Maybe only dislocated, I thought. It was hanging at an odd angle from the shoulder joint.
“Not a human,” Rada taunted. “Only half right. But the bottom half is making me hungry. Lachlan, can I have that tuna you caught?” I bit the inside of my cheek as the mer-god started cursing, small, sharp icicles flying from his mouth as he twisted again, and shifted.
This time, he was fully a fish, an enormous silver and blue carp twice my length. He flopped on one side, gasping, while Rada dissolved into semi-hysterical giggles. “Now I’m starving. Can you build me a fire, Lachlan? I’m no great cook, but I can pan fry fish like a?—”
A swirl of snow had the fish vanishing, with a human-shaped, shaggy creature standing in its place. It didn’t make a sound, ormove, but I had a feeling it was looking at us, though it was hard to tell with all the fur. Wool? He was a giant, but covered from head to toe with silver-white wool.
“What is it?” Rada whispered in my ear. A pleasant shiver joined the unpleasant ones racking my body.
“I have no idea,” I replied as quietly as I could.
“No fire,” the creature said, its jaw opening wide enough for me to see sharp teeth.
“Yes fire,” I said, noting the odd color Rada’s toes were turning. “Her feet will blacken and fall off, if we don’t get her warm soon. She will die, Your Eminence.” Her body went still in my arms, and I realized that her rage had been all that was keeping her conscious. She’d fainted again, and I was terrified she might not wake this time.
“She is not allowed to die, or to lose her feet,” he grumbled, pushing some of the hair away from his face with his good arm to reveal impatient, glacier-blue eyes. “How can she be forced to stay alive?”
I started walking back to the ice house, glad for my selkie-tough feet as I made my way over the lava rock. “First, she needs to go back into the shelter. Then we need wood, food, and water. A small hole in the very top of the ice house to let the smoke out.”
“I will gather the wood,” he said, his head swiveling to focus on Rada’s slender hand that flopped as if she were reaching for him as we walked. “I can also catch the fish. I cannot give you fire.”
“I’m fairly certain she has a fire-starting kit in her cloak.” I coughed. “Or shehadone. Some things seem to be missing.”
“Ah, what would the kit look like?” The hairy ice man sounded almost… sheepish? I forced myself not to laugh at my unintentional pun. His white fur was very sheeplike.
“A small metal striker, about the length of her smallest finger, a larger metal plate—” Before I could finish, he’d reachedinto the fur of his stomach, scratched at himself like a sheepdog, and produced a kit.
I was dying to ask, but I didn’t dare. “Thank you, Your Eminence.” I kneeled, half-dragging Rada on top of my pelt through the small tunnel. I bundled her up in my fur and her cloak, then ran back to find the tuna I’d dropped. A few birds were already squabbling over it, and I shooed them away, though one guillemot was slow to take wing, and I grabbed it and cracked its neck. Scavenging a few small pieces of dry wood and a handful of dead grass, I carried everything back.
Skadi met me at the door, smiling proudly with those sharp, serrated teeth. Behind him, he dragged a fallen tree that was as long as any ship’s mast I’d seen, and at least six feet wide at the base of the trunk.
“Ah, very good, Your Eminence. I do think we’ll need smaller pieces to fit inside the house.”
He nodded and lifted his right arm, or tried to. “It is broken, or I would have retrieved a far larger piece. Why is this body so weak?”
“I believe the shoulder is dislocated,” I offered quietly. “I may be able to adjust it so you can use both arms. If you allow?”
“Do so.” He put the tree down.
I pointed to the tree trunk. “I’ll drape your arm over the trunk, then go to the other side and pull. All you must do is remain here, and stay as still as possible. Ah, and do not kill me.”
“Why would I?” He grunted as I helped him lift the useless arm onto the top of the tree. His form now was about eleven feet tall, so his armpit landed at the right spot.
I climbed over the trunk, standing on a large boulder across from him. “To be honest, this may hurt. When I had a dislocated shoulder, I yelled loud enough to be heard on the other side of the Eastern Sea.”
“Little seal man, if you were able to withstand this injury, I am certain I will—ahhhhhhh!” I ducked behind the trunk as an enormous hail of sharp-pointed icicles came sailing toward me.
“Your arm is healed, is it not?”
Silence greeted my shouted question. After a moment, I climbed back over the tree. He stood there, flexing his fist and moving the arm around gingerly. “It is. Good.”
I had a feeling that was all the thanks he would give, and the warm space in my gut was growing colder by the second. I had a more important magical creature to care for, and I left the ice god and went to care for her.
My own sharp-tongued, sweet-smelling goddess.
RADA
The fog here was reddish, not gray. There were wisps dark as blood, some the bright orange of fire, and even the deep, rich ochre of desert soil. It was too thick to see through the hot blanket of air, but sounds traveled. So I followed the only thing I could hear besides my heartbeat.
