Page 21 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back

“They’ll be ready, with or without me.”

“Espen’s dead, Asmund.” Bard squared his shoulders to his brother. “You know what that means. Halvard is chieftain of the Nadhir now.”

I breathed through the pain winding tighter around me. He was saying aloud what I hadn’t even had a chance tothink. Latham, Freydis, and the other leaders would be waiting in Hylli, but Espen wasn’t coming and I was the one chosen to take his place. I was the one who was supposed to lead them.

Kjeld stood back, watching us. He’d taken down the Svell and saved my life like the rest of them, but if anyone had reason to leave, it was him. He had no heritage or lost home or ancestors among the Nadhir. He was Kyrr. And he’d only found a place with the raiders because it was easier to be picked off when you were alone.

But I was the one Asmund looked to. He met my eyes over the fire pit, his lip between his teeth. “Utan.”

It was the next Nadhir village pushing east toward the fjord, and I knew what he was thinking.

They were next.

“Get rid of the armor,” he said, pulling the knife from his belt.

Kjeld sighed, shaking his head, but a smile spread over Bard’s face. He picked up my vest from where it sat in the dirt and Asmund stepped toward me, taking the braid of hair over my shoulder. He cut it clean in one motion and dropped it beside me before he knelt down, taking my knife from the fire.

He held the glowing blade out between us.

“I won’t forget this,” I said, looking up to him.

He met my eyes, his voice even. “I won’t let you.”

I unbuckled my belt and folded it, biting down on the leather as I propped myself against the rough bark of the treebehind me. I took the knife from Asmund and marked the wound with the tips of my fingers, finding a place in the treetops to fix my eyes. I pulled a rasping breath deep into my chest before I pressed the hot blade into the wound.

I groaned, biting down hard as the skin seared and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. The sting heated the blood in my veins, the sky brightening overhead as a white light exploded in my vision and then flickered out, swallowing me in darkness.

Asmund was right.

There was no going back. Not from this.

CHAPTER NINE

TOVA

I stared into the trees, trying to conjure back what I’d seen—black marks winding around wrists in the spread of a raven’s wing as the man in the trees lifted his bow.

He was Kyrr. He had to be. But the Kyrr never left the headlands. I’d never seen another of my kind, not once in the years since Jorrund found me on the Svell’s shore. Any pictures of them had been washed away by the storm that brought me across the fjord, only broken bits and pieces left in my memory. The sound of a woman’s voice, the warm glow of firelight. The sting against my skin as someone worked at my marks with a bowl of wood ash ink and a bone needle.

I turned, looking for Jorrund, but he was watching the glade, his face pale and his mouth puckered like he was going to be sick. The sound of Vigdis’ wailing echoed out around us in the silence. He sat at the edge of the trees withhis brother’s body in his arms, hunched over and weeping as the Svell warriors walked through the tall grass, collecting weapons and armor before dragging their own fallen clansmen into the trees to burn.

The Nadhir warriors lay in the sun, their still bodies beginning to rot. All except one.

I looked back to the trees where the young Nadhir had disappeared with the Kyrr man, his hand pressed to his side and his skin draining white. Maybe he’d be lying dead somewhere soon, too.

The blue sky where the nighthawk had appeared was now empty, not a single cloud hovering over the glade. The All Seer had seen what lay inside the heart of Vigdis and had come in warning. But the Svell didn’t know the language of the future the way I did. They didn’t understand that there was no such thing as a secret. The truth was everywhere. It was in everything. You only had to open your eyes to see it. The Spinners sat beneath the Tree of Urðr, watching. Listening. Weaving away at the web of fate.

Bekan’s death was a punishment for Vigdis’ treachery. It was a burden for him to carry for the rest of his days. Jorrund, too.

Beside me, he prayed under his breath, his eyes closed. But it didn’t matter what words were spoken or what requests of their god they made. They could sacrifice a hundred oxen and fill the valley with blood. Still, they had been wrong. They’d betrayed their chieftain for their own hunger for war and there was a price to be paid for it.

The warriors looked on as Vigdis and another man carried Bekan’s body into the forest with the others. The seat of chieftain now fell to him, which was perhaps what he’d always wanted. But passing the leadership of the Svell to Vigdis meant taking power away from Jorrund. And without power, there would be nothing the Tala could do to protect me. What little safety I had was now gone, and that thought terrified me.

Siv stood at Vigdis’ side, waiting. She would become his second in command and the other village leaders would follow. They had to. War was coming and for the first time since the Nadhir made peace, the Svell would be forced to unify. But it would be on the battlefield.

When the Svell they’d sent out after the riders finally appeared in the trees across the clearing, the Nadhir wasn’t with them. They’d lost whatever trail had been left behind and at the sight of them, Vigdis’ furious stare searched the glade. “Where is she?” His voice roared and I flinched, stepping backward as his eyes found me. “Where’s the Truthtongue?”

“Stay back,” Jorrund whispered, stepping in front of me. “Don’t say a word.”

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