The Girl the Sea Gave Back(36)

Vigdis and Siv were the last to appear. He marched toward us with Siv at his back, his chest heaving and his eyes cast up to me with the weight of a hundred stones. “They were waiting for us,” he growled.

“What?” Jorrund spoke beside me.

“They knew we were coming. They didn’t have a chance, but they knew.”

Siv’s gaze fell to the ground as she slid her axe back into its sheath. Even she couldn’t justify the massacre.

“And he wasn’t there.” Vigdis lifted his hand, rearing back and swinging his arm to slap me across the face.

I fell to the ground, my hands sliding over the wet soil as my mouth filled with blood. The entire side of my face ignited with sharp pain as I looked up. He stood over me, the full fury of his stare set on my face as I spit into the dirt, wiping the blood from my lip. “He has to be. I saw it.”

“You didn’t see anything. You lied to save yourself,” he spat.

“I swear to you,” I stammered, “he’s here.” I went to the edge of the tree line and looked down to the village gate. It was exactly as I’d seen it in the vision. “Or, he will be. I…”

“At dawn, we march to Hylli. If I don’t have his head in my hands, I’ll take yours instead.” He shoved into me as he stalked off into the darkness. “Stay with her,” he barked, meeting Gunther’s eyes as he pushed past him.

“I don’t understand,” I murmured, staring at the gate. I’d seen him there. So clearly. I’d heard the voice of the Spinners. My body still ached with the memory of it, the poison henbane throbbing beneath my skin.

“Tova, are you sure you…” Jorrund finally spoke.

“I saw it!” I shouted, my voice breaking.

They both looked at me, Gunther sliding his sword into its sheath. “Then, we wait.”

Jorrund untied his cloak and set it onto my shoulders but I pushed him away, going to stand at the edge of the ridge alone. I didn’t want his comfort. I’d just sentenced a defenseless village to die and if there was suffering to be had, I was deserving of it. The only difference between Vigdis and me was the mark of the eye on my chest.

The flames engulfed Utan below, and the bodies in the path lay still, a hollow silence falling over the cold forest. This is what Ljós must have looked like the night the Svell attacked. This is what would become of Hylli in only a matter of days, the sea inked red with Nādhir blood.

My hand went to the small leather purse against my chest, the runes tucked safely beside my heart. I wished I’d never cast them. I wished I’d never been found on that beach. A slow, frozen death adrift on the sea was better than this. It was kinder.

“If we don’t find him…” Jorrund said gently.

“It doesn’t matter,” I murmured, my voice hoarse.

“What doesn’t matter?”

“Any of it.”

“Why are you saying that? Of course it does.”

“It doesn’t matter if Vigdis has my head or if the Nādhir appears and cuts my throat himself.” I turned to look up at him, the tears now streaming down my face. “Because you’ve made me a bringer of death, Jorrund. And there’s no offering of reparation for a crime like that.”

“Tova.” He reached out to touch me, but I stepped out of his reach.

I blinked, breathing through the pain in my jaw from where Vigdis had struck me, the iron taste of blood on my tongue. It wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed, the truth scorching inside me with the burn of a blacksmith’s forge.

Hagalaz wasn’t only coming for the Svell. It was coming for me, too.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


HALVARD


I kept my head down as we flew through the trees, the pounding of hooves following behind me as the horses climbed the hill.

The Svell army had marched from Ljós in a horde, leaving the ground trampled into a soft pulp beneath us. Signs of them were everywhere, scraping over the trees and dragging through the brush. Their numbers had to be greater than what we’d seen only a day before and that thought made every muscle in my body wind tight as I pushed ahead. With their warriors called to Hylli days ago, Utan would have maybe thirty or forty of our people within its gates.

Thirty people against eight hundred.

I reached back and pulled the axe from my sheath, letting it fall against my leg and urging the horse faster. We found the worn path that carved down the mountain to the fjord and I fixed my eyes on the darkness ahead, waiting for the gate to appear in the trees. But I could already smell in the air what we would find there. Blood and ash scattered over the broken, fallen remains of a quiet inland village. We were too late.

As soon as the gate came into view, I pulled back on the reins and slowed, dropping from my horse and leaving it behind as I ran on foot to the nearest thicket. The horses reared back, stamping the ground nervously with their heads craning, and Asmund and Kjeld sank down beside me as I watched the forest.

Asmund clicked his tongue before he made his way across an opening in the trees and I followed him to the brush that crested the hill, overlooking the village. I got down, tracing the path from the gate to the ritual house with my eyes. There was no movement, but bodies were strewn in every direction, fallen in the dirt and inside the open doors of empty houses. The flames still worked at some of them, filling the entire village with smoke.