The Girl the Sea Gave Back

by Adrienne Young

  I nodded, taking my father’s sword from the wall and sliding it into the sheath at my hip before we stepped outside. We walked through the village in silence, following the string of people already making their way to the ritual house in the dark. The drums beat like a steady heart, the glow of the altar fire blazing ahead, making silhouettes of the bodies gathered before the huge arched doorway.

  “Halvard.” Mýra stopped, her eyes lifted to the east.

  A feeling like cold water running in my veins reached around me as I saw it. The blazing stave afire on the hill in the distance. It was the Svell.

  “What is it?” She took hold of my arm.

  I didn’t know the symbol. The Svell were probably making sacrifices to their god in the valley, readying to march through the forest to Hylli. I shifted on my feet, the weapons at my side and at my back suddenly heavy.

  “It seems wrong,” I said, watching the stave glow in the darkness.

  “What does?”

  “To spend time on a ceremony. None of this will matter tomorrow.”

  “That’s why we have to do it.” She took hold of my vest. “If we’re going to fight, we have to know that we are still who we are. If we’re going to die, we have to know that we’re dying for something.” When I said nothing, she pulled me toward her. “What else?”

  I measured the words before I spoke them. It was something I’d never said aloud, only the faintest whispers in the back of my mind daring to ask the question. “What if they were wrong?”

  She stared at me, not understanding.

  “What if they were wrong to choose me?”

  She smiled sadly, her hand sliding into mine. “You’ve never seen it. You’ve never seen your own strength. You think that because you’ve never faced war that you aren’t strong. You’re wrong, Halvard.”

  She turned, pulling me with her as she walked toward the ritual house. It was already full, people spilling out the doors and into the paths that snaked through the village. They circled around the building, standing shoulder to shoulder, and at the sight of me, every voice quieted.

  The drums fell quiet and I stopped, standing beneath the archway, where the carved faces of Sigr and Thora looked down on us with wide, open eyes. The heat swelled in the silence, my boots hitting the stone the only sound as we made our way down the center aisle toward the altar. Mýra’s hand fell from mine before she disappeared into the crowd and ahead, Latham stood tall before the fire with the Tala and the other village leaders, their eyes fixed on me.

  I took my place before them, standing with my back to the room. The warm air was too thick, my heart racing beneath the tight, woven leathers of the armor vest. A bead of sweat trailed down my brow and I resisted the urge to wipe it, my hands resting on my belt.

  As the drums started again, the Tala began to sing and every voice joined him, filling the walls of the ritual house until it felt as if they were trembling around us. It was an old song, one that was engraved on the bones of the people long before they’d become the Nādhir. It told the story of the gods. Triumphs and defeats. Fate at the hands of the Spinners. The destinies carved into the Tree of Urðr. I sang the words, my voice bleeding into the others around me. Words I’d known by heart since I was a small boy.

  At the sound of the Kyrr god’s name, Naðr, the altar before me seemed suddenly to change, rippling in the firelight until a shape pulled together in the dim light. I could see her. The Truthtongue. The voices grew around me, making the room spin, and I closed my eyes, trying to erase the vision. But when I opened them again, she stood before the altar fire in her black linen dress, the mark of the eye on her chest wide open. Looking at me.

  When I blinked again, the sting of sweat in my eyes, she vanished, and the orange light filling the ritual house returned. I looked around us, searching the sea of faces for her, but she was gone.

  The Tala stepped forward, pulling a long, thin knife from his robes, and the village leaders stepped aside, leaving me to stand alone. I held out my hand and the Tala took it, lifting the blade between us. The voices continued to sing, rising louder as he shouted.

  “We ask you, Thora and Sigr, to entrust your people to Halvard, son of Auben.”

  I closed my fingers tightly around the blade and the Tala placed a wooden bowl beneath it before he pulled the knife in one swift motion through the wound I’d cut only the day before in Aurvanger. The hot blood poured freely, trickling out between my fingers and dripping into the bowl as the voices roared around us. When it began to slow, I pulled the strip of linen from my vest and bound it around my palm.

  The Tala lifted the bowl before him, chanting the ritual words before he handed it to me. I stepped forward into the line of village leaders and took my place before the multitude of warriors, all looking to me. I swallowed hard, stopping before Latham first.

  He stood tall, his chin lifted.

  “Latham, leader of Möor.” I kept my voice even. “Will you accept me? Will you follow and fight beside me?”

  He didn’t hesitate, a small smile igniting beneath his thick beard as he reached up, taking the bowl from me. His eyes didn’t leave mine as he raised it to his lips and took a drink, and then he was pulling me into him, wrapping his arms around me so tightly that I could hardly draw breath. I swallowed back the burn of tears in my eyes.

  “I will need you,” I said, before he let me go.

  He nodded. “Then you will have me.”

  Espen had been right about him. So had Aghi. And if Latham followed me, I knew they all would.

  He squeezed my shoulder before I moved to Freydis. Her pale face shined beneath a crown of red braids wound up around her head.

  “Freydis, leader of Lund. Will you accept me? Will you follow and fight beside me?”

  Her hands took the bowl from mine and she lifted it, taking a drink. She pulled me close, setting her chin onto my shoulder. “I will.”

  I moved down the line as she let me go, looking into the eyes of the men and women I’d grown up under. They were twice, some of them three times my age, and they had trusted Espen with not only their lives, but with the futures of their own families.

  Now, they were trusting me.

  As I stopped before Egil, the last village leader, a feeling like a faint whisper drew my eyes to the back of the ritual house, where the doors were still open to the night sky. And I knew before I saw. My breath caught in my chest as I found their faces among the others.

  My family.

  My brothers Fiske and Iri stood tall beside Eelyn beneath the archway, peering over the crowd. My mother came through the doors behind them, her eyes finding me, and her hand went to her mouth, her fingers pressed to her lips.

  I swallowed hard, my hands gripping tighter around the bowl to keep it from shaking. “Egil, leader of Æðra. Will you accept me? Will you follow and fight beside me?”

  He took the bowl as I looked back back to Fiske. He didn’t take his eyes from mine as his lips began to move around a prayer I couldn’t hear. Iri and my mother followed, but Eelyn stood frozen, the glistening of tears falling down her face visible even from where I stood. I knew that look on her, though I’d rarely seen it in the time I’d known her. She was made of iron and steel. She was the solid ice beneath my feet on the frozen fjord in winter.

  But in this moment, she was afraid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  TOVA

  The Skjöldr burned like a beacon in the night.

  I sat in the dirt before my cot, staring through the opening of the tent. Outside, the Svell gathered around smoking fires, drunk on ale and eating what would be for some of them a last meal. But Gunther still stood beside the door, his feet planted side by side and his shadow drawn onto the canvas.

  The foul smoke of the pitch on the grass still clung to me and I could only think that Hylli would smell the same in another day. I’d stood on the hill as the sun set, watching the Nādhir village disappear beneath the fog in the distance.

  I wondered if H
alvard was home now. I imagined him sleeping in his bed beside his family with the warmth of the fire and the sound of the sea. But if he was home, he wasn’t sleeping. The Nādhir would be preparing for a battle they couldn’t win. The battle I’d brought to the fjord.

  Being Kyrr on the mainland was like living as a ghost. A tormented spirit, left behind in the world of mortals to wander. When I closed my eyes, the same vision I’d had in Ljós when I took the henbane played in the darkness. The silver gray waters. The black rock that disappeared up into the mist that hovered over the sea. Careful hands working at my markings by candlelight and the soft, rasping hum of a song on a woman’s breath.

  Home. But even that wasn’t true. Because though the marks still stained my skin, the blood that ran through my veins was a stranger to me.

  Gunther’s boots shifted on the rocks outside and Jorrund’s voice lifted over the sound of the camp. He appeared in the opening a moment later. “Come, Tova. I need you.”

  But I knew what he needed. I’d known since an attack on Hylli was first ordered. He wanted me to cast the runes before battle. He wanted to paint my hands with blood again.

  “No.” The word was weak, and I didn’t even have the courage to look at him when it fell from my lips. It was the first time I’d ever said no to Jorrund. It was the first time I’d ever denied him anything at all.

  He stilled before me, speechless.

  “The last time I cast the stones, you killed every man, woman, and child in the glade and in Utan. I won’t do it again. Not ever. If you want to take Hylli, you’ll have to do it alone.”

  My fingers brushed over the axe head in my lap, tracing the shape of the yew tree etched into the shining steel. I wouldn’t do it to Hylli. And I wouldn’t do it to Halvard.

  “Tova…” Jorrund struggled to keep his voice even.

  “I told you.” I looked up at him from the top of my gaze. “This is a mistake.”

  But he couldn’t hear me. His face was twisted with his own thoughts, his mind racing. “I saved your life. I’ve treated you as my own.” He murmured, “I’ve given you everything.”

  “Everything except the truth,” I amended.

  His lips pulled back to reveal his teeth. “What?”

  “What did the Spinner tell you about me? Who am I?”

  “She told me nothing about you.”

  “Who am I, Jorrund?” I pressed. “Please.”

  “I don’t know!” He tucked his shaking hands into his robes, surprised by the flare of his own temper. He closed his eyes, breathing before he spoke again. “The only thing I know is that Eydis brought you to us. To me. I’ve told you the story.”

  “There’s something else. Something you’re not telling me. I’ve always known it. But I thought, in time … I thought I could trust you,” I whispered.

  “Tova.” His voice softened. “Listen to me.”

  “No.” I said the word again, and this time, it wasn’t small. It filled the air between us.

  A sharp glint flickered in his eyes like the strike of fire-steel. “I have done nothing but care for you since the day I found you on that half-burned boat. Your own people—”

  “What?” I rasped, his words trailing off in the sudden storm swirling in my mind. I got to my feet, my hands finding the rune stones. “What did you say?”

  “I said that all I’ve ever done is—”

  “You said half-burned boat.”

  “What? No, I…” He stumbled over the words, trying to pull them back away from me.

  But it was too late. “You never told me the boat was half-burned.”

  “I’ve told you about the boat a hundred times.”

  “You just said it was half-burned when you found me. You never told me that before.”

  “What does it matter?” He flung a hand at me. “Your people didn’t want you, Tova. They cast you off.”

  But something about those words didn’t feel right anymore, even though I’d said them a thousand times myself. I closed my eyes, seeing the water again. The silver stream of bubbles. A string of bones glittering in sunlight.

  That felt real.

  I held my hands out before me, my palms down so that the marks were between us.

  Yarrow and henbane. Life and death.

  I blinked, sending one hot tear down my cold cheek. If the boat was burned, it wasn’t holding a ritual sacrifice. It was a funeral boat. It had to be. The Kyrr hadn’t cast me out. They hadn’t given me up as an offering to Naðr.

  “I wasn’t a sacrifice.” I said it aloud, like an incantation.

  Jorrund’s jaw clenched, his voice tightening. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was a funeral boat, wasn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t burned, Tova. I said that by mistake. I burned the boat. Don’t you remember?”

  I did remember the flames on the beach. But I knew Jorrund’s face. Every wrinkle. Every edge of expression. It was the only face that ever dared to look into mine until the day I saw Halvard in the glade. And I could see the lie there more clearly than I’d ever seen it before. A broken smile lifted on my lips.

  I walked toward the opening of the tent but he stepped in front of me, his hands raised before him. “I’m sorry. Please, we have to—”

  “Move.” I leveled my eyes at him, my voice dropping low.

  “Tova…”

  I went around him, and Gunther looked up, watching as I walked straight for the forest. Jorrund called out, his voice echoing in the camp, and when I heard the sound of boots, I looked back to see silhouettes moving toward me. I picked up my skirts, clutching them to my chest, and ran into the trees. My breath fogged out in bursts and I tried to focus my eyes to see, but it was too dark. The shapes moved in the fog, making me feel like I wasn’t running in one direction. The forest whirled around me and I slammed into the trunk of a tree, my sleeve tearing as it caught on the bark. I ripped it free and didn’t look back as the voices drew closer, running with the glow of the camp behind me until I was wrenched back and I hit the ground hard.

  A man’s face appeared over me before he bent down low, lifting me back to my feet. He didn’t even look up as a sob cracked in my chest. His hand took hold of the neck of my tunic and he pulled me back toward the firelight. I stumbled over stones and roots until we were back in the camp, where Jorrund was waiting, Gunther beside him with an unreadable expression spread over his face.

  Jorrund started toward the meeting tent and the Svell jerked me toward it, following. He shoved me inside and I toppled forward, sliding on the ground. My palms scraped against the dry, cracked mud and when I looked up, Vigdis stood before the table, his eyes cast down on me. Without pause, he took the knife on the table into his hand.

  “You’ll cast the stones, or you’ll lose that hand.” He pointed to the bloodied fist clenched in my lap. “And then you’ll read them anyway.”

  Hot tears burned in my eyes and I sniffed them back, refusing to let them fall. Jorrund looked down at me with a strange, unfamiliar expression. Guilt. Or maybe pity. His gaze fell down to my dirty dress, my scraped hands, and for a moment, I thought he would come to me. Wrap his arms around me and say he was sorry. But he didn’t.

  “You’re a cursed soul from a cursed people. You should have died as the gods willed it, but Jorrund and my brother were foolish and weak. You’re the sickness that took my niece’s life and you’re the blade that took my brother’s.” Vigdis spoke calmly, the sound of his voice unnerving. “For as long as you are useful, I will keep you alive. The moment you fail to be of value, I will end your life and give you back to the gods.”

  His gaze fixed on the open collar of my tunic, where the eye was marked onto my skin. But I looked straight at him, praying that if there was any misfortune to be had beneath my gaze, that it would fall on him tenfold. I summoned the darkest work of the Spinners, imagining Vigdis dead on the battlefield, drowned in his own blood. I pulled the vision to the front of my mind, the burn of every hope inside me lighting it afl
ame.

  As if he could hear the thoughts, he suddenly stepped back from the table and the others followed, their backs pressed to the walls of the crowded tent. Jorrund looked at me pleadingly, one hand reaching out and beckoning me forward. I gritted my teeth, one traitorous tear rolling from the corner of my eye, and stepped forward.

  I pulled the stones from around my neck as Jorrund turned the elk skins over to use as a pelt. He was careful, moving slowly as if I was a bird about to take flight. But in my heart, I’d already flown away from Jorrund and every lie he’d ever told me. I was gone. And I was never coming back.

  I opened the purse and my skin flushed hot under my tunic, the fury engulfing me. There was no ritual smoke, no sacred words. This time, I spoke them in my heart, with more fervor than I’d ever asked the Spinners for anything before.

  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.

  They filled me up, coiling around my spirit. They snaked between each bone and thought. And when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t the Svell’s future I asked for. It was Halvard’s. I saw his face in the dark beneath the gates of Utan. I could still feel the tingle of his blue eyes on my skin, like the sting of the coal clutched in my burned fingers.

  The rune stones dropped from my hand and hit the table one skittering knock at a time. I was afraid to look. Afraid to see what curse I’d brought upon him and his people. But when I looked down at the pelt, my hands froze out before me. My head tilted to the side, my fingers curling into my palms until my fingernails bit the tender broken skin.

  Three stones. The first, Sowilo. I let out a long breath.

  The sun. Victory. Honor. Hope.

  I smiled, another tear falling. The rune stared up at me like a wide, opened eye.

  But beside it was Thurisaz, the thorn. So the path wasn’t clear. There would be great difficulty. And above, Tiwaz, the sacrifice of self.

  Jorrund stepped closer, his eyes straining as he looked over the table. “This is good, isn’t it?” he whispered.