The Girl the Sea Gave Back

by Adrienne Young

  Down the slope, all the way to the village, the Nādhir were camped in rows of tents painted with the blood of sacrifices. The shapes and symbols of Sigr and Thora covered them, dark against the white canvas. Warriors from every village on the fjord and the mountain were waiting for the fight coming across the valley. The enormous camp covered the grass, hiding the rooftops of the village behind them.

  I swallowed hard as the horn sounded, echoing up the hill and drifting into the trees behind us. We watched as bodies moved below, coming from every doorway and tent, and I pressed the heel of my boot into the side of the horse, moving down the hill slowly. Faces peered up at me, many I didn’t know. But I knew the look of warriors waiting to see if they’d survive battle, even if it had never been cast upon me.

  Mýra pushed through a group of men at the gate, and as soon as she saw me, she froze, dropping her hands heavily at her sides. Her lips moved around a prayer and then she was walking one foot in front of the other up the path to meet me. I swung my leg over the saddle, sliding down, and as soon as she reached me, she wrapped her arms around my neck, holding onto me tighter than she ever had.

  Her words were muffled against my shoulder and I pulled back, looking down into her reddened face. Her bright green eyes were filled with tears, the darkness beneath them evidence that she’d slept little in the days since we left.

  “I thought you were dead,” she cried. “I thought I was going to have to tell them you were dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” I pulled her back into me, wrapping my arms around her. “Are they here?”

  “Not yet. They’re coming.”

  I swallowed, the pain in my throat widening. “Aghi…”

  But I could see on her face that she already knew. She nodded, wiping the tears from her face with both hands. “A man from Utan arrived this morning and told us what happened.” Her voice broke. “I should have gone with you. I should have been with you.”

  She squeezed me tighter and I bristled, the armor vest pulling against the bandage beneath it.

  “What is it?” Her hands ran over me, looking for the wound.

  “It’s nothing.”

  But she looked up at me through her eyelashes indignantly.

  “Halvard!”

  Latham walked up the path, clad in his armor, the thick furs on his shoulders blowing in the cold wind. Freydis was at his side, the relief not hidden on her face as her eyes landed on me. Mýra stepped aside and I walked to meet them.

  Latham lifted a hand, catching my shoulder in greeting and I did the same to him. “You’ve heard what’s happened.”

  “Just this morning.” His jaw clenched around the words. “I’m glad to see you, Halvard.” And I could see that he meant it.

  Freydis lifted a hand, touching my face. “Thanks to Thora.”

  I swallowed hard before I spoke. “I’m sorry.” I hoped they heard my meaning. That I wasn’t just sorry for the loss. I was sorry that I didn’t stop it. I was sorry that I’d failed to save even one of them.

  “Lag mund,” Latham answered and Freydis echoed, though the look in their eyes betrayed how much the pain of it struck them.

  It was the way of the elders to respond to death with “Fate’s hand.” They’d spent much of their lives reasoning away the losses of the fighting seasons. Saying good-bye to their families and their clansmen before running into battle. They were more practiced at loss than I was.

  I looked over my shoulder, searching for Asmund and Bard in the crowd. They were still mounted on their horses at the top of the hill. It had been years since the brothers had come home, and I hoped that the memories of this place wouldn’t drive them to disappear the way Kjeld had.

  “How long until they reach us?” Latham lowered his voice.

  “They’ll be in Hylli by tomorrow. We’re out of time.”

  “Their numbers?”

  A hush fell over everyone gathered around us and I tried to keep my voice even as I answered. “Greater than ours. I’d guess maybe eight hundred.”

  Latham looked to the ground, thinking. “The rest of our warriors will be here before morning. We’ll hold the ceremony tonight.” He turned back to the gate.

  “Ceremony?”

  He stopped midstride, looking back at me. “Espen’s dead, Halvard. The place of chieftain falls to you now.”

  I stared at him, not knowing what to say. But he surveyed me with a look that reminded me of Aghi, a bit of humor in his eyes. Since the day they’d told me I’d take Espen’s place, I’d never believed Latham supported the decision. He’d questioned me every step of the way. He’d argued with every decision. But now, in the darkest moment since the Herja came, with every eye on us, he didn’t hesitate to put his trust in me.

  “Come, there’s much to do.”

  I watched him walk away, the stares of the Nādhir so heavy on me that they seemed to pin me to the ground. I couldn’t move. I almost couldn’t breathe.

  Mýra gave me a small smile, her eyes still glistening as she held out an open hand to me. “Time to go, Halvard.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  TOVA

  The eastern valley opened like a new world unfolding.

  The sweet, familiar smell of pine faded, giving way to the cutting scent of spring, and the earth turned green beneath us as we left the borderlands. The fjord changed the land, rivers weaving like roots down the mountain on their way to the sea. It was different than the dense forests of Svell territory, where the land dropped off abruptly from crude cliffs into the wide, open water. Here, everything was hedged in, the coast curving up and around and the fjord holding Hylli like a mother holds her child.

  It was beautiful.

  The Svell were quiet as we moved through the fog in a dark horde of leathers and furs. Every whisper was snuffed out by the growing wind, pushing in from the sea where dark clouds gathered on the horizon. The first of the violent spring storms was on its way, just in time to wash the land of the blood that would be spilled in Hylli.

  The army slowed as we reached the hill that looked out over the fjord. The mist was still thick in the air, but it was there. The village sat on the water in the distance, only barely visible over the forest where the silver sea met the land in a crooked line.

  It was more like the headlands than Liera was. The memories of the place I was born were stretching into full visions more and more, and I could see them with more detail than I had even the day before. But the Kyrr were less clear, only the shape of the woman before the fire taking hold among the pictures of the village or the water. I blinked past the tears that sprang to my eyes when I thought of her. It pinched in the center of my gut, making me almost wish she hadn’t surfaced from the depths of my mind. Because whoever she was, she’d probably been the one to give me to the sea. And that was a moment I was afraid of remembering.

  The army slowed as we reached the other side of the hill. The tents were unrolled and the carts unloaded as the warriors settled in for a last night’s sleep before war. If they won the battle in Hylli, it would be followed by smaller ones on the mountain and in the bottomlands, until they’d scoured the territory of the Nādhir that called it home.

  Jorrund set the posts for our tent and I slid a corner of the canvas over them. I held it in place as he pounded a stake into the soft ground, but he didn’t meet my eyes. He hadn’t spoken to me since the night before, when I told him that we were wrong for the course we’d taken, and I wondered if I’d made an even greater mistake in telling him about my vision when I took the henbane. But it was hard to imagine that anything that would befall me could be worse than what had already happened. In fact, I no longer cared. The only thing that mattered to me now was keeping Halvard alive. I hadn’t listened to the Spinners when I left Liera with the Svell and I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. They’d placed Halvard like a star in the constellation that made up my fate, and I would find a way to end what I’d started. I had to.

  “This is an important night.” Jorrund
finally spoke, driving the last stake into the ground between us. “The eye of Eydis is watching and we need her favor to finish this.”

  I listened silently, pressing the tip of my finger against the blade of Halvard’s axe at my belt.

  “I know I can rely on you,” he said, getting back to his feet.

  He left me where I sat in the cool grass, the wind picking up the length of my skirt and lifting it into the air. I knew what he was asking. What he wanted. But I wouldn’t cast the stones for him again. Not ever.

  The tents popped up in neat rows on the hillside and the night fires were lit, making the camp come to life with orange light. Jorrund took a barrel from a cart as the Svell gathered in the dark, forming large rings around an open circle of green grass, and he held his hand out before me, nodding to Halvard’s axe at my hip.

  I gave it to him and watched as he used it to split the wood of the barrel’s top and the strong smell of pitch filled the damp air. He handed the axe back to me, his attention on the ground beneath his feet as he mapped it in his mind. Once every Svell man and woman was in place, he began in the very center of the circle, tipping the barrel forward until the pine tar spilled out in a thick, steady stream. He stepped backward slowly, careful to keep the line straight, and began painting the symbol onto the grass. The Svell watched him in the growing wind as he moved left around the circle and back in, the intricate pattern visible only to him.

  A larger barrel was cracked open on the back of a cart and the ale was poured until every Svell warrior had a horn to drink from. When Jorrund was finished, he stood at the north point of the hill, a lit torch in his hand. Every eye fell upon him, every word hushed as he lifted the flame to the sky.

  “Eydis!” he roared, the sound muted by the howl of the wind.

  I could see the trepidation in his eyes. I could hear the fear in his voice. But looking at the faces around me, I seemed to be the only one.

  “We call upon you! We ask for your protection and your favor as we take the fjord!”

  The wind whipped around him, the torch flame shifting violently, and every horn of ale lifted into the air except for mine. The jumbled shouts of the warriors all bled together, each man and woman calling out to an ancestor to request the use of their shield in battle.

  But there was no one I could call upon. No one who was listening. Instead, I made my plea to the Spinners. I asked for their forgiveness. I begged for their help.

  Every gaze cast upward to the darkening sky and they drank, ale trailing down beards and soaking into tunics. It was then that Jorrund dropped the torch at his feet and the flame caught the pitch, writhing over the grass in the paths he’d laid until the entire stave was afire.

  The Skjöldr.

  It was an ancient symbol, the shield of the fallen Svell warrior. And here, in the valley that overlooked Hylli, they were calling upon the spirits of the dead to fight alongside them on the battlefield.

  Beside me, Gunther’s face was illuminated by the flames of the burning Skjöldr, the empty horn still clutched in his hand.

  “Who do you call upon?” I asked, taking a drink of the sour ale.

  His expression turned suspicious at the question. “My son. Aaro.”

  I dropped my eyes, wishing I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry.”

  He said nothing, his gaze returning to the Skjöldr. The warriors stood around it, their horns still lifted in the air as they prayed, and I wondered if the people in Hylli could see it from the fjord.

  “What village do you come from?”

  “Hǫlkn,” he answered, more easily.

  Of course he did. Vigdis was the village leader of Hǫlkn and he’d asked Gunther to watch me because he trusted him. But even though he had the new Svell chieftain’s trust, Gunther hadn’t told him the truth after Utan. And though he hated me, he’d helped me before, too. There was more to his story than maybe even Vigdis knew.

  “You lied last night.”

  He stared ahead, his face unchanging.

  “Why did you tell Vigdis that you killed the Nādhir?”

  A woman came by with the barrel of ale, and Gunther held out his horn for her to refill. As soon as she moved down the line, he took a long drink. “Because that’s what he needed to hear. And I think you saved that boy’s life for a reason.”

  I froze, my teeth clenched, unsure if I’d heard him right. But when I looked back up, it was clear by the look on his face that he knew what I’d done. “You saw me?”

  “No, but I’m not a fool. I know the look of a man when he’s been dead for hours.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would you lie for me?”

  “I didn’t lie for you. I lied for them.” He tipped his drink to the circle of Svell before us.

  “You don’t want to fight the Nādhir, do you?” I took a chance in asking it. It had been painted on his face since we’d left the glade.

  “There’s no need to go looking for war. War is faithful to come looking for us time and again.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because my fealty is to the Svell.”

  “Even if they’re wrong?”

  He looked down at me then, his mouth pressing into a hard line. “You know as well as I do that this started when you cast the stones.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but I still recoiled at the words as he said them. I felt the weight of it in every bone. And looking at Gunther now, I wondered if he felt some of that weight, too. He was the one who’d helped me all those years ago. In a way, he’d kept me alive when most others wanted me dead. Maybe he regretted it now. Maybe he was paying penance.

  “I’m here to wield my blade at my clansmen’s side.”

  “I didn’t know this would happen,” I said, taking another drink.

  “If you can really see the future in the runes, then find a way to change it.”

  He met my eyes for a long moment and for an instant, I could see what lay there. The pain of someone who’d lost something. The wishing that things had turned out differently. He was old enough to be my father and I wondered if he had daughters my age at home in Hǫlkn, waiting for him. But there was also a loneliness in him that made me think that maybe he didn’t.

  Before I could say anything else, he moved back into the men behind him, leaving me alone. When I looked up, Jorrund watched me with the light of the fire aglow on his face.

  I found the string beneath my tunic and wound my finger into it, lifting the weight of the rune stones where they hung against my chest. I wanted to believe that the fate of the Svell was carved into the Tree of Urðr and that it wouldn’t change. That they’d somehow meet their end in Hylli. But I could hear it in the sudden silence of the sky. I could see it in the stillness of the Nādhir village glowing far over the forest. It didn’t matter what the stones said.

  Nothing was sure until death came.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  HALVARD

  I unclasped my armor vest and pulled it off, dropping it onto the table beside my tunic. The pain in my side reignited and I hissed as Mýra inspected it in the firelight. The infection had slowed, but it would be a weakness in battle. One I probably couldn’t afford.

  She cleaned it with a steaming cloth before she took my mother’s salve from the shelf and lathered it on, not bothering to be gentle. I groaned at her touch and when I looked down, I realized she was smiling. It was a punishment for making her worry. She glared at me from the top of her gaze, securing the bandage in place.

  Mýra had never been motherly in nature and though she’d had several lovers through the years, she’d never had children. Instead, she’d made my nieces her own, spending every afternoon of the last summer teaching Náli how to use a sword. Isla spent most of her days following Mýra around the village from morning to night.

  I had wondered many times if losing her entire family when she was younger was the reason she’d decided never to have one of her own. But together, we’d built our own kind of family. My mother and Aghi
had watched over the whole of us and I didn’t know what it would feel like to sit at the table without him now.

  I went to the wall and opened the heavy lid to the trunk we’d brought with us from the mountain ten years ago when we’d come to live in Hylli. My father’s armor sat neatly on top of the dress clothes, the iron and dark leathers so familiar to me. I still remembered watching his body turn to ash on the funeral fire, carried away by the smoke to the next world. Most of my memories of him were like pictures half scratched out, but others were so clear. It was his face that was most shadowed. As if the only life I’d ever really lived was here, on the fjord. As if the time before that never happened.

  Sometimes, I wondered if I’d even recognize him in the afterlife. But one moment had stayed with me even after so many others had disappeared. The day my father died was the day I’d first understood that death was coming for me. And I’d decided then that when it was here, I’d meet it willingly, the way he had.

  I pulled the clean tunic on and took my father’s armor vest into my hands, holding it before me. The leather gleamed in the low light, clean and oiled, and I fit it over my shoulders and buckled the clasps, tightening them until it pulled across my chest.

  Mýra’s eyes ran over me, almost sad as she stood back and surveyed me. “Let me help you.”

  She picked up the sheath from the table and stood up onto her toes to drop it over my head. “They would want to be here,” she said, her voice strained.

  “I know.”

  But I was glad that my mother, brothers, and Eelyn wouldn’t be standing in the ritual house to see me become chieftain. I wasn’t ready to face them and I didn’t know if I ever would be. The story of what happened in the glade was still one I wasn’t ready to tell. And more than that, my family knew me. Every fragile, unworthy thing that lay deep in my heart. I wanted to feel strong as I stood before the Nādhir. I wanted to believe that I was what Espen believed I was.

  “Are you ready?” Mýra asked, brushing her hands down the sleeves of my tunic.