Chapter Seventy-Eight

When they reached the palace as quickly as it was possible to do, Beyla feared that Njord would tell her to go to her room and bar herself in, admitting no-one. Instead he sought out her father with her in tow only for them to receive the worst kind of news. It seemed her brother was missing.

The last possible sighting appeared to have been of him heading towards the edge of the cliff.

“Tyr wouldn’t jump,” she said. “Not even if a thousand Celias changed their mind about marrying him.”

“It was her family who objected to the match,” the Jarl corrected. “I thought all such prejudice was over and done with. Apparently not.”

“Can you be certain it was him? I mean, Tyr’s a skilful climber. He might just have wanted some breathing space.”

“That’s just it, Njord. One moment he was there, a speck on the horizon, the next he had vanished. I – I fear the worst.”

Impulsively, Beyla hugged her mother. “If anything had happened to him, we would know.” She put a hand to her chest. “In here.”

The ha