Chapter 34
Elva
Frustration filled me as I tossed my satchel on the ground.
We’d spent the last three days searching what felt like half the forest, but there was no sign of where my brothers had ended up.
Every other camp we’d found was abandoned or covered in debris from the storm, and the trails showed no signs that they’d passed this way.
No secret hints left behind, no messages carved into logs.
It all pointed to one grim possibility: they'd been taken against their will, unable to leave me even the faintest trail to follow. The last chance we had was to head toward Eldenwood and hope they would either be there or that we’d at least find some trace of where they’d been taken.
“You want to gather fire or start the food?” Njall asked as he joined me beside the crackling flames. The forest at night was eerie in its stillness and downright terrifying. His offer to let me choose was kind, but I was too angry to appreciate it.
“What does it matter what job I do?” I snapped at him. “It won’t bring my brothers back.”
“No,” Njall said, more softly than I deserved. “But it will help you rest so we can start fresh tomorrow.”
The man was as confusing as he was infuriating.
He should be annoyed at the delay in getting him home.
He should resent me for trying to use my siren spell on him during the rescue, even if it hadn't worked for some reason.
He should be frustrated that I'd dragged him all over this cursed forest to find my brothers. But he wasn't any of those things.
Njall was nothing like the horrible, spoiled prince I'd expected to rescue. He acted with more courtesy than my brothers and was pleasant company. He caught his share of food, knew a lot about the different animals and kingdoms that I hadn’t learned in my lessons, and had an excellent sense of direction.
We’d spend our evenings by the fire, and he'd share stories of creatures I'd never heard of.
He taught me about human anatomy beyond the reproductive details that had been drilled into me, and told me about their rich culture that went back for generations.
In return, I corrected his misunderstandings about sirens, selkies, and mermaids.
Of all the creatures, he knew the most about selkies, even teaching me a few things.
It turns out that selkie males can breed with anything, but selkie females rarely carry non-selkie babies to term.
When they do, those children seldom survive for long.
It was why so many selkies chose to mate for life.
They wanted the best chance at healthy children.
Even though sirens weren't maternal, I felt for those mothers.
They had high hopes for their young, only to lose them so soon.
Njall seemed troubled by the idea of selkie females being treated poorly by their mates.
But I reminded him that the females of our kind were not fragile the way human women were.
We had fangs and talons, and in fact, ours were larger and deadlier than those of our male counterparts.
“I forgive you,” I said, poking at the fire with a stick before holding the pheasant over the flames to char it a bit more.
“For what?” Njall asked, sitting down beside me. He held out his hand for the stick. Since our encounter with the guards, he’d stayed closer, though still keeping a small space between us. It was confusing. He wanted to be near me, but at the same time, he didn't want to touch me.
“For believing such horrible lies about me,” I said.
I leaned in closer and shoved his arm with my shoulder, and the tiniest smile flashed across his lips.
“I can forgive your lack of knowledge, considering that humans couldn't survive long enough underwater to study us.
Especially if most humans are like you and can't even swim.”
“I can swim,” Njall said.
I sat up and stared at him. “But back at the castle, you said you couldn’t swim.”
“No, I said I don’t swim. There's a difference. I just don’t like to.”
“How can you not like swimming?” I grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “The underwater world is magical. The schools of fish that move as one, the colorful coral that covers the seafloor like flowers in a meadow. So much life in one place, and no sun to burn your skin!”
“While that may be true, I’m just not a fan.”
“Well, that’s … appalling," I exclaimed. “I’ll have to change your mind.”
“I have a better idea,” he said, pulling our dinner off the fire. “Instead of you trying and failing—”
“Says you.”
“Instead of trying to get me into the water, why don’t I promise to let you correct the books in the king’s library? You could fix all the errors recorded about sirens, selkies, and other sea creatures.”
“Your father wouldn’t allow that,” I said.
“We wouldn’t tell him.”
“Won't you be in trouble when you return?” I asked. He looked confused, so I elaborated. “Because you and Baldr set us free?”
“I hadn’t considered that,” he answered.
“Possibly. He is vindictive like that.” Njall pulled the bird off the fire, used one of my daggers to cut it in half, and held the two pieces up for me to choose from.
As I grabbed one piece, my gaze fixed on his pendant reflecting in the firelight.
Njall noticed and slipped it off his neck to hand it to me.
“It was my mother’s. It’s one of the few things I have left of her. ”
I set down my dinner, recalling the rumors I'd heard in Tyndorf. “She stayed longer than the others, didn’t she?”
“Yes, unfortunately. Hulda and Baldr’s mothers left after giving birth. Ingvar’s died in childbirth. Mine stayed to care for me, and it caused her death.”
“You mean your father did.”
“If she hadn't stayed for me, she wouldn’t have died.”
That a mother would stay for her child was foreign to me, but it clearly hurt Njall to think of her. I didn't know what to say to make him feel better. I ran my thumb over the smooth pendant before handing it back to him and biting into my dinner.
“How far from Eldenwood do you think we are?” he asked, clearly wanting to change the subject.
“If you trust what we overheard from those farmers we encountered, not far.”
“Country people are so helpful.”
“That’s because we hid from them,” I said, taking another bite of my food. Somehow, Njall had devoured his entire portion already.
“I'm worried by what else they said. Those guards we killed aren't the only ones we need to be afraid of. There’s a price on our heads. The people seem nice, but I wouldn’t put it past them to turn us in to improve their lives.”
“Doesn't it bother you?” I asked.
“That the guards get to the townspeople?”
“No,” I said, smiling mischievously. “That I’m worth more.”
Njall chuckled. “You should be worth a little more, but five times more? Ferflucs! I'm a prince, and I'm only worth a hundred coins to them.”
“Well, I did break you out of the king’s dungeon. And murdered quite a few palace guards.”
“Tell me more about how sirens live,” he said, changing the subject.
“Aren’t you bored with that yet?” I tossed the bird bones into the woods.
“Hardly. I've traveled a lot, but never anywhere interesting. Just human villages, and they're all mostly the same. You have been everywhere.” He pushed his shoulder against mine, making me sway slightly. My stomach fluttered, but not from the motion.
“Sirens live on an island as much as the sea,” I explained. “We guard it fiercely because it has everything we need. We grow the vegetables we can’t harvest from the sea and have chickens and goats, eggs, milk, cheese—”
“What about grains?”
“Unless we’re traveling, we don’t eat many.”
“That’s a shame. Tyndorf is known for its grain, and our bread is better there than anywhere else in Torian.”
“Is that so?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you implied it.” His smile was as playful as ever. I couldn’t help but smile back. What is it about this human? I’ve never lost my head so much over a man.
“I’ve heard there’s a kingdom far to the east, over the Crimson Mountains, known for its grains, too. It wouldn’t be fair to rule them out without trying it for myself.”
Njall gave me a look I recognized as the one he gave when he knew I was right and couldn’t think of a way to argue with me. I've seen it often these past few days.
“Stop sulking about being a cheap criminal,” I said. “Maybe if you were more entertaining company, you’d be of higher value.” I couldn’t help but grin at the annoyance that crossed his brows. They almost touched, like a giant caterpillar on his face.
“We haven’t found anything in the woods. What’s the plan if there’s no sign of your brothers in Eldenwood either?” he asked, his lips curling into a slight smirk.
“We’ll check in town, and if there’s nothing, we’ll come back to keep checking the forest. We have to find something to confirm whether they are in hiding or were taken.”
“Maybe they left you to do the hard work of bringing me back.”
“Never,” I replied sweetly.
“How do you know?”
“Simple. My twin brother would never abandon me, and Leifur adores me. Besides, the bartender in Eldenwood liked Sindri. She gave us food, drinks, and a room for free. Sindri loves to get things for nothing. If there were any way he could get back there, he would.”
“I’m sure she wanted something.” Njall gestured to make his meaning clear.
“Unfortunately for her,” I said, standing and brushing myself off before grabbing the bedrolls, “Sindri won’t sleep with women. Leifur will, but I don’t think she wanted him.”
“He’s married to your twin, yet he sleeps with women?”
“He used to. That’s how they met.” I set up our bed beside the fire and watched Njall to see if he’d figure it out for himself how I was connected to my brother’s marriage.
“You ... slept with Leifur?”
“For six months.” I lay down on the bed and waited for Njall to join me. “It isn’t a big deal to us. The bigger deal was how angry the sirens were when he left. Leifur was one of their best producers.”
“Producer?”
“You’d say father.”
“How many children has he ‘produced?’”
“I’m not sure of the exact number, but I’d wager a few dozen.”
“A few dozen! I thought my father had a lot when he impregnated five women in a year.”
“If you consider that a siren’s entire goal is to reproduce, it isn’t that many. Besides, our pregnancies are often shorter than yours.”
“What do you mean by ‘often’? Do they vary in length by the season?” He turned toward me, resting his head on his hand.
“No. Where would you get a ridiculous idea like that? They vary by paternity. All siren mothers pass their siren gifts onto their children, but the other half comes from the father, and that determines the length of the pregnancy.”
“I should have known. Baldr’s mother was pregnant several months longer than the rest of our mothers.”
“I thought you were the youngest. How would you know that?”
Njall looked at me with a puzzled look on his face. “Now who’s confused?” He grinned like a child who had found out a secret. “Our position in the family has nothing to do with age, but with our father’s preference. I’m actually oldest by six months.”
I was so taken aback that I dropped back on the ground so hard that my head almost bounced. “I knew your father was a monster, but he’s so much worse than I thought.” I covered my face with my hands.
“Try being raised by him. It’s why we were always happy to go off with the knights.”
“How did he … decide?” I asked.
“Who was first?”
I nodded slowly.
“When we were twelve, he tested the four of us.”
“Tested you? How?”
Njall rubbed his arm for a long moment. I was about to tell him to forget it when he sighed. “Physically. To find who was strongest, fastest, and most like him. Ingvar was first, then Hulda, Baldr, and me.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I know your sister has magic, so I can understand why she was picked, but how is Baldr—”
Njall laughed. “Baldr asks me that at least once a month. I don’t think my father expected him to turn into the drinking, gambling, womanizer he became, but truthfully, that is more like my father than any of us.”
I laughed at Njall’s honest reply. I couldn’t remember the last time I genuinely laughed at something another man said.
Plenty of times, I'd smiled and giggled at something stupid a man said so I could get into his pants, but Njall was the first man, other than my brothers, who made me feel truly at ease.