by AB Bradley
With a grunt, she tipped the basket. The shells piled higher, but they refused to fall. It was as if they knew their doom waited patiently beneath the waves.
Mara frowned and dug her nails into the bottom of the basket. She shuffled her feet closer to the ledge.
“Get in there, you stupid shells!” Mara lifted the basket—just a little higher.
Both shells and reed container splashed into the sea. Mara’s burdened belly tipped her forward. Her heart fluttered. Her arms swung in wild circles. She toppled over, and the dark, glassy Sapphire Sea swallowed her whole.
She spun and splashed through a torrent of foam and rubbery bubbles sliding up her arms and cheeks. The sea’s sour brine stung her lips and burned her throat. She reached for the deck, but in her panic, she hit her knuckles against the wood, and a jolt of pain lanced through her hand.
A soft form slid across her knee, gentle as a first-time patron’s playful caress. Another form glided across her back. In her periphery, she caught a fin slicing the sea like a black knife tearing through a thin curtain.
Mara knew coral sharks well. They swarmed the shallows just off Sollan’s shores. Most people in the Floatwaif ate them daily so plentiful were their numbers. Normally, the sharks feared men. That fear vanished in a frenzy brought on by things they ate like greasy shells and bits of soft oyster inside them.
She swallowed another bitter gulp of seawater and coughed, flailing madly for the deck. Once calm waters bubbled. Fins cut the waves. Mara finally grasped the deck with her red, bleeding knuckles. She heaved and pulled. Her arms trembled. Her body shook. She lifted her chin just over the deck, but the child in her belly weighed more than her arms could bear, and Mara slipped.
Mara cried out. Weighed by her child and exhausted from stirring thick stew, not even the terror electrifying her blood gave her the strength to save herself.
“Help…” she rasped through her sobs. “Please…I can’t…”
A coral shark’s tail slapped her face and stung her cheek. Her babe twisted and kicked. Through some miracle, she grabbed the barge’s lip once again.
She heaved, but she also tired. No matter how hard she tried, her arm would not bring her above the waves. A finger slipped. Her adrenaline faded, and the sea gently coaxed her beneath its surface.
A strong, steady grip clamped around her wrist. She stuck her other hand above the waves, and her savior took it, yanking Mara from the water in a shower of sea and foam and bits of sharp shells.
The saltwater stung her eyes and blurred her vision. She pressed her palms against the deck and coughed until her lungs burned. Blinking, her world slowly came into focus. So did her rescuer.
“Tolstes!” Mara laughed, grasping the man’s hand. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The strong boy knelt beside her. He lifted her knuckles to his eyes, his blond brows knitting together as he inspected the bloody scrapes. “There are much easier and faster ways to take your life than putting coral sharks into a frenzy and throwing yourself to them.”
“I—I fell. The basket…” Mara coughed. She turned and vomited seawater on the wood. “I couldn’t pull myself up, Tolstes. You saved me. Why are you even here? Did I take too long? Did Faratta ask for me?”
“It’s not that at all. It’s crowded up there. This is the busiest Harvest Festival I have seen in all my years. You’d think they knew we’d never celebrate the day again by the drinking and mounds of glimmer they’re shoveling down their throats. I came out to check the aft for thieves and heard the splash. To be honest, I almost hacked your hand off when I saw you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Mara smiled, but a sharp pain in her groin wiped it from her face. The pain twisted up her body and coiled around her belly where it clenched like a snapping eel around her womb. And then, it vanished as quickly as it came.
“What’s wrong?” Tolstes asked. “You have an odd look about you.”
“Because I felt something odd about me. It’s gone now. We should go inside before Faratta thinks I’ve run off.”
Tolstes nodded and gently clasped her hand. He helped Mara to her feet and rung the seawater from her dress. “The Buttered Puffer might not even notice,” he said.
“Let’s hope. I’ve been gone long enough.”
The strong boy stood and guided Mara toward the doorway leading inside. They slipped beneath the canopy’s shadow. A familiar burning hardness clamped her groin and shot to her womb.
Mara doubled over. Her knees hit the deck. Tolstes kneeled and clasped her shoulders in his strong grip. Concern contorted the boyish innocence of his features. “Mara, something really is wrong.”
“No, not now…Not tonight.”
“What is it? You know what ails you?”
Mara twisted around. She scooted to the wall and panted, her arm resting over her belly. “I think I’m having this child, Tolstes.”
“You mean now? On Harvest Festival?” He shuffled to her, eyeing her belly like it was a kraken that just crawled on deck. “What—what—what—what do I do?”
“I’m not ready. I’m not ready.” She grabbed Tolstes’ hand and leaned forward. “Olessa will take my child. I do not want to say goodbye. I promised, but I can’t. I can’t.”
“Six save me. Don’t worry about that right now, Mara,” he said, twisting his hand out of her grasp. “Worry about a safe childbirth. I’ll go get help. Maybe Madame Olessa has delivered a child before…”
“No!” Mara grabbed the man’s loose shirt and yanked him to her. His eyes widened into full moons before her. She pulled him so close, his breath washed over her face.
“Do not fetch Madame Olessa,” she hissed through the wall of her teeth. “Find Gia. You must find Gia and bring her. She will help. I know she will.”
Tolstes looked unconvinced. He bit his lip and glanced toward the doorway. “We could get in trouble. I really should get Olessa.”
“Tolstes, since you have no manhood, I can’t cut it off. But I promise you I will haunt your dreams through this life and all others if you bring our madame to me before my child takes its first breath. I promise upon the Six and all other gods from all other ages that were and have yet to be. Bring my madame here, and I. Will. Haunt. You.”
The strong boy recoiled. He blinked, his jaw loose while his mind processed her words. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go get Gia, then.”
“Thank you.”
Tolstes stood. He darted into the doorway but paused before he disappeared down the hall. “You’re frightening when you’ve got a fire in you.”
“Go!”
He bolted into the shadows. Another snaking pain gripped her womb. Mara dug her nails into the wood. Her body pushed even though her mind protested.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ashwalk Pilgrim
“Push, Mara, push!” Gia’s dark eyes loomed large in Mara’s vision. Her fingers wrapped around Mara’s wrist and squeezed reassuringly.
The pain. Mara had never felt a pain like that before. She’d suffered Olessa’s beatings many times, but the child forcing its way from her womb into the world was an ever-heaving torment unlike any silken fist her madame ever slammed against her jaw.
Labor was an agony that blossomed within the deepest parts of her. Nothing dulled it. Nothing lessened it. Her groin was fire, her legs slick with filth, her brow soaked in sweat that stung like jellyfish poison in her eyes.
Her deep muscles flexed and twisted. Mara cringed and grabbed Tolstes’ hand in an iron grasp.
The poor strong boy looked frightened as a fish on a sand dune. His eyes darted to Mara’s stomach and back to the door leading inside the barge. If she released him, he’d either jump into the sea to face the sharks or run screaming to Olessa, begging for forgiveness.
Mara clenched her jaw and tightened her grip. “It hurts, Tolstes. It hurts so much.”
Gia grabbed Mara’s sweaty chin and jerked it toward her. “You just push and that’s all you do, do you hear me, Mara? Push and do not stop. Y
ou’re strong. You can do this!”
She heaved a sob as the pain erupted in her belly. “I don’t know—”
“Push or I’ll slap you so hard this child flies out your belly!”
“Slap me then. Slap me so hard, I spit out my teeth. Just get this child out of me!”
Gia smiled but quickly forced her lips down. Tolstes snickered and dipped his chin. Mara whipped toward him and glared daggers in his eyes. “What’s so funny, strong boy?”
His face paled. He looked to Gia for support. “But it was—I thought—a joke?”
Gia rolled her eyes. “Just hush and sit there for her to hold.”
“I’m scared.” Mara squeezed her eyes shut. Hot tears streamed from the corners of her lids. “Tell me everything will be fine.”
“Everything will be fine,” Gia cooed. She stroked Mara’s temple. “It will be just fine.”
“You’ll make it through this,” Tolstes added. “The Six will bless this child. I’m sure of it.”
Another burning, twisting pain coiled around her womb. Mara sobbed, pushing with all her might.
Gia looked between Mara’s legs. The woman’s dark eyes swelled, and she shuffled to a better position. “I see the head! Once more, Mara. Once more!”
Mara gathered all the energy left within her and opened her eyes to the world. In the distance on the horizon, the bright moon glittered on the calm sea. The silver disc crowned the titan’s bones like the halo of a mighty god.
“I can’t do it,” she told the titan.
“You can,” Gia answered instead. “Push, damn you. I said PUSH!”
Mara screamed and poured all her strength, all her hope, and all her fear into a final, terrifying push. She clamped her teeth into a tight, trembling wall. Her vision faded into a tunnel. Only Gia remained, framed by the dark sky and the black silhouette of the titan’s bones.
Ever so slowly, Gia smiled. A satisfying weight slipped from Mara’s groin, and her body relaxed. Her tunnel vision expanded. Her strength flowed away on her sigh. The inferno in her body faded into an aching burn. She released Tolstes from her grip and shuddered.
The strong boy slipped a small knife from his pocket he’d swiped from the kitchen and handed it to Gia. “Cut the cord from the child. I would do it, but, ah, you’re already down there and all…”
Mara’s friend nodded and plucked the knife from Tolstes. Licking her lips, she cut the chord.
Mara smiled. She ran her hand through her sweat and saltwater soaked hair and waited for her child’s first wailing breath. “Boy or girl, Gia?”
Gia’s brows knitted in a wrinkled wedge above her smooth nose. Her dark eyes glanced worriedly at the strong boy. “Boy…”
“Wonderful,” Mara said. “A boy. Let me see my son, Gia.”
Tolstes caught Gia’s worried look, and his own brows knotted together. His bright eyes flicked from Gia to Mara and back again.
A new kind of fear worked its way up Mara’s spine unlike any terror she ever imagined. “Gia, what’s wrong? Let me see him, Gia. Give him to me. Oh Six, please give me my son.”
Tolstes edged over to Gia. His lips pressed into a flat line. His eyes caught sight of the child. He swallowed and shuffled back. His chin trembled, and he looked away.
“What’s wrong, Tolstes?” Mara asked.
She couldn’t see her son, and neither could she hear his screams. The terror racing through her veins clamped a cold hand around her heart. “Why isn’t my son crying? Shouldn’t he cry? Shouldn’t he scream?”
Gia choked down a sob. A tear slipped down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away. “He should, Mara. I’m so sorry, but he should.”
“No. N—no!” Mara twisted forward. Pain racked her body. Filth and blood stained her legs. The reek of her urine accosted her nose as it soaked into the shadowy deck.
Mara focused on the infant lying on the wood. Gia had cut his chord to Mara. Blood of her womb covered his tiny, plump body and stained his pink skin scarlet.
His closed eyes were soft and puffy above cheeks no larger than spring plums, and his lips were two silken caterpillars softly embracing. He looked hale. He appeared healthy. But the boy who only a few hours ago kicked and squirmed within her belly lay still as stone and lively as brick.
In that instant, Mara knew two indisputable truths about her son. Mara knew he was more precious than all others who had ever existed in the history of all the Suns of Urum. She also knew he drew not a single breath.
She grasped her child, prodding his tiny chest for a heartbeat that never came. “Why isn’t he breathing, Gia?”
Gia did not answer. The woman sat hunched, hands buried in her lap, sorrowful gaze trying to hide in her thighs along with her hands.
“Tolstes!” Mara looked frantically to the eunuch. “Help me make him breathe. Help me give him life! Please.”
The strong boy stared at the baby with a face as grey as old ash. “Stillborn. On Harvest Festival…” he wobbled to his feet and stepped back. “An ill omen, Mara.”
Fluttering red and gold silks from a fine dress drifted into Mara’s periphery. Mara choked on a sob, a cold, numb dread sinking deep into her stomach as her fingers continued searching her son’s body for a spark of life.
“So Mara had the child,” Olessa said, her voice flat as a frozen lake. “And it is stillborn?”
Mara wept. Her fingertip caressed her son’s lips, feeling their silky flesh tickle her skin. Teardrops splattered against his dirty cheeks—salty, glimmering tears that should have come from his eyes as he opened them to his first night on Urum.
“Gia, is the child stillborn?” Olessa asked again.
“Yes, Madame Olessa,” Tolstes answered for her, “the child did not draw a breath.”
“That is…unfortunate. And on Harvest Festival, a day for celebrating life. This is not a good sign for any of us.”
“Ma—Ma—Madame Olessa?” Tolstes’ voice trembled like he’d just lost his manhood a second time. “What do we do?”
“We wrap him in cloth. Send him to the Sapphire Sea in a box and light it on fire or tie a rock to his feet and let him sink beneath the waves. Stillborns are never a good sign. Stillborns on Harvest Festival will ruin me.”
“What?” Mara looked up, blinking the angry tears from her eyes. The thought of her infant as a meal for coral sharks twisted her stomach into a burning coil not even the threat of Olessa’s silken glove could cool. “Beneath the ship? You would have me work and serve patrons above the floating corpse of my son?”
“What would you have me do, Mara?” Olessa snarled. “We can’t leave him here. There’s no place in Lower Sollan to bury him on the busiest night of the year, and every drunkard in the streets is going to be howling curses for trudging that ashore tonight. Might as well tell the world the House of Sin and Silk only serves lepers because that’s all who’d come knocking at my doors!”
“There has to be a way. There has to be something we can do—”
“Ashwalk!” Gia’s eyes finally darted from her lap. They focused on Olessa with a desperate, hopeful glimmer shining deep within them. “Let Mara take the ashwalk. It is a right of every mother whose newborn draws no breath on the holiest day of the year.”
Madame Olessa stared blankly at Gia. She blinked and burst into laughter, waving at the maiden like the woman was a silly child. “Ashwalk? Mara? The girl hasn’t been to Sollan in ages. She’s probably never even seen Upper Sollan, let alone Hightable or the temples. Some beggar would slit her throat and take her maiden collar as soon as she stepped on shore.”
Mara’s gaze bounced back and forth between the two women. “What is this ashwalk? Gia, if this will help my child, I will do it. I will do it a hundred thousand times over until the last stars die.”
“See?” Gia flashed her brows. “Please, for Mara, let her make the ashwalk. She is of no use to you tonight anyway. She is…she is a burden on your books. Let her do what the Burning Mother requires of those who birth stillborn chil
dren on this night.”
“What is an ashwalk?” Mara asked.
Olessa sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She turned her back to Mara and faced the glittering sea. “It is a very old tradition of the Burning Mother’s, and one I am loathe to let you honor because you will never succeed.”
The woman shook her head. Her wig’s curls bounced over her shoulders. “But I do fear what might happen should you not at least try to save his soul.”
“Save his soul?”
Madame Olessa turned to Mara and nodded. “All stillborn children have a soul, but since they never took their first breath, their body is a prison for their spirit. That cursed fool of a brother of mine. Damn him for making me love the Six so much.”
Gia turned to Mara and placed a hand lightly on her knee. “She speaks true, Mara. His soul is trapped. It is so rare for stillborns on harvest, I had forgotten the ritual, but I remember my father telling me of it.”
“Is it—is it true? Is his soul really trapped? I must take this walk to save it?”
Olessa’s features hardened. “I wouldn’t stick my finger in the Mother’s eye if I were you, and I’ll be damned to dine on ash for eternity before that child’s curse turns my profits into penance for my property’s heresy.”
You are trapped, Mara thought. She cradled her son’s soft, minuscule body and looked into his closed eyes. I will not let you suffer, my love.
Madame Olessa swatted Tolstes’ arm. “Go inside. Find some burlap for a cloak—use an old potato bag for all I care. Then find ashes from a cold brazier. Make sure you also find burlap for the child, and do not go sparingly with the ashes. I wouldn’t want any demons sniffing him out before he leaves my house.”
Tolstes nodded and bolted from the deck as if scorching flames had been nipping at his heels. Mara’s frightened gaze fixed on her madame. “Ash and burlap? Demons?”
“Mara.” Madame Olessa went to her knees. For the first time in the many years Mara had known her madame, she saw genuine warmth in the woman’s eyes and the slightest sag of pity in their lids. Her gaze drifted to Mara’s son, and the soft look quickly hardened.
