The Girl the Sea Gave Back(60)

“If I die fighting for my people, it will be a good death. The gods will honor it. I’ll go to the afterlife with my father.”

Her head tilted, her eyes glinting, as if she could see something in mine.

“I’m not afraid,” I said, my voice deepening.

She stepped closer to me, her hand sliding down my arm to my wrist. “Halvard…” she whispered.

The sound of my name spoken in her voice made me pull free of her, my fingers twitching to go back for my knife. I didn’t like the feeling it sent running through me. It sounded like an incantation on her lips.

“What’s your name?”

She smiled, and a feeling like thread being pulled between my ribs made it hard to breathe. “Tova.”

“Why do you care what happens to us, Tova?”

“Because our fates are bound. They’re tied together,” she whispered.

I’d begun to think the same thing. I didn’t know why, but there was a pull between us. A draw that kept bringing me back to that moment in the glade. “What does that mean?”

She looked at me for a long moment, thinking. “I don’t know. But you’re not supposed to die tomorrow. I’ve seen it.” She dropped her hand, leaving only the sting of her touch behind on my skin.

“In the stones?”

She nodded. “Yes, in the stones.”

“So, you’ve switched sides because of what the runes told you?”

“I left the Svell because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’m supposed to be here.” The tears in her eyes glimmered in the dark. “I didn’t know when I read the runes that the Svell would move against the Nādhir. I didn’t know any of this would happen.”

“But it did.”

“I know.” She breathed through the hitch in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she said again, her knuckles going white as her hands tangled together.

Behind her, the forest was empty. As soon as the Svell knew their Truthtongue was gone, someone would likely come looking. But by then, battle would have begun.

I stared down into the black water below, watching the water curl white before it hit the rocks and was swept back out into the sea. I had no interest in the stones or the rendering of the future. But she’d been with the Svell. She’d seen them fight and knew their numbers. I wasn’t stupid enough to not accept her help.

But buried beneath those thoughts was another one that I didn’t want to admit to. I didn’t want to tell her to go. Now that she was here, I didn’t want her to leave.

Her finger traced the line of the cut through the stalk of yarrow on her hand and I realized that she was waiting for my answer. She stood so still that it looked as if she wasn’t even breathing.

Tova wasn’t only trying to save me. She was trying to save herself.

“I can cast the stones for the Nādhir. I can—”

“No.” I didn’t let her finish.

Her brow pulled, her eyes narrowing as she looked up at me. “You don’t want to know?”

“No.” I turned into the wind, not waiting for her to follow. “If I’m going to fight, I need to believe that we can win.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


TOVA


The light of the sun was still buried deep behind the horizon when Hylli came into view.

I followed Halvard up the path, my eyes on his back as he walked. He was stripped of his armor, the tunic stretched over his broad shoulders and his hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of his neck. There was a moment on the cliff when I thought he would turn me away, but the same feeling that had flooded me in Utan was now leading me into Hylli.

The shore that hugged the land looked a bit like the ones outside of Liera, but there was something different about this place. The mountain rose up before the fjord as if the gods were perched there, watching over the little village.

It was beautiful. It was a home.

I’d only heard a few stories about the gods of the Nādhir. I’d heard even less about the god of my own people, Naer. But there were some things that were true about every god, making them all feel familiar. And Hylli felt that way. Like a place I’d somehow forgotten.

“I want to see the Kyrr who was with you in Utan,” I said, quickening my steps to keep up with him.

“He’s not here.”

I stopped beneath the gate. “What?”

“He’s gone.” He finally turned to face me. “How do you know him?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. And if he was gone, I would probably never know. I looked up to a string of bones hung from the beam set onto the posts. They swung gently in the wind overhead. “Who was that?”

Halvard stood in the middle of the path; his eyes lifted to the arch before they fell back down to me. “The last people who tried to take this place from us.”

The Herja.

He walked into the fog and I followed, the shape of houses surfacing to my left and right before Halvard stopped at a wood plank door that was windblown gray. He opened the door and disappeared inside, where the sound of voices was suddenly cut short.

Firelight spilled onto the ground before me and the smell of herbs rolled out into the night air. I stepped over the threshold carefully, looking around the large house. Two men worked over a pile of leathers at the table and Halvard picked up an armor vest from a trunk, dropping it over his tunic.