The Girl the Sea Gave Back(19)

I tried to hear their words, watching Bekan’s lips move, but the hum in the glade was now a guttural roar, drowning out everything else. When a shadow moved over the grass at my feet, I looked up to the sky, where the nighthawk was soaring over us against the glare of the sun. Its spotted feathers gleamed across its wingspan as it tilted, coming back in a circle above us.

I blinked, a sharp breath catching in my throat.

The buzzing stopped.

“The All Seer,” I whispered, stepping forward.

This was wrong. Something was wrong.

“What?” Jorrund’s hand found my wrist, pulling me back.

But it was too late. Sunlight gleamed on the blade of the sword in Vigdis’ hands and I looked to Bekan just as Vigdis spoke words I couldn’t hear. In the next breath, he was pulling the sword back behind him and driving it forward with a quick step, catching Espen’s gut.

My mouth dropped open, my eyes going wide, but Jorrund was already pulling me away, walking with quick steps back toward the trees and towing me behind him.

“Wait,” I cried, pulling against him as the Nādhir chieftain fell to his knees. “Wait!”

I freed my hand, pushing back into the tall grass, but Jorrund wrapped his arms around me. “Tova!”

Every blade lifted in the clearing and the full-throated screams of the clansmen ripped open the silence around us as we made it to the cover of the forest. I wrenched free of Jorrund’s grasp again, turning on him. “You didn’t,” I whispered, searching his eyes. “Please say you didn’t…”

But the traitorous answer was there on his face. He’d betrayed Bekan. He’d sided with Vigdis against the chieftain and sanctioned his betrayal. “You have to trust me.”

“How can I?” I shouted. “Bekan trusted you and look what you’ve done!”

“You saw it!” His voice rose. “Destruction is coming for the Svell. We have to act. Now.”

I looked back to the clearing, where battle was spreading across the grass, painting everything red. Swords and axes swung and warriors fell, Vigdis driving the charge to the far side of the glade. I pressed my fingers to my lips, watching as the the fallen Nādhir chieftain stopped moving. He lay facedown, the tip of the jeweled sword reaching up to the sky from his back.

And then without even realizing it, my gaze moved away from him, looking for the young Nādhir with the pale eyes. The one who’d met my gaze. I searched the running bodies for the red leathers, but there were too many and they were moving too fast. My chest tightened around my breath as I realized he’d probably already been killed. But just as I thought it, he appeared, standing up out of the tall grass and setting his eyes on Bekan. He walked with heavy steps, blood smeared across his throat, a knife clutched in his hand.

Bekan threw his axe but missed, and the Nādhir broke into a run, launching himself forward to tear across the grass toward the trees.

The shadow of the nighthawk slid over us again.

“This is wrong,” I whispered.

Bekan made it to the forest but the Nādhir was too fast. I knew what was going to happen the moment he stepped into the shade of the trees. It was too late. The Nādhir drove his knife into Bekan’s arm and when he toppled backward, I closed my eyes, flinching when I heard the hollow pop of the knife plunging into Bekan’s chest.

Jorrund gasped beside me, his hand flying to his open mouth.

The Svell chieftain was dead.

And when I opened my eyes, looking up to the clear blue sky, where the thin spread of clouds was pulling in delicate lines, the All Seer was suddenly gone.

Vigdis screamed in the distance, his face broken in two as his eyes found his brother. And then they were running. All of them.

And it reignited—the sound. It rose around us, filling the forest until I could feel the pulse of it under my skin.

The young Nādhir stood, his hands hanging heavily at his sides, his chest rising and falling beneath his armor vest. He took a step, hitching to one side, and when he looked down, he stilled. Blood seeped from a tear in his vest where a blade must have cut him.

He was the only Nādhir left standing and I watched the realization sink into his face, his chest heaving with breath as every Svell in the glade ran toward him. The swarm of bees in my head screamed, ringing in my ears. I pinched my eyes closed against it and when I opened them again, arrows were flying. But not from the glade. From the forest.

They dropped the Svell one by one and three riders appeared in the trees, their mouths open as they shouted at the Nādhir. He ran toward them, his hand pressed to his side, and more arrows whistled through the air as they shot them one after the other, finding their marks in the distance.

My heart stopped as my eyes landed on a set of pale hands clenched around a bow in the trees. Hands covered in black marks. I blinked, stepping forward out of a beam of bright sunlight, but this was no vision. A man covered in the marks of the Kyrr was crouched low over his horse, pulling another arrow from his back as the Nādhir ran.

I opened my mouth to call out, but no sound came. The beats of my heart tangled up, skipping so fast that my vision began to blur. The Kyrr man dropped the bow over his head as the Nādhir pulled himself up onto one of the horses and I held onto the tree beside me as they took off, disappearing into the forest.

And when I finally turned back searching for Jorrund, he stood frozen in the trees, his horrified gaze still fixed on the bloodied body of the Svell chieftain.