The Girl the Sea Gave Back(71)

“When my sister cast the stones and said that Tova was fated to die, I told her that I could change it. That I could make sure her future was rewritten.” He paused. “It was a promise I couldn’t keep. Tova drowned in the sea when she was six years old and the Spinners had their way.”

The bite of cold over my skin returned, remembering the way she’d appeared to me in the forest. “Then how is she here? How did she end up with the Svell?”

“The Spinners? The gods? I don’t know. When we sent her body out on a funeral boat to the sea, she was dead. I saw her. I held her in my arms, Halvard.” He swallowed past the tears in his eyes. “She was gone.”

“And you left the headlands.”

He answered with a nod. “When you told me about the marks on the girl in the glade, I knew you were talking about Tova. But I had to see it for myself. I didn’t think it was possible.”

“And now?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Now?”

“The entire Kyrr clan is on the mainland. In my village. What happens now?”

“I don’t know.”

I took a step toward him. “What do you mean you don’t know? You just said your sister is their leader.”

He looked up at me, almost apologetic. “I told you, Halvard. They only listen to the stones.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


TOVA


Svanhild set a pail down between us and dipped a clean cloth into the cold seawater. I watched her drag it down the length of my arms, cleaning around the knife wounds above my elbows and washing away the dirt and blood. As the beat of my heart slowed, the pain rose, reaching all the way down into my fingertips, the throbbing pulse of it making my stomach turn.

Hylli sat untouched outside, as if the blood of countless Nādhir hadn’t just been spilled for it in the forest. It wasn’t the first time many of the same warriors had fought for their home on the fjord and it likely wouldn’t be the last.

I studied Svanhild’s face as she worked, wondering if she planned to be an enemy or an ally. She rinsed the cloth and wiped down my arm again, until the marks that stained my skin were all visible.

“Did you do them?” I asked, trying to place her in the vision I’d had when I took the henbane smoke. I could almost feel the warmth of the fire on my bare skin and hear the sound of a woman humming as her hands worked the bone needle over my back.

“I did.”

“And they all have meaning?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Some of them are prayers, some prophecies. Some are the sacred stories of our people.”

She let go of my wrist and I traced the symbols with the tip of my finger, stopping on an intricate stave below my elbow. “What does this one mean?”

Svanhild came to sit beside me, craning over my arm. “It means safety for the journey.”

“And this one?” I pointed to a set of circles within one another on my shoulder.

“Blessed by Naer.”

I studied their shapes, their messages almost seeming to make them change. They were wrought with meaning, each one, but they had only ever been secrets to me. Mysteries written across my body in a language I couldn’t read.

She watched me from the corner of her eye. “You still have them.” Her eyes went to the opening of my tunic, where the string that held the rune stones showed.

I reached up, pulling at it until the purse was free. Its weight landed heavily in the palm of my hand.

“I made them for you when you were only a baby. Every woman in our family is a Truthtongue. All the way back to the child that the Spinners gave as a gift to Naer as an offering. We put the stones into the boat with you when we sent it out, so you’d have them in the afterlife.”

I let one stone fall into my open hand, the firelight dancing over the rune. Othala.

“Kjeld says you were casting the stones for the Svell,” she said, leaning forward to see my face.

My fingers closed over the stone and I stared at her feet, swallowing hard.

“It’s alright, Tova.”

I blinked as fresh tears burned behind my eyes. “You would be ashamed if you knew what I’ve done.”

She folded her hands into her lap, waiting.

“I knew the runes,” I said. “I had a sense for them even when I first came to Liera, and when I saw that they kept me alive, I used them. But the Svell used me, too. I led them to attack the Nādhir in the glade and then Utan. I was the reason they came to the fjord.”

“Ah, yes. It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Seems?” I wiped the trail of a tear from my cheek. “It was my rune cast that brought them here.”

She smiled again. “The fate of the Svell was carved into the Tree of Urer long before you cast the runes. And so was yours.”

“Then which comes first? The carving in the tree or the acts that shift fate?”

She laughed. “They are the same moment. We do not understand time, sváss. Mortal minds cannot comprehend the Spinners or their work.” Her hand unfurled before me and she waited for me to set my own into it. “Before you were born, I knew that we would lose you. I didn’t understand why Naer would give you to us only to take you away. But the Spinners already knew your fate. I told Turonn that we would have you for only a little while, but my brother Kjeld—”