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Erik and Oliver exchanged glances.

“That means I’m pregnant, you sheep heads.”

Erik’s eyes widened comically; if his own hadn’t been doing the same, Oliver would have found his expression hilarious. As it was, he choked on his own spit.

“I’m sorry?” he managed.

Erik turned back to her. “You…but how?”

Revna’s eyes opened, narrow and judgmental on her brother’s face. “I know you prefer to lie with men, Erik, but surely you understand how children are made?”

Two bright spots of color bloomed on Erik’s cheekbones. “Yes.” He hesitated. “Is it…Bjorn’s?”

“What? Of course it is! How many men do you think I go to bed with?”

Oliver laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think it best not to answer that one, darling.”

“How observant of you, Ollie,” Revna said, with no small amount of bitterness. For one awful moment, her eyes glimmered, and Oliver thought she might cry. Then she dropped her face into the damp cloth and sighed. “Gods, I’m a mess right now. The mood swings, and the illness, and, just…argh.”

Erik sighed, too, and patted her knee. “Does Bjorn know?”

“Yes. I wasn’t going to tell anyone else until after the wedding – I don’t want to overshadow Rune and Tessa’s big day.” She lifted her face again, expression now solidly miserable. “It isn’t that I’m not glad of it, but I thought, at my age, that this wasn’t anything I’d ever do again. And I have no idea how the boys will react.” She looked between them. “Do you?”

“They’re men, now, and not children any longer,” Oliver reasoned. “I’m sure they’ll be happy for you.”

But Erik said, “I don’t have any idea either.”

“Helpful,” Oliver hissed at him.

But Erik didn’t respond; instead took his sister’s hand and squeezed it firmly. “This is good news, Revna.” He offered one of those kingly, reassuring smiles that never failed to soothe Oliver, no matter the situation.

“It’s horrible timing,” she argued.

“Is there such a thing as good timing?”

She smiled, and Oliver went to swing the tea kettle over the fire, leaving Erik to pull her into a hug and whisper quiet reassurances about the future.

~*~

“Does it bother you?”

Leif stepped over the broken timbers of what had once been one of the massive Selesee trebuchets. They’d salvaged every scrap of wood they’d been about to, but the bits shattered beyond repair were being gathered for firewood; it was a slow process. He could hear the distant conversation of some of the salvage crews across the field, picking through anything that might be of value.

“Does what bother me?”

It was strange seeing Ragnar out in the sunlight, striding across the snowy field. Before they’d departed, he’d requested he be allowed a bath and new set of clothes – reasonable requests, Leif knew, and he also thought that Ragnar’s appearance would be a reflection on him now. No sense letting him wander about in unwashed rags.

He'd gone down into the baths – well, they both had, because torq or no, Leif wasn’t ready to exhibit that much trust yet – and Leif had sat on a stone bench along the wall while Ragnar soaped, and scrubbed, and attempted to draw him into meaningless conversation.

“We aren’t friends, you know,” Leif had reminded.

Ragnar had only snorted.

Now, hair clean and unbound, dressed in a sleeveless leather jerkin, trousers, boots, and secondhand furred cloak, he sent Leif a sly glance as they walked, torq glinting in the sunlight. “Your stoic routine doesn’t fool me, cousin. I can smell how unhappy you are.”

“Unhappiness doesn’t have a smell.” Even though it did, acidic and sour.

Ragnar laughed, head tipping back, eyes closing, soaking up the faint, winter warmth of the sun. “Oh, yes, he’s unhappy. But the question is why? Is it about me? Or is it about the lovely little Drake girl he can’t have? I wonder.”