I didn’t deserve her loyalty, but I nodded all the same. That was when I noticed all the other gathered villagers hadwandered over, standing in a line by my side. Arvid nodded at me. So did Mellor and Lilia. They were all here. I felt bolstered by their support.
Rune exchanged a few quiet words with the minstrel, then came to stand beside me, too.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did Erik come?”
“You’re about to see,” he said quietly.
As if on cue, two figures appeared in the distance, striding purposefully down the center of the village road. I sucked in a sharp breath. The taller figure wore mottled gray leathers that amplified his powerful frame, and his chestnut hair hung loose around his broad shoulders. Beside him, the shorter figure was a near copy. The only difference was, he wore black leathers and had my slighter frame.
It wasthem. A piece of me I’d never been able to forget.
Tears filled my eyes, and I took off toward them, my boots pounding the dirt road. Rune called out after me, but I couldn’t stop now. Not when my father and brother werehere, against all odds.
I knew the moment Logi spotted me. His eyes caught mine, and every muscle in his body tensed. Abruptly, he stopped. My father saw me a second later. He, too, slowed to a halt in the middle of the road. His hands fisted beside him.
At the horror-stricken looks on both their faces, I stopped running. They gazed at me across the village, and when I tried to find my voice, it abandoned me.
Eventually, my father cleared his throat, his expression still full of torment. “So it’s true.”
“What?” I didn’t understand.Whatwas true?
“You look good, Fri,” my brother choked out. “You wear life in the wilderness well. You always have.”
I looked from my father to my brother and back again, confusion roiling through me. “What’s going on? How are you here? Didn’t you think…”
The sadness in my father’s eyes deepened. “Didn’t we believe you were dead? That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? For us to think we’d shipped you off to your end.”
A sharp pain lanced through me. “No, that’s not what I wanted.”
“You had the ship’s captain tell us just that,” he said.
Shame rushed through me, but it was muted by a sudden burst of anger. “What else could I have done? If you knew I’d stayed by choice, you would have…well, you would have shown up here, just like this! Andyouwould have no hesitation to—” I stopped myself before I mentioned Rune, and I refused to let myself look over my shoulder at him. They might not have noticed him yet.
“We didn’t come here to kill the orc, Fri,” my brother said, holding up his hands to show he had no weapons. No swords, no daggers, nothing. “If we did, we wouldn’t be standing on this island right now. The magic would have stopped us from coming ashore.”
That much was true. So then why were they here?
“We came here for you,” my father said. “After Louisa told Erik your story, she saw how torn apart I was and later came to me privately. She wanted me to know the truth about what happened to you.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know Erik’s true reasons for sending you to the island. I had my suspicions, of course. But I didn’t know who Rune was or his history with the guild. Well, I did, but he went by another name back then.”
“Wait, what?” I whispered, my heart pounding.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind me, and when I turned toward them, I found Rune, his large frame casting an intimidating shadow across the road. His narrowed eyes werelocked on my father’s face. “Bjarki Runarsson. I took my father’s name when I left that life behind.”
Surprise flickered through me, but it only lasted for a moment. His name change made sense. I’d always wondered how I’d never heard of him before. Bjarki, though, I’d heard his name so many times. A deserter, Erik had always called him. Someone who’d turned his back on the guild. But somehow, this revelation made me love Rune even more.
“Hello, Bjarki,” my father said, folding his arms. “I must say, it’s a surprise to see you after all these years.”
“Hmm. Seeing as you came to the island knowing full well I was here, I’d hardly call it a surprise.”
“You fled the guild.”
“I did. Killing people for coin didn’t suit me.”
I stepped in front of Rune. “Leave him be. He’s just trying to live his life out here, and he’s done nothing to harm the guild.”
“No?” My father’s brow arched. “Then why ismy daughterstill here with him? Asking traders to make up stories about her death? Did he put you up to this, Frida? To get back at the guild?”
“No,” I whispered fiercely. “I did it because I love him, Father.”
