We did not know each other well. Hilda came from farmers, a loving home. Most of our interactions were had in the market and when the jarl offered the great hall for her wedding. Still, almost on instinct, she curled an arm around my shoulders, tucking me close against her side, no thought for the difference in our height, me standing half a head taller.

“Steady now, Lyra.” Her voice cracked.

“Hilda, I’m so—”

“Hush,” she said. “Not now. We need to keep our heads.”

Edvin took up a place beside us. He took his sister’s hand, but turned the pain in his eyes to the shore. The wife he adored, the three children he cherished, all huddled on the water’s edge, broken and downtrod.

They would be forced to go on without a husband and father.

The Stonegate bone crafter materialized through the crowd of returning guards. She led the two men who carried Kael on a fur mat between them.

“In the center,” she said, nodding as the two men placed Kael beside me and Hilda.

My hands fell to his chest, seeking the slow thrum of his heartbeat. Blood still stained his tunic, his shoulders were bruised and pulpy from the attack, but he was alive.

I curled my fingers around Kael’s tunic, hardly noticing the shouts to take to the wind, the commands for oarsmen to take their places.

Through the blur of tears, the last sight I took from my home was of the fierce, unfeeling eyes of Roark Ashwood as he stepped onto the same deck—pain and suffering in his wake.

Kael burned in a fever the deeper we went out into the short sea between Skalfirth and the hills of the royal keep. Black night cloaked all sides of the longships and only the steady dip of oars into the surface and lap of tides against the hulls were heard. The air was chilled, but Kael shivered like an early frost coated the sea.

With the help of Hilda, we draped him in any Stav cloaks that had been shed. I kept my arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him close. When his fingers curled around my wrist, I grinned and pressed a kiss to the top of his sweaty head.

He was alive. He knew we were there.

Deep in the night, his groans grew louder, and the bone crafter from the great hall maneuvered to our sides.

“Get back.” I tightened my hold on Kael’s shoulders.

The woman shook her head like I was some sort of insufferable child. In her palms was a clay bowl filled with herb paste. The concoction smelled of damp bark and a bit of clove.

With two fingers she painted the pulse points of Kael’s skin.

While she worked, she hummed a tune, a comforting song of old lore: Kveða við min mórðir. Skip búask ok á morgun. Ek sigla til min folǫg.