The Girl the Sea Gave Back(7)

Myra glared at me from across the fire, her green eyes sharpening. “If he’s going, I’m going.”

“You’re staying here,” Aghi grunted. He was the only father either of us had, but Myra wasn’t one to take orders. “I’ll go with Halvard.”

She opened her mouth to object, but Espen spoke before she could. “So will I.”

Freydis looked to Latham, stiffening. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Her voice turned wary.

“We’ll take twenty warriors. Latham and Freydis, you will call in the villages. Ready our people for war. Myra will do the same here in Hylli.”

But Freydis didn’t look sure and neither did Latham.

“We leave at sundown.” Espen squeezed my shoulder.

I nodded, stepping back as he made his way to the doors. His wife followed and as soon as they were gone, Latham turned toward me. He’d never hidden his uncertainty about my ability to take Espen’s place, but he’d agreed anyway. He looked at me the way a disapproving uncle would his stubborn nephew, and I knew he didn’t really believe I could do it. If I was being honest, neither did I.

He met my eyes for a wordless breath before I followed Aghi outside. The doors hadn’t even closed behind us when Myra was suddenly turning on me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She squared her shoulders to mine, looking up into my face. “I’m going with you.”

“You’re staying,” Aghi said again, this time letting the edge slip into his voice.

“When they find out…” Her eyes went to the mountain behind me and I knew she was thinking of my family. They were her family, too. “Wait two days. I’ll leave for Fela now. We’ll ride through the night and—”

“We’ll be back before they even know we’re gone,” I said, but I knew she was right. Eelyn and my brothers would be furious when they found out I’d gone to meet with Bekan.

“I don’t like this.” Her voice softened, her eyes searching mine. She was eleven years older than me, but in that moment she looked so young. “You shouldn’t go, Halvard.”

“We’ll be back in three days. Four at the most.”

She nodded reluctantly and I knew that look. She was worried. Scared. I pulled her into me, wrapping my arms around her small frame and setting my chin on top of her head.

“I’m not losing any more family,” she said. “Do you hear me?”

“If we go to war with the Svell, you will.”

She pulled away from me, her voice hardening. “If you’re not back in four days, we’re not waiting.”

“Alright.”

“If I don’t see you on that horizon before the sun sets…”

“Alright,” I said again.

“Sigr guide and protect you.” She drew in a deep breath, looking from me to Aghi before she shook her head, cursing under her breath as she moved around us to go back inside.

Aghi waited for the doors to close before he finally turned to me. I knew what he was thinking before he said the words. “Are you sure about this, son?” His deep voice carried on the wind pushing up from the sea.

I looked at him, searching the eyes I’d come to know so well, now framed by deep lines. He’d taken us in when we came to live on the fjord and when my brother married his daughter, he’d made us his own. He’d opened his home to us when the feud between our people was still smoking like the embers of a fire, threatening to reignite. I couldn’t lie to him. Even if I wanted to, he’d see right through it.

So I answered with the truth we both already knew. “No.”





CHAPTER THREE


TOVA


The All Seer was gone.

I walked the path from the corner of the forest with the bow slung over my chest and two gutted rabbits cradled in my arms, their furs still warm. My eyes were on the treetops, my ears listening for the call of the nighthawk. But it was quiet, the songs of nesting birds and my boots on the fallen pine needles the only sounds. The rune cast still haunted me, my eyes drifting to the mark of henbane on the back of my left hand. But if the All Seer had left, maybe misfortune had, too.

“I couldn’t find you.”

I froze, my fingers tightening around the bowstring as Jorrund appeared beneath the arched branches of flowering maple on the path ahead.

The clusters of blooms had opened early, and I wondered if that was a good omen or a bad one. They were beautiful, pale green blossoms swaying in the wind, but a late frost would strangle them.

“I was worried.”

I could see that he meant it. His hands wrung each other at his back, his smile crooked.

“I’m sorry,” I said, stopping before him. Jorrund didn’t like it when he didn’t know where I was. He didn’t like being reminded that he could lose me.

He took the rabbits and I followed him in silence. The warmth of the earth returning after winter meant fresh meat and green herbs. Both gave me excuses to leave my little house on the outskirts of Liera that at times felt more like a cage than a home.

We came through the door and I hung my bow and quiver of black-and-white-flecked feather arrows on the wall. I lit the candle even though the sun was already rising over the trees and my cold hands hovered over the wavering flame, the heat stinging my palms.