The Girl the Sea Gave Back(56)

“I’m sorry.” I spoke into Eelyn’s hair through a strangled whisper as she cried.

Iri squeezed tighter before he let us go and when I looked up, a tear streaked the side of his face, running into his blond beard.

“Halvard.” My mother’s voice sounded beside me and I looked up to see her face.

She’d been crying, but her eyes were set on me with her usual strength. Maybe because she was a healer. Or maybe because she’d lost my father so long ago. But she always seemed better able to face loss than the rest of us, her faith in the gods stronger than everyone else’s combined. The silver streaked through her hair in thick, pleated strands and she smiled as she reached for me, tucking me into her with her hand stroking my hair. I kissed her cheek, trying to meet her eyes reassuringly. But I was barely holding myself together and she knew it.

“How did it happen?” Iri asked the question and everyone went quiet, waiting for my answer.

Aghi wasn’t only the last of any blood family Iri and Eelyn had. He was the anchor of the one we’d all built together after the Herja came. And now, he was gone. I didn’t know what that meant. What that made us.

Eelyn wiped at her face with the back of her hand before she sat down. “Were you with him?”

I nodded, trying to swallow back the tears that were brimming. I’d imagined their faces a hundred times as I told them what happened in the glade. But the pain of it was so much harsher here, outside of the walls of my mind. “He was killed in a glade outside of Ljós. Brought down by a knife in his chest.” I breathed. “I was with him. I was with him until…” But I couldn’t finish, the memory of his blue, glistening eyes on the sky so clear that it snatched the breath from my lungs.

Eelyn nodded, her hand winding tightly into her braid.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, crouching down before her. “I convinced them to go. Latham and Myra were against it, but I convinced Aghi and Espen. I was—”

“Stop, Halvard.” Fiske cut me off, his voice firm. “He died honorably. That’s all that matters.”

Eelyn leaned forward, setting her hand on top of mine, and Iri nodded before he took a bottle of ale from the shelf on the wall and set cups onto the table. He filled them as I sat down beside Eelyn, my arm pressed to hers. My brothers took their own seats across from us and the door creaked again as Myra stuck her head inside, a hesitant smile on her lips. She closed the door behind her and found a seat on the other side of Eelyn, sliding her arm around her waist and pouring herself a cup of ale. “Runa?”

“She stayed in Fela,” Iri answered.

I was glad. Both Fiske’s and Iri’s children would be safe with her up on the mountain with plenty of time to leave if the Svell came. But it didn’t feel like home without my nieces Náli and Isla here. And it didn’t feel like our family without Aghi sitting beside us, his bad leg stretched out to the side of his stool and one elbow set on the table.

My eyes drifted to his empty seat, where I could still see him hunched over a steaming bowl of whatever my mother had made for supper. We ate like that almost every night, all of us together with the girls perched like little owls beside me.

“Tomorrow?” Fiske looked to me.

“Tomorrow. They’re already camped in the valley.”

“How many?” The air changed, the softness leaving their faces as it was replaced by the fight that lay deep inside them.

“We’re not sure. Maybe eight hundred.”

The number’s weight fell heavily between us. The odds weren’t good, but my brothers, Eelyn, and Myra had faced bad odds before. When they defeated the Herja, they’d been outnumbered.

“What’s our plan?” Fiske asked.

“We’ll either meet them in the bottomlands or we’ll try to keep them in the forest. Once they get past the tree line, they’ll have the advantage and it will be a quick end.” I stared into my cup. Really, it was only a matter of how long it would take them. “If we can take enough down before they reach the clearing, it will be a better fight out in the open.”

I watched as Iri and Fiske both nodded in approval.

“You looked handsome up there,” Eelyn said, changing the subject with a half smile almost reaching her reddened eyes.

“You looked scared. White as a goat headed for slaughter.” Fiske laughed into his cup and Iri followed before I reached across the table and shoved him, sending his ale sloshing.

He tipped the cup back, still laughing.

Myra set her chin into her hand, watching us. “Aghi would have been very proud.”

“He would have.” Iri refilled his cup. “It was a good death, Halvard. It was a death he’s wanted for a long time.”

I wanted to believe it, but only part of me did. I knew he would be proud to die for his people, but I also knew that he had more years to live. He had more to teach me.

“He felt left behind by our mother.” Iri sounded suddenly tired. “When the Herja came the first time and she died in the raid, he was haunted by it. He thought he should have died protecting her. But Sigr preserved him and he’d always been angry about that. Now, he’s in the afterlife with her, waiting for us.” He reached across the table for Eelyn’s hand and she took it, laying her head onto Myra’s shoulder.

The quiet returned until a soft rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Before he was the man I’d met in Fela, Aghi was a husband who’d lost a wife and never found love again. He was a father who’d raised his children alone. Then, he’d helped lead both clans into one people. It was hard to imagine him as anything other than the warrior that went running to the center of battle in the glade. At times, I had wondered if Aghi and my mother would find love again in each other, but they’d both been alone too long, content with only friendship.