She gasped, gripping the harness because she felt suddenly how fragile were the straps holding her in.

“How are you doing?” He was very close, accustomed to embracing women, no doubt, while she had never been this intimately close to any man except Anji.

“Hu! I have to pee, but I should have known that would happen! No, don’t worry.” She giggled, so giddy she thought her spirit must be flying even higher than her body. “I’m joking.”

Her abdomen clenched so hard her next words were choked off, a fist clenched to squeeze her breath right out of her lungs. Warm liquid gushed down her thighs.

“The hells!” cried Joss. “I thought you said you were joking.”

Eldest daughter, she had attended at every birth in the Mei clan since she was old enough to run errands in and out of the birthing room. “That was my water breaking. I’m going to give birth.”

“Now? Right now? The hells you are!”

A spark of panic surged to a flame. She shut her eyes and let it run, as a pure, wild fire might rage along her skin. Let it fall away, like clothes shed from the body. Her fear died. She would live, or she would die. She must accept what was, in order to think and to act.

He was still babbling. “How could it—? Aren’t you—? What do you mean, that was your water?”

Liquid ran down her leg; there was plenty of it, since the womb is a vessel of water and blood in which the growing seed is nurtured. In the desert, as the saying goes, without water there is no life, without blood you have no kin.

“My womb’s water. Now I will deliver the baby.”

“Eiya! What if it slips out and falls into the water?”

“It won’t come right away. My womb’s passage has to open. How long until we reach Olossi?”

“I am not flying over the sea all night with a laboring woman whose baby might drop out at any time.” He tugged on the harness and the eagle began a low slow curve. The other reeve signaled with flags, querying, and Mai saw Priya dangling, like her, and staring toward her, trying to read the situation. “The hells! The nearest village is south, but there might be agents of the Red Hounds in hiding there. The Ireni Valley lies too far north through barren, uninhabited, rough country, not a place I want to have to set down. May those cursed Sirniakans have their balls eaten off by demons! Could they not have waited to attack?”

She began to laugh again, because she had never imagined him the kind of man to start raving. Then another pain caught, and he swore, and she rode it out by measuring each breath in four counts and out four counts, trying to picture the peaceful altar of the Merciful One, who brings ease to women in the throes of birth.

“Mai? Mai!”

“Oof! No, it’s just—it’s fine. What about that valley? The Naya Hall reeves say it can only be reached by air.”