Page 29 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Halvard turned to search the darkness, the cold burning in his chest, until he caught sight of something slipping through the bits of light. His mouth dropped open, the hot tears returning as he saw Eelyn and Fiske. They ran throughthe trees with silent steps, tracking alongside the caravan as they walked.

And when Halvard looked back up to the sky, the All Seer was gone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

HALVARD

The forest was quiet, as if it knew what was coming. We were only a day’s ride from Hylli, but the farthest corners of Nadhir territory were already filling with Svell. The smoke from their fires reached up into the sky to the west, where they were camped at the foot of the mountains. Before the sun rose again, they would be pushing east.

Following the river meant another half day, but taking the faster route through the valley would make us easy to spot. And as long as we didn’t lose more time, we would beat the Svell to the fjord. We had to.

The pain in my side deepened as the horse moved from side to side, faltering over the slick riverbed. I knew the heat swelling beneath my skin meant the wound was infected. Having a healer as a mother told me that much, but I also knew it was better to have an infected burn than a gash that wouldn’t stop bleeding. If we got to Hylli in time, I’d be ableto treat it before sickness could take hold and keep me from fighting. If we didn’t, I’d lose my life to fever instead of battle.

I pressed my hand firmly into the old Riki armor vest that Asmund had given me to make me less recognizable to anyone we would meet in the forest. Whoever had owned it had probably died in the fighting seasons before the Nadhir made peace. My father’s armor was made almost the same, except for the engraving of the yew tree on his shoulder clasps. It was the symbol that marked the blade of my axe, which had also belonged to him. Every spring, my mother opened the trunk against the wall and took his things out to oil the leathers and shine the bronze and I’d watch her, trying to remember his face. There were so many things about him that had faded, but I found myself thinking of him more and more since the day Espen told me I’d been chosen to take his place as chieftain.

I wondered what he would think. What he would say to me. I wondered if he’d be proud.

The river curved tightly around a cliff side and the moon disappeared above us. I watched the water carefully, steering the horse nearer to the bank and away from the white-capped water breaking on submerged rocks. We were moving slowly, but tracks through the forest would lead the Svell straight to us, and there was no storm breaking to cover them.

Movement in the trees caught my eye and I looked over my shoulder, pulling back on the reins. Asmund halted his horse behind me and turned, but there was nothing. Onlythe dark, alive with the night sounds of the forest and everything in it. A prick crept over my skin as I urged the horse forward, following after Kjeld, who was making his way around the bend.

The faint sound of a murmuring prayer on his lips drifted back to meet me. The first time I’d seen him was on the path to Fela, the mountain village where I was born. He’d just joined up with Asmund and the hollow in his cheeks was evidence he’d been starving through the winter. He didn’t speak. He’d hardly even looked at me or my brothers, his attention always on the world around him. As if he could see shadows and hear voices that the rest of us couldn’t. It was the same feeling that came over me watching the girl in the glade, her eyes boring into mine, her hand pressed to her ear.

Aghi told me back then to keep my distance from Kjeld. That the Kyrr were not to be trifled with. I’d heard more than one tale about what happened to anyone who trespassed onto their lands. But apart from the stories whispered about the wild clan in the headlands, Kjeld only seemed like a weary, worn down man. And in the four years he’d been with Asmund, I’d learned next to nothing about him.

“You never told me where he came from.” I spoke lowly, catching Asmund’s eyes in the dark.

He caught up to me, pulling the reins of his horse up higher. “He’s Kyrr. He’s from the headlands.”

“The Kyrr never come to the mainland. In all the yearsI’ve traveled with Aghi or taken boats out on the fjord, Kjeld is the only one I’ve ever seen. How did he end up here?”

“I don’t know the whole story.” Asmund shrugged. “In fact, I know almost nothing.”

“What part do you know?”

He slowed, letting Kjeld pull farther ahead until he was almost invisible against the dark trees. “Only that I don’t think he was cast out from the Kyrr like people say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I think he wasn’t made to leave. That he chose to.”

Kjeld leaned back as the horse’s gait stuttered on the slope, guiding it around the current. It didn’t make any sense. The Kyrr were feared by every clan on the mainland. He couldn’t have thought he’d find a new life among us. “Why do you think that?”

“Three winters ago, a man came looking for him,” Asmund whispered.

“A Kyrr?”

He nodded. “He found our camp on the south side of the mountain just after the first snowfall and at first, I thought he was there to kill him. That maybe he’d come to act on a blood feud or carry out a sentence Kjeld had outrun.”

“What happened?”

“He wasn’t there to take him. He was pleading with him to come back.”

My gaze drifted back to Kjeld. His long blond braid ran down the center of his back, the black marks spreading upout of his tunic and wrapping around his neck. He was at least the age of my brothers, probably older, and he could have a family he’d left behind in the headlands. Or maybe he was like Asmund and Bard, and left because he’d lost something.

“I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Kjeld refused to return with him. The man left and never came back.”

It seemed that no one would leave their home and their people if they weren’t made to, but I knew that wasn’t true. It looked as if Asmund was thinking the same. He and Bard had done just that after the Herja came. Nothing made the burden of that pain easier to bear, but to some, going where no one knew the story was worth the loneliness it brought. I’d once asked Asmund if leaving the fjord had brought him peace. His answer was that it was only a different kind of pain. One that was a little easier to live with.

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