Page 54 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back
I blinked, sending one hot tear down my cold cheek. If the boat was burned, it wasn’t holding a ritual sacrifice. It was a funeral boat. It had to be. The Kyrr hadn’t cast me out. They hadn’t given me up as an offering to Naðr.
“I wasn’t a sacrifice.” I said it aloud, like an incantation.
Jorrund’s jaw clenched, his voice tightening. “What are you talking about?”
“It was a funeral boat, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t burned, Tova. I said that by mistake.Iburned the boat. Don’t you remember?”
I did remember the flames on the beach. But I knew Jorrund’s face. Every wrinkle. Every edge of expression. It was the only face that ever dared to look into mine until the day I saw Halvard in the glade. And I could see the lie there more clearly than I’d ever seen it before. A broken smile lifted on my lips.
I walked toward the opening of the tent but he stepped in front of me, his hands raised before him. “I’m sorry. Please, we have to—”
“Move.” I leveled my eyes at him, my voice dropping low.
“Tova…”
I went around him, and Gunther looked up, watching as I walked straight for the forest. Jorrund called out, his voice echoing in the camp, and when I heard the sound of boots, I looked back to see silhouettes moving toward me. I picked up my skirts, clutching them to my chest, and ran into the trees. My breath fogged out in bursts and I tried to focus my eyes to see, but it was too dark. The shapes moved in the fog, making me feel like I wasn’t running in one direction. The forest whirled around me and I slammed into the trunk of a tree, my sleeve tearing as it caught on the bark. I ripped it free and didn’t look back as the voices drew closer, running with the glow of the camp behind me until I was wrenched back and I hit the ground hard.
A man’s face appeared over me before he bent down low, lifting me back to my feet. He didn’t even look up as a sob cracked in my chest. His hand took hold of the neck of my tunic and he pulled me back toward the firelight. I stumbled over stones and roots until we were back in the camp, where Jorrund was waiting, Gunther beside him with an unreadable expression spread over his face.
Jorrund started toward the meeting tent and the Svell jerked me toward it, following. He shoved me inside and I toppled forward, sliding on the ground. My palms scraped against the dry, cracked mud and when I looked up, Vigdis stood before the table, his eyes cast down on me. Without pause, he took the knife on the table into his hand.
“You’ll cast the stones, or you’ll lose that hand.” He pointed to the bloodied fist clenched in my lap. “And then you’ll read them anyway.”
Hot tears burned in my eyes and I sniffed them back, refusing to let them fall. Jorrund looked down at me with a strange, unfamiliar expression. Guilt. Or maybe pity. His gaze fell down to my dirty dress, my scraped hands, and for a moment, I thought he would come to me. Wrap his arms around me and say he was sorry. But he didn’t.
“You’re a cursed soul from a cursed people. You should have died as the gods willed it, but Jorrund and my brother were foolish and weak. You’re the sickness that took my niece’s life and you’re the blade that took my brother’s.” Vigdis spoke calmly, the sound of his voice unnerving. “For as long as you are useful, I will keep you alive. The momentyou fail to be of value, I will end your life and give you back to the gods.”
His gaze fixed on the open collar of my tunic, where the eye was marked onto my skin. But I looked straight at him, praying that if there was any misfortune to be had beneath my gaze, that it would fall on him tenfold. I summoned the darkest work of the Spinners, imagining Vigdis dead on the battlefield, drowned in his own blood. I pulled the vision to the front of my mind, the burn of every hope inside me lighting it aflame.
As if he could hear the thoughts, he suddenly stepped back from the table and the others followed, their backs pressed to the walls of the crowded tent. Jorrund looked at me pleadingly, one hand reaching out and beckoning me forward. I gritted my teeth, one traitorous tear rolling from the corner of my eye, and stepped forward.
I pulled the stones from around my neck as Jorrund turned the elk skins over to use as a pelt. He was careful, moving slowly as if I was a bird about to take flight. But in my heart, I’d already flown away from Jorrund and every lie he’d ever told me. I was gone. And I was never coming back.
I opened the purse and my skin flushed hot under my tunic, the fury engulfing me. There was no ritual smoke, no sacred words. This time, I spoke them in my heart, with more fervor than I’d ever asked the Spinners for anything before.
Augua ór tivar. Ljá mir sýn.
Augua ór tivar. Ljá mir sýn.
Augua ór tivar. Ljá mir sýn.
Eye of the gods. Give me sight.
They filled me up, coiling around my spirit. They snaked between each bone and thought. And when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t the Svell’s future I asked for. It was Halvard’s. I saw his face in the dark beneath the gates of Utan. I could still feel the tingle of his blue eyes on my skin, like the sting of the coal clutched in my burned fingers.
The rune stones dropped from my hand and hit the table one skittering knock at a time. I was afraid to look. Afraid to see what curse I’d brought upon him and his people. But when I looked down at the pelt, my hands froze out before me. My head tilted to the side, my fingers curling into my palms until my fingernails bit the tender broken skin.
Three stones. The first,Sowilo.I let out a long breath.
The sun. Victory. Honor. Hope.
I smiled, another tear falling. The rune stared up at me like a wide, opened eye.
But beside it wasThurisaz,the thorn. So the path wasn’t clear. There would be great difficulty. And above,Tiwaz,the sacrifice of self.
Jorrund stepped closer, his eyes straining as he looked over the table. “This is good, isn’t it?” he whispered.
