The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Tova was found on a shore as a child, with no memory of her past, and the Svell took her in. Symbols of the Kyrr are knotted across her skin from ankles to throat. As the clan's Truthtongue, she casts runestones to read what the Fates intend. The Svell rely on her and fear her in equal measure.

Two clans in the east end their long blood feud and join as the Nadhir. The Svell divide: some want to accept the peace, others want war. Their leaders turn to Tova for a casting of the stones, and both her reading and the way it is taken start events that could redraw the mainland.

Halvard, the young heir, is meant to lead the Nadhir through peacetime. An attack comes instead. The narration alternates between him and Tova, so the reader follows both sides of the gathering conflict.

This is the second book of the Sky and Sea duology, set in the Viking-inspired world of Sky in the Deep, and a few characters from that book return. Tova's own search runs beside the politics: she wants to learn where she came from and whether any place will count her as its own.