The Girl the Sea Gave Back

by Adrienne Young

  I whistled softly and tipped my head toward the ritual house, where a trail of white smoke was still spiraling up from the roof. As he caught sight of it, Asmund stepped into the path and Kjeld followed behind him, sword drawn.

  We passed the open door of a house with a smoldering fire and I looked back to Asmund. He saw it, too. The bare feet of a dead woman lay in the path, her arms clutched around a still child. A muddy axe lay beside them, her fingertips still lightly touching the wooden handle.

  I gritted my teeth and ran faster, the urge to throw my axe shooting up my arm like lightning. They’d been defenseless. Helpless. The Svell had poured in from the forest in a flood and the Nādhir hadn’t had a chance.

  Asmund moved past me, stopping beside the huge door of the ritual house ahead. He pressed his back into the carved wood, scanning the village around us before he gave me another nod.

  I took the knife from my belt and gently leaned into the heavy door until an amber crack of orange light cut through the darkness. I peered inside, where the benches were toppled, the altar fire gone out, but the coals still lit the room in a hazy glow, the smoke billowing up to the opening in the roof. I sucked in a breath and pushed it open, sliding inside with Asmund and Kjeld right behind me.

  Pools of blood shone on the stone, bodies still lying where they’d fallen in the fight.

  As soon as it was clear, Asmund looked to me. “They’re moving fast.”

  “I know.”

  The next village was Lund. It sat on the outskirts of Nādhir territory at the base of the mountain. But if Bard hadn’t made it to Utan, then he wasn’t headed to Lund. And there was nothing stopping the Svell army from heading up the mountain either. The only thing we could count on was that they’d come for the fjord first and the Nādhir army would be waiting.

  Asmund slid his sword back into his belt, stepping over a body and picking an axe up off the ground beside him just as a soft whistle rang outside. He pulled the blade free again, meeting my eyes.

  “What is it?” I watched him think before the hint of a smile lifted on his lips.

  “It’s Bard,” he breathed. “It’s one of our calls.”

  I went back to the door, peering out, and Asmund came to stand on the other side. But the thick smoke hovering over the ground made it impossible to see. My fingers tightened around my knife as I pushed the door open and the ear-splitting crack of an axe hitting the wall beside me made the room spin. I whirled, lifting the blade, and behind us, a Svell warrior stood in the opening of the other set of doors, his hand still lifted from the throw.

  I launched forward and ran at him, closing the distance between us in only steps and bringing my axe around me so that the blunt side of the blade caught him in the jaw. The sword fell from his hand as he tumbled backward, sliding on the stone until he rolled over the threshold, landing in the mud outside.

  “Halvard!” Asmund shouted my name and I turned, searching the smoke for him.

  Voices echoed in the silence and I could just barely see Kjeld swinging his sword in the path ahead, its edge catching another blade with a spark that lit the darkness. The moonlight broke through the clouds and as soon as we were out of the shadows, a Svell came from behind the next house, his sword swinging. Asmund lifted his axe, stopping the man’s blow overhead, and slammed his closed fist into his face. He tilted, losing his balance, and the Svell scrambled to regain his footing before Asmund kicked him in the chest, sending him backward. But before Asmund had a chance to finish him, the man threw himself forward and the sword lifted again, ready to come down on his back.

  I let the knife in my hand sink back behind my head and slung it forward, letting it fly handle over blade through the air. It hit its mark, finding the flesh between his shoulder blades, and he fell face-first into the dirt at Asmund’s feet.

  A strangled sound twisted on his lips as I knelt down and dragged my axe blade across his throat. His eyes blinked, his mouth falling open as he looked at me, and I didn’t wait for him to die. I stood with my knife in my hand, searching the dark until I caught sight of another Svell running toward us, a sword arcing over his head. I tightened my grip around the axe and sank down into my feet, finding a center. I waited until he was only a few steps away before I heaved forward and plowed into him, sending the pointed blade of my axe into his side as he passed.

  Another body slammed into me and the hilt of a sword found my face, knocking my head to the side. I brought my elbow down with a snap, catching his arm, and when his hands were loosened, I rolled, coming out from under him. The burned flesh at my side tore open and I hissed through the bone-deep pain exploding between my ribs, trying to breathe.

  “Get up!” Asmund kicked the Svell’s body to the side, taking hold of my vest with both hands.

  As soon as I was on my feet, we ran for the gate. Footsteps punched the ground behind us and Asmund pulled the bow from his shoulder, turning. He nocked an arrow as he spun in a circle, but stopped short, his eyes going wide. Bard was running down the path toward us, one side of his body dragging and his face half-covered in blood.

  Asmund dropped the bow and ran to him, taking his brother’s arm over his shoulder and carrying his weight as they climbed the hill to the forest.

  “You.”

  A soft, even voice found me, sounding over every inch of my skin in the dark, and I stopped beneath the gate, turning with my axe lifted before me. The handle almost slid from my fingers and I stilled, sucking in a sharp breath as the trees seemed to suddenly sway around me. My hand went back to the wound, now bleeding through my tunic as I blinked, but the vision didn’t clear.

  There, in the moonlight, the Kyrr girl from the glade stood, watching me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TOVA

  There’s no silence like death.

  I shivered against the chill, my body still shaking from the henbane as we waited in the forest above Utan. The homes below were half-eaten up by fire now, an eerie quiet falling over what had been a village only hours ago. The Svell warriors who’d been ordered to stay back with us stalked in the trees restlessly, the tension growing with each passing minute.

  “They’re not coming,” Gunther murmured at my back, the words sharp-edged and angry.

  I ignored him, my eyes fixed on the gate. I’d seen him. I knew I had. There, beneath the arched opening in the fence that surrounded the village, the Nādhir would stand in the moonlight.

  “He’s not here. He never was,” one of the men muttered.

  The pain in my head made it hard to keep my eyes open, every sound too loud in my ears. The trickle of the creek and the rustle of birds in the branches above us. The scrape of boots on the forest floor.

  “We should be back with the others,” the man spoke again.

  “He’s coming,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “When?”

  I looked up to the moon hanging in the sky. “Soon.” I tried to sound sure. Surer than I was.

  But the truth was that I didn’t know why the Nādhir wasn’t there like he had been in my vision. The slow, creeping thoughts in the back of my mind whispered that the Spinners had tricked me as punishment. That they’d used the vision to bring me my own death.

  Maybe they had.

  I turned back to the village, where smoke still rose up from charred wood and the moonlight caught the white tunic of a woman lying dead in the middle of the path that led up to the ritual house. In my vision, I hadn’t seen death. I’d only seen the Nādhir from the glade. The one who’d looked me in the eye. I swallowed hard, that same sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach returning. There was a part of me that hoped he wouldn’t come. A part of me that was growing by the minute.

  “Enough of this.” The man stepped forward and caught my arm, wrenching me back to face him, and I slipped my knife from my belt, pressing the tip of it to the side of his neck.

  His eyes went wide as the others moved toward me, but he lifted his hands, stopping them. He stilled, his teeth bar
ed as he looked down at me.

  “Tova, stop.” Jorrund reached for the knife but I pushed him away.

  “He’s coming,” I said again, meeting the man’s eyes. “Vigdis told me to find him. That’s what I’m doing.”

  Behind him, Gunther stared at me with surprise lit in his eyes. I’d never killed another person. I wasn’t sure if I could. But I had to stay if I was going to have any chance at appeasing Vigdis.

  As soon as I lowered the knife, the man shoved me hard and I slammed into the tree behind me.

  “I told you.” The woman beside Gunther shook her head. “We should go back.”

  “Not without the Nādhir,” Jorrund answered, his voice lowering in warning. I wasn’t the only one who’d fall under Vigdis’ wrath if we came back empty-handed.

  “Stop it.” Gunther finally spoke from where he stood in the shadows. “All of you. We stay until dawn. If he’s not here by sunup, we’ll go back to the others and Vigdis can deal with her.”

  “Wait,” Jorrund whispered, his eyes lifting over us.

  I turned to see a figure moving out of the trees on the other side of the village. A man. The moonlight hit the blade of an axe at his side and he stopped at the post before two more shadows followed after him.

  “It’s him,” I whispered.

  Jorrund leaned in closer to me. “How do you know?”

  “I told you. I saw it.”

  We crouched down, going silent as the three figures moved through the gate and onto the main path that led through the village.

  Gunther nodded to the others and they pushed back into the forest to come from the west side, their weapons drawn out before them as the three men disappeared into the ritual house below. They moved silently down the slope and I sank beside a tree, watching them hop the fence that encircled Utan before slipping into the shadows.

  I closed my eyes against the pain in the center of my forehead. The vision of the Nādhir before the gate was still sharp in my mind. His bloodied axe, his hand pressed to his side. What I’d seen had been real, but it still felt like a dream. And now that it was coming to pass, the knot between my ribs wound tighter, the prick of tears springing up in my eyes.

  The sound of shouting brought me back to my feet and I searched the little bit of the village that was visible, but it was too dark. There was only moving shadow and shifting smoke. I fixed my gaze on the doors of the ritual house, my fingers tangled into one another until my fingernails bit into my skin. When another man screamed, Gunther sighed beside me.

  “Go back.” He looked to Jorrund. “Tell Vigdis to send more men.” He ran down the slope with his sword at his side and Jorrund ran into the trees, leaving me alone.

  But still, the Nādhir didn’t appear beneath the gate.

  My heart raced over each breath as I watched Jorrund disappear in the darkness. I looked over my shoulder, to the village. In the vision, he was there. He was right there.

  I walked down the hill with my skirt twisted in my sweaty fists and stopped, almost stumbling forward as a figure burst out of the smoke. I froze, my breath bound up in my chest and I held it until it burned.

  Without thinking, the word left my trembling lips. “You.”

  The sound that had found me in the glade crashed in my pounding head like an angry ocean, making me feel as if I was tipping to one side. I tried to steady myself, meeting his eyes and letting them anchor me. Because those same blue eyes were looking at me again. Right at me.

  “Are you…” He stared at me, hand pressed into the wound at his side. Blood seeped between his fingers as he spoke between heavy breaths. “Are you really here?”

  But I could barely hear him over the swarm of bees in my head. The sound swelled with each heartbeat.

  “I saw you. In the forest.”

  I closed my eyes, wincing against the pain in my skull, and when I opened them again, the sight of him wavered.

  “Who are you?” His eyes ran over my face. “What are you doing with the Svell?”

  I opened my mouth to speak before I realized there really was no answer. I was a Kyrr castoff with no people and no home. I was the daughter of no one, used by a clan that I shared no blood with. There was no explanation for it. No way to make sense of it. It just … was.

  Suddenly, he was moving, closing the distance between us and his shadow fell over me before his bloodied hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing. I lifted up onto my toes and my fingers found his wrists. I held onto him, the breath burning in my chest, and I could see that even if he didn’t know who I was, he knew what I was. He stared at the mark below my throat, his gaze moving over my skin before he looked back up at me. I pulled at his hands, trying to draw breath, but he didn’t budge. The ache in my head began to fade as I looked up into his eyes. Because they were still fixed on mine. Tears glistened at their corners, catching the moonlight, and as he pulled in a short breath, one rolled down his rough cheek.

  He looked right into me as the roar of the rushing water exploded all around us, and at first, I thought it sounded familiar. Like I’d heard it before. Somewhere deep in the memories the storm that had brought me across the fjord had washed away. They took shape, curling and twisting around pieces I recognized. I blinked, trying to listen as the darkness crept in around me, his grip tightening. My hands went cold around his wrists and I searched the sounds, trying to place them.

  And suddenly, it settled. It wasn’t buzzing or bees or the crush of water or the crackle of ice. It was the sound of voices.

  Whispers.

  “Naðr.”

  The voices suddenly vanished, like a lit torch dropped in water, and the Kyrr man I’d seen at the glade appeared behind the Nādhir, his wide eyes set on mine.

  “Stop, Halvard.”

  The Nādhir dropped me and I fell to the ground, choking. The burn raced down my throat as I gasped in the cold air, the feeling returning to my hands as I reached up, pulling the neck of my tunic closed.

  The Kyrr man looked down at me, his breath fogging out between us. The mark of a fish wrapped around his throat, the tail disappearing into his tunic. He was older than me by many years, but the way he looked at me was familiar. It felt close.

  “You know me,” I whispered, studying his face. Trying to place it. Some part of me knew him, too.

  “I didn’t think it could be true.” His voice was only a breath.

  I tried to speak, but I couldn’t find words. I couldn’t reach the memories that were hovering above my thoughts, just out of reach. As shouting came from the forest, both men looked up, over my head.

  “What couldn’t be true?” I got to my feet, my fingers still cradling my aching throat.

  The Kyrr man didn’t answer. His eyes changed then, the sharp point of his stare softening. He looked almost … sad.

  Voices called out in the night and I turned back to where the Svell were coming from the trees on the other side of the village.

  “Give me your axe,” I said, looking to the man he’d called Halvard.

  He stared at my hand outstretched before him. “What?”

  “Give me your axe!” I reached up, pulling it from his grip. “You have to run.”

  The Kyrr man looked at me for another silent moment before he disappeared, but Halvard didn’t move. The light in his eyes changed, the pulse at his neck jumping beneath the skin. “Why are you helping us?”

  I looked up into his face, realizing that was what I was doing. I was helping him. Because it was one life I could save. I was suddenly overcome with a desperate need to be sure he didn’t die. “Go,” I whispered.

  He looked at me for a long moment, swallowing hard. And in the next breath, he turned, disappearing into the trees.

  I faced the village, stilling the shaking of my hands as I marched back through the gate, to the path. I searched the bodies on the ground until I found a man in a Nādhir armor vest lying facedown with long, dark hair. I took a deep breath before I rolled him over, looking down into his face. He was older th
an Halvard, but he’d have to do. I was out of choices. I was out of time.

  I planted my feet before him, pushing every thought from my mind, the weight of the cool axe blade heavy in my open hand. The careful rendering of a yew tree branch was engraved into the shining steel and it glimmered in the faint light of the fires still burning. I pulled in a breath, my eyes fixed on the night sky. And when I lifted the axe over my head, I conjured every dark shadow within me. Every withered thing within my perishing soul. I gave myself over to that darkness. And with the cold, unbeating heart of the dead heavy in my chest, I brought the blade down.

  2 YEARS AGO

  Village of Liera, Svell Territory

  Tova made it to Bekan’s home on the hill only moments before the sun rose over the village of Liera. Her cloak was heavy and damp with the mist that whirled through the air as she’d walked the paths of the forest. But it was the uneasy ache in her stomach that made her steps falter. It had been six days since Bekan’s daughter, Vera, had been bedridden with fever. And if Jorrund had summoned Tova, she must have taken a turn for the worse in the night.

  She stopped before the door and drew a steadying breath before she lifted her hand to knock. Footsteps hit the floorboards inside as shadows reached across the ground in the amber light. The latch lifted and Jorrund’s face appeared as the door opened, but the look on his face already held the answer she’d been called to give.

  Tova lifted up onto her toes to peer over his shoulder, where Vera was tucked onto a cot beside the fire. Her gaunt face left her eyes looking hollow, one small hand set on top of the furs. Tova couldn’t help but think of the tiny baby girl who’d spent her days cradled in Bekan’s arms and the memory brought the sting of hot tears to her eyes.

  She wound a finger around the string beneath the tunic and pulled, feeling the bite at the back of her neck. Bekan stood over his daughter, his armor gone and his clothes wrinkled. Even his braids were unraveling down his back, the darkness clinging beneath his eyes. He hadn’t slept in days.