Magnus lay with his chest slumped over the rocky bank of the springs, the lower half of his body floating in the water. He’d already wet himself down, or perhaps his brother had done it, because the blood on his skin was fresh now, some of it running from the wounds Erik hadn’t yet sewn up. The blond savage hunched on the bank with a needle and thread, stitching the gash Azolirum had torn at Magnus’s shoulder with one of his claws. Magnus’s hair was thrown in a wet slop over the opposite side.
The two men spoke in tones just loud enough for Nadine to make out the words. “There’s little point to that now, Erik. You should go back to Ebron.”
Magnus was asking his brother to let him go below the mountain alone, without any other Dokiri at his side? It had been the plan that only Erik and Magnus should go along for the next part of this mission, and then only for the sake of their alliance with the Nozverak. The Dokiri simply had no role underground, what with their war tactics being designed for the sky. Really it was Magnus who would have been the tagalong.
Erik shook his head as he pulled the thread taut through Magnus’s skin. “No.”
“The Ebronians will only take a small force underground. They trust you now. You should lead an envoy back to their homeland so they can update the shars.”
Erik scoffed. “You need me. Don’t ask me to leave again.”
Magnus lifted one of the hands he had propped beneath his head as though he meant to flick at his brother, but then thought better of it. He looked like every movement pained him. “Don’t be jealous, brother, but the horde king has fallen in love with me now. Give it time, and I think the gegatu will be humping my legs, too.”
Erik scoffed. “It’s good that Azolirum respects you. But it changes nothing for my part. I won’t leave you by yourself.”
This time, Magnus did reach up to take Erik by the wrist. Erik paused to look his brother in the face. “Would you make Tysha a gritu?”
Erik didn’t answer right away, and Magnus pressed his advantage. “She may give birth to a daughter. The first daughter in Dokiri history. Would you leave them both alone in this world, in our world? If it was something you could avoid?”
Nadine frowned. If what Lavinia had told her was true, how could Erik’s Dokiri child be a daughter?
Erik replied in a strained voice, “Sometimes I think I know exactly who I am and that it should make every decision simple.” A weighty silence filled the space between the two men. “And other times I feel as lost as I did before I met her.”
Magnus released his brother, and his arm fell with a lethargic plop. He took so long to answer, Nadine almost thought he had fallen asleep. “You know who you are, Erik. You knew it the day you told the clan the truth. Because you were ready to give up everything.” He hesitated. “Just like you will now.”
The two men were quiet for a while, and Nadine’s skin prickled with the wilting nerve to round the corner and start the confrontation she’d been so determined to have just a few moments prior. The intimacy of the conversation she’d overheard shocked her in a way she’d never contemplated. Had she ever heard two men speak thusly with each other? Of a woman, no less—of their duty to her? These thoughts clouded her head when Erik shuffled to his feet.
“The needle broke. Don’t drift away while I’m gone.”
Nadine swallowed and straightened away from the wall. She timed the incoming footsteps so she rounded the corner just as Erik entered the tunnel. She met his widened eyes with a look of impatience. “Well, where is he?”
Erik’s surprise settled into a look of mild disgruntlement. He stepped away from the entrance to make room for her, and she pretended to scan the room before settling her gaze on Magnus. He didn’t seem aware of her arrival. She turned back to Erik. “Will he survive?”
Erik sucked in a breath and nodded while scrubbing a weary palm over his face. “He’s fine.”
“Will he outlive his own stupidity?” she asked with manufactured contempt.
Erik’s silence drew her gaze back to him, and the open displeasure on his bearded face startled Nadine. Mild-mannered he may be, but the quiet man had an opinion of Nadine, and it wasn’t a flattering one. Still, he kept his tone mild as he replied. “My brother isn’t stupid, woman. Only desperate.”
Nadine huffed. “Aren’t we all?”
For some reason, that made Erik’s eyes widen, and he snorted like her words had somehow amazed him. He shook his head as if to disperse a tangle of cobwebs growing around him, then started toward the back of the tunnel. “I’ll be back with a needle.”
“Don’t bother,” Nadine called after. “I have one, and your stitches probably look like chakva.”
Erik shot her one last hesitating look before sighing and walking away. Nadine didn’t watch him leave. Torch in hand, she strode through the spring’s entrance and marched toward the slumbering man at the edge of the pool.
The springs were a large chamber, much larger than the ones she and Magnus had been in before. They were so deep that the light of the torches already here was swallowed up before reaching the back walls, and the ceiling hung high overhead. There was more than one pool, though Magnus seemed to be lying in the largest of them. Nadine crouched low to set her torch into a notch on the floor before browsing over the pile Erik had left behind to find his needle. Magnus didn’t stir as she folded one leg beneath herself and propped her elbow on the opposite knee for support. She made short work of threading the needle and was soon pinching up Magnus’s skin where Erik had left off to plunge the needle through.
Magnus startled awake. He turned his head upward and blinked those swollen eyes, which were a little slow to focus on her. “Glanshi, woman. Am I dead already?”
Nadine cocked her head at him. “I’ll let you know.”
Magnus glanced around, probably searching for his brother. “You know you’re not supposed to be here, right?”
“Why not?”
“This is the men’s springs,” Magnus said, amusement lighting his voice. “It’s forbidden.”
Nadine let her gaze flick over Magnus’s naked body, the naughty bits which floated close enough to the surface that she could make out their general shape. “I’m certain I’ve had my fair gander at the finest scandal Bedmeg has to offer. And I was privileged enough to receive it in Ebron the first time around.”
Magnus grinned. “Mmm. I remember that day. I thought you would run off, you know.”
Nadine scoffed. “You’re impressive, barbarian. But not enough to be terrifying.”
“I’ll count that as a point in my favor.”
“Speaking of scandal, what did you mean about your brother’s wife bearing a daughter?”
Magnus cocked his head against the ground. “What? Were you creeping out there listening to us?”
“Shuraa ket, don’t say it as if I were spying. You were using trade tongue, for Yudvir’s sake.”
“It’s a habit I’m trying to form.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “Wasted effort.”
Magnus pursed his lips. “Not hardly. Now, learning Ebronian? That would be a waste.”