Page 4 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Vigdis lifted his chin as he answered. “Thirty warriors, including myself and Siv. We took Ljós in the night.”

The leader of Stórmenska stood beside him, her thumbs hooked into her armor vest. “At least forty dead, all of them Nadhir, from what we could tell.” She spoke carefully, measuring her words. Five years ago, they would have been her last. But now, the village leaders were united in what they thought should be done about the growing threat to the east and the ground the Svell chieftain stood on was crumbling.

“They are most likely calling in their warriors this very moment.” Jorrund took a step closer to Bekan, his clasped hands before him.

“Let them.” Vigdis eyed his brother. “We will do what we should have done long ago.”

“Your fealty is tome,Vigdis.”

“My fealty is to the Svell,” he corrected. “It’s been more than ten years since the Aska and the Riki ended their blood feud and joined together as the Nadhir. For the first time in generations, we are the most powerful clan on the mainland. If we want to keep our place, we have to fight for it.”

The silence that followed only confirmed that even the most loyal among them agreed, and Bekan seemed to realize it, his eyes moving over them slowly before he answered. “War has a cost,” he warned.

“Perhaps it’s one we can pay.” Jorrund leaned in closer to him, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. The scales had finally tipped out of Bekan’s favor. He either agreed to advance on Nadhir territory or he risked a permanent division among his own people.

The others grunted in agreement and Bekan’s gaze finally found me in the dim light. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

Jorrund gave me a tight nod, taking a basket from where it hung on the wall behind him. I stepped into the light, feeling the eyes of the Svell leaders crawl over the marks on my skin. They moved aside, careful not to touch me, and I took the pelt from the basket as Jorrund murmured a reverberating prayer beneath his breath.

“You tempt the wrath of Eydis, keeping thatthinghere,” Vigdis murmured.

The chieftain’s brother had been the only one to say aloud what I knew the rest of them were thinking. That Bekan’s daughter, Vera, had died because of me. When Jorrund brought me to Liera, many said that Bekan would pay a price for the grave sin of letting me live. The morning Vera woke with fever, there were whispers that his punishment had finally come. The Spinners had carved her fate into the Tree of Urðr, but I was the one to cast the stones.

Jorrund ignored Vigdis, setting a bundle of dried mugwort into the flames. The pungent smoke filled the room with a haze, making me feel like for a moment, I could disappear. It wasn’t the first time a Svell had referred to me as a curse, and it wouldn’t be the last. It was no secret where I’d come from or what I was.

I hooked my fingers into the leather string around my neck and lifted the purse from inside my tunic. I hadn’t cast the stones since the night Vera died, and the memory slicked my palms with sweat, my stomach turning. I openedit carefully, letting them fall heavily into my open hand. The firelight glimmered against their smooth, black surfaces where the runes were carved in deep lines. The language of the Spinners. Pieces of the future, waiting to be read.

Jorrund unrolled the pelt and my palms pressed together around the stones.

“Lag mund,”Vigdis whispered.

“Lag mund,”the others repeated.

Fate’s hand.

But what did these warriors know about fate? It was the curling, wild vine that choked out the summer crops. It was the wind that bent wayward currents and damned innocent souls to the deep. They hadn’t seen the stretch of it or the way it could shift suddenly, like a flock of startled birds. Fate’s hand was something they said because they didn’t understand it.

That’s what I was for.

I closed my eyes, pushing the presence of the Svell from around me. I found the darkness—the place I was alone. The place I had come from. The call of the nighthawk sounded again and I pulled my thoughts together, sending them into one straight line. My lips parted, the words finding my mouth and I breathed through them.

“Augua ór tivar. Ljá mir sýn.

“Augua ór tivar. Ljá mir sýn.

“Augua ór tivar. Ljá mir sýn.”

Eye of the gods. Give me sight.

I held my hands out before me, unfurling my fingers andletting the stones drop until they were scattered across the pelt in a pattern that only I could see, reaching out wide to either side. The silence grew thick, the crackle of fire the only sound as I leaned forward, bringing my fingers to my lips.

My brow furrowed, my eyes moving from one stone to the next. Every single one was facedown, the runes hidden. Except for one.

I bit down hard on my lip, looking up to see Jorrund’s eyes locked on mine.

Hagalaz,the hailstone, sat in the very center. Complete destruction. The storm that devours.

For more than ten years, I’d cast the runes to see the future of the Svell. Never had they looked like this.

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