Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Fourteen

Þrúðr's sleep was a restless thing, fitful pits of exhaustion punctuated by tear-filled hours of wakefulness. Her stomach churned hard enough to force out the feast the dvergar had provided, and even that was an awful, humiliating ordeal. One that saw Þrúðr stumbling around the chambers she had been given, eventually walking into a room tiled in bright mosaics with water running beneath the ground. She hoped desperately she had intuited the function of the facilities correctly. That she had not relieved herself within the bath nor washed herself atop the privy.

Nothing in the place was as it should be, least of all Þrúðr.

Magni and Móði had come to visit, as grim and stone-faced as their hosts, and had informed her that the deal with Brokkr had been struck. She was to be wed to Uni, in exchange for the safety and prosperity of both Ásgarðr and Niðavellir. Upon hearing the news Þrúðr had ensured her eyes were dry and her chin was raised, and she had said, "Well done, brothers mine. Now rest. Tomorrow, you recover Father's legacy."

Her voice had not wavered, and for that she was proud. Even when Móði had stepped forward and offered, "Sister, it is not too late. We have the jötunn. He is clever, and—"

The thought of Lain—of being beholden to that fickle, burning madness—saw the bile rise in Þrúðr's throat.

"No dishonor," she'd said. "Today, we make Ásgarðr proud."

And Þrúðr had.

Young dvergar had draped her in gold, their skins rippling with pink and mauve and teal as their stumpy, half-lost tails wagged. Þrúðr's mood lifted at the sight of them—small and soft-skinned and innocent—and at the way they braided her hair and helped her change into the fine furs and silk she had brought in her saddlebags for the day. In the end, she'd stood in front of a mirror in her room, shining and perfect, and fought back tears.

She looked fit to be a queen.

Pity it would be only the dark to see it.

As she left, she felt cold fingers lace into her own and looked down to see a dvergr child holding out a bouquet of flowers. Green and white and gold. Surface flowers. Dotted with the long luminescent stalks of mushrooms from the deep.

"Thank you," Þrúðr said, voice hushed and breaking.

When she walked from her room, it was with a small and clammy hand clutched within her own.

* * *

Uni was a good man. Þrúðr reminded herself of this throughout the hasty "wedding."

He was good, and kind, and stood beside her dressed in mail that shone like the surface of the moon, glittering with every precious gem that could be mined from the far side of the subterranean sea.

"You look very beautiful," he'd said when he'd seen her.

Þrúðr had nodded, biting her lip and not trusting her voice. Leaves and petals rattled in her shaking grasp, fine stems crushed to pulp beneath her fingers, eyes fixed only on where carvings on the wall told the tale of Uni's family. Smiths and merchants, diplomats who bridged between the world above and one below. And Þrúðr, who was that bridge.

Somewhere, below her eyes, Brokkr sang with a voice like pounding stone.

Then he called forth his brother, Eitri, and his nephew, Tóki, to hand over Megingjörð and Járngreipr to Magni and Móði.

And then Þrúðr was wed.

* * *

"Sister, your brothers beg your indulgence." Móði bowed, deep and low, eyes glittering with irony in the dark. "Lend to us your jötunn bondsman, that we may use his guile and cunning to retrieve our father's honor."