the searing pain in my side pushing black into the edges of my vision. A branch caught the sleeve of my tunic, scraping against my skin as we headed into the thicker trees and the glade disappeared behind us, the Svell with it.

“How bad?” Asmund shouted over his shoulder.

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