Page 75 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back
I stared up at her, my lips parting to speak before the heavy doors creaked open and Kjeld appeared. His hair wascombed back, and the sharp edges of his face looked like Svanhild’s in the low light. Again, that feeling of remembering lit in the center of my chest. I’d been alone for so long, and suddenly, an entire family surrounded me.
“What is it?” The sunlight coming through the door fell on Svanhild’s face.
Halvard stepped in behind him and I stood without meaning to, my fingers tightening around the small stone in my hand.
“Their chieftain wants to speak with you.” Kjeld looked to Halvard.
Svanhild tilted her head to the side, eyeing him as he moved toward us. “You’re quite young to be chieftain.”
Halvard didn’t respond, coming around Kjeld to stand before us. I waited for his eyes to meet mine but they didn’t. “I want to know what you plan to do with the Svell you captured in the forest.”
She picked up the bucket and poured the water into the corner of the fire pit, sending up a cloud of steam. “You want to kill them.”
“I want you to release them,” he said.
Her eyes snapped up, studying him, and Halvard returned my mother’s gaze with an unreadable expression.
“Release them? When we set foot onto this shore, they were trying to kill you. They were trying to kill my daughter.”
“They’re our enemy. I’ll decide what’s to be done with them.”
Svanhild looked amused, a bit of wonder curling on her lips. “Why would you let them live?”
“I’m not going to kill warriors with their hands tied behind their backs,” he said, simply.
“Then what will you do with them?”
His chin lifted. “Let them go.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve seen what blood feuds do. Generations of our people gave their lives for one.” He paused. “That’s not how we live anymore.”
I watched his face, the feeling of pride blooming in the center of my chest.
She thought for a moment before she looked to Kjeld. “Let him do what he wants with his prisoners. The rest is up to the Spinners.”
Kjeld nodded in answer and Svanhild touched my arm softly before she slipped outside with Kjeld behind her. The door closed, the sunlight gone, leaving Halvard and me standing beside the fire.
“You need those closed up.” His eyes fell to the cuts on my arms and the pain of them suddenly returned, coiling around me until I was trembling.
I pulled the sleeves of my tunic down to cover them. “I need to ask you something.”
“What is it?” He looked apprehensive, his hand drifting to the hilt of his sword.
“There’s a body in the forest that I want to burn.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Who?”
“A Svell man. He was… my friend. I think.”
A question passed over his face like a shadow, but he didn’t ask it. “Alright.” His gaze went back to the door.
I knew what he was thinking. He wanted to know what the Kyrr planned to do. He wanted to know if the Nadhir were done fighting yet. “I don’t know,” I answered his unspoken question honestly.
I pulled in a deep breath, steadying myself as I looked up at him. The mud from the forest had been wiped from his face, but it still crept up and out of his tunic, reaching around his throat like fingers. In the firelight, I could see the pulse moving beneath his skin.
“You were right,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “We’re not dead.”
