Page 20 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back

“They’re dead.” The words boiled in my gut. “Everyone’s dead.”

He stiffened. “Espen?”

“Everyone.”

He pulled back on the reins, slowing, and the othersrounded ahead to meet us, bows still in hand. Their faces held the same look that I imagined was on Asmund’s.

Bard stopped before us. “Let me see.” He pried my bloody hand from my side. “Sword?” I nodded in answer, wincing as he inspected the wound. “He’s bleeding too fast.”

Asmund shook his head, watching around us. “It’ll have to wait. We have to go east.”

“East? I have to get to Hylli,” I grunted.

“You just killed their chieftain, Halvard.” Asmund turned back to look at me. “By sundown this entire forest will be crawling with Svell looking for you.”

“I have to—”

“We’ll head east and then cut north,” Bard interrupted, echoing Asmund’s order.

He kicked his heel into the horse and we took off, the air turning colder as we pushed deeper into the forest. Our tracks still marked the path we’d taken to Ljós only the day before and I breathed through the burn in my eyes, remembering that moment on the trail with Aghi. A moment I would never get back.

We climbed the rise of the earth in a horizontal line until we reached the river and took the horses into the water, pushing against the current to hide our tracks. With any luck, the Svell would have lost our trail by the time they got to their horses. But luck hadn’t been on our side in the glade, and I had no reason to think it would be now.

The sun was hanging above us in the sky when we finally came around the bend in the river where the raiderswere camped. Bard stood on the bank ahead, Kjeld beside him, watching me as I slid down from the horse into the water. The blood from my wound clouded pink around me as I trudged up out of the cold river. But my legs gave out, my head spinning, and I fell to my knees on the sand.

“Get him up,” Asmund ordered.

Kjeld and Bard took my arms, lifting me up and dragging me over the mud until we disappeared into the tall standing rocks that edged the water, where the other raiders were waiting. They stood with their arms crossed, watching silently as I worked at the clasps of my vest with numb hands, swallowing down the urge to vomit as I lifted it over my head. The gash in my side was still bleeding freely.

“What happened?” Bard looked down at me.

“Bekan’s brother betrayed him.” I swallowed, trying to steady my words as I got down next to the fire they’d put out that morning. The embers were still glowing beneath the thick white ash. “He killed Espen and they turned on us.”

I hissed, opening the wound with my fingers and trying to see how deep the cut was, but I could barely see straight. I took my knife from my belt and raked back the cool coals, burying the blade into the ones that were still hot.

No one spoke, the reality of what had happened slowly sinking in. The Svell chieftain was dead. The Nadhir leaders murdered. If there had ever been a chance of outrunning a war, it was gone now. And from the looks on the faces of the other raiders around us, they were thinking the same.

“The Nadhir are already gathering on the fjord. They’ll be ready to fight,” I said between tight breaths.

“When?”

“Two days. Three. I don’t know.” I turned the knife over in the coals and watched the dried blood sizzle off the blade.

“We should leave the mainland,” Kjeld said, looking to Asmund. “They’re probably tracking us right now.”

Bard’s voice dropped low. “We can’t leave.”

“Why not? This is their war, not ours.”

Bard glared at him, but he was right. As raiders, they’d left their obligations to their clans behind, but I’d known Bard and Asmund for more than half of my life. They couldn’t stay in Hylli. Not after all that had happened. But they hadn’t really ever left us.

“We should go. Now,” Kjeld said again, turning his back to Bard. “West, deeper into the forests past Svell territory.”

Asmund stared at the ground, thinking. “They won’t just be looking for Halvard, Kjeld. They saw us, too.”

“I can make it to Hylli on my own,” I said, giving him a way out. I had no right to ask for their help. They’d come for me in the glade when they owed me nothing.

Bard straightened beside him. “And if you don’t?”

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