Page 73 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back
“What does that mean?” Asmund narrowed his eyes at him.
“They see the world through the omens and the runes. They don’t have Talas or councils or elders, they cast the stones to consult the Spinners. There’s only the stones.”
I waited, trying to read him, but Kjeld never gave anything away. With him, everything was always hidden. But he’d never struck me as a liar. “What does it have to do with Tova? Why did you say she isn’t supposed to be alive?”
“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. Iheldher 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 Nadhir 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 thevision 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 Naðr.”
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.
