The Girl the Sea Gave Back(6)

Espen led us up the path, an eerie quiet dragging behind us and covering the village in our wake. Spring had melted most of the ice on the fjord, but the crisp tinge of it still cut through on the wind that blew in from the sea. Beyond the rooftops, the mountain rose before a clear gray sky. My family had spent the winter in the snow-laden village where I was born and they wouldn’t be back for weeks. But if war was coming, it would draw every Nādhir to the fjord in a matter of days.

Freydis, Latham, and Myra were already waiting when we came through the doors, their armor oiled and their weapons cleaned. Myra’s red hair glowed around her fair face like fire, twisting down into a tight braid over her shoulder. She was wound as tight as rope, ready to snap. Beside her, Espen’s wife stood before the altar, his axe sheaths in her hands.

He turned, taking them onto his back, and she buckled them as he spoke. “Tell me.”

“More than forty dead.” Freydis answered first. “They moved on Ljós in the night, about twenty or thirty warriors. A few survivors made it to Utan by morning and riders were sent, but the Svell were already gone.”

“How do we know it wasn’t raiders?”

“They’re dead, Espen.” Freydis’ voice faltered under the words. “All of them.”

I watched their faces, the silence falling heavy between us. If it was a band of raiders, the deaths would have been minimal. Whoever marched on Ljós had come for blood, not wool or grain or penningr.

Espen’s jaw worked as he thought. Once, the Nādhir had been two clans, both bigger and stronger than the Svell, who had been nothing more than a distant people in the eastern forests. They’d survived by avoiding notice. It was after the Herja came and our clans united that the Svell gained their strength and advantage. Now, they were finally ready to use it.

“They’ve sent a messenger,” Freydis said. “The Svell.”

“A messenger?”

“Their leader, Bekan, wants to meet. In Ljós. He wants to make an offering of reparation.”

Espen and Aghi looked to each other silently. Whispers of war had traveled across the valley for years. It didn’t make sense that their leader would make an offering of reparation after their first attack on a village. Unless attacking Ljós wasn’t Bekan’s act of war.

“It wasn’t Bekan,” I murmured, thinking aloud.

“What?” Freydis’ brow wrinkled.

I turned to Espen. “Bekan’s men moved without him.”

Myra’s head cocked to the side. “How do you know?”

“I don’t. But we’ve known for a long time that their leaders are divided. It’s the only reason they haven’t moved against us before now. I think Bekan’s men acted without him and he wants to put out the flames before he has to call the Svell to war.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s too late for that.” Latham spoke through his teeth.

The oldest leader among us, Latham had never shed his taste for a fight. And he’d never forgotten just how quickly you could lose everything. He’d been the first to urge a strike against the Svell when the first rumors made it to the fjord.

Freydis’ hand tightened around the hilt of her sword. “I can have every Nādhir warrior ready to fight in three days. We can take them village by village. The losses will be—”

“Too great,” I finished.

Myra’s eyes cut to mine, her mouth pressing into a hard line. I stood a whole head taller than her now, but she was still as ferocious as the day I first saw her marching into our village with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. “It’s a trap. They’re counting on the fact that we don’t want war. They’re trying to draw us in before they push to the fjord.”

“I’ll go,” I said, avoiding her gaze.

She stilled, her hand absently drifting to the axe at her back and her voice rising. “What?”

“I’ll meet with Bekan. They’d have taken at least two more villages by now if he was moving through the valley. He doesn’t want war any more than we do. I think he does want reparation.”

“You’re not giving orders yet, Halvard.” Latham spoke from where he stood beside me. His face was still engraved with the jagged scar from the battle that had crippled his en tire village. He’d spent the last ten years rebuilding it. “Forty of our people are dead. Blood must answer for blood.”

The leaders had been in agreement when they summoned me to the ritual house two years ago and told me I’d been chosen to take Espen’s place as chieftain of the Nādhir—the once warring, now allied people of the mountain and the fjord. Since then, my days had been spent preparing for it. But I’d never seen war the way my elders had. I was among the first generation that didn’t live to fight in a blood feud. And now, a wound that would never heal had been torn back open. I’d grown up the son of a healer, but no one could mend a break like that. And no one doubted me more than Latham.

“He’s here to speak like the rest of us,” Espen rebuked, reminding Latham of his place. He was the last person to hesitate drawing his sword, but he knew I was right. War with the Svell meant the same kind of losses we’d suffered ten years ago. Maybe more.

“Let me go,” I said again. “It will take at least three days to gather and ready our warriors. I can make it to Ljós and back in that time.”