“We had provisions then,” I say. “And we didn’t come all the way here, to your territory. We were picked up near the edge of the æsir lands by a group of vanir who needed brights.”
She sighs. “Well, it’s what we can do, so as long as you’re willing, we’ll do it. Whatever it takes, right?” She turns to look at Nótt hopefully. “Though we can’t really expect you to hobble along with us.”
“You could have turned me in that day,” Nótt says. “You should have turned me in, honestly.”
“What exactly happened?” I ask.
Before they even have a chance to answer, Nótt’s bonded walks toward me with a handful of mud. “Here.”
I can’t help flinching backward. “Oh, uh, thanks for that blob of wet dirt stuff, but I’m not really that hungry, so. No thanks.”
He ignores me, spinning around behind my wings and slathering his handful of smelly mud right between my wings.
To make it worse, he must not realize that I have exactly one tunic, and it’s white. It’s already battered and tattered almost beyond repair between the rips, gouges, grazes, and tears we picked up on our way out of that tunnel, but a blob of mud that’s now dripping all down my back isn’t going to help, like at all.
“This will help ease your aching muscles.”
Fagen was a healer for his people before your brother took him. Nótt’s looking at Freya, but honestly she probably shouldn’t look quite so proud. I hardly think mud smearing qualifies as healing, and nothing that smells like the back side of a sick mule could possibly help me feel better.
Only, before I can even come up with the strong words with which to fuss at him, the sharp aches and pains in my back begin to recede. “What was in that mud?”
Fagen smiles. “The mud’s just there to hold the herbs together. You can wash in the stream over there once they’ve eased the worst of the discomfort.” He points. “You’ll feel much better.”
She’ll be ready to fly again? Nótt asks.
Fagen shrugs. “She’ll be better. How much better, I’m not sure. But I have another poultice we should put on her scrapes and cuts once they’re clean.”
I start toward the stream, but Fagen grabs my arm. “Not yet. Give it an hour or so. We can eat first.”
“Eat?” I look around. “What on earth would we eat?”
Fagen grabs a rope and tugs it over his shoulder and into view. There’s a string of fish on it.
I’m too busy gaping at him to say much else.
I can start a fire, Nótt says.
“How would a moon vanir?—”
Before I can even get my question out, she’s struck a rock, hard, with her claw, and Fagen leaps toward her with a handful of sticks and moss.
There’s a fire blazing in front of us moments later. The two of them work like. . .like they’re a team. Like they’re friends. “How did you save Nótt?” This time, I turn and stare at Freya.
It’s Nótt who answers. Her brother brought in a group of brights. Unlike the ones we steal from the æsir, these earth children were living close to here, hiding and barely surviving under the vanir rule. They were in bad shape. Dirty, tired, and mistreated. They’d been running, but. . .
Freya clears her throat. “This earth form is strange, but I think I already understand better. It’s barely been a night since my transformation, and my body cries out for sustenance. It gives me new perspective on how hard it must be for you to survive as earth children.”
“We were barely surviving,” Fagen says. “And I was about to be bonded by a terrible storm vanir with huge eyes and dark, almost black scales.”
“Nótt has black scales,” I say.
“Take that back.” Fagen splutters. “Her scales are like the richest night and the twinkling of stars.”
“Okay,” I say. “But the night sky looks pretty black to me?—”
I saw Fagen helping the smaller brights, shielding them, and I wanted to bond him instead, so that someone who helped others wouldn’t be harmed. I tried to intervene, but I was far too small to do anything. I couldn’t protect him. I couldn’t even protect myself, and it made Nostramis, the storm vanir who had chosen him, very angry.
“My brother was livid too,” Freya says. “When I asked what was going on, he thought you looked like you actually liked the earth child, and he told you to bond any other one.”
