Chapter 29
Njall
Imay as well have gone swimming with how completely drenched I was, and my face was stinging from getting smacked by branches, but I chased Acorn until he trapped himself for me in a cluster of thick pines.
He was the bravest of my horses, and he stopped as soon as he realized who it was behind him.
The others would have just kept running.
I grabbed his bridle and inspected him. He had no injuries beyond the same scrapes I had.
But when I grabbed the rope I’d tied him to, my heart stopped.
It was neither frayed nor untied. Something … someone had cut it.
Ferflucs.
I gripped him tighter and, for several agonizing heartbeats, my eyes scanned the trees—anxiously searching for anyone or anything that might be lurking in the woods.
The storm clouds made the forest too dark to see much of anything, and with the howling wind, there was no chance I'd hear anything, either. I couldn’t shake the thought that this cabin might be a trap set by one of the creatures said to haunt these woods.
As soon as the storm passed, we needed to leave.
I patted Acorn’s neck to calm him and led him back toward the cabin as quickly as I could while the storm was fighting my every step.
I didn't see Elva and figured she must have given up and gone back inside to warm up.
I led Acorn to the back of the house while keeping a wary eye on the woods behind us.
When we arrived, I discovered what had made the loud bang we’d heard.
The woodpile was in shambles, strewn across the yard.
Most of the logs were still in one piece, but a few had been obliterated.
Avoiding the debris, I led Acorn back into the pen with Elva’s mule.
Miraculously, the horses were unscathed.
Examining the wreckage, I didn't see any burn marks, so it wasn't lightning.
And the sound had been too loud for someone to have thrown it piece by piece.
There were only two possibilities I could come up with; either the first was that Acorn had gotten spooked and kicked the wood pile, sending it flying, or, more ominously, something in the forest had done it to get us out.
What could they have wanted? I mulled over some ideas as I checked the gate.
Then it hit me like a punch to the gut. Elva!
I ran back to the front door as fast as I could in the storm, threw it open, and shouted for her.
No response. My voice wavered when I called her name, but I didn't want to think about it—no time to question it now.
I tossed aside the blankets, checked the rooms and kitchen, but there was no sign of her.
Panic surged through me as I turned and ran back into the storm.
The wind was blowing as fiercely as before, but I pressed on, moving as if through water around the side of the house where the enormous tree loomed.
She was there. She was lying face down in the overgrown weeds. My breath caught as I kneeled beside her, afraid of what I’d find. Relief washed over me when I saw her chest move slightly.
“You’re breathing,” I muttered, grabbing hold of her shoulder and shaking her. She didn't stir. Her usually sparkly skin had a cooler gray-blue hue to it, like the sea at dusk. Dark blotches stained her shirt, and a thick stream of blood oozed from the gash on her forehead.
A wicked little voice in my head whispered, Just leave her here and go home. No one would ever know.
No one but me, and I wouldn't let another selkie die on my watch.
All the legends about sirens rushed through my mind.
Heartless, seductive monsters who could change their appearance to suit any man and would murder them without guilt once they got what they wanted.
But none of that was true of Elva. She could have killed me after I bedded her and she'd taken my seed, but she hadn't. That she'd stolen some clothing from me didn't surprise me, now that I'd seen how they lived. I'd been taught that sirens were incapable of love, but her devotion to Sindri and Leifur showed me that was a lie. And the only time she’d killed anyone was when we were trying to escape an enemy’s castle. If the things I’d been told were true, why were Elva and her brothers so different? It couldn’t just be because of their selkie blood, since Leifur didn’t have any, and he was the kindest of them all.
“Let’s get you inside to warm up,” I said, sliding my arms under her shoulders and knees and lifting her off the ground.
Back inside the cabin, I threw extra wood on the fire to warm the room for her, even though I knew our supply of dry wood was dwindling with so much of it sitting soaked and useless out back.
The flames roared higher, sending an intense heat into the room as I stripped the soaked clothes from Elva’s body and tried to figure out if there were any other injuries besides the gash on her head.
Nothing on her legs would explain why she was out cold, but those scars I’d noticed on our night together were more visible in the firelight.
The large X-shaped one on her inner thigh was one I particularly wanted to know about, but that would have to wait for another day.
As I removed her shirt, I winced. Her left side was hot to the touch. Turning her toward the firelight, I saw red marks spidering from the wound. My gut twisted at the sight. I knew it was infected.
I tried to remember if any tree limbs had been on the ground near her.
Could this just be an accident from the storm?
The plant book she'd found earlier was under a blanket, and when I grabbed it, my body bumped hers, causing her hand to drop from her waist and leaving behind a smear of blood. I grabbed her hand and examined her wrist. There were two small, round puncture wounds on it, and they didn’t look like any I’d seen in my life.
They were too small for wolves, too precise for snakes or rodents.
What creatures could want her blood? Not humans, not centaurs.
Ferflucs. Sorcerers! The punctures looked like they'd been made with something sharp and deliberate, like a needle. I tossed aside the plant book, grabbed the charms book I’d been reading earlier, and flipped to the ingredients glossary.
My stomach sank. Siren blood was on the list.
Panic set in as I tried to recall the protections our tutors had taught my siblings and me against my sister’s kind when we were children, but nothing came to mind.
I glanced back at Elva and examined her face.
The sparkle was gone, and she wasn't just pale; she was gray, like the belly of a fish left too long on the shore. It hadn’t been a trick of the light outside.
I needed to find her some dry clothes soon, or else we could add hypothermia to her list of injuries.
“One problem at a time,” I told myself. “Keep her alive, then worry about what did this.” I draped a blanket over her to keep her warm and headed down the hall to the herb wall. Thankfully, it was well stocked, and I found every herb except one. I figured this was enough to give it my best shot.
I wasn't a medicine man or an expert in herbs, but years of training with my father's soldiers had taught me the basics. The burly men often liked to show off, which usually led to trouble, and someone had to patch them up. I crafted a tiny bundle of herbs from bits of the thinnest shirt I could find. After the water boiled, I dropped it inside to let it steep. It seemed to be working. I also made a paste to put on the wound itself to help draw out some of the infection. Back home, we’d have used leeches, but I had to make do with what was on hand.
I tied a strip of my shirt around her wrist to stop the puncture wounds from opening again.
She couldn't afford to lose any more blood. Once I’d wrapped her in the thicker blanket, I waited.
After a while, she stirred just long enough to drink the tea, but she didn't mumble more than a few words before she passed out again.
I was relieved she drank the tea. The last thing I needed was her brothers coming after me because something had happened to her.
For most of the night, I stared out the window as the fire crackled, watching for more faces in the tree line while listening to her soft breathing.
We'd been attacked, and I wasn’t taking chances tonight.
I wanted nothing to catch us unaware while we were both sleeping, so I planned to stay awake as long as possible.
The idea that her brothers would come after me if she was hurt was strange to me, but I didn’t doubt it for an instant.
Leifur and Sindri adored Elva, and despite our unfortunate first meeting, the more time I spent with her, the more I understood why they were so devoted to her.
She was far braver and stronger than most people I knew, but she was also kind and protective.
I’d never known there were different sirens, let alone that a warrior could also be a seductress, and it was fascinating.
At least that was what I kept telling myself.
That my inability to stop watching her, thinking of her, was purely curiosity and nothing more.
I spent the next day keeping a close eye on the surrounding forest in between caring for Elva.
She woke up only briefly, long enough for me to get her to drink some tea and soup before she drifted off again.
Her deep sleep worried me. Had the sorcerer taken more blood than I realized, or had he cast some spell to keep her under?
Maybe both. Whatever the reason, Elva couldn't stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time.
So I sat beside her, waiting for those precious minutes where I could verify she was alright and make sure she was getting nourishment.
The storm ended on the second day of Elva being unconscious, and I decided I should venture out to find something other than potatoes.
I didn't wander far because I was worried about what she’d do if she woke up and I wasn’t there.
But then on the third day, she stirred, and by the morning of the fourth, she groaned loudly and sat up.
“Welcome back to the world of the living, my little Pearl,” I said from the doorway, trying to sound light despite the relief flooding me.
Elva rubbed her head, wincing as if it hurt. She stopped to examine the bandage around her wrist. “What happened?” she asked groggily.
I joined her on the makeshift bed and told her everything that had transpired. But after all she'd endured, it was the number of days she’d been unconscious that scared her the most.
“So four? You’re certain it was four?”
“Yes. But why is that so important?”
“I just want to know.”
I stared at her, sensing she was hiding something, but I let it go. “I’ll get you something to eat and drink. You must be famished.” I'd put together a rabbit stew from the critter I'd caught earlier in the morning, when I'd felt comfortable leaving her for a short time.
Other than a small thank you when I handed her the food, Elva ate in silence.
She was glancing all over the room, like a wild animal in a cage, and more than once I caught her staring at me.
Her expression was unreadable. After the third bowl, she set it aside.
“The storm’s gone. We should leave now.”
“You need to rest up before we leave.”
“We’ve been here a week. I need to get to my brothers.”
“It’s already midday. We’ll leave at first light tomorrow. It'll give us time to prepare some provisions.”
Elva opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it and dropped back onto the pillow. “Fine.”
She demanded to help, protesting about how much faster we’d be ready if I would let her pitch in.
I relented and gave her our saddle bags and clothes so she could remain resting while packing our items. The glare she gave me told me all I needed to know about her feelings on the matter, but in the end, she packed the bags while I scrounged up every scrap of food in the place and nearby woods that I could find for us to take.
Despite wanting to get an early start, it was hard for us to fall asleep. Curled up under the blankets on the floor, I stared at the ceiling, listening to the fire crackle and Elva tossing and turning and sighing.
“If you lie still, we might get some rest,” I said after what felt like the hundredth time of her rolling over.
She huffed in reply, but then sat up and snapped at me. “Unlike you, I have people I care about who are out there alone, and probably scared. So excuse me if I can’t just lie down and fall asleep like you can.”
I was going to tell her off, but she turned her back to me and lay back down before pulling the blanket over her head.