Neve swallowed, catching her lower lip between her teeth. “Did Phelan tell you that, Marin?”
She snorted softly. “When was there time? He didn’t tell me. It never came up. I don’t think Thordin even knew he’d had a child until Sif told him out on the field.”
Even Thom looked confused by his wife’s statement and his words came slowly, measured.
“Then how do you know that Ireland was safe?”
She looked at him squarely. “A certain ghost that likes to hang around told me.”
Ériu. Of course. Neve shook her head slightly, a faint smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “I should have known.”
“Maybe,” Marin whispered, her gaze flicking back toward Sif. “You should sit. Thordin will cool off enough that he’ll want to talk eventually and you did want to hear about what we’re facing.”
“Actually, you were more interested in my story than I was in yours.” Still, the muscular woman eased into a sitting position, facing Marin, Thom, and Neve next to the fire. “Given your apparent friendship with…Thordin…I can’t say that I blame you.” She glanced at Neve, her eyes narrowing slightly. “How long have you known?”
“He found me on the road,” Neve said softly. “I didn’t believe it when my brother told me he was still alive. I thought what everyone else thought—that he was dead, gone.”
“I told you that I got better.”
Sif flinched at the rumble of Thordin’s voice from behind her, the warrior woman going rigid as his shadow fell over her. Neve looked up at him, trying to suppress a grimace. He just looked at her, resignation in his eyes as he stepped away from Sif and circled the fire to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot that sat steaming on the stones near the flames.
“I did die,” Thordin said quietly, “but as some of us have come to realize, death is actually a transient state of being. The dead can come back if that’s what their souls desire.” Pain filled his gaze as he looked at Sif. “Or if someone deems their return necessary.”
“What are you saying?” she whispered.
“I’m saying that I was reborn onto this earth as a little boy named Torvald Amundsen thirty years ago in Wyoming and it wasn’t until Lili and Sven Amunden were murdered in front of me when I ten years old that I realized who and what I really was.”
