The Girl the Sea Gave Back(4)

I stopped midstride when I saw the gleam of eyes set upon me. They were faces I recognized, but half of them were smeared with dried blood, streaks of mud painted across their armor. The Svell village leaders had been called in and from the looks of it, some of them had seen battle.

“Come, Tova.” Jorrund spoke lowly.

I looked from him to the others, my hand instinctively going to the leather purse beneath my tunic, where the stones were tucked safely against my heart. I knew what they wanted, but I didn’t know why and I didn’t like that feeling.

Their stares lifted from me as Jorrund led me to a corner and took his place at Bekan’s side. The Svell chieftain didn’t acknowledge my presence. He hadn’t since the last time I’d been brought here in the middle of the night to cast the stones for his daughter’s life.

But it was something else that drew the fury on Bekan’s face now. He cast it upon his own leaders, something I’d seen more and more in the last years as the clans to the east unified. The shift in power had put the Svell at odds, and every year that Bekan didn’t declare war only fed the division. The splinter that had wedged itself between the Svell was widening.

“You haven’t left me a choice. Already a day and a half has passed. News will have reached them by now.” His voice raked as he leaned forward to catch the eyes of his brother, Vigdis.

I’d seen the brothers argue many times, but never in front of the other village leaders. Jorrund, too, looked as if the sight unnerved him.

“You’ve always been foolish, brother,” Bekan growled. “But this…”

“Vigdis acted when you wouldn’t.” A woman’s voice rose in the shadows behind the others and the chill of the storm seemed to suddenly rush back into the room, despite the blazing fire.

Bekan’s black eyes glinted. “We act together. Always.”

I watched the others, studying the way their hands sat ready at their weapons, their muscles wound tight. All twelve of the Svell villages were represented, and more than half of the faces bore the evidence of a fight. Whatever mess they’d made, they’d done it without Bekan’s consent. And that could only mean one thing—that the blood on their armor belonged to the Nādhir.

“Tell me exactly what happened.” Bekan rubbed a hand over his face and I wondered if I was the only one who could see that he was a man coming apart at the seams. It had only been two full moons since his only child, Vera, died of fever. Every day that passed since then seemed to only cast a darker shadow upon him.

Vigdis lifted his chin as he answered. “Thirty warriors, including myself and Siv. We took Ljós in the night.”

The leader of Stórmenska stood beside him, her thumbs hooked into her armor vest. “At least forty dead, all of them Nādhir, from what we could tell.” She spoke carefully, measuring her words. Five years ago, they would have been her last. But now, the village leaders were united in what they thought should be done about the growing threat to the east and the ground the Svell chieftain stood on was crumbling.

“They are most likely calling in their warriors this very moment.” Jorrund took a step closer to Bekan, his clasped hands before him.

“Let them.” Vigdis eyed his brother. “We will do what we should have done long ago.”

“Your fealty is to me, Vigdis.”

“My fealty is to the Svell,” he corrected. “It’s been more than ten years since the Aska and the Riki ended their blood feud and joined together as the Nādhir. For the first time in generations, we are the most powerful clan on the mainland. If we want to keep our place, we have to fight for it.”

The silence that followed only confirmed that even the most loyal among them agreed, and Bekan seemed to realize it, his eyes moving over them slowly before he answered. “War has a cost,” he warned.

“Perhaps it’s one we can pay.” Jorrund leaned in closer to him, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. The scales had finally tipped out of Bekan’s favor. He either agreed to advance on Nādhir territory or he risked a permanent division among his own people.

The others grunted in agreement and Bekan’s gaze fi nally found me in the dim light. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

Jorrund gave me a tight nod, taking a basket from where it hung on the wall behind him. I stepped into the light, feeling the eyes of the Svell leaders crawl over the marks on my skin. They moved aside, careful not to touch me, and I took the pelt from the basket as Jorrund murmured a reverberating prayer beneath his breath.

“You tempt the wrath of Eydis, keeping that thing here,” Vigdis murmured.

The chieftain’s brother had been the only one to say aloud what I knew the rest of them were thinking. That Bekan’s daughter, Vera, had died because of me. When Jorrund brought me to Liera, many said that Bekan would pay a price for the grave sin of letting me live. The morning Vera woke with fever, there were whispers that his punishment had finally come. The Spinners had carved her fate into the Tree of Urer, but I was the one to cast the stones.

Jorrund ignored Vigdis, setting a bundle of dried mugwort into the flames. The pungent smoke filled the room with a haze, making me feel like for a moment, I could disappear. It wasn’t the first time a Svell had referred to me as a curse, and it wouldn’t be the last. It was no secret where I’d come from or what I was.