Page 61 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back
I took it, rubbing at the iron with my thumb until the engraving of the yew tree glinted.
She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “The Svell are coming to Hylli.”
“You think I don’t know that?” My voice rose over the sound of the waves crashing below and she bristled.
She turned back to face the water, hooking her hands onto the bow over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Her lips formed the words but I couldn’t hear them. She looked suddenly small. Delicate.
I sighed, letting the weight of the axe fall to my side. “Why did you help me?” I asked, my voice softening.
She looked surprised at the question, studying my face before she answered. “Because you’re not supposed to die.”
“If I’m not supposed to die, then I won’t.”
She searched my eyes, making me feel unsteady on my feet again. “That’s not how fate works.”
The moonlight broke through the clouds overhead, catching the eye on her chest. It stared up at me, unblinking. “Then how does it work?”
“It’s always changing. Every moment. I’m trying to undo what’s happened. I didn’t know when I cast the stones that they would—”
“So, it was you?” I ran a hand through my wet hair, realizing that Kjeld had been right.
She said nothing, but the answer was in the way her gaze flitted back to the ground. “I didn’t know.”
But that wasn’t good enough. An entire village was dead. Aghi was dead. “What are you doing with the Svell?”
“I’m not with them. Not anymore.” Her voice faded. “I want to help you.”
I tried to read the look that lit on her face. She was afraid, and even if I’d never seen war, I knew people. I didn’t trust her, but the fair skin at her throat was still bruised, the welts from where I’d had my hands around her neck visible even in the darkness. She’d come here, even though I’d almost killed her only days ago.
“And I have nowhere else to go.” She swallowed hard, the shame of it heavy on each word.
I blinked, the picture of her becoming instantly clearer. I could see it. There was something hollow about her. Something worn thin.
“I can help you. I can try to keep you alive.”
“You can’t help us.” I slid my knife back into my belt and turned, starting back up the path, but she followed.
“Please.” She took hold of my sleeve, stopping me, and I flinched at the feeling of her cold skin through my tunic. Her fingers wrapped around my arm and I swallowed hard, looking down into her face. The marks painted every inch of skin showing in the opening of her dress and I followed them with my eyes until they disappeared. “I want to help you.” Her grip on me tightened.
“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?”
