27: Healing

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"We don't have much food left." Amarok sorted through their supplies, his face drawn with worry. "We need to find prey soon."

They huddled close to the fire, sipping herbal tea which steamed from birch bark cups.

"But it'll take us off course," Toklo said.

Niju wasn't listening to the discussion. His movements were feverish as he spread scrolls across the floorboards. He'd taken off his gloves, and Nuna noticed a cut on one hand.

They were all covered in gashes from the bats, but this looked deep.

"Let me treat that."

He looked up in surprise. "Doesn't hurt." Nuna could tell that, like her, he was still lost in the spiritual world.

"Doesn't hurt yet," she corrected, drawing herself up to her full height. "Amarok, that slice above your eye looks nasty. Let me clean it before it can get infected."

Nuna rooted through her supply of wilted, pitiful bundles of herbs until she found willow. She stuck a clump in my mouth and chewed, grimacing at the bitter flavour, and beckoned Amarok closer. She spat a mixture of plant pulp and saliva into her palm and smeared it across the cut. To his credit, the Commander didn't flinch.

"My thanks, healer."

"Unfortunately, I haven't had chance to stitch wounds while arrows fly over our heads."

His broad mouth twitched at the memory. "Not yet. Perhaps in the future, your skills really will impress me."

Toklo allowed her to treat his deepest gashes, but Niju was ignoring everything, his hands like spiders as they fluttered over lines of Runescript.

"Wrestle him to the ground?" Toklo suggested.

Nuna bided her time before striking, swift as a hunter harpooning a seal. She seized his injured hand in both of hers, holding tight as Niju's first instinct was to pull away.

"You're surprisingly strong," he commented, watching her smear herbs across the cut. His fingers twitched: the only sign of pain he showed.

"I'll take that as a compliment." Nuna's cheeks burned but she bent her head to hide it, focusing harder than necessary on her work.

"So, Niju," Amarok said, "are you going to tell us what you're thinking?"

"I've been searching for any mention of the six spirits that have names," Niju replied as she finished binding his cut. Was it her imagination, or did he let his hand linger between hers for a heartbeat before he pulled away? "Imiq, Amaak, Suluk, Ikkiyok, Kaaktuk and Agliruk."

"I could feel spirit trails," Nuna said. "I've never felt anything like it before. It was strong."

"Did you say some of the spirits were spirits of emotion? Rage, desire? How is that possible?" Toklo asked. "I thought spirits just embodied a certain element. Whenever there's a flood people always remark that the sea spirits are angry."

"Or they make offerings to Sedna," Nuna pointed out. "But I didn't see any mention of the gods, either. Are the gods tied up in this – this story the temples protect?"

"I'm willing to bet that they are," Niju replied. "Spirits can embody anything with energy, and emotions definitely contain energy. It's just different to the power of currents or wind. What the spirit embodies depends on how the spirit itself is formed."

"Do spirits really have ambition, like the carvings said?" Amarok asked.

"Some do long to return to the mortal world. But the carvings spoke of six unusually powerful spirits which must have risen above the rest. So they ripped apart the barrier between worlds." Niju's expression darkened.

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