The Girl the Sea Gave Back(30)

“The Kyrr never come to the mainland. In all the years I’ve traveled with Aghi or taken boats out on the fjord, Kjeld is the only one I’ve ever seen. How did he end up here?”

“I don’t know the whole story.” Asmund shrugged. “In fact, I know almost nothing.”

“What part do you know?”

He slowed, letting Kjeld pull farther ahead until he was almost invisible against the dark trees. “Only that I don’t think he was cast out from the Kyrr like people say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I think he wasn’t made to leave. That he chose to.”

Kjeld leaned back as the horse’s gait stuttered on the slope, guiding it around the current. It didn’t make any sense. The Kyrr were feared by every clan on the mainland. He couldn’t have thought he’d find a new life among us. “Why do you think that?”

“Three winters ago, a man came looking for him,” Asmund whispered.

“A Kyrr?”

He nodded. “He found our camp on the south side of the mountain just after the first snowfall and at first, I thought he was there to kill him. That maybe he’d come to act on a blood feud or carry out a sentence Kjeld had outrun.”

“What happened?”

“He wasn’t there to take him. He was pleading with him to come back.”

My gaze drifted back to Kjeld. His long blond braid ran down the center of his back, the black marks spreading up out of his tunic and wrapping around his neck. He was at least the age of my brothers, probably older, and he could have a family he’d left behind in the headlands. Or maybe he was like Asmund and Bard, and left because he’d lost something.

“I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Kjeld refused to return with him. The man left and never came back.”

It seemed that no one would leave their home and their people if they weren’t made to, but I knew that wasn’t true. It looked as if Asmund was thinking the same. He and Bard had done just that after the Herja came. Nothing made the burden of that pain easier to bear, but to some, going where no one knew the story was worth the loneliness it brought. I’d once asked Asmund if leaving the fjord had brought him peace. His answer was that it was only a different kind of pain. One that was a little easier to live with.

“Do your brothers know where you are?” Asmund asked.

“If they don’t already, then they will soon.”

He’d known Fiske and Iri as long as he’d known me, so he could guess what their reactions might be when they found out I’d gone. If I wasn’t back in Hylli by the time they got there, they’d be scouring the forests for me, their blades soaked with the blood of every Svell they found. And Fiske’s wife, Eelyn, would be with them. The only thing that burned hotter than the fury in Aghi’s daughter was her love.

I swallowed hard as her face lit in my mind. When I saw her, I’d have to tell her about Aghi, and the thought almost made me hope that they would reach Hylli before me and that news of the glade would be there waiting for her.

Asmund cut to the right and I followed, watching the emptiness around us. He’d been quiet since we’d left his brother and I knew he was worried, even if he wouldn’t say it. Bard was the last blood that remained of their family.

“You know you don’t have to do this,” I said.

“What?”

“I can get back to Hylli on my own. I’m not your chieftain.”

“You’re my friend.”

I looked at him, but he kept his eyes ahead. After the Herja came, friends had become family because so many families were broken. But Asmund hadn’t considered himself Aska or Riki or Nādhir in a long time. “You know you can stay, don’t you?”

He looked up at me then, his brow pulling. “Stay?”

“You know you can come back to Hylli. Whenever you want.” I wasn’t giving him permission and I wasn’t asking him to fight. But I wondered if he knew. If he thought he couldn’t undo what he’d done. “There’s a place for you, if you want it.”

“I know that. But I can’t go back.”

He didn’t look at me as he kicked his heels into the horse, riding ahead. The river curved again and we moved to the right side of the water as the left side deepened. I knew what he meant. Fighting and living were two different things. But in the span of three days, everything had changed. And I wondered if the future of the Nādhir was changing again, like it had ten years ago. Maybe we’d outwitted fate and it was coming back for us now. Maybe the gods Sigr and Thora had remembered their taste for war.

Again, the feeling of someone’s eyes on me crawled over my skin and I pulled the reins back sharply, stopping. The water rippled against the horse’s legs, moving around us like liquid moonlight, and I studied the forest with the breath held in my chest until my eyes caught sight of a figure in the dark. My hand lifted to my axe and I focused my eyes, watching it move in the shadows. It seemed to float, disappearing behind one tree and then reappearing behind another.

Kjeld stopped ahead, turning back.

“What is it?” Asmund called out.

“There.” I pointed toward the trees, trying to focus my eyes in the dim light, and my hand fell from the handle of the axe as I realized. It was a girl.

“I don’t see anything,” Asmund said, his horse splashing in the water as he made his way back to me.