Page 74 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back
“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 Naðr as anoffering. 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 usedme,too. I led them to attack the Nadhir 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 Urðr 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 meand 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 Naðr 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—”
“Kjeld?” My eyes widened. “The Kyrr with the raiders?”
“Yes. He thought he could change your fate. And when you died, we didn’t only lose you. We lost him, too. But the Spinners aremuchwiser than we are. They are expert weavers. And when the time was right, they brought you back to him so that he could keep his promise to us.” She lifted a hand, catching a tear at the tip of my chin. “We gave you to the sea, Tova. But the sea gave you back.”
I tried to make sense of it, looking for the pattern in my mind. But it was too knotted up. Too tangled. Something had turned the current that day. Something had woken me from death. All I thought I had understood about the Spinners and the runes was like the trickle of water from the whole of the sea. It was only now that I realized how little I knew.
But one thing was clear. It was as sharp in my mind as the sight of my mother sitting before me. I’d made a promise to the Spinners and to myself to protect Halvard and his people. And even if it meant going against the Kyrr, I’d keep it.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
She rested her head on the wall at our backs, looking down at me. “Ah, that’s for the stones to decide.”
“What?” The knot in my stomach tightened. If the Kyrr wanted the fjord, all they had to do was reach out and take it.
“Every moment is a possibility. The Spinners brought us here to find you. But we don’t know yet what other purpose they have for us. We won’t know until they tell us.”
“Purpose?”
“Mortals and gods cannot be trusted to obey the warnings of the Spinners. The Nadhir should know that.” Her voice trailed off.
“What do you mean?”
She sat up, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees as the firelight caught her eyes. “What do you know of the Herja,sváss?”
“That they were a demon army.” The sound of the bones knocking above the gate returned to me.
“They are darker than demons, Tova. The Spinners warned Sigr and Thora that the time had come to end their blood feud. But they did not listen. So the Spinners rewrote the fate of their people on the Tree of Urðr with their blood.”
The truth of it sank deep in my gut, making me feel like I was going to be sick. The Herja had almost wiped the Aska and the Riki from the earth. They’d filled the land and the water with the dead. I’d known the Spinners to be ruthless, but I had never imagined this.
“So, you’ll cast the stones,” I whispered.
“Youwill cast them,” she said, standing.
