A wail. The baby was alive. She saw it in Iresna’s arms, its Mark glowing brightly, calling to her like a beacon.
Iresna’s hand cupped the baby’s neck. One flick of her wrist — Marjan shivered from the cold and the fear and wondered if she would ever be warm again.
Iresna held up the child so Marjan could see her. Born prematurely, the girl was small for a newborn, with wrinkled red skin and a shock of black hair like Vatska’s that nearly covered her eyes. “Marked on the heart, and love is her art,” said Iresna, examining the girl’s glowing chest.
“Please,” Marjan begged. “I’ll do anything. You can’t kill her.”
“You think I would do that? Kill my own grandchild?”
It was so cold. Marjan could scarcely feel her lips. “You — you always call on the Solitary God.”
Iresna wrapped the crying child in her shawl. “When you meet a dangerous thing, you keep your eye on it. You don’t do anything threatening. You make sure to keep it calm.”
Gavek had turned back to admire the child. “If it’s dangerous, you should try to get away from it.”
“There is no getting away from the Solitary God. Not these days,” said Iresna bitterly. She shifted to allow Marjan to take the wrapped child. “That should have been a difficult birth, but it went more easily than I thought it would. Nurse your child. It will help you both.”
The baby’s weight felt good in Marjan’s arms. It was a strange sensation, touching someone who shared her blood. The baby quieted, sucked. Marjan flooded with warmth. Dulchenka, she thought, staring into the tiny face. I will name you after sweetness, as my own mother named me after bitterness.
The wind howled outside, but within their little shelter, it was surprisingly warm. Marjan shifted to rid herself of the heaviest blankets. Iresna looked down at mother and child, an old sadness showing in her expression.
“When I was small, I had a sister,” Iresna began. “I never told you this, Gavekska. My sister had the Mark on her cheek. A mark on her face, she’s a healing embrace. If Father had allowed her to live, perhaps she’d have had a daughter. Maybe my Vatska would still be alive.” Iresna’s mouth puckered sourly. “They told everyone the baby was born dead. I knew better.”
She ran her fingers through the baby’s shock of black hair.
“It will be hard for anyone to resist this one,” she said. “With such a mark, everyone will love her.”
“It won’t stop the priests,” said Marjan.
“No,” said Iresna.
Beneath them, the ice began making sharp, popping sounds. Marjan shifted. The water around her skirts had begun to melt. “My clothes are soaked . . .” she said.
Gavek and Iresna looked sharply toward each other.
“I told you we should not be on the river,” said Gavek.
Beneath the wind, they heard the sound of breaking ice.
“Leave the blankets and things,” said Iresna. “We must run.”
“Mama,” said Gavek, “The wind is blowing. Our clothes are wet. We won’t get ten yards before we freeze.”
“We won’t freeze,” said Iresna. “But we may fall through the ice before we reach shore.”
The older woman took Marjan’s hands, urgently.
“Listen to me. You put my family at risk by coming to marry my Vatska. You led us all to this river so we may die. But you can save us now, you and my granddaughter. Do you think all births go so easily? At times like this? And how do you think the river is melting during a storm? You were cold, weren’t you? You wanted to be warm. Your daughter has already helped you work magic. Now you must tell the ice to stay hard.”
“How?” asked Marjan.
“You’d best figure it out, or we’ll all die here, and it won’t matter whether you escape the Solitary God and his knives.”
“But we can’t . . . Dulchenka has love magic.”
“What does that matter? You’re Marked on your thigh. You may do anything. Stop the storm.”
Marjan’s heart pounded. How could she work magic like this? Even if this truly wouldn’t be her first magic, it would still be her first time commanding it. And the rhyme — women like her cast spells that went wrong. This spell couldn’t go awry. They’d die if it did. For once in her life, Marjan had to make things happen as they should.
She cradled Dulchenka to her chest. She had a daughter now. She’d never had that before. Her glance flickered toward Iresna’s stern face, and for a moment, she felt as though she were looking at the mother she’d never known.
“Let the ice stay strong,” Marjan whispered.
The creaking stopped.
She tried again. “Let there be no wind.”
The gusts fell silent.
Iresna pulled down the blankets. All around them was a circle of calm. The storm raged around its edges, sleet driven sideways by the wind.
“Can we move?” asked Gavek.
“We must,” said Iresna.
They walked home by lantern-light, in a rosy circle surrounded by storm. Marjan cuddled the baby close, treasuring the moments when Dulchenka woke for a moment to latch on for a suck or two before sleeping again. She pressed her fingers against the warm glow of her daughter’s Marked heart. Of all the loves Dulchenka would inspire in her lifetime, she could never make anyone love her more than her mother already did.
Iresna trudged alongside, a grim set to her jaw. At last, in a voice like creaking ice, she said, “You know you can’t stay.”
Marjan’s world cracked open like the river.
“The priests would discover you,” Iresna said. “As long as Dulchenka is still a baby, you could never fight them.”
It was true, of course. The stories were full of Marked mothers and their infants and how their nascent magic succumbed to blessed blades.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” said Iresna. “I believe we can risk your staying until the end of winter. The storms will protect you until the pass opens.”
“You’ll keep Dulchenka?” asked Marjan.
“My grandchild? Oh, yes.”
“At least she’ll be with family,” said Marjan, her throat caught with tears. It was more than she’d had herself.
They went the rest of the way in silence, their footsteps the only noise apart from the howling wind.
Gavek set aside goods and coins for Marjan. She worried about taking things she had no right to, but Gavek assured her it was fair compensation for the work she’d done.
He sat with Marjan and Dulchenka during the late winter evenings while they recovered from the birth. He rocked Dulchenka on his knee as her father never would, and looked with awe at the Marks that blazed like firelight through their clothes.
Iresna stayed away. Gavek said it was because she did not want Marjan to go. She came out at last on the final day of winter and wrapped Marjan in a tight, painful embrace.
“Keep in touch with Gavek through the trade inns,” said Iresna.
“I will.”
Gently, Iresna took Dulchenka from her mother’s arms. “When she’s old enough, maybe we can find a way for you to meet.”
“Perhaps.”
Marjan packed the mule — this time with Iresna and Gavek’s blessings — and mounted him for the long ride down the peak. Within a mile, her Mark faded so that it no longer showed through her skirts.
Marjan hadn’t told Iresna or Gavek, but she had a plan. She would ride through Dellosert, and beyond if necessary, until her Mark began to glow once more, and then she would finally meet her mother.
She wondered how many people still knew the second verse of the witch’s rhyme, the forbidden one her foster mother had whispered when she was smalclass="underline"