Autumn became winter, and my eighteenth birthday passed with as little celebration as my seventeenth. I had neither the energy nor the mood for needless pomp when it was really only another year stacked on top of my head. And I had many more important things to think about.

My belly was swollen bigger than my head. There were flashes of hysteria, clouds of gloom, aches, and pains in places of my body that I had not even been aware of until then, and an appetite to pity that of the most ferocious warrior.

I had seen Grieda many times over the previous months, and though she could never give me a firm date of when my misery would end, she would always tell me, “Soon. Don’t pray for the end to come any faster than it will. If there’s one thing I can promise you it is that once you’re amid the processes, you will wish for now above anything else. It isn’t called labor because it’s a pleasant experience.”

The worst of the winter passed by quickly, luckily without the chill of the previous one. There was very little snow, only a small storm every few days that would blow in and blow out before anyone had the chance to grow alarmed.

It rained, mainly, in ceaseless sheets of freezing water. When at last it stopped, for a brief period, the puddles on the ground would turn to ice, and simply taking a step outside could be a lethal mistake.

I was not pleased. Not in the slightest. The world seemed a dark and hopeless place, with rarely a spot of sun to even run a finger over. Except one.

The gift of Grieda’s heifer cow was an unexpected and greatly appreciated gesture.

“She’s not a heifer any longer,” Grieda told me, as she, Taelon and I stood inside her barn, warm from the breath of the animals and packed straw. “It seems she took a lover without my knowledge sometime in the spring. She sprung a surprise birth on me two weeks ago. But for some reason, she hasn’t taken to the calf.”

“That’s a shame.” I twirled a strand of straw between my fingers and let the reluctant mother take it from me with soft lips.

“But would it be safe, Grieda?” Taelon asked, eyeing my interaction with the cow uncertainly. “What if she strikes out at her?”

“She’d sooner butcher herself and lay out on a platter than kick a human. But she’s rough with her calf and causing a disturbance here. Anyway, it will be good for Ingrith to have something to occupy her time with. Especially now.”

“But how will we keep her?” I asked. “We have no feed. Nor a place for her to sleep.”

“I’ll share my feed.” Grieda shrugged. “And Taelon can build her a place, won’t you Taelon?”

He nodded.

She really was a lovely-looking cow. Though very different from Fox, who near brushed the ground with her rusty, shaggy coat. This one was delicate, grey, and spotted with white.

“Do you want her?”

“Oh, I really do,” I said longingly. “But it isn’t fair, Grieda, for you to supply us feed and have nothing in return.”

“Give me a third of everything, and I’ll consider it more than a fair bargain. I’m busy making my last cuts. I have no time for making cheese or butter. I’ll lend you my churn too until you can find one of your own. Really, Ingrith. You’ll be taking a burden off my shoulders.”

I looked at Taelon as he ran his fingers down the cow’s neck. His eyes smiled at me.

“Then I’d be happy to have her.” I beamed.

Taelon worked on the lean-to on the west side of the house every day for the following week, and I did what I could to help, dissatisfied with sitting and watching.

“A good job,” Grieda allowed when she came to deliver the cow the following Solday. “She’ll fit in well here. You won’t need to worry too much about the pasture. She won’t go near the trees, off the cliff, or over the gate. Just fence off any place she could escape down the beach from.”

“It is not as good as anything Seowan could have—” Taelon, scratching behind the cow’s soft ears, abandoned whatever he was going to say next, and immediately struck up a conversation with Grieda about her nieces instead, carefully avoiding anything that would lead back to his brother.

“I’d best be away home,” Grieda said finally, tugging her grey cowl a little higher over her neck. “Ingrith, I’ll be by in a few days for milk and butter, if you expect you’ll have some by then.”

“I will,” I promised.

There were many, apparently inescapable, side effects that came with my condition. Most were uncomfortable at best. Some were positively hateful. One of the very few that I took pleasure in, was my body’s heightened fervor, and sensitivity to the delights of touch and tending. Unfortunately, the changes to my physique made such things limited and confusing. Though with some creativity, things were managed, and my vigorous thirst was left adequately satiated for the next few hours.

I thought Taelon might also appreciate my new and boundless energy. And he did, I was sure. Even if by the time I tired myself out, the night was well and truly set in. Whether he did or did not, he was Taelon. Devoted and willing to provide for me in any and all ways that were in demand, even if it meant having to sleep in until noon the next morning.

‘Spent’ was no longer a wall we managed to reach very often these days. At least not for me.

“Do you think it hears us?” I asked that night, trailing my fingers over the hill of skin stretched over the child inside me. It wasn’t solid as I’d initially thought it would be, but soft. Almost malleable at times.

“I do not know.” He slid a hand down my arm and dipped his fingers between the spaces of mine. “I have no memories as early as that.”

I traced the thin, winding scars that ran from Taelon’s wrist to his forearm with my other hand.

“Who did this to you?” I hadn’t meant to ask so brashly. But really, how else would one go about it? Smother the question in ‘um’ and ‘well,’ and, ‘there’s something I’ve—’ and, ‘that is, it might be insensitive . . .’ Surely, by this time we had worn down the need for hesitancy. We shared a life. A home. A love. And soon a child. Were not our secrets and our scars just another part of true intimacy?

He didn’t take his arm away, but I felt him tense as my skin brushed the pale bands.

“Grieda told me you can’t remember.”

“It isn’t as simple as that.” A breath. “I know I know it. Only I can’t bring it into focus in my mind. Some memories . . . they are phantoms built out of smoke that every time I try to harden into detail; evaporate, and I can’t see them at all. But they leave behind these scents. Burning sugar, perfumed candle wax, and incense. I can remember. I haven’t forgotten anything. It is only distant.”

“Do they still hurt?”

“No.” He looked away from them, and I didn’t believe his answer at all. “It isn’t real pain. Just a memory of it. Something will brush against them, and for a moment I will think it was painful, but it’s only something in my head telling me it is.”

“That seems real enough to me.”

He sighed. “For all you know, I did something to deserve it. You mustn’t pity me.”

“I’ve never pitied you a moment since we’ve known each other,” I said sternly. “I hate to think that anyone would hurt you. For any reason. My blood sears when I think of it. Did your brother tell you anything? Did he ever tell you why he took you away?”

“I never did ask him.” Taelon rested his chin on my shoulder. His arms around me were warm and secure, but his hold was cautious. “I do not think he would even if I had. Seowan—He always protected me. Or tried to. He was the favorite, I think. Of both our parents. At least I think he was most of the time. I always thought he was Mother’s at least because she never brought him to—” I felt his jaw work silently as whatever he would say grew cold.

At last, he said, and his voice was very quiet, “He was the ever-present figure in my life. The only consistent one, that I ever felt wanted to keep me safe. It is so strange to me that he is gone. It has been four years, but it still feels unnatural.”

“What was he like?” With some maneuvering around my large belly, I rolled over onto my side. “Seowan. Was he much like you?”

“In a few ways. But no. He was tall.” His lips thinned as he smiled wryly. “Much taller than I. Apart from the color of his hair, he took after Father. I do not look like my father in any way. No, Seowan and I are hardly like each other at all.”

“But he was also kind. I know he must have been. So inside, you are both very similar.”

“Do you think so? Do you really think am kind, Ingrith?”

I kissed him, tenderly, and cupped his cheek in my palm. “I’ve never known a kinder or better person in my life.”

I felt him smile into my hand.

I’d almost resigned myself to sleep, when he spoke again, with a different voice this time. Not quiet, exactly, but not normal either, as he gave back my question.

“What was he like? The boy you loved. I know I have asked before when you were first here, but you told me very little.”

“Oh, he was . . .” It was very hard to get comfortable now, and it took some more shifting and struggling as I tried to find a better position. “He was very much. I don’t know how I can describe a person like him in only words. He was brave. Recklessly so. He wanted great things, and I think would do anything to get them. Everyone admired him. Sometimes too much, so it made me uneasy, and I did sometimes doubt that he was truly unwavering in his dedication to me. But he loved me above anyone else. I knew that eventually. He was . . . fierce, and adventurous, proud, and desired the best from himself. He knew he was destined for great things or nothing. A lion.”

“And you, to be his lioness?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “He was so eager for his dreams, he quite dazzled me into believing I wanted them just as badly. And I did want some. But I had my own dreams, and I’m not sure they would fit so well with his. I might be a lioness, but not the one he hoped I would become. Pirating, murders, and adventuring are all very well in moderation. But I do not think I would be happy not to have a place where I belonged. I wanted a home. I wanted him to be my husband eventually. But I do not think he would ever have been happy to settle in one place or to be chained to me until death.”

Taelon didn’t answer, and I twisted my neck so I could see his expression. “Why? Do you envy him?”

“I envy he had you for the years I did not. I envy that he is preserved for you, in his death, as someone I cannot ever hope to prove better than. Do you still miss him?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “I loved him.”

Taelon nodded once and looked away. “It is only right.”

“But there is no ‘better.’ I haven’t the same love for the both of you.” I turned his head back to face me. “I loved him as the first boy to ever capture my attention and inspire such feelings of affection as I had for him for many years. I loved him as the first boy to love me. Who died loving me. I love you as my dearest friend. As my fondest companion. As the one I hold the deepest devotion for I could ever imagine. As the person who knows me inside and out. As the father of my child. And as the man I hope to keep by my side forever.

“So you see,” I said seriously. “I cannot weigh you against each other. There are two loves, for two good men. One was in the past, and one is in the present.”

Taelon was silent, but I felt him considering all I said.

“And what of me?” I asked suddenly. “Who must I compare to in your heart?”

“I was just fourteen when I left Ragnagh, Ingrith.” Taelon laughed.

“So?” I pressed my shoulder against the side of my mouth. “There were plenty women here.”

“Who are you suspecting?”

“Purity said you kissed her.”

“I—That—She—” he spluttered as he fumbled for the words. When they continued to evade him, he settled with a simple, “It meant nothing.”

“But I do?”

“Have you any doubts?”

I thought about saying yes, just for the fun of it, but decided to go with the truth. For in all seriousness, no, I had no doubts. Taelon’s love for me was as certain and reliable as the earth we lived upon. As intrinsic to my life as was wind to the sea. Thunder to the storm. Rain to the ground. Fire to the hearth.

“No. And you needn’t ever have any for your own sake.”

“No?”

Instead of repeating myself and ending the conversation with reassuring finality, I took his hand and guided it to the warm, slick, damp between my legs. I didn’t have to tell him he was the only one I’d ever experienced it so for.

Which, I could tell by the catch in his breath, was as good assurance as any.

The winter progressed, with snow, hail, and rain chasing each other’s tails in an endless, savage circle. I went out as little as I could manage, spending my time baking and churning when I felt up to it. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel useful. And it meant Taelon could use what I made to get what we needed, instead doing others’ work. And I had more of his company for it.

Only once, I left the house to go down to the apiary to see Bronagh’s son. But this visit was shrouded in unease. The walk there was perfectly normal. There were no more glimpses of strange creatures, but the day itself left me as unnerved as the Lulodun had in the summer. The forest pressed in against me, humming an eerie song, and the air was too still. Far too still for our small, windy island.

Bronagh had been glad to see me. Despite the pains of childbirth, and the exhaustion of carrying her baby three weeks longer than she was supposed to, she was strong, and on her feet, showing only a pale concern about the sixth and seventh fingers sitting crookedly on her son’s right hand.

“The other women refuse my company after seeing him,” she admitted to me privately. “They believe that deformations are a sign of faeri and witch blood. But look at him. Have you ever seen a sweeter face? I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with him. And after all, it’s been a strange few months all around. Nature is changing. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The world is preparing for something.”

She wasn’t wrong. The past month had been strange. My cow, Red’s abandoned calf was found by Grieda, laying dead in her barn after seemingly hitting its head so many times against a stall post that the skin covering the skull was split.

The wolf pack had vanished. It sent a pang to my heart every time I remembered Sorrow and thought of their howls at night. No one knew where they had gone. If they had withdrawn to some nook in the forest no one knew of, or if they were dead.

The Fifteen nights were not fifteen, but seventeen. For the first time in seventeen hundred years. And on the last hour of darkness, the village was awoken by a howl of anguish from the Woodsmith’s wife, when she found him beneath a tree, lifeless, his neck slit and his innards spilling out of the cleft gouging his stomach, still hot enough to steam in the snow.

No one ventured into the forest afterward. There was talk that it was the Luloduns, awakened and hungry. But those who believed it were too frightened to hunt them down, and those who didn’t refused to.

I didn’t know what I believed. I knew what I’d seen, but as terrifying as the creature was, it had seemed to pose no threat to either me or Bronagh. Perhaps what Taelon said was true, that they were only violent toward men.

I longed for the winter to be over. For whatever change that was imminent to do its work and then let us be.

Spring couldn’t come soon enough.

Two months after midwinter, Grieda moved in with us. She would stay until the birth and then for a few days afterward until I was strong again.

“You’re at the point now,” she told me when she arrived, “that things could turn unpredictable. It’s better that I’m here on the off chance that something happens.”

“Something?” I squawked. “What sort of something?”

“You’ll be fine.” She patted me on the head. “You needn’t worry.”

As it happened, I did worry. I couldn’t help but worry. Whenever I tried to sleep, terrible and grisly images painted themselves across the insides of my eyelids. Some from the memories of my visit to Mea Ginnias, and others which my own, vivid, and excited imagination created. Screams, wails, blood. The smell of burnt flesh and hot metal, the scent of bitter herbs and oils. The white sheets soaked in red. A still babe with three faces, one twisted in agony, one in grief, and one in savagery.

I would jolt awake, shaking and drenched with sweat, my hair falling loose and tangled out of its plait as I struggled to breathe.

Taelon would wake the moment he felt me stir, and I knew he was worried for me, even when Grieda assured him each time that everything was normal. I would do my best to smile and nod along with her speech if only to convince the frown to leave his face. With two of us pitted against him, he could hardly argue, but by the end, his lips would be drawn into a tight, bloodless line, and he would crawl back into bed with me stiffly without saying another word. When morning came, I would know that he hadn’t slept, and would stare at me coldly when I tried to tell him to stop worrying.

“There’s no need to fret,” Grieda assured me after one such incident when I was feeling particularly inclined toward worrying about everything I could, and decided it was time to voice my fears that he found me a bother. “This time is almost more difficult for the men, you know.”

“How?” This hadn’t seemed logical to me, no matter how I looked at it. I was in constant discomfort, he was not. I was the one who would be forcing a child out of my body, he was not.

How could this possibly be difficult for him?

“It’s because all they can do is wait and see what happens, and they know that when it comes to it, they’re useless creatures.” There was something like humor in Grieda’s hawk eyes as she said this, and she crushed a handful of mint into a mortar along with ten or so other undistinguishable ingredients which would inevitably be given to me for my reluctant consumption.

“Men—” she nodded at me importantly, grinding the mix with a pestle, “—don’t like being useless. That’s why they’re always strutting about, competing, and getting into brawls. Makes them feel like they’re good for something.”

“Well, that may be so.” I lay the back of my hand against my head as an ache built, pulsing against my eyes. “Still, that doesn’t give him the right to be cold toward me.”

“He’s afraid, that’s all. Since you keep pushing him away. Give him something to do and he’ll lap it up like a kitten with cream and be purring at your heels.”

“Like what? You are right, in situations such as these, men are completely useless.”

“Talk to him.” Grieda piled her mash into a cheesecloth, which she tied up and plopped into a pot of water that was boiling over the fire, then wiped her hands on her apron and smoothed back a few wisps of hair. “Stop putting on a brave face and be vulnerable.”

“He gets frightened when I’m vulnerable,” I complained sourly and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Bulls and assess, Ingrith.” Grieda groaned. “I’m here to help you deliver a child, not instruct you in the many trials of love. This is something the two of you must sort out between yourselves, and soon.” She nodded at my stomach. “You haven’t a lot of time, and you’ll want to be on at least marginally good terms when it starts. A woman during childbirth is not a charming one.”

I was determined to ignore every bit of Grieda’s advice out of spite, in a spiteful mood as I was. What I had wanted was a woman to sympathize with me, not one who treated me like an overdramatic cow.

My resent did not remain with me long, despite how I urged it to stay. When I woke that night from a dream full of my mother’s lullabies and soft embrace, into a land farther away from her than I had ever been, with nothing but the shhh of the waves to sing to me, I found myself shaking Taelon awake and crawling into his arms, and all at once any frigidity between us was forgotten. He ran his fingers gently through my hair and held me warmly to him, and I was unable to resist the comfort of his touch and the safety of his presence.

I tried once, to remind myself that I was annoyed with him. But by the time I acknowledged the thought, I couldn’t for the life of me remember why, and so, said the peaceful, logical part of my mind, there’s no point being upset over something that was so unimportant you can’t even remember what it is.

In the dark, where I was both terribly exposed and beautifully hidden. I whispered to him my fears, my concerns, my many worries. That I was terrified, that I was confused, and most of all, that I missed my mother. I missed being a daughter. I missed being a child. I missed knowing that I could give my shames and mistakes unto her, and then could lay my head upon her lap and sleep, knowing I was safe and forgiven.

I would have to be this person now. I would be the one to hold a child’s world upon my shoulders, and the thought, while wonderful, was frightening, and I hadn’t any idea of how I would do it. How my back wouldn’t break from the weight of it.

Taelon was silent while I spoke. When I finished, he embraced me tighter, and I knew he was scared, but his voice was relieved.

I won’t ever let you be alone, Ingrith, was what he told me, quieter than the breeze that rocked the branches of the trees.

Let me be the one to hold you when you need to be held.

You won’t hold the burden of a world all on your own, let it be mine too. My fear is that you shall forget. You shall refuse to see that I remain by your side. You are an irreplaceable part of my life, let me become one in yours.

“I’m a wretched creature,” I moaned one especially drizzly afternoon, pacing the length of the floor, kneading my back with my fists. “If you poked me with a needle, I’m certain I should pop.”

My entire body; feet, ankles, hands, breasts, and wrists all felt swollen. My unrestful night had my eyes aching profusely, and I was ready to tell anyone that my belly was surely the size of a barrel full of water, and quite as heavy.

Now and then, since late in the night, there would be an agitating spasm of pain, and I would have to stop whatever I was doing and just breathe until it faded.

Just at that moment, I was hit with a particularly terrible one, and I bent over, clutching the edge of the table as I gasped.

“Grieda . . .” Taelon said. He had been watching me like a wolf on a rabbit for the entire day. There had hardly been a moment when I didn’t feel his gaze on my body, waiting, watching for something to pounce on.

Grieda took her time setting down her knitting, and then glided toward me elegantly, and when I reeled once again from a similar pain, she let out a small, noncommittal “Humph.”

“What–What is it?” I asked her urgently, as she took my arm and led me toward the bedroom. “Grieda—It’s not—I can’t be—” My words were lost as the pain came once again, severe enough that I nearly fainted from it.

“I’m afraid that just isn’t up to you, now, is it? Taelon—” Grieda said, and he stood up, quivering like an arrow waiting to be shot from a bow.

“Put her to bed, will you? She’s too light-headed to stay up. I’m going to fetch some things. I won’t—” she held up a hand as we both tried to protest, “—take long. Go on now.”

I was shaking, but not nearly as much as Taelon’s hands, which for once were cold as they took mine. “Come along, Ingrith,” he told me gently.

I had to stop once and clutch at the wall as the pain came again, only deeper this time, penetrating my very core. I gasped, and the world spun in a dizzying whirl of color.

From the moment I got into bed, to whatever happened next, things became hazy and distorted. The waves of pain brought with them fits of sudden darkness. I existed in a world of agony, in which the seam that separated dreams from reality did not exist.

Hello, Judeth.

A creature loomed above me, large and terrifying, with the face of a bird, surrounded by a mane of tangled, twig-like grey hair that rested on blue cloaked shoulders. He breathed hot breath into my face, rank and sour.

“Stop worrying.” There was a sharp, rough laugh that sounded like Grieda. Was she back?

“Grieda?” I asked. The world was tilting. The bird beast shivered. Then he was gone. “Grieda, what was that?”

“What was what, girl?”

I was leaning forward, and she was placing a pillow behind my back.

“The beast.” I pointed to where he had been, just a moment before. “The beast with the bird’s face, why was he here?”

“What is she talking about?” Taelon’s voice was hushed.

“I saw it—” I buckled inward when the pain came again, sharp and nauseating. “Don’t tell me I’m mad. It spoke to me. It breathed on me. I could smell its breath.”

My face was wet, and I didn’t know whether the dampness was tears or perspiration or both. My chest heaved with quick, short breaths being drawn in succession, that filled my head with air and not my lungs.

I lapsed into darkness once more, hovering between consciousness and nothing. When I came to, I was surrounded by voices. Ten, I thought. No, two. Only two.

“She’s young, and she’s strong. There’s no reason why anything should go wrong. Now light the Gmwayne. Away from any drafts. It cannot go out until everything is over.”

“What was she talking about? What beast?”

“She was hallucinating. It’s not uncommon. Humor her for now. Be sure to keep her from becoming distressed. That’s the most important thing. Yes, there. That will do nicely.”

Red. There was red on the sheets. I felt the smooth, disgusting warmth of it between my thighs.

“Blood,” I whispered. “There’s blood.”

“Unavoidable, I’m afraid. No need to worry.” Something cold dabbed at my brow. I couldn’t tell whether it was a cloth or a hand.

Another clenching, biting pain and let my head droop against the pillows.

When I opened my eyes, I nearly fainted again from the sight before me. My belly twitched and writhed, while inside a deep, burning pain split me open. It shoved its hands through first; clawed, twisted, three-fingered hands. And then its head, jaw dripping with blood as it ate its way free from its confines.

Wrinkled, raw, red skin. Two pinpoints of blue for eyes. Fangs extending from the gums down past the chin, and there were feathers; wet and thin, instead of hair.

It moved for my breasts, ripping my flesh open further in its urgency.

I screamed, and then the nightmare was gone.

It was gone.

“Ingrith.” Grieda’s voice was loud and commanding in my ears. “Ingrith, you need to—” The rest of her words were lost to me as the pain came again, fiercer, and stronger.

Judeth.

The creature was back, extending one long, gnarled hand to brush my cheek. The touch was like fire, each claw trailing agony through my skin.

“Stop!” I cried breathlessly.

“—y isn’t she listening?”

“Talk to her. Keep her awake.”

The air shimmered, and the creature became my mother, smiling and warm. Judeth, take my hand.

“Mother.” I let out a sob of relief and extended my hand, only to have it fall back, limp against the sheets, already exhausted by the minimal effort, and her beautiful eyes gleamed blue.

Come, daughter. Take my hand.

“I cannot,” my voice was a hushed rasp, and for a moment my mother’s face twisted into something terrible and ugly. She snarled. Take my hand! She was no longer my mother. The creature’s beak opened, and a long, swollen tongue lolled out to taste the sweat on my skin. Ahhhh, it sighed. I have waited for you. My beautiful, sweet, sweet Judeth. At last, I may have you. At last, I may taste you.

“Don’t—” I flung my head back and felt it collide with the wall. The pain swelled and my ears sang.

Do not fight me, Judeth. You are mine. You have always been mine. Give yourself to me.

Now he was James, with a bright grin stretched across his face. Come on, Judeth. He laughed at me. Why are you hesitating? We can be together forever!

“Stop, please,” I choked.

Someone’s hands were touching my abdomen, pushing, I thought. They must have been Grieda’s. Taelon’s hands were gentle. I became aware of those same gentle hands brushing against my fingers, releasing them from their hold on the sheets.

“Ingrith?” Taelon’s voice was quiet and frightened. The lack of a tremor in his words could not disguise the tremble in his hands.

“Can you hear me, Ingrith?”

No. James’s face twisted. The creature was back again. His glittering eyes enlarged, each red vein stretching and straining in his rage.

Yes, I hear you.

“If you can, please, please say something.”

I tightened my grasp on Taelon’s hand.

Don’t ask me to speak. Please, don’t ask me to speak.

Someone was screaming, and I supposed it must be me, because my throat tightened as the pain came again, tearing me apart from the inside. This time I knew it must have for real.

The creature disappeared.

Everything came to me in shattered fragments of color, taste, sound, and sensation. Black. When had night fallen? Salt; in my mouth, in the air. Heat; a burning pit of coal inside my body. My hair stuck to my skin, soaked in my own sweat. I breathed in fire, and I breathed out smoke. Something wasn’t right. The pain wasn’t right.

“Grieda—”

“I know, I know!” Grieda’s voice was quieter than it should have been. Higher pitched than it was supposed to be.

I gripped Taelon’s hand tighter. Something is wrong, I tried to say. Tell her that something isn’t right.

The pain had become one with my pulse, beating like my heart, incessant as the blood flowing in my veins.

“—ild is breech. And there is too much blood.”

Hands pressed down on me again, urgently this time.

“Curse it all,” Grieda’s voice was a frightened hiss. “I can’t move it.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t.”

There was silence, broken only by the sound of my own heavy breathing.

“No.”

“Please.” His voice was broken.

I don’t want to disappear.

“Taelon—”

“I am begging you.”

“But—”

“Is there another way?”

“ . . . No.”

“Then you must.”

His hand shook free of mine, and I thought it must be grasping hers instead. I opened and closed my fingers, inching them along the sheets, searching for something to hold on to. Anything to keep me from slipping away forever.

“Grieda, I trust you.”

“. . . Very well.”

Now she was broken too.

My vision was a splash of blurred shapes and shades. Soft, flickering light from a candle, silver from the terrible grin of the moon, leering at me through the window.

Then it sharpened. Grieda held a braid of wheat in her hands. Her eyes were red, and her hair was loose. I had seen a braid of wheat before. Where had I seen it?

Oh, yes, now I remember.

“You—” I croaked.

That woman who was burned to death on a stake; the angry man waved it at the crowd, screaming.

Her eyes found mine. She licked dry lips and looked away again. She was humming. I felt it vibrate through my body as though it came from the core of the earth. It was deep and terrible.

What was he screaming?

“You—” I struggled to rise, and fought her away as she reached long, thin arms to press the braid against me.

“Taelon.” She set down the braid and reached into a basket to pull out a green bottle. She tipped it against a rag. “Press this against her mouth.”

Witch! He screamed, witch!

“No!” I lurched up.

“Ingrith—”

“You’re a witch!” I cried. “A witch! Don’t touch me!”

“Taelon, now, please!”

“Shhhh.” I felt his arms encircle my body, both a support and a cage. “It is alright, Ingrith.”

His lips pressed once, hot against my hair, then a cloth was clamped over my mouth, and my lungs and nostrils were filled with a thick, herbal scent. I tore at the hands holding it there, trying to rip them away, but they stayed firm, and his head rested on my shoulder.

“Forgive me,” he whispered again and again as slowly the pain disappeared, and a soft darkness overwhelmed my vision, creeping in like tentacles of ink in water. Before it pulled me under, I caught one last whiff of the air. Now the scent of mint and sage couldn’t disguise the heavy smell of sulfur and rust, and the coal inside my stomach couldn’t chase away the chill that took hold of my body as the child in my womb shifted and dropped. Or was it I? Was I leaving?

You were supposed to be mine.

I was no longer chained to the earth by my body.

How dare they keep you from me? The deal was struck, the bargain was made. The trade must take place.

Whatever happened next didn’t matter to me. I was dead to the world in every way except for my heart, which continued to beat, loyal, and determined to replenish that which was lost.

I won’t let you go, Judeth. You have not escaped me. A bargain struck is a bargain made. I always collect my due.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that I was exhausted. My body sank heavy and stubborn into the bed like a statue. The second was that I could see. The edges of my vision were no longer blurred. In fact, my eyes felt sharper than they had ever been. Every part of the room, every detail I had never noticed, was suddenly clear and obvious as a red flag. The beams of the ceiling were riddled with the illustrative pathways of insects, carving shallow, intricate designs along the wood. One of them bore a startling resemblance to an image that carried a sense of disturbing familiarity with it.

A beak, a mane of matted hair. A loose, flowing robe.

The third thing that I noticed was that I was no longer pregnant. I flew upward as dread pooled like blood in my stomach. What had happened?

Warm, tender arms entrapped me, and I heard Taelon’s voice in my ear. “Don’t get up, Ingrith.”

“Where is it?” I cried, fighting against his strength. “Where is my—”

“Ingrith, stop. Stop, please.” He fought my flailing limbs and pinioned me against the bed.

All I could see was the blue of his eyes, and the black curl of his hair. All I could feel was the hard press of his chest, the fluttering beat of his heart, and his hands like metal bonds around my wrists. All I could hear was the soft, calming sound of his breathing. He overwhelmed every one of my senses, and slowly I calmed down.

Once he had determined that I wasn’t about to spring up again, he released me, cautiously, keeping one hand pressed against my waist.

“Everything is alright, Ingrith,” he told me.

“Is—There is nothing wrong with—”

“She is alive and well, Ingrith. Alive, well, and perfectly beautiful.” His hand left my waist and found my hair, letting his fingers gently ease out the knots and tangles that it had accumulated during the night’s ordeals.

“She—Where is she?” I whispered.

“With Grieda.”

“Grieda . . . “ The name struck at a memory, and I struggled to leap up once more. “You let a witch take our daughter?”

Smoothly and quickly, I was trapped again.

“How dare you!” I cried, attempting to jerk away. He held fast.

“Ingrith, Grieda won’t hurt her. She isn’t dangerous. Stop—Stop fighting and listen to me!”

The sharp tone of his voice had me frozen. His breathing was nearly as heavy as my own.

“Trust me, Ingrith.” He was gentle again, soothing, and quiet. “If you trust me, calm down and rethink. If Grieda had not done what she did, the child would have died. You as well. She isn’t trying to hurt you. Do you understand?”

Something inside of me did. It wrestled with the part that did not. The word, ‘witch,’ brought with it immediate prejudice.

“It is thanks to Grieda that I am alive,”

Taelon settled beside me. “The story I told you of the illness I had during my first winter on Seaggis; there was more to it. If Grieda had not thrown all cautions to the wind, and risked her life by helping me, I would have died.”

“No,” I said, but only because inside I said, yes.

“It is true, Ingrith. I was the one who asked her to use her gift for you. I would never willfully put you in danger. You know this.”

‘Gift.’ I had only ever heard it named a ‘craft.’

“Where are they?” I asked. “She didn’t take her?” My heartbeat was no longer a panicked thrum, but a steady pulsation.

“No.” He was relieved. So, so relieved. I could feel it in the way he lifted my hands to his lips and kissed them. “No, Ingrith. They are here, just in the next room. I asked that I could have a moment alone with you when you regained consciousness. To speak to you. To . . . apologize to you.”

“Why?” I asked. “What did you do?”

He didn’t meet my eyes. “I held the sleeping draught to your mouth, against your will.”

“You had to,” I acknowledged. “If you hadn’t, who knows what I might have done.”

“The look in your eyes . . .” He shook his head. “The look in your eyes when you realized what I was doing . . . Seven Hells, Ingrith. I never want to see such a look of betrayal in you ever again.”

I reached out and touched his face, brushing my fingertips over the elegant bone of his cheek. “Then be at peace,” I told him. “For I don’t believe you ever shall.”

He tilted his head down and pressed his brow against mine. And we remained that way until I noticed another presence in the room.

For the first time since I had known her, Grieda’s eyes were not sharp, nor searching. She waited in the doorway, a small bundle wrapped in a blanket held in her arms, for my permission to enter, and thus my acceptance.

I held out my hands, giving it to her.

When she lay the bundle in my arms, I no longer cared whether she was a witch. I no longer cared whether the Radkkans would take our home. I no longer worried about anything. I could only marvel at how warm and heavy the infant was in my arms, for such a tiny, small thing. The small, round, pink face, the tiny, squinted eyes framed with golden lashes, and miniature hands with the smallest curled fingers I had ever seen.

She didn’t cry, she didn’t wail, but she shifted, and when she opened her eyes, I saw they were blue. The deepest, most brilliant blue that was almost too harsh to be beautiful, but it was beautiful. She was beautiful.

“Taelon, be a dear and fetch some wood for the fires, they’re burning low,” I heard Grieda say, but I didn’t look up.

“But I—”

“You can take your turn afterward.”

I didn’t have to be paying attention to hear the hidden command that she uttered. Let me have her alone.

I felt the mattress sink, then rise as Taelon stood. I looked up once to meet his eyes, and to trade smiles as he left the room.

“She’s healthy,” Grieda told me hesitantly from my bedside once we were alone. “And strong.”

“Thank you,” I said honestly. “Thank you for doing what you did. Thank you for keeping your promise.”

She fiddled with her hands, the long, bony fingers twitching as she clenched her jaw, emanating uncertainty.

“I know what you think,” she told me at last. “I do not blame you, but please, I beg of you, don’t believe that I would ever, ever do anything to harm you.”

“Have you always been a witch?”

“Yes.”

“Then—” My head, still swimming with sleep and amazement, was slow circulating my thoughts and squeezing them into words. “I never once imagined you could be one. Why didn’t you help Taelon when he was ill? You did it before. Why did you leave him the second time?”

She scrubbed her nails up and down her forearm, scraping at the skin.

“Because to save a life, the gift can be used only once, for every person. I saved his life before. If I tried again, it would have killed him more surely than the fever would.”

“Why?”

“There is a balance. To disrupt that balance is to break the world.”

“One life saved or abandoned could cause such a difference?” I demanded.

“Yes,” she answered me simply. “For every life relates to the others as a whole, like links in a chain. Snap one unduly, and the rest will be forever divided.”

The baby opened her rosebud mouth and made a soft sound. I pulled down the neck of my gown and let her latch onto my breast. Presently, I was filled with the most wonderful sensation of relief as the pressure was lessened, and I leaned back against the pillows with a long exhale.

Grieda did not press me for a reply but waited patiently, and at last, when I had one, she fixed her eyes upon me in rapt, tentative attention.

“My mother is a midwife. So, naturally, people called her a witch.,” I told her, brushing my hand over the baby’s soft, furry golden head. “She knew how to deliver children, she could treat mild illnesses, and stitch a wound closed, but these acts were done with her hands, not with charms and enchantments.”

The child in my arms pulled away from my chest, a bit of milk trailing down her chin. I used the edge of the quilt to wipe it away before continuing.

“When I was quite young, a woman under her care died after childbirth, and her mother told the village that mine was a witch and that she must be burned. My mother was saved from the stake by pure luck, which brought a different culprit into the light: the woman’s own sister. I watched her burn, as the dead girl’s husband screamed that she was a witch to the spectators.”

Grieda’s hands were clenched into white fists in her skirts, and something that looked like tears wavered in her eyes.

“I don’t know if she was a genuine witch, but she screamed, and she cried. I don’t think her having been a witch would have changed how terrible it was. She died a woman on the pyre.”

I shifted the infant into a more comfortable position in my arms and lowered my voice, in the hopes that she would sleep. “A little over two years ago, it must have been now, my mother tried to help an abused woman give birth. But the baby died, and when the husband came home, he called her a witch. I was there that time. I saw the sadness and desperation in my mother’s eyes, and I know she did her best to save them both.”

I was struck with remorse as I conceded the true amount of time I had been away from home. Away from my mother. Two years and several months. And when I did see her again, we would meet as mother and mother, no longer just mother and daughter.

Grieda wiped her hand over her cheeks, and when she spoke, her voice rocked like a boat on the ocean.

“No woman who is born with the craft chooses it,” she said. “We see it as a gift only until we learn the truth: that everything has a shadow. When I told you the story of my husband and I, I did not tell you the whole of it, which was that he did not die from fever. He died from grief.”

She knotted her hands together in her lap and bit down heavily on her lip to keep it from trembling.

“A month into our marriage, I found that I was with child. I carried that child to term, and the physician told me it would be an easy birth with a strong baby. However, the child that I bore was not strong. He was not healthy. He was dead. I did not know it at the time, but I have since learned that magic — sorcery, power, whatever you prefer to call it — it is harbored in the womb. If a child is conceived, which is rarely, the source of the power drains the babe’s life as it grows. A witch cannot bear a living child. But I did not know, so it was such a shock neither of us could comprehend it at first. My husband lasted three months in his sadness. I thought he would be strong enough. I thought we could be strong enough, together. But I was wrong. Perhaps he would have been, if he hadn’t also lost his father and his youngest sister a few weeks before. I suppose there was too much for him to overcome.”

She swallowed. “I woke up one morning to find him hanging by his neck in the stable.”

I reached out my hand and took hers, clasping it. “I’m sorry.”

She squeezed my fingers, then let go and wiped her eyes on her apron. I waited until she had finished to speak again.

“Did it hurt?” I asked her gently. “To successfully deliver my baby when you couldn’t deliver your own? Did it hurt you?”

“No.” Her eyes were red, and her voice was raw. She glared at me with fire. “No. I would never wish my troubles on anyone else, even less on you, Ingrith.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder. “I have come,” she said, “to respect and care for you as I have for very few others. You have a moral strength, which so few women possess. My dear girl, that I have helped you, in any way makes me gladder than I could ever tell you.”

We both looked up as Taelon made his presence known by clearing his throat. His eyes jumped from Grieda to me, to the baby, then back again, waiting, like she had, for permission to re-enter the room.

Grieda drew her hand quickly away from my shoulder.

“I think it would be best for me to get some sleep,” she said awkwardly. “It will be dawn soon. Ingrith, if you need me, for anything, I shall be in the next room.”

I glanced out of the window and found, to my surprise, that the darkness had a blue tinge to it now.

She strode toward the door after my acknowledging nod and ruffled Taelon’s hair on her way out. As soon as she was gone, Taelon bounced to my side, his black curls mussed from Grieda’s hand.

I shifted over to give him room, and he crawled beneath the covers beside me.

“Here.” I held out the baby for him to take, wordlessly setting him a test. He took her tentatively from me, and I waited while he gazed down at her in silence.

“Can you come to love her?” I asked, finally, when I could bear it no longer. “Please, tell me you can.”

“Of course I can,” he told me, eyes never leaving her face. “I do. I do,” he repeated the words to himself once more, as though surprised by them.

“Do you?” I begged for the answer.

A smile tugged his lips, and it was the same sweet smile that he gave me.

“Yes,” he said earnestly.

“Thank Sunah.” The relief that gripped me was immediate and exhausting. “I don’t know what I would do if you could not.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He let her grasp his finger with her small hand, and the reverent admiration in his eyes was mixed with trepidation. Both were so miraculously beautiful to me.

“You wished for me to take the tea. Don’t you remember?”

He gave me a disgruntled look. “I wished for you to take the tea because I wanted you to be safe, Ingrith. I did not want to have to watch you experience what my mother experienced, or Nuala, or any other woman for that matter.”

“But you did.” The child was sleeping. I watched him loosen his finger from her grasp, tenderly, carefully.

“Yes, I did.” He looked at me, and his expression was serious. “It was the most terrible thing I have ever had to bear.”

“But you don’t regret it?”

“I regret that you were hurt. I regret you were in pain and there was nothing I could do to take it from you, but I do not regret her.”

He let me take the baby from his arms into my own again. When I did so, she awoke and began to squirm.

“Oh, dear.” I sighed and rocked her gently in my arms to little avail.

“You could try singing to her,” Taelon suggested. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”

“Sing?” I repeated doubtfully. “I don’t know that I’m all that good at it. It might distress her more.”

“You can still try.”

I wracked my brain to try to come up with a single song I could remember from my own childhood. There were few, and even less that I knew by heart.

“There’s one I can think of,” I said. “But it is only the second verse I have committed to memory.”

“I do not mind. And I am sure she does not.” Taelon rested his head lightly against my shoulder and closed his eyes. His long, dark lashes curled black against the pallor of his skin, and I let myself settle into the comfort of his heat.

My voice was rough and uneven when I began, and I winced to myself more than a few times, but as I went on, it became smoother. The melody came easier to my lips, and the tune became soft and rich, vibrating through my tongue in a hum.

“Flowers and string, flowers and string. I’d a weave thee a crown of flowers and string. And would ye wear it ‘pon thy head, our whole life together I will sing. Love and skin, love and skin. I’d a make thee a throne of love and skin. And would ye rule from on its heights I’d a gladly give my life, thy happiness to bring. Blood and bone. Blood and bone. I’d a craft thee a fortress of blood and of bone. And if ye would only dwell within it, we’ll craft a garden with everything blessed grown. Yes, love. Yes, love. My love, I wish to sing. Come, my love. Kiss me, my love. My love, let us dance until spring.”

By the time I had gone through it three times, I had two people nestled against me, sleeping.

“You ass,” I told Taelon’s sleeping face, trying to sound stern. “What right have you to be this exhausted? None, I should think. I ought to be the one sleeping.”

His expression was peaceful. His chest rose and fell with deep, even breaths, and one elegant hand rested gently over my stomach.

“Oh, well.” I spent a moment carefully shifting myself so that the baby rested in the crook of my arm, and Taelon’s head was tucked between my neck and my shoulder; then at long last, I closed my eyes, and soon enough, I too fell into a peaceful slumber.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````

“Lady Soldana?” the little boy called her name with uncertainty as she gasped.

The woman’s hands shook, and she dropped the large, silver basin to the floor, which it met with a loud clang and spilled its contents over the stones.

“Lady Soldana?” his young, high-pitched voice was frightened as she dropped to her knees, shuddering.

“Fetch the Lord,” she croaked at the servant who stood at attention near the door.

“What do I tell him, Lady Soldana?”

“Tell him . . .” Her breast heaved, and she let her head rest against the cool floor. It did little to ease the pounding ache. “Tell him that it has happened. He will understand.”

“As you wish, Lady Soldana.”

No. She thought after he had gone. No, no, no. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me, sister.

Icthys tapped the fingers of one hand against the stone of the dungeon’s wall.

“She is certain?”

The servant bowed his head in answer.

“Excellent.” He bit his lower lip, and asked, “And our brave comrades, sailing toward—toward—Oh, what is it called? That small island.”

“Seaggis, Lord.”

“Seaggis. That’s right. Has there been any word from them?”

“Only one, Lord, when they rested in the harbor of Gatcha. They should arrive at any time now.”

“Wonderful.” Icthys clapped his hands together and let out a bark of delighted laughter. “Wonderful.”

“Does your Lordship require further need of my services?” the servant asked.

“No, no. You may leave. In fact, why don’t you visit your family. In Jana, aren’t they?”

The servant’s blue eyes grew wide. “My—My family, Lord?” he stuttered.

“Yes. Take a month and spend some time with them.”

He brushed his hands off on the man’s chest and grinned at him. “Things are going magnificently. I am sure we can manage without you for a time.”

“Yes, Lord.” The servant scrambled away, stumbling in his excited hurry.

“Yes,” Icthys said to himself once he was alone. “Yes. Magnificently.”

You cannot escape me, Granddaughter. I shall have you.