Marin dashed the last few yards down the hill toward Sif, leaving Phelan to follow at a less frantic pace. Bile rose in his throat as panic rooted itself in his breast, setting his heart out of rhythm. He tried to keep his breathing even as he watched Marin touch Sif’s shoulder, seeing the other woman flinch, hands tightening around the edges of her blade.
Bloody hell, Sif. You’ve finally up and cracked, haven’ t you?
“My god, Sif, your hands…what did you do?”
She didn’t look at Marin, turning to Phelan instead, her face streaked with drying tears. “Something stirs in the deep,” she said, her voice cracking. “It comes for the one who slew its father, but I was told that man doesn’t exist anymore. So why would it be here if that were true?”
“Let it go,” Phelan said quietly, staring at the blade in her hands and the blood running down its edges. He eased up alongside Sif, reaching for the blade’s hilt slowly. “Sif, drop the blade. You’ll cut your finger clear off and then what good would you be to the bloody idiot?”
“He can’t even stand the sight of me,” she said, bitter laughter bubbling up from her throat. “Why would he want my help?”
“Regardless of whether he wants it or not, he needs it.” Phelan wrapped his hand around the hilt of her blade. “Look at me, Sif.” Anger replaced panic as she stubbornly kept staring at the snow. “Damn you, woman, look at me! It’s not coming, it’s already here.”
Sif’s head snapped up and her eyes met his. Her hands spasmed, the blade falling away from bleeding fingers and palms. Phelan snatched it away as Marin grasped both of Sif’s hands. She gasped in pain, then gritted her teeth, eyes narrowing as she glared at Phelan. “What do you mean, ‘it’s already here’?”
“Just what I said.” Phelan set his jaw. “The creature is here, near the lakeshore, already hunting—and Thordin’s gone after it.”
Sif swore viciously and tore herself from their grasp. She marched across the barrow, leaving a trail of blood in her wake, pausing only once to look back at the two of them.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Get horses. We have to catch him before he gets himself killed for a second time in his life.”
