A broad man with an unbelievably thick neck and hands the size of pumpkins dropped everything he was carrying onto the dock the moment he saw her.She set Layf down because the boy was miserable and kicking in fury.The man placed his hands on each side of Dania’s face as they looked at each other, and the wind whipped their hair and clothing.
I didn’t need to be told.This was Eggun, the man she’d been missing since before I’d met her.He was older than I expected, but just as handsome as she’d said.It was the most delicate I’d seen Dania look—she seemed to be seafoam, ready to break into countless scattered bubbles.
They pressed their foreheads together as Hald ran up to his father and tried to squish himself between them.They didn’t make room for the child, but Eggun dropped a hand to his side, running his thick fingers across Hald’s shaved scalp.
Fell had stayed back apart from them, and I stopped next to him, my heart still thundering from the run and aching a little from the sweetness of the sight.I didn’t want to interrupt the reunion either.
Hald had no such qualms.He managed to break apart his parents’ embrace on his third try and was promptly scooped up by his father, looking so tiny in those giant arms.
Eggun growled, “Who is this giant boy?Where is my Hald?Have you eaten him?Must I cut open your belly to get him back?”
“It is me!It is me!”Hald shouted.“Papa, I am Hald!”
The man started crying which was still a new thing for me.
Men’s emotions—something I have always been terrible at dealing with.There is a part of me that is surprised each time they come out.As if men are things of wood and stone, rather than blood and pain and love like the rest of us.
Layf began to cry, too, but his tears were not sweet.He was frightened by the giant his brother kept callingPapa.He hid first behind Dania, trying to pull her away from the man, but she was entranced.He then came to me, which surprised me as I was typically not sought by children for any form of comfort.There was a flicker of deep enjoyment—being sought, being perceived as strong or capable—but then his cries became more distraught and I pitied him.“This is your father,” I said, crouching.“Yes, he is big and scary, but Norsern like that, do they not?”This was a terrible thing to say.I told you before, I knew nothing of children.But it didn’t much matter.Layf was soothed by my being close to him.
I could hear Dania and Eggun discussing the day.He would go to his mother’s home first, or they would never stop hearing about it.Then he would come home and bathe.
“Please,” Dania said, her voice tinged with tears.
“And then we will see what happens.”Eggun’s voice was deep, almost a growl.
“I will mind the children,” Fell chimed in.“But please remember, healers recommend at least five years between each child to allow for proper recovery of a mother?—”
Dania and Eggun spoke at the same time.
Dania rolled her eyes.“They also recommend having your first child after at least thirty-five winters of life?—”
“Shut up you thirsty bastard.”
After hearing that, I half expected a fight, but it didn’t come.Both men grinned, and then Fell got his hug from the giant and from several others recently disembarked, their grumbly chatter tangling together.
A short, thin man shouted at the lot of them.“Still unloading to be done!And you—” he pointed at Fell.“You done resting in that soft palace of yours?”
Fell laughed.“I have been done for years now.”
“Right then.Get to work.”
Despite the man’s gruffness, he leaned into Fell, setting his hands on the back of Fell’s neck.“I will speak to the king.We did well this season, better than he asked.I will request to have you back.”
Fell wrapped his arms around the man and started saying something only I couldn’t hear because Eggun began to shout.“No!Say it is not so!Fell has asotenof his own?Bahaha!”
Nine or ten other voices leapt into the din, and Fell turned back to the group.“She is Norsern now, but she still sometimes listens to me, and she can unleash the power of Hyrold, so you must not annoy me, or I will have her cast curses on you.”
“He will not ask her to do anything,” Dania said.“She was the most high-horsesotenyou have ever heard of.”
I glared at her but half-heartedly.Dania was so beautifully overjoyed, I was worried anything extra would push her into tears.She was strong enough to deal with that, perhaps, but I wasn’t.Dania was a cornerstone to me.
“Look, she glares.Do you think she knows web-casting?Like a spider?”
“She does seem vaguely dangerous.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“She can hear you,” Fell said.
