The Girl the Sea Gave Back(67)

I reached beneath the leathers and touched the opened wound, where the skin had been torn back open. My hand went to the wet earth as I plunged the sword into the ground and leaned into it, trying to stand.

The glimmer of jewels shone ahead but my vision blurred. I shook my head until I could see the amber stone set into the hilt of a sword. The offering of reparation lay beside Vigdis’ body in the distance. I stared at his wide frame, the side of his face pressed to the mud and his dark eyes open.

“Halvard!”

On the other side of the fire, Iri stood, watching me. Most of the warriors had pushed farther into the forest, leaving the ground littered with bodies and weapons beneath us. Iri stepped over the last of the flames and held a hand out to me. But as I went to take it, the horn in Hylli blew. The sound echoed up the hill and Iri turned back toward the village.

I dragged my feet under me, standing as the black pushed in around my mind. From above, Hylli looked empty, the last of our warriors fighting behind us in the trees. Only a few figures stood on the beach below, turned to the fog on the water.

“What is it?” Iri stopped beside me, speaking between breaths.

The ridge fell quiet, every eye turning to the sea, and I froze when I saw it, the breath binding up in my chest.

Boats.

Marked, white-sailed boats emerged from the fog like spirits, their serpent-head prows floating toward the rocky shore.

Iri muttered a curse and suddenly, my mind sharpened, my pulse evening as I searched for an explanation. It was the Kyrr. It had to be.

I took a step toward the edge of the ridge as the boats berthed on the sand one after the other. And then bodies were spilling from the wide, oiled hulls. Silver furs and twisted locks and open-throated screams covered the beach until they swallowed it whole. I watched as they tore through the village, headed for the forest, and I could see the marks. Covering every single one of them.

The Kyrr ran with their weapons drawn and painted shields lifted. They filled every path, wound around every corner, and there was a silence behind us, the echo of fighting snuffed out before the Svell retreat whistle sounded.

The painted warriors reached the hill outside the village gate and they didn’t stop. More boats appeared from the wall of mist and more bodies jumped into the gray water. They flew toward us, blades shining, and I lifted my sword, sinking low into my feet to get ready. Iri did the same beside me and the Nādhir fell back to the slope, re-forming what was left of our line.

I pulled in a breath, tightening my grip on the hilt as they closed in. The Kyrr’s long, twisted manes flew out behind them as they ran and I reared back, ready to catch the first one that reached me.

But they didn’t.

The flood of Kyrr parted, moving around us, toward the Svell scrambling back toward the valley. I stood, lowering the sword and watching as they engulfed the forest where bodies covered the ground, as if the storm had rained down the dead. The lightning struck again, the flash blinding me, and I could feel it—the thin veil between worlds thick with spirits in the air. In a matter of seconds, the Kyrr seemed to conjure that space between life and death.

I thought I was imagining it. The Nādhir looked to me, waiting for an order, but the Kyrr weren’t here for us. I walked into the trees and stopped midstride when I saw them gathering in rings in the distance.

Tova stood like a statue, her eyes wide as the Kyrr encircled her. She disappeared behind rows of warriors and her name formed silently on my lips, the sword slipping from my fingers. It hit the ground and I didn’t think before I was running after them, disappearing into the mass of Kyrr.

I called her name again as I got closer and a hand caught hold of me, wrenching me back. I swung my fist, catching the man in the jaw, and he took the hit, stumbling back. But when he looked up at me, I blinked the rain from my eyes, confused. “Kjeld … what…?”

He wiped the blood from his lip before he looked back over his shoulder toward the sound of a woman’s voice shouting on the slope. I pushed past him, trying to see over the heads in front of me. The Nādhir stood holding their weapons, watching warily as a line of Kyrr marched up the path from the village gate. A woman in a red tunic appeared below it, her wide eyes searching the hill. The black pushed in again, my legs weak as the world spun around us, and I pressed my hand into the bleeding wound beneath my vest until I was groaning against the pain.

“Don’t speak,” Kjeld warned, meeting my eyes. “I mean it, don’t say a word.”

He stepped in front of me and raised a hand into the air as the swarm of Kyrr moved up the slope. The woman’s white-painted face was aglow, her eyes pinned on me.

“Where is she?”





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


TOVA


I looked into the faces of the Kyrr around me, trembling. Bone necklaces hung beneath their necks, pale gray furs draped around their shoulders over marked skin. The rain carved lines down their painted faces, making it look as if they were going to dissolve into thin air, right before my eyes. And for a moment, I thought they might. My gaze lifted to the sky and then down to my hands, and I wondered if I was dead. If I’d crossed into the afterlife.

But the feeling of eyes running over my marks brought me back and I clutched my last arrow to my chest, where my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my entire body.

A woman’s voice rose above the others and the flash of a red tunic appeared in the distance. She pushed through the warriors until I could see her face and I gulped in a breath, the sight of her making the tremor in my hands erupt. She stood before me, staring, her tunic turned the color of blood in the rain.